Wikipedia:External links/Noticeboard/Archive 10

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User:Jack.Tanis is adding an external link to Land mine to a website concerned with an Internet Petition contrary to WP:EL4 Links mainly intended to to promote a website, including online petitions. I have removed it twice as it doesnt add any value to the article but the user keeps re-adding it. Interested in any opinions on this link, thanks. MilborneOne (talk) 22:18, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

My view is that links should not be made to untrusted sources that use JavaScript in order to safeguard users of Wikipedia. 49.204.161.161 (talk) 10:47, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

A site [1] recently linked to in D. H. Lawrence executes a JavaScript which surreptitiously attempts to connect the user's computer to PayPal over an encrypted channel. This connection attempt would be undetected by a normal user; I only found it because Little Snitch gave a message that an attempt was made to link my computer to www.paypal.com through TPC port 443 https, a request I naturally denied. I removed the link but another editor restored it. My view is that links should not be made to untrusted sources that use JavaScript in order to safeguard users of Wikipedia. The danger of allowing such sources to execute instructions on one's own computer is only too obvious.[2] A link that exists simply to provide information has no need to use JavaScript. What do editors think? The link also asked for money, and the reverting editor said that was O.K. because Wikipedia does also. However Wikipedia is a trusted source and this one is not. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:15, 9 October 2011 (UTC).

The html source for the page of the link does contain some script related to paypal.com (I didn't take the time to work out exactly what it does). However, given the report above there would need to be a very good reason to include the link, and no such reason seems to exist (other than that the site would like donations, so linking at Wikipedia would be good for them). I had a quick look at the linked page, and it does not contain any useful information on the subject of the article, which is another reason to remove it. Johnuniq (talk) 02:39, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

The case for deleting the link is clear. The reason why I had to bring this matter here in the first place is that I am being followed around by a stalker who reverts my edits. Xxanthippe (talk) 05:54, 9 October 2011 (UTC).

hi, the reason I didn't understand your revert is that you didn't mention a rogue javascript in your revert comment Bhny (talk) 00:47, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Xxanthippe, would you please send this information over to the WP:BLACKLIST folks, just to be on the safe side? They know a lot more about sneaky scripts than I do. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:40, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

See my response at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist#Sneak JavaScript http://dhlsna.com/. This is not malicious, it's a common best practice when trying to integrate any third party functionality such as PayPal, Google Maps, Facebook, whatever. ~Amatulić (talk) 15:22, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Hello, I think I'm the offending party--please forgive any newbie blunders. I'd like to thank Amatulic for his defense on the PayPal issue. I've now created a Wikipedia account, and I'm still in the process of learning proper procedure, criteria, and communication methods for Wikipedia so please bear with me as I try to explain why I added the external links to the Lawrence pages.

I'm the Webmaster for the D.H. Lawrence Society of North America (DHLSNA), a non-profit academic society, one of a handful of International Lawrence Societies around the world. We sponser International D.H. Lawrence Conferences, have yearly Lawrence panels at the Modern Language Association (MLA) conferences, publish a biannual newsletter for our members (who are among the top Lawrence scholars working today), so of course we have PayPal on our website to collect membership dues and conference fees (the Lawrence Ranch fundraising was aimed at our members in honor of deceased scholars). However, most of our website is open to the public (except for the Directory page containing member contact info), and we are continually adding new content which we feel benefits anyone doing Lawrence research. (The above details about the Lawrence Society are offered merely to show we are an established organization and "knowledgeable source" of information regarding author D.H. Lawrence).

In particular, we have a page that lists women Lawrentian scholars and their publications for those interested in the feminist take on Lawrence ( http://dhlsna.com/Women%20Scholars.htm ). And we have the essays (80+ pages) contained in the National Register of Historic Places nomination for the D.H. Lawrence Ranch (both a printable MS Word version and a web-friendly version). These narratives contain biographies of Lawrence and his wife, Frieda, discuss his experiences in America and on the ranch, his works of literature produced at the ranch, Lawrence's influence on the Taos art colony and other American writers, and the uses of the ranch today. Its accuracy has been approved by the DHLSNA and by several of the State Historical Preservation Officers. It is a non-copyrighted government document that the DHLSNA has published on our website, and we would like to make it available to the general public as supplemental information about Lawrence. I feel that this particular page is especially appropriate for the Wikipedia entry on the "D.H. Lawrence Ranch," since that page uses as a reference Art Bachrach's book, "D.H. Lawrence in New Mexico." On page 46-47 of Bachrach's book, he writes: "In 2003, the D.H. Lawrence Society of North America submitted a proposal to the Cultural Properties Review Committee of New Mexico for historic registry of the ranch, a proposal that was unanimously approved and forwarded with recommendation for National Historic Register and National Historic Landmark status. The National Register of Historic Places entered the ranch into the registry in January 2004. The comprehensive proposal was supported by many members of the society and was prepared by Tina Ferris and Virginia Hyde. New assessments, measurements, and other records were necessary for this proposal, and many details in the following descriptions of the ranch come from this extensive document." That would be us--we are the primary source! And our goal isn't self-promotion for our society but rather to provide this additional in-depth information to students and improve Wikipedia's scope. If you need further credentials, please let me know what they are, and I'll provide them. I'm a published Independent Lawrence scholar and elected officer in the DHLSNA. Dr. Virginia Hyde of Washington State University is also a published scholar, a Cambridge edition editor of Lawrence's "Mornings in Mexico," and past president of the DHLSNA.

The following webpage provides a history of the DHLSNA: http://dhlsna.com/History.htm and here's the page with the ranch essays: http://dhlsna.com/RanchIntro.htm

Please reconsider allowing us to link to the Wikipedia pages on author D.H. Lawrence ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._H._Lawrence ) and The D.H. Lawrence Ranch ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._H._Lawrence_Ranch ).

Thank you for your diligence and for your consideration, Tina Ferris TFerris (talk) 19:31, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

P.S. I didn't mean to suggest linking to the society's History page--I just listed that here for you to check out our credentials as a legitimate academic society (founded in 1975) and a reputable source of information. It's difficult to establish one's authority without seeming to self-promote. But my intention was to provide the 6 years worth of research on the Lawrence ranch to supplement the Wikipedia Lawrence entries. And the Wikipedia guidelines for new research says you must prove academic credentials and publication--our ranch nomination was submitted in 2003 and approved by the U.S. government in 2004, which led to the Lawrence Ranch becoming a National Landmark. Unfortunately, I originally linked to the society's Homepage rather than the Ranch page here: http://dhlsna.com/RanchIntro.htm

Again, membership is not required to access this page or most other resources on our website.

Thanks, TFerris (talk) 21:58, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

An user has been adding links to www.onlinefootage.tv I watched the video for Suffragette (http://www.onlinefootage.tv/video/show/id/2019) and I found it of good quality and interesting so I fixed the reference, than by chance I hovered on "right managed" on the video description and I discovered that apparently the video is viewable only 5 times within 5 years for every given country. So now I'm not sure if the link should stay. --Dia^ (talk) 11:46, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

No, it's not right as you can reed on the onlinefootage.tv: "Content marked as «RM» (Rights Managed) in web quality may be used for Internet, for unlimited time, unlimited territories." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.98.10.194 (talk) 08:25, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

encyclopediadramatica.ch is presently the only live fork of the original Encyclopedia Dramatica. The original ED (encyclopediadramatica.com) is gone, and its domain is now a redirect to ohinternet. Currently, Encyclopedia_Dramatica#External_links only includes Wayback Machine links. In June, we had major discussion in a form of a straw poll. It should be noted that at the time of the poll, this was encyclopediadramatica.ch's only menion within the article. In October, I decided to revisit the poll from June (Talk:Encyclopedia_Dramatica#Providing_closure_for_the_straw_poll). Unlike in June, encyclopediadramatica.ch (I'm going to use ".ch" as shorthand) is now discussed several times within the Encyclopedia Dramatica, and it also has its own section, but the article still doesn't include an external link to .ch.

I recommend reviewing Talk:Encyclopedia_Dramatica#Providing_closure_for_the_straw_poll and the poll in order to examine the arguments from both sides, but please come the changes in the article since June in mind. To summarize, opponents of linking to ED believe that the link shouldn't be include since .ch isn't the original ED and WP:ELNEVER. The other side is saying that .ch is basically what people mean when they think of ED nowadays, .ch preserves most of the content the original ED had, and that the article now discusses .ch in detail. Since .ch is blacklisted, I'm assuming consensus to add a link to .ch' Main Page would also mean consensus to add encyclopediadramatica.ch/Main_Page to the whitelist. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 02:12, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

I would like to add that the only sources that discuss ED.ch in any length are the two Daily Dot ones (which are entirely about them). The other two sources only have a sentence on it. I think my arguments against inclusion of an external link are stated well enough at Talk:Encyclopedia_Dramatica#Providing_closure_for_the_straw_poll. Silverseren^C 02:50, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Much whining about nothing. ED runs at the .ch address, so we list their .ch address, there is nothing more to this than that. Editors with a beef against ED because it hosts unflattering articles about them should be excluded from weighing in on this, IMO. Tarc (talk) 03:20, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

That's not actually what this is about (regardless of your perpetual jabs at me). The article already has the spelled out URL of ED.ch and that's fine. This is about whether there should be an actual link or not. Silverseren^C 04:10, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm assuming this was brought here to get some uninvolved opinions on the issue, so it would be nice if the usual suspects (that is, anyone who is a regular at Talk:Encyclopedia Dramatica) would not jump straight into this discussion. --Conti|✉ 10:38, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for saying that. I stated this discussion in order to generate new opinions and ideas. I guess that I wasn't clear enough before. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 12:37, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

From the little I understand, the .ch link (1) works and (2) is the only working official link for the subject of the article, right? So WP:ELOFFICIAL applies and you link it. You're all experienced editors, so why are we even having this discussion at all? Yes, it would have to be whitelisted for the one page (not for general use). But what's the actual problem? Pretty much the only reasons we omit official links are:

1. Malware on the site
2. Child porn or other severe legal problem
3. The org doesn't exist, and it's an unauthorized archive copy.

Unless one or more of those apply, it should be treated like any other website. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:14, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

The point is that some argue that it is not the "official" link to the site, as ED.ch started as an unofficial fork of ED.com (which was shut down at the same time). ED.ch and ED.com have completely different staff, but the user base has by now mostly wandered over to ED.ch. --Conti|✉ 20:20, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: Sherrod DeGrippo didn't give anyone permission to fork the contents of the original ED, but .ch is a subject discussed several times within the article, and it's a part of the original ED's legacy (ie. what the original left behind). .ch shouldn't be confused with a mirror; .ch is a fork with its own community. .ch is the only live website out there that can give readers a good idea of what the original ED was like. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 23:58, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: As the article discusses, ED was shut down and split into two separate communities. The founder of ED, Sherrod DeGrippo, went on to create Oh Internet, which is what the ED URL redirects to now. A few other well-known members of the ED community went over and created ED.ch and copied a lot of the content of the original ED from Google caches. That's why the article states that ED is shut down, which it is, and then discusses the two communities that it split into after its shut down, Oh Internet and ED.ch. If you notice, there isn't a link to Oh Internet in the article either, because both Oh Internet and ED.ch are separate articles that are related to, but are not ED, thus they are not the subject of the article and don't fall under WP:ELOFFICIAL.

I hope that helps explain things. I know it's a bit confusing. Things were pretty chaotic back when the shut down happened as well. Silverseren^C 04:52, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

...and technically 1 and 3 of the things you mentioned apply to ED.ch. Not sure about #2, the child porn, though. I think they're pretty diligent about removing that when it's uploaded. Silverseren^C 04:54, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

.ch doesn't have any malware, and .ch doesn't host child porn. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 13:32, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Ugh. If you'll imagine a long rant here about how inconvenient it is for the real world to be so messy and thus so difficult to neatly pigeonhole, then I'll go think about this for a day or two. Perhaps someone else here will have some useful advice. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:07, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I think that there's no clean answer. The link is permissible but not strictly official; it therefore is subject to WP:ELBURDEN like any other. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:04, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Please contribute to the discussion at Template talk:OEIS#This is an external link. The template {{OEIS}}, which is used over 500 times, inserts an external link to a database listing integer sequences. Common usage is to insert the external link inline. HairyWombat 17:47, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

It would probably be helpful if more people expressed an opinion on this. The revised template now produces this: (sequence 12345 in the OEIS) and directs users to a non-WMF website (using wiki software, but it's not an open wiki). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:07, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I have just commented there that the reasons for rigorously applying WP:EL do not apply in the case of links to OEIS. Johnuniq (talk) 04:25, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

• Cebu Institute of Medicine (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Please could someone/anyone help resolve the suggested link addition and changes in Talk:Cebu Institute of Medicine#addition of new external link. Thanks,  Chzz  ►  09:51, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Can I ask for some advice? I noticed that User:Mlbellis had added links from lots of UK universities to StudentGlo eg Diff. Is this a helpful ext link?— Rod ^talk 07:29, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

No, the links basically look like WP:FORKs of the Wikipedia articles. I suggest removing all of them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:13, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree: the site has blatant and unattributed copying from Wikipedia articles in a couple I checked. I removed all remaining links, see Special:LinkSearch/*.stuglo.com. Johnuniq (talk) 01:17, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

An anonymous editor has been repeatedly adding a link to a Wikisource article, Executive Order 13514, in Plug-in hybrid. An admin, for whom I have nothing but respect, has been repeatedly reverting these edits. His explanation is as follows, "...the proper way to link to the executive order is with an external link to the GPO site. Unfortunately, the US government has redone the site, and I don't know the proper link. WikiSource links are only appropriate if the material is not online or not expected to remain online. In any case, it should be generally be linked as an external link rather than as s:, as that gives the mistaken impression that there is a Wikipedia article about it." I understand the admin's point, on a general level, but I also found the link helpful and informative. As the admin states, finding the same document language on the "Official" government website has proven difficult since they redid their site. I don't really see any harm in keeping the link to the Wikisource article, although I could see value in changing it from an in-text link to a footnoted citation, and changing it from a s: link to an external link. However, with or without those modifications, I would like to see the link stay in the article. Thoughts? Any help and/or guidance in this matter would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. Ebikeguy (talk) 16:48, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I have just re-read the entire Wikipedia:External links guideline, and I do not see a single word that limits the use of Wikisource links in this manner. Wikipedia:Wikimedia sister projects#When_to_link appears to contradict the claim. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:24, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

The issue is confused by the fact that 99.35.15.107 has not seemed to join any discussion about the link, despite a minor edit war on a few pages (possibly in every article that mentions the executive order). I think the question of whether a wikisource link is desirable needs to be settled after the IP stops debating by edit summary. Johnuniq (talk) 00:45, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

• healthdiaries.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

I doubt if it is ever appropriate as an external link. --Ronz (talk) 15:16, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

• birlaa.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam/2011_Archive_Oct_1#Can_someone_cleanup_birlaa.com.3F --Ronz (talk) 15:16, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

• netglimse.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam/2011_Archive_Oct_1#What_do_others_think_of_netglimse.com.3F --Ronz (talk) 15:16, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

An account created in July of this year has just started editing today - their only edits have been to add an external link to "artcylcopedia.com" across over 50 articles. Should they all be removed as WP:EL violations, or do they really need to be checked one by one? --Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 15:23, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

• ArtCyclopedia does appear to a legitimate resource; it has had an article here since 2002, a prod was removed in 2007 by User:Orlady who supplied a number of examples of "online reviews, articles, and awards" on the talk page, and a current GNews search turns up a variety of news coverage.[3] Of course, that does not necessarily resolve the question of these new ELs. I would tend to think that these could be appropriate at least on pages where there isn't already extensive information and ELs for the artist. Others may differ.--Arxiloxos (talk) 15:44, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

• For what it's worth, my only involvement in the Artcyclopedia article was removing the PROD. I don't have any other involvement with the topic. The website has numerous links all over Wikipedia (both in reference citations and "external links" sections of articles), so the new ELs don't stand out as unusual. It is possible, of course, that some of those existing links were mass-added by a person affiliated with the website.
  I suggest looking at the new additions on a case-by-case basis -- and remind this user about WP:COI. --Orlady (talk) 16:13, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

• eastkilbride.co.uk: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

I would appreciate some additional opinions on this site. It was originally added to the East Kilbride article as the "East Kilbride Official Town Website"[4] - but looking at it, the site appears to be a commercial geodomain site - not an official website. The parent domain is Lanarkshire.co makes clear at the bottom of the page that it's an expanding geodomain network of sites, so the "official" claim is highly doubtful.

