Wikipedia talk:External links/Archive 29

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Illegal to access in the State of Florida

The article WP:ELNO#3 presently says: "... or content that is illegal to access in the state of Florida." It probably would be helpful to the editors here to include a link to a summary of the pertinent Florida law. SaltyBoatr (talk) 17:04, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

It would probably be a long list, rather than a single link. For example, I'm pretty sure that both intentional distribution of malware and child pornography are illegal in Florida, and I doubt that they are handled in the same section of the code.
If any editor ever has an actual concern about a real link in a real article, that cannot be resolved by the application of the editor's best judgment, then we can address it at that time. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:13, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Is Florida significantly different from any other state? What is different about Florida that singles it out from the other 49 states for a special mention here? SaltyBoatr (talk) 16:56, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
It is where the Wikipedia servers are. A Texas state law, for example, has no bearing on ELNO 3 because the servers are not there. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 19:07, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Makes sense to add that reasoning into the line, just to clarify. I've done so. Nigholith (talk) 11:58, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
The first version of this (relatively recent) line said something like "illegal content", but the concern has been that all sorts of things are illegal somewhere. We might all think of some obvious examples -- certain kinds of images in Saudi Arabia, or political statements in Iran or North Korea -- but there are also unpredictable issues in what we would call modern Western countries. For example, German law apparently makes it illegal to publish the names of convicted murderers in connection with their crimes once they have been released from prison. This means that, under German law, as of the day the convicted murderer Wolfgang Werle was completed his sentence, people are supposed to pretend that it was just some hypothetical "Mr X" who was convicted of tying up, stabbing, and beating Walter Sedlmayr to death.
Given this state of affairs, it seemed like being more specific about which laws we use to determine whether something is illegal might stave off disputes. The presence of the servers in Florida seems to result in the laws of Florida (state) and the US (federal) being the relevant laws, so that is what we have named. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:42, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, that makes sense. SaltyBoatr (talk) 02:01, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Video bot

I recently added a video link to an article. It was instantly reverted by an automated bot and I got the following message: "Video links are also strongly deprecated [sic] by our guidelines for external links, partly because they're useless to people with slow internet connections." This message contradicts the guidelines on WP:YT which state that "There is no blanket ban on linking to YouTube or other user-submitted video sites." I understand the copyright concern which is legitimate and well explained. But the idea that video links per se are "strongly deprecated" because of people with slow internet connections is totally bunk. I recommend someone fix the notification on this bot so it accurately reflects WP guidelines. 94.222.118.188 (talk) 09:29, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Your link was inappropriate, but really the bot should say discouraged rather than deprecated as video technology is obviously not. You'd do better to leave a note at the bot's talk page however. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 12:49, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
I agree, the "slow internet connections" argument is a rather silly one, especially considering that we ourselves provide streaming video nowadays. --Conti|✉ 13:16, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Don't know if that is a valid argument, the usual streaming videos on wikipedia are very shortBread Ninja (talk) 16:36, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't see any conflict between "not universally banned" and "strongly deprecated". The real world works this way, too: Killing people is "not universally banned" -- there are legal exceptions for self-defense and war -- but it is obviously "strongly deprecated".
This page has, almost since its creation, deprecated the inclusion of any link to any large file -- not just video, and even if the file is streamed instead of requiring that readers completely download the entire file before they can view it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:21, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
I have never seen any link being removed because someone with a slow connection wouldn't find it to be useful. If there's no other reason that speaks against linking, why not? As far as I know, we link to entire films if they're in the public domain. And we should. --Conti|✉ 21:29, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
If there's a warning about the size—and for videos, simply labelling the link as a video, like with pdfs and so on, should be sufficient—then I don't see what the problem is. —Korath (Talk) 22:08, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Certainly we should link to some videos. We should also always label large files (video or otherwise), as well as files that require any kind of software that isn't required to view the Wikipedia article, so that each individual reader can make an informed decision about whether or not to click on the link. It's not just a question of people with slow internet connections; some businesses and organizations are taking creative steps to keep employees away from time-wasting websites, like YouTube and Facebook.
On the other hand, size is an issue for some of our readers. If the choice really is between a plain HTML page that presents certain information about a subject, and a large video file that presents the same information, we should normally choose the smaller file. As an example, someone kept trying to spam a video link into Syphilis a couple of years ago. It was nothing more than text scrolling across the screen. That kind of link should never be permitted.
Finally, we have an additional complication here: We're talking about XLinkBot and an IP editor, not an autoconfirmed editor. The overwhelming majority of XLinkBot's reversions for YouTube are appropriate... probably including this one (which certainly violates EL's formatting standards). WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:24, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
I agree with everything you're saying. My point was that "Youtube links are not appropriate because people with slow internet connections might not be able to use them" is a nonsense argument, and that's just what the bot implied before I removed the corresponding sentence from the bot message. That the bot is reverting links to Youtube from newbies is entirely appropriate for various other reasons, though. --Conti|✉ 08:01, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Heh, did not know it was a discussion here as well. Although linking to large files does have implication (there are still people behind dial-in in the world who use Wikipedia, and for those links to video's are .. not extremely of use), it does not have place in the bot warning (anymore). It has been there for a long, long time (practically since I took over the development of the bot, I think), and has not been removed (and two years ago the issue was more there than it is nowadays, though it is still not completely gone). Thanks for catching that.

YouTube external links are (often) inappropriate for various reasons, the strongest being linking to copyright violations, but also many other reasons exist (no, we do not need a link to the video of your grandma's birthday party, a video of you driving your car does not add anything to custom car, &c.). XLinkBot is, next to reverting plain spam, also set up to revert link additions by editors who may not be/are not aware of our external links guidelines and 'what wikipedia is not' (and some parts of some other policies and guidelines), and many, many youtube link additions fall under that category.

The system allows for various customized warnings for specific cases, regulars here might want to have a look through them and see if the wording could/should be adapted, or that new categories could be added. All can be customised in User:XLinkBot/Settings, and the settings defined on that page gets loaded before every revert, so the result should be immediately visible. The 'categories' are defined by 'ownremark=image|media|petition|blog|payforview|email|wiki'; and for every of those categories there should then a '<category>rule' containing a regex to which an external link would match (e.g. 'blogrule=blog|forum|twitter'), and a '<category>text' which is the text which is included in the message (e.g. 'blogtext=If the external link you inserted or changed was to a blog, forum, free web hosting service, or similar site, then please check the information on the external site thoroughly. Note that such sites should probably not be linked to if they contain information that is in violation of the creator's copyright (see Linking to copyrighted works), or they are not written by a recognised, reliable source. Linking to sites that you are involved with is also strongly discouraged (see conflict of interest).'). XLinkBot tests the categories that are there, and for every matching regex the text is added.

I hope this explains, and thanks already for the help! --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:00, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

MoS naming style

There is currently an ongoing discussion about the future of this and others MoS naming style. Please consider the issues raised in the discussion and vote if you wish GnevinAWB (talk) 20:52, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

This item seems to be an odd sort of "scar" left behind by change in consensus (reminds me of strike-out sections in amended laws) rather than anything helpful to someone trying to understand the guideline. Is there a reason not to move it into the "to be avoided" section? —chaos5023 (talk) 23:59, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

It is ugly, but I think the problem is that many editors currently know which number is what, and will use text like WP:ELMAYBE#2 to refer to a particular item. Removing #1 would break that. Johnuniq (talk) 02:05, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Also, (less important, but still worth a thought) all past discussions that mention "#1". Heck, it's nice to have a record of WP:CCC and doing so. -- Quiddity (talk) 17:04, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Well, there's an object lesson in the use of names rather than indexes for referring to things. Maybe there's a way of making it a bit more sensical without breaking the links or history. Will ponder. —chaos5023 (talk) 17:11, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Personally, I don't think that ELMAYBE #1 ought to be have been removed. I think it ought to have been re-worded to (1) encourage the use of professional reviews in building an article and (2) explicitly permit consideration of external links to professional reviews, if there were some reason why a given review couldn't be used to build the article content. Most editors opposed this idea as unnecessary.
The ELMAYBE section is not a shining example of ideal writing style for guidelines (e.g., the "link to considered" that is actually a "links to be wary of"), but I think that eliminating the numbers would ultimately be undesirable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:10, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Clarification of WP:ELNO #2...

I'm slowly becoming literate with these guidelines, and had a question about number 2 of the links to be avoided:

Any site that misleads the reader by use of factually inaccurate material or unverifiable research, except to a limited extent in articles about the viewpoints which such sites are presenting.

My confusion hinges on the phrase misleads the reader, and makes me wonder what the guideline is meant to handle. Is it meant for:

  1. Sites that are obviously pushing an agenda, AND do not meet WP:V? Or...
  2. Any site whose research is not independently verifiable, regardless of intent?

If the first interpretation is correct, then how does one determine whether or not a site is misleading? Does this introduce a requirement that one prove that a site is misleading?

On the other hand, if the second interpretation is correct, then is it reasonable to say that all external links have to meet WP:V, regardless of whether/not it is dealing with a WP:BLP? Reading WP:V and WP:EL, the guidelines don't really talk about each other -- would be nice to know how they interact. Thanks! -- Joren (talk) 11:14, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

The primary purpose of this item is to encourage editors to remove websites that promote WP:FRINGEy ideas, such as conspiracy theories, disproven scientific/medical claims, nonsense, etc., even if they are cleverly written so they sound reasonable to an ignorant person (or at least a non-expert).
As a general rule, we would rather not send our readers off to websites that are mostly wrong. So, for example, we wouldn't usually link to a website that tells readers that the Earth is flat, or that colored lights will cure diabetes or cancer -- because we all know that the Earth isn't flat, and that colored light doesn't cure cancer. Editors might decide that such a website is acceptable in Flat Earth or Chromotherapy, but not in Earth or Cancer. Editors should use their best judgment when doing this, and focus on the most significant abuses, without edit warring.
For your two ideas:
  1. It is not actually possible to decide whether a source "meets WP:V" without comparing the source to a given statement. Even patently fraudulent sources will "meet WP:V" for supporting certain statements (e.g., "In 1920, John Hoaxer published a book titled The Earth is Flat."). This is why RSN begs people to provide "The exact statement in the article that the source is supporting."
    External links, on the other hand, don't support any specific statements at all. They provide information in a general way. So your idea that they should meet WP:V is not feasible: you cannot meet WP:V without comparing the source to a statement, and with External links, there is no statement to compare the link against.
  2. We do (sadly) see some editors make this claim, but it has never been supported by this guideline. External links are not required to supply footnotes or third-party attestations of their accuracy. (Nor are proper reliable sources, BTW.) We expect our editors to use their best judgment in deciding whether a non-footnoted website is seriously misleading. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:52, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
  1. It wasn't really my idea at all; I had been under the impression that WP:V was meant for the article, not for sites outside Wikipedia, but hey. This statement (ELNO #2) was used by an administrator in choosing to reject an external link (not mine, btw) that, while not fringe-y at all, has chosen to omit the references from the articles hosted on the site. The author of the site says they have done this because the author previously published the articles in a journal, and they chose to withhold the references from the free online version in order to combat piracy. The work seems fine to me, and the article on Wikipedia would probably be enriched by having this link, however, verifiability is pointed to as the reason why the site is being rejected. (BTW - should "unverifiable research" in ELNO #2 be taken to mean something other than non-WP:V when applied to external links?)
  2. Is your take on it pretty well established consensus here? Or is it just one view on an issue that hasn't been settled yet? (If there IS consensus, would be nice to rewrite ELNO #2 to make it clear just what it applies to; my two cents anyway). Sorry for asking so many questions! Thanks for your reply,
-- Joren (talk) 21:17, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I have reported an established consensus, not merely my personal view. A removal under ELNO #2 requires that the webpage is (according to the mature of the editor) actually misleading, not merely that it is without footnotes.
In the bigger picture, "not actually prohibited by ELNO #2" is different from "editors are required to include this link". There may be other reasons behind the removal.
Please consider inviting the other admin/editor to join this discussion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:55, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for your reply; I have invited User:Gnangarra to the discussion. For reference, here is the conversation and link in question: User_talk:Gnangarra#Norcia_link. Respectfully,
-- Joren (talk) 04:30, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I've seen editors remove links of that kind based on the interpretation of this guideline, leaving an unclickable url in place. It goes against the obvious fact that Wikipedia is a web site. The alternatives I can think of are worse from a usability perspective: (1) use the link a footnote ref blah.com[1] (takes two clicks, and it goes against the spirit of hypertext), (2) use no inline elements whatsoever and let the user find the "external links" section, and then the link to click, which is even worse. Pcap ping 05:56, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Notes

  1. ^ http://blah.com


It's long standing policy to stop people hiding spam, your suggestion has come up a number of times but it's never gained any traction. --Cameron Scott (talk) 07:39, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

So what would prevent them from hiding spam in the references or external links section in the exact same way? Pcap ping 08:01, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia has no particular interest in providing convenient links to an organization or website that happens to be mentioned in the text of an encyclopedia article. "Apple, Inc announced today that..." is not preferable to "Apple, Inc announced today that..." -- and it is much worse than "Apple, Inc. announced today that..." (when a suitable article exists, or should). Footnotes should not be misused to provide links to organizations unless the linked page on the org's website actually supports the text (e.g., a link to a specific press release, not something that says, essentially, "See? Apple, Inc. has a website!"). Readers who want to find a website can ask their Favorite Web Search Engine for that information. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:20, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

RSS in infobox

What's the take on providing a link to every single format that a video podcast is produced in ? for example, the infobox on The Digg Reel, seems excessive to me. I can't see how it's covered here by policy here? --Cameron Scott (talk) 20:21, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

WP:ELOFFICIAL covers this: "More than one official link should be provided only when the additional links provide the reader with unique content and are not prominently linked from other official websites. For example, if the main page of the official website for an author contains a link to the author's blog and Twitter feed, then it is not appropriate to provide links to all three. Instead, provide only the main page of the official website in this situation."
So, given that all the RSS feeds are on the front page of The Digg Reel's site, they should not be listed in its article here.
(Listing any RSS feeds in infoboxes, is a bad pattern that I've been meaning to research and discuss here. This is a good example. Anyone have input, or other examples, on that?) -- Quiddity (talk) 20:49, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
I can't see any discussion or useful history at Template:Infobox podcast, although it does suggest the RSS field was devised at a simpler time when this number of feeds was not considered. As Quiddity says, all of the feeds are listed on the home page of the official website, so I think all the RSS feeds should be removed from the infobox as being totally contrary to the spirit of WP:EL (we generally provide one official link, and the target page should go into the details). Johnuniq (talk) 02:39, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
I went through about 100 random articles from my watchlist, and the only examples I could find of RSS-feed-in-infobox are the articles using {{Infobox comic strip}}. (In hindsight, that was a very slow method to find them, and I have to leave for the evening now, but) I'll try and search the other infoboxes for similar field names tomorrow, and then propose that the fields themselves be removed, if that sounds good to anyone who replies, and if it hasn't been done already ;) -- Quiddity (talk) 04:55, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Only these 3 infoboxes have an "RSS" (and atom) field:

Questions:

  1. Should the fields be removed? (On the basis that the feeds are incredibly likely to be prominently linked from the main site of each topic)
  2. Is this the correct place to discuss it, and who needs to be notified (template talk, creator talk, wikiproject talk pages, and wikiproject infobox?)?

