Wikipedia talk:External links/Archive 17

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

Blogs by bio subjects

The last sentence of this paragraph under "Links to be considered" was deleted:

  • Sites which fail to meet criteria for reliable sources yet still contain information about the subject of the article from knowledgeable sources. For example a blog written by the subject of a biography article.

I'd thought it was generally accepted to include the subject's personal blog in the external links section. It's widely practiced. Is there a reason we wouldn't? -Will Beback ·:· 03:25, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

No, it's generally accepted to include the subject's website in the External links section, and that goes for a blog if and only if they do not have anything else that might work as a website. If the person does have a website odds are good that it'll link to their blog on its own, so there'd be no reason to link to both. Two links to the same website is just excessive, and any links to blogs when it can be avoided send the wrong message to others looking at those links and trying to use it as an example for what's appropriate on other pages. If we're going to have an example there is should be one that isn't misleading. DreamGuy 06:43, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

This was discussed recently Wikipedia_talk:External_links/Archive_16#EL_to_be_reliable_sources:_Possible.3F. Agreement was reached on exactly this point. jbolden1517Talk 04:00, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually, if you do a search on this talk page for the word "blog" you will see over and over and over again people saying that such links are not appropriate. In fact the section you linked to above does not seem to give the agreement in the language you used that you claim it does. Singling out a blog in the example given (an example that was added just recently and did not have broad support, I might add) gives entirely the wrong idea to people reading it. The sentence makes far more sense on it's own without an example that goes against general practice and is misleading without more information than what the example is giving. You can't cook up some new sentence to toss in their and get it all unclear and vague and expect it to stay as is. The whole point behind these guidelines is to be more clear, not less. DreamGuy 06:43, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
DreamGuy, which policy says that a blog written by the subject would fail to meet the standard as a reliable source for that subject's bio? SlimVirgin (talk) 06:56, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
What is unclear about that 2nd sentence> It lists a specific example of a situation where an unreliable source is highly knowledgeable. That is the two concepts aren't synonymous. Another example I gave (but that did not receive agreement, even though these are commonly linked to without controversy) is statements made by one of the parties in a legal dispute. Off the top of their head several people couldn't think of examples where the first clause applied jbolden1517Talk 11:33, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
The passage was added without any sort of consensus and just flat out makes no sense, particularly the incomprehensible second sentence. We link to official sites, so the example is at best redundant. 2005 23:57, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
I'd say that a subject's blog or other self-published website would be a form of official website. Further, a blog is considered a reliable source for the viewpoints, etc., of the blog writer. I don't see why we'd want to prohibit linking to them, even if we wouldn't use them as reliable sources for general information. -Will Beback ·:· 00:22, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
Who is saying prohibit? It's that we do not encourage it above and in addition to their main website, and if we link to their main website there's no need to ALSO link to the blog, because presumably their website links to their blog. This is pretty basic External links policy concept here, I don't understand why people can't follow it. DreamGuy 12:49, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Since I noticed another attempt at reverting this is now 6 editors that have agreed with this point. Using blog is important since it clarifies that knowledgeable sources even if not reliable sources qualify for ELs but not RS regardless of format. jbolden1517Talk 01:28, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

No, get a REAL consensus BEFORE you put in the article. You don't have it yet, and the count you have is not saying it needs to be blog, there is some confusion above over what it is they think they are opposing. This is a policy page, not your own essay page. The fact that you keep putting in some section without broad consensus (on top of the fact that when yo do so you don't even bother to put it into proper grammar) is a disagrace. One more time GET CONSENSUS (a real one, not from twisting ambiguous stataments by less than ten people on a page of such importance) BEFORE YOU CHANGE THE PAGE. DreamGuy 12:49, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

  1. Calm down. Yelling and insulting does not assist in discussion
  2. Multiple people are reverting you and multiple people are and have agreed. That is the definition of consensus. You are the only one disagreeing.
  3. I don't find it credible that 2005, Jossi, Slimvirgin and Saban don't understand the argument being made. I've been very clear in the intent.
  4. Stop confusing the issue of the phrasing with the topic. You are attempting to change the meaning (from blog to official website). If you would like to suggest an alternate grammar on the talk page that doesn't change meaning feel free. jbolden1517Talk 13:21, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
  1. Listen, if you want to have a conversation, have BEFORE YOU FREAKING ADD SOMETHING TO THE PAGE WITHOUT CONSENSUS. Don't go continually shoving your nonsense into what is supposed to represent the broad consensus of all of Wikipedia and then say you want to assist in conversation.
  2. A consensus on a page like this is not "oh, we added something completely new and four people (out of all of Wikipedia) reverted it" when those reverts were not all on this same topic and showed confusion about the purpose of the section. Furthermore it is a lie to say I am the only one disagreeing, as 2005 above outright tells you you are out of procss.
  3. First off, 2005 does not agree with you. Second, SlimVirgin doesn't apparently care about consensus at all from her changes to the page which have all been reverted. It's clear that people are reverting based upon the idea that we *can* link to a blog as a general principle (if, say, that's what counts as their main web site) and not on whether the ONE example we pick should specifically choose blog over many other examples we could choose.
  4. And don't tell me if *I* would like to suggest alternate grammar to do so on the talk page when you never got approval from the talk page to put your version in in the first place. If you insist on talk page before a change, then we take that line out completely and then only put it up when the wording is fixed. If you insist you can put it there without discussion then I can change it to a version more in line with actual policy and one that does not confuse people without discussion. Make up your mind, because your complaints here are hypocritical. DreamGuy 13:39, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
And as far as the calm thing goes, I'm sorry, but making changes out of nowhere to a main project page of this importance without proper discusson first and then blind reverting all changes to it to your preferred version and making smarmy comments about wanting discussion while you've done your level best to ignore all of it pissing me off, as it should to anyone who cares about the integrity of this project. DreamGuy 13:42, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

My policy on editing is very clear and keeps within discussion guidelines. For edits that I believe are non controversial go ahead and make them. For edits that are likely to be controversial discuss first. For edits for which there is clear opposition don't edit at all and discuss. All other things being equal the version of the article stands. Once a consensus is achieved that becomes the new baseline. Lets look at example regarding my actions on this board:

As for the grammar change. I wasn't changing meaning I was changing grammar. I'd be hard pressed to see an objection. If for example you had reverted my grammar change and not changed the meaning then I wouldn't have re reverted. You would be in your rights. In fact I invited you to rewrite the sentence for grammar and form. You keep confusing that with changing the intent to "official website" which is substantially weaker. The whole point of that section is to indicate that knowledgeable sources can be ELed to even if they are biased, and even if they are in a normally disapproved of form. The fact is this passage was discussed Wikipedia_talk:External_links/Archive_16#EL_to_be_reliable_sources:_Possible.3F and agreed to. The specific example (a blog) was discussed and agreed to. My other specific example (a party to a legal case) was discussed and not agreed to. And as per the agreement the blog is in the guideline. The official website substantially weakens the point because official websites aren't controversial.

And in the previous discussion 2005 himself even gave another good example of a biased but knowledgeable source (and one I wouldn't mind putting in as a second example) -- the Reagan library regarding an article on Reagan. So stop with the personal attacks, stop with the reverting. And start making a clear calm argument why you believe the one passage is better than the other. jbolden1517Talk 14:08, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

The disputed passage was added without a consensus, or even an argument why it should be there. It also borders on incoherent -- and both examples are very definitely redundant since we can always link to an official thing of the subject of the article. However, there seems to be agreement on the basic idea, but NOT on the example. I left the passage without either example, which are substantially CREEPy at best. If you want to discuss wording an example, and getting consensus on that, do so. But at this point the whole passage should be removed if what I just put there is not acceptable... even if perhaps someone thinks one or more examples should be included. 2005 21:56, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Objections

I'd like those people objecting to the original example to suggest others. The purpose of the blog example was always to assert that ELs do not have to meet RS requirements. We could split this off into another whole point with respect to form vs. bias but something needs to be said about form. jbolden1517Talk 01:42, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to see some reason why we should even consider changing this. The onus is not on those who object to encouraging adding blog links, the onus is on those who wish to change the guideline to make a case. Ipso facto, the old version is the consensus version, until and unless those who wish to make a change gain consensus for that change, and only then does the new phrasing become consensus. You are proceeding as though the change were the default action, and that's backwards. KillerChihuahua?!? 19:31, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
The old version is the version with the blogs. The version with the example removed is the new version. It seems backwards because your history is backwards. jbolden1517Talk 20:18, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
You know that is not true. You added this passage recently without any semblence of consensus. Additionally, no one has supported the wording besides yourself. As KillerChihuahua said, the onus is on you to present a reason why we should use the redundant phrasing you seem locked into. I don't see it ever getting a consensus because its not a good precendent to repeat the same information over and over in the guideline. Official things can be linked to. That is what the guideline says already. We don't need to say it again, and should not because that only makes it bloated and confusing, as in "Oh, you don't really mean stuff the first time." 2005 00:04, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
I really wish you and dreamguy would start being civil and stop with the claims of dishonesty. Just to prove you are mistaken (notice I didn't say lying I'm AGFing) here is my first posts on WP:EL (main not talk) [1]. You'll notice the comment about the blog was included. Now I think an apology is in order. jbolden1517Talk 00:14, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
Well I'm looking forward to your apology. As the edit clearly shows this text was added less than two weeks ago!! You statements to the contrary were not true. Please in the future take more care to not disparage other editors when you clearly know you are in the wrong. That new text was added without consensus and has no consensus. Your repeated reversions and additions of this text were inappropriate, and your personal comments about other editors completely out line. Now please focus on the issue at hand. You want to add redundant text to the guideline which you have not even made an argument as to why. Please try to achieve a consensus in a civil fashion to add this text, though as I said I can't imagine why people would want to add it since it merely repeats something stated in the guideline previously. 2005 01:43, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

2005 cite a diff with a personal attack by me. jbolden1517Talk 03:12, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

To respond to jbolden1517's origanl point: The "example" was unnecessary to begin with and there is no great need to replace an unnecessary example with another one. FWIW, you actually added 2 examples to the statement of linking sites that fail RS: [diff]. Both of these examples were added without proper consensus and it shouldn't be that surprising that they have subsequently been removed (even if the "blog" example hung out for a little bit longer.) It seems pretty clear that adding an example to the "sites that don't pass RS" clause is not favored by many editors. This is such a small point: can we let it go for the time being and move on to something else? Nposs 03:45, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Linking to sites which require registration

The guideline says that sites which require registration or paid subscription should be avoided. I'd like to know how strict a rule that is. I have just created the article Richard Simpson (writer). Some of the information came from the online public-domain old version of the Catholic Encyclopedia, but some came from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Both have an article about Richard Simpson, and when I created the page, I linked to both, feeling vaguely that the EL guideline might discourage the ODNB link. I then came here and read the guideline, and modified the article to include the link in a reference rather than as an external link. Of course, that has exactly the same effect, as a person who doesn't have a subscription and who clicks on the link will not be able to read the article. I feel, however, that since if would be perfectly permissible to use an out-of-print book that I happen to have in the house as a reference, it should be okay to use an URL for a very reputable source (which also exists in print) that requires a subscription. The statement that I was referencing was that Simpson was one of the first to advance the theory that Shakespeare was a Catholic, and I feel that that's the kind of statement that is almost crying out for a {{fact}} tag. Any comments, please? Thanks. ElinorD (talk) 08:15, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, references are exempt from that rule. I've tried making this explicit in policy before, but last time it was reverted by a person claiming that it was obvious and didn't need to be pointed out. --tjstrf talk 08:25, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
Okay, thanks. I felt it was obvious that refs should be exempt, but the wording of the guideline seemed to contradict that. ElinorD (talk) 08:40, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
Discussion seems to have established that references are entirely excempt from the provisions of this guideline, something that the guideline would do well to mention: it applies to supplementary non-reference links only. References are still subject to policy, however, and other guidelines may apply. Notinasnaid 08:45, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
The guideline does already say at the end of the lead paragraph The subject of this guideline is external links that are not citations of article sources. Is this sentence unclear or does it just get overlooked when people are focusing on a particular clause? -- Siobhan Hansa 14:59, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
It is very unclear what the topic of Wikipedia:External links is about. The nutshell and the intro to the article need to make clear the difference between external links and citation/reference links. It is confusing because wikipedia uses a different meaning for external links, than the normal meaning. Normally, any link with "http://" in it is an external link. From that point of view even internal wikipedia links could be looked upon as external links by "civilians". Versus veteran wikipedia editors. --Timeshifter 22:53, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
To further clarify... "internal links" to many civilians mean table of content links for navigation within web pages. But wikipedia uses the phrase "internal links" to mean links to other wikipedia pages. --Timeshifter 23:53, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm afraid I'd have to plead guilty to not having read that properly. I'm sure I've seen it before, anyway, because I did work my way through various guidelines and policies when I joined, but when I wanted to know today because of something in an article I was working on, I went to the guideline page, ignored the lead, looked at the TOC, saw "Links normally to be avoided — sites requiring registration", and scrolled down to that. ElinorD (talk) 15:14, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
A slightly off-beat question: how am I to verify a ref if I can't view it without paying money? Sometimes subscriptions cost serious bank, and I've seen articles use almost exclusively refs from one pay-for-use website (example of such a ref: Mormons will use Olympics to cast positive image of church", O'Dwyers PR Daily, March 20, 2001.)? JoeSmack Talk 00:36, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Essay and study sites

I have been having some trouble with closed minded editors removing links to essays or studies sites over some articles, most of which point to WP:EL as the reason for the removal.

For instance, for all form of art articles, there are several sites that have insightfull essays and studies on given piece, most of which are only stating facts and information in a essay form to properly clarify some misconceptions people tend to have. Others do go to the length of addign some speculations on the subject since not much information is known to give solid factual basis on such. Regardless, these essays are often long and accepted as a good source of explanation or attention to details that are often not seen if otherwise by specialists in the area.

Essays have the problem of (a) not being an official site, (b) being prone to being called "fansites" and (c) so sites might provide mild copyright issues while presenting copyrighted material to better explain their points.

However, all taken into account, as per WP:EL, what should be a right course of faction IF AND ONLY IF:

1. Falls under a "What should be linked" or does not conflict with any restriction in such 2. Falls under a "Links to be considered", considering that "professional reviewers" is quite vague, an Essay can often fall under "Links to be considered" item 1. Otherwise not conflicting with any restriction herein 3. Do not falls under any "Links normally to be avoided"

In my opinion ,if the three options above are true, there is no harm into EL an essay.

Caiobrz 20:59, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, the website you are referring to you, and personally adding to numerous anime-based articles, daisuke.com.br is a fansite (with which you are personally affiliated and where you are an admin, according to your userpage) which does not conform to several of the notability criteria mentioned on this project page and most certainly falls under numerous of the points mentioned under links to be avoided. Such fansites are certainly not "professional" nor "recognized" authorities, and should therefore not be included on articles. ···巌流? · Talk to Ganryuu 21:31, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
This is just your opinion, I'm asking for a civil discussion on Essay subjects, not your biased opinion on such. Also, both Wikipedia:Spam (which you acuse me of doing) nor WP:EL have criterea against worthy essays being linked, nor anything against the administrator of the site linking them as this would be pointless. ANN and other sites over the wiki EL are also fansites but are know to be quality sources of information, and also as stated on this very talk page, biased reviews can also be a valid source of information, though I refute any claim that the essays are biased since they do not present personal views, but rather factual depictions of the events on those titles and eventual speculations whereas no fact is present. I will wait for the opinions and resolutions of people that are more involved with WP:EL. I also think it's rude and dishonest you reverted our talk in your page and I ask you to do not change my postings in this page. Regards Caiobrz 21:41, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
You also fail to respect Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution whereas edit's should be avoided until a resolution and consensus and just started reverting everything to your liking, which is not only forbidden by wiki standards, but also not civil. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Caiobrz (talk • contribs) 21:44, 14 May 2007 (UTC).
I'm not certain I'm clear on what you're asking. You seem to be saying - these types of links tend to fall foul of these guidelines, but if they didn't wouldn't it be OK to link to them? In general I would say essays that have not been published by a reliable source and which do not come from authors who are established and respected experts in the field seem unlikely to be appropriate. -- Siobhan Hansa 23:49, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
Of a) b) and c), there is no problem linking to non-offcial sites; there is no problem linking to reliable/expert fan or review sites; there is a big problem with copyvio material. No comment of the specific adding-your-own-links stuff. 2005 00:11, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
I hold the view that these essays should not be linked. If WP:EL is ruled out for a moment, what about Notability? Larger fansites like Anime News Network are notable for being popular and well known, but the same cannot be said for the website you are linking. Generally, un-notable fansites are not linked on Wikipedia because Wikipedia is not a collection of links. And if not WP:N, then what about with Attribution? These essays are neither reliable (as far as I know this cannot be proven for a fansite) nor are they published except on a fansite. You say that these essays are unbiased, but can you be sure that all of them are? WP:A clearly states, "Wikipedia is not the place to publish your opinions, experiences, or arguments."--十八 01:41, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Discourse DB and database-style wikis

Hi,

I run the wiki Discourse DB - it catalogs political opinions that have appeared in notable publications, and cross-references them by topic, position, author, and publication. The site runs on MediaWiki, but it uses the Semantic MediaWiki extension to allow the cross-referencing. Over time, I've added links to the relevant Discourse DB pages for the Wikipedia articles on many authors, publications and topics; yesterday, a user deleted all of them, citing the guidelines on linking to wikis - notably, that the site has few editors, and a (relatively) low editing frequency.

It's true that I've done the majority of the editing on the site - however, I think there should be different standards for database-style wikis like Discourse DB (a very new concept) than regular wikis. I think the fact that it's essentially a database, and not a collection of free text, makes a world of difference. It's much harder to include bad or defamatory information in such a wiki, because it's essentially just a collection of data entries, with very little original thought involved; free text entered that would be considered inappropriate would stick out very easily, just because free text in general would stick out easily. Conversely, that lack of original thought means it takes much less work, and fewer edits, to keep the wiki populated and stable.

One other thing is that I believe it's been a valuable resource. The links for, say, Ralph Peters (see page here) and Human Rights Act 1998 (see page here) have both been one of very few external links on those pages, and they've provided, in my opinion, important supplementary information on these subjects, information that would be difficult for readers to find elsewhere. I think it would be a shame to remove these links because the site fails the usual criteria for wikis, since it's really a beast of a different nature. Any thoughts? Yaron K. 00:23, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

How / where do you want to link it? jbolden1517Talk 00:39, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Sorry if I wasn't clear; the Wikipedia page for any specific topic had a link to the Discourse DB page for that topic. You can see the histories of those two Wikipedia pages I linked above, for instance, to see how the links looked before they were removed. Yaron K. 00:45, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
What's wrong with proposing the link on the talk page and asking other editors to consider adding it? -- Siobhan Hansa 00:48, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Well, assuming the editors agree to it in every case, what's to stop another user (or the same one) from removing all the links again, citing the same linking guidelines? Yaron K. 00:55, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Talk page consensus overrides guidelines. Even if this guideline were changed, there's nothing to stop editors deciding the link isn't appropriate for a page and removing it either. -- Siobhan Hansa 00:57, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Siobhan is correct. Consensus is allowed to change. Sounds like a WP:COI to me. Yaron, you shouldn't care if another editor deletes your link. This is why the WP:RULES discourage self-linking. (Requestion 01:29, 15 May 2007 (UTC))
WP:COI allows people to put links to their own sites. As Siobhan suggested it is a good idea to propose it on the talk page first. --Timeshifter 15:27, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Well, what I'm asking for is a possible update to the guidelines, taking note of this sort of hybrid wiki, so that not just Discourse DB but other, similar sites can be linked to. (And I'm not denying the conflict of interest, but surely you're not suggesting that only those with a conflict of interest care when their links are deleted. :) ) Yaron K. 01:40, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Sorry but that doesn't seem like a good enough reason to make an exception since too many exceptions cause all sort of problems. It just wasn't a Zen thing, I was serious about my "you shouldn't" care comment. You are in for a barrel full of pain and suffering when you start adding external links to your own sites. Fight the urge, don't do it, I don't like seeing people suffer. (Requestion 02:52, 15 May 2007 (UTC))
We don't need an exception to the rule. We need a new rule. Because the existing one is not logical in my opinion. See my discussion farther down. There seems to be a misunderstanding about wikis, number of editors, and stability. I have a question for Yaron. Yaron, do you have final say as to what stays in the wiki? Or can any editor come in and change everything at discoursedb.org? Does anyone else have a say in final decisions in your wiki? In other words is there some kind of editorial control in limited hands? --Timeshifter 15:14, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
My first response was in relation to your particular addition rather than the general idea that the guideline should be different for "DB wikis". Now I've had a chance to look at DiscourseDB and I'm not sure I understand how it's any different to any other wiki. It seems like you just have a set style for presentation and a fairly narrow focus for appropriate content. Is there anything that makes DB wikis more inherently reliable than other wikis? -- Siobhan Hansa 01:10, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Yes; as I noted before, there's no free text; few to no complete sentences; no analysis or synthesis of information. Instead it's all pieces of data, most of which are easily verifiable online. It's analogous to a version of Wikipedia that was composed of nothing but "list" pages. Yaron K. 01:35, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
That doesn't seem to make it inherently more reliable though - it could still be full of incorrect information or lean towards a very one-man POV. I think one of the points of wanting plenty of editors is to ensure there's some substance to a wiki, and it's not just a one man show so to speak. An open wiki with a decent reputation ought to have more than a few editors. -- Siobhan Hansa 01:58, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
From my point of view, the current guideline discouraging links to "open wikis" (and why only open ones?) is a rather serious example of instruction creep. It seems far more appropriate to stick to the simple criterion of whether the page in question provides a useful, unique resource, as determined by the working consensus of editor-readers. Sometimes pages on very small wikis do provide such a resource; sometimes pages on (cough) very large ones do not. This is, of course, a judgment call, but if we can't trust our collective judgment then this whole project is in trouble. -- Visviva 01:50, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree with your point of view, To be an external link a page must provides a useful, unique resource, as determined by the working consensus of editor-readers would be a wonderful policy. I'd love to get that line in there. The problem is that isn't the policy the policy has a great deal to do with who owns the resource (a corporation or an individual), what sort of format its in, what their purpose is for running the resource, etc... The result is that we have to constantly add to this guideline. jbolden1517Talk 10:43, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree with you, jbolden. People have to use common sense, and look at each external link. Blanket prohibitions against wikis make no sense. That is why there are some caveats in the current guideline about using wikis as external links. I think there would be additional clarity with your idea of adding this: To be an external link a page must provides a useful, unique resource, as determined by the working consensus of editor-readers. The spirit of the guideline overrules the technicalities. Because no guideline specifics can cover all eventualities. Guidelines are not policy anyway, and so talk page and admin consensus, etc. override a too-strict interpretation of a guideline. --Timeshifter 03:51, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
discourse db may be a beautiful and unique flower, but the guideline is worded on the basis of it being an open wiki, i.e. anyone can edit it. that is also why it is pointedly worded regarding history of stability and a large user base. JoeSmack Talk 04:08, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Here is the sentence in the guideline section titled "Links normally to be avoided" that was used to justify the deletion of all the external links to discoursedb.org pages: "Links to open wikis, except those with a substantial history of stability and a substantial number of editors."

I think the key point is "substantial history of stability". Many websites and wikis have few editors but are almost completely stable. We allow external links to directories of the Open Directory Project. Oftentimes the specific directories are only edited by one or a few editors. Nearly all web pages have only one or a few editors. I edit a few websites by myself. Including a wiki I edit mostly alone. I think a lot of people are under an illusion about how the web is created. It is complete anarchy, and anybody can create a web page or website. Each one has to be judged on its merits. Rules such as "substantial number of editors" are not effective.

Was a bot used to delete all links to http://discoursedb.org ? If so, it may be a violation of some wikipedia guideline. Because I don't believe one should make blanket blocks of all links to websites such as http://discoursedb.org without discussing it here first. --Timeshifter 23:48, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

No bot was used, I removed them myself using help from GeorgeMoney's monobook script. Large amount of editors = stability, because someone is always going to be around to keep on eye on things. Without such an open wiki can't be stable (and i could demonstrate that quite easily, except i don't carry WP:POINT to any other wiki either). JoeSmack Talk 05:00, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Wikis have many tools to block problematic editors and IPs. So it is not true that an open wiki without a large amount of editors can not be stable. I edit a wiki at wikia.com and that was a question I asked before I started a wiki there. Jimbo Wales started wikia.com and it uses the same software base as here at wikipedia. --Timeshifter 09:57, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Wiki tools can block people (administrators etc) but you need people behind the guns. Wikis aren't just automatically stable when they are started. JoeSmack Talk 12:55, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Wikia.com has enough administrators to handle those kinds of problems. I don't know how the discoursedb.org wiki is run. But from what I have read the many forms of wiki farms and wiki software have all kinds of methods for restricting access. Most wikis are not nearly as open and overwhelmed with editors as wikipedia is. --Timeshifter 14:57, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
What kind of methods? I'm surprised; I haven't heard of any beyond users looking after things. JoeSmack Talk 16:29, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Please see Comparison of wiki farms. There is a vast array of types of wiki software and tools. There are all kinds of ways to make a hierarchy of control for all the many individual wikis. People mistakenly think all wikis are similar to wikipedia in its openness. Wikis can have many levels of openness. Some parts can be more open than others. The individual wiki can be put in the total control of one person, or a group. Or a group hierarchy. In many wikis those controlling the wiki can change the rules within their wiki at anytime. In order to control problems. Many websites had these levels of hierarchal control before wikis came around. The number of editors is not important to stability for many wikis or websites. I think the problem with wikis or websites dealing with political, social, and religious issues is we really can't make blanket rules. The article talk page has to decide on how they put a variety of viewpoints in their external links. I think links to pages on sites like discoursedb.org are very helpful. Of course to avoid promotional conflicts of interest the editors at such a site need to go through the article talk page first before adding such external links themselves. --Timeshifter 04:13, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

(unindent) really the only thing that matters is if anyone can edit. wikis that require accounts are slightly more secure, but only because the would-be-doer-of-harm has to go through a step that takes a few seconds. wikis that have someone that approves and rejects editors are the 'unopen' wikis. JoeSmack Talk 04:22, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Even if anyone can edit at first at an "open" wiki, they can be booted immediately if they become a problem. Or their edits can be blocked temporarily. And swiftly because there is no need to go through a long consensus process as at wikipedia. People are thinking that wikis outside wikipedia are as slow concerning process as wikipedia is. Wikipedia has to have a slow deliberative process to maintain its reputation for complete openness. But other wikis can operate as fast or slow as they want. What matters is their end product, and is it a useful stable external link for wikipedia. The reputation of the controlling editors is shown by the articles in their wikis, and the sources they list for the info in those articles. Discoursedb.org is almost nothing but article titles and sources. So an article talk page can determine if a link to an individual page from discoursedb.org would be a good external link. They can balance any perceived spin from a discoursedb.org page with links to other articles. Many wikipedia pages have a few external links to a few compilation pages from various sides of controversial issues. --Timeshifter 04:39, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
Without a large user base actions aren't going to be swift - there are too few users to carry out them out fast enough or closely enough. JoeSmack Talk 04:44, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
I edit a wiki myself. I have a watchlist for it I check daily or several times a day. --Timeshifter 04:58, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
Ah, now I see why you're so gung-ho. ;) Do you check it say, oh, every 10 minutes? In 10 minutes a lot of vandalism or spam can happen on a wiki. And I bet from several users it could make more mess than you could clean easily in a day, especially if all were persistent. JoeSmack Talk 05:02, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
I have had very little vandalism on the wiki I edit. It is easy to stop most vandals. Just semi-protecting the wiki temporarily would stop most vandals since only registered users could then edit. Semi-protection is easy to do. But I have seen so little vandalism, and so minor, that I have not needed to do even that. Other levels of control are to require email addresses during registration followed up by confirmation email to that email address. It is easy to stop or prevent vandalism. --Timeshifter 07:58, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure everyone has had such an easy experience as you. :/ JoeSmack Talk 18:19, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
If I may interject here, "10 minutes" seems like an absurdly high threshold for wiki monitoring. Not even Wikipedia can routinely pass that test. This seems like a case of the desire for the perfect being the enemy of the good. Yaron K. 20:32, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

2nd example, party to a legal case

For example a blog written by the subject of a biography article. I'd like to add or filings made by a party to a legal case in on an article on that case Again not a reliable source (bias...) but a knowledgeable source. I'm thinking given the comments a 2nd example would be useful. jbolden1517Talk 02:06, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

or filings made by a party to a legal case in an article on that case ? , still a difficult read for me; unnecessarily confusing. ∴ here…♠ 02:24, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I think the guideline is sufficiently clear and this suggested example is much to specific to a limited range of articles to be of much use. The "blog" example could at least potentially apply to all BLPs. Nposs 02:57, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Links to online libraries