I was having a discussion on my user talk page about the link, where it was suggested the site meets WP:ELMAYBE #4 with the argument that it's a news site, which would provide "news stories, some photos, ... apparently a directory of businesses and so forth".

However, I believe the link should not be included. Firstly, even if viewed as a news website, including the URL would be giving priority to this site over all other similar sites and publications. If anything, a link to the article about a news site could be placed in a "media" section, and in its own article the EL would be appropriate ... although, in this case, it would likely be a redlink as I doubt an article about the site would survive a notability test.

Additionally, for this URL, I don't believe it meets WP:ELNO or WP:ELYES as it fails to expand on the encyclopedic understanding of the city - we're simply not an internet directory of links related to a subject, the link should expand encyclopedic knowledge, not just be related to the article subject. Also, WP:UKCITIES appears to discourage these types of links.

Thank you in advance for your comments/feedback regarding the URL. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 06:39, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

At the bottom, it says "Copyright 2011 East Kilbride". Do you think that means that the local government owns/controls it? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:11, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't. I did when I first saw it. It might. But if the UK works like the USA, it would be ".gov.uk" and not ".co.uk". It's registered to a Martin McCrum who's address is a business (Increase The Wedge Ltd.), although the town could have subcontracted to him, and that could also explain the ".co" maybe. Or I suppose there could be a commercial entity called "East Kilbride, Inc."?. Not sure if that's legal. Or maybe they're just blowing smoke. Herostratus (talk) 18:34, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I also doubt the copyright mention to East Kilbride actually means an type of official affiliation with the city. For one, related to the registration noted by Herostratus, the associated sites Bellshill.com and Coatbridge.co.uk have similar copyright notes and are also registered to increasethewedge.com (the coatbridge site registered on the same exact date as the one being discussed), and each has identical formatting to this page (right down to the graphics).

And also, the site eastkilbride.com has a similar copyright note, which is a competing site from another company that creates geodomain sites. I would doubt a city has partnerships for two competing "official" sites. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 20:37, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

The domain eastkilbride.co.uk is owned by Increase The Wedge Ltd (whois). That, along with the appearance of eastkilbride.co.uk, suggests the site is definitely not "official". The site appears to be an aggregation of info related to the district, with ads. There is a link to East Kilbride History, but that is a disappointing fluff piece with pretty well zero content. I do not think an external link like this should be used in the article as the site appears to provide low value. Johnuniq (talk) 01:09, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

OK, couple things. No one is claiming that this is an official website. The person who originally posted the link, possibly also misled by the copyright notice, described it as the official town website. But this has already been corrected, and that ends this an issue, I would say.

Moving on to the value of the site. Well, it's basically the local news. There's another news site in the links, the East Kilbride News which I guess is local traditional print paper.

So I guess one question here is "should we link to local news sites"? Of course we should, in my opinion. I guess this is partly a philosophical question of "what constitutes encyclopedic information", and my opinion is to interpret it somewhat broadly, not for articles but for external links. External links let us stretch out a bit and include (links to) additional info that we can't or don't include in the article. What kind of info? That's arguable, but I would say local news stories. (And if we're not to link to the local papers in town articles this should certainly be discussed at a policy level and specified in the policies, I think.)

Granted, a lot of local news is not important, or useful. But maybe some of it is. Clicking the news tab and going down through the links, I see fluff... also some stuff that's arguably useful... Here's one: local MP Linda Fabiani takes a stance on a political issue: "East Kilbride needs affordable housing in order that our younger residents are no longer forced to leave the town due to a lack of suitable accommodation", she says. Hmmm. So according to her, the town has shortage of affordable housing and therefore the young people are leaving. Does this help someone learn something useful about the town? Maybe. It does if it's true.

The thing is, we're not saying to readers "you MUST read this material". It's optional. We're not even putting our imprimatur on it. We're just saying "since you seem to be interested in this subject, here is a site with some other info". I don't see the problem with that.

If the question is "should we link to this site and the East Kilbride News"? I'd say yes, probably. They seem to have different foci. But if we have to pick one for some inexplicable reason, I guess it'd be this one. The East Kilbride News looks a bit more tabloidish. But why not both.

As to the point "including the URL would be giving priority to this site over all other similar sites and publications", well, no, we're not giving priority. An editor put the link in, is all. If there are other good sites editors should add those too. Is the point that it's unfair to other sites to not also include their links, and so to be fair we should include no links? If so, I wouldn't worry too much about that, myself. Herostratus (talk) 05:42, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

No, we should not link to the site. The content is low quality advert laden material. It does not expand upon the encyclopedic understanding of the article subject (the city), and if viewed as a news website - adding it fundamentally changes the types of external links that are added to city articles.

Take a look at articles for major cities that get a lot more traffic and community review, such as New York, Chicago, London, Paris or Berlin. You'll note that none have news websites in the External Links section - although some have "media" sections within the articles where there are links to notable news sources within those cities (notability in this case being identified by having a Wikipedia article) - note: they do not have external links in the media sections, only internal Wikilinks to the articles for each news site in Wikipedia, and within their own article the EL to those notable news sources are listed. Having a section for notable media sources is spelled out at both WP:USCITY#Media and WP:UKCITIES#Media. These types of links simply do not belong in the External Links section of the articles. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 20:15, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

NOTE: A follow-up discussion to this has been started at Wikipedia talk:External links#Links to town news sites in town articles?. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 06:57, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Hi there! I just joined Wikipedia recently and yesterday spent a while connecting a few articles on specific people to some audio interviews that I found really enlightening. I realize that Wikipedia doesn't want spam or advertising, and that they don't want anything promotional, but the interviews that I had added were with the exact people of each article and about various subjects written about on their pages. These conversations with the people I added to have been very interesting and I thought pretty helpful in seeing new and upcoming information regarding popular fictions. Is there a way to correct this? The user Ponyo was able to help me understand that Wikipedia thought this was a breach of #13 on the list of guidelines, but each interview was directly related to the subject of the article, as it was an interview with said subject about various things they are currently thinking or up to, or may have done in the past. I really think that these audio interviews are just as informative or exciting as other written interviews that have been posted under external links. Thanks, I really appreciate it, and have a great rest of the day. Keelymacd (talk) 05:24, 31 October 2011 (UTC)Keelymacd

The external links added are all to www.fictionalfrontiers.podcastpeople.com/ (example). I suggested Kellymacd request input here prior to restoring the links. --Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 15:28, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Ponyo, thanks for the diff. Before I listen to the interview, could you explain how an interview with Scott Morse could be unrelated to Scott Morse (and/or what makes him notable)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:55, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Apologies, I've only seen this now. With regard to the fictionalfrontiers.com links, my concern was that they were being added in quick succession, across multiple articles, which gives the appearance of spam/promotional linking. In addition, if we linked to every interview or podcast an actor has ever given the EL section wold very quickly be overwhelmed. The reason I asked Keelymacd to check here first was to ensure the links were acceptable for use in multiple articles. Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 15:05, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

So your primary concern is WP:SPAMMER-like behavior, and your second concern is about the WP:Spam event horizon.

I don't think that the guideline actually prohibits links to interviews. (In fact, transcripts of interviews are on the WP:ELYES list.) That doesn't mean that an indiscriminate spamming campaign is going to produce good results, but the evaluation needs to be case-by-case, taking into account the number of ELs currently in the article, whether this particular interview adds more than what the article says, and whether better links might be easily found. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:12, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Having dealt with some of this, I'm inclined to think there is potential for spam problems with respect to this particular site. Links were added to several articles since this initially arose, by IPs with no other edits, and finally by a new account: User:Ffrontiers. --Ckatz^chat_spy 18:31, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Spammer-like behavior (even if perfectly innocent) can be a real problem, and sites have gotten blacklisted over it even if they have otherwise good content.

I've invited the new account to join this discussion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:13, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

There are two issues here. The first one is that this is a sidebox template in the style of {{commons}}, but it links to an external wiki. Wikipedia:External links#Templates for external links clearly states this is not allowed and the template should therefore be converted to a inline template such as {{Allmusic}}. I do not have the technical knowhow for this, so if somebody could help out on this it would be great.

The second issue is whether external links to this wiki are wanted at all. For example, the external link on the article Hoogkarspel seems inappropriate, as familypedias page contains only some random genealogic entries of non-notable people. Willem-Alexander, Prince of Orange is another example. Here the Familypedia page is a lot better, but contains basically the same information as our article. The only information it has that we don't is the "Lineage from Charlemagne to the Prince of Orange", which is at best the geneological variant of the Erdős number, but more likely just geneological cruft. I have looked at several more articles on this Familypedia, but I have yet to find any which would add value as an external link. What do you think? Yoenit (talk) 14:59, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

• Template:Familypedia (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Template:FamilypediaPlace (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• William the Conqueror#External links example of problem

These two templates should be nominated for deletion as they are undue promotions of an external website that is not helpful for articles here. I checked a few links and most were junk, while a couple might have been passable, although the ones I saw did not satisfy WP:EL. Johnuniq (talk) 06:43, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

I thought so, I have started a deletion discussion at Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion#Template:Familypedia. Yoenit (talk) 10:52, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

An editor recently added http://www.unsv.com/voanews/specialenglish/scripts/2011/11/05/0045/ to Shiloh (novel). Is this website an appropriate external link? Cunard (talk) 04:31, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the link is low value. I reverted a few of the other link additions to the same website by the user and left a note at their talk. The couple of links left are probably ok: LinkSearch (although some EL pruning might occur at Letterboxing). Johnuniq (talk) 06:26, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for taking a look, John. Cunard (talk) 02:12, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

I wrote a variant of the query below in the discussion for Samuel Pepys then in the External links discussion, but I am told by WhatamIdoing this is the most appropriate place.

There is a daily twitter covering the entries of Samuel Pepys' diary of same date, in 1668. The owner of the twitter account, and the related website is an individual, so it can't be said this is an 'official website' (and it is difficult to qualify as an 'official website' for a long dead author).

More than 20,000 people are currently following the diary in this format, and many of them wouldn't probably read the book on one of the websites listed in the external links. For instance the book has been downloaded only 528 times from Gutenberg. (sources: twitter samuelpepys and Gutenberg search under this author).

To increase readership of not so widely read authors is considered an expansion of encyclopedic knowledge^{[citation needed]}. So it is accepted to have external links encouraging readers to go to a website where they can download the book. The same logic should make acceptable to have a link towards a twitter that provides the same content on a daily basis, when this media sticks to the original text of the book (no comments, etc). Twitter has no adverts so one classic objection is waived.

So, can we formulate an exception to the general rule about external links to twitter ? Please read subsequent comment by WhatamIdoing in the External links discussion. --Jardeheu (talk) 04:25, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

The exceptions are already there in WP:IAR/WP:BRD, and it can be discussed via e.g. the talkpage. I would say, that if a talk page discussion at Talk:Samuel Pepys comes to the conclusion that this is appropriate, that it is fine to include this. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:37, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

While this Twitter feed may be relatively harmless, I don't do Twitter so I am not sure how it presents the material. However, it is not as though it is the only way to access the Diary online. There are a number of sites where you can access the entire Diary and look at any particular day's entry in full rather than depend on a Twitter feed (supplying small snippets of the Diary?) on a daily basis. Dabbler (talk) 18:07, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Providing access to the whole diary at one through some website is (obviously) the better solution, so replacing twitter by such abetter solution is imho justified, but simply deleting it without providing a better rreplacement is not. What matters here primarily is to provide an free online access to the diary, the actual method of facilitating this is secondary--Kmhkmh (talk) 21:33, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

"Providing access to the whole diary" is not our job; that's the role of a different project, namely WikiSource! Besides, the twitter just dumps a micro-smidgen at a time. --Orange Mike | Talk 22:03, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

"Providing a twitter link" is not our job either, but this line of arguing is a bit off to begin with. "Our" job is to provide the best external links related to the article's topic. An external link providing a complete and free online access to the diary is definitely better than the twitter option - period. However if no such links exist, then twitter link is an acceptable/useful (temporary) alternative.--Kmhkmh (talk) 01:30, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Dirk: the link is not prohibited by the guidelines. Although Twitter is called out as a normally problematic site, the reasons why Twitter is normally a problem don't apply in this particular instance: the content is predictable, and it's not an effort to document the entire Internet presence for the subject.

It's just a matter of editors at the page deciding whether this is the one of the better links that could be offered to readers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:36, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Since the diary is widely available elsewhere, I'd say reject it, since Twitter feeds are of use to only a small subset of humanity. "To increase readership of not so widely read authors is considered an expansion of encyclopedic knowledge" is an unsupported bit of nonsense. The argument for retention falls afoul of WP:ILIKEIT. --Orange Mike | Talk 20:38, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

The point is here, that policy does not exclude such a twitter link. However an external link providing the complete diary is obviously a better solution, but that's an editorial decision for the editors working on the article and not really a policy/guideline question. Also generally claiming a wide availability of the diary is not a sufficient argument to delete the twitter link. If you want to remove the link, you need to replace with (concrete) link providing a better access to the diary.--Kmhkmh (talk) 01:39, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks for your comments. "Providing access to the whole diary" : It is indeed the role of Wikisource. However there is already a considerable number of links to the whole content of books all over Wikipedia, so the editors see it as a wikipedia role and it does not shock all the participants to this discussion. So the formulation "To increase readership of not so widely read authors is considered an expansion of encyclopedic knowledge" might not be a stated Wikipedia policy but it is reverse-engineered from this widespread Wikipedian practice. "better access" to a work: If 20,000 people currently follow Samuel Pepys' twitter although only 1,000 downloaded it from Gutenberg at all times, one can say that people see it as a "better access". So, following recommendations stated here and if there are no more developments in this discussion, I will put the decision back to Samuel Pepys' editors on the Talk page.Jardeheu (talk) 07:46, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Two editors support the inclusion of thirdwitness.com as an EL at the article Jehovah's Witnesses and child sex abuse; two editors are opposed. Discussion so far has taken place atTalk:Jehovah's Witnesses and child sex abuse#Added New External Link.

The arguments for inclusion so far are:

• The site has been around for years;
• It has reputation;
• It is quoted almost religiously by every Jehovah's Witness that a Wikipedia editor knows;
• It documents and comment on media coverage and on court cases involving JW sex abuse allegations;
• It references and quotes liberally from official JW policies, magazines, letters and court transcripts;
• By presenting arguments in support of JW policies on handling JW child sex abuse allegations it would balance another third-party website (Silentlambs.org) that criticizes such JW policies. Failing to include Thirdwitness.com breaches Wikipedia requirements for a NPOV. Accounting for all significant viewpoints on any topic is required Giving "equal validity"

The arguments against inclusion are:

• The website is little more than an essay authored by an unnamed JW apologist that exists simply to argue in favor of the Jehovah's Witness methods of handling sex abuse cases;
• The credentials of the anonymous author are unknown;
• The Thirdwitness.com website also hosts an apologist page about the religion's doctrine relating to biblical chronology, which includes elements that are not in agreement with official Watch Tower Society teachings. The author is therefore not established as an expert, but rather is expressing their own opinion;
• The domain name was registered only in 2007 so has no claim to longevity;
• There is no evidence that it is widely quoted by (or even known to) members of the religion, so has no claim to reputation;
• It offers little information of encyclopedic value;
• It is markedly different from the Silentlambs website whose existence as an EL it is claimed to "balance": Silentlambs has gained significant mainstream media coverage[5][6] over its criticism of JW sex abuse policies and itself is the subject of a Wikipedia article that survived an AfD attempt. Its website contains information on media coverage of court cases involving JW sex offenders, also provides information to sex abuse victims, and in summary contains information of encyclopedic use;
• The inclusion or exclusion of a link to Thirdwitness.com has no bearing on NPOV policies.

Comments are welcome. BlackCab (talk) 11:41, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

I feel I can weigh in objectively on the issue;

• for inclusion:

• Longevity is not a valid reasoning as I have seen articles from 2001 that are unreferenced, which plays to notability.
• Reputation does not play into account in any fashion as being true or false is not a criteria for inclusion.
• Being quoted only means something if used according to policies and guidelines concerning verifiability. Verbal quoting has no place on Wikipedia. Including the comments concerning quoting; "every Jehovah's Witness that a Wikipedia editor knows" in reasoning, concerning facts or fallacies, is improper.