Thanks. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:45, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

My two cents:

  1. Yes, these should probably be removed, and WP:ELNO#EL9, "Links to any search results pages, such as links to individual website searches, search engines, search aggregators, or RSS feeds" should be named as one of the primary reasons. (ELOFFICIAL's principle of non-duplication is the other primary reason, IMO.)
  2. This is a reasonable place to discuss the general concept. A note at each template's talk page should attract the attention of all current creators/maintainers. I think that the notice to WikiProjects is optional, but it might be nice to alert WikiProject Infobox to this issue, since they're the folks most likely to need this information. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:26, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Proposal to remove the RSS and Atom fields from infoboxes

Based on the above discussion, it is proposed that the "RSS" and "Atom" fields be removed from the 3 infoboxes that use them, because:

  1. They are counter to WP:ELOFFICIAL's principle of non-duplication - "Minimize the number of links".
  2. They are counter to WP:ELNO#EL9 - "Links to any search results pages, such as links to individual website searches, search engines, search aggregators, or RSS feeds"

Notifications have been left at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Infoboxes, Template talk:Infobox podcast, Template talk:Infobox journal, and Template talk:Infobox comic strip. Discussion or comments are welcome. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:24, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I wrote what I thought were clarifying guidelines on where to place external links, and was swiftly reverted with the edit summary saying "no consensus for the addition of ELs being okay in "lists" (they generally are not).". In my opinion, it makes sense to put external links within lists, as it makes access much easier (which is the entire point of having a list as an article). I see it routinely done. Here are some examples of articles employing this technique.

In my opinion, those lists (and there are many many others) effectively use external links in the article, and I see no reason not to formalize this in the policy page. However whatever (talk) 16:56, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

The problem is not with this guideline, but with those articles. Of the articles you listed, the external links should be removed from List of radio stations in the United Kingdom and Comparison of PVR software packages; all or most of the entries there have individual articles, which is where links to their official sites properly belong; I see no external links in List of CBS television affiliates (table); and the list in List of Wii drivechips should be removed entirely and the article moved to Wii drivechip or something similar, at least until enough of the individual drivechips have viable articles to support a list, which is currently nowhere near the case. All this is in line with Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists and Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a mirror or a repository of links, images, or media files. Leaving them in place, let alone changing this guideline to encourage them, is not. —Korath (Talk) 21:42, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
My initial thoughts are likely to not be useful:
  1. WP:ELPOINTS is the wrong place to address this.
  2. Your changes screwed up the numbering, which is a Big Problem for a guideline that editors routinely refer to in cryptic messages like "See WP:ELPOINTS #3".
On a perhaps more useful line of thinking, there is disagreement about the inclusion of external links in lists. Some editors are very strongly opposed; other editors strongly favor them. Wikipedia is not a directory of websites, but editors shouldn't be silly, either. (IMO, banning external links from the body of a long list, and then repeating the entire list under the heading of ==External links==, just so you can include the external links in the "approved" place on the page, is extremely silly.) Sometimes, these websites are being used as a type of citation (see WP:ECITE).
If the community actually had a firm consensus one way or the other, we would have documented that here already. It doesn't, so we don't. There are perhaps a few smaller claims that could be credibly supported. For example, we'd rather see Apple, Inc. than Apple, Inc. If the organization or company is probably notable per WP:ORG, then we'd rather see a redlink (perhaps followed by a plain, unadorned link to the website: [1]) than an external link to the company website.
BTW, the presence of "normally" in ELPOINTS #1 is specifically intended to provide editors of lists with just enough wiggle room that they can use their best judgment. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:09, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
Re:Your changes screwed up the numbering: Not sure what you mean. On my browser the numbering did not change. However whatever (talk) 04:30, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
You're right; I overlooked the asterisks. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:47, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
Ditto, what WhatamIdoing said. -- Quiddity (talk) 00:47, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
External links should never be in lists. It's the worst place to put them. Lists should link to internal articles about things. If the thing isn't notable enough to have an article then it can sometimes be mentioned in the black text, but should never get an external link. Build an article if the thing is actually notable. This is an encyclopedia, not a place to "let's make a list of un-notable things." 2005 (talk) 23:55, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
Well, technically speaking, this page actually insists that all external lists be formatted as bulleted lists, so external links should always be in lists.
Also, you might like to go read WP:LSC, which explicitly names exceptions to the "every entry must be blue links" rule that you assert. If the list complies with one of these long-standing and widely supported exceptions, then including external links might sometimes be acceptable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:45, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
The only exceptions named there (and, to my knowledge, the only ones ever named there for any length of time) are A) redlinks that verifiably meet the selection criteria, and B) in "lists that are created explicitly because the most or all of the listed items do not warrant independent articles: for example, List of minor characters in Dilbert or List of paracetamol brand names." The official-website links presented as motivating cases above by However whatever don't remotely fit either of these. (The drivechips list itself is debatable, but it would lose no encyclopedic value without the spam-encouraging external links within the individual entries.) —Korath (Talk) 01:05, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
You have left out "C)", "If a complete list is feasible in 32K and could be useful, go for a complete list." This exception does not differentiate between blue links, red links, and unlinked/known to be non-notable entries.
I make no claim that these facts are especially relevant to the named examples. My primary goal is to make sure that editors have the whole story, so that there's less likelihood of a half-true statement being misrepresented in other contexts as the whole truth. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:18, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

The entire premise for not including external links in lists lies in the assumption that the reader needs to first click on an internal link to the article, and then click on the external link.
Why ?? What's the rationale?
This seems to me to defeat the entire reason for having a list, which is to put the information in a nice consolidated format. Otherwise, lists would be unnecessary, as there already is a form of a list which in Wikipedia lingo is called a category. However whatever (talk) 05:20, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Your summation of "the entire premise" is misguided. The nutshell of this page states "External links in an article can be helpful to the reader, but they should be kept minimal, meritable, and directly relevant to the article". External links in lists directly violates that and ELNO:#13... "Sites that are only indirectly related to the article's subject: the link should be directly related to the subject of the article." Entries in list articles are basically by definition subsets of the subject of the article, not the whole set of the article. It's fully illogical to include external links in the body of list articles. Some external links can be at the end of list articles, if they cover the entire range of the list article, but otherwise internal articles should only be linked, and then those internal articles can have appropriate external links about the subject of that article at the end of them. We aren't a one page website. We are a multi-page encyclopdia covering notable topics in an appropriate, inetconnected way. 2005 (talk) 06:21, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
External links are not required to cover "the whole set of the article". For example, links to images of a given microbe are widely accepted, even though "the whole set of the article" is not best characterized by "what it looks like under a microscope". Similarly, we provide link to pages specifically and solely about history, diagnosis or treatment of diseases, even though that typically represents only one out of eight or ten sections in a good article; to online calculators for various kinds of articles, even though the articles are about, e.g., Body mass index, rather than specifically online calculators of same; to minority views in politics- and sociology-related articles, even though the articles are primarily about the majority viewpoints; and so forth.
Actually, the types of links you recommend here might conflict with ELNO #1, as they don't seem to be materially different from the article content. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:34, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
Please refer to the quoted sections in the guideline. To repeat again: the link should be directly related to the subject of the article. If you have a problem with that, feel free to start a discussion of that. You may want United States of America to link to www.state.ny.us, and may like a list article of the 50 states to link to www.state.ny.us, but in both cases this is directly counter to ELNO #13, and the nutshell. I don't think you'll find much support for external links in Science to link to any article about some obscure individual science concept that someone wants to include. It's illogical, and the guideline has stated the exact opposite for a long time. 2005 (talk) 06:49, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
The guideline says that links must be directly related to the subject, but does not say (and never has said) that links must be directly related to every single sub-topic in the article, which is what you're claiming. I wouldn't include links to each of the fifty states at United States, but I'd definitely accept links to whitehouse.gov, house.gov, senate.gov, supremecourt.gov, and census.gov (for stats; if not used as a reference) -- none of which can plausibly claim to directly relate to "the whole subject" of the United States, but all of which directly relate to a major component of the whole subject.
And, in fact, if you go look at the article, you'll find that my list of obviously acceptable links has been stably present in the external links for a very long time, and that 21 of the 23 current links relate directly to a subset of the subject (e.g., a government agency, history, maps...), rather than to the entire subject. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:19, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
HW, the general notion is that we want to keep readers at Wikipedia as long as possible. We'd rather send our readers to one of our pages than to someone else's website. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:34, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
I agree, and it's also confusing to send readers unexpectedly to an external website when they're in the middle of an article. We may be used to the slightly different colour used for internal and external links but there are many readers to whom that would mean nothing.--BelovedFreak 11:55, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Soft redirects to other Free wikis

I've suggested a change to our soft redirect guideline to allow for more interwiki redirects. If you're interested, head on over and let me know what you think! --Explodicle (T/C) 19:46, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

vote merge — Somebody proposed a merger of Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(linking)#External_links_section into Wikipedia:External links. I appear to be the first to comment though. I would agree with this because that section is getting long and there's a real danger of discordant information occurring. I see no real drawback to the merger so long as there's that page clearly tells editers where to look for the external link info. Jason Quinn (talk) 14:41, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

As the first point the following is listed:

  1. Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a featured article.

This makes little sense to me. Most articles are not featured articles and it is often not quite clear what their featured version would comprise. While it makes sense to discourage links that do not offer any additional information to the current content of the article, requiring that the link also has additional information to what a future featured article might contain seems outright ridiculous. Aside from the obvious vagueness and difficulties to assess that properly, it is an obstacle to readers and editors alike. If that is taken literally it blocks you from adding informative and useful links to stubs or short to medium sized articles. As a result you deprive the readers from interesting information as long as the article is not featured. Also you hinder the proper collaboration between authors, since one author might add a useful link and the next might use it to extend the article (using it either as source if it is reputable enough or simply as inspiration to what could/should be added). Considering all that I suggest to modify the content requirement from "featured article" to "current article". Of course later on when the article grows such links may be moved to sources/citations or simply deleted once their information has become redundant.--Kmhkmh (talk) 16:19, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree that this point could use re-thinking. Does anyone feel like digging through the history of its development, to compare any previous wordings? What kind of items is it trying to exclude, that the other points don't cover? -- Quiddity (talk) 18:59, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
"unique resource" added 22:56, 15 November 2005 --Ronz (talk) 19:18, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
If you search the archives, you can find at least a couple dozen discussions on it. Quickly glancing at a few, I agree with the interpretation in Wikipedia_talk:External_links/Archive_18#Featured_article_criterion. --Ronz (talk) 19:41, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
There are two forces at work regarding external links: (1) A link is added by someone who wants to add value to the article (good), or who wants to promote a site/POV/product (bad); (2) A link is removed by someone who wants to avoid Wikipedia becoming a linkfarm.
The WP:EL wording is a realistic acknowledgment of the imbalance between these two forces. It is very hard to justify removing a link because somewhere someone would find the link useful (even the ads might be useful). So the WP:ELNO wording has to be strong to avoid exploitation of Wikipedia for promotion. Note that the wording does not prohibit the link, but it does require someone wanting the link to carefully explain its value, so the onus is on the person adding the link to explain why it is good, rather than requiring the antispam editor to prove that it is bad. Johnuniq (talk) 00:31, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
All that is achievable without that "featured article"-approach and imho is the current formulation by no means a "realistic acknowledgement" it is simple an unworkable rule if taken literally. There are definitely better ways to avoid spam and link farms.--Kmhkmh (talk) 00:54, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
We do not take rules literally (see WP:BURO), and there clearly cannot be a rule which, when mechanically applied, results in a "keep" or "delete" result – commonsense and judgment will be required to interpret WP:EL. Johnuniq (talk) 01:43, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
The general disclaimer for WP guidelines, is no justification for setting up an impractical rule.--Kmhkmh (talk) 06:17, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
I think this is one of the strongest and most important parts in the guideline. It states that we should only link to pages which go above and beyond what we display on our pages. For example we link to sites that contain long tables and statistics that are too big for our articles, as well as original documents where a summary isn't good enough. These both go beyond our function since even FA-class articles wouldn't contain this information.
Were this provision to be altered, links could be added to articles and webpages that operate under the same summary-style scope as Wikipedia. There are dozens and dozens of pages that do this for most article topics and they are all not needed if we are able to write the information within our article. So if the information contained within the link fits within the scope of an FA-class article it should be written into the article and not given as an external link. This functions both to build up our articles and to reduce linkfarms.
The bottom line is that we only link to material outside our scope. Since the broadest scope for a subject is the FA class article, if a link goes beyond its scope then it is suitable for inclusion but if it falls within its scope its contents should be written into the article. ThemFromSpace 01:59, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Themfromspace here, the information linked to should really add something to the page where it is added to. It is a re-iteration of what is mentioned in the intro ("Some acceptable links include those that 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 its accuracy." and "No page should be linked from a Wikipedia article unless its inclusion is justifiable according to this guideline and common sense."). If you make this sentence softer (e.g. "Any site that does not provide a unique resource") then practically everything could be linked, except exact copies of pages which exist on two external servers (we could only link one...), which would be a violation of us not being a linkfarm. Moreover, it would make all other ELNO's useless as everything (related to the subject) would be unique.