I'd like to hear other editors' opinions on including links to online libraries in External links sections. For example: Special:Linksearch/*.tc.eserver.org. My perspective is that such links are valuable for creating the article itself, so while they are very useful on Talk pages and in articles with few references, they are probably inappropriate elsewhere. --Ronz 20:17, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, that depends what specific pages on these libraries you link to. Some of the searches may bring up unrelated titles, so that would be no point in adding such links. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 20:39, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
Why would a resource from an online library be any different than a resource from somewhere else? I'm not sure if I even understand the question. jbolden1517Talk 20:44, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree. I do not understand these attempts to create blanket rules against linking to directories such DMOZ, tc.eserver.org, discoursedb.org, etc.. I think they should be encouraged for non-controversial topics. They are oftentimes immensely useful and encyclopedic. I did not even know of tc.eserver.org, and would not know if not for someone adding them as an external link. For controversial political, religious, and social topics we should let the article talk pages decide which specific directories to include. Are we no longer going to trust article talk page consensus, and admin oversight? There are already adequate ways to prevent extremely offensive stuff from being linked to. --Timeshifter 04:28, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
We do trust admins and talk pages. This isn't a hell-in-a-handbasket type of situation. JoeSmack Talk 04:40, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm all for adding links to useful resources but I think we should be wary of giving any informational website an open license to add links to Wikipedia. It isn't good for neutrality and I don't think we want another DMOZ discussion. (Requestion 21:53, 18 May 2007 (UTC))
I found the linksearch patterns interesting. The names of the tc.eserver.org pages are perfect matches to the Wikipedia article names. Hmmm, so I did a little digging. I found out that a Geoffrey Sauer is the director of EServer.org. A User:Geoffsauer created the eserver.org article and has edited his own bio. If you look at his contribs you will see a whole lot of eserver.org external link additions. A bit more clicking shows a bunch of SPA's and IPs from Iowa. Looks like a basic COI spamming to me. There are 322 hits when you take out the "tc." and do a Special:Linksearch/*.eserver.org. This could be really big and messy. Probably should move this over to WT:WPSPAM when this discussion concludes. (Requestion 22:15, 18 May 2007 (UTC))
Good catch. I've started a spam investigation Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam/2007_Archive_Jun#eserver.org and a COI notice. --Ronz 02:59, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
Please do not go hog wild and delete a bunch of useful external links. It is obviously not a directory of spam. The only problem may have been not going through the talk pages. But even that seems to be a minor problem. I am sure the editors on most of those pages noticed the link being added, and allowed it to happen. Sending a bot or crew to go through and delete all those very useful links would be a violation of the consensus of most of those talk pages that did not object to the link being added. Maybe just put a note on the talk page for Geoffsauer, User talk:Geoffsauer, and ask him to go through the talk pages from now on first before adding those links. --Timeshifter 04:53, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
I'd leave this comment on the COI page or WPSPAM page where it is being discussed in this direction. JoeSmack Talk 04:57, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
Feel free to copy anything there. And/or to link them to here. I also just left a note at User talk:Geoffsauer pointing out the discussion here. I ask people to imagine being in the shoes of the editors at DMOZ, tc.eserver.org, discoursedb.org, and to try to follow the wikipedia guideline to not bite the newcomers. They are trying to help in my opinion. Their directories are uniquely valuable resources. --Timeshifter 05:07, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
You say tomato, I say tom-ah-to. I think this is a WP:COI issue and WP:WPSPAM issue more than an unique resource one. JoeSmack Talk 05:12, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
Why the disrespect and incivility? This talk page is about external links. There may be conflict of interest problems in how the links were added. But that is for discussion elsewhere for the most part. Do you think they are useful pages as external links? --Timeshifter 05:23, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm not trying to intending to be disrespectful or not civil. I think Wikipedia:External_links#Advertising_and_conflicts_of_interest speaks to this very precisely. It was added in spamming manner by the creator, and right now that is my concern. JoeSmack Talk 05:31, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
OK. I see your point. I think the problem is solved though. From Jehochman on the COI noticeboard section on eserver.org is this: "What do you know! He received a warning on 13 December 2006 [2], and hasn't made a single COI edit since. He did do a few little fixes to clear up image licensing problems, but I don't see any problems with those edits." --Timeshifter 07:21, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
That is not a solution and that might not even be an accurate statement. (Requestion 19:22, 19 May 2007 (UTC))
Update: I've tracked down some more socks and the current count is 249 external eserver.org link spams. The complete list is at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam/2007_Archive_Jun#eserver.org. Jehochman mentioned that User:Geoffsauer received a warning on Dec 13 2006 [3]. I'd like to point out that Geoffsauer violated that warning here [4] on Jan 18 2007. Sorry about this duplicate update post but it's hard to avoid when the conversation is going on at 3 different places! (Requestion 21:27, 21 May 2007 (UTC))
You find one link way back in January, and continue to call him a spammer. You are so insulting to people. See Wikipedia:Civility Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers. --Timeshifter 09:40, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
The link in January corrects an erroneous statement that Jehochman originally made and that you reposted here. Geoffsauer was warned in December 2006 and then spammed again a month later in January 2007. Also, User:12.216.41.63 spammed a bunch of eserver.org links on May 18 2007 which is the day this thread started. Ohh, and about WP:BITE, Geoffsauer is not a newcomer, he has been spamming Wikipedia since Decemeber 2004. Please User:Timeshifter, if you insist on being rude, at least get your facts straight. (Requestion 14:31, 23 May 2007 (UTC))
Geoffsauer made one mistake after being warned in a roundabout way in December 2006. Get over it. Get over yourself. Stop being rude. Stop calling people names. Stop insulting people. Stop violating all these wikipedia guidelines: Wikipedia:Assume good faith, Wikipedia:Civility, Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers, and Wikipedia:No personal attacks. You are doing more harm than good. Do a cost-benefit analysis of your actions. Ask yourself what your motivations are. --Timeshifter 02:28, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
Why treat it differently? Because it's a link to a list of links. Maybe best to treat them similarly to DMOZ? --Ronz 03:05, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
I think the confusion comes from thinking that the wikipedia guideline against having long lists of external links means that wikipedia can't link to lists of links. The reasons for the wikipedia guidelines in my opinion are to avoid needless duplication of directories, and compilation lists. Why should wikipedia allot valuable editor time to duplicating DMOZ and other directories and compilation lists of links? But we should definitely take advantage of them by linking to them. Especially for the non-controversial stuff. Good info is good info is good info. The more the better. Wikipedia is not paper. We have the room for a few good external links. --Timeshifter 04:53, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
"Room" doesn't mean it's helpful to readers to have a long line of links. Fewer is better. And this particular case mentioned here is clear spam and should be reverted. DreamGuy 05:17, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
Did you read this whole section? Did you read the last sentence in my last comment just above yours? "We have the room for a few good external links." --Timeshifter 05:25, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
Lists of links should normally not be linked to. These are worthless links that don't meet the criteria of the guideline, especially in non-controversial topics. We should only resort to a link list when there is no other alternative, which should only be the case in very broad or controversial areas. 2005 07:30, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Wow. Opinions vary. Also from the COI noticeboard section on eserver.org is this from Jehochman:

"I don't think it's a campaign. This is a high quality web resource that naturally attracts a lot of links. It would be classified as link bait. I don't think this is spamming. Let's put away the torches and pitchforks. This appears to be an electronic library that makes literature available for free to the public. It's sort of like Project Gutenberg. I checked a few of the articles that contain these links, and I did not see an intentional linking campaign. Is see a large number of independent users citing this database from various articles and discussions. Example: [5] An even better example, added by Administrator User:Doc glasgow: [6] Enforcing COI is very important, but I think we need to be more careful to investigate these things fully before jumping to conclusions."

From me: Good info naturally gets linked to. It is OK to encourage that linking. It is OK to add those links. If it is your website you are linking to, then you should go through the article talk page first. Links should first be used for references/citations wherever possible. If that is not possible they may be used for external links if they merit being among the few external links alloted to most articles. --Timeshifter 07:39, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I absolutely agree with you, 100%. The only thing i'd add (to avoid mass spamming of talk pages) is to evaluate if you should be adding the link at all after reading proper COI guidelines. JoeSmack Talk 17:46, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
Just to throw in $.02 I don't think lists of links are necessarily bad links. For example the Haskell (programming language) article links to a link farm at readscheme.org which is extremely useful for finding papers on more advanced topics. Again the quality of the link rather than the form is what's important. jbolden1517Talk 20:23, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Nicholas Carr

Here is an example. Nicholas G. Carr. His articles in Harvard Business Review are best sources. His weblog is very well known. His official website less so, and mainly promotional for his books. I'd argue the weblog link in the article is legit. I'd further argue that at present the article has a good change of being defaced in the name of WP:EL. jbolden1517Talk 16:56, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd argue that in borderline cases we should leave it to the people involved into the article to decide within the context of what is best for the article and not what bests fits a over-broad guideline.
A guideline can't draw sharp a sharp line in the sand. All a guideline can do is define the white black and grey. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 22:58, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
That's exactly my position which is why I oppose the current wording. All over the wiki people don't feel they have that discretion because of the current wording. jbolden1517Talk 23:28, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
It appears that the blog link is still there and there doesn't seem to be any movement to remove it. How does this case demonstrate the problem with the guideline? Nposs 01:37, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

It demonstrates when a blog should be directly linked to even when an official website is available. It was a counter example to Who is saying prohibit? It's that we do not encourage it above and in addition to their main website, and if we link to their main website there's no need to ALSO link to the blog, because presumably their website links to their blog. This is pretty basic External links policy concept here, I don't understand why people can't follow it. DreamGuy 12:49, 18 May 2007 (UTC) jbolden1517Talk 01:47, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Since when do we have an obligation to link to every official site? In any case, the spirit of the guideline is to have a few as possible... within that context the editors of the page can make thier own choices. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 02:58, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm hoping this isn't a rhetorical device where you deliberately shift topics so as to attack a straw man. We don't have an obligation to link to anything and no one is contending we do. The issue here is explicitly permitting if the article editors would like to; given that this guideline is interpreted very literally on many articles. jbolden1517Talk 17:42, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
This illustrates exactly why Wikipedia:External links must be clear as to its purpose. Its introduction must be clear that it is not the guideline for citations/references. WP:CITE is. Articles can have many, many references/citations. So if the sites are considered reliable sources, then both of them can be cited individually for specific bits of info. But if the sites are only going to be linked to from an external links section at the bottom of the page, then Wikipedia:External links covers it, and the talk page will have to decide if they both merit being one of the few external links normally allowed. There are exceptions to this guideline, since it is a general guideline, and not a policy. See the many external links at Iraq War. The reasoning there is that it consolidates many of the external links from the many spinout pages. Some of those external links need to be moved to the spinout pages. --Timeshifter 16:49, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Guidance for external links, ResearchChannel

An experienced Wikipedia editor suggested that this forum was the best place to introduce and explain my self and to receive your guidance.

My name is Tim Lorang and I am with ResearchChannel, a non-profit consortium of research universities and research institutions. “Our mission is to serve as an intellectual community that makes knowledge available to all by sharing our high-quality research and academic content with a discerning global audience. We bring together the ideas of the world’s premier institutions and disseminate those ideas to the public directly, unedited and without interruption.”

Here is the URL for our website: http://www.researchchannel.org/

We have become aware that many of the videos that we make available for free on our site complement many of the articles found on Wikipedia. Either because they are lectures, interviews or documentaries presented by specific people who have articles in Wikipedia, they are programs about specific people who have articles in Wikipedia or they are programs about topics covered in Wikipedia articles.

We would like to make these videos available to Wikipedia users by posting an external link in appropriate Wikipedia articles.

We realize that that there are very real concerns about promotion and spamming and that is why I want to be very open about who we are and what we are doing.

There will be one person working with me who when she feels there is a ResearchChannel video that would complement a Wikipedia article would like to contact the related talk page and suggest that the video may be appropriate to that article. She would give a description of the video and a link to the ResearchChannel page where anyone interested could review the video. We would then follow the consensus of the talk page.

For example here is a link to a program about rare instruments from the University of Southern California that is currently linked to a Wikipedia article about bagpipes. Rare bagpipes are part of the demonstration. http://www.researchchannel.org/prog/displayevent.aspx?rID=3365&fID=345

Here is an interview with Diane Rehm from the University of Maryland that is linked to the Wikipedia article about Diane Rehm. http://www.researchchannel.org/prog/displayevent.aspx?rID=4150

A more typical program we would suggest could be something like this discussion on the press and global climate change from Pennsylvania State University: http://www.researchchannel.org/prog/displayevent.aspx?rID=4441&fID=345

Or this lecture series on Alzheimer's disease from the University of Washington: http://www.researchchannel.org/prog/displayevent.aspx?rID=3757&fID=567

We would never suggest links that went directly to a media file but to the description page for the program.

ResearchChannel, like the Wikipedia community, is concerned about making information and media available to all users. We currently have all of our programs available for viewing on Windows Media and Quicktime in multiple streaming rates. We will soon have Mpeg2 files that would be viewable on players available to Linux users. We need to set up new servers that would be able to handle these files and move the Mpeg2 files to those servers. The completion date for this is not set but it is a project in progress. We are also in the process of installing a new server that would handle .m4v files for video downloading, or pod-casting.

I look forward to your input and suggestions. I would like to emphasize that our goal is to make the knowledge that we have archived on our site, material produced by some of the best universities in the world, available to the public for free. Please let me know what you think.--Tim Lorang 19:14, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your interest. Your statement above: There will be one person working with me who when she feels there is a ResearchChannel video that would complement a Wikipedia article would like to contact the related talk page and suggest that the video may be appropriate to that article. She would give a description of the video and a link to the ResearchChannel page where anyone interested could review the video. We would then follow the consensus of the talk page., is an excellent approach. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 20:53, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree this is an excellent approach. BTW you may want to consider Wikiversity for educational materials jbolden1517Talk 21:30, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Jossi and jbolden1517 that the talk page is an excellent approach. For reference we had bad spam problem with researchchannel.org about a month and a half ago. They added about 200 external links and several editors helped in the removal of those links. This spamming resulted in a huge amount of wasted effort. Here are the related threads:
It is important that we stress to User:Tim Lorang that spamming Wikipedia with more researchchannel.org links will not be tolerated. (Requestion 21:52, 21 May 2007 (UTC))

Thank you all for your comments. It seems then that if we follow the procedures that I outlined above there should be no problem in suggesting external links to ResearchChannel content. If there is ever a question or issue please bring it to my attention. I will monitor this talk page and any one is welcome to contact me directly on my Talk Page. Thank you again for your comments and suggestions. --Tim Lorang 17:56, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Suggesting a link on an article's talk page is the recommended procedure but please don't go copy and pasting links to thousands of talk pages. People have tried doing that before and it always gets quickly blanket deleted as talkspam. I understand that you would like Wikipedia to link to all of your researchchannel.org video pages, unfortunately there is no easy way to accomplish that. (Requestion 18:46, 23 May 2007 (UTC))

Thank you Requestion for your support. We too hope to avoid spam and bad links. That is why we are working with all of you on this talk page. We do not whish to link all off our video content, only the content that the Wikipedia community feels will contribute to their content and their mission. Please let me know if there are any concerns. --Tim Lorang 19:13, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

cinedelica.com

I've just been chewed out for adding external links to a film website I write for. I get the fact that it was because Wikipedia thought it was shameless promotion, but I added them in the spirit of film appreciation, not some seedy attempt to drum up business! And what I don't appreciate is some specky gimp staring at the computer screen and deleting all of my links just becaue it violates his sensibilities. At least have the common coutesy to send an e-mail where we can discuss the matter or something! This was my first day on Wikipedia, and as a writer I was looking forward to updating some of the subjects that I'm knowledgable about. I don't hink I'll bother now. Wikipedia administrators can shove the whole thing up their arse. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stantheman1874 (talk • contribs)

I don't know a thing about any of this. I did just now take a look at User:Stantheman1874's contribution logs and my quick rough guess is that about 50 cinedelica.com external links were added. Other than the standard please see WP:EL, WP:NOT, WP:COI, and WP:SPAM there isn't much else to say. Maybe we need to improve the spam templates or add new wording to the edit page. What I really want to know is why do people think Wikipedia is a linkfarm? (Requestion 01:58, 23 May 2007 (UTC))
Spammer says: "And what I don't appreciate is some specky gimp staring at the computer screen and deleting all of my links just becaue it violates his sensibilities." Well, with that attitude and misplaced sense of entitlement, Wikipedia is obviously not for you. If you want to be able to add your own links and not have them removed by others, make your own site. DreamGuy 02:50, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
You two are so frequently uncivil, expecially to newcomers, that it borders on personal attacks. See: Wikipedia:Assume good faith, Wikipedia:Civility, Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers, and Wikipedia:No personal attacks. As I said previously, I think you are doing more damage than good for wikipedia due to your overzealousness. You are driving away very skilled people from wikipedia. I think you owe many people an apology. --Timeshifter 09:32, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
I don’t want to get involved in the personal dispute here, but reverting edits by someone who adds 50 links to their own personal site and not one contributing edit otherwise, hardly constitutes driving away skilled editors. I don’t see why we need to encourage this type of editing as it shows a need for personal gratification over a honorable one. If the user would like to volunteer their time to help create or expand articles like the rest of the volunteers here, type away... -- I already forgot  talk  20:27, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
I count 6 insults in your comment. Thanks for sharing. NOT. --Timeshifter 01:53, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, but you are not going to drag me into what ever dispute you have going on. PS Borat quotes suck. -- I already forgot  talk  06:26, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
If you count 6 insults there then you are seeing insults that don't exist. It's just matter of fact statements. DreamGuy 02:10, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
Exactly why you guys are a detriment to wikipedia. --Timeshifter 02:20, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, OK... and that line alone shows why you are actually guilty of everything you try to blame on others. That's far more of a personal attack than anything you've complained about by anyone else on this page. You really need to start playing by the same rules you expect others to follow. Your complaints simply can;t be taken seriously. DreamGuy 00:19, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
I apologize. One is supposed to comment on the edits, not the editor. I should have said that some of your edits are a detriment to wikipedia. --Timeshifter 16:37, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
Y'know, all that happened here was someone added {{spam-i}} to the page of someone who needed it. It was entirely appropriate; perhaps the language is bad -- that "mere directory of links" is quite condescending to my ears. Maybe it needs to be tuned up for the ears of good-faith but so-far unschooled new editors. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 20:39, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
Timeshifter, I don't particularly care if you think I'm uncivil to spammers. It's ridiculous. Someone abusing the project needs to be told not to, and there's no way to say to be matter of fact about that without it showing just how horribly abusive the person is. If you are here to defend spammers and criticize those who don't then YOU are the one trying to drive off valuable editors and encouraging bad editors to stay. YOU should apologize. DreamGuy 02:10, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
DreamGuy wrote: "Someone abusing the project needs to be told not to...". I am telling you to stop abusing the project. See again the wikipedia guidelines you are violating: Wikipedia:Assume good faith, Wikipedia:Civility, Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers, and Wikipedia:No personal attacks.--Timeshifter 02:22, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
I am not abusing the project, but people adding clear spam (and editors who take over discussion pages to make ridiculous accusations against good editors for personal reasons) are. If you'd actually read any of those guideleines and policies you quoted you wouldn't be making your attacks here, as they show straight out why your actions are incorrect. DreamGuy 00:21, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

This conversation appears to have nothing to do with the external links guideline and should be taken elsewhere - if you all think it's actually going to be productive to continue it at all. -- Siobhan Hansa 02:42, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Stantheman1874 wrote in the beginning of this section (I added the emphasis): "I've just been chewed out for adding external links to a film website I write for..." On my talk page someone else wrote: "I'm new to wikipedia and have been on the receiving end of comments from at least one of the people you called out about not being very welcoming...." No one gets a pass for being uncivil. And the wikipedia guidelines say that people should be warned before reporting them to incident boards for violating wikipedia guidelines. They can consider themselves warned. I am all for going back to civil discussion. --Timeshifter 03:07, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Template MySpace

MySpace is to be avoided yet there is a template {{MySpace}} explicitly for linking to it which is used many times. Brianhe 05:08, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm thinking many semi-notable bands use myspace as an official website... and in those cases the template would be acceptable/usefull. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 12:23, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
I think it transcends the "semi" bit. I remember going to an outdoor concert and the opening band (who had a few Top 20 hits, but I didn't like them; I was there for another band) was saying how tracks from their upcoming album were on their MySpace profile. EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:14, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
Also many actors and actresses have official myspace pages. jbolden1517Talk 14:48, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
Indeed, I've got a handful of people (such as Kari Byron, Nathan Fillion, and Jewel Staite) on my friends list, and I know others like Seth Green, Will Farrell, and Zach Braff have profiles. Hell, Jon Favreau uses his MySpace profile to release information about Iron Man. It's very handy for the individuals, as they can quickly and easily connect with their fans (as well as the direct advertisement aspect). EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:14, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
Hmm... I'm surprised this is still an issue of confusion; I really hope it will get resolved soon... it's been months since I tried to convince someone to do something about it... Anyway, Myspace shouldn't be getting cut off if the page officially belongs to the subject of the Wiki article (like a band, musician, actor, etc). After all, the information is reliable if by these subjects, and its design is practically universal (so its info and music is easy to access). The "Links normally to be avoided" section is not set in stone, as established by its opening sentence, but some people confuse #10 as such. -- Shadowolf 08:27, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
I think the policy #10 should call out such a major exception to the rule. Brianhe 01:47, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Linking to illegal content

I know this has probably been discussed before, but I am having a bit of trouble in a couple of articles related to this. Specifically, Clannad (visual novel) and Planetarian: Chiisana Hoshi no Yume which both have an external link to an illegal fan-translation website. I tried to remove them before, but then users added them in again. I just want to get a consensus here so that when they are removed again, they won't be put back. This also applies to the Haruhi Suzumiya (light novels) article where a link often pops up from time to time for the website with the English fan translations for the novels, but I think right now they've all been removed.--十八 11:03, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Links to illegal content should always be avoided. See The first point of wikipedia:external links #Restrictions on linking. Graham87 14:54, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
I am now currently having trouble removing the links to a fan translation site, Mirror-Moon, who translated Tsukihime and the first part of Fate/stay night, but editors keep reverting me.--十八 00:00, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

OK I'm reading the issue. I'd say the site is very questionable and damn close to the line, but I'm not sure it is quite over the line of a copyright violation. Wikipedia links are therefore likely safe. A translation patch is a derived work. However if they have made the derived work worthless without a copy of the game (which appears to be the intent) then its not a copyright violation as you are allowed to derive works whose sole usage is with copies you own (cleanflix case for example). So I'm not sure this is actually illegal content. The walk throughs are worse, but I think a court might hold that they unlikely to be entertaining without actually the game and thus they constitute a review i.e. fair usage. Why don't you ask Type-moon what their position is on this content? If they do object then you are absolutely in the clear. If they don't then we can link. I'd recommend we pull the links for now. The excuse being made (and feel free to quote me) of "is used as a reference" is nonsense. This is a legal matter, we damage article quality to not violate copyright. jbolden1517Talk 00:31, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I do not believe I am able to contact Type-Moon as I do not have a high understanding of Japanese, and I doubt they'd take serious an email written in English for an online encyclopedia they are not even affiliated with. The translation patches cannot work without the game, yes, but Mirror-Moon is still freely distributing English translation patches without having gained a legal license on the material they are translating, thus I do not believe it is legal what they are doing. This same discussion could be applied to fansubs, and is the reason why we don't link to fansub websites.--十八 01:04, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree with your analogy and would assert you are absolutely incorrect in your understanding of copyright law. A program designed to change the content of a copyrighted work that is worthless in and of itself, without the copyrighted work is not a violation of copyright law. Fansubs are perfectly legal with regard to copyright. Some may be DMCA violators (because of DVD related issues) but I doubt it. The fact is fansubs aren't illegal and there is nothing to prevent wikipedia from linking to them. jbolden1517Talk 01:24, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
But there are tons of fansubs that are for licensed anime. Is it not illegal to distribute fansubbed versions of licensed anime if nothing else?--十八 01:42, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

No, the fansub doesn't do anything unless you have the licensed content. It is not a violation of copyright law to alter your copy of a copyrighted work in whatever way you choose. Its perfectly legal to sell or distribute devices to help people do that. So no I'd argue that by in large it is perfectly legal to distribute fansubs. Now two caveats:

  1. The big problem with fansubs is that the fansub works well with both pirated and purchased versions. A fansub for show that is not available for purchase legally and is solely or almost solely being copied might be a piracy facilitation. If the show were being sold in another venue (to say comedy central or shown in movie theaters) then yes you have just crossed the line.
  2. Again be careful of DMCA issues. The above is only about copyright the specific technology used to make the fansub would need to be addressed regarding DMCA.

jbolden1517Talk 02:02, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

So no I'd argue that by in large it is perfectly legal to distribute fansubs. Too bad most people don't agree then huh? Why do you think Media Factory sent a notice to AnimeSuki telling them to remove all fansub listings to products they produced? Or, even better, why there is a section questioning the legality of fansubs in the fansub article at that?--十八 04:01, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Not a relevant comparison in any way, unless AnimeSuki was not hosting encoded .avi files and just releasing the .ass scripts. --tjstrf talk 04:54, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
I read the article (otherwise I wouldn't have known what a fansub is). I can send you a cease and desist letter for a legal activity. Those letters do not represent the law. A ruling has to occur. These works are being distributed for profit if they were a copyright violation they wouldn't need to issue cease and desist they could just report it to the police (i.e. this would likely be much more than just a civil violation). jbolden1517Talk 11:52, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
No, by that argument nothing would ever be illegal until such time as a ruling was already made. That's not how the law works in the slightest. Copyright infringements are illegal but almost always are civil matters and not criminal even when they are distributed for profit. Calling the police would only be for the most severe forms with pre-existing specific court orders. This statement of yours above alone shows a tremendous amount of ignorance about the process. A cease and desist order would most assuredly be the proper and expected way of handling the situation you describe. DreamGuy 13:05, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I do not follow jbolden1517's argument at all that these are not illegal. They are derivative works without the copyright owners' permission. Period. That right there is illegal, regardless whether they are used with legal copies of the game or pirated ones. Worse than that is that the links being discussed here, even if they were 100% legal, completely fail other guidelines for external links. They provide no encyclopedic content whatsoever. Wikipedia is not a web directory, get rid of all that wherever you see it. DreamGuy 04:33, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Your understanding of copyright law is incorrect. First off having something is never a copyright violation. You can distribute derivative works under certain conditions (that for example is why we have all the fair usage images here). You can alter your copy of a copyrighted work in any way you like. For an example of a company that essentially does the same things as Fansubs (which is partially owned by RCA BTW) is ClearPlay. jbolden1517Talk 11:47, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
No, you're are making straw man arguments completely unrelated to the real nature of the problem. I didn't say having anything was illegal, but distribution without the copyright owner's permission and without a valid fair use rationale certainly is. An individual can alter copies they own, but a site cannot distribute a derivative work without permission, and we cannot aid and abet that crime by linking to it ourselves. That's what we're talking about here... not to mention the wholly nonencyclopedic nature of the entire thing. Clearplay is not the same situation, or at least not to the same extent, because what they distribute is only information that allows people to skip past parts they think they won't like (which they do face lawsuits over, by the way). DreamGuy 12:44, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
P.S. A more accurate comparison other than ClearPlay (which Congress had to pass a special law to let it get away with what it was doing, if you read the article) is CleanFlicks, which was shut down as a copyright violator. It's the difference between distributing information on how to customize something you own versus distributing customized files with modified copyright materials (i.e. illegally derivative works). DreamGuy 12:58, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Well if you are familiar with the cleanflix case you'll notice the illegality was the act of copying back to another physical dvd, the change in medium, which cancelled out the first sales defense. It was not the act of providing the derived work. This was a very literal interpretation of first sales doctrine. That act occurs on the customer's site in the case of a fansub so your precedent doesn't apply. jbolden1517Talk 13:18, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
You are simply incorrect. It most definitely was the act of distributing a derived work that was at issue, and that's exactly what is going on with the fansubs. Without Congress passing the specific exception for ClearPlay that would have been illegal also. There is no exception for fansubs. DreamGuy 03:25, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

contradiction

Avoid directly linking to any content that requires special software, or an add-on to a browser. It is always preferred to link to a page rendered in normal HTML that contains embedded links to the rich media. In an instance where a link to rich media is deemed appropriate, an explicit indication of the technology needed to access the content must be given, as in the following examples:

This contradicts itself. Try to avoid... would resolve the contradiction. Anyone object? jbolden1517Talk 22:23, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

No objections from me. That is one of the things I proposed at Wikipedia talk:External links/Archive 16 #Clarification of rich media section. Per that conversation, I think the section needs a rewrite. Graham87 04:16, 27 May 2007 (UTC)


Intro is unclear as to difference between external links and reference/citation links

There was a LONG discussion awhile back that resulted in a clearer introduction. I see that clarity is gone again.

But the problem is simple to explain and simple to solve.

Please make it absolutely clear that this article does not have anything to do with citation/reference links. And please explain that inline links (the numbered ones that are NOT footnotes) are sometimes citation/reference links.

The intro previously advised people to err on the side of caution when dealing with inline links. Editors should not assume that they are only external links that need to be moved to an external links section, or that they need to be deleted.

In fact, inline links are an acceptable form of citation/reference links according to WP:CITE#HOW and Wikipedia:Embedded citations. I myself, have often found this to be confusing.

Because this means an inline link could be either an external link or a citation/reference link. I often find them to be very useful in either case. It is good that Wikipedia:External links and Wikipedia:Citing sources are guidelines, and not policies, because the only way to resolve whether to keep such links is on an individual basis based on discussion in the article talk pages.