Media coverage lends to notability of a particular subject and if covered in an article would give weight.

• official JW policies can be quoted as long as proper procedures are followed and there is no Copyright violations.
• Neutral point of view to maintain balance is an important criteria of Wikipedia. On controversial subjects, such as religious articles, this is especially important to prevent bias. Giving "equal validity" "is important to account for all significant viewpoints on any topic...".

• Against inclusion

• An essay can be presented on Wikipedia. There is no policy against this as long as Wikipedia policies and guidelines are followed. The issue is credibility and an unnamed author and the fact of if this site is a part of the organization in question, since it appears to be, or if it is unsanctioned. I can not find attribution to the site but maybe this was overlooked.
• Credentials of the anonymous author can obviously not be authenticated. Verifiability maintains that readers should be to "check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source...".
• Apologist page is not a reason for exclusion. The subject is religious in nature so this is not a factor, however, if there are elements that are not in agreement with official Watch Tower Society teachings (examples please) and the site is focused on this aspect, then there would be a problem lacking third party sources with a "reputation for fact-checking and accuracy."
• Little information of encyclopedic value is obviously an opinion and does not mean there is "no" encyclopedic value.
• Being different as referring to one being acceptable for inclusion over the other does depend on if one or both do not warrant inclusion by Wikipedia policy as an external link. [7]and [8] does lend credibility to "silentlambs.org" so this site does qualify. However, there does need to be balance or the article will certainly be biased.
• Inclusion or exclusion, even in an external link, is relevant to the issue as there is not an "exclusion" policy for external links that I know of.

Conclusion: The bottom line is only if "Thirdwitness.com" is acceptable as an external link. What concerns me the most is the statement, "If you believe that Jehovah's Witnesses make up God's true organization on earth you will be pleasingly surprised and you will find that opposers (sic) of Jehovah's Witnesses have no answer to this information other than their usual rhetoric.". This statement is very biased, as I am not a believer, had no previous knowledge of this subject, especially concerning "Jehovah's Witnesses". Since I am not a "believer", according to the statement, my opinion (apparently as an outsider), especially if contrary, is already considered rhetoric. Until that part hit me I was inclined to consider inclusion, possibly overlooking some aspects, but after considering this, I conclude the use of this information on Wikipedia is not acceptable. If this appears as rhetoric then, since I had a totally open mind going in, I would think no amount of persuasion would matter. Otr500 (talk) 18:55, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Comments:

1. As one of Jehovah's Witnesses I can say that the word 'opposer' does no apply to persons like you. It applies to people who dedicate themselves to opposing us in some way or another. It does not apply to everyone who disagrees with us.

2. Even if the statement is biased, does that prevent use as an EL? The same Wikipedia article Jehovah's Witnesses and child sex abuse links under "Critical" to silentlambs.org, which contains a great deal of biased statements. Example Yet, it gets to stay in the EL section. If Silentlambs' many heavily biased statements do not preclude use as an EL, why does one statement at Thirdwitness preclude its use? StandFirm-JW (talk) 20:36, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

I have provided reasons above for the inclusion of Silentlambs as an EL. It has gained significant media coverage as an organisation whose primary raison d'etre was to address what it perceived to be inadequacies of the Watch Tower Society's methods of dealing with child sex abuse within its ranks. The organisation is the subject of a Wikipedia article and therefore its notability has been established. Its activities are germaine to the subject of this article. BlackCab (talk) 21:15, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Regardless they make many heavily biased statements against JWs. If they can be included for other reasons despite that than so can Thirdwitness. Additionally, WP:ELNO states: "2. 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 that the site is presenting." Silentlambs barely skirts by if even that IMO. StandFirm-JW (talk) 21:23, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

See WP:OTHERSTUFF. The existence of one link does not automatically provide for the existence of others. We could all write blogs and essays on any number of subjects. The Thirdwitness site is no more than that. BlackCab (talk) 21:45, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

'Thirdwitness' is popular in JW apologist circles (e.g. the JW forum on topix.com along with 'Tears of Oberon' and 'Standfirm'), but none of his information gives any indication of recognised authority, either from a secular standpoint or by the Watch Tower Society officially.--Jeffro77 (talk) 22:38, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

At any rate, I am still interested in the comments of other editors as well as Otr500's response to my question if he wishes. StandFirm-JW (talk) 03:29, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Please understand that I personally give latitude to external links that do provide information that might otherwise not pass criteria to be used on Wikipedia, and especially if it dispels bias or extends balance (even if by proxy), but there are still policies and guidelines to be observed and as always there is consensus. Inclusion of material that has an anonymous author, especially as I pointed out, "...or if it is unsanctioned.", and "Jeffro77", "recognised (sic) authority, either from a secular standpoint or by the Watch Tower Society officially.", still leaves the fact that there is no author. Also please understand that a criteria for inclusion on Wikipedia does not specifically matter if the material is truthful but that material is referenced. Also, (even if "I" would be an exception) inclusion of offensive or seriously objectionable material should be excluded. There are mentioned court cases, "It documents and comment on media coverage and on court cases involving JW sex abuse allegations.", and this certainly can be included and more importantly used (with references) in the article. This would be far better to stem any possible bias and to provide balance to the article. If there were any valid third party references that used the material then this could be allowed. Otr500 (talk) 11:21, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

(Thanks for the 'sic', but "recognised" is Australian, not incorrect.) :) --Jeffro77 (talk) 13:05, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Jeffro77. I do not speak Australian , so did not know that, and stand corrected.

Well, strictly speaking, it's English (and as such, is also the correct spelling in England). I suppose Americans could think of it as 'them English', as opposed to 'US English'. :) --Jeffro77 (talk) 12:11, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

So you are still opposed to inclusion of Thirdwitness? StandFirm-JW (talk) 19:34, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

"StandFirm-JW", help me out here a little. While digging around some, to address the issue of ownership of the link, I found a 2006 copyright here that was from the first link on the page to give me the truth about Jehovah's Witnesses and the Truth About Child Abuse, NGO, and 607. I followed a link to present this in letter form here and this all leads to a link [www.jehovahsjudgement.co.uk], that does not work, and is listed as the owner of the work. I thought I had misspelled the URL but it is plastered all over "third witness". There is a link, "Download our charts" and inquiring minds (mine) would like to know who "our" refers to. The fourth paragraph contains, "Even some of us who participated in the research and writing of the information presented here were either temporarily taken in by the claims made by opposers on some of these issues or we simply did not know for sure if their claims were true or not. That is why we were determined to do an honest and thorough investigation."

Attempting to give latitude is one thing but I am just having problems. Do you feel that Wikipedia should let any information be published, no matter if right, wrong, or if there is possibly a hidden agenda? If the validity of material can not be proved then of what use is it?

I feel certain you understand the concerns and hope that you would want to explore (a good purpose for an encyclopedia) to make sure information you receive is not false or misleading, not to mention that you might be providing false or misleading information. How is this accomplished? By verification. What verification are you using for inclusion of the site? The copyright appears to be false (no way to prove it), there are anonymous authors that refer to themselves but "we (identifiable as at least those of us involved here but also future readers) do not know who this is, and there is no actual way to validate the information.

There are even dead links on the site. Am I still opposed to using the site? At this point that would be yes, and I sincerely hope that you will explore a little more as to your reasoning for inclusion. Otr500 (talk) 11:20, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

It is an essay that balances out Silentlambs' link to maintain NPOV. Before you mentioned being potentially offensive as a concern and now you also mention it being potentially false or misleading. The fact is, though, that the Silentlambs link does all these things much more. If they can stay despite that, why not Thirdwitness.com? StandFirm (talk) 17:50, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes I took exception to what was written and explained this. I also provided clear and concise reasoning (and examples) as to the misleading information. Did you try to follow the link attached to the copyright? That is a big hint that something is not right. The same misprint is repeated more than once. I could probably find some more things if I read it again. I will however, take a closer look at the silentlambs site. Otr500 (talk) 06:18, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

I have previously commented about elements of sensationalism that appear on the Silentlambs website (similar sensationalism previously also existed at the article Silentlambs), as can be seen at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Silentlambs. However, in that discussion, it was pointed out that the site (and its article) satisfy the requirements for notability. Thirdwitness.com does not meet that criteria.--Jeffro77 (talk) 08:27, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

I did not see that the site had an over whelming consensus to keep so thanks. Otr500 (talk) 08:57, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

• http://www.jesuits-chi.org/videos/A_Millenium_Perspective.wmv is a dead link
• http://www.pray-as-you-go.org/ is simply spam
• http://www.jesuitswisprov.org/jesuits_video.htm is a link to a Wisconsin branch of Jesuits, why are they deemed so special as to have their own link?
• http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBB0274F88062E5A0 is a list of Canadian Jesuit youtube videos

I don't feel any of them are of good enough quality to include, coi editor User:Cdnsj disagrees but has not responded on talk page.Advice please.Theroadislong (talk) 20:49, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

• Society of Jesus (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I agree that the above links are not helpful for the article. Some of the other links that remain in the article seem rather peripheral, and editors with knowledge of the topic might identify which satisfy WP:EL. Johnuniq (talk) 07:26, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Hello,

As a person living on the Amalfi coast I contributed to the Amalfi coast wiki at its very beginning, providing a list of attractions organized by town. The list is still there and 14 links to a travel and accommodation website (www.amalficoast.com) were added to it. I find another amalfi coast website just as relevant if not more, so I added 3 links to this website (www.theamalficoastline.com) to the above mentioned list of attractions. These 3 links were promptly removed by Old Moonraker who (kindly but still) accused me of spam. This seems very unfair and frustrating. In my opinion the only fair thing would be to allow the links I suggested (keeping the others), or remove all the 14 links of the same nature together with the ones I suggested.

Thank you Regards Xbruno (talk) 12:08, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Old Moonraker is correct: an article should not have links inserted as references, just because the website has pages related to the locations mentioned. It was this edit last June which added the other slightly dubious references—that was by an established editor who did a significant rewrite of the article, so I expect that others did not question the refs. A couple of the www.amalficoast.com links added in June that I checked seem to have pertinent information, although I don't see why a reference is needed when there is a link to an article. Johnuniq (talk) 07:19, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply, although I am quite puzzled by what you wrote. Are you saying that "established" editors can bend the rules or do whatever they want, while a humble contributor is called spammer? The "established" editor worked on a list of places to see that I personally wrote, since I visited them being a local (is the established editor a local?). I did that a while ago, using also some information from the website I put as a reference in my last edit. The "established" editor added 14 links to an "amalfi coast travel guide" packed with ads, not 1 but 14 (and you called those "slightly dubious" but did not remove them). Now deleting 3 links to an other "amalfi coast travel guide" (without ads by the way) seems really arbitrary. You also wrote that you took the time to follow some of the "dubious" links to establish if there was relevant information. May I ask if you took the time to follow the links I referenced too? Or did you only look at the one website that was referenced by the "established" editor instead. Do you see my point here? I quote from the "About Wikipedia" page: "People of all ages, cultures and backgrounds can add or edit article prose, references, images and other media here". It doesn't say "only established editors count, while the others' have to suffer from restrictive rules and have their content removed". Sorry, but I believe the same rules should be applied to everyone in the same way. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xbruno (talk • contribs) 09:01, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the more this discussion is padded out with side issues, the less inclined others will be to comment. I simply identified the facts, and was hoping others would comment on the helpfulness of the refs. Johnuniq (talk) 09:52, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

I would appreciate your thoughts on whether it is appropriate to add a company's website page as an external link to a page about that company. In this case another editor was concerned it was too spammy and I understand this concern but figure this issue must come up a lot?

Details are at the Jonathan Cape discussion page

Thanks Jbro68 (talk) 01:54, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

The standard advice is at WP:ELOFFICIAL. The short version is that we don't care how spammy it might look: if the company wants to have a spammy-looking site, we link it anyway. There are really only two reasons that we omit links to a business' own website in an article specifically about that business: the first is the presence of malware (we protect our readers), and the second is a serious concern that the site doesn't belong to the business (hoaxes and domain highjacking). WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:19, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Makes sense, thanks for that explanation, Jbro68 (talk) 05:38, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Link rot being a significant issue with the Web in general and Wikipedia in particular, many editors, myself included, use the "Find archived page" function available in many browsers to find archived versions of dead links. Per the discussion here, the non-profit online library the Internet Archive / Wayback Machine is acceptable to link to.

Sometime in the last day or two, however, I've found that archives of Wikipedia article pages (which is what initially shows up when using "Find archived page") are now blocked by robots. However, this seems inadvertent: When I investigated the explanatory page at http://en.wikipedia.org/robots.txt, it appears to be only user pages that are meant to be blocked from archiving. Here's the programming directive:

1. Don't allow the wayback-machine to index user-pages
2. User-agent: ia_archiver
3. Disallow: /wiki/User
4. Disallow: /wiki/Benutzer

Yet all Wikipedia pages appear to now be blocked. Given the importance of fighting link rot, I thought I should bring this up to admins. --22:56, 18 November 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tenebrae (talk • contribs)

This just didn't come up over the past few days, Wikipedia has been unindexed from the Internet Archive for quite a while. There was a discussion sometime back at the Village Pump over whether this should happen, I opposed the idea then and I don't think the thread was closed with any consensus to do this. But somehow, somewhere along the line, someone important decided to flip the switch to unarchive our pages. I suppose it probably had something to do with BLP issues, as that's something users can throw around without any evidence to get something like this done without consensus. I suspect that no matter what we do on here, the powers that be aren't going to let us reindex ourselves on the Internet Archive. ThemFromSpace 03:31, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

• pamela-green.com: Linksearch en - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • MER-C Cross-wiki • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced • COIBot-Local - COIBot-XWiki - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.org • Live link: http://www.pamela-green.com

This is supposedly the official site for Pamela Green. Does it fit our criteria as an official link for the article, when the subject is deceased?

That's the simple, and most important issue I have with it. If one looks into the site and it's use within Wikipedia, they'll find pamela-green.co.uk and editors 82.69.56.50 (talk · contribs) and 82.71.53.165 (talk · contribs). These ip's have spammed pamela-green.com and other websites related to mightyfine.co.uk, which appears to be an organization that designs, hosts, and owns various websites, including pamela-green.com. --Ronz (talk) 23:16, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

If it's owned by a related company or her estate, then I think it would qualify as being official. But of course its status as an official website of the Pamela Green article has no bearing over whether it is appropriate on other articles. As an aside, it might be better to directly link to this page from the article, bypassing the memorial and splash page. ThemFromSpace 03:34, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

I wonder why Wikipedia has Double Standards? When I posted a link to www.immovableproperty.com/ in the past, it was immediately deleted. It contained important and educational Q&A (FAQ). Now the www.immovableproperty.co.za/ link under "References" from South Africa does not have any useful nor educational contents in it, just a "For Sale" or "Coming Soon" page; apparently the author is either selling the domain or advertising and taking subscriptions. There is a section "External Links" yet the South African page is listed separately "References". What kind of "reference" that website is, with no contents? How come it is not deleted from Wikipedia? Is Wikipedia run by kids? I demand answers. Audriust (talk) 14:00, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

That's not a double standard, that's no one bothering the fix the problem, or possibly even noticing it. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 14:48, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Wonder what people think about this domain. I'm not asking for it to be blacklisted, I'm trying to decide if it's spam or not.

• Josian74 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam)
• off2colombia.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

tedder (talk) 17:23, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I'd say yes. It's not government/official, but rather commercial. I've removed links to it several times. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 17:30, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, it smelled that way to me too, but also slightly borderline. I have the linksearch bookmarked, I'll clean it all up later today. tedder (talk) 18:10, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

In this page, there are currently a number of references (with material associated with them) with a link to an archive.org copy with questionable copyright - it is a book published in 1942, with no evidence of permission granted for its usage; the link is http://www.archive.org/details/TheVarietiesOfTemperamentAPsychologyOfConstitutionalDifferences. I have brought my concern up with the contributor who introduced the link, who responded with "The copyright is disputable? What's that to you, dude?", which appears to be an admission that the copyright is, indeed, disputable. Attempted deletions of unsourced material from this contributor has been responded to by his or her reposting it, so I do not anticipate it being helpful to simply remove this from the references. Thank you. Allens (talk) 05:06, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Given that it's only a single user, the typical solution is to block the account. That can be requested at WP:AIV. However, it looks like your discussion with Editor75439 (talk · contribs) at the talk page is resolving the dispute, so I hope that it will not be necessary. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:59, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi everybody! I'm the founder of Data Collective, a startup non-profit that builds and supports technology to help people find, understand, and share data, advancing the knowledge and education of citizens everywhere. Sound familiar? We're very inspired by Wikipedia.