One has to take this rule of course with some consideration. Of course there will be external links which are, at the moment adding info to an article, (and especially on articles which would never reach FA-status), so on smaller articles there are many external links which would be quite OK as they add info at the moment, which can be (later) upgraded to expand the article and become references (and that is how I generally read #1: if the link on the current status of the page does not add significantly, it can go immediately). So, treat it with common sense, but I totally agree with the current wording of it: but the bar high, and treat those that currently fail that bar with consideration. --Dirk Beetstra T C 07:02, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

As you and Johnuniq say "treat those that currently fail that bar with consideration", and "We do not take rules literally", and "commonsense and judgment will be required". However, it's when the rules are taken literally, which is fairly often for some editors (for various policies, not just this one), that valuable information is deleted. I'd guess that is why Kmhkmh is seeking clarification.
As I said elsewhere, deleting useful content is never a best practice. For an m:Eventualist, the best practice is to leave the content where it is in the EL, so that readers can potentially benefit from it. For an m:Immediatist, the best practice is to move content to the talkpage, until it can be integrated back as a formal reference. Personally, I'm generally a pragmatic eventualist, especially on sub-GA-class articles. If something is not causing harm, and might be helpful to readers, then I generally advocate leaving it alone. E.g. When someone deletes a handful of interview links from a stub-article's EL section, that's just detrimental rule-following. -- Quiddity (talk) 21:39, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
I agree. Our primary goal is to provide useful information to readers. Also we have to keep in mind that WP is collaborative process that improves incrementally. It is quite common that people just collected a few sources in the form of external links and write a stub. For instance somebody sets up a stub about an actor/writer politician containing only a few very basic lines, but he adds 2 or 3 online articles about that person under external links. I would hope we all agree, that 3 links should not be removed, that is however what our current rule suggests. Another also somewhat common scenario is that somebody adds such links to a WP article that is still underlinked and undersourced. Due to the fact that our rule refers to the featured article state it makes no distinction between those beneficial and desired links in the above examples and the spamming and linkfarms we want to block.--Kmhkmh (talk) 02:38, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
Whether links are useful depends on the circumstances. Of course (just like misguided edits occur), some overly zealous link removals occur. The current WP:EL wording gives good guidance for a discussion on an article talk page, and there is WP:ELN for central discussion of a particular case. This thread is too abstract because we are not considering a particular example – if someone has a problem in mind, please state it (here or at WP:ELN). Johnuniq (talk) 00:13, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
@Dirk Beetstra: While I agree with your attitude towards links in general, my issue is with that it is exactly not reflected in that rule #1. Bssentially you are saying that you're constantly or at least break the rule to make it reasonable/workable for an average article. But from my perspective that just means we have a rather bad rule to begin with. Whereas certainly no rule should always be taken literally or followed to the letter, we also shouldn't have rules that need to be ignored on a somewhat regular basis.--Kmhkmh (talk) 21:13, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

We need reliable rules to block spamming and linkfarms, but on the other hand those rules need to prevent overly zealous and misguided "quality control" as well. While the current rule definitely works fine for the former it falls short or rather completely fails on the latter.--Kmhkmh (talk) 02:04, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I think focusing more on the encyclopedic nature is best. "Any site that does not enhance the encyclopedic nature of Wikipedia by providing unique resources related to the article beyond those that other reliable sources have already shown."陣内Jinnai 03:26, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
IMO that's basically a long-winded way of saying "External links must be justifiable," which makes it redundant to the lead.
Also, I think that the fundamental point here is that the community says editors should not dump perfectly good references in the external links section instead of developing the article. It may be "permitted", but it is not "best practice". I think that providing a specific comparison (to FAs) helps editors focus on the ultimate goal instead of the immediate gratification of adding a quick link. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:04, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Regarding the point above about 'When someone deletes a handful of interview links from a stub-article's EL section, that's just detrimental rule-following.', depends. One sometimes finds articles with a number of interviews, which, if you look at them, all tell the same story, they are not unique from each other. Taking out all but one is selective, moving them all to the talk is better. And then, although many are 'on topic', sometimes they don't even tell more (in terms of incorporable information) than the stub already tells, etc. etc., in other words, they do not really add. If links were added without justification (which happens oh so often, even with good faith 'spammers' (i.e., GLAM's who have their hands on the sources), then the place to be is the talkpage, not the article. Remove them if they do not pass the bar. And no, I don't think that it is the task of the editor who removes them to bring them to the talkpage, it is the task of the editor who unjustified inserted links which need justification to include.

I do not think that there are many cases where editors are, randomly, removing external links based on #1, I don't think anyone scans stubs for linkfarms and cleans them out because of #1 (or the linkfarm must be waaayy to large). If they are removed, they are removed because they are looking at a specific set of external links which generally do not pass #1, or which have been spammed and fail #1. I do have a tendency to remove links from linkfarms where the list of links is significantly larger than the stub itself. I don't think that such linkfarms are justifyable in any form, if you have time to add a link to a page, you also have time to add information to the page from that link, and that time could then also have been spent to discuss/justify each link on the talkpage.

I see where you are coming from, Kmhkmh, but I think that the rules are intentionally a bit strict, but I would need to see specific edits where external links which are between 'current status' and 'FA status' being removed from the article solely based on #1 (noting that when someone says they remove them because they fail #1 they may have had more thoughts in mind, but lets start there). --Dirk Beetstra T C 07:57, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

As the standards of FA vary from FA to FA, beyond the basic criteria, that criteria is just redundant. The only purpose it serves is to remove links prematurely because of that. Each article has different types of links that may be acceptable or not as those change more fluidly than this guideline. Moreso what is acceptable in a GA, that doesn't metts WP:ELYES and isn't WP:ELNEVER or WP:ELNO without a justifiable reason is open to the interpretation of the one removing it.陣内Jinnai 18:05, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
Yup: We require editors to use their best judgment.
Also, the WP:ELBURDEN is on the person who wants to include a link. If someone removes or disputes a link, you've got to convince them that the link should be included, not merely say that it isn't (or shouldn't be) prohibited. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:00, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
I'd phrase that a bit differently. If somebody wants to include a link, he needs to provide a valid reason/justification. On the other hand if somebody wants to remove one she should have a justification as well. WP:ELBURDEN is not be understood that editors can delete content or links out pure whimsy and without proper reason. Or to put it this way, we do not expect quality work from contributing editors only, but from quality control editors as well.--Kmhkmh (talk) 21:11, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
WP:FAITH handles that. If you feel they are being stubborn and causing turmoil and repeatedly ignoring evidence, then that's a seperate issue.陣内Jinnai 21:58, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Hello,

Two years ago I created a Wikipedia account and added external links to relevant articles pointing users to primary resources held by the publicly-accessible archives of the non-profit educational institution for which I worked. At that time, Wikipedia administration viewed the links as a conflict of interest and removed them. It was my mistake; I was ignorant of the conflict of interest rules. I was asked to post the information to the Talk page for each article for approval rather than posting the external link myself. Our department was understaffed and I could not devote more time to this process, so I did not add external links to any more articles.

I'm wondering if the Wikipedia community has lowered the barrier for librarians, archivists, curators, and other educators to add relevant external links related to their own institutions, or if all external links of that nature must first be discussed on a Talk page. Has this policy changed at all or is it still considered a conflict of interest for educational institutions to post links to their own holdings?

Thanks, Cyndi Shein (talk) 22:34, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Generally not, see the discussion above for instance. The main criteria in any case is its use for the majority of readers and not whether it is public, private or commercial. What is accepted afaik are several "standard links", like linking to the library of congress for a particular author, but that would be restricted a very few national libraries and international catalogues. Links to arbitrary public libraries are not wanted, unless they provide (complete) digitized content being of interest to the article.--Kmhkmh (talk) 01:33, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Kmhkmh. However, please see WP:GLAM for relevant information. I suggest asking for guidance on its talk page. Johnuniq (talk) 02:01, 7 June 2010 (UTC)


Thank you for your responses. This is helpful. 192.215.101.254 (talk) 22:59, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Official website in EL section AND in infobox?

Is it against this policy to have a link to an organization's official website in both the article's infobox and in the External links section? Or does the presence of the link in an infobox demand that the link not be included in the External links section? ElKevbo (talk) 05:55, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Umm, I already quoted you the guideline contained within this guideline: If several external links are listed and the subject of the article is a living person, organization, web service, or otherwise has an official website, it is normal practice to place the link to that site at the top of the list (if it is not already in an appropriate infobox). So, yes, per this guideline (not policy as you wrote above), we do not list it both places, as covered by the part within parentheses. If you would like to argue about changing it, that's a different discussion. Aboutmovies (talk) 06:29, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
And the guideline also states that we should "[I]nclude appropriate external links in an "External links" section at the end of the article, and in the appropriate location within an infobox, if applicable." So there is clearly a contradiction or at least some ambiguity and I'd like to hear what others have to say, particularly since common practice seems to be to include the link in both places. ElKevbo (talk) 06:51, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
The guidline can be very ambiguous, if you don't look at the part that specifically addresses the question. But, if you want more support for not including it, note the overriding theme to this guideline is to keep ELs to a minimum (point #3 under Important points to remember). And as to what happens in practice, please read about that argument at WP:OTHERSTUFF, and note that many (if not a majority) of articles' EL sections go against this guideline. That's why there are a variety of tags such as {{external links}} and {{Cleanup-spam}} and {{No more links}}. The category for link cleanup has 1900 articles in it, and there are plenty of others that should be tagged. Kind of like how most UNI articles could use a COI tag and a note about boosterism, but that doesn't mean we should just go ahead and make boosterism standard since that's the current state of the articles anyway. Aboutmovies (talk) 07:17, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
WP:OTHERSTUFF has nothing to do with this. Policies and guidelines are descriptive, not prescriptive. I'm saddened that so many editors forget that the policies and guidelines are meant to serve the editors and readers, not the other way around. ElKevbo (talk) 07:37, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
OTHERSTUFF has to do with your argument of "particularly since common practice seems to be to include the link in both places". I.e., everyone else is doing it... Aboutmovies (talk) 06:49, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
(EC)It is not technically against policy, hence infoboxes having those parameters. However some projects have removed the website link param form their area's infoboxes feeling that it was an undue highlighting of the EL when it was unnecessary, and that it went against the general spirit of EL. In general, I'd say the editors of an article felt the link should only be included once, then it should be removed from the infobox and placed only in the EL section, instead of the other way around. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 06:31, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
The link should generally only appear once, and by preference in the infobox. Common-sense should apply, but I can't think of any exceptions. Verbal chat 07:29, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
I'm sorry but I don't understand. Can you please expand on your statements, particularly your reference to "common sense?" Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 07:37, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
I myself don't have too much trouble if the official link appears twice, and would not bother making a problem out of it. I don't think that I have removed such cases (except if the official-ness was questionable). I can see that it is 'superfluous' information, but I don't see any trouble or problems with that in this case (infoboxes contain, some almost by nature, often information which is duplicated in/from the article!). Also, sometimes the official external link is also used as one of the references (yes, I know, primary source, etc., but as long as it is not the only reference site), which also would make the external link superfluous. The external link section is a more stable place where you can generally find the official link, infoboxes tend to be 'unreliable' for that. I would focus efforts on removing the 'subpages of official homepages', which are linkfarmed around articles sometimes, and which should not be linked (especially not the 'contact of company', the 'library of university', the 'press centre of the organisation' next to the official links). --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:00, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm with Verbal on this. An official link only needs to appear once, and that once should be the infobox if that is appropriate for the link. Wikipedia is not in the linkfarm business; an empty external links section is not an indication of failure. tedder (talk) 09:00, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

The infobox EL isn't consistent, nor is it always there. Consensus removed all ELs from the Films infobox last year, the anime/manga infoboxes have never had them and when it was suggested, consensus strongly agreed with keeping it that way. Same thing with the Book infobox, Comic strip, etc etc etc. There are, I'm sure, many more without it as well. Having the official link in the EL is more appropriate, rather than highlighted in the very top when it is, really, superfluous. If Wikipedia is not in the linkfarm business, why give the official link undue prominence at the very top of the article. It seems to me that in actual practice, the preference is for the official link to be the first link in the EL section, at the bottom of the article. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 12:57, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I would mostly agree with Dirk Beetstra on that one. Definitely linking it once is sufficient, bur linking it under external links as well doesn't harm und offers the possibility to provide a more detailed description/comment on the link. Also some people treat infoboxes just as short article summaries, which strictly speaking means, that they should only contain redundant information. On the other hand you could argue that this is not really a practical approach. In any case this is not really a subject worth fighting about, i.e. if somebody writes an article and lists it twice - let him/her, if he lists it only once - let him/her as well.--Kmhkmh (talk) 11:09, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

  • Leave the links in both places. As discussed at Help:Infobox, infoboxes are reference summaries of key information that supplement the article body -- they do not replace it. Including an item of information in an infobox does not mean that it should not be included in the article body. I believe that different readers approach wikipedia articles differently. Some readers look at infoboxes and images first when visiting an article, but other readers (like me) are more text-oriented left-to-right readers who are likely to pay little attention to infoboxes. (I often only look at the infobox for information after I've failed to find it in the article -- and then I may cuss out the contributor(s) who thought that putting key information in an infobox meant that it wasn't needed in the lead section or body of the article.) --Orlady (talk) 13:11, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
What Orlady said. Also, including the URL in the infobox, using {{Urlw}}, includes it in the emitted microformat metadata. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 13:54, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
Why not put the microformat class in the corresponding row/cell in the infobox? Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 17:18, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
  • Standard practice in well-developed articles about organizations (e.g., Apple, Inc., Microsoft, Berkshire Hathaway) is to include the org's website in both places. In other types of articles, editors might normally make other choices, but the community certainly does duplicate the links for businesses. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:41, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
  • Leave links in both places Wikilinks occuring in the lead should be repeated in the body, I fail to see why the same logic doesn't hold for an external link. I also have to laugh at the characterization of providing one external link to the official site of the topic in an infobox in the lead and the same link in the external link section at the end as a "link farm". Madcoverboy (talk) 16:14, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Closure

It appears that a preponderance of the editors weighing in on this agree that it's ok to have links in both locations. Does the policy need to be clarified so this issue isn't unnecessarily rehashed later or are we content with leaving this up for interpretation?