I was bold and just added some info to the introduction. Feel free to edit it mercilessly, and to discuss it here. But PLEASE let us clarify what this guideline is about. --Timeshifter 22:41, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

It is very unclear what the topic of Wikipedia:External links is about. The nutshell and the intro to the article need to make absolutely clear the difference between external links and citation/reference links. It is confusing because wikipedia uses a different meaning for external links, than the normal meaning. Normally, any link with "http://" in it is an external link. From that point of view even internal wikipedia links could be looked upon as external links by "civilians". Versus veteran wikipedia editors. --Timeshifter 22:54, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I edited the guideline nutshell to this:

This page in a nutshell: Adding external links can be a service to our readers, but they should be kept to a minimum of those that are meritable, accessible and appropriate to the article. Wikipedia does not refer to citation/reference links as external links.

Another example of a specialized wikipedia definition: "Internal links" to many civilians (versus veteran wikipedia editors) means table of content links for navigation within web pages. But wikipedia uses the phrase "internal links" to mean links to other wikipedia pages.

One editor commented in a previous talk section here that they skipped the guideline intro and went straight to a section of the guideline, and then applied it incorrectly to citation/reference links. This is a common mistake discussed several times on this talk page. It needs to be cleared up. Here is that editor's comments:

"I'm afraid I'd have to plead guilty to not having read that properly. I'm sure I've seen it before, anyway, because I did work my way through various guidelines and policies when I joined, but when I wanted to know today because of something in an article I was working on, I went to the guideline page, ignored the lead, looked at the TOC, saw 'Links normally to be avoided — sites requiring registration', and scrolled down to that."

I see that my clarification of the introduction and nutshell has already been removed. I would appreciate some discussion as to why. Otherwise I will return some kind of clarification. There was no reason given for the removal of the previous clarification weeks ago that went through a long discussion and consensus.

This sentence at the end of the intro was removed:

"A non-footnote inline link can be either an external link or a citation/reference link. For more info see WP:CITE#HOW and Wikipedia:Embedded citations."

In context it was in the last paragraph of the intro:

"The subject of this guideline is external links that are not citations of article sources. A non-footnote inline link can be either an external link or a citation/reference link. For more info see WP:CITE#HOW and Wikipedia:Embedded citations."

I don't own that paragraph or sentence, and I am not wedded to any particular introduction wording. But the nutshell, in particular must be made clearer, because that is what almost everybody will read, even if they skip everything else and jump to the table of contents.

I see in the edit summary that the reason for the intro deletion was "rm duplicate and unnecessary citation links, WP:CITE already linked in the previous sentence." See diff.

Here is the improved last paragraph in the intro. I combined it with the previous paragraph, and only used one citation to WP:CITE.

"The subject of this guideline is external links that are not citations of article sources. A non-footnote inline link can be either an external link or a citation/reference link. If the site or page to which you want to link includes information that is not yet a part of the article, consider using it as a source for the article, and citing it. For instructions on citing sources using inline links, footnotes, and/or reference sections see WP:CITE#HOW and Wikipedia:Embedded citations."

Edit mercilessly! --Timeshifter 00:23, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

This does seem to be something that comes up frequently and is important to make clear. So I support making changes. I rather like the idea of adding it to the nutshell. Your wording for the nutshell is fine with me, though anything that is short and basically says the same would also work. Alternatively we could promote the statement about what the guideline covers to the very top of the lead, and maybe bold it or highlight in some other way.
I don't think we should be encouraging non-citation embedded links. And the older sentence you are referring to and the paragraph you are recommending contradict themselves by linking to Wikipedia:Embedded citations which says This style of external link should only be used as a citation for a specific section or fact. Other external links should go in an External links section as described at Wikipedia:External links. I think we are better off recommending as a guideline that external links should be in an external links section, or at the very least that external links should not be added in a way that could be thought to be an inline citations.
To add more to this discussion I also think we could clean up the How to link section. It could be read to imply there are two ways of linking external links - external links sections and citations - which is rather confusing when we say the guideline isn't about citations! -- Siobhan Hansa 01:02, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
All good points. Here is a link to an archived talk section where this confusion was previously addressed and resolved with the clearer introduction.--Timeshifter 01:32, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I found the May 5, 2007 SlimVirgin diff that made the intro unclear. Since Jossi keeps removing my latest revisions (see diff), then I will go back to the last longstanding intro paragraph that went through discussion and consensus:

The guideline of this article refers to external links other than citations. Citation links belong in the Notes or References section of a Wikipedia article. Care must be taken not to delete inline links and external links if it looks like they are being used as references. This guideline only concerns external links that provide additional info beyond that provided by citation/reference links. Err on the side of caution if a citation/reference link has not yet been moved to a reference section. Some articles need a reference section added. Use this wiki code:
==References==
<references/>

That version was stable since this March 30, 2007 diff that I and many others approved.--Timeshifter 00:42, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

This looks like a good way of handling the end of the lead paragraph. But will it meet the need of catching readers' eyes enough that they really know what the guideline is about? I think making it more prominent could still be a good thing. -- Siobhan Hansa 01:06, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree. Any suggestions? --Timeshifter 01:34, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
WP:EL is about external links. That much focus on citations is completely inappropriate for the beginning of this guideline. That's what WP:CITE is for. Also, Timeshifter's threat [7] to "report you to WP:ANI" isn't appropriate either. (Requestion 01:22, 17 May 2007 (UTC))
WP:EL is about external links - but we do see this confusion demonstrated again and again and it seems like we do need to be clearer. How about bumping the this guideline is about external links that are not citations into the nutshell? That's focusing on this guideline and increasing the visibility of something that seems to often be overlooked? -- Siobhan Hansa 10:48, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
That seems fine to me, although other ways are fine with me too. I'd just add at this point though that the confusion has hardly anything to do with the guideline. It clearly says this is not about citations. Some people just don't read it or care what it says... and still wouldn't even if we put it in 32pt flaming letters. 2005 11:08, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
It is true that some people do not care, but other people are just confused. I was one of those people at one point. So were some other longtime editors. See this archived discussion. I think something in the nutshell would help a lot. Almost everybody reads the nutshell on a guideline page. --Timeshifter 12:32, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Please participate in the discussion, Requestion, before taking any further action. That is all I am asking. We have recently had useful civil discussion on another talk page, and I believe you are operating in good faith. --Timeshifter 01:26, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Requestion. I see that you have again deleted the longstanding paragraph in question without discussion here first. I added a 3RR warning template banner to your talk page. If you keep it up, I or others may report you to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR. This is a friendly warning in hopes that you cool down. You can also self-revert. For more info and how-to please read Wikipedia:Three-revert rule. --Timeshifter 01:46, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
I reverted to the version that has been stable for the past 12 days. Let us do some basic math. I've reverted you 3 times and Jossi has reverted you twice. Hmmm, what does that mean? (Requestion 02:38, 17 May 2007 (UTC))
It means you are wikilawyering. Jossi did a partial revert one of those times and kept part of what I put up recently. Jossi has not reverted the longstanding stuff which was done through consensus. Please do not cast aspersions on Jossi. The 12-day-old stuff did not pass through any discussion. It was created through an undiscussed deletion of longstanding info in the intro. --Timeshifter 03:20, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Edit war? I just learned I was supposedly edit-warring on this page,[8][9][10][11][12] and I wasn't even aware that I was editing this page. If I'm to be accused, I might as well weigh in:
  • It pains me to see good faith editors get so wrapped up in all of this -- the points disputed just aren't worth fighting (by either side) another good editor to the point of 3RR.
  • The nutshell distinction between refs and standalone external links at the end was a good idea.
  • I sense Timeshifter's concern may be with overly aggressive deletion of suspicious inline links or footnotes from texts where the links may be there to meet the requirements of WP:V and WP:OR
  • I sense Requestion's concern may be more with giving free reign to spammers.
  • As someone that cleans up spam all the time, I'm inclined to side with Requestion's sparser wording. If a link has been spammed inline, in most cases it's still a crummy link and will not meet WP:RS. In the rare cases where it might somehow meet WP:RS, there are certainly WP:COI and usually WP:NOT and/or WP:OR issues; examples of that would be a scientist spamming links to his own work or a POV-warrior spamming POV links to support POV text. Anyway you slice it, spam -- that is adding links in violation of WP:COI for whatever reason -- reduces encyclopedic value.
  • As for wikilawyering, anything we write here or at WP:RS is going to be twisted, then cited ad nauseam by angry spammers. Just look at the history of my talk page.
  • For a spammer, a link's a link. Inline, footnote or "external", they don't care and will usually add them anywhere.
  • If you go with Timeshifter's paragraph, I would modify it as follows:
    • Timeshifter: "Care must be taken not to delete inline links and external links if it looks like they are being used as references."
    • A. B.:"Think carefully before deleting an inline or external link if it looks as if it's being used as a reference, it meets the requirements of the Reliable Sources Guideline and it has not been added in contravention of other guidelines such as the Conflict of Interest Guideline. If the text it's supporting is encyclopedic and worth keeping, try to find an equal or better link."
OK. That's enough edit-warring for me for now; I'm off to feed my parrot.[13] --A. B. (talk) 22:40, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
My main concern is reducing WP:EL instruction cruft so that spammers have less weasel room. I'm all for mentioning WP:CITE but in moderation. We need to keep in mind that <ref>'s are the new spammer frontier. Maybe the "==References== <references/>" stuff could go at the end in the how to link section. It definitely does not belong in the introduction. Uhh, and User:A. B., your parrot? I thought [14] it was my parrot. (Requestion 00:34, 18 May 2007 (UTC))
OK, you can have your parrot back. --A. B. (talk) 01:08, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
Please send bird back to Belgium. Much workforparrot.net remains. (Requestion 14:24, 18 May 2007 (UTC))

Why, if I may ask, are we letting spammers to dictate our guidelines? Spammers will always attempt to spam, regardless' and despite our guidelines. Guidelines should be designed to explain the way to do things within policy, and spammers need to be dealt with other tools. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 20:44, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I am happy with the User:A. B. wording. I am happy with almost any wording as long as it is made clear in the introduction and/or nutshell. Otherwise people are constantly going to confuse external links with citation/references. I am not a part of the spam fight that seems to have parachuted onto my user talk page for a moment. I have since found out that some banned sockpuppet anonymous IP farm is stalking the admin User:BozMo. My concern started months ago when I saw some editors mistakenly using Wikipedia:External links guidelines to delete citations/references. See the previous discussion here, especially the end of it where some resolution occurred. --Timeshifter 02:08, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

A. B.'s wording would be fine somewhere in the middle of the article. My concern is keeping the introduction simple and to the point. How about removing the leading "edit lock" sentence and replacing it with a combo of the last two sentences? The first line would say something like "This page is a style guide, describing how to use external links in articles. For instructions on citing sources and creating references refer to the citation guideline." WP:CITE gets one prominent mention at the start and then we get on with the business of external links. (Requestion 20:51, 19 May 2007 (UTC))
I am confused. Can you give me a suggested version of the complete introduction that you could live with? --Timeshifter 17:59, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
OK, here it is:
“
This page is a style guide, describing how to use external links in articles. For instructions on citing sources and creating references refer to the citation guideline.
Wikipedia articles can include links to Web pages outside Wikipedia. Such pages could contain further research that is accurate and on-topic; information that could not be added to the article for reasons such as copyright or amount of detail; or other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article for reasons unrelated to their reliability.
Some external links are welcome (see "What should be linked", below), but it is not Wikipedia's purpose to include a comprehensive list of external links related to each topic. No page should be linked from a Wikipedia article unless its inclusion is justified. Note that since Wikipedia uses nofollow tags, external links may not alter search engine rankings.
If the site or page to which you want to link includes information that is not yet a part of the article, consider using it as a source for the article, and citing it.
 ”
My goal is to simplify and reduce. The simpler the intro, the more focus the citation disambiguation gets. Actually my inspiration for that first sentence was taken from WP:CITE. The second sentence is a combination of the previous last 2 sentences that have been deleted. Note that the {{redirect|WP:EL|information on edit locks|Wikipedia:Edit lock}} line is removed since it just clutters things and I don't think anyone confuses the two. If the "edit lock" needs to stay then maybe it should be moved to the start before the 2 boxes. I also removed some specific examples that were in parentheses but that can be a topic for a different day. (Requestion 21:01, 20 May 2007 (UTC))
Requestion, thank you for moving us forward on this. I think this is cleaner, but does not directly tackle the ambiguity between external links that are used as citations and external links that are not - since this comes up reasonably often and since citations are important to Wikipedia, I think we ought to be explicit at the start. I suggest changing the first sentence to
“

This page is a style guide, describing how to use external links, that are not to article sources, in articles.

 ”
If we want to make the lead shorter I think we could move the bit about no-follow tags down the page, I don't think it is particularly useful at that point in the article. It's irrelevant to non-spammers, and those people who are actually checking out our policies before deciding whether to promote their site through us will probably read more than the lead. -- Siobhan Hansa 14:33, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
External citation / reference links are external links. In my opinion everything in WP:EL applies to WP:CITE except for the when to use it and the technical how to link sections. Shouldn't all the WP:EL avoid, self-promotion, adverstising, COI, redirection, dead link, and hijacking wisdom also apply to citations? How is spamming and linkfarming in the <ref>'s any different? (Requestion 15:33, 21 May 2007 (UTC))
Well that muddies the water a bit! I thought people on this talk page were clear that the guideline does not apply to external links that are citations. But apparently not. There are several stipulations in the "Links normally to be avoided" section that are not normally applied to citations. For instance sites requiring registration or payment are routinely linked to in citations as a service to other editors; foreign language sites are appropriate in a much larger range of circumstances for citations than for general external links; being a unique resource is not important for a citation - we link to more than one citation that supports an assertion (in fact we encourage it) but not to external links that repeat the information given in a previous external link. More than that though, the guideline has been edited over the last nine months at least (that's how long I've been monitoring it) from the point of view of the external links section - we haven't been considering it from the point of view of citations really and from time to time consideration on this talk page of some changes have been stopped by someone pointing out that the guideline does not apply to citations. Is this something we need to revisit? -- Siobhan Hansa 16:11, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
The fact is that people put external links everywhere. They inline-embed them, they put <ref>'s around them, they are used in templates, and sometimes you even see them in the External links section! (: The WP:CITE guideline is absent any abuse criteria and to compound this problem I've heard arguments that WP:NOT#LINK doesn't apply to citations. So if WP:NOT and WP:EL don't apply to citations then I guess blatant COI self-promotional spam is welcome in references. (Requestion 20:21, 21 May 2007 (UTC))
People do all the things you say, but that doesn't make those links citations. And this guideline applies to non-citation external links even when they are embedded inline or surrounded by ref tags - if it's not a reliable source for one or more assertions in the article it's covered by this guideline. I think there are real problems with COI citations, we have the COI guideline and the NPOV policy, but they aren't unambiguous. COI citations (to good sources) are more useful to us than COI external links, because they do provide something we value - verification. The real reason we have a problem with keeping these out of Wikipedia isn't because this guideline doesn't apply, it's because the community as a whole isn't a hundred percent behind an instance on non-COI editing. That's why the COI guideline is loose, there are frequent disagreements between good faith, experienced editors over AfDs of articles that even those who want to keep think are puff pieces, and some experienced editors love Template:COI and others think it's too WP:BITE. If this guideline is going to cover citations I think it will need to be weakened somewhat (or made very complicated) to reflect our current practice and policies - I don't think that's a good thing. -- Siobhan Hansa 21:29, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
Well the latest spam trick is to exploit this WP:EL / WP:CITE loophole. I see quite a number of the professional spammers doing it and it is just a matter of time before it gets more widespread use. They put in a <ref> that is loosely applicable and hope it sticks. Trying to delete established references, even if they are poor quality, is extremely difficult because the regular editors defend them even if they didn't originally add it. As you can imagine, fighting this type of spam with the current rules is almost impossible. (Requestion 22:07, 21 May 2007 (UTC))
What loophole? There certainly is not one in this guideline. If WP:CITE or WP:RS need wording changes, those discussions should happen there. Citation spam is of course obvious and the more clever spammers go for that. Here we need to emphasize that this guideline is not about citations, but all external links not used as citations. The single best tool we have to fight citation spam is the external links section. As long as it is there, most spammers will spam that, and fighting that spam is far easier than a correctly structured cite. Also, an EL sections makes it easy to move inline external links to a more appropriate section, and makes it easier for editors just passing through articles to see any links that are not truly on the topic of the article (like external linking to a business just casually mentioned in an article. So again, there is no loophole. There is only making this guideline helpful by addressing user-friendly ideas as well as spam prevention ideas. 2005 22:41, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
Citation spam is far from obvious if it is done well. The loophole is that WP:CITE doesn't cover prohibited abuses like WP:EL does. So, either WP:EL covers WP:CITE's shortcomings or it's open spam season on citations. Take your pick. (Requestion 23:57, 21 May 2007 (UTC))
I think it is really obvious to the regular editors of an article when a citation link does not apply. It either supports an assertion or it does not. It is either a reliable source or it is not. Some overzealous website owner may go around and try to find articles where his site pages can be used as citations. I don't think that is wrong. What is wrong is if that overzealous website owner or contributor goes around dropping in links to external links without going through the talk page first. Correctly-placed citations almost always improve an article. Wikipedia is in great need of more citations. Wikipedia is not in great need of more external links. We just fundamentally disagree on this issue. I think your efforts to delete citations is a huge detriment to wikipedia. I have seen overzealous spam fighters do far more damage than overzealous website owners/contributors. For example; overzealous spam fighters have deleted large parts of many extremely valuable, unique lists and charts by calling citations "spam." I think the problem on all sides is the overzealousness. We just need to inform these website owner/contributors to go through the talk pages. We should not be going back and deleting hundreds of citations. External links, maybe. But not citations. Citations survive the consensus of the article editors. I watch citations carefully on the pages I watchlist. I may let external links slide. So I appoint you to watch over the external links. In the end you are contributing little to wikipedia in my opinion. You are contributing a lot to spam fighting. But I don't think that is all that important frankly. I think we could summarize the whole wikipedia external links policy in a few sentences by just emphasizing that there should only be a few external links for most articles. Some may need more at the discretion of the editors. Some very busy compilation pages with many breakout articles have many external links. See Iraq War. But it is the focal point for many breakout articles, and so there is some justification there. This whole fight reminds me of the neverending fight between deletionists and inclusionists. :) --Timeshifter 16:28, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
Am I overzealous in calling this [15] a linkfarm that is wrapped in <ref>'s? (Requestion 20:24, 22 May 2007 (UTC))
That page survived an AfD with no consensus. Some of the people who voted for deletion may not have seen the changes made after they voted. Many links were converted to citation/reference links. The external links were moved to an external links section. Now it is clear which links are external links and which are not. Many links were eliminated because they did not source anything specific. It is now a good article. --Timeshifter 09:37, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
Now it is a linkfarm. Wrapping the external links in refs doesn't change a thing. (Requestion 14:41, 23 May 2007 (UTC))
It is certainly not a good article, and link farm could apply, but the problem isn't that this guideline isn't being applied to references - it's that WP:NOT, WP:V and WP:RS aren't being applied. -- Siobhan Hansa 16:44, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
No, citation spam is obviously a problem. You said so yourself, so let's not reverse course now. Once again there is no "picking". If WP:CITE doesn't cover something it should, bring it up THERE. This guideline does not cover citations. 2005 00:56, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
I choose to disagree. My opinion is that the WP:EL guideline does cover the usage of external links in citations and references. I'll change my opinion when someone improves WP:CITE to cover this issue but I doubt that will ever happen. Why duplicate effort when this fine guideline is perfectly capable of covering both uses? (Requestion 01:35, 22 May 2007 (UTC))
So make a proposal in village pump or somewhere else to combine the two, but in the meantime discussing CITE here is a waste of time, and not very considerate to the people who watch CITE for discussions. No matter what we do here, no decision changes CITE. 2005 05:18, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
Out of curiosity I went back in the history a few years and looked at revisions for some years. This guideline has always been about external links using the wikipedia definition. Meaning those links that are not reference/citation links. It may take some digging to figure it out though in some of those revisions. That is why we need to make it clear again in the introduction. In some revisions it is a LOT clearer than other revisions. There are many external link guidelines that do not apply to citations/references. For example; concerning references it is common to cite the same article, book, author, web page, website, etc. multiple times in an article.--Timeshifter 19:21, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
If WP:EL does not apply to external links then the name needs to be changed. No amount of additional wording will change this potential for confusion. (Requestion 20:21, 21 May 2007 (UTC))
The name doesn't need a change because the guideline makes the distinction clear. This guideline talks about external links that are not citations. We need one sentence that says that, and then move on. 2005 20:44, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
How about putting that one sentence in the nutshell instead of farther down in the introduction? How about this nutshell:
This page in a nutshell: Adding external links can be a service to our readers, but they should be kept to a minimum of those that are meritable, accessible and appropriate to the article. This guideline talks about external links that are not citations.
The more specific nutshell allows us to remove these 2 sentences from the end of the intro: "Refer to the citation guideline for instructions on citing sources. The subject of this guideline is external links that are not citations of article sources."--Timeshifter 09:50, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Requestion about the "edit lock" disambiguation info. If it stays it should go to the very top above the boxes. I agree with Siobhan about the "Nofollow" tags info being moved farther down in the article. Here below is the current introduction:

This page in a nutshell: Adding external links can be a service to our readers, but they should be kept to a minimum of those that are meritable, accessible and appropriate to the article.
“

Wikipedia articles can include links to Web pages outside Wikipedia. Such pages could contain further research that is accurate and on-topic; information that could not be added to the article for reasons such as copyright or amount of detail (such as professional athlete statistics, movie or television credits, interview transcripts, or online textbooks); or other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article for reasons unrelated to their reliability (such as reviews and interviews).

Some external links are welcome (see "What should be linked", below), but it is not Wikipedia's purpose to include a comprehensive list of external links related to each topic. No page should be linked from a Wikipedia article unless its inclusion is justified. Note that since Wikipedia uses nofollow tags, external links may not alter search engine rankings.

If the site or page to which you want to link includes information that is not yet a part of the article, consider using it as a source for the article, and citing it. Refer to the citation guideline for instructions on citing sources.

The subject of this guideline is external links that are not citations of article sources.

 ”

So now it is easier to compare the two. I am still analyzing the two intros. I would like to hear what others have to say also. --Timeshifter 14:41, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I also agree that the nofollow stuff it too technical for an intro and should be moved down below somewhere. With that move, the last two paragraphs might even be able to be combined for even a bit more reduction. (Requestion 15:33, 21 May 2007 (UTC))
Nofollow shouldn't be on the page. It has nothing to do with anything, and won't effect anything anyway. It's nothing but chatty page bloat. 2005 20:44, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
I think the info about the nofollow tags discourages people from adding links to the external links section for the sole purpose of improving the rankings of their site pages in search engines. So it is useful info. I suggest moving it to the section titled "Important points to remember".--Timeshifter 18:37, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

the guideline in a nutshell

Back on track. How about this for the nutshell box at the top of the article?:

This page in a nutshell: Adding external links can be a service to our readers, but they should be kept to a minimum of those that are meritable, accessible and appropriate to the article. This guideline talks about external links that are not citations.

Since WP:CITE is already linked in the nutshell it is possible to remove these duplications (essentially) from the introduction:

"Refer to the citation guideline for instructions on citing sources. The subject of this guideline is external links that are not citations of article sources." --Timeshifter 17:27, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's proper for a nutshell to say what something is not. It should describe what something is. (Requestion 17:44, 24 May 2007 (UTC))
Delineating what something is not, helps in describing what it is. --Timeshifter 17:49, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
None of the other nutshells resort to exclusion. Besides, there are quite a few things that this guideline is not. (Requestion 18:25, 24 May 2007 (UTC))
There are many, many guidelines, and many official wikipedia guidelines. See:
Wikipedia:List of policies.
Category:Wikipedia official policy.
Category:Wikipedia guidelines.
Even if what you say is true, it is a straw man argument. --Timeshifter 19:27, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
That wasn't a straw man argument. I'm not trying misrepresent your position. I just don't like your suggestion. (Requestion 21:06, 24 May 2007 (UTC))
It is a straw man argument because it is irrelevant. --Timeshifter 01:56, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." Actually Wikipedia doesn't think it means what you think it means. Please Timeshifter, if you're going to make references to informal fallacies then at least attempt to use them correctly. It think you meant red herring but in your case it might be time for the WP:TROUT. Inconceivable! (Requestion 02:29, 25 May 2007 (UTC))
So your objection to the claification is because it includes an explaination of what the page is not? You are saying there is confusion. This clears up the confusion, does it not? That's not a rhetorical question, you do agree, right? If so, then, you are saying an objection to including a negative in a nutshell is more important than making the nutshell clear, and clearing up a litany of problems. Please provide an explanation of why you think this way. 2005 02:55, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
My objection is this [16] "wrapped in refs" linkfarm example that has been architected by User:Timeshifter. The orchestration was discussed here [17] and also on that article's talk page. This is an attempt to subvert the Wikipedia rules to allow linkfarms. (Requestion 04:24, 25 May 2007 (UTC))
Whoa, let's stay on topic please. Please provide an explanation of why you think not having a negative in the nutshell is more important than clarity. 2005 06:49, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
This couldn't be more on topic. User:Timeshifter is both building linkfarms that bypass the rules and proposing changes to the rules that protect ref wrapped linkfarms. This is also going on over at Wikipedia_talk:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Shopping_Guide? where Timeshifter is trying to argue that WP:NOT#LINK doesn't apply to references. This is a problem. (Requestion 16:11, 25 May 2007 (UTC))
"Subvert", "linkfarm", "ref wrapped linkfarms"? Whoa... Why don't you go and insult the main editor at that page directly. Ask him if his motives are to create linkfarms or to reference his article? He is obviously another highly skilled person with which you are again assuming bad faith. You obviously think that any article with a list is automatically a linkfarm.
Here is a better example of this type of list discussion:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Insurgents killed in Iraq
Many people have changed their opinion. Do you ever change your opinion on lists always being linkfarms?--Timeshifter 17:59, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm not assuming User:John Spikowski "ref wrapped" those external links in bad faith. All he did was listen to the your advice [18] where you said "With footnotes there is absolutely no doubt that it is a citation/reference. Just having inline links can cause problems sometimes, because some editors will claim they are spam external links. Please trust me on this." My argument is that simply wrapping a linkfarm in <ref>s does not change the fact that it's a linkfarm. (Requestion 18:59, 25 May 2007 (UTC))
If you check his user page, one sees that he works in this area of expertise. His user contributions go back to July 2006. He wrote up a good comparison and features page of various software tools in his area. He was actually promoting his competition by doing this. That is not indicative of someone trying to create a linkfarm. I pointed out to some of the people commenting on the AfD discussion page that, "The links are citation/reference links. See: WP:CITE#HOW and Wikipedia:Embedded citations." Some people still insist incorrectly, as you do, that embedded citation links are not citation/reference links. So that is why I recommended that they be converted to footnoted reference links. --Timeshifter 22:02, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm not calling User:John Spikowski a spammer, I don't want to delete the page, and I purposefully did not get involved in the AfD. I only want to clean up the linkfarm and then everybody can get on with their business. (Requestion 00:04, 26 May 2007 (UTC))
You say you are not calling John Spikowski a spammer, but you say he created a linkfarm. Sounds like a distinction without a difference. --Timeshifter 16:02, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
There is a huge difference. Spammers usually add links in a self-promotional way. Linkfarmers are just misguided in their building of large quanities of links. The difference is that linkfarmers generally mean well. (Requestion 22:32, 26 May 2007 (UTC))
From Link farm: "On the World Wide Web, a link farm is any group of web pages that all hyperlink to every other page in the group. Although some link farms can be created by hand, most are created through automated programs and services. A link farm is a form of spamming the index of a search engine (sometimes called spamexing or spamdexing). Other link exchange systems are designed to allow individual websites to selectively exchange links with other relevant websites and are not considered a form of spamdexing."
John Spikowski is not a spammer, nor a linkfarmer. I think you owe him an apology. Every wikipedia page with lots of reference/citation links (tens of thousands of them have dozens of links each, or more) would be classified as a link farm according to your definition of a linkfarm. --Timeshifter 08:51, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Yes I do change my opinion on lists being linkfarms. Take a look at Category:Lists_of_software and Category:Software_comparisons. I have cleaned up, tagged for {{cleanup-spam}}, and/or currently watch most of the articles in those categories. I also have been involved in deleting the ones that were problem linkfarms. (Requestion 18:59, 25 May 2007 (UTC))
I got involved in some list discussion awhile back when I was checking out wiki farms out of my own personal interest in wiki farms. I found this page: Comparison of wiki farms. I later saw someone trying to delete that page, and I was amazed anyone would even want to do so. So I got involved in the AfD discussion, and learned about some of the controversy concerning lists and comparison tables. There are thousands of them on wikipedia. In AfD (Article for Deletion) discussions I saw some of the same mistakes being made in the application of the wikipedia guidelines by those who did not understand those guidelines, or by those who were abusing those guidelines. --Timeshifter 18:27, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
I forgot to mention that the reason for my interest in List of Insurgents killed in Iraq is because I have done a lot of editing at Casualties of the conflict in Iraq since 2003‎. I keep related pages bookmarked. I know from many hours of work on that page, and related pages, of the difficulty in getting good sources of info concerning Iraq-war-related casualties. --Timeshifter 18:56, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
Yes, ref linkfarms are a problem, but they are a problem that should be dealt with at CITE - not here. This is just one guideline and it cannot be expected to cover all instances of links. By leaving a link to CITE in the nutshell, it directs readers to more specific guidelines dealing with the other major context for external links.Nposs 13:35, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
OK, demonstrate to me how WP:CITE or some other rule handles User:Timeshifter's ref wrapped linkfarms and I'll drop it. Until then, WP:EL covers this abuse, and I don't feel that citation change to the nutshell is appropriate. (Requestion 16:11, 25 May 2007 (UTC))
I can show you tens of thousands of wikipedia articles with many dozens of reference/citation links. If WP:EL was applied to their citation/reference links, then wikipedia would be greatly damaged. Because many of their citation/reference links would have to be eliminated. Because Wikipedia:External links only allows a very limited number of external links. WP:EL only applies to NON-CITATION external links. No matter how you try to say otherwise. --Timeshifter 17:29, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Unindent: Changing guidelines (or not changing guidelines) that apply to all of WP based on a single case is a bad idea. It is true that EL can't address the problems of Panorama Stitchers, Viewers and Utilities, but that isn't what EL is for. I don't want to discuss that issue in detail here, but I think there are several ways in CITE that the links could be trimmed down on that article. EL isn't a blunt tool for fighting spam - there are many more ways to deal with specific cases. It could also be that CITE should be improved to discourage overreferencing (which appears to be the major problem with the case cited above.) But again, take the discussion there. Nposs 16:53, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Other relevant guideline pages: I looked at Wikipedia:Manual of Style, followed some wiki-links there, and found some pages dealing with lists: Wikipedia:List guideline, Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and series boxes, and Wikipedia:Lists in Wikipedia. There are probably more guideline pages. --Timeshifter 18:07, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
This page in a nutshell: Adding external links can be a service to our readers, but they should be kept to a minimum of those that are meritable, accessible and appropriate to the article. This guideline talks about external links that are not citations, potatoes or 10 gallon hats. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by J.smith (talk • contribs) 12:24, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Clarification by using a disambiguation sentence at the top of the article

It can be put above the Manual of Style and nutshell boxes.