We're compiling datasets that should be of interest to everyone, for example today we compiled the U.S. Population annually from 1790 - 2011. As far as we can tell it didn't exist on the Internet anywhere before.

Continuing with that example, where does this data belong in Wikipedia? Should a chart of the data be put in certain articles? Should the data be linked to from certain articles? If I put those charts and links in myself, is that in violation of the conflict-of-interest or external-link policies?

Our goal is to help make Wikipedia more awesome by adding the data and charts that it ought to have.

To put it another way, consider this chart] that currently appears in Wikipedia. It doesn't indicate its source very precisely. All it says is "based on US Census data". Wouldn't it be better if the author provided a link where you could see the source data and how it was manipulated? But would the chart author's link be banned as spam since it links to the author's site? Or does the spam policy apply only to articles, and not to the metadata for an image?

What do you think?

Today I added an external link to the data from the US population page, and OhNoitsJamie ^Talk flagged it as spam. Before I go around adding more links that I consider useful but others consider spam, I'd appreciate the community's advice. The basic problem comes in two varieties:

1. there's data on a Data Collective page that would be useful background for an article.

2. there's a chart on Wikipedia whose supporting data comes from a Data Collective page

In both cases, we would link to the appropriate Data Collective page from the appropriate place in Wikipedia. Does this run afoul of Wikipedia policies? If so, what's a better way to achieve the ultimate goal, which is to make Wikipedia more useful for everybody by enhancing its charts and references to data?

Thank you! Dsjoerg (talk) 17:53, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

On the simpler question, which is #2: If you know the actual source for any chart, then you should feel free to provide a proper citation to that source per Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Images#Image_description_pages. Citing sources on images isn't technically required, but it is extremely valuable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:06, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

FYI, I invited Ohnoitsjamie (talk · contribs) to explain why he considered the links to be spam two days ago. Perhaps we will get some more information. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:47, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Tor_(anonymity_network) has links leading to tor (an illegal website), this page should be deleted immediately — Preceding unsigned comment added by Power2794 (talk • contribs) 20:11, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

TOR is not illegal. The page will not be deleted only because of that. Wikipedia isn't censored.Jasper Deng (talk) 20:58, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

User:Acdixon has added a series of links of uncertain value ([9], [10], [11], and [12] are just a few) to a variety of articles. I reverted a few them per WP:LINKFARM. See our discussion here User talk:Heironymous Rowe#George Rogers Clark. The user says they have not actually read the articles, as there are too many, they are just adding them for future editors who "might" want to use them to expand the article. I'm of the opinion that they would be better placed on the talk pages of the articles until their value and relevance is determined, the other user disagrees. Could I get other opinions? Heiro 18:31, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Usually, when I see something like this, the possibility of a conflict of interest occurs to me. I don't suppose that this editor has any connection to the Filson Club, whose publication he's repeatedly adding to articles? It has that WP:PROMOtional feel to it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:53, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

They have not said and I was WP:AGFing that they were not. I tend to not think so. Heiro 19:03, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Nope, no connection to the Filson Club, other than just citing articles from the Quarterly frequently. Honestly, I just realized recently that they had put their entire archive online for free. That's pretty unusual for a scholarly publication, in my experience. Since it isn't really that easy to get a list of all the articles over the Quarterly's near 100-year history, I thought I'd just add these links so that interested editors would A) know that the article exists and B) not have to waste time trying to find a physical copy or request the article on interlibrary loan. If there were a long list of links already in these articles, I could understand the concern, and I try to be more judicious in instances where there are. (The quarterly has several articles about Abraham Lincoln, for example, but I tried to either add them to the most specific Lincoln sub-article that I could or just refrained from adding them altogether.) Most of the articles where I am adding these links, however, are sparsely cited. George Rogers Clark is an exception, since it is a good article, but I thought the additions might help get it to featured status. If the articles' editors decide the links are of little or no value, they can remove them then. I'm basically just trying to make folks aware that "Hey, there's some scholarship out there on this subject that might be useful to you, and it's free on the web." I was going to do the same thing with the online edition of The Kentucky Encyclopedia, but that will take a lot longer because of the sheer number of entries. As I expressed to Heironymous Rowe on his talk page, I thought the potential value to the encyclopedia would outweigh the minor inconvenience of the few "misses" I will make by judging the content of the article based on its title alone. Acdixon ^{(talk · contribs)} 19:05, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm sure some of the articles would be valuable resources, but it seems like stuff in article space should be vetted for value and not stuck in on the off chance it could be useful. Just my opinion. Heiro 19:14, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Further reading sections are a problem as many violate the principle of WP:NOTDIR: It is not Wikipedia's role to maintain a comprehensive list of links for anything. I'm sure the intentions are good, but the intention of an editor is not relevant as it cannot be determined. What counts is edits: repeatedly adding external links to one website is linkspam, and a very strong case would need to be made to warrant the addition of these links (what is special about them?). Johnuniq (talk) 02:02, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, I'm not sure I would call it "repeatedly adding external links". I added the links, Heironymous Rowe reverted them, we discussed on his talk page, then we brought it here for further discussion. Yeah, I returned to the same article a few different times, but that's because I was going through the issues of the Quarterly chronologically, so sometimes I didn't have all the links all at once. But it wasn't an edit war or anything like that. And while I agree that intention can never be 100% determined, I think my record as an editor speaks for itself. My interest has always been Kentucky-related content, and that's what all these links are about. I've got numerous recognized articles to my credit, and I think it should be pretty clear that my goal is building the encyclopedia. I just found it very cool that a scholarly journal had made all its content available for free and thought other editors might be interested in knowing that there are one or more freely-available, web-accessible scholarly articles related to the subject available. When I go in to expand and improve an article, I always appreciate it when some editor has left some breadcrumbs regarding what reliable sources are out there that I can draw from. In fact, I frequently leave such breadcrumbs for myself in articles I think I might work on later. The idea is that, if I always add a potential source to the Further reading section of an article when I run across it, I might eventually see that "Hey, there are four or five pretty solid sources here. This is probably a viable article for expansion." Just thought I would extend that courtesy to some other editors in hopes of piquing their interest. To me, it is just another means of providing an incentive for editors to expand an article, and giving incentives for others to build the encyclopedia is a good thing, right? Acdixon ^{(talk · contribs)} 14:40, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Listing sources under ==Further reading== that you hope to use in the future to build the article is neither encouraged nor prohibited. If that's all that's going on (and it seems likely to me), and if you've actually looked over the sources (e.g., not just the titles) to make sure that they might be useable for building the article content, then I don't see a real problem here. It sounds more like a philosophical dispute over whether {{Expand further}}-type uses of the section ought to be permitted. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:17, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi. I would like some advice on whether copyright would be a problem if links to two Youtube videos of interviews from CNN and Fox were in the External links section of an article. The videos appear to have been uploaded to Youtube by the firm Shirley & Bannister Public Affairs. Specifically, the two Youtube videos are

• Chuck Pfarrer on Fox and Friends 11.08.11
• Chuck Pfarrer on ErinBurnett 11.08.11

--Bob K31416 (talk) 02:48, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

They look like obvious copyright violations to me. --Orange Mike | Talk 20:15, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. That was my first thought on the matter too. However I had second thoughts because the uploader does not appear to be some anonymous user but an established firm with a website that has information about them. It seems like such a firm probably has permission, if needed, but I'm not sure. Then I looked at Wikipedia policies/guidelines and found at WP:ELNEVER,

"If you know that an external website is carrying a work in violation of the work's copyright, do not link to that copy of the work. Linking to a page that illegally distributes someone else's work casts a bad light on Wikipedia and its editors. This is particularly relevant when linking to sites such as YouTube, where due care should be taken to avoid linking to material that violates copyright."

In summary, it seems reasonable to suspect that there isn't a copyright violation because the uploader is an established firm. Since I don't know that there is a copyright violation, and using the above excerpt from the guideline, could one conclude that the links are acceptable unless there is further evidence to the contrary? Are there any precedents for this situation that can be used for guidance? --Bob K31416 (talk) 18:34, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that is an assumption that you can make. There is no evidence whatsoever that the firm has the consent of the copyright holders to post those clips and until there is, they should be assumed to be copyvios. – ukexpat (talk) 19:00, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Then maybe the guideline should be changed to make that interpretation easier, if that's what was meant? The change would be:

"If you know suspect that an external website might be carrying a work in violation of the work's copyright, do not link to that copy of the work."

--Bob K31416 (talk) 19:33, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

In the Doug Williams (bassist) article, which is a tiny stub because of the removal of unsourced material, an editor, in good faith, wants to include the subject's Facebook page as an external link because it's the "closest" thing we have to an official website. The problem is it's a Wikipedia clone. I assume it has a link to Wikipedia because it shows whatever currently is in the article. I don't see any real prohibition, though, either in WP:EL generally or WP:ELOFFICIAL specifically, but my instincts say it doesn't belong because it adds no value to the article for a reader to go see a repeat of the article. That seems to be borne out by this sentence in the guideline: "Official links (if any) are provided to give the reader the opportunity to see what the subject says about itself." It obviously doesn't do that. Another point in the intro of the guideline in support of exclusion is that we are supposed to use common sense.

I suppose the best support for including the link is the subject might change the content in the future making it arguably useful to the reader. Also, there are a lot of official websites of article subjects that are pretty worthless, but we include them anyway just because they're "official".

Should it be included or not?

WP:ELNO#EL12 says no: It's a mirror or fork of Wikipedia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:22, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

But that list is headed by the qualifier "except for a link to an official page of the article's subject". Why doesn't the Facebook page qualify as that?--Bbb23 (talk) 23:21, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

All links (even official links) have to be justified by editorial judgment and common sense. What value is that link providing to the user today—not "in my WP:CRYSTAL ball, maybe someday he'll have an informative page there", but right now? The point is to see what the subject says about himself, not to provide a web directory. We wouldn't link to an "official" website that said little more than "This website is under construction", and I don't see this as being materially different. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:22, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Hello. I would like advice regarding Sherlock (TV series). There is a very good unofficial site (http://www.sherlockology.com) that has enjoyed a lot of access to the production, with its producer being particularity supportive of it. Its main writers and a producer have publicly condoned the site. Although this is technically an unofficial site, what can the producer of the TV series do to verify that the production condones the site, and justifying its inclusion on Wikipedia? Would tweets from their accounts be acceptable to indicate endorsement? Is it possible that the producer could email OTRS, or similar, to endorse the site? The JPS^{talk to me} 14:50, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Endorsement is irrelevant. It can't (ever) qualify under WP:ELOFFICIAL because it's not controlled by the subject. However, we do allow non-official websites to be linked if they comply with the rest of the guideline. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:23, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment. As someone more familiar than I, would you be able to look into this and see if we can justify a link to this external site? I would really appreciate it. The JPS^{talk to me} 00:03, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

• The BBC Press Office link is probably uninteresting to readers and definitely improperly formatted (see WP:EL#External_links_section.)
• Two of the tie-in websites—Science of Deduction and John Watson's blog—are prominently linked on the main BBC One website and therefore ineligible for inclusion. All four are listed at [13], and should probably therefore be removed. Furthermore, the connection between the other two and the show is distinctly non-obvious (at least to people who aren't fans).
• I'm not convinced that the PBS link contains any unique information, but I didn't look at it very closely. Readers are disappointed when they click through to a website that only repeats what the others say.

As for the one that you actually asked about, it appears to contain more information than the other sites already linked, so I think it would be okay. It's ultimately a matter of editorial discretion, though, and as usual for all links, if it's seriously contested, it's out. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:51, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

• Template:Twitter trends (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

There is a new template to show a trending topic at Twitter. Would links to Twitter trends be helpful? Johnuniq (talk) 10:02, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it can be helpful. When we are editing some articles like music album/movie/person, we can provide the Twitter trends as external references of the particular album/song/movie to give more information to the readers about how popular it was and what people talked/feedback about this. Some Trends may have extra information(tags) in the tweets to value add the lead content.--Jenith (talk) 10:19, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

"External references" is a confusing concept. In the wikijargon, either it's an external link (=does not support article content), or it's a reference (=supports article content). Can we get a diff about how this is being used in a specific article? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:25, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

We can use this template to cite our internal references too, to provide the readers about the interactive live information on the main article; Example in this, the twitter trends used to talk about the popularity of the song and its various derivatives, responses by people. — Jenith (talk) 05:09, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

This noticeboard has absolutely nothing to do with references that support article content. If you want to discuss that, you might try WP:RSN. Here at ELN, we only care about URLs that do not support article content. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:09, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Why do the first two references in the article by this name have redirects to the National Consortium for Study of Terrorism, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence?

I'm not enough of a geek to figure out how this was even done, but if you click on the hot links in those references, that is where you go. Mervyn Emrys (talk) 21:02, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I explained it on Talk:Thermcon. This is a normal case of link rot, in this case caused by the termination of the Terrorist Knowledge Database. It's not happening on the Wikipedia side. Hans Adler 21:49, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

The external link "http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/b/e/beulah2.htm" doesn't work. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.6.74.161 (talk) 03:51, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Firstly, please excuse me if I'm doing this wrong, I'm relatively new to Wikipedia although I always read as many of the relevant policy documents as I can find before editing anything. I read various policy documents before placing any "External Links" on your website. I only found out about the "Talk" pages and how to use them, very recently; when I received a terse warning Template:Uw-spam1 last month after all my external links had been abruptly removed en-masse without any individual scrutiny or prior discussion, by a fellow who goes by OhNoItsJamie. In good faith, I had placed one link each on three separate Wikipedia articles in the "External Links" sections at the bottom. The links were all highly relevant to the articles on which they were placed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_(geometry) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaganomics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Password_policy The links I placed were to original articles I would regard as purely scientific or otherwise based on indisputable and publicly available data - basically the same type of material you encourage within Wikipedia articles, things that would be of direct interest to your readers, only, not representing material so central to the topics on Wikipedia as to be worth editing the material into the Wikipedia articles themselves. My main intention was to enhance Wikipedia. The removal of these links has not impacted my website traffic significantly: my main intention in discussing this issue here is to see if we can improve Wikipedia by restoring these links. The sites I linked are non-commercial and written only for the public benefit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Ohnoitsjamie I can totally understand someone wanting to discuss my links with me. With hindsight, one of the three links (the one about Reaganomics) was probably a bit of a judgement-call, on the technicality of it being based on my blog (which is more an online science & philosophy magazine than a blog per se). But removing all my links and pushing a button to send me a rude and judgemental message, is OTT in my opinion, considering I'm only trying to improve Wikipedia. I tried discussing my issues with his approach politely with him (see my talk page) but to no avail. A cursory glance at this fellow's own Talk page shows a long history of this fellow calling other people out on their apparent mistakes while failing to follow Wikipedia's editorial policy himself, and refusing to give any specific explanations of his actions to anyone else under any circumstances. He even threatened at least one person with being blocked for merely asking politely for an explanation for the removal of their External Links! I want three things to happen:

1. Second opinion: For objective persons (preferably qualified in the relevant subject areas) without emotional investment in this dispute to review my links, and give a second opinion or adjudication as to whether my links were fit and worthwhile material for "External Links" sections of Wikipedia articles, and whether they should be restored to the articles in question. (I commit henceforth to use the Talk pages for these purposes, and allow others to edit in my links; since I now know how to use this facility.)
2. Guidance: If any further guidance is needed by me, to help me understand how to better serve the Wikipedia community, that would only be welcome, regardless of how it is worded, especially if polite. Please tutor me!
3. Guidance: Someone to talk with "OhNoItsJamie" about his approach, so as to help him get the best out of other Wikipedians.