(For the record, I agree that it's appropriate for both locations. I further assert that the policy needs to be clarified as it is inconsistent and can be interpreted as being out of line with common, uncontroversial practices.) ElKevbo (talk) 05:27, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Bueller? Bueller? Bueller? ElKevbo (talk) 10:36, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I have removed '(if it is not already in an appropriate infobox)'. I think that is then clear enough. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:51, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

More targeted wiki site

I am editing the Natural Language Processing article, and I noted that there was a list of conferences, most of which were red links; There's a wiki dedicated entirely to conference calls which I think would be quite appropriate, since many of these conferences have no central websites, only year-specific ones, not only for NLP but also for other subject that might have associated conferences. Does it seem appropriate to provide, following the list of conferences, a general link to the conferences wiki, so a person could go there and look up the specific conferences? (I wouldn't want to link each mention of a conference because it would have to be changed each year; I'd provide a general link for all.) (talk 18:34, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

No, such a site would not meet WP:EL. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 19:16, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
Can you elucidate why (or link the section that is relevant)? It seems like if we can't link targeted wikis, we'd have to duplicate the information, since it seems to be that people want to link information about academic conferences. TehMorp (talk) 19:40, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure I agree, AnmaFinotera. TehMorp, can you please provide the link here so we can better evaluate it? ElKevbo (talk) 19:45, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
Call for Papers Wiki TehMorp (talk) 19:57, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
Note, I looked at the link through his contribs as he'd already added it to the article. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 20:07, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
He, she, or it, thanks; just because you're a boy, doesn't mean all wikipedians are. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TehMorp (talk • contribs) 20:28, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
I'm not a "boy", thanks. I used he as a general pronoun. If you prefer another, just politely say so. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 20:30, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
He wants, politeness, does he? (I'm just using the general pronoun, I hope that's okay: I'm post-feminist, you see.) 140.182.227.238 (talk) 21:09, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
I don't really care one way or another. If you are TehMorp, however, you may wish to have that edit oversighted if you did not intend to reveal your IP address. Beyond that, WP:CIVIL is your friend. I'd suggest reading it if you intend to edit here long term. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 22:09, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
There is no need to link to calls for paper It doesn't add any value to the article and does not "contain neutral and accurate material that is relevant to an encyclopedic understanding of the subject". A listing of various calls for papers is not necessary at all for understanding the topic. Also see WP:ELNO #12 under links to be avoided "Links to open wikis, except those with a substantial history of stability and a substantial number of editors. Mirrors or forks of Wikipedia should not be linked." and #11 for no personal sites. That wiki seems to a blend of the two. Keep in mind that wiki is not DMOZ or the like, and articles should have only a minimal number of ELs. Quite frankly, that whole section of organizations/conferences is really is unnecessary. Any notable enough to have an article should be mentioned in the prose or linked to via a see also. But listing/promoting organizations and topics in such a fashion is not something general done in such articles and does not add to its understanding. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 20:07, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
Now that I've seen the link and AnmaFinotera has further explained his or her rationale I think I agree that the link probably doesn't belong. I'm not willing to say that the link would never be appropriate in any article but I think that it would be a stretch for most articles. Sorry! ElKevbo (talk) 20:12, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
I saw that, but several years seems sufficient in internet years. Internet years are like Mercury years, right? ;p TehMorp (talk) 20:26, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Advice columns

I would like to add advice columns to WP:ELNO number 10. What do you all think? Lova Falk talk 17:43, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good, but are there signs of links to advice columns being added? If just a couple of isolated cases it may not warrant a change to the guideline. Johnuniq (talk) 03:08, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
I dunno about that. Dear Abby probably should have a link to the advice column that the article is about. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:07, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
Yes, of course Dear Abby should have a link to Dear Abby's advice column, just as Facebook has a link to facebook, even though facebook is mentioned in ELNO 10. But for instance [Evolutionary psychology's previous version] had a "Ask Carole" in its external links (an advice column using concepts from evolutionary psychology to help people) and even though this link is not described in ELYES or ELMAYBE, I could not find a clear ELNO when I removed the link. I watch a lot of psychology pages, and these advice columns show up rather frequently for all kinds of diagnoses. For instance, advice column for people suffering from this, advice column for parents with children who suffer from that. I would like to remove them and have a clear ELNO to refer to in my edit summary. Lova Falk talk 07:11, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
You don't need an ELNO number; you need the third sentence of the lead. Advice columns that refer tangentially to the subject are not sufficiently "on-topic" to merit linking. You might also like to see WP:MEDMOS#External_links, which includes things like "personal experiences".
Also, I'd like to say thanks for taking on the normally thankless task of watching psychology articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:45, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
Actually, it's fun because psychology articles are the most interesting ones! The third sentence of the lead is a very long one, and rather a lot to write in an edit summary. It would be so much easier just to be able to write "per ELNO 10". What is actually the main argument against adding these two words, "advice columns" to ELNO 10? Lova Falk talk 16:39, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
Adding unnecessary items is WP:CREEPy, and instruction creep makes guidelines bloat into unusability.
It's no harder to type the plain English words "off topic" in the edit summary than to type the cryptic jargon "per ELNO 10". WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:32, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
The editor who put in the advice column can easily state that the advice column is "on topic" because the advice is given is about the topic of the article. Adding "advice columns" to ELNO 10 would NOT make it "over-complicated" - instead it would make it clear for all. Lova Falk talk 09:09, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
The editor could also claim (correctly) that ELNO is not ELNEVER, and that just because a given type of link is "usually avoided" doesn't mean that this particular one should be removed.
Speaking only for myself, I don't think this expansion is warranted. However, if you actually run into problems with editors claiming that advice topics that tangentially mention the subject are "on topic", then please let us know. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:29, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
I will. :) Lova Falk talk 16:32, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of life#Templates for external links. --Snek01 (talk) 17:20, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

I had a query about including the user page of Andrew Schlafly's user page on his conservapedia User:Aschlafly as an WP:ELOFFICIAL link for him. This was rejected on the basis he did not have control of his user page, that someone else might edit it and it would remain with those edits till he reverted it. I really can't see this as meaning he doesn't control his own user page and I think it is against the spirit of 'Official links (if any) are provided to give the reader the opportunity to see what the subject says about itself'. The page starts ""Hi, my name is Andy Schlafly and I..." and is obviously his own personal statement. User pages will be protected if a user feels it is being changed too much against their wishes on Wikipedia and he has even more control of his own user page on his own site. How much control of a page does a person need before it is consider as under their control? Dmcq (talk) 23:12, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

I'd be more concerned about how that would qualify as his official site. Surely someone notable would have a real official site, versus just his userpage there. I'd also concur with the concern that because it is really not "his" page (presuming conservapedia has similar "ownership" rules as Wikipedia), it can't really be considered an official link. Looking at it, I don't see that it really says much of anything of import to be an "official" site. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 23:38, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
Ignoring the particulars of that site though since the noticeboard is for such purposes, would you consider we should never use a user page from a wiki as a persons official page for the purpose of WP:ELOFFICIAL because they do not have total absolute continuous control over it? Would you consider a site like Facebook as providing enough control for that purpose? The purpose of an ELOFFICIAL page is 'Official links (if any) are provided to give the reader the opportunity to see what the subject says about itself.', what is the purpose in that context of needing control as meaning has a high level of protection against vandals as opposed to control as meaning they can make an unfettered personal statement? Dmcq (talk) 07:15, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I would probably consider that, since really a Wiki page is not an official one, unless it is a closed wiki. A Facebook page should only be used as the official only if it is the only thing they have, but they do, at least, control pretty much all official content on the page should they choose too. With a wiki, there really is no way to easily distinguish the "official" content from someone randomly coming by an editing the page just before a visitor happened to come by. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 14:41, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
I agree. User pages can be edited by anyone. They shouldn't be considered official. Dougweller (talk) 16:33, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
Only open ones.陣内Jinnai 16:39, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Clarification on personal web pages

In the section on Wikipedia:External links about Links normally to be avoided it says:

11. Links to blogs, personal web pages and most fansites, except those written by arecognized authority. (This exception for blogs, etc, controlled by recognized authorities is meant to be very limited; as a minimum standard, recognized authorities always meet Wikipedia's notability criteria for biographies.)

Personal web pages links to a page that has had tags about its content since 2006 and 2007 there for it is questionable how reliable that page is. What is the intended meaning of the term personal website in this context? I removed an external link because it was clearly a personal website, simply about the subject in question. My removal was undone and the edit summary said personal webpage only " refers to a web page about the author" . The incident in question happened on Humphrey Arundell over this link [2] . Should these sorts of websites be linked to in the external links section or do they not belong there? Thanks BritishWatcher (talk) 09:22, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

That's a hard case to judge. Partially because the article currently has no references at all.
The website claims that the content there is from "Notes on the Prayer Book Rebellion ( an information folder for Schools and others who wish to commemorate the event or to study the history) by Grand Bard Ann Trevenan Jenkin", and ca.Wikipedia says she is the wife of Richard Jenkin, and hence might be a potentially reliable source (?). However it doesn't seem to say whether the content there is an authorized copy (the only website-owner name I could find was "Hilda").
For me, in the short-term, it would come down to whether the content there is accurate or not: If it doesn't contain misinformation in any way, then I'd leave it be, at least until a handful of reliable sources are added to the article. I'd probably replace the link with the subpage that is specifically about Arundell though.
Other editors might disagree. HTH. -- Quiddity (talk) 19:15, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
Thank you very much for responding, i did post over on the notice board a couple of days ago but got no response there. See to me that personal site hosted by a supermarket, doesnt seem like one that would ever stand a chance of passing the test of a reliable source. If it cant pass that i do not see how such sites belong in the external links. You mentioned it was partially because there was no other sources for the page. So if this one appeared on an article that was sourced, would there be more of a case for deletion?
If you have the time, could you give me a quick opinion on the external links for that page Prayer Book Rebellion? Unlike that other article, this one has a huge list of sources already. BritishWatcher (talk) 21:23, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
See to me the only justified link there is the guardian article, although i dont think that is needed in the external links section and the .gov website, but theres nothing on that page so its pointless too. All the others are personal websites, theres nothing to suggest they are credible or reliable sources. BritishWatcher (talk) 21:33, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
Hi. Point-by-point reply:
The supermarket nature of the host isn't relevant; it is equivalent to any Free web hosting service, such as yahoo/msn/geocities/etc. What matters is the content.*
External links do not have to meet the standards of Reliable sources. See the nutshell and intro paragraphs of this guideline, for our well-hammered description of the purpose behind the EL section. Bear in mind the various Conflicting Wikipedia philosophies, that had to come to some sort of consensus on that wording.
At Prayer Book Rebellion, I'd remove the 2 broken links, and judge the rest according to their content accuracy.*
(*) My driving motive is pragmatic utility - is the content at the link completely-accurate, relatively free of banner ads, and generally of potential benefit to one or many readers?
If the content at the original link in question (tesco/k.wasley) is really from an "information folder" that is really used in schools, then hypothetically, it might be of benefit to readers.
At the very least, if you are unsure of a link's worth, and you're uncomfortable leaving it in-article, consider moving it to the talkpage, instead of just deleting it.
HTH. -- Quiddity (talk) 00:45, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
Back to the guideline issue, I don't understand, and disagree, with the comment that 'personal website " only "refers to a web page about the author". And I point out criteria 1 for ELNO, "Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a featured article.". Dougweller (talk) 07:41, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
I agree somewhat with Quiddity and the latter rule you cite is quite problematic (see recent discussion on that in the archive, which was left without a real conclusion). From that discussion it becomes also clear that this rule is only workable because it gets ignored at large and it should enforced strictly or in a literal sense.--Kmhkmh (talk) 15:39, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
While the precise limits of a 'personal webpage' might require editors to use their best judgment, I think that everyone would agree that this rule is definitely intended to exclude webpages that are nothing more than one normal/non-expert person's opinions. So my late mother's friend might have really well-developed views about the importance of painting the living room blue (the better to show off her red hair), and she might feel strongly enough about that to create a website explaining her preference, but that wouldn't be an appropriate external link. Ditto for my baby sister and her muscle car, my husband and the importance of IP subnetting, myself and what dark chocolate teaches us about the existence of God, etc. If the webpage is basically some normal person with a hobby, then we don't (normally) want to link it. This rule is not limited to my baby sister writing about herself, my husband writing about himself, me writing about myself. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:09, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
Generally yes, though the emphasis is on personal opinion and careful analysis of the website's content. If the website accurately reflects or describes standard or distinguishable opinions (with correct attributions) it might be ok to add it in individual cases. Another common case where might allow or want such links, are private websites correctly illustrating some science topic, providing a correct mathematical proof (most math articles intentionally do not contain proofs due to math guidelines).--Kmhkmh (talk) 21:25, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

AllMusic

ELNO 1 essentially restricts from simply linking to another resource which is the same as Wikipedia - a tertiary source such as a short encyclopedic article constructed from primary or secondary sources. The assumption is that Wikipedia should at least match and preferably exceed the information contained in the tertiary source, and that our aim should be to build the Wikipedia article, not provide a link to other articles. Providing links not being our function. However, WP:PSTS does say that tertiary sources can be helpful in certain circumstances, and I can see that where a tertiary source has made a summary statement, that such a statement can be commented on and linked as a source within the main body of an article. Simply providing a link to the tertiary source as an external link, however, does not appear to be helpful as there is no indicated specific purpose, and so ELNO 1 makes sense to restrict such usage.