Currently there are 2 disambiguation sentences at or near the top:

For the style guide for interior links, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links)
"WP:EL" redirects here. For information on edit locks, see Wikipedia:Edit lock.

Here is a suggested disambiguation sentence that could be added:

For the guideline on citation/reference links, see Wikipedia:Citing sources.

This way we do not have to change the nutshell. --Timeshifter 17:51, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I like the idea of adding the "For the guideline on citation/reference links, see Wikipedia:Citing sources" disambiguation line to the top of the page. It doesn't change any implied rules and it's direct and to the point. It is a nice solution. (Requestion 19:05, 25 May 2007 (UTC))
I would also like to move a sentence in the introduction. I temporarily emphasized that sentence that was moved from the bottom of the introduction to the top. I also added a sentence about external links that are embedded citations. The additional sentence is temporarily emphasized and also put in italics. Here below is my proposed revision of the introduction. --Timeshifter 16:31, 26 May 2007 (UTC)


The subject of this guideline is external links that are not citations of article sources. Wikipedia articles can include links to Web pages outside Wikipedia. Such pages could contain further research that is accurate and on-topic; information that could not be added to the article for reasons such as copyright or amount of detail (such as professional athlete statistics, movie or television credits, interview transcripts, or online textbooks); or other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article for reasons unrelated to their reliability (such as reviews and interviews).

Some external links are welcome (see "What should be linked", below), but it is not Wikipedia's purpose to include a comprehensive list of external links related to each topic. No page should be linked from a Wikipedia article unless its inclusion is justified. Note that since Wikipedia uses nofollow tags, external links may not alter search engine rankings.

If the site or page to which you want to link includes information that is not yet a part of the article, consider using it as a source for the article, and citing it. Refer to the citation guideline for instructions on citing sources. External links used as inline embedded citations are covered by Wikipedia:Embedded citations. [End of proposed introduction]

[Later note: The "nofollow" sentence in italics can be moved farther down in the article as discussed previously. --Timeshifter 18:47, 26 May 2007 (UTC) ]
[Later note: The proposed embedded citations sentence was moved to the bottom of the proposed introduction to be near the already existing citations info. --Timeshifter 19:03, 27 May 2007 (UTC) ]

This both clarifies the purpose of the page, and directs people to the pages they may be looking for. All without changing the nutshell. The embedded citations sentence is necessary because those external links are not covered by this guideline on non-citation external links. Inline external links used as citations are covered by Wikipedia:Embedded citations. The guideline was much clearer in previous revisions including a recent one discussed higher up. So that is why I am returning the gist of the embedded citations info from that reverted revision. See Wikipedia:Embedded citations. Its introduction is below.--Timeshifter 16:31, 26 May 2007 (UTC)


Embedded citations provide an option for citing sources on Wikipedia. This approach is to place a numbered external link in the text of the article like this: [19] and also put a full citation in a References section.

  • This style of external link should only be used as a citation for a specific section or fact. Other external links should go in an External links section as described at Wikipedia:External links.
  • A separate entry in the References section is required. It should include as much information as possible about the source! If the link breaks, other editors must still be able to find the source, either as a paper copy or at another URL.
  • A full citation might include the link, quoted title, author, title of publication, volume, issue, page, the date of publication, and the date retrieved.
  • An embedded external link is placed after the period at the end of a sentence, or, when within a sentence, after the comma or semicolon at the end of a clause.
  • If you are not yet familiar with external link syntax, read Wikipedia:External_links#How_to_link first. [End of introduction of Wikipedia:Embedded citations.]

Note that the embedded citations introduction is very clear about the external links it is discussing. It states: "This style of external link should only be used as a citation for a specific section or fact. Other external links should go in an External links section as described at Wikipedia:External links." So there is specific precedent for saying what external links are NOT covered by a guideline, and what ARE covered by a guideline. --Timeshifter 16:31, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Timeshifter, we already went over this and it's not going to happen. The new disambiguation line will be sufficient. (Requestion 01:09, 27 May 2007 (UTC))
Who is we? Most everybody else agrees with me. In fact; until the recent reversion the introduction was much clearer. The previous introduction was arrived at by consensus. Only a few disgruntled editors such as yourself are trying to keep the introduction vague as a means to muddy the waters as to the rules governing external links. You have said clearly several times that you are trying to make this external links guideline apply to citation/reference links. You are in the minority on that. --Timeshifter 08:40, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Can a couple people check out this diff? Timeshifter made 18 consecutive edits to this WP:EL talk page which moved some sections around and deleted some comments. I don't think the removal of the "potatoes or 10 gallon hats" nutshell was appropriate." I'm not sure what else was changed. Not sure why either. (Requestion 01:21, 27 May 2007 (UTC))
Is everything a plot to you? I moved a related section down. I deleted the extra nutshell that I thought I originally added, and someone else vandalized without leaving a signature. I first just deleted the vandalism. Then I realized that the same nutshell was in the same section twice. I can put back my extra nutshell if you want. But I am trying to avoid duplication. Which is also why I moved the related section closer. So interested people can read the whole discussion. I really don't appreciate this constant accusative tone against everybody you disagree with. I think it is called paranoia (the popular meaning of the word). --Timeshifter 08:40, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Strengthening the Wikipedia policies and guidelines to make spamming more difficult is my mission. You happen not to share my mission. I don't think it's paranoia and I'll let you decide if that qualifies as a plot. (Requestion 20:00, 27 May 2007 (UTC))
I oppose spam. Citation/reference links are not spam, though. And keeping you from deleting citation/reference links is not a plot to promote spam on my part. --Timeshifter 21:32, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
I never said that citation/reference links were spam. I said that they could be spam. It's fairly obvious what your WP:EL mission is. (Requestion 22:13, 27 May 2007 (UTC))
And what is my obvious WP:EL mission, pray tell? I don't appreciate the uncivil insinuations. As several others have suggested, you need to take the discussion about possible citation/reference link spam to Wikipedia:Citing sources. Because Wikipedia:External links does not cover citation/reference links. Remember the disambiguation sentence you approved?: "For the guideline on citation/reference links, see Wikipedia:Citing sources."--Timeshifter 22:26, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Check the history log, the nutshell addition that you deleted was not vandalism but it was a clever, relevant, and humorous point made by a regular contributor to this page. I'm not sure if that editor agrees with me or was making fun of me, in anycase it should not of been deleted. (Requestion 20:00, 27 May 2007 (UTC))
Feel free to put it back, along with the signature and timestamp. Without the signature and timestamp it just looks like vandalism. If it was added to the nutshell that I added, then it was definitely vandalism, and the duplicate nutshell should be left out. --Timeshifter 21:30, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Nope, it wasn't added to your nutshell. You deleted it and it is your responsibility to put it back. Even if you were WP:AGF'ing, what you did still amounts to petty vandalism. I suggest you fix your mistake. (Requestion 22:13, 27 May 2007 (UTC))
I don't know who added the nutshell. Me or someone else. If you can prove that someone else added the nutshell originally, then I will gladly return it. I need a diff. You said you found one. --Timeshifter 22:19, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Well here is the diff. (Requestion 22:58, 27 May 2007 (UTC))
I returned the other nutshell. I also added the unsigned template:
{{subst:unsigned2|12:24, 25 May 2007|J.smith}}. --Timeshifter 23:08, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
I will be changing the introduction to the above proposed version unless I hear some alternatives. Requestion does not want the introduction clarified as he does not want Wikipedia:External links to not apply to citation/reference links. Even the previous longstanding consensus version of the introduction (see this revision) was clearer than the current introduction which was introduced without discussion. See this diff. --Timeshifter 09:07, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm going to revert you on that change. One mention of WP:CITE in the disambiguation section at the top is sufficient for clarification purposes. (Requestion 20:00, 27 May 2007 (UTC))
You did not just revert my moving of the sentence up farther in the introduction. You actually removed the sentence, thus making the subject of this guideline less clear than before. See this diff. Fortunately, User:2005 put the sentence back in the introduction. As I said, you are in the minority concerning your desire to make Wikipedia:External links apply also to citations/references. It does not apply to citation and reference links, and never has. Please stop abusing the intent of this wikipedia guideline. --Timeshifter 21:26, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I did intend to remove that sentence. I agreed to the disambiguation line that we discussed above because I thought it would allow us to clean up and reduce the introduction. My mistake, I should of known better. (Requestion 22:13, 27 May 2007 (UTC))
I moved the "nofollow" sentence from the introduction down to another section. As was discussed on this talk page. See this diff. --Timeshifter 09:27, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Good move. It is much better down there. (Requestion 20:00, 27 May 2007 (UTC))
I consolidated the disambiguation sentences at the top of the article. As was agreed on this talk page. See this diff.--Timeshifter 09:30, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I like that. (Requestion 20:00, 27 May 2007 (UTC))
Striked it out because I changed my mind. I had no idea this would cascade. You know the saying, "give them an inch and they'll take a mile." (Requestion 00:55, 28 May 2007 (UTC))

User:2005 moved a sentence. I added another sentence. Here is the end result:

The subject of this guideline is external links that are not citations of article sources. If the website or page to which you want to link includes information that is not yet a part of the article, consider using it as a source for the article, and citing it. Refer to the citation guideline for instructions on citing sources. External links used as inline embedded citations are covered by Wikipedia:Embedded citations.

It is the 3rd paragraph in the introduction. It returns the previous clarity to the introduction as to what this guideline covers. It is clearer and shorter than the last clear introduction that was removed without discussion during this edit earlier in May 2007.--Timeshifter 21:52, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Rename article to "External links that are not citations"?

Requestion suggested earlier that the article be renamed because the current article name, "Wikipedia:External links" conflicts with this article redirect, External links, that he sometimes links to. --Timeshifter 17:56, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Let me just say that I don't support your twisted misrepresentation of what I said. I don't appreciate it either. (Requestion 21:29, 24 May 2007 (UTC))
Also, external links are NEVER required to create a proper citation. When a citation is complete the external link is only there as a aid to the reader. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 22:47, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
Linked pages can be citations/references. Not all links are citations/references. This guideline is only about links that are NOT citations/references. Many people get confused by this. Thus the proposed change in the nutshell and article title.--Timeshifter 02:04, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
Requestion wrote: "If WP:EL does not apply to external links then the name needs to be changed. No amount of additional wording will change this potential for confusion." It is you who is doing the twisted misrepresentation of the meaning of "external links". Another example of a straw man argument. --Timeshifter 02:01, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
Wrong again. That is not a straw man argument. What I created was a false dilemma. Like I said above, please try to keep your logical fallacies straight. (Requestion 02:42, 25 May 2007 (UTC))
This is all almost irrelivent... it would be a very rare situation where a site that fails WP:EL would qualify as a Reliable source... and almost never as a reliable secondary source. I realy don't see why WP:EL shouldn't apply to external links within citations.
Also, if the only citation something has is an EL, then the it has an incomplete citation that should be expanded to a full citation that dosn't rely on the external link... for quite a number of reasons. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 02:55, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
J.S, you wrote: "I realy don't see why WP:EL shouldn't apply to external links within citations." Well, it doesn't. The introduction, nutshell, and/or title of the article need to be clear about this. The introduction has been much clearer in the past. Even the recent past until someone reverted it to an unclear version. Many past revisions of the introduction over the years have been much clearer about this. --Timeshifter 17:10, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
Give it up Timeshifter. People don't agree with you. (Requestion 22:55, 27 May 2007 (UTC))

Since no one is actually proposing this can we not comment in this section anymore please, and just archive it? 2005 02:57, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Sure, archive it... doesn't make much of a difference to me, but it still seems like the conversation is active. *shrug* Either way... ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 03:01, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
Many laypeople and beginner editors are going to come to this guideline first to find out the rules, and correct methods of insertion, for external links. So we need to be absolutely clear where they need to go for the guidelines concerning various types of external links. We need to let them know right away without wasting their time. That means using the title of the article, the nutshell, the disambiguation sentences, and/or the first paragraph of the article. We need a nested tree of info concerning external links:
Wikipedia:External links
Wikipedia:Citing sources
Wikipedia:Embedded citations
Each one covers a different area concerning external links. The bottom 2 overlap. --Timeshifter 17:20, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
Creepy. Very creepy. EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:58, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Introduction unclear again

Requestion has completely rewritten the introduction without discussion. See this diff. --Timeshifter 23:20, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Timeshifter can you please stop violating WP:MULTI. It is becoming next to impossible to follow all of the duplicate threads that you have started. The WP:EL diff [20] removed a couple unnecessary sentences and it was discussed above. The nature of the red diff algorithm makes it look like a lot more was changed than actually was. (Requestion 00:49, 28 May 2007 (UTC))
From WP:MULTI: "Centralized discussion: Avoid posting the same thread in multiple forums." I am posting all of this on this talk page. Your new complete rewrite also deleted all 3 disambiguation sentences at the top that everybody agreed with. The new rewrite leaves the introduction vague again as to what this guideline covers. --Timeshifter 00:56, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
I will move the related sections down to the bottom of the page with this one. --Timeshifter 00:59, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Don't go moving stuff around. That will just add more to the confusion. (Requestion 01:15, 28 May 2007 (UTC))
Stop telling people what to do. I follow correctly-interpreted wikipedia guidelines, not wikipedia editors. --Timeshifter 08:51, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

At the same time Requestion is using the vagueness of Wikipedia:External links to support the deletion of large parts of lists and charts that took years to compile. See Comparison of time tracking software.

See this diff:

Requestion supports this huge blanking of much of this chart. That represents almost 2 years of work down the drain. He also supports the deletion of embedded citation/reference links in this chart that do not meet his misinterpretations of wikipedia guidelines such as Wikipedia:External links.

Another editor will only allow entries that have their own wikipedia pages. So Requestion deletes the links. And the other editor deletes entries that do not have their own wikipedia pages. So between the 2 of them they have created a reference-free chart that is much smaller than the original chart.

I did not edit this chart. But I have experience with other lists and charts. There is no wikipedia guideline (correctly applied) that allows this huge deletion of much of the chart, and almost 2 years worth of work.

Here is the chart before the mass deletion of much of it:

Imagine all the work it took over almost 2 years. The links are embedded citations, though I would format them differently. See: Wikipedia:Embedded citations. --Timeshifter 00:38, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Nothing is lost, it's still all in the history log. (Requestion 00:49, 28 May 2007 (UTC))
Several other new entries added by other editors since then have also been deleted. It is a big unnecessary jumbled mess that will need to be eventually sorted out. --Timeshifter 00:58, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

The enthusiasm of Timeshifter and Requesition for improving this guideline is admirable. A favor, however - can you please move the personal vendettas to the relevant User talk pages. Your constant back and forth has made it difficult to follow any lines of argument and has sufficiently bloated this discussion page. Both of your are trying to force a point of view without proper consideration of WP:CONSENSUS. This is not a popularity contest nor a cage match of ideas. This is a place to discuss the guideline - not to discuss other editors. Please, take some time to cool off and come back with constructive suggestions that don't simply reiterate the same positions that been the source of so much unnecessary contention. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nposs (talk • contribs) 03:54, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Nposs. Consensus was reached previously, and the guideline was made clear. In early May 2007 an editor removed the info that made the intro clear. Without discussion. Only one editor, Requestion, is blocking consensus now. In the meantime in the last day another very useful page has been abandoned by a highly skilled editor due to Requestion's misinterpretation of Wikipedia:External links. See:
Panorama Stitchers, Viewers and Utilities (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs).
Here is the talk diff with John Spikowski's reasons for giving up. He abandoned the page, and redirected it to a completely different page without merging the very useful list. It could not be merged with the page he redirected it too. --Timeshifter 08:50, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree, the back and forth has gotten voracious and quite uncomfortable. A cool off period may be in order, or at very least moving the discussion off this page for a bit. I respect both of you and your opinions, but it is getting out of hand. JoeSmack Talk 07:32, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
JoeSmack. You are the editor that said in a discussion with me that unless a wiki is being checked on every 10 minutes it can't be stable. Another editor wrote: "If I may interject here, '10 minutes' seems like an absurdly high threshold for wiki monitoring. Not even Wikipedia can routinely pass that test. This seems like a case of the desire for the perfect being the enemy of the good." So, I think you are still mad at me for disagreeing with you elsewhere. --Timeshifter 08:38, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm not! I wasn't mad at you to begin with; I don't get angry here on Wikipedia, I get concerned. :) I didn't see that response, but I routinely revert bad edits under this arbitrary 10 minute threshold, and routinely see others do it too. JoeSmack Talk 15:21, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

SlimVirgin has made the introduction clear again. See this diff:

I am happy with it. --Timeshifter 08:58, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I've reverted the various changes that were never discussed here. 2005 10:27, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I am happy with your last version too. Here is the diff:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AExternal_links&diff=134048891&oldid=133987237 --Timeshifter 10:49, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm also happy with 2005's version. It disambiguates but it doesn't change the rules. (Requestion 17:31, 29 May 2007 (UTC))

Maybe User:2005 and User:SlimVirgin can combine their 2 versions of the introduction.--Timeshifter 10:51, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think I would be happy with such a combined version. (Requestion 17:31, 29 May 2007 (UTC))
Why am I not surprised? --Timeshifter 06:18, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

What consensus means

This is a pretty important page on Wikipedia. Any changes that are going to be made should have a pretty broad base of support already in place on this discussion page before they are actually implemented. Timeshifter has been doing a lot of talking, but not getting much agreement and also getting a number of disagreements. That's not consensus. SlimVirgin has several times now just up and changed the policy quite dramatically. That's not consensus either. Please stick to offering up suggestions on how to make changes. If any of them are necessary then a number of people wlll agree. Until then you shouldn't be making any changes. DreamGuy 11:21, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

The only person disagreeing with the idea of making the introduction clearer as to exactly what Wikipedia:External links covers is Requestion. --Timeshifter 11:45, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Amen. Changing the guideline without consensus is rude and presumptuous, as well as just dumb since the changes will be reverted. And in case some don't get it, even good ideas should not be added without consensus, since at a future date anyone could remove them because they lacked a consensus when added and we are back to square one, with a contentious disagreement to boot. I don't get people who think their own opinion is all that matters, but that's not how this guideline is going to work no matter how many times someone tries. 2005 21:38, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

List of Mind Mapping software

I did some routine cleanup of external links in List of Mind Mapping software. A couple of editors are complaining in Talk:List_of_Mind_Mapping_software#Linkfarm. Could someone take a look? -- Ronz  21:33, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I took a look I agree with them. The article is a list of software. For any article that doesn't have a wikipedia page a link to the official website is reasonable (as per List of bicycle manufacturers). I don't think this was a link farm, I agree with the editors of the page. Our policies shouldn't make pages less useful to readers. jbolden1517Talk 02:47, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
The usefulness of an article is how well it covers the topic at hand in an encyclopedic manner. A list of links isn't necessarily useful. "What Wikipedia is not" is pretty clear on the issue: WP:NOT#LINK Articles are not "mere collections of external links or Internet directories. There is nothing wrong with adding one or more useful content-relevant links to an article; however, excessive lists can dwarf articles and detract from the purpose of Wikipedia." I don't find the List of bicycle manufacturers to be a good example of an implementation of external links. Ideally, the list would direct readers to articles about notable bicycle manufacturers. Adding external links to the non-notable ones has two bad effects: 1) it is a disincentive for editors to create red-links for manufacturers that probably should have articles 2) it encourages every dude with a garage and a blow-torch to add his name a link to his website. This pattern of editing actually rewards those who edit Wikipedia for promotional purposes. Nposs 04:07, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
They are not mere external links. They are citation/reference links. See the wikipedia guideline section I quoted farther down. It is from the same guideline page you quoted from. Non-notable entries should not have their own wikipedia pages. All entries (like all info in wikipedia) should be verifiable. The easiest way is to link to their home pages with an embedded citation. --Timeshifter 11:00, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
I don't think this article is as useful as Comparison of IRC clients, which includes well-organized tables full of objective information. I have some experience with List of search engines, which has a rule that all entries need to have their own Wikipedia articles. That tends to keep spam out, and it establishes a minimum notability requirement. Would anything important be lost if such a rule were imposed here? The entries in this article are mostly unsourced. (There is nothing backing up the statement that is made about each package). Removing the software packages that don't have their own articles would eliminate that problem because we assume that the free-standing articles about the separate programs would include their own sourcing. EdJohnston 04:59, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Only the topic of a list or chart has to be notable. Individual items on the list do not have to be notable. From WP:NOT#DIR:
"Of course, there is nothing wrong with having lists if their entries are famous because they are associated with or significantly contributed to the list topic, for example Nixon's Enemies List. Wikipedia also includes reference tables and tabular information for quick reference. This site search, and this one, pull up thousands of examples of lists and comparison tables. Merged groups of small articles based on a core topic are certainly permitted."
I will keep repeating this wikipedia guideline as necessary. Software lists and charts should not consist mainly of companies with bigger advertising budgets and better press. Wikipedia does not support shared monopolies (also called an oligopoly. --Timeshifter 10:48, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I will be reverting this list to the last sourced version with all the reference/citation links. From Wikipedia:Verifiability (emphasis added):

This page in a nutshell: Articles should contain only material that has been published by reliable sources. Editors adding or restoring material that has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, or quotations, must provide a reliable published source, or the material may be removed.

This is from an official wikipedia policy page. --Timeshifter 11:20, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

From Wikipedia:Reliable sources (emphasis added):

"Wikipedia:Verifiability says that any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged needs a source, as do quotations, and the responsibility for finding a source lies with the person who adds or restores the material. Unsourced or poorly sourced edits may be challenged and removed at any time. Sometimes it is better to have no information at all than to have information without a source. See that page for more information about Wikipedia's policy on sourcing."

That is from the introduction of that page. So people who are removing citation/reference links are seriously violating wikipedia policies. --Timeshifter 11:33, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I think your argument for suggesting that external links to the websites of products/etc. that are not notable enough for their own article is a bad precedent. I also find that it is not supported by the policy you quote. You suggest they should have an external link because the guideline says "any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged needs a source." The existence of a website/product/organization is not "likely to be challenged." Your logic appears to be that since any unsourced edit can be challenged, all edits require sources. That is incorrect and bad precedent. The external link you claim is being used as a reference is only supporting the fact that the software does indeed exist. No one is removing items from the list of mind mapping software claiming they do not exist and then refusing to do Google search to see if it does exist or not. If we wanted to get entirely legalistic (interpreting guidelines literally), it could be argued that the website of a piece of software does not constitute a "reliable source" (WP:RS) since it constitutes a "self-published" source. You'll have to find another way to prove that these inline external links that do not support any important fact (other than the fact that someone has a website) are references. Nposs 12:53, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
I have to agree with Nposs. Adding any item with a website to a list article makes WP an "indiscriminate collection of information." I fall back on the words of WP:N: "List articles, though, should include only notable entries; for example, only notable writers should be in List of English writers." That guideline is pretty clearcut to me. UnitedStatesian 13:18, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
That guideline page is contradicted by this quote below from a POLICY page. From WP:NOT#DIR:
"Of course, there is nothing wrong with having lists if their entries are famous because they are associated with or significantly contributed to the list topic, for example Nixon's Enemies List. Wikipedia also includes reference tables and tabular information for quick reference. This site search, and this one, pull up thousands of examples of lists and comparison tables. Merged groups of small articles based on a core topic are certainly permitted."
Wikipedia can not set an ironclad rule on what entries to put in lists and charts. It actually makes sense to only put notable writers in List of English writers. But it makes no sense in Nixon's Enemies List or software lists and charts. Otherwise wikipedia would be propping up business oligopolies. --Timeshifter 13:39, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
We've already been over this. WP:NOT#LINK overrides WP:NOT#DIR in this case. No matter how much the rules are twisted and how much a bunch of external links shapeshift into references, Wikipedia is not a linkfarm. (Requestion 17:28, 29 May 2007 (UTC))

The links being deleted are citation/reference links, and not just external links. I think there needs to be some kind of Wikipedia:WikiProject Lists and charts. Kind of like Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias and many other wikipedia project pages. Someone needs to start it. I am sure many editors will join it if it gets started. Because there is a group of editors going around and blanking large parts of list and chart articles. They are violating wikipedia policies by deleting sourced info and the citations for it. It is a very serious violation of wikipedia policies when looked at correctly as blanking sourced info.--Timeshifter 11:56, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Can someone who likes the current List of mind mapping software point to a similar article that you think is well done? It seems to me that this is a weak article, since there are no sources to justify the particular selection of software packages, nor the comments that are made about each package. As others have noted, just pointing to the web site of the maker of the software does not provide a reliable source. These days nearly every product on the market has a web site, so that is no mark of distinction. Someone mentioned Nixon's Enemies List, but that one is extremely well-sourced as an historic list, and as a bonus every person on that list also has their own article. If a third party had made an analysis of mind-mapping software and we reported the list of what they considered notable, that might be one way to do it. Wikipedia is not a directory; an article should add some value, and not just echo what is said on the web sites of the makers. EdJohnston 13:37, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia should not be propping up business oligopolies by only listing the programs with the best advertising budgets and media connections. Money often buys media coverage through advertising in the same issue in which the program is reviewed. A "scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours" system. There are many software lists and charts. They have various formats. The one rule-of-thumb that most people seem to agree with is that a software list or chart must tell something specific about most of the individual programs. Features, points of distinction, etc.. Otherwise it is just a directory, and it is against wikipedia guidelines to create directories on wikipedia. There is no point anyway in duplicating directories that are usually already on the web. It wastes wikipedia editors' time. It is the details that make the chart or list encyclopedic. Plus the WP:NPOV nature. That makes many of these lists and charts unique on the web. No sneaky POVs to push one product over another. No advertising language. No reviews. --Timeshifter 13:48, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Discussion begun over at the village pump: Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#List_articles_full_of_links_as_.27references.27

It seems the "nofollow" argument is invalid: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam#Invisible_inkspam. -- Ronz  15:20, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm puzzled by User:Timeshifter's reference to 'business oligopolies.' Wikipedia does its own investigations as to what information is worth keeping. We try to see through advertising and find out what's really important. There is no justification for including a software package in one of our list articles if our *only* research is to look at the website of the maker. We should be using secondary sources, and citing them at the bottom of the article. I do not see any secondary sources in List of mind mapping software that comment on ANY of the software packages used. (The Medical Education article is paper-based, not software-based). EdJohnston 20:45, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

(Unindent). WP:CITE and WP:Verifiability cover citation/reference links. See this section of WP:Verifiability. That section, titled "Self-published and questionable sources in articles about themselves", states:

Material from self-published sources and sources of questionable reliability may be used in articles about themselves, so long as:
  • it is relevant to their notability;
  • it is not contentious;
  • it is not unduly self-serving;
  • it does not involve claims about third parties;
  • it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the subject;
  • there is no reasonable doubt as to who wrote it.

So in an article discussing the existence and features of their program, a link to their homepage, features page, etc. is allowed. --Timeshifter 03:10, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for the duplication of some of the info at Village Pump. From Wikipedia:Village pump (policy): "Discussions older than 5 days (date of last made comment) are moved here. These discussions will be kept archived for 9 more days. During this period the discussion can be moved to a relevant talk page if appropriate. After 9 days the discussion can only be found through the page history."