I'm also curious to know whether this fellow "OhNoItsJamie" has any special authority on Wikipedia to be going around threatening people with being "blocked". He seems a bit trigger-happy to me. I'm not easily offended but I am worried other potential contributors might be, and indeed, might have been offended by this fellow's approach. He certainly talks to everyone as though he has this authority. I don't specifically need an answer on this though: so at your option. Sorry if this has been a bit long. I invited "OhNoItsJamie" to submit this dispute (in his own words) on my behalf; but he declined that opportunity, claiming it as a foregone conclusion that other Wikipedians would agree totally with his position. Any help would be appreciated.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Matthew of cambridge (talk • contribs)

Jamie was right: those were classic spamlinks to personal websites and original articles, and grossly inappropriate under our external links policy. Jamie used the mildest and least harsh warning template in asking you to quit adding this kind of thing to articles. --Orange Mike | Talk 22:17, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

And yes, Jamie is one of our administrators, volunteers (like myself) entrusted by the consensus of the Wikipedia community with certain extra tools to help clean things up as needed (symbolized by the Mop-and-Bucket of office). One of his specialties, in fact, is the removal and prevention of inappropriate external links. --Orange Mike | Talk 22:21, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure that "classic spamlinks" is really an appropriate description. This one, for example, is a link to a calculator, which is generally considered a good type of external link: something on the topic and that we can't possibly include in the article. Can you tell me why you think that link is "grossly inappropriate"?

The fact that it's located on a website controlled by an individual rather than an organization is exactly as irrelevant as whether it's a "for-profit" website. The External links guideline doesn't consider links spam merely because they aren't controlled by a corporation, and they don't fall under the WP:ELNO#EL11 restriction on "personal web pages", because they aren't personal web pages (which are defined as "World Wide Web pages created by an individual to contain content of a personal nature"). WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:28, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, there's a huge number of perfectly legit and useful ELs that could be considered "personal" in the sense they are maintained by a single person with no official authority. Such a site should never be considered bad just for that reason. One big example is that for a long-dead historical figures there may be a large site with plenty of info that goes far and beyond anything that can be covered in a single encyclopedia article. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 23:13, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

If other folks would prefer to have my pyramid angle calculator hosted on my business website (which will at some point be managed officially by more than one person) instead of on technical article pages within my personal website; I'd be more than happy to make that change and at the same time, improve the calculator, update the HTML markup and tidy the page (removing anything remotely personal, including technical explanatory notes, and placing those things in separate articles). My main motive for keeping this on my personal website so far has been by my perception that a conflict of interest would be more likely if any of the links pointed to my business, where I also have paid-for products (as well as freebies like this pyramid angle calculator). In other words, I kept it on my personal website so that I could better serve the Wikipedia community. My business website would be a natural fit for this calculator though, so if no-one minds, I might move it over. As ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ points out, I don't see what real difference it makes, but feedback and guidance are welcome anyway.Matthew Slyman (talk) 10:51, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

@Orange Mike: In relation to your claim that “Jamie used the mildest and least harsh warning template in asking you to quit”; please re-read the very first paragraph of Wikipedia:Spam#Warning_spammers. Out of two possible spam link warnings for those adjudged to be first-time offenders, OhNoItsJamie chose to use the more terse and rude one, when in fact a more polite warning is recommended for relatively new users like me who have clearly added links in good faith: Template:Welcomespam: it surprises me very much that either you or OhNoItsJamie should be oblivious to this well-publicised official policy or the availability of this alternative template; since I think everyone is already agreed in the observation that OhNoItsJamie considers the removal of spam to be one of his "specialities". If you're going to criticise or contradict me, at least you could get your facts straight. I'm still awaiting your response to the question from WhatamIdoing, or alternatively, feedback/ guidance/ action from you or others as appropriate... There appears to be a growing consensus that at least some of my links were legitimate (commenters on this thread have apparently so far concentrated on discussing the ones that are more obviously legitimate, so as to avoid contentious argument over the cases that are not so clear). As per my promise, I won't restore these links myself, or engage in any “edit wars”. Will these links be restored by the community?Matthew Slyman (talk) 10:51, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Myself, I had never before heard of Template:Welcomespam, I always used uw-spam1. Maybe Jamie can simply start using the softer template from now on. --Enric Naval (talk) 18:05, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I have, BTW, once again invited Jamie to join the discussion here. He has apparently declined to explain a much simpler case above, so I'm not at all confident that we will hear from him. Perhaps he's changed his mind. He's a high-volume editor, and even 99% perfection would leave him with one mistake a week. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:32, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I have not changed my mind. The complainant is wasting everyone's time here wikilawyering a cut-and-dry case of WP:COI and WP:EL ("how dare you remove links to my website!'), especially given that he has few contributions to the project outside of adding links to his site. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 17:35, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Exactly which line in EL does the link to the pyramid angle calculator violate? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:53, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Exactly what part of WP:ELBURDEN needs to be clarified here? --Ronz (talk) 18:05, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Jamie didn't remove it because it was contested; he removed it because he thought it was an inappropriate link for the article. I'd like to know which line in the EL guideline describes the relevant kind of inappropriateness. I can rule out quite a lot of them—a calculator clearly doesn't fall afoul of ELNO #1, for example—but I can't find any obvious items that it transgresses. In fact, an online calculator (if it's a relevant subject) is something that we frequently use as an ideal example of a good external link. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:25, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

While I'm not ruling out all calculators for all articles, I've yet to see one that is worth keeping. I routinely remove them. This one most definitely is too off topic of the subject matter. --Ronz (talk) 23:12, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I would find it difficult to imagine any calculator that would ever be appropriate for an external link. It's simply not what external links are for. Wikipedia is not a web directory. We link to valuable encyclopedic sources, not tools, etc. Other than WhatamIdoing's comments above I have never heard of an online calculator being used as an example of a good external link, and certainly not "frequently". DreamGuy (talk) 03:12, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

@Ronz, @DreamGuy — There presently appears to be some disagreement on this point (having studied geometry and also craft & design, I think that many people visiting your pyramid geometry page will be interested in the angles my calculator works with, which are among the most tricky aspects of pyramid geometry—beyond the capabilities of most folk to do for themselves). If there is presently disagreement on the value of my work or of that link, the improvements I've been planning for the calculator might change your minds at a future date. The calculator (and workings) are presently focused mainly on inter-surface angles. I'm planning to move the workings onto a different page and make the calculator into a generalised pyramid geometry calculator (I don't see how this would be off-topic at all, can you?). We could agree to leave the link out for now and then I could visit to the "Talk" pages of the relevant articles later to suggest reinclusion after the upgrade. Would this help?Matthew Slyman (talk) 10:04, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

@OhNoitsJamie "especially given that he has few contributions to the project outside of adding links to his site" You presume and mischaracterise: you never bothered asking me about this in our private conversation, and now you state your presumptions as fact! I have made slightly more contributions than my user contributions list implies, as my most valuable contributions to Wikipedia's own materials were accidentally made whilst not logged in (note, I've always been careful to log in before adding any links). Remember, I'm relatively new around here, and I'm still learning how to contribute most usefully (or, perhaps learning from the contentious and unfriendly atmosphere around here that contributing to Wikipedia may not be worth my while or the risk to my reputation - I'm yet to decide on this point). If you don't want a Cambridge University computer science graduate contributing edits he's confident about to articles on mathematics, you'll know what to do. I'm still waiting for the dissenters' answer to the specific question from WhatamIdoing...Matthew Slyman (talk) 22:03, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't know what "private conversation" you are talking about. As stated on my talk page, I don't communicate off-wiki. If your contributing is contingent upon adding links to your own site, no thanks. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 22:05, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Matthew presumably refers to the discussion between just the two of you on his user talk page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:28, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing—correct. @OhNoitsJamie—My conditions for contributing are primarily for the people I'm working with here to behave in a civil and reasonably consistent manner. You can't have a game of chess (or an intelligent game of anything at all) with people who sometimes pretend their own rules (or the policies of the organisation they represent) don't apply to them. I won't edit-war Wikipedia with people who make up the rules as they go along, or who feel that explaining themselves is beneath their dignity in the event of an inevitable dispute—if I am being pulled down to that level then I won't contribute; I'll avoid the contention instead. The privilege of placing external links on articles is no precondition (though I am curious to know whether you actually think people should only be allowed to edit Wikipedia if they place no external links on it at all, and if they simply turn over all their own © copyright materials and those of their businesses to Wikipedia “in aeternum” instead). Civility and rationality are the key preconditions to my ongoing participation here. You just accused me of “wikilawyering”, yet all I'm doing here is fastidiously following your own specific recommendation (I saw the citation on your talk page some time ago if I recall correctly) in respect of . Judging by this hierarchy, everyone supporting my position in this dispute is presently in the top two segments of this hierarchy (occasionally number three). On the other hand, your past and present discourse is almost entirely in the fourth and fifth segments of this disagreement hierarchy, with a few rare adventures into zone three (a pattern I see consistently throughout your talk threads). You're obviously an intelligent and technically competent man. Please lift your arguments up a few levels in future, in accordance with your own rules and recommendations, or least those of the noble organisation you represent. I do realise that you're a high-volume editor of Wikipedia with a lot of good work to do, and that most of your decisions are probably right—I just think other honest contributors deserve slightly more than the short shrift you've consistently been giving them, in return for the substantial time these inexperienced editors have taken to research their subjects and contribute, and then, to ask why their contributions were removed and how they can do better. Your answer to WhatamIdoing? Do you have an answer to his/her question? Or should we conclude that I am not the one who is “wasting everyone's time here”? If you're not going to answer this question, then I'd suggest for both of us to take a back seat in this discussion for a while longer and let others more qualified pass judgement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Matthew of cambridge (talk • contribs) 23:36, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

OK, well, some points:

1. User:Matthew of cambridge, we got a lot of spam here. A lot. You can understand how this could be? We are one of the most visited sites on the web and our material comes up high in Google searches. Every day many many people come here to, in various ways, promoted their interests with insufficient regard (or no regard) as to whether this is in the best interests of the Wikipedia. I'm not saying this applies to you. I'm just saying that this the environment in which we are operating. If you were not aware of this, now you are.
2. When editing the Wikipedia to add external links to an article, one needs to take the approach of only making edits which improve the Wikipedia and leaving aside all other considerations. We all agree on that. Now, suppose a person goes through the following thought process: "Well, there are some external links in this article. We don't want too many, just the few best. I think the addition of perhaps one more external link is in order, or perhaps replacing one of the current ones with a better one. Which one? Well, by happy coincidence my own website fills the bill perfectly!" Do you see why this might be a problem? It's not necessarily a matter of overt self-dealing (although it'd be foolish of us to dismiss the possibility of this out of hand). It's a question of whether one is the best judge of whether one's own website is the ideal best link to place among the few that the article should have. We're only human. Are we really the best placed to judge our own work in that way? Would it not be better to leave this to an uninvolved person.
3. Given the two points above, can you not see how there is a pretty strong aversion to editors placing their own web sites as external links? Everything else followed from this. Whether this aversion could have been expressed better is a worthwhile but secondary point. Given point #1, we are very busy handling these matters and cannot always be perfect. I'm sorry you were templated or that you feel poorly treated, but this is a huge and fast-moving website.

Anyway... if it is true that the link in question is of superior quality, then it is almost certainly true that, over time, it will be seen by more and more and people and recognized as such, and an uninvolved person will soon add it to the article where it will be accepted by general acclamation. Better all around to wait for that to happen.

However, the point that the value of the link is, at the end of the day, really the main or sole criteria is well taken. Given that, I think a better approach would have been to just ask for discussion of the links on the merits and leave it at that. You did do this, but there's much else here also regarding procedures and the question of whether another editor behaved non-optimally, so all these questions are getting lumped together and it's rather a dog's breakfast now.--Herostratus (talk) 06:51, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

@Herostratus—totally agreed (see point #1 on my original post: I have already committed to follow these standards more perfectly in future). You, Ronz and WhatamIdoing are all personally welcome to edit my previous contributions to this thread, so as to remove or edit any details that are not conducive to the development of a rational consensus within the discussion at hand or to focus the discussion as appropriate for this forum.Matthew Slyman (talk) 08:37, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

• scribd.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

Some past discussion

• RSN April 2009
• RSN December 2009
• SBL February 2011

Judging from past discussions, I'd expect that scribd.com links would not be allowed to be added by non-confirmed editors. Anyone know why these links are being allowed?

Anyone know if Scribd does any copyright checking, or if there's a way to tell for individual links?

Specifically, I'm concerned with http://www.scribd.com/doc/76138448/What-Does-Mindfulness-Really-Mean-Bodhi-2011 , first added [14]. --Ronz (talk) 03:02, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Their FAQ claims that they remove copyvios and have an automated "fingerprinting" detection system that prevents re-uploading of previously reported copyvios. Whether the community thinks this is good enough is beyond my knowledge. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:39, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Sorry if it's not a good place but I have a question about all these Youtube videos in this page List of world records in Olympic weightlifting, I added most of them but now I'm not sure if I did a good thing or a bad thing. Please someone answer me if possible, are these videos against the rules or not ? thanks in advance. Mohsen1248 (talk) 23:43, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

There's a little advice at Wikipedia:External links/Perennial websites about YouTube links. However, it's not clear to me what the purpose of the links in the tables is. Are you using them to prove that this person won this particular record? Or something else? WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:29, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

I clicked on a couple of them and they appear to be copyrighted material uploaded without permission to YouTube. We are not allowed to link to those videos. I wrotestarted an essay at Wikipedia:Video links with more info. Cptnono (talk) 18:12, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

As a follow-up: Anything with the NBC, Eurosport, or similar logo has to go. I would also remove any that are clearly professionally done for TV. I believe that only leaves a couple that look like personal cameras. I think those could be removed on the basis that they do not belong outside of the External links section or maybe an Template:External media. But then there is the concern that the video is not from a trusted and reliable source (which is something some editors are adamantly opposed to). I would like to be the first to say "thank you" for putting in so much effort. Even if it didn't work out, that must have taken some time and that in itself is badass.Cptnono (talk) 04:40, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

The purpose matters: if they are being linked to prove that this person won this particular record, then they should not be placed in the ==External links== section.

I believe that a few of the television broadcasters have official channels at YouTube, in which they (the copyright owners) upload their own videos. Are any of these in the official channels? If so, then they are not WP:LINKVIOs. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:44, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Feel free to click on them. I did not see any but might have missed something. Cptnono (talk) 07:16, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

User:RobertEdingerPHD's contributions seem to consist entirely of adding external links to Detectives on Facebook — John Harvey, Wizened Web Wizard Wannabe, ^{Talk to me!} 14:56, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Please have a look at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Spam#Not sure about Booknotes in external links. Apparently I had chosen the wrong noticeboard. - DVdm (talk) 22:23, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

The basic question is whether a video interview with a book's author is "directly related" to the author (the subject of the BLP), or if it violates WP:ELNO #13 by being only "indirectly related" to the subject of the article. I believe that comments over there would be most helpful. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:01, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Have I got my understanding of EL right? Just because a link is relevant and possibly even helpful doesn't mean it should be included. Particularly with the topic Perl, there are hundreds (thousands? millions?) of websites that are useful, but they shouldn't all be included in EL. One person's 'useful' is another's 'meh'. I've reverted an insertion, which the (IP user) has reverted. [15] Any advice? Thanks peterl (talk) 04:12, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

You are correct. Even if we wanted to include as many links as possible (and we don't), it would simply be impossible to include every single relevant link for a subject like Perl. Have you tried starting a discussion on the article's talk page? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:05, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I have written software which I am providing for free (open-source BSD-license) that generates images of slide-rule faces in both CNC gcode and PostScript. This would be used for etching or photo-lithography of anodized aluminum slide-rules. I added a link to my webpage in the external-links section of the slide-rule page, but "Dr. K." removed it saying that it was spam. I have discussed the matter with him but to no avail: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Hugh_Aguilar

Wikipedia does provide links to webpages that provide software for emulating slide-rules. Specifically: http://www.antiquark.com/sliderule/sim/index.html Wikipedia also provides links to websites dedicated to the selling of antique slide-rules on eBay: http://www.sliderulemuseum.com/ It is inconsistent that my webpage should be disallowed while these are allowed. The external-links section is supposed to provide links to relevant webpages, and mine is as relevant as these.