AllMusic.com fits the criteria of a tertiary source restricted under ELNO 1, and I wonder if there is a circumstance in which using AllMusic as an external link (rather than as a specific reliable source providing a summary statement as indicated above) would be acceptable? There is a template in use - {{Allmusicguide}} - which is appended to nearly 5,000 articles. That's fairly wide use, suggesting some consensus, and the site does use professional music critics (though can tend to be long on praise and short on acuracy). However, I'm wondering what value this link is bringing to the articles on which it is used, and if the template should be taken to a deletion discussion - but before doing that, I wondered what people's thoughts were here. SilkTork *YES! 17:05, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Utility: For short/stub articles,allmusic is often a useful resource for finding citable material. For Featured articles, it's usually just cited numerous times, without an additional EL link (although of the 7 random Wikipedia:Featured articles#Music I checked, Kate Bush and Mariah Carey both had an EL link). All the 7 FAs I checked had 2 or more citations to allmusic.
Nuclear: I don't think deleting the template would be at all beneficial. That's the nuclear option, and should really only be considered when something is doing direct harm. There are probably instances where the allmusic page has no useful information, and in those cases the link from the individual article should simply be removed. -- Quiddity (talk) 17:58, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I've cited AllMusic at times. It can be very useful as a source for a quick summary statement ("Foo is regarded as an influence on Young Turks"). And I agree, that deleting something is quite drastic - especially something widely used. I suppose I am thinking of deletion as I have a sense of disquiet that it is a handy template for doing something that policy and guidelines are suggesting we shouldn't do. You know, it's one thing somebody putting in a manual link to AllMusic when an article is being built up - commonsense would indicate that sometimes a policy or guideline can be temporarily waived in order to assist in building the encyclopedia. It's a different kettle of fish having a template which suggests both official sanction and permanance. And if AllMusic why not Rollling Stone and NME and Last.fm and Britannica.com? The template feels as though a line has been crossed. So, if that line has been crossed, and it is acceptable, then should we be looking at rewording ELNO 1? Perhaps: "Any site that does not provide information beyond what the article already contains" - thus allowing for a temporary link to tertiary sites to build the article, and that link to be removed when the article reaches Good or featured status. SilkTork *YES! 19:10, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
Note, we do have EL templates for {{britannica}} and {{last.fm}} and hundreds more at Category:External link templates and its subcategories. Some editors think they should all be deleted (and that EL sections should be almost empty), others disagree. It's a perennial discussion.
Your suggestion amendment to ELNO#1 seems reasonable to me, but I imagine it's been suggested before? I have to leave for the day, so cannot search the archives at this time. -- Quiddity (talk) 19:33, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

"illegal"

Policy says "Linking to a page that illegally distributes someone else's work sheds a bad light on Wikipedia and its editors"

Wikileaks is known for distributing material without the permission of the material creators/owners. Can everything on Wikileaks potentially be linked to?Bdell555 (talk) 04:31, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I was actually just coming here to ask that exact same question. :P Please don't omit the context of the situation, as it is essentially primordial to making a decision on the matter. EricLeb01 (Page | Talk) 04:36, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
And because this is a specific concern, this should be taken up at WP:ELN. EricLeb01 (Page | Talk) 04:38, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Well I would not make too much out of The War Logs or even just Wikileaks here because I think linking to, say, child pornography is also relevant here. Is it OK to link to child pornography if it is the website owner's "own work" as opposed to the unlicensed material of someone else? At present I am not aware of any Wiki guidelines that even caution editors with respect to such links. I propose that the following be added to the policy:
Websites that are illegal according to the laws of any society that is generally recognized as free and democratic should only be linked to if a reliable source has already linked to that website
Denmark reportedly bans 3500 websites or so and Australia 1370. It just seems highly incongruent to me for Wiki to greenlight links to illegal websites and yellow or red light so many links that Wikipedia would never realistically be prosecuted for linking to, like the typical Youtube video.Bdell555 (talk) 05:25, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Seems perfectly reasonable to me. Wikipedia only links to sites if they are a relevant part of the topic and have been explicitly referred to in reliable sources. For most copyright stuff the actual location is irrelevant and a legal source can be pointed at, there is no reason to point to ripoffs. However when a source says something is on wikileaks that is relevant. Dmcq (talk) 11:32, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
That's imho neither true nor desired if that is meant to refer to external links in general rather legality issues. Of course we allow external links offering additional information and media that currently is not or cannot be included in the article for some reason without requiring them to be discussed in reputable sources. Typical examples are pictures and videos related to the topic that are not available on Commons.--Kmhkmh (talk) 17:35, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure however how the business about illegal adds anything to the policy. What kind of link that is currently okay would be banned by this? Dmcq (talk) 11:38, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Really? Any society? Does that include North Korea, Cuba, China, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, and other countries that censor the internet for political or religious purposes?
I think this is a dreadful idea, and I suspect that you didn't think it through.
ELNO 3 exists primarily to cover malware and child pornography, with some wiggle room for editorial judgment (e.g., any website that you think is the equivalent of shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater). Florida is named as the location of interest because it is the location of most of WMF's assets. That is, screwing up with respect to Florida's laws could result in a court turning off the main servers. Screwing up with respect to North Korea's laws doesn't put the overall project at risk. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:40, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Since when are North Korea, Cuba, China, or Saudi Arabia "free and democratic"? Can you provide evidence of free elections in these countries? If not, then how are they relevant, when the policy suggestion here excludes them? re ELNO 3, that is in the section titled "normally to be avoided" meaning somebody will inevitably be arguing that wiki policy allows for exceptions here, especially when the illegal material is not technical like a virus since that's the context of the guideline. If it were in WP:ELNEVER and set off in its own sentence, I would grant that it probably could cover off the situation (with due allowance for the fact it would privilege the US government's definition of what was illegal on national security grounds).Bdell555 (talk) 18:16, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Also, the lists of "illegal" websites you refer to are supposed to be websites that provide child sex pictures. As child pornography is illegal in Florida, anything that should be on the Danish or Australian lists is already covered by our existing language. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:50, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
re "anything that should be on the Danish or Australian lists is already covered by our existing language" that is not the case. The War Logs presently links to Wikileaks and
The Australian communications regulator says it will fine people who hyperlink to sites on its blacklist, which has been further expanded to include several pages on the anonymous whistleblower site Wikileaks.
Wikileaks was added to the blacklist for publishing a leaked document containing Denmark's list of banned websites.
There is a strong public policy argument behind Denmark banning the websites it does, the dominant one being trying to stamp out child pornography. Denmark and Australia are generally considered free and democratic societies and Wikipedia's undermining of them seems to me to serve some anarchist objective that is at odds with the obsession over "free images". You can't even put up an image of a subject provided by the subject for "promotional" purposes but Wiki allows the possibility (ie "normally to be avoided") of linking to kiddie porn? Makes little sense to me.Bdell555 (talk) 18:04, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
I realize that it's not clear, but the difference between the sections that we call ELNEVER and ELNO are about who controls the decision. ELNEVER is links that the community is not permitted (by the Wikimedia Foundation) to link to, even if editors wanted to. ELNO is the set of restrictions that the community of editors has voluntarily imposed on itself. For example, there's a foundation-mandated policy against copyright violations, and so ELNEVER 1 bans such links. Apparently, they haven't thought it necessary to hand down a declaration against links to kiddie porn (or if they did, nobody here has heard about it). I'm sure that if it were an actual problem, then they would do so... but they haven't, so this is our choice, not theirs, and therefore it belongs in "our" section instead of "theirs". WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:07, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Oppose such an addition as both unnecessary, and basically requiring the removal of many valid links because of political issues in various countries. The only laws that matter in terms of affecting copyright are those valid in the state of Florida where the servers are hosted. If other countries have laws against it, its their issue to deal with and to follow on those specific language Wikipedias, but not the English one which, again, is bound only by Florida's laws. -- AnmaFinotera (talk ~ contribs) 16:57, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Florida law does not determine all Wiki policies. It's rather the absolute minimum. We can do better, by not taking the lead in promoting websites that are specifically identified as illegal by a free and democratic country. Please provide an example of a "valid link" that would be removed by this policy.Bdell555 (talk) 18:32, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Yes, pretty much it is only Florida/US law that can affect Wiki policies, because it is the only laws that can result in Wikipedia being shut down. There is no "better" to do. Wikipedia is not censored, nor is it our job to cater to the random political decisions of any other country. As you seem to be the only one who thinks there is some massive problem this policy is causing, please point to any actual link that would be allowed by the current policy but disallowed under your new version, i.e. please point to actual problem links you feel needs a policy change to fix. -- AnmaFinotera (talk ~ contribs) 19:03, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Bdell, your proposal would ban links to any page containing a drawing of a man labeled "The Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him", because that's illegal in several Muslim countries. It would ban links to Myspace and links to any website about Falun Gong, which is illegal in China. It would ban links to any website that "insults" the king or queen of Thailand (and that law is interpreted quite broadly). Is that what you want? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:18, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Are there some reliable sources that would be banned by this? I really don't want anything about 'free and democratic' stuck into the policies. It sounds too much like a takeover by Conservapedia when you consider the arguments about it. There's a lot of talk about paedo sites above. Is there some paedophile site which is a reliable source for something notable? It sounds highly unlikely to me. It sounds to me that the corner cases that might occur are so infrequent they can be dealt with as they occur by consensus. Dmcq (talk) 20:05, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Dmcq this is about external links not sourcing. re the comment above Dmcq's, China is not "generally recognized as free and democratic" so, no, the proposal would not ban "links to any website about Falun Gong". Name which countries ban drawings of the Prophet and I also suspect they are not generally recognized as free and democratic. I'd change the proposal to be more specific if this is really such an issue to read
Websites or material that are specifically (by name) designated as illegal according to the laws of any OECD country should only be linked to if a reliable source has already linked to the website or webpage from a page under the reliable source's full editorial control
That seems lawyerly but the OECD defines itself as a forum of countries committed to democracy and freedom in general, and "specifically designated" means there need be no debate about content (e.g. if a country says "it is illegal to link to such and such a document" then we don't provide a link to a URL with the document UNLESS a paper of record has done so already). Wikileaks apparently held some material back this time but given Julian Assange's declaration that he "enjoys crushing bastards", I think there needs to be a second opinion, out in the mainstream media, on whether Wikileaks (to take one example) should be routinely linked to in the future without even a caution. If we can't wait for another media outlet to make the first move, Wikipedia is what I would call crusading and that is not our job. This is not some anarcho-leftist activist entity but an encyclopedia.Bdell555 (talk) 20:12, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
It seems to me your only beef here is with Wikileaks, which (as far as I am aware) is neither a reliable source (except for information about itself) nor a valid external link per the existing guidelines. -- AnmaFinotera (talk ~ contribs) 20:16, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Policy should anticipate HYPOTHETICAL cases here since that is rather the point of having policy as opposed to leaving it all to ad hoc "editor consensus". But, yes, Wikileaks is the only contentious real link I am aware of at the moment. If you see it as not a valid external link under current policy you are unusual because the consensus over at The War Logs is that it is entirely OK.Bdell555 (talk) 20:23, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Germany is a member of the OECD and has apparently banned links to certain articles on the english Wikipedia and tried to mandate content decisions (see Internet censorship in Germany). I think this proposed guideline change is fundamentally unworkable. - MrOllie (talk) 20:20, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Just because Germany might ban, say, holocaust denial websites does not mean Wiki cannot link to them. At least I am not proposing that. I am rather suggesting that Wikipedia let SOMEONE ELSE (with some judgment) link FIRST and THEN Wikipedia links. Otherwise the project is in effect being hijacked to undermine western governments. It may be fine to undermine them, but why should Wikipedia be taking the lead on this if it is truly neutral? Julian Assange, for example, clearly has an agenda as he believes The War Logs provide evidence for war crimes persecution. We should not be promoting his website if a democratic government wants it banned unless someone other media outlet has taken the lead.Bdell555 (talk) 20:33, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
So if somebody like PCWorld or the Washington Post linked the wikileaks page on the war diaries directly, that would mean that this proposed criterion wouldn't keep out the link to wikileaks? - MrOllie (talk) 20:49, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Interesting and relevant WaPo story there. Yes, if the Washington Post links, in my view Wikipedia could link, because Wikipedia is FOLLOWING instead of trying to move Julian Assange's anti-war (or anti-west? note that he has never leaked anything related to China, Russia, etc) agenda. There have been big disputes on Wiki over pornography on the commons, and I think it would have helped minimize that dispute if a standard had been contracted out somehow to a commonly recognized respectable third party. Wikileaks seems to be growing in influence, and editors supporting its agenda are going to be linking to it ever more frequently. Some thought needs to go into what to expect in the future and how to deal with it. Wikileaks is directly opposed to western governments. Wiki should not be taking sides here as much as possible.Bdell555 (talk) 21:09, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
I believe since wikileaks is not treated as a reliable source it is already only linked to if a reliable source points it out. In this case there is no shortage of reliable sources which explicitly do that in the specific context so exactly what is the problem? What is the relevance of all this OECD stuff? 20:55, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Australia sees enough of a problem to threaten fines on this question. re OECD, the fact is if North Korea saw enough of problem to threaten fines or worse the Wiki community wouldn't care. And indeed Wiki really isn't neutral on legal issues, since images uploaded to the English wikipedia allow for more "fair use" than to the Commons, etc, with North Korean law being irrelevant in all cases. I'm just suggesting that if Denmark, Australia, etc consider something illegal Wiki should take a measured approach to the question of whether to link to it.Bdell555 (talk) 21:17, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Australia seems to threaten fines for links to the Neda Agha-Soltan tape, so I wouldn't put much stock in what they happen to go after. - MrOllie (talk) 21:42, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Interesting that you should call attention to that article, because that article has an image that apparently, in a purely legal sense, is public domain in the US because Iran does not have copyright relations with the US. But Wikipedia doesn't treat it as pubic domain, and there is a cite to Jimbo Wales' opinion that "this is legal under US law, so let's do it" is not a very compelling argument." Extending that reasoning means that the mention of Florida law in the policy, which is moreover tucked down in the "normally avoided" section instead of the "restricted" section and almost hidden amongst other stuff, is hardly satisfactory.Bdell555 (talk) 23:02, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Wouldn't WP:IGNORE apply here? EricLeb01 (Page | Talk) 21:51, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

According to ArbCom:

A website that engages in the practice of publishing private information concerning the identities of Wikipedia participants will be regarded as an attack site whose pages should not be linked to from Wikipedia pages under any circumstances.Pass 6-0 20 October 2006
and
Links to attack sites may be removed by any user; such removals are exempt from 3RR. Deliberately linking to an attack site may be grounds for blocking.Pass 5-0-1 20 October 2006

So if a website publishes "private information" about Wikipedia participants, not only should there be no link "under any circumstances", but linking to such a site is "grounds for blocking". But link to confidential information about NATO military servicepersons, intelligence services, or their operations, and it is anything goes! This despite charges that Wikileaks is an "enemy of open society because it does not respect the rule of law nor does it honor the rights of individuals."Bdell555 (talk) 23:58, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Private information about WP authors are usually an entirely different things than things of important public interest that wikileak usually publishes, i.e. i see really no grounds for your comparison at all. Moreover much of wikileaks content is contrary to most WP authors highly notable.
As far as the FAS-blog is concerned, that statement sounds pretty baloney to me. It seems the author confuses US law with laws in general.
AS for the Encyclopedia Dramatica I agree, that i don't quite see (at first glance) why a link cannot be provided. However you cannot expect a consistency over every single WP article and see little merit in a comparison here as well due to completely different notabilities.
--Kmhkmh (talk) 00:27, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