So some more of the talk there will be moved here eventually anyway. --Timeshifter 03:14, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Timeshifter, you keep quoting WP:NOT#DIR and specifically Of course, there is nothing wrong with having lists if their entries are famous because they are associated with or significantly contributed to the list topic. Can you tell me how each of the items in the list are either famous because of their association with the topic or how they each have significantly contributed to the list topic? Their mere existence in the list doesn't add significant value to it, it just makes it longer. Also, why have you said on your talk page that User:Requestion's viewpoint is in the minority? From what I can see here it is in the majority, and over at the village pump there is an equal number on both sides...-Localzuk(talk) 08:34, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
Opinion is split on lists and charts and the notability of items on them. I suggest we let the talk pages of the articles decide. I have been reading the talk pages of some more lists and charts, and over time they have many of the same discussions we are having. As I said at the Village Pump, I now believe that a satisfactory compromise is to avoid duplicate linking by not putting an inline link on the list or chart page if there is already a wikilink for the entry. This solves most alleged spam problems, and does not delete entries. Requestion is definitely in the minority on this talk page here. He is trying to make a radical change of this guideline. Elsewhere Requestion's popularity varies by talk page, and by the day. So does mine. There is room for compromise on issues outside this guideline. --Timeshifter 04:32, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
Requisition does not appear to be in the minority in believing that the inclusion of lists of items that simply link to company websites and which do not provide additional encyclopedic information in someway is inappropriate. His opinion that this particular guideline should apply to links that are used in citations is in the minority, but that's does not mean he is not part of a larger agreement that the type of lists you are defending are basically directories. -- Siobhan Hansa 14:01, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
This talk page is about Wikipedia:External links, and as you and others have said, Requestion is in the minority in trying to to make this guideline change radically to apply to non-citation links. You are misstating my position on other lists and charts. I have never said I supported "lists of items that simply link to company websites and which do not provide additional encyclopedic information". I do not appreciate my position being misrepresented. And a pragmatic solution seems to have been reached on many lists and charts concerning citation/reference links. People have allowed wikilinked entries to serve as the citation/reference for those entries. So there is no duplication of citation/reference links on multiple wikipedia pages - thus blocking their utility as spam (intended or not). So when there is no separate wikipedia page for an entry the citation/reference link remains on the list or chart page. Notability discussions about lists and charts, and their entries, is wide and varied. But that discussion needs to be continued at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Lists, as does discussion about sourcing lists. Because neither discussion is about non-citation external links (the topic of Wikipedia talk:External links). --Timeshifter 17:24, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
I apologize if I have misstated your position - It wasn't my intent, it is what I understood from your previous comments and what I believe Localzuk was inquiring about in the comment you responded to when you simply suggested Requisition was in the minority. Localzuk was drawing your attention to the fact that WP:NOT#DIR requires a list to be more than a simple collection of all associated entities and that items should in some way be famous or significant. I do not believe that a simple link to the main page of a website is appropriate as a citation in most cases - it is simply an external link wrapped up in the pretense of being a citation, and then it also fits under this guideline. -- Siobhan Hansa 17:52, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
Apology accepted. Actually there are 3 problems here. Notability, encyclopedic value, and citations/references. WP:NOT#DIR says that items in a list do not have to be notable in themselves. The topic of the list must be notable. But there are conflicting wikipedia guidelines, and list and chart editors vary widely in their treatment of that issue. That is offtopic for this talk page. A simple list of entries without some details, features, etc., is usually (not always) considered to be a directory. Depends on the list. That also is offtopic for this talk page. Ontopic is WP:CITE and WP:Verifiability. Those guidelines cover citation/reference links. As does Wikipedia:No original research#Primary, secondary, and tertiary sources.--Timeshifter 18:32, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
WP:NOT#DIR does not say an item doesn't have to be notable in itself - it says there is nothing wrong with a list "if the entries are famous..." due to their association with the list topic. That still means that the item needs to do more than exist, it may not be suitable for an article of its own, but it needs to be notable in relation to the list topic. While this is digressing from the core of this guideline, it is appropriate in that in practice the understanding seems to touch on what links are impacted by this guideline. If WP:NOT is no longer taken to mean we shouldn't have these types of articles I'd certainly be more likely to support Requisition's position on what this guideline should cover, though I'd prefer the more classic understanding of WP:NOT#DIR and WP:EL. -- Siobhan Hansa 20:32, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
Timeshifter, could you please tell me what a "wikilink" is? You've used that term several times and I have no idea what it is. External, internal, or inter-wiki link? (Requestion 21:19, 31 May 2007 (UTC))
In my experience, "wikilink" refers to a link to another page in the same Wiki, in this case, another page in WP. Inter-wiki would be used for a link that goes to a page in a different Wikimedia Foundation wiki, and external link would be to a page outside of Wikimedia. UnitedStatesian 00:27, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

See this section of WP:Verifiability. That section, titled "Self-published and questionable sources in articles about themselves", states:

Material from self-published sources and sources of questionable reliability may be used in articles about themselves, so long as:
  • it is relevant to their notability;
  • it is not unduly self-serving;
  • it does not involve claims about third parties;
  • it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the subject;
  • there is no reasonable doubt as to who wrote it.

So in a wikipedia article discussing the existence and features of an entry on a list or chart, a properly-formatted citation link to the entry's homepage, features page, etc. is a citation showing that the program and features exist. As I said previously though, there is no need to duplicate the citation link if there is a separate wikipedia article for the entry. This avoids most of the possible spam problems.--Timeshifter 18:35, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

You seem to be repeating the same arguments verbatim. The point that User:SiobhanHansa was hinting at above was that this type of article is basically a directory, and WP is not a directory. A program should *not* be included in List of mind mapping software entirely on the basis of what is said on their web site. The quote that you have now given us from WP:V (twice in the current thread) is IMHO to allow the subject of a biography to testify as to their own date of birth, and stuff like that. The very context you are quoting from is more oriented to biographies rather than statements about a company. Certainly the corporate web site of a piece of software is not a reliable source as to the value of their software. EdJohnston 19:41, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
I have to agree with EJ: the key phrase in that section of WP:V is '"in articles about themselves."' Ignoring for the moment that "themselves" seems to only allow for people, List of Mind Mapping software is not an article about ANY of the firms mentioned in that artcle, so that section of WP:V does not apply to any of them. UnitedStatesian 20:41, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
Neither of your comments, EdJohnston or UnitedStatesian, have to do with the topic of this talk page, which is non-citation external links. --Timeshifter 01:29, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, my bad. UnitedStatesian 03:37, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
No need to apologize. Timeshifter is wrong. The links in question are not reliable sources (WP:RS) which means that they are not citations. They are external links and it is definitely on topic to discuss them here. The discussion at Talk:List of mind mapping software is still under way but Timeshifter is attempting to apply this flawed interpretation to other articles. When that discussion closes we'll need to centralize this topic to avoid duplicate future discussion. (Requestion 15:35, 4 June 2007 (UTC))

EL pimping of free content sites

I would like to point at:

This is a move by User:Phil Sandifer to enhance the visibility of external links that are recognized as Free Content sites. I understand wikipedia wants to promote the use of Free Content, but this seems a bit over the top to me. Also the fact that the redirects leave people no choice about which of the two forms they want to see on their articles, seems premature to me. The whole discussion kinda got out of control because of User:Matthew's involvement, but that doesn't take away from the fact that several people so far have objected, and that some admins now seem to support this replacement simply because Matthew opposed it. Some more input would be appreciated from users that regurly touch the EL subject.

TFDs:

Users that have opposed this full replacement seem to be:

Please try to give your objective opinion on adding the boxes, replacement of the old link, etc and try to avoid being pulled into any edit warring. I'm trying to pull more people into this discussion, because it now seems to be a Matthew vs. the admins issue, which is clouding the discussion more than a bit. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:37, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I have also proposed a solution to the edit conflict --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:40, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
The tactics people use to violate this guideline are mindboggling sometimes. 2005 20:24, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure WP:EL applies here since the TfD's are about inter-wiki links that are internal links. The potential for abuse is still there but it's just different. A lot of the spirit of WP:EL should apply though. (Requestion 20:29, 30 May 2007 (UTC))
These are links to Wikia, not Wikipedia. Wikia links certainly don't deserve special treatment. 2005 21:02, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
Do you mean Jimbo's Wikia creation? I believe these TfD's are about links to inter-wikis that are part of the m:Interwiki map. In either case, I agree that they shouldn't get any more special treatment than they already get from being [[internal links]]. Even the internal linkage is questionable IMO but that isn't the topic of the TfD.(Requestion 21:09, 31 May 2007 (UTC))

Man... it sure would have been courteous for someone to mention this discussion to me... In any case, I think there is a valid reason for keeping these. Two, actually. First, it is consistent with our mission to promote other free content resources. Second, these provide a helpful way to direct people as to where to add different kinds of content. Too many of our articles on fictional subjects are badly clogged with in-universe minutiae. And people rightly resent having this information removed. It's a strange case where we can consistently generate a consensus that this kind of information is inappropriate, but can't generate a consensus on many given pages. This practice is an attempt to combat that courteously - by promoting other, better places for these activities and trying not to treat those projects as inferior. If, and I say this from experience, you move somebody's lengthy plot synopsis to a Wikia they will complain that the Wikia is obscure. If you replace it with a link to that Wikia, they are, in my experience, much happier. And that's the crux of this - these templates are a useful tool for improving the project and helping shape topics that have been resistant to our best practices. They do so in a way that seems to me entirely positive - they promote free content, they promote contributing to free content resourecs, and they promote higher quality articles on Wikipedia. The downsides - that these sites aren't non-profit (hardly an issue to my mind, as Wikipedia, though non-profit, is not opposed to for-profit enterprises) and don't have quality assurance (can be fixed by pushing for the changes that already have wide support at m:Interwiki map, and anyway, Wikiquote doesn't have much quality assurance either) seem to me lesser than the upside of better free content resources, here and elsewhere. Phil Sandifer 19:21, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Quick (and I assure you, good faith) question: can you point me to where "to promote other free content resources" is stated as "our" (I assume WP's) mission? Thanks. UnitedStatesian 20:47, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
m:Mission statement, particularly "The goals of the foundation are to encourage the further growth and development of open content, social software WikiWiki-based projects" and "Wikimedia Foundation is dedicated to the development and maintenance of online free, open content encyclopedias, collections of quotations, textbooks and other collections of documents, information, and other informational databases in all the languages of the world that will be distributed free of charge to the public under a free documentation license." Phil Sandifer 21:35, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, but I don't see the text you quote on the linked page. Is it possible one of us is looking at an out-of-date version? UnitedStatesian 21:43, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
I don't see the exact wording Phil quotes either, but I do see something very similar. You might also take a look at the WikiMediaFoundation's FAQ [21] which includes:"The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally."' That certainly seems to support Phil's position (assuming one does not read as limited to content collected and disseminated on WikiMedia's servers). -- SiobhanHansa 21:48, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
My bad - I failed to notice that I got redirected off of the meta site when I clicked a link. The text I was looking at is at [22]. Phil Sandifer 22:04, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
The lack of courtesy was in creating such inappropriate templates without initiating a discussion on this page. It is not our mission to promote other free content resources. Frankly that is a bizzare thing to say. This is the Wikipedia encyclopedia, not a promotional platform for anything. Wikias very seldom merit a link, and making a template for these spam holes is one of the strangest ideas I've ever come across. I don't know how much cleanup is needed to remove these things, but i'd hope you undertake that cleanup yourself. And in the future, start discussions before taking inappropirate actions. 2005 21:41, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
See above link to the Wikimedia Foundation's mission statement. You are wrong about the goals of Wikipedia. Phil Sandifer 22:03, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
Don't make things worse by deliberately confusing the issue. The Wikimedia Foundation is not the Wikipedia. You're just being obstinate now. Wikia have their place, but they do NOT have the same priority as the Wikipedia, and the Wikimedia Foundation covers more than the Wikipedia. The templates you created directly violate the Wikipedia's external links guideline. You should have the courtesy now to clean up the mess you created. Links to open wikis are normally to be avoided, period. Sometimes they can be linked to, but usually not. THAT is the guideline, so please do not pretend otherwise. And, if you disagree with the consensus and think the guideline should say something else, have the courtesy to start a disscussion advocating that. Don't create templates to end run the guideline. If you can persuade the community that such Wikia links should be encouraged, fine, but as of now they are not because it is not the consensus of the community to link to open wikis, regardless of what you insist. 2005 23:36, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
Please stop being dense, sir. Phil Sandifer 23:47, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
What a surprise. You get caught breaking the guideline, you don't care, and then you accelerate your rude behavior. A simple, "I'm sorry, I should have brought it up on this talk page before creating the template" would have been appropriate. You obviously know you are wrong, unless you STILL have not read this guideline. So please spare us any more rudeness. 2005 01:44, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
When confronted with an explanation of why the guideline is worth ignoring in this case, the onus is really on you to come up with a better response than "you didn't touch third base." Your response is both unhelpful and uncivil. Phil Sandifer 02:48, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
So now on top of deliberately rude and "bold" you fall back on "ignore". Good lord, you aren't special. Please act with more courtesy, and stop defending your plainly inapprorpriate action. I askes you nicely more than once to fix the mess you made, but you insist on instead making rude comments and then saying you'll just ignore consensus anyway because you just can. You can say you are going to be unhelpful and uncivil if you want, but it won't do anything to prevent other editors from having courteous discussions where we try to arrive at consenus, and of course remove nonsensical templates when they are inappropriately added. I encourage you again to clean up the mess you've made, and come to this page with any proposals you want to make to change the guidelines. 2005 06:50, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
(Outdent) Well Phil, I'll take a crack at a civil response: I think it is a logical stretch to refer in this case to the WMF by-laws (so obscure that even you couldn't find them on the first try), bylaws which appear contrary to at least one WP policy (are they formed by consensus?). I hate to tar with this brush, but refering to by-laws (the letter), instead of continuing (as you started to do) trying to build consensus around demonstrating how those links make WP a better encyclopoedia (the spirit), seems like WikiLawyering. Do these by-laws trump every WP policy: can we include WP:NPOV or WP:OR material form other Wikis in articles in the name of ""encourag(ing) the further growth and development of open content, social software WikiWiki-based projects"? I also think you have ingnored potential unintended consequences: there may be only one Harry Potter wiki today, but what about when there are 50 (and there will be, someday, I assure you): should we clutter up hundreds of WP articles with links to all of them, all in the name of "encourag(ing) the further growth and development of open content, social software WikiWiki-based projects"? Creating an encyclopedia (unarguably the MOST successful of all Wiki projects) so cluttered with links as to be unusable, I would argue, does just the opposite. Every thoughtful WPian I have run into in WP (and you certainly seem like one), even (especially?) the ones with whom I strongly disagree, is committed to the best possible WP, and measures their actions SOLELY by how they advance the goals of the WP encyclopedia. Continued discussion welcome, of course. UnitedStatesian 03:25, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
The page really isn't that obscure - I found it by going to m:Foundation issues (Which is a very important page) and following a single link. I just didn't realize that link was taking me to the Foundation wiki instead of Meta - an understandable mistake, I should think. And I I should point out, my argument has rather more to it than just a quote from the Foundation's mission statement (which is, I should think, an important thing). As for the unusability of Wikipedia, that seems a slippery slope - surely we can maintain these on appropriate articles and remove them from inappropriate ones. Phil Sandifer 04:51, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
It appears, looking at the archive, that no more than seven or eight people weighed in on the discussion of external links to wikis. Truth be told, reading the discussion, it's a relatively poor one - no one mentioned the basic issue of promoting free content (which is part of the mission statement of the Foundation, as I've said), and the discussion seems to be predicated on the idea that enforcing WP:NOR and WP:V on our external links is a good idea, which I have no idea how anyone proposes to square away with WP:NPOV. Honestly, the guideline lookst o me like a classic case of the sort of bad, overzealous, overly robotic policy that routinely gets written when small groups try to write a policy to deal with a problem. It's the exact sort of thing that WP:IAR is made for - bright line guidelines that were created without any thought to the specific situation being faced. Nobody, to my knowledge, is seriously advocating that these boxes spread with no editorial judgment. Nobody, to my knowledge, seriously thinks things like the link to Wookieepedia on Tunisia was reasonable. But in the face of clear benefits (promoting free content, encouraging contributors to consider other avenues for certain types of contribution) I really don't find "violates guideline as thought out a year ago by seven people" that persuasive a reason to abandon the subject. And, it should be noted, given a hotly contested and almost certainly no-consensus-forming TfD on the FreeContentMeta template - one that has far more people than were involved in the discussion of the "no wikis" line of EL, it's clear that the line lacks consensus at present. Phil Sandifer 13:48, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
The discussion on wikis for external links centered on whether the information they can provide is the sort of information that is appropriate for an encyclopedia to be promoting - our concern was for quality and how the issues inherent in an openly editable website impact that and what editors could look for in a site to ensure those issues were mitigated. You make a false equivalence between free content and wikis. Wikis are not, by their nature, free. They only have free content if they are released under a free license. Non-wiki sites can be free and wiki sites can be non-free. The argument that we should treat wikis differently because they are free is a false one. We might want to consider whether free content should be encouraged in external links - and how to do that - but that is a different question to one about wikis in general. -- SiobhanHansa 14:09, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Your dislike of the guideline is understandable in that you have completely unencyclopedia ideas about linking. "Free" is basically useless criteria to base external links on, as is your political agenda. This guideline cares about users and thus focuses on merit, value and authority. Lots of people put up free pieces of garbage. We aren't here to link to "free". And we aren't here to link to unstable stuff that might not be there tomorrow. We want to link to recognized authority that adds value to articles over and above what we can have here. Blogs and wikis and forums and anonymous sites, while free, are in general miserable links, even if there are plenty of exceptions. Your position really is astonishing. It's like you think the typeface of the links is what matters. I suggest you start thinking about users and encyclopedic value rather than a desire to use the encyclopedia to promote your personal agenda. 2005 10:53, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
I am. So are most of the people who supported these templates and who demonstrated that your hardline view lacks consensus. Now, do you want to work with us to find a mutually acceptable solution, or do you want to be uncivil and obstructionist? Phil Sandifer 04:30, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Your ongoing uncivility is mind boggling. Spare us the petulance and act like a cooperative adult please. If you want to propose a wording change, and get consensus for that, fine. Till then the wording that had a previous, fairly longstanding, consensus is the operative text of the guideline. So go ahead and propose wording that allows wikis, blogs, forums and anonymous websites to be okay as external links as long as they are free. Frankly that would be fine with me since "free" is not relevant to value, and and low quality "free" would still not be linked, but I suspect those editors who foam at the mouth when they see a free blog link added will not be happy. At the same time though, please present a reason why you oppose the current wording which is for the most part excellent. We state when wikis can be linked. It excludes most wikis, which for the most part are pure garbage, and allows an exception for high quality ones with stability and a significant number of editors. What on earth is objectionable about that? Please be specific, don't just say "I want to support free stuff" as that is no compelling reason to link to crap stuff. 2005 06:46, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't really have anything invested in this guideline one way or another - I think it's a crappy one, stitched together of a dozen or so patches and decisions created for single incidents that apply poorly to the larger project. I think progress on it would require a nearly complete rewrite, and that, thankfully, it's an obscure enough page that it's easier to ignore than fix. Which is what I'm mostly doing. So I'm not going to propose a wording change, no. You, who are invested in tehg uideline, might want to, though, in order to deal with the lack of consensus the current form just enjoyed on TfD. Or not, really - 'tis all the same to me. I'm going to wait for the last of the TfDs on these to close and then go about my business again informed of the consensus or lack thereof for these boxes' exclusion. Phil Sandifer 14:00, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Just because you disagree with a consensus doesn't mean it doesn't exist. If you arrogantly ignore this guideline, your spam additions will just be removed. Arrogance, petulance and meglomania are not the three pillars of editing. Please respect the consensus of other eidtors and the consensus process yourself, or you will be the only thing "ignored". 2005 21:38, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
May I respectfully suggest that ignoring the results of multiple TfDs to edit war and remove templates would be... a poor decision. Phil Sandifer 00:31, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
So STOP. The TFD establishes there is no consensus for those templates. There never was. You recognize it as a poor decision so just stop. 2005 01:25, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Read the guideline. Links to wikis can be done in the rare cases they meet a criteria. They can be on appropriate articles. But we certainly do not need a template for exceptions (and at the very minimum the template should state it is for exceptions). Templates are for normal, mass consistency. Links to wikis will be by definition rare. 2005 06:54, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Depending on the fandom, we have between dozens and hundreds of articles that are completely appropriate for this kind of link. Templates are surely appropriate for that scale. Phil Sandifer 13:48, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
I tend to think the Foundation's mission statement is a reasonable basis for considering how we ought to apply guidelines and policies on Wikipedia - tempered of course by the necessities of this project. And because of that I think favoring external open content in someway - when it meets our purpose as an encyclopedia - is certainly arguable and I support it in theory. Having said that I don't like the templates at all, I don't think they do a good job of promoting free content, and I think they are really set up to promote particular wikis rather than free content in general. A small icon like we use for PDFs that can be added to any and all external links to free content would seem to be a better way to highlight our free content. -- SiobhanHansa 13:35, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

And now Template:FreeContentMeta has survived TfD. This seems to me to indicate, at the very least, a lack of consensus for the position that such external links are absolutely verboten. So the next question is - how can we modify this guideline to reflect the lack of consensus it enjoys on TfD? Phil Sandifer 01:52, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Please stop with the nonsense. The guideline does not say they are absolutely verboten. Please take the time to read it before making any more posts like this. 2005 06:48, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
That really dodges the main point I was making - the TfD just showed that your claim that these templates violate the guideline lacks consensus. This could mean your interpretation of the guideline is wrong, it could mean the text of the guideline fails to describe current practice. Now - what do you want to change to resolve this contradiction? Phil Sandifer 14:00, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
It shows nothing of the sort. The guideline has a consensus. If you want to try and change it do so. If not, please stop insulting the efforts of other editors and begin acting like an editor of a cooperative project, not one where you just ignore anything and everybody you please. 2005 21:38, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
And the TfD means... Phil Sandifer 00:31, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
You know what it means. There is no consensus for those templates, period. They can be removed on sight by anyone. 2005 01:27, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, Phil, I think the TfD means the template survived, nothing more. No one was voting on changing guidelines. JoeSmack Talk 01:37, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
About three times as many people weighed in on the TfD as on the section of this guideline in question. And it's only a guideline. It seems ridiculous to suggest that the template survived but still cannot be used. Phil Sandifer 13:14, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Even if there was consensus to keep the template, that would still not equal a blanket license to spam Wikipedia with it. Usage of the template will be judged just like any other link. Same rules, no special treatment. (Requestion 15:51, 4 June 2007 (UTC))

How do external wikis provide a unique resource beyond what our own articles would contain if they became Featured articles? I worry about the lack of editorial control. SourceWatch in particular seems to have some very biased and POV articles, and is one of the most frequently linked-to websites on the English Wikipedia. Regards, MoodyGroove 19:43, 6 June 2007 (UTC)MoodyGroove

You're correct on everything you say (well, except possibly about SourceWatch, which I haven't seen and can't comment on). External wikis should be avoided at all costs, and certainly not encouraged with templates. And some attempted new policy page that went up a while back got soundly rejected. So we should start to remove competing wiki sites when they come up (and I would include such things as NNDB, as it's the same concept and process even if not explicitly called a Wiki project). DreamGuy 22:01, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

List of companies working in Technopark

Given the discussion above Wikipedia_talk:External_links#List_of_Mind_Mapping_software and related discussions, I'd like others' opinions on List of companies working in Technopark.

I consider the article a linkfarm, and started cleaning up the links when I noticed there were only 2 internal links in the list of 110 entries. I considered this reason enough to propose the article for deletion.

Since then, two entries have been removed and six others have been changed to internal. That gives 8 internal links in a list of 108 entries. -- Ronz  19:57, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Looks like a linkfarm that will be very difficult to keep clean. Removing everything but the blue links is probably the best option. But then at that point why not just merge what's left of the list into the Technopark,_Kerala article? (Requestion 20:25, 30 May 2007 (UTC))
This discussion is offtopic. Please discuss it elsewhere, such as at
WP:CITE
WP:Notability
Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies)
Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Lists.
I will copy this over to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Lists. --Timeshifter 17:31, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Policy discussion about external links and references in lists

Subsequent to the mind mapping discussion, user MPS has made an interesting policy suggestion over at: Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Proposal_to_avoid_duplicate_links.2C_and_to_shorten_page_load_times_for_dialup_users. Your comments and suggestions would be welcome. Nposs 20:30, 30 May 2007 (UTC)


Exernal Links for Reviews

I'm currently debating with Wiki users regarding external links for video game reviews. As of now, these individuals are bringing the Reliable source issues into External Links for video reviews.

Although I don't agree with Wikipedia's Doorman policies for what should and should not have an article here, External Links are/should not be subject to the same strict rules. Now even if my subject is about giving out External Links to video game reviews, it could apply to any sort of reviews. Most people in this world who give out reviews about products did not go to any special schools and obtained any special diplomas in the field of reviewing products, most of them are simply really into what they are reviewing such as movies, TV shows, games, music, etc... In short, a review is a personal opinion and a personal opinion is equal by human rights. So from the most popular website to the least popular website, the personal opinions are on the same level.

Also, the "Reliable source" should not apply to reviews because a source, in it's journalistic origin, is something that will give you insides on what's going on, insides that the general public is not meant to know. Reviews are for products that are normally available to the mass market and their only means of existence is to prevent this mass market from trying everything themselves. Reviews are not big secrets like insides to an upcoming product (those are previews), no, a review is something that will give out a description of something for which an individual can find out by himself. Although personal opinions do differ from time to time, they tend to be generally similar. If a movie that just came out is terrible, odds are, most reviews will give it a bad rating. I don't see why the bad rating from one website would be accepted when another one isn't. As for misinformation issues, I fail to see how this would be purposely done. If the movie was a Slasher movie and someone makes a review saying it's a comedy, that's just plain wrong and it's easy to see that this is not a real review.

Please bring real arguments to this. Answers like "Because it's part of the Wikipedia Policies" or "Because the moderators said so" are not valid arguments. Remember, just like reviewers, moderators are people that give their personal opinion. The only difference between them and normal users is that they have their name on a mod list. None of them have a special education or diploma stating that their personal opinion is better than others and not because they don't know about a website means that it's not popular or not worth mentioning.