The people selling antique slide-rules on eBay obtained large quantities of slide-rules when the manufacturers were going out of business. They got these at huge discounts (or for free if they were employees) in the 1970s, and they are reselling them as antiques now at a huge profit. They (mostly ISRM members) are strongly opposed to anybody building new slide-rules now, because this would kill the antique market. I think that this is why my software, which could be used in building new slide-rules, is disallowed --- while links to websites that support the selling of antique slide-rules are allowed.

Previously I provided a link to some free BSD-license software of mine that provides a left-leaning-red-black (LLRB) tree implementation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-black_tree Nobody complained that this was spam. When I provide a link to my free BSD-license slide-rule software however, it gets deleted the very next day. It seems obvious to me that the reason why nobody cares about the LLRB software is because there is no money being made in data-structure algorithm implementation. By comparison, the reason why the Wikipedia editor wants to delete my slide-rule software is because it threatens to pull the rug out from under the antique dealers who are making considerable amounts of money. This is wrong! Wikipedia shouldn't be supporting certain people's efforts at making money, by banning webpages such as my own which are purely altruistic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hugh Aguilar (talk • contribs) 03:55, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, there are articles within Wikipedia that have external links that should be removed. That's no excuse to add more such links. --Ronz (talk) 04:29, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm not asking that the other links be removed; I'm asking that mine be included. What is the external-links section for if not to provide links to external websites that are relevant to the article topic? Everybody who has an external website has some kind of agenda. In my case, it was altruism; in most cases it is profit. If the website is at least semi-altruistic, such as a museum or free-software, then it should be included in the external-links sections --- advertisements for commercial products can be banned.

If somebody is interested in building slide-rules, how are they going to do that without my software? They would have to write software of their own that duplicates what mine does. What would be the point of that? I think that non-programmers tend to believe that programming is easy to the point of being trivial. When you disallow a link to my webpage, you are implying that software such as mine can be produced effortlessly by anybody, and that all you are doing is preventing my name from being publicized rather than the name of one of a million other programmers who could have written the software instead of me. I feel insulted by this suggestion that I am a spammer; this really belittles the time and effort that I put into writing that software.

You can get rid of these links, as they provide essentially no information and appear to have taken about five minutes of time and effort to produce: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_New_International_Encyclop%C3%A6dia/Slide_rule http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Encyclopedia_Americana_(1920)/Slide-rule

Hugh Aguilar (talk) 06:10, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Okay, let me see if I've got all this straight:

• The only(?) article affected is Slide rule (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views).
• You added a link to http://www.forth.org/novice.html which contains software useful for building slide rules.
• It has been removed by DrK.
• The reason given for removal is solely(?) because you said that you wrote the software.
• You believe that your lack of financial considerations should give your link preference over other kinds of links (even though WP:EL#ADV says we don't discriminate on the basis of perceived altruism).
• You believe that some WP:SISTER links should be removed (and perhaps they should, even though we normally accept all such links "when such links are likely to be useful to our readers". It's possible that two old encyclopedia entries do not meet the criteria of being "useful").

Do I have that right? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:16, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

That is pretty much it.

• The only(?) article affected is Slide rule (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views).

I would certainly hope so. Nobody has yet deleted my link regarding the red-black tree software or the N-Queens software. Now that I have mentioned these though, it is possible that somebody will go delete them too. All of this stuff is essentially the same --- I write software and I then add links to my webpage in the relevant Wikipedia pages' external-links section --- the basic idea is to let people know about my software so they can use it. I don't consider this to be spam; the point of the external-links section is to make relevant webpages available --- if people don't know about my software, they will end up writing their own software that does essentially the same thing that mine already does. I only do this with non-trivial software --- if there are already a jillion implementations, and writing a new implementation is trivial, then I wouldn't bother to tell the world about my own implementation.

My own experience with Wikipedia is that that the articles tend to be rather light-weight and not very useful. I read the articles primarily to get an introduction to a topic that I know nothing about. If this introduction piques my interest, I then go to the external-links section to find links to websites that provide more in-depth information. I think that most people use Wikipedia the same way. If a person is interested in building slide-rules, for example, he isn't going to expect to find information on this in a Wikipedia article that just provides an introductory description of what slide-rules are and what their history is --- he is going to look in the external-links section for a webpage that provides more in-depth information. When I first got interested in building slide-rules, I looked at the external-links section of the Wikipedia article to find out if anybody had already written any software for doing this; when I found nothing already available, I went ahead and wrote my own software. It is quite possible that software like mine already exists (at Concise Inc., for example), but that it is proprietary --- I'm not aware of anybody providing software like mine for free --- if such software was available, I would have used it rather than write my own.

• The reason given for removal is solely(?) because you said that you wrote the software.

The only reason given by Dr.K (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Hugh_Aguilar) was this: "Please avoid linking to stuff which you have produced yourself. This is called conflict of interest WP:COI and is spammy, IMO."

• You believe that your lack of financial considerations should give your link preference over other kinds of links (even though WP:EL#ADV says we don't discriminate on the basis of perceived altruism).

This isn't true; I don't want preference over Derek or ISRM or anybody else. I distinctly stated that I am not trying to get other links removed, but only trying to get my link added. Relevance to the article topic should be the only criteria. Anybody who examines my software will find it to be useful for building anodized aluminum slide-rules (I provide multiple example slide-rules in both CNC gcode and PostScript, and my program can be used to generate custom slide-rules as well). Derek's software is for emulation on a computer; the closest that he comes to helping with building slide-rules is generating paper printouts from an ink-jet color printer that could be pasted onto wood slide-rules, which is not an appropriate technology for professional manufacture. He wrote his software after seeing mine in an effort to show me up (that is why he provided color images, whereas mine are black-and-white); he is not aiming for anodized-aluminum manufacture however, so he largely missed the point of what my software does. As for ISRM, they are entirely oriented towards promoting the antique market; they are uninterested in (actually, opposed to) building new slide-rules. I don't have a problem with these links being provided because I am way ahead of them; they aren't competitive with what I've got.

• You believe that some WP:SISTER links should be removed (and perhaps they should, even though we normally accept all such links "when such links are likely to be useful to our readers". It's possible that two old encyclopedia entries do not meet the criteria of being "useful").

I don't care whether you remove them or not. I only mentioned these to show that you have pretty much non-existent quality standards for what you do allow. This indicates to me that you are disallowing my link not because of quality issues, but rather because of political issues (you fear that building new slide-rules would cause the price of antique slide-rules to plummet, which it would).

Hugh Aguilar (talk) 01:50, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Hugh, it sounds like you are concerned that we are favoring Derek and ISRM over you, and that you believe we should treat all of your links equally, so that people have an equal opportunity to find your website. Fundamentally, WP:We don't care what happens to your website—or to theirs. If a worse product gets more exposure, then that doesn't actually matter to us. What we care about is whether our readers find the link useful or interesting. (To be candid, I'm not convinced that the links to either Derek's or your website are going to be very useful or interesting to 99% of our readers.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:03, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

• You say: If somebody is interested in building slide-rules, how are they going to do that without my software? They would have to write software of their own that duplicates what mine does. What would be the point of that? I think that non-programmers tend to believe that programming is easy to the point of being trivial. Wikipedia is not a how-to manual. See WP:NOTMANUAL. Your links are not needed on that basis alone. And again please consult WP:SELFPROMOTE. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 06:04, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
• And please avoid comments like: ...you fear that building new slide-rules would cause the price of antique slide-rules to plummet, which it would. I remind you that Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia not a stock market. Comments like that are implausible to the point of being ridiculous and are also improper personal commentary. Noone here holds stock of antique slide rules or even cares a bit about what happens to their prices. There is no need for this type of wild speculation and personal commentary. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 21:54, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: The user forgot to mention that their link was originally removed in August 2010 by an admin, as I explained on their talk here: diff. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 06:14, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

• NOTMANUAL prohibits incorporating how-to information directly into articles. It does not prohibit links to manuals. We fairly often link to online textbooks, user manuals, and the like.
• Link removals by admins are exactly as important (or unimportant) as link removals by any other user, especially when the edit summary says "I was guessing on which ones" to remove in a mass weeding of an egregious linkfarm. Admins don't have special rights here.
• Being associated with a website isn't an absolute bar to adding a link. If the link is truly a desirable one, then we don't actually care who adds it. Our COI concerns stem entirely from the fact that most people connected to a site aren' very good at accurately assessing whether links to their websites are truly desirable.

So that looks to me like one invalid reason, one non-reason, and one meta-reason. Do you happen to have any content-oriented reasons? For example, do you think the page is not "useful, tasteful, informative, factual, etc" (to quote what ELYES describes as the ideal qualities of a desirable link)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:03, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

• I mentioned that the user was an admin to denote that he was at least an experienced and commited editor. However I was not expecting a lecture as to the relative importance of admins versus the rest of the plebeian editors. Same goes for the rest of the rebuttals that you wrote. All of this is a matter of taste. If you think that a how-to-make your own slide rule manual is suitable for an encyclopaedic article and that it is ok for the person who tries to post it to also be the creator of that manual, so be it. Although my opinion is that we are not into the arts and crafts business and Wikipedia is not WikiHow, go ahead and include it. I will not impede your attempt at trying to improve the encyclopaedia. I just don't need any lectures from someone who ought to know how to addresss an experienced editor. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 00:48, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

You said this: "What we care about is whether our readers find the link useful or interesting. (To be candid, I'm not convinced that the links to either Derek's or your website are going to be very useful or interesting to 99% of our readers.)"

You are assuming that 99% of your readers want an article providing information on the history of slide-rules and how to use them. I remember when I first found a slide-rule; I was interested in exactly this. That lasted about one week. Using a slide-rule isn't exactly rocket science; it is possible to learn how to do it in one week. There are a lot of tricks and techniques that can be learned over time, but anybody should be able to master the basic concepts in one week. This is not a very useful skill, especially as calculators provide significantly better accuracy (and they don't require much skill to operate). After I mastered the basic operation of the slide-rule, the next obvious step for me was to learn how to build slide-rules which would be interesting to the users because the slide-rules include custom scales appropriate for the user's own applications.

This is similar to the situation with sudoko. Anybody can learn how to solve sudoku puzzles in about one week, although there are tricks and techniques that be learned over time. That is not a useful skill, especially as a brute-force computer program can solve sudoku puzzles just as quickly (and they don't require much programming skill to write). The next obvious step is to learn the mathematics and algorithms involved in building sudoku puzzles which would be interesting to the solvers because the puzzles have the appropriate level of difficulty for the solver's own ability.

At first glance, it may seem that 99% of the sudoku folks are only interested in solving the puzzles, which they get out of the newspaper or drugstore puzzle-books. If there wasn't an interest in the mathematics behind the puzzles though, the whole subject of sudoku would have died out a long time ago. The same thing is true of slide-rules. To paraphrase Jacques Vallee: "Your article was interesting to 99% of your readership, but it was the wrong 99%!"

Anyway, I'm going to put my link back in. Dr.K. did say this: "Although my opinion is that we are not into the arts and crafts business and Wikipedia is not WikiHow, go ahead and include it." Hugh Aguilar (talk) 01:35, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Not so fast. I was speaking to WhatamIdoing, not to you. If WhatamIdoing thinks that it is ok to include it then they can add it back. But there is no consensus yet for that on this noticeboard to include this link. Especially for one who has a COI, such as in your case. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 01:46, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

So when you said, "go ahead and include it," you were not speaking to me? I'm not a part of this conversation anymore? You complained that you were given: "a lecture as to the relative importance of admins versus the rest of the plebeian editors." This seems to imply that WhatamIdoing is a bigger chief than you are (although I never actually saw the lecture that you got, which presumably was in private email). Now you explain that when you said, "go ahead and include it," you were actually talking to WhatamIdoing. If he is a bigger chief than you are, then why are you giving him orders? I understood your paragraph to mean that WhatamIdoing had given you a stern lecture for deleting the link, and you were admitting defeat. If you have given up on deleting the link, that seems to indicate that the link can be included (assuming that you have authority to decide). When you described building a slide-rule as "arts and crafts," I understood this to be a parthian-shot --- that you were describing computer programming (and machining of aluminum) as being easy to the point of being trivial (a paper-mache slide-rule?). Normally when a person fires a parthian-shot in retreat, that person is never heard from again. But then you show up the next day and delete the link again, and you tell me on my page that I may get banned from Wikipedia for having done exactly what you told me to do ("go ahead and include it"). I think that you have become too emotionally involved in this issue; you should take a WikiBreak. You said: "I just don't need any lectures from someone who ought to know how to address an experienced editor." It is obvious that your feelings were hurt by the lecture that you were given (the lecture wasn't public though, so I only know about it because you told everybody). Just drop the issue --- Wikipedia isn't important enough to let your feelings get hurt --- write some software and feel pride of accomplishment when your program runs correctly (that is what I do when the world has got me down). Hugh Aguilar (talk) 02:57, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Sliding past your personal attacks and your sermon, what part of "I was addressing myself to WhatamIdoing" have you not understood? As far as myself being emotionally involved in this, I have no dog in this fight. You do. You actually have two dogs: Your conflict of interest and the promotion of your program which you are edit-warring to add to the article and write walls of text and personal attacks to pursue its inclusion. I suggest you are the one with the need for a break and for dropping the issue. And don't presume to analyse my feelings and tell me what to write. You don't know what I do and it is none of your business. I can tell you one thing however that I am not doing: Pushing my conflict of interest and my non-notable stuff and attacking people when they refuse to include it in articles. Finally let me give you some more advice: Wikipedia does not need how-to-manuals. It is an encyclopaedia. However I happen to know that WikiHow is actively seeking contributions of how-to guides. I think your future would be much brighter there than here. Why don't you try it? You cannot help Wikipedia the way you are acting. You are too committed to your cause. If you really want to help build Wikipedia you need to do something unrelated to your own personal goals and self-interest for a while. You should go write an article, fight some vandalism, or fix some other problem around the project instead of pursuing this external link and writing walls of text to include it. Finally as far as your comment: This seems to imply that WhatamIdoing is a bigger chief than you are (although I never actually saw the lecture that you got, which presumably was in private email), I can only tell you one thing: Just get a clue. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 04:22, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

You said: "If you really want to help build Wikipedia you need to do something unrelated to your own personal goals and self-interest for a while. You should go write an article..."

I'm never going to do that. Why would I write an article unrelated to my personal goals? That necessarily implies that I write an article about a subject that I know nothing about. That makes no sense! I don't want to become an internet troll who claims instant-expertise on every subject under the sun. I only claim expertise on subjects that I have invested significant time in learning, and about which I know more than the average bear. This necessarily implies that the subject is related to my personal goals somehow. My "future" involves writing computer software that works, not in claiming to have an encyclopedic knowledge of subjects that I know nothing about. This is what I was referring to earlier when I mentioned "pride of accomplishment" --- you pointed me to a Wikipedia article on the subject of "competence," but I already know something about the subject of competence (that is why my computer programs work).

Since you seem to want to improve my understanding of how Wikipedia works, please publicly post that lecture in which you were informed of: "the relative importance of admins versus the rest of the plebeian editors." That would be the best way for me to learn about Wikipedia. Why keep it a secret? Are you not proud of being lectured in this manner? Hugh Aguilar (talk) 05:03, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Hugh, I think your passion for slide rules is misleading you. My interest in slide rules has never managed to exceed ten minutes. Like at least 99.9% of the people in the world, I'll never care enough to even consider building one. In fact, so far, my interest hasn't even risen to the level of reading the entire Wikipedia article on the subject.

The world might well benefit from a website that provides detailed instructions on how to build a slide rule, but Wikipedia definitely isn't the place for that (and the link you've added to software isn't a complete set of instructions anyway). If you really want to share your passion with the world, you really should consider Dr K's advice to look for a different venue.

