Talk:Chemung County, New York
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- I don't think making a list of other counties in NY is any substitution for the history text it displaced. Is Wikipedia going to be only lists or definitive writing? Stepp-Wulf 23:01, 26 September 2006 (UTC).
[edit] Chamber of Commerce links
User:Souldrifter02 restored the Chamber of Commerce link that I removed, with an edit summary of: "this is area info that Chemung visitors would look for, no?"
My take is that Wikipedia is not a directory means that it doesn't matter that visitors might be looking for this info, what matters is whether the link meets WP:EL. With rare exceptions, C of C sites are primarily promotional-- this is not neutral, unbiased, reliable info: it is unencyclopedic.
Can you give me an example of information from the site that is encyclopedic, but can't be simply added to the article?
If you feel strongly that it should stay, I won't war over it, but it is something that ought to be settled-- there are a lot of similar links out there that, I believe, violate WP:EL. In looking for an example of info that "visitors would look for", I looked to see if there was a link to Disneyworld in the Orlando, Florida article. There isn't, but in its place is a link to "Orlando Welcome Center Guide" that is (to me) grotesquely commercial, and offers to sell you Disneyland tickets online. If C of C links are OK, how about this one? Seems to me that a more stringent read on WP:EL keeps one out of the spam. -- Mwanner | Talk 14:52, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks for the consideration of the topic, Mwanner. While I understand your positions and your points, I look at this from the perspective of a Wikipedia user. Granted, Wikipedia is not a directory, but a Chamber of Commerce does represent the businesses of a specified region. When I plan a trip, I use Wikipedia to research the area that I am visiting and use the "official" links to continue my research beyond Wikipedia. The Chemung County Chamber of Commerce is an accredited Chamber of Commerce with the US Chamber of Commerce. I can agree with you that the information is not unbiased, but users who click the link should probably expect that... I would agree with the removal of a posting of an organization that was not an official organization like a non-profit or for-profit organization that declares itself a source of area info, but a Chamber of Commerce holds more weight.
- So my argument is based on how I use Wikipedia. It can be argued that Wikipedia is not a website for travel information - but if that is how users choose to use it, then doesn't it fit the mold? Granted, I would not use a "traditional" encyclopedia for travel info, but doesn't that prove how Wikipedia is more than an Encyclopedia in its evolution?
- So that's my view. I'm not too great at quoting Wikipedia policies so if you can cite Wikipedia policies that would explicitly demonstrate how the C of C websites are not appropriate to an article like this, I cannot argue, However, from my perspective, Wikipedia policies are not designed to be "hard laws" but flexible guidelines that change and evolve with the changes and evolution of Wikipedia itself.
- If there are others that would like to weigh in on this issue, I'd be interested to hear what they think? I too am not looking to "go to war" over this issue. If someone wants to challenge my opinions with Wikipedia policy, I am sure than a moderator would likely side against me... and I'm not looking to get into an edit war over a minor issue.
- Thanks for the consideration. Souldrifter (talk) 02:41, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
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- I admit that I have a visceral reaction to anything that feels like advertising. Jimmy Wales famously said that "Wikipedia makes the web not suck", and to me, that is because it is free of advertising. And if you spend any time fighting off the spammers who are trying to use Wikipedia for promoting their crap, you can get kind of twitchy on the subject.
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- Let me refer any who read this to Wikipedia_talk:External_links#Chamber_of_Commerce_and_official_tourism_info_links where it was hashed out further (and in favor of tolerating C of C sites). And my thanks to Souldrifter for a reasoned discussion of the issue. -- Mwanner | Talk 11:56, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