Duhman0009 04:01, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Game reviews quite simply shouldn't get tossed into the "External links" section; they should be instead used as citations for a "Critical reaction" section. The EL section of an article should be reserved for links that substantially increase the reader's knowledge on the subject, or otherwise augment the content of the article (such as a link to Wookieepedia's article on Darth Vader on our Vader article, or the official website for the subject of the article). Some random video game review is neither of those, but it does work well to support claims that a video game is critically praised, panned, or divisive. EVula // talk // ☯ // 14:20, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
So your main answer is that reviews should not be added as External Links period. All or nothing, I could live with that. Duhman0009 21:01, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Effectively, yes. EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:12, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Reviews are perfectly fine for external links. That in fact is where they should usually go since they offer POV. A critical reaction section is a poor idea, and using reviews as sources is much worse. That's hopelessly subjective and of almost no encyclopedic use. reviews should be kept in external links where they provide the things we generally support in this guideline... detail over an above what we can provide in this article, like "locked up my XP system with xxxx memory". Reviews are often the near perfect external links, they have detail, personality and (this is the critcal thing) expert analysis. Generic reviews have no place in an article, either as an external link or a source. Expert statement of fact should be cited; expert analysis/review should be in external links. 2005 22:48, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Uh, except for those not written by a recognized authority (Wikipedia:External_links#Links_normally_to_be_avoided), shouldn't be included in EL. If it meets reliable source guidelines I don't see a good reason not to use it as a citation. JoeSmack Talk 23:49, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Uh, that's what I just said. Reviews by recognized authorities should be in external links. This is a good thing that should be encouraged. Reviews should seldom be used as sources simply because they won't qualify. They could be used for factual statements as sources, like "the box is green", but for the most part reviews include the opinions of the reviewer and except in the cases of comparing those should not be used as sources. "The box is green" is fine for a cite. "This game is inferior to this other game because..." is not. 2005 01:33, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Any, and I mean ANY argument that contains "I think XXXXX should not be subject to the same strict rules..." isn't going to fly. I can't tell you how many people bring that stuff to this talk page - it's just a bad way to go into anything on Wikipedia. On another note, if any game review could be thrown into the EL section, we'd have game articles with some light info and then 10 pages of reviews. And answers like 'because it's wikipedia policy/guidelines' are valid answers, I don't see how you can ask someone not to bring a book to a debate. JoeSmack Talk 15:23, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Because answers like this prevents people from thinking outside the box. Let's see how we could solve the issue you presented. Now I agree that having pages just for External Links is ridiculous, but having an expendable box at the bottom might be a good area to having External Links for reviews. That might not be the best solution, but it's a fine example of thinking outside of the box and it's the first step into making something better. Wikipedia is suppose to be an Open Source Encyclopedia, but main it's Doorman policies kind of makes the entire concept an oxymoron. Duhman0009 21:01, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Can you please explain what you mean by 'Doorman policies'? Do you mean just plain old policies? Or do you include guidelines in this?
Any expandable box at the bottom for reviews isn't doing anything but hiding the problem posed above. I think we're all quite capable of thinking outside the box while keeping policies and guidelines in mind that have been established/refined over years of consensus. JoeSmack Talk 21:27, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
As you may know a Doorman, or a Bouncer if you prefer, is a person in charge of guarding an entrance. Unfortunately, for a lot of high class areas such as dance clubs, a Doorman will also judge who can and cannot enter this area based on how good, how cool, how popular, how rich a person looks like. Wikipedia is practicing the same concept here.
Again, I will take video game websites for example. 1up.com is a website that was launched in 2003, more or less 4 years ago. This website has it's own article because it is part of the Ziff Davis Media. Another gaming news website, The MagicBox (the-magicbox.com) as been around for like 10 years and Wikipedia refuses to have an article on this site because it's not the website of some big company. Wiki's policy would also refuse The MagicBox as a source link to be placed on a page. I hope my explanation was clear enough, if not, let me know and I'll try again. Duhman0009 21:39, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Hmm, I can see people acting like Doormen, but I don't see how policies are written as Doorman policies. If The MagicBox meets WP:RS guidelines, then include it. I don't think anywhere in WP:RS guidelines it says to go with the website of some big company because it's prettier. You're naturally going have editors making snap judgments on sites they are checking. Not sure you can necessarily help that except for by using the article talk page - thats what its there for. JoeSmack Talk 02:56, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
I got $5 saying that if I were to make the Wiki page for The MagicBox, that everyone would jump on it saying that it's not a reliable source. The translation to what their saying would be "It's not from a big company, it wasn't shown in the news paper or TV, so it shouldn't be here." I'm pretty sure that someone once made a page about it and it got removed for the same crap that I was talking about. The Wikipedia policies are responsible since the people going around and voting to have pages deleted because it makes them feel important are using these policies as arguments to have pages deleted. Duhman0009 03:31, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Er, wouldn't the most likely reason for that happening be that it isn't a reliable source? And please, no personal attacks - I don't think that people vote to delete things because it makes them feel important to cite policies (er, I realize there is some irony in me citing a policy in that sentence, heh). JoeSmack Talk 04:04, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Unless you attack someone directly, it's not a personal attack. Also, if you would consider this a personal attack, don't go on forums, you're gonna end up crying. As for the source issue, we're just going around in circles here. Just read everything I posted here again and think about it. Duhman0009 12:27, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Just because you don't attack someone to their face doesn't mean it's not a personal attack. Sometimes attacking someone behind their back is worse. Also, please remain civil. Statements like "you're gonna end up crying" could easily be taken as both a personal attack and not attempting to remain civil in a heated discussion. You're also treating this editor as if they were incompetent by telling them "Just read everything...and think about it." Stop. You're never going to get your point across if you continue replying in this manner. Step back, relax, and then reply. --132 14:01, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Boy do you like to twist things around. Is it paranoia or are you just trying make me look like a bad guy so that people won't take me seriously? Duhman0009 16:19, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
I didn't have to do that. You did it yourself. I'm just giving you a hint at how to best handle the situation (which you weren't handling very well). You can interpret that however you will. --132 16:30, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Please, do you take me for a fool? Don't you think I don't what you and your buddies are doing? You may not know it (because these actions are mostly from your subconscious) but you're provoking. Someone comes along and brings ideas that can (in the long run) threaten to change things, you all gang up but instead of attacking, you provoke in order to make the individual say things which can easily be twisted around and make this person seem unstable and therefor, people won't take him/her seriously. Wikipedia is not different form grade school in the sense that since there are rules, it's better to provoke than to attack because provoking might make the one you wish to annoy get into trouble. It's smart, but it's obvious. Duhman0009 16:42, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
(Undent) Please don't make assumptions. If you haven't noticed, I have made no mention about the actual topic being discussed. Why? Because I don't have an opinion about it nor do I know enough about it to feel like my opinion would be of any use. I commented on your behavior, not your idea. Please make that distinction. I am not trying to provoke you, indeed, I am trying to let you know how to handle heated discussion where provocation may come up. If you want to take that as me provoking you, then so be it, but know that is not what I was/am trying to do. Thank you. --132 16:47, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
The problem is that anyone and his trained monkey can create a blog and start reviewing movies, games, books, etc. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia of knowledge - we're not going to link to every single review on every single site for each movie - that would be unmanageable and of only limited usefulness to the reader. So I agree completely with EVula - if the review said something really relevant about it, include it as a topic in a "Critical Reaction" section - don't just link to it, but paraphrase what was said, using the link as the citation. I'm afraid that I don't agree with your assertion that every review has equal value to our readers. Some are definitely more useful than others. An example: A review that talks about what is good or bad about the movie, talking about the cinematogaphic techniques used, etc, might make me decide whether or not I want to go and see it. While a "review" simply stating "this movie is cool", probably wouldn't. -- Alucard (Dr.) | Talk 15:29, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
First, let's get rid of the idea that Wikipedia is like a real encyclopedia. Well over half the articles in here are not necessary in an encyclopedia. A real encyclopedia might have the names Nintendo, SEGA and SONY, but you won't find articles on the games these companies made. This alone make Wikipedia branch out in another direction and once you have broken out of the confined areas of similarities, you might as well keep on expending.
As for you comment on the average Joe review, let's use this for example. Let's say that you have been making video reviews on your website for the past 5 years, that you're really good at it and you have your fanbase. A fan of yours decides to add an external link to one of your reviews on a Wiki game page. Someone deletes the link but adds a GameSpot video review and the person in this video is doing his very first review ever. How would you feel about all of this? Although I'm sure you'll say that it's the way works on Wikipedia, I'm sure that you would be frustrated is that were to happen for real. Well that's the real problem with Wikipedia. It's Doorman policies of a website not being cool enough to be allowed is the very opposite of the Open Source concept. As of now, Wikipedia is no better than a school yard bully that won't allow some poor kid to play because he's not popular enough.
For your last point, stating your opinion by saying something is good or bad is not a review, it's just a quick answer that you would point in a survey. What makes a review is when you brake down the product or media and you give the high and low points and stating why. Duhman0009 21:01, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
I was simply trying to add a counter-argument to your initial assertion that all reviews had equal value so therefore should be linked on WP. Yes, I over-simplified, in an effort to make my point. I was hoping that would suffice. I still 100% agree with EVula's suggested solution regarding this. -- Alucard (Dr.) | Talk 13:22, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Regarding articles, you should feel free to jump in and suggest your changes at Wikipedia:Notability, which attempts the difficult task of deciding where to draw such a line somewhere between Earth and Blue stain on my pants.
  • Regarding sources, Wikipedia:Reliable sources has the similarly un-enviable task of helping to assess what should be considered valid for citation. As for your example of a 5 year reviewer with a fan base -- if a source comes from an recognized authority, then it should be considered valid. Now go help define recognized authority. Likely that other authorities (ex: gamespot) have recognized the 5-year reviewer.
  • Regarding external links, they should almost always be avoided. I also agree with EVula's suggestion. It is the exception that a link is appropriate for an article. I encourage you to stick around and participate in the ongoing discussion. ∴ here…♠ 19:13, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

As one of the not named "Wiki users" I'd like to point you to some user talk pages: 32X, Mgiganteus1 and Duhman0009, UbeMarsh. Since my own discussion page is pretty much filled up with this discussion already, I don't feel the need to continue here. --32X 22:19, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I see. It looks like the link that is ultimately in question here is this one. User:Duhman0009 has been quite staunch in fighting for this site's inclusion in EL sections, regardless of others' objections. I'm starting to see why this is such an uphill battle in seeing eye to eye. JoeSmack Talk 00:06, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
I cleaned up the Special:Linksearch/*.screwattack.com external links but I ran into 6490 MobyGames external links that use a template. This is a huge mess. I've opened up a report at WT:WPSPAM#mobygames.com about it. Guidance and advice is requested. (Requestion 01:29, 5 June 2007 (UTC))

External link cleanup in Ergonomics

Could someone take a look at the recent cleanup efforts of the external links in Ergonomics. A discussion has been started, but it doesn't say much yet Talk:Ergonomics#Recent_External_links_cleanup. -- Ronz  17:40, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Including External links in Articles

I recently did a search for "Lesson Plans" and at the bottom of the article were links to web sites that offered free Lesson Plans for teachers and parents. I wanted to add primary-resource.com to the list since I thought it would be very helpful. However, it was removed because it was viewed as 'promotional reasons'. I'm just a teacher trying to help fellow teachers find good resources.

Bob

Question on Appropriateness

There has been extensive discussion on the Baseball project page on the amount of links found on many article pages. One of the sites in question is being discussed extensively. The only defensible point that I can find is that this site presents the data in a different fashion than some of the other sites. Nearly every site that includes baseball statistics includes information in a table or in a similar format. The site in discussion presents them in pie charts and graphs. If the information is identical to other sites, but presented in a unique fashion, is that a satisfactory reason to include the site in the external links section? I am not inclined to, since the other sites are already in place AND tables are the most familiar and recognizable format for baseball statistics. //Tecmobowl 02:57, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I think it's the information which we deal with here. Painting the information on the side of kittens does not improve it sufficiently to require a link to the same information in a different format. Charts and graphs are sometimes more useful than numbers, but does that site's presentation bring any new insights? Maybe one should wait for some reviewers to comment on how great the pie charts are, and then there will be sources which indicate that it's a useful site. (SEWilco 03:22, 6 June 2007 (UTC))
Thanks for your comments. There might be one or two tidbits of information that are not found elsewhere, but nothing I would deem substantial. As a result, I have suggested that this type of information be included in the article and then referenced. In case you want to read up on the disccusion, here is the link. I'll warn you, it's a scattered and heated discussion that seems to focus on my editing style rather than the topic at hand. Many thanks for your response! // 04:14, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Merriam-Webster Online

Apparently Merriam-Webster now hosts an "open dictionary"[23] (read: user submitted, no notability or reference required) on the same URL as their normal dictionary. I only noticed it when a user tried to cite MW Dictionary in their article on a neologism they made up.

Not certain whether or not this is common knowledge, but since they both originate from http://www.merriam-webster.com and only one is legitimate, I figured it might be worth a look. BullzeyeComplaint Dept./Contribs) 17:09, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Request for opinion on some links

I have made a call for removal of some links at Talk:Kushan_Empire#External_link_policies. The two sites I am asking to remove do not cite any reliable sources and one is a coin sales site, clearly a commercial conflict with an academic article. Another editor does not agree with my views, so I am asking for outside opinion on these links. If any of you can chime in on the talk page for the article it would help break a deadlock. Buddhipriya 20:58, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Allstate

Could use someone to take a look at the article on Allstate insurance. User:Ombudsman keeps re-adding what I consider questionable links [24], and anons. come along adding other questionable links. Other IPs (often registered to the company) then come along and remove them. [25] It's questionable that the company edits its own article, but in this case, I don't think the links are appropriate. This cycle has been going on for a very long time. I have had conflicts with Ombudsman on other articles, so would like others to look at the links in the article. --Aude (talk) 03:06, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Junky "official" sites

Another user and I are having a polite disagreement over whether articles about artists (in the wide sense of the word) may (or even should) link to what are indisputably the "official" sites of those artists when those sites are primarily promotional rather than informative. One of us reads WP:LINK to say that permission to link to an official site trumps advice not to include what's junky; the other reads the relative priorities the other way around.

The sites in question aren't evil (no popups that follow you after you've surfed elsewhere, etc etc.) and they may even be slightly informative; but they primarily exist in order to move product.

What's the collective wisdom here? -- Hoary 04:55, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

  • Well stated, I'm the other user in this disagreement. I'm happy to abide by whatever is the consensus of the community. Brian 05:08, 14 June 2007 (UTC)btball
Another Brian's opinion: I think people do (or should) reasonably expect a commercial or artist's official site to be largely promotional. If the reader doesn't want it, she doesn't have to click through. Brianhe 05:16, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
You should link to an official site even if it is junky. I suppose spyware or whatever would trump everything else, but aside from that if there is an official site it "should" be linked. the guideline is clear on that. 2005 07:54, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
  • The "in a nutshell" of this guideline says "adding external links can be a service to our readers, but they should be kept to a minimum of those that are meritable, accessible and appropriate to the article" and then, before the guideline gives examples of what to link to and what not to link to it states "no page should be linked from a Wikipedia article unless its inclusion is justified". My view is that the higher order purpose of this guideline needs to be taken into consideration - and that's to allow external links when they add value to the article. I've seen a whole spectrum of artists "offical sites" ranging from being an immediate storefront adding no value (IMO) to the article (other than perhaps the ability to see copyright versions of pictures produced by the artist that couldn't otherwise be included in Wikipedia) to sites that had very informative biography, awards information, links to reviews etc. I think the former (just a storefront) should be shot on sight. I can see the merit of keeping the latter. As it's just a guideline, not policy, we're free to use our judgment on this. Having said that, I've already agreed to abide by whatever the consensus is here. Brian 10:48, 14 June 2007 (UTC)btball
The consensus is: What should be linked: Articles about any organization, person, web site, or other entity should link to the official site if any. 2005 10:51, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
No, 2005, that's not a consensus. So far, I see three opinions here, mine, yours and Brianhe. I'll wait to hear from others, your opinion is clear. Thanks Brian 11:42, 14 June 2007 (UTC)btball
Of course it is. You seem very confused here. I stated the consensus. That is the text from the guideline. Just because you don't like it doesn't invalidate the consensus. Official sites should be linked. that is the existing consensus, and a very longstanding one at that. If you want to change the guideline then advocate that. But it appears clear that there is no widespread support for changing the lonstanding consensus. 2005 23:03, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Confused or at least not clear :-) I was looking for consensus here, in this discuss, not the previous consensus as stated by the text in the guideline 2005 mentions - as I had read the guideline as ambiguous. It's clear I'm in the minority, I've reinstated the links to official sites I deleted. There's such strong support for this that I don't see any reason to advocate a change in the guideline. Even though I personally don't like it, I'll live with it. There are plenty of other ways for me to make Wikipedia better. Brian 12:56, 16 June 2007 (UTC)btball
I think the official sites should be linked, even if they're lousy; one should expect them to be biased and promotional in nature, but they're the article subject's official presence on the net. *Dan T.* 13:27, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Just because the sites are the article subject's official presence on the web isn't really sufficient for me. The test is whether it adds value in an encyclopedia. I think that just a storefront does not but a site that has content that adds substance to the article might. Thanks for you comment, the consensus appears to be growing - and it looks like I have the contrarian view ... It would be nice to hear from a few more editors. Brian 14:10, 14 June 2007 (UTC)btball
I think any official site should be includeable. A person or group's website is part of their public presence; junky or not, it's noteworthy. Yaron K. 14:25, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
  • A trend and consensus seems to be forming ... Thanks, Brian 15:24, 14 June 2007 (UTC)btball
It appears you didn't read the guideline before posting. The consensus is very specific and longstanding. Official sites should be linked. 2005 23:06, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm a dyed in the wool exclusionist, but here I side with the developing consensus: an EL to one official site is always appropriate. My two comments, though: sometimes it is difficult to identify the "official site" (as opposed to one or more "official fan sites"), and a number of WP articles link to multiple official sites (common for musicians: an offical site, PLUS an "offical myspace page." In those cases, I think EL to the myspace page can go). UnitedStatesian
Can someone draw up a list of 'really really good EL official links' and 'really really bad ones' so I could grok where ya'll coming from? I think ultimately if there is going to be exceptions or guideline word changes we're going to need to bring some cards to the poker game. ;) JoeSmack Talk 16:04, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
I'd like to add my voice to the growing chorus of editors who believe that official sites should always be included. I think some of the division here is about artist's websites. In the above discussion consider if your point of view would change if we were talking about the Coca-Cola article. We always include a corporation's website in their article, even though its always assumed that the corporation's site will be commercial in nature. Why would it be any different with an artist? In fact, I'd like to see an example of an artist's site that is not self-promotional in some way. TheMindsEye 19:10, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
I think if it can be established that an artist (or vendor) is notable and if it can also be established that the link is to the artist's (or vendor's) "official" site then there is no reason to delete the "official" link even if it is to myspace and even if there is little encyclopedic content there. I believe that wikipedia editors have creative license to un-include the link but the general rule of thumb is should err towards including the "official" link. I can't think of a universal reason not to include an official link but one reason might be that the site is so spammy that it will lock up most computers. Just my opinion, though. Isn't there a wikipolicy on external links to software? MPS 19:22, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Link to the official site. It may suck ass (previously referred to as "junky") right now, but that's not to say that it will always be that way. (this reason is in addition to the "but it's the official site arguments which are quite good; I just didn't feel like repeating them) EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:29, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Hello, original questioner here. Thank you all for your time. You'll have easily worked out which was Btball/Brian's side in our little "argument", and may have inferred that I'm all in favor of adding official sites. Actually I'm not: if they're junky, I'd much rather they weren't included. I was a little saddened to infer from the article that they were to be included, and rather cheered to learn that Brian read the page otherwise. But oh dear, it seems I was right all along. -- Hoary 01:09, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

  • Hello, I see there's a clear consensus. If someone is notable enough to have an article then they can have a link to their homepage, not matter if it adds nothing of value to the article. So be it. I'll restore the links I removed. And for the record, I did read the entire guideline, I just read it that whouldn't shouldn't be linked (promotional sites) could take precedence over the guidance that official sites should be linked. In the Coca-Cola example above, if their home site was only selling product and didn't have additional information that would improve the article, then no, I personally, wouldn't wante a link in the article. But I'm clearly in the minority here - and many of the official sites do have some marginal value beyond just selling product (some don't though) - so I'm quite willing to put my personal opinion aside. Thanks everyone. Brian 08:03, 15 June 2007 (UTC)btball
  • All links that I removed have been restored now. Thanks again. Brian 09:25, 15 June 2007 (UTC)btball
  • I don't see how we have any obligation to link to anything official. If the official site adds nothing to the article then why link to it? However, if it's junky and has the slightest bit of value, then link to it. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 16:49, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Let me clarify that a bit with the statement that official sites almost always have some intrinsic value as a primary source if nothing else. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 16:52, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
I tend to agree with J.S. I would add that most of the time an official site should be listed in the references or sources sections as a primary source rather than the EL section. Also, in a number of cases with television show articles, there are fansites that are recognized as reliable sources. Nohomers.net springs to mind. Cheers. L0b0t 21:34, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Howto's, free code, tips and tutorials links

I am coming across many articles filled with these sort of links (an example would be Visual Basic. My understanding of external links was that they should be included if they add to the content of the page, in an encyclopedic way (or are the official publisher etc..). What is the situation with howto's?-Localzuk(talk) 12:28, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

My understanding is that if external links could "add content", then they should NOT be external links but rather used as references. On the other hand, how-to's and such like are EXACTLY the kind of things that should be externally linked, as they provide useful content that is WP:NOT included in the 'pedia. Zunaid©® 14:47, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
I would suggest that in most cases how-tos should not be linked. The important thing about an external link is that it be to a site that contains encyclopedic information by a reliable source (most often at a level of detail inappropriate for general encyclopedia article). How-tos don't constitute encyclopedic content and since external links should be kept to a minimum, it seems like in general they should not be linked. Wikipedia itself should not include "how-to" info (WP:NOT#IINFO) and I haven't seen an instance where a link to a "how-to" was appropriate. (Although, I don't rule out the possibility.) Nposs 14:58, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, we certainly don't want a whole sheaf of them as exist in Visual Basic... in most cases such as this, there are a few major portals/directories to which we can leave the job of linking specific how-to resources. I would say the general rule should be "maximum 1, only where of remarkable merit." -- Visviva 15:14, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Uh, keep in mind it needs to be written by an authoritative source as per WP:EL#Links normally to be avoided. I run into this all the time with cooking recipes; I'd say 99% of those kind of links I see added fail that criteria. JoeSmack Talk 15:22, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Being allowed to post links to info on our site.

I am a staff member who helped build crystallakeafterdark.com Earlier I put links to our section on the films to Part 1-5 of the Friday the 13th film pages for each section. I also originally posted links to interviews we'd done with stars of part 2 on the part 2 page. Those links were deleted and I was told to only post the link to the section on the movie. I did but even that was removed. I pointed out that the owner of campcrystallake.com had posted links to his film sections and interviews so I saw no reason why I couldn't. I was told that it was a conflict of interest because I might be the owner of the site. Well I'm not. I just helped build it. I was told that having the links on Wikipedia wouldn't add or increase our hit rating. I said I wasn't posting the info for that reason. The sections and interviews have info. I always thought Wikipedia was for sharing info. And I know the fans of Friday the 13th would be interested in the info provided. Plus my links were deleted before anyone asked if I was the Site owner. And like I said before it was the site owner of campcrystallake.com who posted those links to his site. So why is the owner of one site allowed to share his info and someone who isn't the owner of a site not allowed to? Seems pretty hypocritical to me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Crystallakeafterdark (talk • contribs) 23:15, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

If you are associated with a site, you shouldn't add external links to it, and especially not a lot of links. Links to the other site you mention should be removed if you stated the situation correctly. In you case, you should post the links on the article talk pages, and ask another editor to add them. I was going to put one back myself then saw this post. As someone associated with the site, suggesting the link on a talk page is the way to go. 2005 23:22, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
O.K. I'll make the requests on the talk pages then. Thank you for your time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Crystallakeafterdark (talk • contribs) 23:29, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
you can add any content you want to wikipedia provided that it is encyclopedic and licenced by the author for use on wikipedia. If you are not the original author then we don't know if the content is approved for release to wikipedia via the GNU Free Documentation License. Posting links to helpful how tos isnt the same as writing it in the encyclopedia. In any case, linking your own site smells of WP:COI regardless of whether this is your actual intention. MPS 14:23, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
No, you can't add any content... we have all sorts of policies all over to explain what can and cannot be added. New users should go read the welcome message links. Sounds like you should also if you are giving out that advice.
And this example is pretty clear WP:SPAM. DreamGuy 16:44, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
Maybe you didn't read the part where I said "provided that it is encyclopedic." I will assume that you didn't. When I say encyclopedic I mean WP:ENC which is pretty much in agreement with what you said. Hurrah for agreement! MPS 16:55, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

O.K. since it's obvious that it's o.k. for the owner of campcrystallake.com to have links to his movie pages and interviews that he himself added it should be perfectly fine for me to have links to a site I helped with added as well. But since it appears you two seem to think my adding them would be a COI as you put it I'll either have someone else add them who isn't affiliated with the .com or skip it and expect to see the links for all of the campcrystallake.com web site removed.— Crystallakeafterdark (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. The preceding unsigned comment was added at 23:36, 15 June 2007 (UTC).

The reason I've made few is because they were all deleted. I'd be a lot more inclined to do more and get out of this topic if I was allowed to share the info I have. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Crystallakeafterdark (talk • contribs) 00:15, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Usernames that contain a domain or imply a web address (such as yours, Crystallakeafterdark AKA crystallakeafterdark.com ) are not allowed as usernames and eventually the account will be disabled. see Inappropriate usernames. Please also review the relevant policies such as WP:SPAM, WP:EL and Specifically WP:COI. If you need further clarification, feel free to discuss your link dispute further at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam, as this talk page is primarily for Wikipedia:External links policy discussions. --Hu12 23:59, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Why didn't you just say that in the beginning? That my username was inappropriate. I registered under that name because I assumed you'd like to know someone associated with the site was providing it so you knew it was a good link. It's a wonder you guys get any kind of information collected or contributed with all these asanine rules and restrictions.
You know our site links to wikipedia quite a bit. Maybe I should change it to another information provider. One that appreciates when they are referenced and wants all the information someone is willing to share. Also how does one change their username? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Crystallakeafterdark (talk • contribs) 00:10, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
Banning usernames that happen to be the same as the second level hostname of somebody's site (without a TLD in the username -- "crystallakeafterdark", not "crystallakeafterdark.com") seems rather silly. It's possible there are many users who own domain names that contain the sequence of characters found in their username, if both domain and username are based on their personal name or nickname, for instance. *Dan T.* 00:21, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikifur

It's been pointed out to me that someone has gone through and linked many, many articles to Wikifur, a very small wiki that does not even come close to meeting WP:EL guidelines on stability, size, and reliability of information (not to mention the whole no links to anything that only represent what we should have here once articles become Featured Articles thing). Wikifur is a site for people who follow the furry sexual lifestyle, and the sites that are linking to it often have nothing to do with that. On top of all that, Wikifur also is basically a Google Ad delivery device, and quite spammy. I would appreciate if some people here would take the time to do a search on wikifur and help me remove them, and also to explain to anyone who might complain about the appropriate about the WP:EL rules on this matter. Thanks. DreamGuy 00:32, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

"Furry sexual lifestyle"? I wish! That's like saying Star Wars fandom and it associated site is all about sex with Wookiees. Look at the front page and tell me that again with a straight face. :-) GreenReaper 03:34, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Just a quick note, this issue is arising out of a dispute that's been going on over on Talk:Therianthropy for a few days now, there's a lot of pre-existing discussion of the matter over there. Folks might want to take a look at what's going on there before joining in, we'd welcome additional opinions. Bryan Derksen 00:38, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