(remove)Another headache is some links are illegal in some localities and not other. Copyright is the big one here thanks to the way the US used to do copyright (date of publication plus so many years). So you have works that are public domain in the author's native country but not in the US. The Sherlock Holmes by Conan-Doyle are a prime example of how messy it can get: the entire canon went public domain in Canada in 1980 but not in the EU until 2000 and in the US only stories published before December 31, 1922 are public domain. So that Sherlock Holmes story link you found via Project Gutenberg may not be legal.--BruceGrubb (talk) 00:55, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

@MrOllie: Germany didn't ban any WP-sites nor does the linked article say so. There have been a few attempts by private person to get a court orders over some articles, but that never resulted in an actual WP ban (or ban of individual articles), only some associated domains like wikipedia.de were affected. The the law about blocking of child pornography was significantly modified after large public protests and doesn't really concern WP.--Kmhkmh (talk) 09:57, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't believe there has been a case yet where the Arbcom ruling about private information about editors has been tested against a reliable source holding the data in a notable topic. I suspect the Arbcom ruling would be overridden in such a case on the same grounds as wikileaks links are often allowed. Lets just hope nothing like that happens. Dmcq (talk) 11:21, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

In November of 08 Wikileaks published "[t]he names, addresses and telephone numbers of more than 10,000 current and former members" of the British National Party, including for those who asked for "discretion." This disclosure occurred in an environment where persons perceived, rightly or wrongly, to be sympathetic to the BNP often receive death threats. As it was, at least one person was dismissed from his employment as a direct result of Wikileaks' posting. If the ArbCom decision I identified above had universalized the application of its principle to all persons instead of just "Wikipedia participants," not only would editors linking to Wikileaks have their linking reverted (such reverting moreover being "exempt from 3RR"), they would be subject to disciplinary action (administrator block). And this by unanimous decision. Would anyone like to distinguish this precedent? Bdell555 (talk) 19:37, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Bdell, you have been discussing this same issue in many places, so it has been hard to follow. In each place it seems more editors are for keeping the link. It is very pertinent to the article. Yes, concerns with legality are serious, but this is a case of being bold. We can't prepare for every little thing.
Additionally, in the future it would be better if you found one location to have this discussion, so that all users see all other users comments and thoughts, which would help in reaching consensus (instead of giving the impression of avoiding accepting an unwanted consensus). Hooper (talk) 21:43, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
It's my understanding that this is the location for discussion about editing the Wikipedia:External_links page and that the location for discussion about particular edits to mainspace pages is on the Talk page associated with those articles. For what it's worth, I was the first editor of Afghanistan War Logs to add a link to Wikileaks (I'd note that this was before this news came out). The primary issue was not the particular edit per se but the general policy claims that people were making. There is going to be a serious problem in the future. I would think the purpose of these discussions is not just to poll people but to get people thinking (such as on the question of what is the point of ArbCom if ArbCom decisions are going to be cavalierly ignored) Re your allegation that I am trying to create a misleading "impression" please see Wikipedia:Assume good faith. Over here I have linked to 3 different locations where people could see more discussion. Why would I do that if your accusation that I am trying to hide discussion is accurate?Bdell555 (talk) 22:52, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
I'd also point out the irony here of talking up the importance of consensus, when seeking external consensus is the whole thrust of my argument. If the New York Times should be joined by the overwhelming majority of similarly respectable media outlets in deciding to not link to something on policy grounds that should be of SOME relevance to Wikipedia's decision on whether to link. With that, I've pretty much had my say on the matter.Bdell555 (talk)
We haven't had a comparable situation yet in Wikipedia. Personally I would support linking to a site which disclosed private information about editors if it was previously linked from a reliable source and was relevant to a notable topic. That is not the same as a license to go sticking suck links all over the place. There is no point in complaining about Arbcom said until there is some sort of reasonable test case is encountered. Dmcq (talk) 22:32, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
I did not accuse you of anything. I only stated what a uninvolved editor may mistakenly believe, seeing such a decentralized discussion. Hooper (talk) 01:37, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Youtube suggestion

The section on Youtube could be explained better. If proper diligence is used (as I did as explained in Talk:Land_of_Confusion#Disturbed_Video_information, and Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_24#Using_a_posting_to_Youtube.com_by_the_copyright_holder a link and even citation should be allowed Also official channels like whitehouse, CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, and many others should have a green light by default as long as they meet the other requirement criteria.--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:02, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

I think the section is already clear enough on those points. It clearly indicates that links to YouTube are subject to the same terms as other external links, as described in the Restrictions on Linking and What to Link sections, whilst highlighting a couple of gotchas that may catch people out. The section currently uses the phrase 'due care' which I believe is completely synonymous with your 'proper diligence', unless there is some subtext I am missing. Maybe it'd be better if you were more specific in how you would like to see the section improved? AJCham 07:10, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

BruceGrubb, there are certainly good youtube links out there, though the ones you cite from the original networks are proper reliable sources, which is not the subject of this guideline. This is about external links only. Regarding references, unless they are plain copyright violations, there is not much reason why we should not link to them there, as long as they are passing the reliable sources guideline.

Although copyright problems are the gravest for youtube video's, also the non-copyright violations fail the guideline often on a handful of other points (no, the video of your grandmothers birthday does not add to our birthday article, the video's tend to be big, which makes them (often) less useful for editors with low bandwidth (there are still people behind a dial-in), you still need to install the software to see the video's (though the software is free, it is not an intrinsic part of a browser), there are still systems out there which can't even install this (not everyone runs Windows from a PC), a lot of it is user submitted content, and a lot of it is also available embedded from the official site anyway. Although those are all points from the 'avoid' list, this, IMHO, I would still avoid strongly to link to them, unless they really add. But that is to be seen on a case-by-case basis, but I would certainly not go as far as saying something along the lines of 'this is from ABC, so it is official and reliable, lets link it!' .. due care or proper vigilance is needed, weighing the pro's and con's. --Dirk Beetstra T C 07:26, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Note that at least some the cited examples (as well as similar ones like al jazeera english) do matter in the youtube discussion, because those news outlets do often upload material to youtube themselves or offer their own youtube channel.--Kmhkmh (talk) 17:42, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
I think both of your are confusing reliable with relevant. The Journal of the American Board of Sport Psychology can be show to be reliable as it 1) states "is a peer reviewed journal devoted to disseminating scientific and popular research-based articles in an efficient and timely manner.", 2) is provided as a link by [Adams State College http://www.adams.edu/academics/sportpsych/] (accredited by North Central Association of Colleges and Schools (NCA-HLC) Accreditation, Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE); Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP); and National Association of Schools of Music (NASM), Commission on Accreditation), and 3) is provided as creditability for Roland A Carlstedt PhD in the 2009 book Handbook of Integrative Clinical Psychology, Psychiatry, and Behavioral Medicine: Perspectives, Practices, and Research Springer Publishing Company ("Springer Publishing Company is extremely proud of our history -- publishing academic and professional works for more than 50 years." which also puts out A Guide to the Standard EMDR Protocols for Clinicians, Supervisors, and Consultants, Chemistry and Physics for Nurse Anesthesia: A Student Centered Approach, Handbook of Forensic Neuropsychology, Second Edition, and EMDR and the Art of Psychotherapy With Children: Treatment Manual and Text just to mention a few) can be reasonably said to be reliable. After dealing with the smokescreen nonsense of the journal being reliable [Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_58] we finally got to the issue of it being relevant to the article in question which is what the matter should have been from the get go.--BruceGrubb (talk) 10:28, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

No, I am not. Yes, YouTube links can be relevant. If they are not relevant, they are not even considered. But relevant is not the same as 'adding to the page', and with YouTube we do put the bar higher than with others, since YouTube also has a lot of other concerns (size of file, software needs installation, not everyone has access, &c. &c.). Note, WP:EL does not forbid you to add YouTube links, but they have to be relevant, they have to add. By far most of the YouTube video's out there fail that, but exceptions exist, and therefore, YouTube is linked from many articles' external links section. I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:59, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

By the way, if it is reliable, then often it can be used as a source, and that makes using it as an external link superfluous. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:59, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes and no. The possibility that something can be used as a source doesn't mean it automatically will, in particular if the material is sourced by other means already. Moreover imho it is in general preferable to stick to text based sources whenever possible. However you may still offer video material in addition.--Kmhkmh (talk) 17:47, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
I take it neither of you normally use the Wikipedia:Citation_templates as the only ones that do not have a dedicated Url field are comic, comic strip, encyclopedia, episode (TV or radio), patent, and (ironically) video and have to use kludgy work arounds for versions that do have an internet presence. Beetstra, your 'this is from ABC, so it is official and reliable, lets link it!' comment above does imply a confusion between reliable and relevant--an ABC newscast on an new medical technique would be totally reliable but it wouldn't be relevant in all articles.--BruceGrubb (talk) 23:44, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
Well, that is what I mean, don't go as far as 'its reliable and official, lets link it' (which is often thé argument when I remove YouTube links), I would not even go as far that we should use the argument 'its reliable, official, ánd relevant, lets link it'. What I basically mean is, YouTube links very often fail this guideline simply because they are not reliable and/or official, then you have those which are official / reliable which simply are not relevant, and then you have those which are official, reliable, ánd relevant, but still they do not necessarily add something. And still, in the end, YouTube links, even official, reliable, and relevant, still have a handful of concerns in the WP:ELNO section, which those points don't take away. But when used with due care / proper diligance we can, on some links, say 'OK, these links should maybe be avoided, but this is adding so much, lets use it'. The official channels don't have a red light, but all should have an orange light, where those from official channels can get a green one, and the others red .. YouTube is not a WP:ELNEVER, it is a WP:ELMAYBE, and I do not think we should make some of them WP:ELYES. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:47, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
Does anyone have any thoughts on the essay Wikipedia:Video links? Giving the impression of a blanket red light or green light was something I tried to avoid. If there is any feedback that would be cool. Also, I noticed there was an essay in the See also section. Would this essay also be appropriate?Cptnono (talk) 19:08, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Encyclopedia Britannica

What about linking to the EB, or to the 1911 edition of the EB? It's not clear to me from the guidelines whether those may be included or not (I can read them both ways), but I assume there's consensus on the issue. — kwami (talk) 10:21, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

For EL linking to the current EB, use {{britannica}}.
For EL linking to the 1911EB, use {{Wikisource1911Enc}} (sidebox) or {{1911EB}} (inline).
If the 1911EB is being cited as a reference, use {{Wikisource1911Enc citation}}
If text is (or was in the article's past) directly copied from the 1911EB, use {{1911}}.
(I haven't investigated the discussion-history (there's usually someone who objects, to anything), but the precedent/practice is certainly well-established... :) HTH. -- Quiddity (talk) 19:13, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
I see no reason not to link the current EB (though it has a terrible interface). However as far as the 1911 edition is concerned, I'd assume that there are usually better and more recent online material for external links, which would be preferable. Also due to the nature and brevity of most its articles I think in most cases the EB is better suited as source/reference rather than an external link.--Kmhkmh (talk) 22:35, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
I don't see a compelling reason to use the 1911 Britannica as an external link unless our article specifically discusses a particular aspect of that encyclopedia. We are allowed to incorporate chunks of the 1911 Britannica into our articles (with proper recognition) since it's copyright has expired (although this often isn't the best source since our understanding of many fields has changed since 1911).
The newer editions don't meet WP:ELNO point one, since our function and Britannica's is essentially the same. On special occasions a link may be acceptable (for example if Britannica has a photo gallery and we lack images we could link to that) but I don't see why we should link there for the text. ThemFromSpace 22:53, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
Yes and no. Point 1 of ELNO is not to be taken literally in doubt (see past discussions). I.e. if in rare cases the Britannica contains more detailed information than the current WP article (in the case of a stub for instance) and article still lacks external links as well, then you might add such britannica link. Note that the intent of of WP:ELNO is avoid spamming and link farms and not to block links that are actually beneficial to readers or authors in individual cases. But even in these rare cases it is probably a better idea to list such a Britannica link under references since it has a source function as well and could be used to extend the article. I think the general idea is, that if you come across WP entries which are poorly referenced and completely lack external links, you shouldn't hesitate add a Britannica link for now, but preferably under references rather then external links. However as the article grows and improves over time such Britannica links are likely to be replaced by better references. Also note that authors not being that familiar with details of WP guidelines may often put their online sources under external links and the offline/print sources under references. In such cases it is important to move those links to the reference section rather than just removing due to not fulfilling the requirement of WP:ELNO.--Kmhkmh (talk) 11:32, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

ELBURDEN and gaming the system

Wolfkeeper, who is in a dispute about an external link to a comic strip in a physics article, has changed WP:ELBURDEN to support his interest in keeping the link. The current discussion about the link is here on the noticeboard]].