(Dr K's statement about a "lecture" refers to two sentences in my comment above at 00:03, 30 December 2011.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:08, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

My experience with Wikipedia, as a user, is that the articles tend to be rather shallow. They are okay for a high-school student who is writing a school-report on some subject and wants to fake-up some expertise, but they are useless for anybody who wants to actually learn anything. Even though you don't care about slide-rules, and you haven't read the slide-rule article, you could have written the slide-rule article and just forgot about it --- there really isn't anything in the article except fluff. Another example is your article on MASM --- what possible good does it do to tell somebody about OFFSET and PTR and all that, if they don't already know assembly language? This kind of information is just filler for school-reports --- it makes the report writer seem to know assembly language, when he actually has never written an assembly-language program and wouldn't know how to begin --- he is just going to turn in a report of the required length and then jump on his skateboard and forget about all that foolishness (I did it myself when I was in high-school). My own use of Wikipedia is to read articles about subjects that I know nothing about; if the subject looks interesting, then I go to the external-links section to obtain some real information. I do this mostly in regard to algorithms, such as red-black trees (a subject that 99.99% of all people, and 99% of programmers, don't care about). I also read your comparison of assemblers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_assemblers), where I found out about HLA, which I had never heard of (I use it now). My point is that the external-links sections is invariably the most (usually only) part of a Wikipedia article that has any value to me. An external link to my webpage fits this criteria for slide-rules. My webpage doesn't provide a "complete set of instructions" --- I assume that the reader is a machinist who knows how to make aluminum parts (hopefully knows more than I do, which most machinists do), but doesn't know how to write software (most machinists don't) and hence needs some way to generate the images in preparation for photo-lithography

As for Dr.K, I still don't know which two sentences got his feelings hurt --- that is why I assumed that the lecture was not public. I don't think that I have said anything to upset him. He went from telling me to "go ahead and include it," to threatening me with banishment from Wikipedia for including the link. He's taking out his frustration at being a "plebeian editor" on me, but I'm an innocent --- I'm not any kind of editor, and I never will be --- I'm a computer programmer. Hugh Aguilar (talk) 05:57, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

A link that is useful only to machinists is not going to be useful to >99% of our readers. A link that is interesting only to people who want to build a slide rule is not going to be interesting to >99% of our readers. External links are generally supposed to be useful and interesting to our readers, not to the person who made the webpage. Your link (and possibly some of the others) does not appear to meet the basic requirements. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:48, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I have to agree. A web emulated slide rule that people can play with is interesting. A piece of Forth software that has to be downloaded and executed is only going to be of use to people with a Forth interpreter and most likely only a small percentage of those... Yworo (talk) 21:53, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing --- you had previously said: "so far, my interest hasn't even risen to the level of reading the entire Wikipedia article on the subject." I assumed that you were excusing yourself from the discussion by this admission that you don't care about the topic and don't know anything about it. But here you are again! You are expressing an opinion on a subject that you know nothing about. What is the point of that???

Yworo --- you don't know what you are talking about either. A real slide-rule is 10 inches long. Computer displays aren't big enough, and don't provide adequate resolution, to display a slide-rule. It is possible to zoom the image, but it is horribly cumbersome to use a slide-rule when only 1/3 or less of the slide-rule is visible. Emulators are worthless. Have you ever actually played with an emulator, or are you just expressing an opinion on a subject that you know nothing about?

Also, my software doesn't need a Forth interpreter to run --- I provide a stand-alone Windows exe program. It is only necessary to have a Forth interpreter available if the software is going to be modified, which would typically be done when customizing the scales layout in the slide-rule. It is not necessary to know Forth to do this, as the user can just modify the template file to make his custom file. It is not as easy as point-and-click, but it is possible for anybody with a basic knowledge of computer programming. It is necessary to have Gforth available to run the software under Linux, but this is trivial to install.

My program is the only software in existence that generates CNC gcode for slide-rule images. CNC milling would be required for large slide-rules that get mounted on a wall, but CNC scribing could be used for hand-held slide-rules being made in low quantities. Also, my PostScript is useful for photo-lithography, which is the best method for mass-production. I support two-sided, one-sided and circular slide-rules. This is a big step toward building a slide-rule --- very few machinists are capable of writing software like this themselves --- actually, not very many computer programmers are either.

You article right now is interesting to your readers, assuming that your readers are high school students writing reports on slide-rules. They can fill out their reports with a lot of useless fluff that makes them appear to know something about the subject, despite the fact that they have never seen a slide-rule and know nothing about slide-rules. Anybody who is interested in slide-rules beyond this superficial level, however, will be interested in building slide-rules --- what else would anybody do with their interest in slide-rules? A person could collect antique slide-rules, but that is an expensive hobby (or a profitable business for people selling slide-rules on eBay that they bought at a deep discount in the 1970s when the market crashed). Collecting slide-rules is about as interesting as collecting stamps --- I wouldn't waste my time or money doing that. Pretty much, anybody who has an interest in slide-rules is going to want to build a slide-rule --- there just isn't any other way to be interested in slide-rules.

It seems pretty lame that Wikipedia won't provide a link that is useful and interesting to machinists, because you are purposely aiming low (directly at the high school student) and consider machinists to be outside of Wikipedia's target audience. Is it possible that this is why the general population doesn't take Wikipedia seriously? Everybody that I've met who knows anything about any subject, will complain that the Wikipedia article on their favorite subject is nothing but fluff --- I've never met anybody who has expertise on a subject and who also praises Wikipedia --- the only people who praise Wikipedia are the high school students trying to fake-up expertise on subjects that they know nothing about. As a general rule, the only useful part of most Wikipedia articles is the external-links section.

The whole point of the external-links section is to provide links to websites that provide more in-depth information on the subject than the article could provide. My software, which generates gcode and PostScript images of slide-rule faces, obviously fits this criteria. I don't understand why there is any suggestion at all of omitting it --- except perhaps that you guys want to make me beg first, and to also tell you that you know more about the subject than I do --- but I'm not going to do that. Hugh Aguilar (talk) 08:01, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I am trying to find a good link or source that may belong to "Further reading." What about this: http://tvseriesfinale.com/tv-show/cheers-part-2-last-call-for-the-bar/? --George Ho (talk) 04:43, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

I have been trying to get the external link at the article, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Leigh_Allen), deleted but an unregistered user, 75.149.1.22, continually reinserts it (http://www.zodiackiller.com/AllenFile.html). This has been occurring for the last six months while this user has also been flaming me. I don't think this link should be there because it isn't NPOV, has errors and mostly consists of innuendo written to convince someone that the deceased Arthur Leigh Allen was the Zodiac killer. I would appreciate someone reviewing the link and if they think it is not meeting Wikipedia standards, something being done to prevent 75.149.1.22 from continuing to restore it.TL36 (talk) 22:56, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

• Not as an external link, not as a reliable source... and, wow, most everything on that article was just as bad or worse. DreamGuy (talk) 20:23, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your work. I think Wikipedia is better without a separate article on Allen.TL36 (talk) 21:37, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Is this acceptable as an external link [[16]] http://www.strokecenter.org. I have added it and it has been removed without proper explanation. So to better understand the EL process I am requesting an education on this matter.--Halqh حَلَقَة הלכהሐላቃህ (talk) 08:13, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

There are a lot of worthy causes, and Wikipedia cannot add links to all of them. Anyone wanting generic info or wanting to contact related groups should use a search engine. The essential point of WP:EL is that the page linked to should assist the reader with an encyclopedic understanding of the topic of the article, and the proposed link does not do that. If editors were to start judging which causes are sufficiently worthy that a link is worthwhile, articles would be overrun with external links. Johnuniq (talk) 09:01, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

I have no disagreement with your argument, the issue is WHY and how does this apply to this page? U see I see nothing in the "do not add list" that merits its exclusion, How does it not do that?. It fails because [insert reason here] I want to know about Strokes, it is not like 20 pages are listed. Not only that, no valuable external resources are listed as external links which are clear and concise. Beyond causes or preference start with what is google ranked and well written- far better than the 1 boring link currently there. On the talk page one user has agreed to add it. We therefore need more opinions. --Halqh حَلَقَة הלכהሐላቃህ (talk) 09:51, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

I strongly believe that Wikipedia is not a collection of external links. There are other services specifically for that like DMOZ. What we need is people writing high quality content using high quality sources per WP:MEDRS here. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 09:58, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

All contributions are necessary, while some might be content editors, some will be copy editors, other will be admins and guardians of balance. Wikipedia is not many things, it is also not a collection of medical technical references back -2- back. External links exist--for a reason-- and the merit of inclusion is what we are discussing. If we only want 5 then this process is for picking the best 5. Therefore the debate must be focused on why or why not this particular one can or cannot be included. What i am waiting for is the reason for exclusion - per policy of wikipedia.--Halqh حَلَقَة הלכהሐላቃህ (talk) 10:18, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

That is a good point. Should we have a make of 3 or 5 external links. And if we do how would be decide which 3 or 5 are best.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:44, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Question for Halaqah: which part of WP:ELYES or WP:ELMAYBE does the suggested site meet? For me (as I interpret WP:EL) the defaults stance should always be to reject every EL (except for official sites or some special sites hosting copyrighted info as laid out in WP:ELYES), and that the burden lies on the person wanting to add the link to justify what makes that site so special that it belongs in an encyclopedia article. Qwyrxian (talk) 13:51, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

fair that the burden lies with me, doesn't mean it be taken out per EL when EL has not been proven to be an issue. It would be better to have said "Use talk page to get approval". Then Sure challenge it and if I do not come up with the minerals then take it out. I am cool either way. i found the article confusing (I cant edit cuz I dont know the topic), now the link i proposed is Neutral it isn't pushing a center or a service. It has a very user friendly interface. It deals with all aspects in plain English. It is a Stunning site with proper illustrations. (useful, tasteful, informative, factual, etc. It is a serious org, not likely to vanish in 5 months. It links without prejudice to other stroke centers. Seems to be used by docs and patients and hence has good peer review I think. We can have 3 or 4 links which represent the best sites on Stoke on the internet. I have suggested this one be included. The current EL is not to a very nice site. (unless you are a doctor).--Halqh حَلَقَة הלכהሐላቃህ (talk) 16:26, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

There is specific advice about medicine-related external links at WP:MEDMOS#External_links. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:36, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

OK, I was the one who first rollbacked the addition (I'm sorry for the directness of that), later I removed it with more explanation. My first concern: this Wikipedia page is about Stroke, the page is not about the stroke center. It is an indirect link. Moreover, it is an, for as far as I can see, America-based site. That would mean that we also need a Canadian site, a UK site, an Australian site, an Indian site, etc. etc. (I left out all the countries that also read the English Wikipedia, despite not having English as a first language, and which may also have a stroke center). This is undue on America. This is not the American Wikipedia - and is the first reason why maybe there should be a link to a linkfarm ({{dmoz}}), and this is then one of the links in that linkfarm (though I would link to a linkfarm on stroke, not to a linkfarm on stroke centers from Stroke ...). Third, this is unlikely to be the only stroke center in America. Many hospitals have such a center, and those would also all qualify. Also, you link to a homepage, where the site may have information, there is not a lot of information on stroke on the page linked to. One has to look further for more info.

I do note that a lot of the words you use in favour of the site are a personal taste, others might find this site not useful, tasteful, or another site better. Also, that the other site is there is not a reason to add more, it could be that the other site also needs to go. And that the page itself is not very good written (in your opinion) is also not a reason to add a link that does the trick. Also, we do not need external links - if the page can do it by itself, and when the subject does not have an WP:ELOFFICIAL, then it can be that no external link is going to be there in the end.

All in all, I could suggest that this link is included in a linkfarm, and that then that linkfarm is added to stroke. I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:51, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

You not going to find an official site for stroke . I suggest 4 sites could be chosen based on different criteria, one might be nice design (I like this one, did you not also find it easy to use?). Another could be for technical info. Another one might be in India and provide another advantages. This is just one (not the only one). BTW Wiki is pretty pro-America as it is, a little late to worry about that one. But on the other side a lot of the "good" developed articles come out of US and UK. Sure other sites might be good, but they will have other issues, like crappy design. I personally like the clear illustrations- no one can tell me they rnt useful. I think most users do not only depend on wiki text. I for one always look at articles external links because I know wiki picks the best ones to represent the topic. And strokecenter is better than what is currently up there. I dont want to spend 2 sec looking through that list which is up there now. and at the end of the day a degree of decision making will be personal taste. I would also like a site that has 3D motion graphic illustrations of what goes on during a stroke, things that wiki (due to technical limits) cannot include. I really dont understand linkfarm to even comment.(is that like an American term or sumthing?) --Halqh حَلَقَة הלכהሐላቃህ (talk) 19:11, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

On your earlier response to me, on WP:EL, it is not correct to ask for talk page approval first--it's always correct to remove first and ask questions later. On your last point, your approach to EL is wrong. You seem to be setting out to find EL for the page, trying to find the best links. Myself, and I believe many other editors like Dirk Beetstra, take the approach that we only include EL when they provide a very special, unique resource. If there are no such links, we include none. In other words, our goal is not to have the best links; our goal is to have the best article, and we only include a link if that someway directly benefits an encyclopedia article about the subject. Qwyrxian (talk) 23:30, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Re: "You are not going to find an official site for stroke". That is my point exactly. strokecenter.org is the official site for Stroke center, and that is where it belongs, not on Stroke. Stroke does not have an official site, hence we do not list an official site. The page linked to has to pass other merits. And with Qwyrxian, you seem to be out to find external links which are appropriate for Stroke. That is not the aim here. per WP:EL: "A lack of external links or a small number of external links is not a reason to add external links.". Maybe Stroke needs improvement for readability.

Linkfarm may be Wikipedia-slang. The term I believe is 'directory services'. There are sites where users can add external links into categories, and then you can retrieve lists of external links by subject. {{dmoz}} is then used to link to those.

More specifically over this link - strokecenter.org is a site with many pages. Much of the information overlaps with the Wikipedia page, but it is differently organised. We add external links to pages because they add information that can not be added, or contains more detail. I have no doubt that strokecenter.org has information that is not covered by the article Stroke, the problem is, editors would have to go through the whole site to find what is not covered, and when a casual editor (expecting more info, not the one looking for specific info) is clicking the link, they will on the first couple of pages they see on strokecenter.org not find much (if any) new information. That also makes this link not suitable in this way. I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 03:27, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

An editor added his own website to this article and I removed it as COI. He's now removed virtually all the links (placing them on the talk page) and arguing that only conference reports should be used as links. I'd really like some impartial input (ie from editors who haven't worked on this article) here, or rather on the article's talk page. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 09:33, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Hello, I have a conflict of interest in placing an external link on a Wikipage because I am the webmaster for the website. The subject Wikipage is dementia I write articles and give advise on behalf of dementia care workers and associates on the subject of dementia. Many of the articles are written by dementia care workers and then put onto the site by myself. We have very good knowledge of dementia with hands on experience from people who have worked with sufferers of dementia and other related disease for many years. I believe that we can add great value to Wiki with the website that we want to provide the link to because it gives information that is not provided on this wiki. The domain name is www.dementia.co.uk I believe that we can provide information on the subject of dementia as good as, if not better than some of the other websites that have been given an external link on the dementia page. I have raised the issue on the dementia talk page but have been asked to raise the subject here. I need an editor to put the domain into the links section if they agree that it will a valuable addition to the dementia Wiki page which I believe it will be. Thankyou for reading John cordingly (talk) 12:07, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

• GFHandel (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam)

The above user created the template {{Google+}} and spammed it into multiple articles today. He also appears to be adding Facebook, Twitter and other social networking site links to multiple articles as well, against the spirit of WP:EL, especially Wikipedia:External links/Perennial websites. Yworo (talk) 09:28, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

"He also appears to be adding Facebook, Twitter and other social networking site links to multiple articles...". Sorry, but that's incorrect. As of the start of the day there were about 4,044 uses of the {{Twitter}} template, and today I implemented about 50 more instances of that template. Note that I did not add new instances of Facebook and Twitter templates; instead, I converted existing hard-coded Facebook and Twitter URLs to use the standard templates as provided by WP (something that thousands of other editors have done). This was an exercise in standardizing the formatting of such URLs. The work with the {{Google+}} was motivated by a similar desire—to standardise the use of the Google+ URL where it appears on WP. I did introduce a handful of new {{Google+}} instances into "External links" sections—but only where the existing Google+ URL was somewhere in the article already. GFHandel ♬  10:45, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Please note that WP:EL is quite specific about this in the WP:OFFICIAL section: "Wikipedia does not attempt to document or provide links to every part of the subject's web presence or provide readers with a handy list of all social networking sites." Therefore, WP:OFFICIAL does not really differ from the guidance at WP:ELPEREN. Yworo (talk) 21:45, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

RfC

Please note that I've proposed promoting Wikipedia:External links/Perennial websites to a guideline. The discussion can be found here. Yworo (talk) 19:14, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

This issue is very clearly covered in WP:ELOFFICIAL, under the bolded "Minimize the number of links" line. Nothing to discuss here. The template is a separate issue and is already being discussed elsewhere. — Jeraphine Gryphon ^(talk) 21:48, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Google+

I wish to seek consensus on Google+ used specifically at Gabriel Iglesias. It is an Internet community social networking site on the first order. There seems to be a nudge that because the use of the "personal webpages are allowed exception" that this qualifies the site regardless of other policies and guidelines. This particular link has absolutely no information that is relevant to the article, is used to connect what appears to be 50,000 individuals together, and provides indirect WP:LINKSPAM. An example of this is the "other sites", listed as Other profiles, that are referred to on the link such as, http://fluffyguy.com (supposed main webpage that screams--"buy my tee-shirt"), that is a blatant advertisement page; http://fluffyshop.com (the name says it all); and http://www.youtube.com/fluffyguy, that splashes a video to purchase books, DVD's and other things. Otr500 (talk) 12:27, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I removed two external links from that article (including Google+) as the linked pages do not satisfy WP:EL and there is no encyclopedic information regarding the subject. Johnuniq (talk) 09:09, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm looking over the links given by the Google+ template now; few if any are valid ELs. I'll go through and clean most of these up before they become an uberproblem like Twitter and Facebook links. I'm disappointed that the template wasn't taken care of at TfD; none of the social networking templates should be allowed, as they enable the easy linking of unencyclopedic links. ThemFromSpace 19:40, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Do note that since about two weeks, LiWa3 is parsing the links from parsed revids. That means that links in templates will also be detected, and that XLinkBot will revert them. --

Do we actually already revert plus.google.com, like we do for other social networking sites? I'll check, and if not, will add it. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:45, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Hello all,

I've come in contact with a source that I believe would be a tremendous addition to Wikipedia pages dedicated to countries. The project is called "International Futures" from the Pardee Center for International Futures at the University of Denver. International Futures is a long-term forecasting and global trend analysis project that has gained credibility and international notoriety in the policy community. It is the world's largest integrated and endogenous model for global forecasting, and publications from International Futures can be found without much effort.

