Talk:American studies

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the American studies article.

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[edit] Addition to External Links

I recently posted my website, www.majorityamerican.com under external links for this article. I have checked the guidelines for External Links, under those to be avoided. I assume the viewer who deleted my link considered it as 2:mainly intended to promote a website and/or 12:link to a blog. There is partial truth in this, and I understand that Wikipedia cannot be "a mere directory of links." However, my website is intended as a contrast to the America I knew in the Depression and WWII and the America of today. My essays cut across all the fields of American Studies: the American Dream, Nation, Identity, and its economy. The Way We Were and The World Outside explore Isolationism vs. Interventionism and today's effect on the island world we once were. The intent of the essays is to give a sense of America: as it was and as it is. It seems to me that such an intent goes to the heart of American Studies, and I added it as a link accordingly. Further, I do not see my website as a blog in the sense that it advances a political position.

In adding it, I noted an existing external link, entitled "American Studies with a Mexican Accent." Clicking on this produced a website promoting a book entitled "Tex[t]-Mex, seductive Hallucinations of the "Mexican" in America." I submit that this website, by its title and listed price, primarily exists to sell a product, specifically deplored under (5) as a link to be avoided. The book, itself, although it may be valuable to the specialized field of Mexican-American study, does not cut across the broad base occupied by American Studies.

This is my first attempt to edit a Wikipedia article, and I would appreciate any suggestions that would correct any errors I may have made in submittal as well as a response to the points I have raised above. Jackeiden 19:56, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

In addition to the external link policy and the spam policy, you might want to look at Wikipedia's conflict-of-interest guideline, which suggests that it's never a good practice to add links to your own work or your own website to Wikipedia articles. Also, in adding links, the most important question is not whether the link is simply relevant to the topic (if this were our standard Wikipedia would become a web directory). Regarding the other link you point out, note that the spam policy explicitly warns against arguments that one dubious link justifies another; but you're right that that link seems unnecessary, so I will remove it. -- Rbellin|Talk 22:49, 3 October 2007 (UTC)