WT:External links/Archive_28#Burden documents the support for the creation of the ELBURDEN section. I have reverted Wolfkeeper's anti-consensus change to this guideline -- I assume that Wolfkeeper didn't realize that this standard was formally proposed, discussed, and widely supported -- and invite any editor who wants to revisit this issue to please feel free to discuss it here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:55, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

The burden is on those who want to include links because of WP:NOTLINK. --Ronz (talk) 23:04, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
The link has been in the article, and it was consensus of the writers of the article that it be allowed.- Wolfkeeper 23:12, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Consensus can change, and ELBURDEN applies. --Ronz (talk) 00:18, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
But the RFC to establish that it had changed failed. But he's arguing anyway that the Wikipedia lives in a Kafka world where some obscure part of a guideline that he wrote is more important than one of the fundamental principles of the Wikipedia, that changes to articles are made by consensus.- Wolfkeeper 01:36, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Please stop disrupting this discussion with incivility.
Please provide diffs to back your statements. --Ronz (talk) 16:34, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
There's nothing incivil about that at all. That's literally the facts of this case, and yeah, I have the diffs.- Wolfkeeper 18:59, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Given you were the one that wrote this incredibly dubious part of the guideline and even discussion to remove it had several dubious votes (anonymous IPs and temporary accounts) even given that it still failed to get consensus to remove it, somehow you think that that automagically gives you the right to remove it anyway. So you'll forgive me if I'm going to call bullshit on this mysterious sentence tacked onto the very end of a seldom read guideline. In any case it's overridden by WP:CONSENSUS which is policy which clearly says that you require consensus to make changes. On the whole this would probably be the worst case of gaming policies I've ever seen, if it wasn't so lame.- Wolfkeeper 23:12, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
You're gaming the policies on multiple levels here. WP:BURDEN is verifiability, and applies to text/content, it says that adding information to an article requires a reference to show that it is true. This isn't content it's an external link.- Wolfkeeper 23:18, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Wolfkeeper, I have not removed any links. I (a couple of months ago, in the RFC) explained why I personally thought the link didn't comply with this guideline. I left its ultimate disposition to others.
You still seem confused about the difference between policies and guidelines. More importantly, you're trying to invoke a very general policy to trump this specific, highly relevant, widely supported guideline, on the flimsy basis that you think a small number of "writers of the article" should be able to overrule anything they want whenever they want, which the policy you cite expressly prohibits. See WP:CONLIMITED, which says that a couple of editors at Centrifugal force (rotating reference frame) cannot overrule a "generally accepted policy or guideline" by claiming that they have a "consensus" among the 'right' kind of editors to do what the community has said should not be done. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:23, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
It also works the other way, a few editors at WP:ELN cannot decide that WP:CONSENSUS doesn't apply to them and they get to decide that any random fairly well established link is 'not consensus' and without any consensus to remove it, to remove it anyway!!!!- Wolfkeeper 23:26, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Wolfkeeper, WP:ELBURDEN is the community's WP:CONSENSUS about what to do when editors can't agree on the merits of a given external link. It isn't a question of "a few editors" overriding a major policy. The only person trying to override a major policy is you -- when you claim that the "consensus" of a couple of individual people over at the article trumps the widely supported guideline on what to do in this type of situation. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:30, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
I don't see any signs that this had really wide agreement, you've turned WP:CONSENSUS on its head. This is not what consensus is, or how the Wikipedia is supposed to work.- Wolfkeeper 18:42, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
This is blatant WP:GAMING.- Wolfkeeper 18:42, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Links normally to be avoided has "lists of links to manufacturers". Would that include FOSS applications or should they also be excluded? It would be good to clarify the rules around that. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:34, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Or to rephrase: Is an external link to an open source application any more or less permissible than a link to a closed source and/or commercial application? - MrOllie (talk) 19:54, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
It's a little bit complicated. Wikipedia is not a web directory -- so, no, we don't provide links to places were you can download software. We nominally don't distinguish between open/free/commercial/closed software (or non-profits and for-profits, or anything else).
However, editors should use their best judgment, and for any specific bit of notable software (whether FOSS or not), the manufacturer's website may be the WP:ELOFFICIAL link. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:00, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
I could see if this were a discussion on a specific product though, however not all articles are about products. To make this slightly more concrete, the page in question is Test case and there is no official product or site for a "test case" whether in software or law (different meaning for the two industries). Two links to open source test case management tools are listed on that page. Today another link to a commercial product was added. In the past I have removed the commercial tool links but left the open source tool links. Have I been mis-applying what I understand the policies to be? --Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:20, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
I don't think there is any inherent difference between commercial and open-source when it comes policies such as WP:EL and WP:NOTE. What I have seen on other articles such as List of tools for static code analysis the standard for inclusion in a list (whether a stand-alone list article such as the previous list), or a list of "notable xxx" in a more general article, such as notable alumni for a school) is that the item in the list is notable. If we're going to make a list of non-notable things in wikipedia, we're probably on the wrong track. Easy way to tell is something meets notability - it already has it's own wiki article. This seems to work well. AliveFreeHappy (talk) 22:46, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
On List of tools for static code analysis I've used the WP:LSC criteria of "Every entry meets the notability criteria for their own non-redirect articles in English Wikipedia". That article always has people adding external links to open source tools, and at one point the article was basically one big linkfarm. To answer the initial question: no, there's no intrinsic difference between linking to open or closed projects. Linkspam is linkspam, regardless of the project's status. — HelloAnnyong (say whaaat?!) 18:01, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Hi Walter, I think in that instance I'd remove all the links to software. For one thing, it's spambait ("Their X is linked, so I'll add my Y!"), and for another, a "fair" list would probably be too long. You could consider a DMOZ link, though. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:06, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
I've made the change to the article. Could someone please make a change to this page to incorporate this discussion? --Walter Görlitz (talk) 23:31, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
What exactly do you think should be changed? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:09, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Currently reads: "Lists of links to manufacturers, suppliers or customers." so if we could change it to "Lists of links to manufacturers, suppliers, customers and open source products.". Any issues with the wording? --Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:18, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
Subject-specific rules aren't as generally useful as broad statements, and suppliers of open source product are still suppliers. Perhaps adding something like "regardless of whether it is a commercial operation" would be more general? Or do you think that FOSS needs to be named specifically? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:31, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
The lack of information of FOSS is what caused the problem in the first place. It must be clarified in some way because it falls through the gaps of the current guidelines. Because FOSS gets a free ride in other areas I think it needs to be spelled-out. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 02:52, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
Can you give me an example of another area that gives FOSS a free ride? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:56, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
WP:LINKSPAM: "Is the source a commercial one". Again, since FOSS isn't commercial, it can and has passed the criteria. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 15:47, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
That is a particular subsection which applies to source solicitations on talk pages. Regarding links made in article space, I can assure you that non-commercial links are often removed as spam and sometimes are even listed on the spam blacklist without any concern over conflict with the guideline on spam. - MrOllie (talk) 16:26, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I'm currently running a bot on my server against Wikipedia to check the external links, using pywikipediabot and the included weblinkchecker.py script. What this bot does is scan the contents of articles for external links, and then proceeds to check the links for 404s or timeouts, and creates a datafile of the non-working links. After about one week, the bot will then recheck the links, and report on the talk pages of the articles which links are dead, according to the data that the bot collected. In the report submitted, the bot will automagically suggest a link to archive.org, which if it was caught, should be a valid archived version of the link. The reason for my post here is to request input from the community, per the suggestion of Tim1357 in this thread. I am watching both this page, and the BRFA thread, so commenting at either location is ok, and your input is greatly appreciated. Thanks, Phuzion (talk) 14:35, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

How will the bot respond to a page that has been permanently moved? It would be better for us to get the updated URL for the live page (if possible) than to point to an archived copy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:17, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
The bot does not bother with permanently moved pages, it only finds ones that return 404 error codes, or where the website times out. Also, the bot does not actually modify anything in the main namespace, it only reports on the talk pages the list of reportedly dead links. Phuzion (talk) 20:53, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

ELNO item 3 - links to malware

I would like to add the following bolded text to WP:ELNO point #3:

3. Sites containing a) malware, malicious scripts, trojan exploits, or b) content that is illegal to access in the state of Florida.[1]
For (3a) always check for a non-infected archived copy from web.archive.org, WebCitation, or an alternate site which mirrors the content. For the original URL, direct instead to the Google (or other) warning page about that link. (added:) When/if you delete a mal link, leave a <!-- hidden comment--> and edit summary explaining why, to hopefully prevent other editors from adding it back.

Example:

  • "Analysis: Sacrificing the truth: the alchemy of secrecy". Honduras This Week editorial. Archived from the original on 2000-08-24.

We can protect readers without necessarily deleting links. I'd like to propose this as a change to that guideline. --Lexein (talk) 20:29, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Editors have generally opposed recommendations for "archived" external links, and I don't see any particular reason why this would be a better choice for malware problems (which are often temporary) than for other types of dead links. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:50, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
Some editors.
I and others have taken the view, that if something was worth linking at one time, then just because the site owner died, or stopped paying their hosting bill, that doesn't implicitly mean the content at the URL is any less valid. That's part of the reason for the very existence of archive.org.
However, I see and appreciate what you mean, by explicitly saying "generally opposed recommendations...". I'd agree with that. :) We don't recommend, and we don't forbid.
As for the suggested change: I would go with the anti-instruction-creep perspective for this one: It's such an edge-case, that it's not worth enshrining in policy/guideline. If that solution makes sense in a particular scenario, then go for it. In other scenarios, it might make more sense to re-evaluate the link, and consider removing it completely (or making it an archived inline citation).
(Unless: Is there a prolific problem with formerly-trusted sites, now hosting malware, that are being mass-deleted as ELs, that this addition is being proposed to counter-act? In which case I'd re-evaluate, and possibly just weigh-in on the specific problem thread itself...) -- Quiddity (talk) 23:36, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
No, there is no reason that external links should be given some WP:PRESERVE status. If someone has good reason to think that a site may be serving malware, they should remove the external link with a suitable edit summary. Indeed, I often remove external links simply because I think they are not helpful per WP:EL. Of course if an editor wants to use the procedure outlined by Lexein above, that's great (although such trouble and wikitext inflation should only be used if the link is particularly worthwhile). For example, here is an edit I made after seeing malware warnings from a high-quality virus scanner. Johnuniq (talk) 03:40, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Well, wikitruth was a wiki, so citing it was always a dicey proposition. There, the archive would be a better source from the get-go. Re: your edit, I quite agree with your external link hidden comment, though I would have used an archived link, if only for basic relevance, not out of any special preserve status. --Lexein (talk) 04:53, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
(putting here to reply to 2 above)
1. Edge cases ruin lives. Kidding. I introduced the notion to address the case of a former trusted source newly carrying malware which might get swept away in a deletion response. In this case, one news source (of two in English, eleven total) in Honduras, Honduras This Week or Honduras Weekly and its associated domains marrder.com (23 refs/links), hondurasthisweek.com (12), hondurasweekly.com (6), and marrder.net (5), have all been hit, so all citations and external links to them are now potential attack vectors. Protection requires using web-traffic monitoring antivirus/antimalware, or a browser incorporating checks with Google(Firefox) or Microsoft(IE?), or browser plugins referring to trust sites such as WOT, or in the case of this particular attack, OS X or Linux machines.
2. I would personally prefer to see consensus-arrived three-sentence (now) guidance, over "deletion is your only option." Mere deletion leaves no trace to following editors which might naively add a mal link. I guess, yes, I'm advocating safe linking (keep but contain by using archive and link Google report) over abstinence. IMO, the consequences of not having an explicit remediation guideline are worse than the cost of an indented non-bolded special case instruction.
But I'll settle for explicitly recommending (just) deletion-with-hidden-comment:
When/if you delete a mal link, leave a <!-- hidden comment--> and edit summary explaining why, to hopefully prevent other editors from adding it back.
--Lexein (talk) 04:53, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Hidden comment sounds good (perhaps change the link in that, to the google report, for easier future re-verification). I'd support adding that – perhaps as a numbered footnote in order to keep the ELNO item itself short. Scratch that. I agree with WhatamIdoing's comemnt below, per WP:HIDDEN.
Out of curiosity, how easy is it to check archive.org for "clean" copies? What site/program do the dated archives need to be run through? Thanks. -- Quiddity (talk) 18:45, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Modern anti-malware such as Avast! checks for exploits as you load a page. Noscript indicates/blocks scripts before they run. Flashblock is good, too. The web.archive.org pages I tend to use are old - often pure-HTML old. --Lexein (talk) 21:05, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
I don't think that we want to encourage hidden text. It's far better to explain the situation on the article's talk page. Moving a (non-clickable/leave off the http:// bit) copy of a malware-infected site onto the article's talk page is also often a good idea; I believe it increases the odds that someone will check back on the site's status after a while, and see whether it's been cleaned up. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:45, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
I don't advocate hidden text alone. Talk pages are indeed a good place for a copy of a delinked URL. But increasingly, talk pages are getting archived, while a terse hidden comment (<!--delinked! Malware (date)-->) remains with the article, and is obvious at edit time. And the guideline WP:HIDDEN does specifically approve (not advocate) hidden comments for the purpose of instructions to other editors. Revised compromise:
When/if you delete or delink a mal link, leave a <!-- hidden comment-->, edit summary, and Talk comment explaining why, to hopefully prevent other editors from adding it back.
--Lexein (talk) 21:05, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Why should this be specific to malware, and not part of the section on dealing with any kind of dead link? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:05, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
The malware instruction (#3) currently only advises abstinence, with no attention paid to containment and the need to prevent re-adding to articles. Dead links aren't dangerous, and tend not to be added back anyways. Malware links aren't dead - they're very much alive and virulent, so I think deserve special attention, while considering the information value which might be retained through the use of an archive. Different goals, different consequences, so different treatment. Seems obvious to me. What, exactly, am I missing, here? --Lexein (talk) 19:50, 22 August 2010 (UTC).
A good reason to put it in the middle of ELNO instead of WP:EL#Longevity_of_links, as if this weren't good advice for removing any type of undesirable link? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:11, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

These two edits (example 1, example 2) lead to a discussion here whether the first snippet at the section How to link refers only to Embedded citations or also to inline citations and to items listed in a section "External links".

