User talk:Talking goat

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Please do not add commercial links or links to your own private websites to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advertising or a mere collection of external links. You are, however, encouraged to add content instead of links to the encyclopedia. If you feel the link should be added to the article, then please discuss it on the article's talk page rather than re-adding it. See the welcome page to learn more about Wikipedia. Thanks. OhNoitsJamie Talk 02:24, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

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[edit] Vehicle safety links

It would be fine to add the link to Car safety (or another high-relevance article) but it's unnecessary (and excessive) to add it to every single vehicle article. OhNoitsJamie Talk 04:36, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. Information regarding a vehicles crash test rating is all the more relevant and necessary if/when someone is researching a specific vehicle. Therefore I would suggest that linking to the safety ratings and crash test results per model variant is equally as relevant as linking to a manufacturer site per model variant.

The link was not added to each vehicle article, only those identified as available in the Australian market. I would agree that adding the link to vehicle pages in instances where that vehicle is not available in Australia should be construed as irrelevant.

I can understand why commercial links are not allowed on wikipedia, but this link is in no way commercial, and provides information of benefit to the general public, as well as information not often provided by other sites (eg. manufacturers). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Talking goat (talk • contribs) .

The issue was that you were adding the same link to each vehicle, versus a link directly to information for that vehicle. Furthermore, it doesn't appear that all of those vehicles you've added even have information on that site. I did a search for "Holden Monaro" and "Nissan Maxima" on that site; zero hits for either. Links should be specific to the subject. OhNoitsJamie Talk 05:26, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

The reason you wouldn't those two vehicles didn't come up in the search are because the Used Car Safety Ratings are in pdf format. The www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/vehiclesafety link was used as it seemed more user friendly than this one: http://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/vrne/vrne5nav.nsf/childdocs/-B8F8655488907260CA256FD300241C1A-667BCFE41674A389CA256FD300241C2B-1EE471300C4801C3CA2570A400083B3F?open I would be happy to link to this page if you prefer. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Talking goat (talk • contribs) .

If you format the link correctly (which you have been doing), the user won't see the really long URL. I don't see any problems with adding the car-specific links to each model, given that it's a government-sponsored site. Thanks for your understanding. OhNoitsJamie Talk

Thanks Jamie. It was never my intention to do anything underhanded, just want to get the information out because I believe it's important.

Well, Wikipedians are always supposed to assume good faith, so I apologize for not doing so. As a spam-patroller, I tend to become alarmed when links are mass-added to articles and try to nip such actions quickly in the bud. Glad we worked it out. OhNoitsJamie Talk 06:49, 24 July 2006 (UTC)


[edit] RAV4

I removed the link to the safety site from Toyota RAV4 because it didn't point anywhere RAV4-specific. If you do put it back, please make sure it goes directly to the RAV4-specific information. (BTW, it's RAV4, not Rav4.) Jay Maynard 11:00, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

The link opens the page that the safety ratings are access from, it's not possible to go direct to the RAV4 as far as I'm aware, because it's in the pdf. Is that ok?


I see a couple problems with what you're doing (and this applies to everything, not just the RAV4 article):
  1. You're not adding content, just external links. We would encourage you to start adding RAV4-specific safety info to the RAV4 rticle (if you know of it), and Camry-specific info to the Camry article, and so on.
  2. As already demonstrated by User:OhNoitsJamie, your method of simply trawling through car articles adding a link and moving on is alerting spam patrollers. While in this case your intentions are good, it's unlikely your information will stay for long - most will simply revert your edit and move on.
  3. OK, you "think it's important", but what if someone else thinks its important to add links to European safety tests, for cars sold there? And then a third user adds the American safety tests for US-market vehicles? Then Asian info gets added? Then someone starts adding insurance group information which is region-specific? Then someone starts adding region-specific economy information? Eventually every article has huge numbers of links, and Wikipedia is not a repository of links. What you're doing (and what it encourages) is the reason policies like this exist.
  4. As User:OhNoitsJamie also pointed out, you're not linking to the specific car. Because the information's in .pdf format, it's not possible to do this. However, it means that it's now inclement upon the user to search for the information themselves; all you did was provide a starting point for them. You might as well provide a Google link to "Used car safety ratings".
  5. Related to the above point, the way you're presenting the info isn't quite accurate ~ saying "Used Car Safety Ratings - Toyota Rav4" isn't where you're pointing to. You added in the model of the vehicle only to avoid your link being edited out for being too vague.
  6. Also, as pointed out by User:OhNoitsJamie, there's a Car Safety page where such a link would be much more appropriate. Those who agree with you that car safety is important can navigate to that article and quickly find the information you provided (as well as info for other regions, perhaps). This would enable you to add the link once, and once only, without conflicting with other editors. The fact that three people have posted here, and other editors have reverted your changes, suggests that there's probably a problem with what you're doing, even if your motivations are good.
  7. Leading on from the above point... How not to be a spammer: "Sometimes, people come to Wikipedia with the intention of spamming -- creating articles which are mere advertisements or self-promotion, or spewing external links to a Web site over many articles." Unfortunately, though your intentions seem good, the fact that you have posted the same identical link to so many articles, without adding any content, means you probably fit the definition of spammer.
I don't dispute that a car's safety performance is important to many buyers, and would qualify as encyclopedic if we can incorporate it into the article. However, I think it's your way of doing it which is flawed. Aside from that, welcome to Wikipedia. Regards, -- DeLarge 08:03, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Generally I can agree with what you are saying, but I do have a couple of issues with the whole thing. I've had a look at quite a few of the vehicle pages now, and some of them (not all, but some) read like they have been put together by the vehicle manafacturers PR or media relations department. It could be argued that many of the vehicle pages are nothing more than "mere advertisements or self-promotion." Personally I would consider links to manafacturer sites and some personal websites and forums to be SPAM. I would have no problem with links to safety ratings from other countries being included where appropriate.

[edit] Please copyedit

  • Don't use bold text - it's considered inappropriate emphasis, especially on the Automobile articles, where bold text is used for model names within articles.
  • "It's" means "it is". Please drop the apostrophe, as I'm getting bored of having to fixing it.
  • You don't need to explain what the AUCSR is on every single page.
  • If you're adding a blurb or paragraph, please remove any links you've previously added at the bottom of the page, as these are now duplicated/redundant.
--DeLarge 08:06, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Safety section in Holden Commodore

Hi, I noticed that you reverted my edits regarding the removal of the safety section in the Holden Commodore article. If you are that determined to have that information there, may I suggest that you either include it in the correct section (VR Commodore info under VR section), or in each of the dedicated sub-articles on each model. Cheers OSX (talk • contributions) 11:05, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm happy to edit it again. I'm just curious as to why that information was removed in the first place?