DreamGuy started removing these links without any further discussion so I've also brought it up at WP:AN/I#Rapid-fire external link removal by DreamGuy. I wish there wasn't such an all-consuming rush going on here, even if it turns out that WikiFur really doesn't satisfy the guidelines there's no reason not to wait a few more days until consensus is reached. Bryan Derksen 00:55, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Okay, the rush seems to be averted. On with the actual meat of the dispute. Bryan Derksen 01:18, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
I have a question Bryan. Why do you care if the Wikifur links are removed? (Requestion 01:35, 17 June 2007 (UTC))
Because it seemed like a useful and informative source of information on the subject. I don't recall any more why therianthropy is on my watchlist, but when DreamGuy removed the entire external links section I decided to check up on them and restored the ones that didn't seem inappropriate to me. Bryan Derksen 01:46, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
OK, that is a fair answer. We see so much COI here that I had to ask. (Requestion 03:09, 17 June 2007 (UTC))
WP:EL says to avoid "links to open wikis, except those with a substantial history of stability and a substantial number of editors." The meta:Interwiki_map is full of such poor quality wiki's so we have a conflict of rules. Maybe Wikifur should be removed from the interwiki map? I think the key issues here are the spam and COI points. The site does seem spammy and the added links do seem out of control. I've been seeing a lot of template and inter-wiki abuse lately. I would like to know who is adding the Wikifur links and why. I would also like to know why there are 114 furry.wikia.com external links when there is a working inter-wiki link. (Requestion 01:35, 17 June 2007 (UTC))
I just realized that since this is the English Wikipedia then WP:EL overrides the authority of the interwiki map. Still, I would like to know who is adding the Wikifur links and why. Is this a spam and a COI problem? (Requestion 01:39, 17 June 2007 (UTC))
I'm not sure how COI is an issue. External links are, generally speaking, involved with the subject of the article they're in in some way so there's almost always a conflict of interest of some sort there. If you're asking whether I personally have a conflict of interest, I don't think so; I've never edited WikiFur before. I'm sure that in some cases WikiFur links probably have been added inappropriately but the dispute at therianthropy arose because DreamGuy is arguing that there are absolutely no possible appropriate external links to WikiFur. I think that's far too dogmatic and doesn't fit what the guideline actually says. Bryan Derksen 01:46, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Who is adding the WikiFur: links? That could be a COI issue. How many WikiFur interlinks are there? Does anyone know how to do a linkseach for interwiki-map links? (Requestion 02:47, 17 June 2007 (UTC))
In most cases, I am adding the interwiki links, though often as a replacement to an external link added by someone else. There is a clear potential conflict of interest there, because I am the founder and chief administrator of WikiFur. However, I only add the links when I feel that it's the right thing to do - when the current WikiFur article contains information that Wikipedia could not on verifiability grounds. Moreover, these links are of obvious use to people - using Google Analytics, I can see that on average, Wikipedia visitors visit 10 other pages on WikiFur in each visit, higher than any other link source in the top 25 (including search engine results). I'm willing to give others access to WikiFur's Analytics data to confirm this if they wish.
I also add links back to Wikipedia in all cases, even when everything on the Wikipedia article is covered by the WikiFur article. Indeed, most WikiFur article has a multitude of inline links to Wikipedia to explain general topics (see page text matches). We also have a well-used template for compliance with inter-wiki transfer of text from Wikipedia to WikiFur (though likely some of those articles have been deleted on Wikipedia by now). Our links are not a one-way street. GreenReaper 21:10, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Please then remove all those links you have added. By showing good faith and removing them yourself you save other editors the work of tracking them down and removing them. 2005 00:20, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
No. I think they should be there, and that removing them would lessen the use of Wikipedia to readers. If you wish to remove them, please do so because you think the opposite, not because of who added them. GreenReaper 00:57, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
No they should be removed on sight because WP:EL, WP:SPAM and WP:COI all make clear they are spam because of HOW they were added. Again, if you think they thing deserves linking you should follow the various guidelines and policies, after removing the links yourself rather than have someone else clean them up because they are the encyclopedia's definition of spam. 2005 01:02, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
I respectfully disagree. The ultimate objective of this project is to build a good encyclopedia. Removing links that I think are useful would run counter to that. GreenReaper 01:05, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Of course you think they should be there, it's your site, and that's why this is a COI problem. I would recommend that GreenReaper not add anymore WikiFur: links. (Requestion 01:08, 18 June 2007 (UTC))
If you would like to give some examples of links that I made which you think are inappropriate, I will be glad to discuss them with you. My criteria for adding them is above. I don't see anything wrong with them. GreenReaper 01:15, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
I just read User:GreenReaper/Conflict of interest. Hmmm, COI is "fatally flawed" and you "do not follow it." This is going to be a problem. (Requestion 01:27, 18 June 2007 (UTC))
It warrants a review of his contributions, perhaps, but if we find that he's added a WikiFur link to an article that upon due consideration is actually reasonable to have then removing it would be cutting off our noses to spite our faces. Perhaps we could request a list of such articles for us to have a look at, and that in the future GreenReaper suggest the addition of WikiFur external links on the article talk pages first so that at least one second opinion would be involved for each? That's usually what I do in a situation where someone with a conflict of interest has already done a bunch of work, there's no point throwing it away if it's actually to Wikipedia standards. Bryan Derksen 01:49, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
The correct process is simple. All the spammed links are removed, then if GreenReaper (or anyone) wants to suggest a link on a talk page, fine, but spamming COI links is inappropriate on multiple levels. If the site is worth something, someone else who doesn't own it will add the link. there is no problem here with making the encyclopedia weaker. the only problem is blatantly inappropriate actions. We can't have every website owner adding their links in a lot of places just because they think they are cool. 2005 02:16, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Sure you can. People do that all the time, and they are removed or not based on other people's appraisal of their value to the article. That's how wikis work. If people felt that WikiFur links were not useful then they'd keep getting removed and I would eventually get tired of adding them - but they don't, because they are useful. GreenReaper 02:40, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
The issue is not that people are capable of making spam edits. Just because a spammer can click the edit link does not mean that is the end of the story. There are guidelines and policies, which you can ignore if you want, but being a reasonable person will be more effective. Clearly the links to your site now can and will be removed by anyone now as violating consensus policies and guidelines, so this "I'll do anything I please" tactic is not a very productive one. 2005 02:58, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Anyone can remove anything, but I will certainly argue for their replacement if I think they are useful links, on that basis. That would be why I'm here now. GreenReaper 03:06, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm fine with people looking at my contributions - indeed, I encourage it. I'm not so keen on the idea of having prior restraint on editing. Given the amount of work I do in Category:Furry, starting a talk page section each time I wanted to make an edit involving a WikiFur link would result in more conflicts than it avoided. People are already free to revert any additions if they think they're inappropriate. I certainly don't feel I should self-censor my actions because people have the idea that I could be adding bad links, without any evidence that I am. That's focussing on the contributor rather than the content. GreenReaper 02:36, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Egads, the "I'm above the law" argument. Sad. 2005 02:18, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
COI isn't a law. It's a guideline designed to avoid conflict between contributors, at the expense of excluding potentially valuable contributions, and because of the disadvantage I disagree with it and do not follow it. I do however take care to ensure that my links are useful ones. If you don't believe me, go and look. GreenReaper 02:36, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
The one link I just looked at was utter junk. 2005 02:58, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Which one was that? If you're talking about the one on Therianthropy, I didn't put that in, nor was I involved with the prior discussion to do so. I did switch it to interwiki format. GreenReaper 03:47, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
2005, Do not remove any external links soley because they are added by GreenReaper. COI exists as a premptive measure for the most part, removing things simply because of the contributor is groundless in policy. If you need another person to step up and say they think the link is useful I am that person. Content, not contributor. NeoFreak 04:29, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Please don't be absurd. It is standard practice to remove spammed links based on the contributor. Of course that is normally an IP address just adding 30 links in a row, but the same applies here. Abuse needs to be dealt with when it is found, especially when it is arrongant and contemptuous of other editors and multiple consensus. The Wikipedia does not exist for bullies to act like bullies. Honestly, what were you thinking when you wrote this? 2005 05:44, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I find myself a little surprised to be in the situation I'm in, I usually side with DreamGuy on the occasions that we've crossed paths. In this instance I'm not sure I can do so. I think that in the context of this particular article that WikiFur would be an acceptable external link. While it is a wiki which, according to the guideline (and commonsense), should be avoided the guideline also makes exception for those wikis with a history of stability and a large body of active editors. I think this to be a reasonable exception. I see no conflict with the guideline here as WikiFur is the fifth or sixth most active wikis under the wikia domain with a active body of hundreds of editors. The second issue raised is the "featured Article" clause. This website does in fact have material that would not be used in a FA because of the stipulations that wikipedia has for citations and reliable sources in a FA. Alot of the good but unverifiable material hosted on WikiFur would of great interest to the general reader (who is the ultimate audience of wikipedia) cannot be hosted here in a FA. This issue is covered in the "Links to be considered" section of the guideline: Sites which fail to meet criteria for reliable sources yet still contain information about the subject of the article from knowledgeable sources. The other potential stumbling block for WikiFur is the clause: Any site that misleads the reader by use of factually inaccurate material or unverifiable research. See Reliable sources for explanations of the terms "factually inaccurate material" or "unverifiable research". Now this is up to debate but there is two ways of reading this. The first is that is written to imply that any website that does not have the same or a greater degree of verifiability as wikipedia should not be included. In my opinion this would eliminate the use of external links. The other way to read this is to exclude sites that have been identified as being frankly or obviously misleading due to "Factually inaccurate material" and "unverifiable research". Using the second interpretation of the clause I see not problem including WikiFur. So the possible objections include:

  • Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a Featured article.
This is resolved by the inclusion in WikiFur of material that cannot be hosted in a wikipedia featured article due to verifiability rules.
  • Any site that misleads the reader by use of factually inaccurate material or unverifiable research. See Reliable sources for explanations of the terms "factually inaccurate material" or "unverifiable research".
This is resolved in that no misleading material on WikiFur has yet been identified and as explained above.
  • Links to open wikis, except those with a substantial history of stability and a substantial number of editors.
This has been resolved in that WikiFur is one of the most active wikis on the net, top 5 for wikia.com and it is home to a dedicated team of hundreds of editors. Alot of traffic and editing.

The upside for including WikiFur includes the three primary criterion:

  • It is accessible to the reader
  • It is proper in the context of the article (useful, tasteful, informative, factual, etc.)
  • It is a functional link, and is likely to continue being a functional link.

Also for the inclusion under the sections of "should be linked" and "should be considered":

  • Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to copyright issues, amount of detail (such as professional athlete statistics, movie or television credits, interview transcripts, or online textbooks) or other reasons.
  • Sites which fail to meet criteria for reliable sources yet still contain information about the subject of the article from knowledgeable sources.

So on that train of thought is there any further objection to the addition of WikiFur on context relevant pages? As outlined above there is no ban on wikis in this guideline and it fulfills not only several obvious inclusion criterion but also makes a case for itself in the exception clause of wikis. If there is in fact any further objection a specific explanation of why would be most helpful. Also, as a edit conflict add on I'll say that there is a huge "furry" editor community on wikipedia and one of the reasons that WikiFur was created and grew so quickly was the removal of furry related material from wikipedia. I was one of those editors removing the material but I think the transwiki of the information to WIkiFUr and the addition of the external links was a great solution, good for the reader and for wikipedia. I'm very, very un-furry (but not anti-furry). I've killed more non-notable furry articles than I can count so I can guarentee you there is no COI here. NeoFreak 01:52, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

This diff demonstrates 2 problems I have with interwiki-map links. For example; this Phenix internal link is really an external link to Wikifur:Phenix. This sort of renaming is deceptive. Maybe we should add some wording to WP:EL that says interwiki links must have visible prefixes? The second problem demonstrated is the linkfarm quality of 17 Wikifur: external links which violates WP:NOT#LINK. It seems a bit excessive. Interwiki links should go at the bottom like all other external links. (Requestion 03:05, 17 June 2007 (UTC))
I think that diff shows a great judgment call, that was a fucked up article. I totally agree that Interwiki links should go at the bottom under the External Links section, I never suggested otherwise. All external links should be clearly marked as such and placed accordingly. As a matter of fact this was one of the issues I failed an article's request for Good Article status for. Are we in agreement over the appropriatness of the WikiFur link for the EL section? NeoFreak 03:44, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Indeed, in that particular case I think interwiki links were being misused. Usually what I do when I find interwiki links embedded in article text is to turn them into reference footnotes, just as if they were ordinary external links embedded in the article text. They may subsequently suffer further at the hands of our referencing guidelines. In this case they aren't being used as references, though, just surrogates for internal links. A link to WikiFur's "Extinctioners" article should suffice for all those sub-articles too. Bryan Derksen 04:43, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
There are situations where I think the use of more than one interwiki link is appropriate, but I agree that was excessive for such a small topic, simply because some of the characters that editor linked to have very little information. If a link defines a term which has a meaning in a particular subculture but which would never deserve a Wikipedia page (or it has already been deleted), I see far less of a problem. Wikipedia doesn't want to cover it, so we might as well link to somewhere that does. GreenReaper 03:04, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

My view would be it depends on the article. It looks like a large community portal, and as such, would be valuable on community articles (much as we sometimes link to major fansites for other fandoms). By this I'm thinking articles like Furry Fandom and Therianthropy, that specifically mention the online community. It provides a background on the community that Wikipedia doesn't, so would be valuable there.

Looking at DreamGuy's edits, some of the articles it was on were weird. Taxidermy and Kopa standing out. The same would go for pages on authors, artists, books etc... even if they are furry, our references should really come from sources that can verified. Especially more so if it's people that are still alive, as some of the articles that had the link seemed to be. It has all the usual wiki problems (can't background check editors, can't cross-check it and know it'll keep the same quality, etc).

So in a nutshell, yes as a further info of the community, but no as a reference source for facts (particularly on living people). Polenth 05:03, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

There is a twisted reason that the Kopa article had a WikiFur link but trust me when I say you don't want to know what that reason is. *shudder*. Anyway I'm prety much in agreement with what you've said but I did assume that you statement would have been obvious to most. Then again you know what they say when you assume (it makes an "ass" out of "u" and "me"). I would hope that anytime that WikiFur is linked to that it is because there is a direct corelation between the wikipedia article and the linked WikiFur article. For example "WikiFur's article on Fursuits". That way you understand the source right off the bat and get a direct link to the relavent article. NeoFreak 05:13, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
If anything was obvious to everyone, we wouldn't be having the debate. ;) Polenth 05:45, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

For the moment, my reply is in this diff but I hope to add more soon. Please be patient and thank you. Mermaid from the Baltic Sea 16:27, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Great, looks like the people who spammed it in the first place are now busy campaigning for it here with deceptive claims. I hope that we have enough people here who are sane and can see past such nonsense to overrule what is a very obvious attempt to spam a site full of Google ads with minor, unreliable, unverified, unstable wiki, in direct opposition to very clear rules on WP:EL. If nothing else the sheer number of pages that have the site deceptive listed as See Alsos and internal links definitely need to be cleaned up, and I hope that the obvious WP:COI can be cleared up. When a handful of Furry fans are pretending to be reliable, encyclopedic sources we have a very real problem. DreamGuy 20:46, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

You opened the discussion here, so this is where it's being discussed. I think you are selling WikiFur short. We've been around for two years and have 7,000 articles and a large number of regular editors, including 16 active administrators, many of whom are recognized authorities within the fandom such as furry convention organizers or MUCK wizards. The Google ads are there because our site host places them there - the community makes no money from them - and they are hardly intrusive. The wiki certainly contains information that is unverifiable, but that's part of the point of it. It is extremely useful to its target audience, many of whom are looking for that information on Wikipedia and not finding it because of Wikipedia's verifiability and notability guidelines. There's no real way I can prove this conclusively, but people wouldn't be making donations to help us promote the site online and at conventions if they didn't think it was a worthwhile project. GreenReaper 21:39, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Could we have the input of people who are normally on this talk page instead of just letting all the pro-furry people rush in and try to monopolize the conversation? It looks like they are trying to set up a fake sort of consensus here by posting early and often. Of course the pro-furry people are going to fall all over themselves trying to promote the site, what about everyone else? I thank the couple of people who didn't carry over from a furry page, but we need a lot, lot more to get past this clear WP:COI. DreamGuy 20:49, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Excuse me? Are you trying to say people involved in the topic shouldn't be part of the discussion? I'm not going to start adding links to this over at WikiFur, but I'm for sure going to say something here if I think you're wrong. GreenReaper 21:21, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
DreamGuy, I was hoping you could address my previous post. I think I've laid out very clearly why WikiFur is permissible under the guideline as it reads already. I deal with alot of the same clean up type stuff that you do and I know that you can often feel like a broken record facing off against a never ending supply of people that "just don't get it" but a less combative tone would go a long way here. NeoFreak 04:29, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
was really, intractably certain that as soon as it came to WP:EL there'd be a swarm of supporters for him, and that hasn't happened. He may still be proven to be interpreting the guidelines correctly, but there are statements that outside of Therianthropy, everyone would 'know' he was right, and that hasn't happened. This makes for 'pro-furries monopolizing the conversation' (since no matter how many times I bring up that I was watching the page for the same reasons he was, I want the link there, so I'm pro-furry, you see). --Thespian 21:34, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Back to the subject , and IN GENERAL when there is a major external site, whether commercial or not, that clearly has a very important source of information on the subject, it is appropriate to link--once. It is not appropriate to link to addition subpages of even an important site unless there is unique material there which could not otherwise be located. It is not appropriate to link to every external site, commercial or not, that offers information. It can sometimes be appropriate to use a specific site as a references, if it would be a RS for the information. (This can be additional. Sometimes it can substitute for the external link. My experience with this question is not on this topic, but on the e-books and similar pages, where there are a few very important vendors, and many minor ones. On some pages all commercial links are removed, on some pages there is a standard for which are major. COI sources can play a useful role in pointing out material, but the evaluation of the appropriateness should not be done where there is COI. Many external site webmasters and owners have added important material to WP from their extensive knowledge of the subject--but anything apparently COI requires strict scrutiny from those without. It is a positive step for those with COI to declare it--then other can look. I do not know what are the actual circumstances here. but this sort of a guide has proven useful elsewhere. For general principles, there is sometimes an advantage in editors uninvolved in the specific subject, but to determine just what is significant content, this can require those who know about the topic. Obviously everyone involved in editing a site will want material about it, but the consensus of WPedians is normally enough to maintain reasonable coverage. If some parties think otherwise, then a RfC is warranted. Adding and removing sites without discussion is of course editwarring, is unproductive, and can lead to blocks of all involved--it takes two to edit war. DGG 23:34, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm not a regular on this talk page (I don't recall ever editing here before) but I'm also not a "pro-furry" person so I don't know whether you're referring to me here. I assume you are referring to GreenReaper, though, since he seems to be involved closely with the project. What's wrong with having outside "experts" contributing, provided they're being rational and informative about the subject like GreenReaper has been so far? He provided a bunch of information about WikiFur that I would have had to do a lot of digging to find otherwise. Disregarding that would be like holding an AfD and disregarding the input of anyone who wasn't an AfD regular. Bryan Derksen 01:40, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Spamming something you own, and saying you will ignore multiple guidelines may be "rational" to you, but its extraordinarily contemptuous of every one else. 2005 02:58, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
I disagree with focussing on who people are rather than looking at how good their edits are. Contempt is a strong word, but it is true that I do ignore the (few) guidelines that I think are wrong. At the same time, consensus is not a guideline, and I have not ignored it. A previous discussion involved the position of such links. I personally felt that as they were related articles they should be in See also, however the consensus was that they should be in External links. I still disagree with that, but I follow it. GreenReaper 03:15, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
As the founder of WikiFur you may want to consider recusing yourself from the disussion now that you've made your position clear. It's up to you. NeoFreak 04:29, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I am a furry and I consider WikiFur to be a terrible source or external link. The wiki is, to say the least, kind of sketchy. I know a number of people who have articles on WikiFur and they are often poorly written, highly biased, do no reflect reality, ect. There are several articles on people who are disliked in the furry community which are poorly written, and a lot of furry authors have glowing articles, probably written by themselves or their friends. The whole Wiki is not a reliable source of information, and just because you have 8000 monkies typing doesn't mean that they're going to produce something Wikipedia can use. -Perhaps- we could use it for limited purposes, such as stating what at least some furries think, but it is not an acceptable source of information and promoting it via wikipedia is unethical at best. Wikipedia has high standards, and WikiFur does NOT meet our standards. Titanium Dragon 09:10, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. That's a far better assessment of the quality over the other reasons for removing the link (ie, labelling it a 'competing' wiki, insisting that wikis were never to be linked to, etc). The issue initially 'exploded' because the reasons for the removal were blanket ones based on the supposed 'rules' of WP:EL, and an editor who insisted he was 'enforcing' them (despite the fact WP:EL is a guideline). If an assessment like this had been given as a reason at the start, it would have gone a very different way. Something that many people are forgetting in this discussion is that the initial problems, as they started on Therianthropy, was more about edits in which the editor brandished WP:EL like a sword, claimed it said things that it doesn't, claimed that wikis were NEVER to be linked to (instead of 'normally to be avoided', which is not equivalent to 'always to be avoided'), and told people, repeatedly (in the talk page and in the changelog comments) that the edits he was making were 'NOT OPEN TO DISCUSSION'. DreamGuy would, at this point, like to claim that the issue is about 'the furry issue' and WikiFur, but the problem was never over that, it was merely set off by him reverting the edits of 5 or 6 other editors who thought the link was acceptable.
I am not furry, but friends of mine who are think of WikiFur as being a decent referral space. I will definitely keep your opinion in mind, as I was assessing it based on appearance, ratings on Wikia, and content as it appeared to me without being involved in your community. Despite DreamGuy's constant accusations that I am somehow 'pro-furry', all I've ever been is pro-neutral assessment, and I've tried to do my best to be neither hugely pro- or anti-furry when looking at things like this. --Thespian 15:23, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

OK, I am not a "Furry" (I'm not even sure what that is, to be honest, and someone asked for opinions of people who frequent this page, rather than the furry culture. Here's my opinion, for what it is worth: If you own a site, it is in violation of WP:COI to add links to that site to any page, no matter how good that site is as a resource. The correct procedure is spelled out in the WP:EL guideline - add a request to the Talk page and get a consensus of editors that it can be added. If such links were added by the owner of the site, then they need to be all removed, and the procedure followed as-written. The merits of the site can be discussed in the individual talk page discussions - I suggest we refrain from doing that here. I also suggest that the owner refrain from adding any more, and in a show of good faith, cut and paste any links they have made to the respective talk pages, where true discussion among involved editors can ensue. -- Alucard (Dr.) | Talk 15:10, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

This started out of an issue on Therianthropy, and the owner of WikiFur was *not* the person who added the link there, as far as I have seen. It's being brandished now, but that's really a different issue from the one that was causing the problem, which was DreamGuy removing links to wikis and declaring that all other wikis are 'competing', that wikis should *never* be linked to, etc. This discussion is ranging all over the place, but note that the first entry in this thing was said editor declaring he was going to go through and remove *every single link to WikiFur* from Wikipedia, regardless of where it was, how it got there, whether within context it might be acceptable (ie, on pages about the subculture), etc. He was temporarily blocked in the middle of this action to stop him.--Thespian 15:32, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
No, no, no. I never claimed that no wikis should ever be linked to, just ones that fit the description here of ones to be avoided that offered no other compelling argument. You keep focusing on some nonsense about how you think I was doing something other than what I clearly spelled out. The fact of the matter is that the link on that page -- and the links to the vast majority of pages that have been spammed to this site by the site owner, often deceptively as See alsos and internal links -- do not many ANY part of the EL rules, and in fact violate several of them. You need to stop lying to yourself about my motives and face the fact that you just were ignoring very clear rules because you were offended. DreamGuy 20:03, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Sigh
  • 23:28, [14 June 2007] DreamGuy (Talk | contribs) (6,997 bytes) (→External links - OK, considering that the WP:EL guideline SPECIFICALLY SAYS NOT TO LINK TO COMPETING WIKIS this is not up for discussion)
But no. Of course you've never claimed that no wikis should ever be linked to. Nope. Or claimed that the WP:EL says things that it does not say. Or do you want to try another excuse? --Thespian 20:43, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Then I would suggest that this discuss stay on topic and stop getting off into the emotional weeds. So what we are trying to determine, here, as I see it, is whether the WikiFur is, by nature, linkable as a WP:EL in that it meets the exception criterion of the "Links to be avoided" section, point 12 ("Links to open wikis, except those with a substantial history of stability and a substantial number of editors."). Or is someone saying that there is some other reason why it should not be linked? If a result is to be achieved here, I think we need to limit the discussion to the salient parts of WP:EL, and how it should be applied. Either way, I feel that the owner of WikiFur needs to desist from adding links to pages, and should remove the ones that have been added, and follow the correct procedure, whatever his or her opinions on the WP guidelines may be... -- Alucard (Dr.) | Talk 15:46, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
That's why I brought it up. I am of the opinion that DreamGuy didn't want to link to WikiFur for other reasons, and seized upon the nature of WP:EL; WIkiFur may well not be a good link; I thought it was, but I've always said I'm willing to let it go if I'm wrong or consensus says elsewise. However, I *do* think under WP:EL, it does stand; it's several years old, has a couple hundred editors, and is the 4th or 5th largest and frequented wiki on Wikia. DreamGuy was insisting it was 'no competing wikis', and then, when enough people pointed out it doesn't say that, said that it fails for point 12 (which I think is untrue). Again, content might yet be the issue, but DreamGuy has oddly said little about content, and has instead been sticking to the non-existant 'competition' argument and argument that it isn't substantial, which I also think fails. I agree with you that the Wikifur owner should not link to his site, but that's covered in other guidelines, and can be addressed under them.--Thespian 17:35, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
So you are assuming bad faith on my part and willing to completely ignore extremely clear rules on WP:EL because of your bad faith? And this "competition" claim was not the main thrust of my argument, so it's ridulous for you to claim so, and further I did explain what I meant by that (the part about not linking to sites that add no information above what Wikipedia articles can and should already have), several times, so it's ridiculous for you to claim I didn't explain that. Basically everything you've said in your summary here is completely wrong. I have a very strong history here of very good edits, both in removing POV-pushing and removing spam, and that's what my edits were about. Your actions and your comments here show a complete disconnect with how Wikipedia is supposed to work. DreamGuy 19:58, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Actually, if one goes through my earliest points on this, while you were scolding people and yelling at them, I mentioned several times that I genuinely believed you were acting in good faith. It wasn't until you got unbearably 'my way or the highway' in your interpretations of guidelines, that you started telling people that rules that didn't exist (your thing with 'competing wikis') were set in stone, that you told people contrary to all the most basic rules of wikipedia about working together to build something amazing, that instead, there was to be no discussion of link removals you made regardless of other editors on the page, furry and non-furry, thinking it should be there, that I decided you are, indeed, acting in bad faith. I really did assume good faith for as long as I can, but you are abusive and rude. After I wrote the above, I looked at things like your RfCs and other people's Eequests for Arbitration involving you, and this is an extensive issue of yours going back for years; the complaints people had about you in 2004 are word for word in some cases what I had written. But by all means, after years of complaints that you can't seem to work in a team-environment, feel free to say that I don't understand how Wikipedia is supposed to work. --Thespian 21:03, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, and the complaints the *I* can't work in a team environment invariably come from people breaking rules quite dramatically trying to stir up trouble and ignorant people not looking into the situation and following along blindly. And, yes, I will say again, from your comments here and your actions it's very clear you do not understand how Wikipedia is supposed to work. See WP:ENC for the basics, as those alone are probably going to be a big surprise to you. DreamGuy 06:27, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
And it's funny you should mention my RFCs, as if you'd bothered to look at them they are from YEARS AND YEARS ago, and in any case all they do is prove that bad editors made complaints that were in general found to be nonsense. In fact one of them that was filed had the vast majority of everyone who had complained about me PERMANENTLY BANNED from Wikipedia since then as unrepentant POV-pushers and harassers. So trying to pretend that the fact that I have RFCs against me or that other people breaking policy filed requests for arbitration doesn't prove that I am a bad editor, it just proves that bad editors get pissed off when I enforce the rules here. It's nice to see you joining in on their nonsense, shows your true stripes. DreamGuy 18:10, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Also to Add:: At the risk of flogging a dead horse, after you removed the links a couple times with nothing more than a comment that you were removing the links, someone brought it up in talk. Your first post on this does not say, "I think this is a poor link because of (reasonable assessment of content)." It's actually an attack on Mermaid from the Baltic Sea, accusing him of harrassment. Then when Bryan, Myself and Neofreak chimed in stating we all believed there were reasons to keep the link, and each explained them civilly, You responded entirely with an argument based on WP:EL and stated that "Hello, WP:EL is EXTREMELY clear on this point." (which as several people here who lean towards your side have said, it is not). At no point did you say anything other than 'WP:EL says we shouldn't link to this (paste bits of WP:EL), end of discussion'. If you'd given any sign that you'd looked at the site and were making your decision based on an actual assessment of the number of editors, stability or content, things would have gone very differently than they did with your declaratives. I believe your POV is very skewed on this subject after several years of trying to keep the nutcases from running the asylum, and you are as much of a danger to NPOV as the radical furries are, at this point. --Thespian 23:24, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Accusing me of POV bias is nonsense. It's solely based upon the fact that it's a poor quality wiki link that clearly and unequivocably does not meet External link guidelines. And, yes, I have accused Mermaid of the baltic sea of harassment, his harassment is well documented and undeniable, as he has gone around blind reverting all sorts of changes I made to tons of articles, often only claiming he objected to one part (typically the removal of a spam link) but reverting spelling, grammar and many other changes as well. The guy is a clear menace. And from your actions here you're not looking much better. DreamGuy 06:27, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Being called a possible menace by someone who has responded to lots of this page with threats and bluster, but not yet to the actual lie he was caught in up there? Hmm. Unlike our other issues, which are really coming from a irreconcilable personality conflict, lying is actually one of the few concrete reasons for assuming bad faith. I will no longer be responding to you. Even though I have repeatedly said that I'm flexible on the link, and I'm interested in a resolution for this and future pages, it's just not worth dealing with you to get an answer. --Thespian 07:11, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Would you please stop these personalized comments. Your comments are miles past beating a dead horse. Stay on the topic and don't clutter this page with irrelevant, personal criticisms stuff. 2005 00:14, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

We need to start removing the links already

At this time we know that someone from the Wikifur site was on a coordinated campaign to add links to his own site to a huge number of articles improperly. This is an obvious and blatant violation of WP:SPAM (especially considering the Google ads all across that site), WP:COI (open and shut case, he admitted it on this very page), and WP:EL (about linking to your own site, etc.). If he does not have the decency to remove them we should start doing it already. And at the VERY very least we need to get rid of all the "See alsos" that link to that other site, because they aren't just spam but deceptive stealth spam from people thinking they'd get a Wikipedia article. DreamGuy 20:07, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

It seems noone is really objecting to removing them from non-furry articles. Non-furry as in not related to the furry community... something happening to have fur doesn't make it count. And I don't see anyone objecting to moving the 'see also' links to external links on furry articles. I can't see it would sabotage the debate to do those two things, but I think caution should be taken in removing them from furry community articles yet. People haven't finished the fist-waving thing.
As for the GreenReaper issue, it seems to me it should be discussed on his talk page. That's where editors in the future will be checking if they want to know if he's had COI issues in the past. Polenth 20:33, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Conflict of interest is covered on my user page, including a link to a previous discussion (mostly with User:DreamGuy) that I saved specially. It's not like I've been trying to hide my associations or opinions. GreenReaper 20:58, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
It's not a question of hiding affiliations, it's a matter of following the very well-stated Wikipedia guidelines about WP:EL and WP:COI. We can debate the merits of Wikifur and similar Wikis in the page, and that is an appropriate place for it, but we can not cherry-pick which WP guidelines we choose to follow. The correct procedure is that if you are directly affiliated with a site (as GreenReaper is with Wikifur) then the correct procedure is not to just add links to one's site directly into WP pages, but instead to discuss any additions of links to the site on the respective article's Talk pages. The wording of the "advertising and conflicts of interest" section in this guideline are quite clear on this issue. Exceptions should be discussed and consensus reached BEFORE action is taken, not after. This was not done, because it seems to me that GreenReaper feels that this procedure should not apply in this case. Other editors seem to feel that it should apply. I feel that appropriate remediation would be for GreenReaper to remove the offending links from the articles, and open up a discussion on the relevant Talk pages for inclusion. Separate and distinct to this can be the discussion below about whether such links are appropriate or not. -- Alucard (Dr.) | Talk 21:30, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
The best way to change a guideline is to demonstrate it's not appropriate in a particular case, which is what I've tried to do. As for exceptions, the discussion link above points to the prior Village pump discussion that ended up with general agreement that they should be kept in External links. I have asked what's wrong with the links I made - over a long period of time - but most of what's been said is "if you're not following the guidelines, you're not a team player", even though I had already obtained an exception (and no, I've not added any links in article space since this discussion came up yesterday).
Worse, the suggested procedure is an attempt to coerce editors into personally removing links they feel are appropriate. I won't make such edits, because I believe them to be wrong. If people here agree they're inappropriate for Wikipedia, then they'll be removed, and while I won't like it, I'll accept it - but I won't act on the assumption that they are inappropriate based on who I am. That's an entirely different kettle of fish. GreenReaper 23:30, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Frankly, if you refuse to follow Wikipedia:External links' rules prohibiting linking to your own site, and if Wikipedia:Conflict of interest is beyond your capacity for understanding, and understanding that you are breaking Wikipedia:Spam rules, then you should not be making edits anywhere on encyclopedia. Why is it so many people with a website of their own think rules against spamming only apply to other people? You are in clear violation of numerous Wikipedia policies that are core and basic to how this site operates. At this point you're lucky you haven't been blocked and the site entered into our blackhole list so that no page anywhere can link to it, ever. DreamGuy 06:33, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