While embedded citations of the form

… determined that the earth is not flat.[3] Furthermore, …

clearly must not use descriptive text, such links when used in references/footnotes or in external links are, in my opinion, much better presented in their raw form (http://example.com) if no descriptive text was provided by the editor who added it. Adding a description would even be better, but this discussion started after YoBot applied a closing bracket to an incomplete external link, resulting in the uninformative display of

I think, it would be better in such circumstances to remove the other bracket and show the bare link. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:59, 6 September 2010 (UTC)


The first section applies to everything, because the facts it presents are true in any section of any page. NB that it does not tell you how you should format links; it only describes the software's actual behavior.
You can trivially solve this problem by providing a text description for the external links. That is, type:
* [http://example.com Example.com]
rather than omitting the closing bracket. Alternatively, you could omit the opening bracket as well, which will still create a clickable link. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:54, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Hello there, I'm interested if unofficial links may be provided in infoboxes (i.g. this one). I couldn't find any information about this issue in the project page... Thanks! –BruTe Talk 17:28, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

No. An infobox should contain only the official website corresponding to the subject of the article (see WP:ELOFFICIAL for definition of "official"). I have never seen a case needing more than one official site. At Template:Infobox settlement we read that the website field is for an "External link to official website". The field should be blank if there is no official site, and any proposed external links should be in the "External links" section and must comply with WP:EL. Johnuniq (talk) 00:00, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that. The answer to the question asked is yes, although that particular example might not be desirable.
There are many infoboxes in articles whose subject cannot have an official link (e.g., what's the "official link" for a star or a gene?). But infoboxes for such articles might reasonably contain links to e.g., highly regarded databases about the star or a gene. So, yes: unofficial links may be provided in infoboxes under some circumstances.
However, for an entity that is capable of having an official website (e.g., a person, organization, or city), I wouldn't support a "fake" link in the article's infobox. It might seem to confer an air of legitimacy on the website, which would mislead readers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:13, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, I see the distinction. However, I suspect that articles for genes and stars do not have an "infobox"; they use a more precisely defined summary box of some kind. In the case under discussion, Template:Infobox settlement spells out that the box should contain an official link, so I believe the answer to the question asked is "no". Johnuniq (talk) 01:24, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
Stars use the Astronomy infobox templates, and genes use a bot-maintained series of infoboxes. Any table that is (1) used a series of related articles to (2) provide a standardized set of information is technically an infobox. (See Help:Infobox.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:43, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

RSS and Atom feed removal from infoboxen

Reposting the following part. The full original thread was archived at Wikipedia talk:External links/Archive 29#RSS in infobox, with little response. Copy follows:

Proposal to remove the RSS and Atom fields from infoboxes

Based on the above [linked] discussion, it is proposed that the "RSS" and "Atom" fields be removed from the 3 infoboxes that use them, because:

  1. They are counter to WP:ELOFFICIAL's principle of non-duplication - "Minimize the number of links".
  2. They are counter to WP:ELNO#EL9 - "Links to any search results pages, such as links to individual website searches, search engines, search aggregators, or RSS feeds"

Notifications [were] left at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Infoboxes, Template talk:Infobox podcast, Template talk:Infobox journal, and Template talk:Infobox comic strip. Discussion or comments are welcome. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:24, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

end of copy

There was a single response at Template talk:Infobox journal#RSS and Atom field removal, but it wasn't an objection, just someone noting that the RSS field was frequently used (and atom rarely). Based on all of that, I plan on removing the fields from the infoboxes tonight, and then asking at botrequests for a bot to remove the fields from the in-article instances where they've been entered. Speak up if you have any late objections. Thanks. -- Quiddity (talk) 19:30, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

I think this is an appropriate decision. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:06, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
Done. I'll wait a few days before requesting a bot removal run, justincase. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:06, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Off2riorob excluding open wikis under 12

  • Note that User:Off2riorob went ahead changed 12 to reflect his thoughts over at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Sourcewatch (diff), which I reverted. Not saying it's bad to be aggressive, but there's little chance I would accept this change - wikis are an increasingly important source of very well-organized information, whether we're talking about science, video games, politics, or whatever else, and we routinely encourage people to visit other wikis to find more detailed information which is arguably too detailed here (particularly for fictional worlds). II | (t - c) 20:12, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I think bold is the expression, not agressive. I don't think any open wiki can claim to be stable , by there very nature they can not be, I think we should remove open wikis from the external links, presently it says Links to open wikis, except those with a substantial history of stability and a substantial number of editors - I don't believe any wiki can claim such a thing and so better it is removed to clearly leave open wikis as an WP:ELNO - 'Links to open wikis Off2riorob (talk) 20:18, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I think that Offtoriorob's change makes sense. I don't see how any open wiki could be considered a reliable source of information.·Maunus·ƛ· 20:20, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
I agree wit O3rr on this, no wiki can be considered a reliable source mark nutley (talk) 20:22, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
Wait a second. Are you saying that our Star Trek article can't link to Memory Alpha, Doctor Who can't link to Tardis Index File, Star Wars can't link to Wookieepedia, etc.? Preposterous. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:37, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
Had not thought of that, perhaps it can be amended to read no linking in BLP`s? mark nutley (talk) 20:40, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
There is also a difference between reliable sources - used as references for material within a Wikipedia article - and external links. External links are generally sites that provide additional or more indepth information. The three A Quest For Knowledge points to as examples house material that is geared to a more specific readership than similar articles on Wikipedia. Pointing to them does provide our readers an avenue to look up more than we are able, or willing, to provide.
As for BLPs, and most biographies, I really have a hard time seeing any potential wikis to point them to.
- J Greb (talk) 20:53, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
While it currently doesn't, I'm not sure that I would see anything wrong with our article on The Beatles having a link to The Beatles Wiki. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:01, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
There's a difference there for me though - band histories are not biographies. So pointing to a wiki from an article on a band wouldn't fall under BLP. Pointing to the same from John Lennon or Paul McCartney is iffy at best. Same with pointing to Memory Base Alpha from Gene Roddenberry or William Shatner. And on and on. - J Greb (talk) 21:14, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
BLPs seem like a reasonable exception. I'd support adding that as a proviso. -- Quiddity (talk) 21:28, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
(editconflict) This guideline is not about WP:Reliable sources. Yes, the consensus is that open wikis are almost never Reliable Sources.
This guideline is about External links. Open wikis can have a substantial history of stability and number of editors, and thus can be suitable external links. Hence we have many templates that link to external wikis, that are specifically meant for the "External links" sections in articles (and should not be used as citation templates). E.g. Template:Lostpedia, Template:Memoryalpha, Template:Sww, etc. See also Wikipedia:Alternative outlets. We frequently move information that is not suitable for Wikipedia, to other wikis, and then link to them.
Hence, I agree that the original version, that II reverted to, is the consensus version. HTH. -- Quiddity (talk) 21:02, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
Agree. External links are too often mixed up with reliable sources. Besides, most wiki's being linked to require registration of some sort, so they are not truly open; that may require some clarification. But for now, the current line should stay as it stands. — Edokter • Talk • 23:17, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
As another example, there's the IMSLP, which is linked to from many classical music articles. Having a place to legally get the score AND it be completely in line with WP philosophy and fully legal can't be anything but a good thing. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 22:11, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
  • For anything excessively fannish, we should actively be working to transwiki stuff to such wikis, and eliminating them from ELs would impair the ability of our readers to find what we've excised. BLPs are a different matter, and should be a specific case rather than a general case. Jclemens (talk) 00:09, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Off2riorob on this and always have. Wikipedia is not a web directory. There's no encyclopedic reason whatsoever to link to any other wikis. DreamGuy (talk) 01:15, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Really? So you believe, e.g., that there is "no encyclopedic reason whatsoever" to provide WP:ELOFFICIAL-compliant links in articles devoted to notable open wikis?
It sounds like most of this dispute is based on a simple misunderstanding about the difference between a reliable source and an external link. I suggest that we make no changes to WP:EL on such basis; if such clarification is actually necessary, it should be made on a far more relevant page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:30, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
This is about external links, see the name on the page. This is the correct location. Off2riorob (talk) 11:14, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
  • I've restored the long-term status quo version, because I don't see any obvious consensus for a change. There are plenty of good occasions to include solid open content projects as external links, and that is in fact the project-wide norm. We're not talking about linking to corresponding entries in other open wiki encyclopedias (which would b pointless), but rather open projects that satisfy the other criteria for an external link and happen to be on a wiki platform. - Wikidemon (talk) 03:58, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
So where are these stable wikis with lots of editors? Which ones allegedly fit this claim? Personally I would never add one, if that was all you got imo it would be better nothing, especially in a BLP my understanding would be using BLP policy you could remove an open wiki on sight. Alpha Org to me this is like spamming, we write articles and there should be no value to linking to another open wiki that also writes articles. Looking through some of those articles are clearly not stable at all, they are edited and changed and vandalized just like this wikipedia. Sure the fans like it but that doesn't make it reliable or stable. Off2riorob (talk) 11:30, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
Off2riorob: It's not spamming; it's standard practice. It's not that different from every film article having a link to that film's entry on IMDB. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:51, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
I don't have the patience to search out the examples but the wikis I'm thinking of are related to open source projects, software documentation, and public participation projects. In general they are specifically allowable as official sites, or major / authoritative information sites, and the link would be to the main page or a significant section of the wiki, where a major focus of the wiki is the subject of the article - not a single wiki page that contains the entry for that subject. I think we would have a very similar issue with blogs, social networks, forums, fan sites, etc. A wiki is just an instance of a particular type of markup interpretation software, just a different flavor of xml, blogs, or anything else. The point is that it's open for public participation. In fact, I'm wondering if we should reorganize all of these open and self-published sources in the "links to be avoided" section as its own subsection, and note that a single exception applies to all of them. As is we restate the same exception in different ways, which can cause some confusion. - Wikidemon (talk) 15:47, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
"...we write articles and there should be no value to linking to another open wiki that also writes articles."
I'd agree with this if the Wikipedia articles were comprehensive and all inclusive. But they are not, and based on the policies, guidelines, and standing consensuses Wikipedia has, they can never be. IIUC that limitation is precisely why EL sections exsit. Essentially they make the statment "This is our article, we understand it doesn't cover everything, so here are other places that have additional information." And there are cases where other wikis do provide additional information, and a number of those are because we, Wikipedia, have exported the information there.
That being said, there are instances I have trouble with an EL pointing to another wiki. As I pointed out up thread biographies of individuals are one of those cases. Living or dead. As for BLP... to be honest the policy should be applies to anything going into a bio of a living person. In the cases of an EL that would mean the site linked to either has to be the persons official site or shown to be a stable, reliable site.
Another instance is where the site we link to efectively mirrors our article. That undermines the purpose of an EL section.
- J Greb (talk) 20:10, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
Do people really link to WP mirrors in our EL sections?!? I'm horrified and intrigued. Do you mean 'good' mirrors like those in Category:Websites which mirror Wikipedia, or 'bad' mirrors like most of the entries in meta:Mirror filter? (Note: items overlap). -- Quiddity (talk) 21:04, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
Mirrors aren't what I'm concerned with. Some wikis though do start their articles by copying, in most cases atributing, the Wikipedia article. Over time the content on the wiki differed from what is on Wikipedia, at least in most cases. In some the wiki article stalls and continues to duplicate the original Wikipedia article, either as is or at the time it was copied. Those links only come to light if an editor follows them and finds an untouched Wikpidia article on an outside wiki. - J Greb (talk) 00:22, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
Ahh, sorry, I misinterpreted. I see what you meant now.
Regarding BLPs, nobody has disagreed that they are an exceptional circumstance. I'd suggest we add that proviso to the guideline now, to conclude that aspect of this discussion. -- Quiddity (talk) 03:40, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
What we're looking for with the 'history and editors' restriction is a decent chance that vandalism will be cleaned up fairly quickly. Not that it won't ever happen (remember that just about any website can get vandalized/hacked, even if they're not wikis) but that the problem is likely to be noticed and fixed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:58, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I am a bit confused here, but will explain my confusion with my reasoning behind these points. Are we here talking about:

  1. an external link to the (main page of the) official star-wars wiki on star wars, or
  2. an external link to the specific page about 'Star wars' on the official science fiction wiki on the page star wars?

I would regard:

  1. as a reasonable external link, as it is also covered by EL:OFFICIAL; I do note here, that the link may still be superfluous under WP:NOT#LINKFARM / WP:NOT#DIRECTORY, as the official star wars page ('starwars.com') will (generally) already link to the official star wars wiki, and such official wikis may also be forms of fanpages or myspace like behaviour. About stability etc., I would give this a bit more leeway than option 2 .. though I do expect that e.g. vandalism does not stay there for hours or days, as then the information there is utterly useless (generally the main pages of such wikis are protected, and that is where the Wikipedia read will end up if they follow the link).
  2. as a near WP:ELNEVER, except maybe if the stability is in the order of Wikipedia, and has a significant base of contributors, and the information there is not of a type that is deemed encyclopedic on Wikipedia. Such links go directly to freely editable pages (even if the wiki has blocked non-IP editors, or has some sloppy form of verification of accounts, they are still open wikis; just try and make an account under a false username/email address, and see if you get in, then you know that vandals and spammers can do the same, but as WhatamIdoing notices, that is anyway true for every website ..).

So although I see where Off2riorob is coming from, and I do think that the sentence could be written more tight, a complete removal of that part is a bit too bold. I can see a significant number of pages which are reasonably stable and have a reasonable number of contributors which would pass the option 1 above (I think those are the ones that A quest for knowledge gave as examples); I don't think that they have to be of the quality of Wikipedia itself (though maybe they are still superfluous). For option 2, well, that they are open wikis makes them already fail in my opinion.

Just as a note, neither should ever be used as a reference, they totally fail WP:V, WP:RS does not even have to bother about them (as I said years ago, this is a shame, and does anyone believe that there are open wikis which are more stable than Wikipedia and have more editors than Wikipedia who should not have that statement .. I do not). --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:30, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Again, I don't think anyone is talking about references here. But any rule that'd exclude the IMSLP or Memory Alpha as external links (especially the former) is a bad one. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 13:50, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
My opinion is that including links to other wikis can be very useful, though you have to apply common sense. Just from my own experience working on the World of Warcraft article, being able to link to WoWWiki is extremely helpful. In that case we have a number of readers who visit the Wikipedia page looking for information not suited for this encyclopedia; strategies, how-to guides, fictional minutiae, etc. Having a link to a wiki that contains exactly what they're looking for, to me, is a perfect example of why we have external links in the first place. I totally agree that we shouldn't have any and all wikis linked to from Wikipedia since there are so many horrible ones out there, but with common sense we can still retain our links to the useful ones. -- Atama頭 23:02, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
  • - Thanks for all the comments. I do think that if users insist on adding an open wiki that they should alert the reader with a kind of disclaimer that alerts them to what it is and add an internal wikipedia open wiki link to allow them to have an understanding of the place and the information they are being linked to ,like this ... Off2riorob (talk) 17:39, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
External links
I'm not convinced that this is necessary, and it might not always be desirable. It seems a bit like encouraging potential editors to leave us in favor of the other sites. Also, I'm generally opposed to badges of shame, and it comes across as an effort to "warn" the reader about the "bad" site.
However, if you think a label is appropriate in a specific situation, then I'd suggest that the words "this external link is to an" be omitted (keeping only the brief label (open wiki), to match all the other software-related labels we use). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:12, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
Many thanks for commenting, I don't think it is really a badge of shame but just as we tell people content here may not be accurate or reliable that we point the same out as regards such externals, anyways, I am only bouncing ideas around and I thank you for your comment, regards. Off2riorob (talk) 11:16, 15 September 2010 (UTC)