At the risk of being on-topic, people have been posting lots since DreamGuy first posted about the links, and noone disputed my comment on what people didn't seem to be disagreeing with. So I'm taking it noone is going to get too upset at it being deleted from non-furry articles, and moved to the proper place on the furry ones. Unless there are any startling last minute objections, I think we should start getting this underway. Polenth 17:03, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Other than the avoid open-wiki WP:EL issue I see a number of other problems with WikiFur: linkage. What would be great is if someone could document with diffs all of the WikiFur link additions. This diff I mentioned above demonstrates a couple problems and I suspect that there are many more diffs like this. I also suspect that User:GreenReaper is responsible for a large number of them. If there is enough strong evidence then opening SPAM and COI reports might be the next step. First though, we need some diffs to discuss. (Requestion 17:23, 19 June 2007 (UTC))
Here are some diffs for you. I stopped at the first one I found for each article, so there will be others elsewhere in the history. Polenth 20:23, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

GreenReaper's Edits In Main Text: [26] [27] [28] [29]

See Also: [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37]

External Links: [38] [39]

Present Since Page Creation: [40]

Other Editors In Main Text: [41] [42] [43]

See Also: [44] [45] [46] [47]

Reference: [48] [49] [50] [51]

External Links: [52] [53] [54] [55] [56] [57]

Present Since Page Creation: [58] [59] [60]

Thank you User:Polenth for the above list of diffs. Having some examples is very helpful for this discussion. Other than the the avoid open-wiki and the COI issues I see a couple problems that I feel should be fixed:
  1. Piping away the interwiki prefix is deceptive (ex: [[WikiFur:Charity auction|Charity Auction]]).
  2. Wikifur is not a WP:RS and should not be used as a reference in <ref> tags.
  3. The Wikifur: links should only be allowed in the External links section, not in the main text or in the See also sections.
I don't like the idea that a Wikifur: link is masquerading as an internal Wikipedia link. I find this deceptive and I think the distinction should be visibly obvious to the Wikipedia reader. The piping and external link section points made above should probably be incorporated into a new section of WP:EL. I also added {{linkfarm}} tags to the Furry convention and Eurofurence articles. (Requestion 22:03, 19 June 2007 (UTC))
Interwiki links are light blue, as opposed to the blue links of Wikipedia. Perhaps they should be more distinctive, since Wikimedia projects aren't the only place they go. When creating the list that is part of furry convention, I put a specific note at the top to make it clear the links were not to Wikipedia articles. The page itself was created because other people seemed to think it was a good solution to the real problem of readers making stub articles about conventions that would just get deleted anyway (this happened several times). It meant they still got the information they were looking for while not filling up AfD with "furcruft". Conventions are one of WikiFur's strongest areas and it made (and I think makes) a lot of sense to point people looking for encyclopedic coverage at its articles. As for the Eurofurence staff section, I'm not sure what to suggest there, though removing the list would probably be the sensible solution. Most of these people are not ever going to be notable to Wikipedia's standards. I came across it and figured a link to a page that did exist on a similar resource was far more useful than blank text. GreenReaper 00:26, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
If I fix the external links in the main article text, and reduce the Wikifur external links to one per article, will you revert it? That's what we really need to know. We know you don't like the idea of cleaning up the articles. The question is will you accept it has to happen to bring the articles in line with the rest of Wikipedia. Polenth 02:10, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
I won't revert a consensus decision, if that's what it is, because that would be stupid. :-) If people here honestly think it's the right thing to do in this situation, and aren't just doing it "because it's how interwiki links are meant to work", then that's fine, in terms of how Wikipedia should work. I don't personally think that it is the right thing to do on furry convention, because it decreases the utility of the page to those who are looking for information about furry conventions. It just seems silly - Wikipedia doesn't have any significant content here about them and Wikipedia editors don't seem to want any because of the narrow and obscure topic. Conversely, WikiFur has well-maintained articles about the topics, and readers are very likely to find what they are looking for there. GreenReaper 02:45, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
My philosophy about external links within the body of an article is that they should almost always be in the form of references, with all the conditions that go along with being references (exceptions would be things like infoboxes where there's a space for "homepage"). When I hit something in an article that's got an external link I generally turn the external link into a reference and the originally linked text into an internal link; for example "[http://foobar.com Foobar] Inc." turns into "[[Foobar]] Inc.<ref>http://foobar.com</ref>". This encourages adding relevant information to Wikipedia proper rather than continuing to rely on outside sources for necessary background. The problem comes when an internal link isn't appropriate and the external link is no good as a reference; in furry convention for example there's a link to WikiFur:2, The Ranting Gryphon who I suspect would not last very long as an article on Wikipedia itself and so probably doesn't warrant a redlink. The result is that there's nothing a reader can just click on right then and there to find out more about who this "2" fellow is. Unfortunately, I think we may have to accept this for now. Wikipedia is not without its limits, it can't be everything to everyone (yet :). People may simply have to rely on Google or other internet-wide search engines to fill in holes like that for now. Or, alternately, is there some article like List of famous furries that might have a section on 2? That might work, now that I think of it. It's similar to the compromise that's been hammered out about how to deal with minor characters in works of fiction. Bryan Derksen 06:32, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
An article on 2 has been deleted several times due to "local notability". There are a few people who have more enduring articles, usually through being published authors, artists, or generally pubic figures, but most have similarly local notability.
A problem with listing "famous people" is that everyone's going to have a different idea of who qualifies. There are many furry comics and comic artists who have dedicated fans willing to create articles or even whole wikis about their work, but this is not the same thing as notability to Wikipedia. List of famous furry websites (or even just art sites) might have a better chance, but again there are verifiability issues. Does it just need to have existed, or does it need a full-blown news story? Articles about individual well-known fandom sites have been deleted for this - though not always. Conventions are the easiest option, and even there you run into issues of particular venues being "media shy" (in some cases, with good reason). Someone has proposed a WikiProject Furry which might be able to set standards for all this, but I suspect it'll be tricky.
The people who comment on obscure subcultures are usually not recognized as reliable sources by Wikipedia, even though they may be right. Separate wiki projects are able to evaluate the quality of these sources with a community of experts. That is part of why they're useful. But it also makes them links that Wikipedians don't entirely trust, because relying on experts and original research is considered bad practice - even though much of the useful content in Wikipedia is here thanks to an expert dropping by and deciding to say a few words. GreenReaper 21:05, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
It would be nice if interwiki links were a different color like green but what about the people who are color blind? Making the WikiFur: prefix visible and putting the links in the External links section seems easy enough. I see this occasionally with meatball: and it is always obvious what type of link it is. (Requestion 02:12, 20 June 2007 (UTC))
That's what aural style sheets are for. :-) The main reason I piped the prefix when putting things in external links was because I thought it was ugly, and very few readers know what interwiki syntax actually means. Most likely they'd think it was some different part of Wikipedia, like Help: or Wikipedia: is (heaven knows we've had enough people talking about WikiFur as "the furry Wikipedia"). I tended to just put something like "[[WikiFur:Topic|Topic]] at WikiFur, the furry encyclopedia" because that made the target explicit. We do the same thing at WikiFur - most "general purpose articles with a furry twist" have "[[Wikipedia:Topic|Topic]] at Wikipedia" in a See also section. It's in See also because it's the same type of page - a NPOV encyclopedia article. GreenReaper 02:45, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Linking to external wikis

I would like to continue part of this discussion (now archived) called "EL pimping of free content sites". In particular, I would like more editors to weigh in on this point:

How do external wikis provide a unique resource beyond what our own articles would contain if they became Featured articles? I worry about the lack of editorial control. SourceWatch in particular seems to have some very biased and POV articles, and is one of the most frequently linked-to websites on the English Wikipedia. Regards, MoodyGroove 19:43, 6 June 2007 (UTC)MoodyGroove

Also note that SourceWatch has its own template even though it is not bound by Wikipedia's editing guidelines and the Foundation has no control over the content. One editor replied to this issue before the page was archived (see below). Thanks in advance for your opinions. MoodyGroove 16:49, 18 June 2007 (UTC)MoodyGroove

You're correct on everything you say (well, except possibly about SourceWatch, which I haven't seen and can't comment on). External wikis should be avoided at all costs, and certainly not encouraged with templates. And some attempted new policy page that went up a while back got soundly rejected. So we should start to remove competing wiki sites when they come up (and I would include such things as NNDB, as it's the same concept and process even if not explicitly called a Wiki project). DreamGuy 22:01, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
See also: Wikipedia:Linking_to_other_wikis and talk page. MoodyGroove 17:14, 18 June 2007 (UTC)MoodyGroove
It should be noted that Wikipedia:Linking to other wikis is a FAILED attempt at rewriting policy. The essay on that page has no resemblance to the real way Wikipedia handles things. It exists at this point only to document completely incorrect notions. DreamGuy 20:13, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
I really think that would be a bonus to revisit; so much of the stuff that accumulates under WP:POKEMON could be eliminated/prevented simply by having a Pokemon (or whatever) wiki out there that then gets linked instead of building up fancruft - Wikipedia for a general article on the subject, and then a link out to a place that can specialize. I seem to recall that was part of the idea of Wikia to begin with, and it makes so much more sense than Wikipedia storing complete descriptions of every Doctor Who episode or Star Wars gun type.--Thespian 17:49, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
One argument for is that "public" donated money should not be spent on maintaining content of interest to a limited audience. Honestly, though, the audience for Pokémon is probably far larger than that for, say, Oregon Supreme Court justices. It is however likely that Wikipedia does not entirely satisfy Pokémon lovers due to its requirement for verifiable, reliable sources, so another site should exist. From what I've seen, if the topic is sufficiently popular then it will almost certainly become a success, eventually containing most of the information on Wikipedia plus lots of other information that can't be contained here. GreenReaper 18:13, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Please, get over the "competing" thing. :-) Most separate wiki projects contain content that Wikipedia does not want. Usually they provide a place for original research, or levels of detail that were considered excessive for Wikipedia. Some were created specifically for this purpose. The fact that a site contains original research does not prevent it from being a valuable external link to readers who do want original research. Nobody is suggesting that wikis should be used as references, but Wikipedia isn't in the top 15 sites in the world because it's a good reference - it's because it's useful, and so people link to it. Many other wikis are useful, too, and where this is the case they should be linked from Wikipedia. GreenReaper 17:44, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm not particularly concerned about the competition. If the political wiki in question subscribed to WP:NPOV I might find it more palatable. Deciding what's propaganda and what's not is highly subjective, and can in fact be propaganda (unlike articles about Pokemon -- at least as far as I know). I'm glad people find the Wikipedia to be useful, but with that usefulness (and notability) comes some degree of responsibility. Is there something about external wikis that make them exempt from the first "link normally to be avoided" criteria? MoodyGroove 18:15, 18 June 2007 (UTC)MoodyGroove
Yes. Many wikis contain either original research, use sources that Wikipedia considers unreliable, or include extra detail beyond that which would be considered appropriate for a featured article, yet still contain information about the subject of the article from knowledgeable sources. For example, I suspect you would not normally be interested in a timeline of furry convention attendance, or lists of furry LiveJournal communities, media links, or convention resources, even if they were compiled by knowledgeable sources. However, there are those that are interested, and these readers are best served by a link to sites containing such relevant content - if it's good enough. The question as I see it is "how good does it have to be?" - do you draw the line at a certain number of editors, or pages, or stability, or quality (how to measure quality?), or what? These values may be different for each topic, and this is why the current guideline uses the word "substantial" - because it depends. GreenReaper 18:37, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
I removed the embedded links to Wikifur in your post. It's bad enough you add stealth spam to your own site on Wikipedia pages, but to do it here also is just abusive. DreamGuy 20:13, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
So what am I meant to do? Not give examples of what I'm talking about - resources which can be of use to other people? It's hard to discuss the content of other sites without showing people the content. GreenReaper 21:00, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
In reply to your concern about point of view - yes, this is a concern, which is why it may be useful to label such links with more than just a title. For example, "Conservapedia, an encyclopaedia with articles written from a conservative viewpoint". Of course, sometimes this is a value judgment in itself. GreenReaper 18:41, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
It is not a question of being useful. For example; linkfarms are useful but there is a policy against them. The reason why WP:EL says to avoid links to open wikis is the same reason why it says to avoid links to blogs and personal websites. It is about quality control. Wikipedia does not want to link to low quality websites that can be changed on a whim. WP:RS isn't a requirement for external links but WikiFur: would never qualify for use as a reliable source. (Requestion 18:43, 18 June 2007 (UTC))
Quality is an important part of usefulness. If a site is low quality then that makes it less useful to readers. That would factor into whether or not it should be in the external links. We don't want Wikipedia to be a linkfarm - but we might well link to one, like the Open Directory Project, if it contains high-quality links. We might also link to a wiki, if it contains high-quality information on the topic over and above that provided by such links. I don't think the mere possibility of change is a huge issue as long as bad changes are highlighted and reverted quickly. This can be evaluated on a per-link basis by examining the page history, and is one reason for requiring a substantial number of editors (enough to watch over recent edits). Most topics that have the notability to be in Wikipedia at all will be considered "high importance" to some degree and so the corresponding pages on them are likely to be monitored particularly closely. GreenReaper 19:39, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
We might also link to a wiki if it contains high quality information on a topic over and above that provided by what links? Again, my problem with external wikis is that we have no control over their content. Are you suggesting we need to subscribe to those wikis and watch for changes so we can revert them? Frankly, I can't understand why you think it's a good thing that other wikis may contain original research or lack reliable sources (from the standpoint of our editing guidelines). Why not just link to personal blogs then and make it a free for all? MoodyGroove 20:05, 18 June 2007 (UTC)MoodyGroove
My apologies: "over and above those links [provided by a high-quality link farm]". I am suggesting we estimate the quality of the link at the time that the link is being made - just like all other links. We shouldn't have to excessively monitor links to wikis; instead, as part of the criteria we should ensure that they are being monitored already. There are several ways to evaluate this - the general reputation of that site as a resource, the quality of the page's contents at the current time, and the history of edits to that particular page spring to mind.
Such links are of value because Wikipedia's editing guidelines result in leaving out information that some readers would find useful. We don't want to store or reference every item of information in the world, but it helps to point people to places where they can "find out more" . . . if those places end up helping readers rather than misleading them. We do not generally link to personal blogs unless it is for a topic about the person, because even if they are accurate we might not be in a position to judge their accuracy. However, we might well link to a wiki that uses this as one of its sources, if that wiki had a history of identifying sources that are reliable within its community. That way, we use the "topic-specific knowledgable" wiki editors as a filter - having first checked their work.
As I see it, there is little difference between wikis and other collaborative sites such as MobyGames or IMDB that do not specifically use wiki technology other than the potential for vandalism - and my experience has been that vandalism is easily countered on modern wikis. These databases are widely viewed as containing useful information that is appropriate as an external link, and so can topic-specific wikis. GreenReaper 20:50, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
The mention of MobyGames is rather ironic. GreenReaper is spamming Wikipedia with interwiki links to GreenReaper's WikiFur: site. The MobyGames founders are spamming Wikipedia with templated mobygames.com links. Neither group believes that WP:COI applies to them. (Requestion 21:43, 18 June 2007 (UTC))
Yep. And they've had similar debates about them as well, including the current discussion - though the main problem there appears to be the work of single-purpose accounts which are dedicated to adding them regardless of the content of the MobyGames article concerned. That is, they're not even thinking about whether or not it's a suitable article to link. GreenReaper 23:50, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
GreenReaper, considering your involvement with an external wiki, I'm not sure it's appropriate for you to be involved in a policy discussion about it. MoodyGroove 00:50, 19 June 2007 (UTC)MoodyGroove
OK. I personally feel it's silly to exclude people who would be directly affected by a policy from its discussions, but I've said my piece. I'll be watching. :-) GreenReaper 01:09, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
That's my point, GreenReaper. We're all directly affected by policy, but you have a material interest in the policy beyond the desire to write an encyclopedia, which after all is the goal of the project. "Its goals go no further, and material that does not fit this goal must be moved to another Wikimedia project or removed altogether." MoodyGroove 01:30, 19 June 2007 (UTC)MoodyGroove
BZZZZZ. There is nothing that I know of which prevents someone with COI from participating in discussions. COI is addressed for voting and editing articles. As long as any possible COI is disclosed, that person can contribute to the discussion. I'm willing to be proven wrong, but lets not run someone off just because they have a vested interest. Lsi john 01:13, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
WP:COI suggests that, to avoid a COI, one should "avoid or exercise great caution when participating in deletion discussions about articles related to your organization." As a corollary, it seems obvious to me that one should "avoid or exercise great caution" when participating in policy discussions as well, if there is a COI. We all have a vested interest in the project. That's different than a conflict of interest. MoodyGroove 01:53, 19 June 2007 (UTC)MoodyGroove
That being said. If I had a potential (or actual) COI, I certainly wouldn't try to monopolize the discussion, lest people discount my opinion entirely. Lsi john 01:15, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

"Nobody is suggesting that wikis should be used as references..." That sentence alone explains why wikis should almost never be linked. As discussed here nearly endlessly, and as the guideline makes pretty clear, external links should be to sites that could plausibly be used as references, if not for the topic of the article then for something else. One example is a Reagan library article extolling the virtues of Reagan could be an external link, but it would not be appropriate to source a statement like "Reagane was the best president ever." It could however be cited as a reliable source for Reagan's birthday. If it can't be used as a reference for anything, it should not be an external link. 2005 21:14, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Then why would SourceWatch (not even a sister project) have it's own template? Does that not encourage people to link to SourceWatch? MoodyGroove 02:01, 19 June 2007 (UTC)MoodyGroove
Unfortunately a lot of these people just make up their own templates for spamming purposes and then stack the voting deck whenever any vote to delete them come up. It's all a calculated game with these people. Make a template, spam it all over, and when one link is removed somewhere as being bad, say it has to stay because it's already been proven to be a good link or else it wouldn't have the template and wouldn't be on all those pages. It happens again and again with all sorts of sites of no real value that just spread everywhere. These people are shameless. DreamGuy 06:41, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
There's a big difference between external links and references. References are things that back up what we put in Wikipedia, ie, they're a foundation on which our credibility is built. External links, on the other hand are a collection of resources that we think a reader interested in the subject may also find useful for various reasons. It's reasonable to refrain from using wikis as references in almost all circumstances because their mutable nature means they're a foundation of sand. But if a wiki has proven to consistently be a good resource for further reading on a subject, then even if the specific details on the page change from day to day it's still the sort of thing we want readers to be able to find even if it's not suitable for backing up facts within the article itself. They may even contain references that can be used directly. Bryan Derksen 05:40, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Then why not link to high quality discussion groups, listservs, and bulletin boards? A user might also find those useful for various reasons. MoodyGroove 13:02, 19 June 2007 (UTC)MoodyGroove
Absolutely false, in more ways than one. Good lord, read the guideline. 2005 06:38, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree with User:2005. You seem to be under the mistaken belief that the External links is used as a web directory for any sites that might be of interest. Wikipedia is NOT a web directory. Any links, whether they are used for references or for external links, should have an encyclopedic, informative purpose. Sites at the other end of a link do not have to meet our NPOV guidelines (but if they have a slant we should mention it in the description of the link to give a heads up) and so forth, but they still need to be informative and of a certain quality and provide something other than what we should already have in the article. DreamGuy 06:41, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
I think that what Bryan is saying is more that the External links section is basically the "Further reading" section by another name. That seems to be what you're saying as well, and is a sentiment that I and other Wikipedians would agree with: guidelines aside, EL sections should contain those links (and only those links) which present useful resources for readers to continue their study of the topic. I'm not sure what 2005 thinks is "absolutely false" here. Perhaps this is part of a larger conversation? -- Visviva 06:58, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps you should read the guideline too. The external links section is certainly not for any/all "useful resources". The guidelines states several things clearly, and if you read it you can see that links basically need to be over and above the article, and be material that can not be integreated into the article for reasons stated, like level of detail and review-like opinion. The guideline further specifically calls out unstable blogs and wiki because it would be foolish to link to a URL that might have completely different content on it tomorrow. While a segment of the editor community thinks we should link to whatever they like, that's why we have guidelines. In this case, quality material over and above an article is a goal. Simply "useful resource" is not. In one article I dealt with in the past couple days, an editor added three external links to a list of articles by the subject of the Wikipedia article. All were "useful resources", and all were entirely redundant to the list of articles on the subjects official site. Likewise, a short, unstable external wiki article, with no authority or reliability or level of detail above our article here may be useful in its way to a person, but its useless to the encyclopedia an an external link. 2005 08:17, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
But the question of whether WikiFur is "unstable" is up for debate. The guideline specifically says that "those with a substantial history of stability and a substantial number of editors" are not to be avoided just because they're wikis, so wikis are indeed potentially capable of sufficient stability to be used as an external link. Bryan Derksen 14:46, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't see how the guideline contradicts what I said, and I don't even see how DreamGuy's comment contradicts what I said either - he's arguing against a position that I didn't actually take. The guideline's first paragraph says "Such pages could contain further research that is accurate and on-topic; information that could not be added to the article for reasons such as copyright or amount of detail (such as professional athlete statistics, movie or television credits, interview transcripts, or online textbooks); or other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article for reasons unrelated to their reliability (such as reviews and interviews)." That's pretty much what I was saying, external links are to direct the reader to stuff that's not in the article but that may be of further use to him in learning about the subject. I don't think we should include all links we can dig up that match this description, that would be silly, but that's not what I was addressing. Bryan Derksen 14:46, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
The words unrelated to their reliability are important, in my opinion. I'm not comfortable with the suggestion some editors have made that external wikis may contain original research or unreliable sourcing (so the content could not be used on the Wikipedia) but still be valuable to Wikipedia users. Valuable for their pursuit of what? Promulgating random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information? I don't think we should promote original research or unreliably sourced material of any kind, whether in the articles, in the external links, or anyplace else. The internet is full of original research (self published blogs). So unless a self published blog is written by a recognized authority, we generally don't link to it. Why? Because there's no editorial oversight or control. We have editorial oversight on the Wikipedia, because the editors hold each other to our editing guidelines. If an external wiki is not bound by those guidelines (or very simliar guidelines), it is not in principle any more reliable than a self published blog. This is less serious for the Star Trek or Harry Potter wiki than for political wikis sponsored by nonprofit groups like The Center for Media and Democracy (started by and environmentalist and political activist) and tend to have a liberal bias (but of course deny it). So it's not as easy as you might think to "label" the wiki in the external links, because someone will revert it as POV pushing and demand a reliable source to prove that the wiki is "left wing" when they describe themselves as "nonpartisan". It's not easy to find a reliable source in the mainstream media that labels organizations in this manner (unless it's a conservative organization). SourceWatch claims that "unlike some other wikis, SourceWatch has a policy of strict referencing, and is overseen by a paid editor." And yet it's easy to find articles like this. They also link to organizations like the LaRouche movement. MoodyGroove 15:16, 19 June 2007 (UTC)MoodyGroove
It turns out that WikiFur's policies explicitly include Wikipedia's own NPOV policy as their own: Policies and guidelines: What is WikiFur?. In the current conflict that led me here I see this as a situation where links for "information that could not be added to the article for reasons such as copyright or amount of detail" is more significant - as other examples, Comixpedia may have way more information about some particular webcomic than we actually want in Wikipedia, or Wookieepedia may have tons of detail that would excessively burden a Wikipedia article, and so rather than try to incorporate it we put a link at the bottom of the relevant page. The information there is generally not being excluded from Wikipedia for reasons of unreliability. As you say, there seems to be a distinct difference here between the fiction-related subjects and the politics-related ones in this regard - the term "politicruft" doesn't get used much but "fancruft" was common. I tend to stay out of political articles myself. Bryan Derksen 16:48, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
I can understand why. My primary interest is medicine and biotechnology. I started editing more political subjects because I came across some biased and poorly sourced articles, particularly with regard to the Bush administration, the War in Iraq, neoconservatism, and other related articles. My personal opinion is that violations of WP:NPOV are more damaging to the Wikipedia's credibility than the infantile vandalism that goes on. But I agree that the types of wikis you refer to are unlikely to be a problem, especially if the specific articles linked to are high in quality. But they should probably be linked to by editors who are not directly involved in the external wikis. MoodyGroove 17:27, 19 June 2007 (UTC)MoodyGroove

Several comments here have expressed concerns that we should not link to certain wikis, or perhaps to other sites, because they are not suitable as references. However, the precise purpose of the external links section is to provide material that may be of use or interest to the reader but that does not serve as a reference for the article. External links, according to policy, include links that would not serve as references for the article were the article to be comprehensive enough to be FA-status. The policies of Wikipedia need not apply to these sites; they do not have to be NPOV, for example (although its certainly nice when they have that policy as well...). There is a caution about other wikis because very small collaborative efforts have challenges dealing with misinformation and vandalism. Stable wikis with adequate contributor membership, however, may provide readers with a level of depth that Wikipedia cannot. This is why we link to Wookiepedia for Star Wars information, for example. A similar claim could be, and has been, made in good faith for Wikifur, which appears to have subsantial membership and a long and fairly stable article history. I can see no compelling reason why links to this resource should not be permitted for the handful of topics in its narrowly tailored environment that also meet Wikipedia's standards of inclusion. Serpent's Choice 21:25, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree that external links should be evaluated on a case to case basis, which is exactly why I don't think SourceWatch deserves its own template. It gives the appearance that SourceWatch automatically has the blessing of the community. I have nominated Template:SourceWatch for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Regards, MoodyGroove 21:39, 19 June 2007 (UTC)MoodyGroove
You need to read the guideline. First, it is a guideline, not policy. Second, you can disagree with it, but the language is plain, and the intent is pretty clear. External links can have point of view, that part is right, but the guideline makes clear that external links should be for material over and above an article while still having merit. The Wikifur link on Therianthropy for example was ridiculous. It was a few paragraphs adding nothing of value to the Wikipedia article. So it fails on multiple accounts: zero authority, few contributors, no extra value information too detailed to be added to the article, etc. If a wiki is to be linked to, the guideline makes plain that it has to be an extraordinary wiki, NOT just one on the topic. And that wiki has a higher threshold to meet than a "normal" website, due to the anonymous and unstable nature of wikis. External links should meet the criteria of being a reliable source for something. A POV site, like a very opinionated review, can meet that for release dates of a film, age of an author or something factually similar. Such a site can be considered reliable, even if opinionated, by other sites. Such a site may not have anything citeable for an article (or may be redundant to other sources cited), but it is a meritable external link. Sites with no reliability or authority or merit or independant trust will almost never be useful as external links. Blogs, wikis, personal sites... all these can be linked when very exceptional, primarily due to their authority via either large/popular participation over a period of time, or personal authority of one contributor. There may be articles on Wikifur that could merit a link, but anything like what was tacked onto Therianthropy is worthless to the encyclopedia as an external link, even if some users might find it useful. In general wikis are about the worst possible thing to link to, since anybody can wander in and add any sort of drivel, so if you want to link to one, it better really, really merit it. 2005 22:11, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm willing to accept that, I'm hardly an expert on therianthropy and opinions on the usefulness of the material about it on WikiFur can reasonably differ. My main problem has been DreamGuy's insistence that this guideline absolutely forbade any and all WikiFur links, an absolutist approach like that is IMO bound to lead to conflict and the omission of at least some valuable links. I'm pleased that consensus seems to be developing that a case-by-case context-sensitive approach is reasonable. Bryan Derksen 23:15, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
If by "consensus" you mean "we have enough pro-furry people, including an admitted hard core spammer, to totally swamp over the people who normally have discussions here" -- It's very clear from WP:EL guidelines on stability and quality, not to mention the not linking to sites that only have less than what the Wikipedia articles should have, prohibits Wikifur links. All you've done is shown that a dedicated group of single-issue complainers can show up as a group and cause mischief. I think you'd find that "it better really, really merit it" won't hold for any of the articles currently linking to the site. Well, of course you wouldn't because you thought it belonged on Therianthropy, and the clear consensus of people without agendas to push is that it doesn't. So now you conveniently ignore that, switch the topic to links in general, and still argue for it in general to save face instead of to do what EL rules say we should do. DreamGuy 18:23, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm not really sure what you're driving at here. I was under the impression that the reason you brought the discussion to this talk page in the first place (and started mass-removal of all WikiFur links) was that you wanted to make this a more general discussion. Many of the people who have participated in this discussion are not "pro-furry," even some of the ones who started out back on talk:therianthropy weren't (such as myself - I'm curious what agenda you think I'm pushing here), and it seems to me that you're still the only one who's holding the viewpoint that EL absolutely forbids any and all WikiFur links no matter what the circumstances are. Bryan Derksen 23:43, 20 June 2007 (UTC)