I've posted a few external links to country pages, but it has been brought to my attention that I should start a conversation on this message board to seek consensus. I think that it's a tool that has a great deal of utility, and the forecasts add something new and interesting to country discussions. This project seems to place significant emphasis on transparency, which is part of the reason that I place such value in it. I believe it's a great addition, and I'd like to see these forecasts on more country pages. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

The web based version of the model can be found at http://www.ifs.du.edu/ifs/Ifs.aspx (Shredder2012 (talk) 20:18, 20 January 2012 (UTC))

Their work has been sourced in some very credible projects that I've come across.

United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Reports - here's the latest http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2011/papers/HDRP_2011_08.pdf

The African Futures Project with the Institute for Security Studies - http://www.ifs.du.edu/assets/documents/Africa%20Futures%202050%20ISS%20Pardee%20IFs.pdf

The UN's Global Environmental Outlook - http://www.unep.org/geo/geo4.asp

The US Institute for Peace - http://www.usip.org/publications/vulnerability-intrastate-conflict

The US National Intelligence Council, Global Scenarios 2025 - http://www.dni.gov/nic/NIC_2025_global_scenarios.html

And their work is hosted by Google's Public Data Explorer (Although I've been told that this data is not as current as their website) http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=n4ff2muj8bh2a_

It's difficult to find independent sources that verify their work, but I think that some of their clients and projects may speak to the quality of their work. I've been in touch with International Futures to get a list of some of this recent work, so if there's any other questions regarding their work I can contact them easily. (Shredder2012 (talk) 23:50, 20 January 2012 (UTC))

Whether a link is appropriate depends on the particular article that you want to add it to. I suggest that you start by boldly adding it to one or more pages that you believe would benefit from the link, and seeing whether anyone objects. Alternatively, you could leave a note on the article's own talk page to see whether the other editors working on that article believe it would be a good addition. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:37, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I have recently removed a few external links added by Special:Contributions/158.182.30.186. Doing a quick search for Hong Kong Baptist University returns quite a few hits on English Wikipedia. Is that University really that notable and important for us?Richiez (talk) 20:50, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Did you actually click through to those links before removing them? The links aren't to the university's main webpage; they're to the Chinese Medicine Specimen Database, which probably is a highly appropriate link for an article about a Chinese medicine herb per WP:ELYES #3. This one, for example, shows a good-quality image of the plant in question, which is something that doesn't appear in the article. The only unfortunate thing is that the text isn't in English (if you click the [ENG] link, the Chinese text disappears, but not English appears; perhaps they're planning to provide translations someday). WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:42, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

link

• playbillvault.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

The main problem I'm seeing is in the behavior of the user who has added the majority of those links (Bwaylovernyc (talk · contribs)) ... they appear to be using a single-purpose account and are only here to link the site, not to build content. At this time, it's linked to roughly 50 articles. The site bills itself as "the largest Broadway database on the internet", although I noticed that the article for Playbill Vault had an AfD which was closed as "result was merge to Playbill", to redirect to the parent organization of a website that is only a month or two old and which hasn't established notability of its own as yet.

I would appreciate some input from others on the link ... to me, it's looking like a publicity move gain traffic to a newly created site - but would like to hear other views before I begin removing it as linkspam. I'll post a notice on the talk page of the user who appears to have added the majority of the links. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 18:50, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi, Barek, thanks for the message. My apologies; I'm new here and still getting accustomed to content-building. It's easy to find pictures and videos of film actors (on IMDB, for instance) but that sort of material isn't always readily available for stage actors. Unfortunately I don't have access to any free-use pictures to upload to Wikipedia myself, but I've found them to be pretty readily available on the Playbill site. I thought others might be interested as well. --- Bwaylovernyc —Preceding undated comment added 19:16, 26 January 2012 (UTC).

Hi There,
I'd like discuss adding an external link to the Overland FAQ to the Wikipedia page Overlanding.

This has been discussed on the Overlanding Talk page, and on Biker Biker's talk page, and I was flagged on My talk page.

The page Overlanding gives a brief overview of "Overlanding", including a section on "Modern Overlanding". The information presented is brief, and does not cover many important topics related to Overlanding.

People thinking about embarking on their own Overland adventure constantly ask about many topics, with the following coming up time and time again. Given the external link is an FAQ of the exact topic of the Wikipedia article, and contains vastly more information than the Wikipedia article, Does the linked content add to the reader's understanding of the subject?. Please see the table below.

Topic	Topic Covered on Wikipedia Overlanding page	Topic covered on WikiOverland Overland FAQ page
General feasibility (is it possible to drive around the world?)	No.	Yes.
Shipping vehicles between continents	No.	Yes.
Safety concerns	No.	Yes.
Expense	No.	Yes.
Border crossing logistics	No.	Yes.
Insurance	No.	Yes.
Vehicle logistics (gas availability and repairs)	No.	Yes.

Quoting the external links policy External Links

Wikipedia articles may include links to web pages outside Wikipedia (external links).... Some acceptable links include...information that could not be added to the article for reasons such as...amount of detail

Yes, the content of this FAQ could be rolled into the Wikipedia page, although I have to wonder where the content of the entire WikiOverland site would be welcome in Wikipedia. In the past when Overlanders have tried to add the kind of information in WikiOverland, it has been removed because it can not be cited according to Wikipedia's rules.

I understand linking to a relatively young wiki is against rule 12 in External Links to normally be avoided, though Ignore All Rules says

If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it

Ultimately, I think this link will improve the understanding of the Wikipedia article, and should be allowed.

I'd like to hear some thoughts,

Thanks,
-Dangrec (talk) 02:14, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

This is clear cut conflict of interest. The consensus from editors on the talk page of the article concerned is that the link has no place on Wikipedia. Despite this, and a final warning from an administrator, this user persists in pushing his website. --Biker Biker (talk) 10:01, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

The warning referred to the actual inclusion of the link in the main article. It explicitly encourages the user to discuss the issue on talk pages. This also is the suggested procedure in WP:COIC. While endless debates and WP:ICANTHEARYOU can become disruptive eventually, I think we are far from this situation. Please also see WP:BITE with regards to a fairly new user. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:08, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, an editor with a COI is doing exactly the correct thing by initiating discussion on this page. ~Amatulić (talk) 14:51, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

It's a red herring to get into a discussion about how useful http://wikioverland.org is or isn't. Instead, see Wikipedia:Five pillars. First, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a directory. If somebody is looking for web sites, they should be at a directory or search engine, not an encyclopedia. If Wikipedia fails to give readers a comprehensive list of relevant web sites, that's just fine because it would be an unrealistic goal for Wikipedia to be more than an encyclopedia. The world is not crying out for a new form of directory or search engine. The ones we have work quite well and so Wikipedia needs to focus on being Wikipedia. The upshot of ignoring the guild lines of WP:EL is to put Wikipedia on a path to become something it is not, and has no hope of doing well.

Second, see WP:V. An open wiki is not a reliable source and fails the core policy of verifiability. That doesn't mean such web sites are not useful. It doesn't mean nobody can find these websites just because it's not linked on Wikipedia. Usergenerated sites are vital; anyone can see that. Usergenerated sites to many good things but the one thing they don't do well is provide good references for Wikipedia articles.

The thing is, everything has its place. Wikipedia is not meant to replace all content on the web. It isn't supposed to be anybody's sole source of information. Wikipedia trying to be all things to all people would be absurd. The premise that your site needs to be listed on Wikipedia as a matter of life or death is totally misguided. There are thousands of useful sites that fail WP:EL. That is not a problem. If a site is useful, people will find it without Wikipedia. If your only hope of raising your Google pagerank is a link on a Wikipedia article, you're site is not going anywhere and there's nothing Wikipedia can do to change that. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 16:42, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Amatulić is correct when stating that Dangrec is doing the right thing by bringing this issue up on this noticeboard. Dangrec should be commended for doing so. He is clearly attempting to increase his understanding of Wikipedia policy as it relates to promotion of his wiki regarding overlanding. However, it is also correct to call wikioverland.org "Dan's" wiki. He created it and he has written a significant majority of the content on the wiki. As Dennis pointed out, Dan's wiki cannot be considered a reliable source. While Dan has done an impressive amount of work in creating and improving his wiki, it must be considered a personal project at this point, and it is not appropriate for inclusion in Wikipedia. Dan has not provided, to date, any evidence that his wiki meets Wikipedia's notability guidelines. There is clear editor consensus on the related talk page that Dan's suggested external link is not appropriate for the article.

Rather than providing links to his own wiki, I would encourage Dan to work on adding well-sourced content to Wikipedia. He is clearly an expert on the subject of overlanding, and his help on related Wikipedia articles would be much appreciated at this point. Ebikeguy (talk) 17:31, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

• Here at ELN, we don't care if "Dan's wiki" is a reliable source. ELMAYBE #4 plainly says that unreliable sources may be used as ==External links==. External links are not supposed to be verifying content in the article.
• We don't care if "Dan's wiki" is WP:Notable. Nobody's trying to write a separate article about Dan's wiki. Writing a separate, stand-alone article about the wiki is the only reason why we'd need to consider whether it was notable. Under the ==External links== section, we list non-notable websites every minute of the day. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:33, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your guidance. If you have a moment, could you suggest a few criteria that we SHOULD care about here at ELN, as they relate to this proposed link? Thanks Ebikeguy (talk) 22:52, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Sure, I can give you my quick summary, but you can read the community's full advice for yourself at WP:External links.

As a general rule, an external link ought to be relevant to the article in question and provide some sort of educational value to people who have read the Wikipedia article and want more information. A FAQ on the subject (assuming it contains noticeably more [or different] information than the article) probably qualifies here.

A link (normally) ought not to have any of the many problems identified at WP:ELNO. For example, ELNO #12 expresses the community's concerns about open wikis: the link might be good on the day that the editor adds it, but it might be vandalized tomorrow.

As you can see, this particular link has points both in favor and against it. Balancing these points is something that has to be done with your best editorial judgment. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:24, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi! Two usernames (not sure if they are the same person and/or if they know each other), User:Waytoomuchinfo and User:Airlinehistorian, are insisting upon including an EL article from frequentbusinesstraveler.com - They also removed EL links for a different archived Malev domain, malev.hu (even though not all archives are at malev.com)

I really think the EL noticeboard would ask that links to minor journalism articles be not included in the El section when higher quality sources are used as references. Am I right?

WhisperToMe (talk) 07:20, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Now that I am looking at this from the point of view of your question above (and your message to me), I think you are correct. The reason I added this back in was because I thought that an article (any article really, not necessary the one that User:Waytoomuchinfo added, would make sense to have in EL because of the vast number of references. Clearly it could just as easily be a more well known source as well but that wasn't my point. Re the removal of the archived domains, I think I misunderstood what the waybackmachine was displaying and acted hastily.

Airlinehistorian (talk) 15:53, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

What happened is that Malev didn't always have "malev.com" as a domain name. Earlier its stuff was only at "malev.hu" - Therefore I wanted to link to archives from both domains, and in English and Hungarian.

Many news articles will generally appear in the "References" section since they are specifically being cited for details in the article, including the section on info about the collapse

WhisperToMe (talk) 18:29, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you so much for the explanation - I'm sorry I caused you additional editing. Airlinehistorian (talk) 20:03, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

You are welcome :) - And it's fine. I'm glad I could be of service WhisperToMe (talk) 21:29, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Earlier I removed links to this site that User:Gemini2305 had added to articles about several theatre performers. Though the site's blog does have interviews with the performers, my impression is that the site exists primarily to sell theatre tickets, and I reverted the links as spam. (The user has confirmed on my talk page and on his user page that he is affiliated with lastminutetheatretickets.com.) Gemini2305 objects to my removing the links, so I'm here to seek further opinions. This is what he wrote on my talk page:

"I have to say that I am somewhat bemused as to why you don't wish to have two legitimate links to genuine interviews with two of London's West End cast. I wonder whether you have actually met either of them?

I have interviewed both Zoe Birkett and Siobhan Dillon and they are very appreciative of the interviews with them. I regularly keep in contact with them both as with other cast on Twitter and by email if not face to face.

The content of the interviews is very particularly about THEM as individuals, their careers and the shows they have been in.

Surely that merits being of value to a Wikipedia article about them? These are facts that they have answered and have given permission to be published. NONE of our interviews are published unless we have the cast permission.

Yes our website sells tickets for London shows, but is that the reason why the interviews have not been published?

If so, may I respectfully draw your attention to the link to http://www.officiallondontheatre.co.uk/news/latest/view/item117605/RESPECT%20La%20Diva

This is an article that barely mentions Zoe Birkett and the article is (or was) primarily in place to sell tickets for Respect La Diva

The fact that the website is called the "Officiallondontheatre" gives them no more authority on being a source of information about an actor, and they make a substantial profit of selling theatre tickets as you can see on their website.

I therefore don't understand why you allow one article that has virtually no content about an actor but will not allow an article that is 100% about that person and is 100% original material. I don't understand. Perhaps you might consider contacting either Zoe Birkett or Siobhan Dillon?

I should add that cast that we interview are pleased that we promote their interviews and one such actor has requested that the content be placed on Wikipedia - who 'controls' the content on their Wiki-page - do they?

Thank you for your time and I would ask that you might reconsider what is a genuine request to place information about actors that is both relevant and of interest to readers.

May I add an link to one of the interviews to show the actual content: http://www.lastminutetheatretickets.com/blog/index.php/14620/interview-with-zoe-birkett/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.194.30.192 (talk) 18:38, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Neil

E-mail (Redacted)

I still don't think the link needs to be in any Wikipedia article, but as I said, I am here to seek some consensus. Cheers, Dawn Bard (talk) 18:17, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Does the linked content add to the reader's understanding of the subject? I think not. – ukexpat (talk) 18:43, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I find this comment extraordinary... "Does the linked content ADD to the reader's understanding of the subject? - I think not"

If I can add the following: In my opinion the interview DOES add to the content of the Wikipedia article. It states clearly where Zoe Birkett trained and where she qualified from which is NOT shown in the Wiki article. You trained at the Amanda McGlynn Academy in Middlesborough and the Lorraine Murray Dance School. The interview highlights some of the major venues that Zoe has performed in which again is not present in the original article You have sung at numerous high profile events including; The Royal Albert Hall, VE Day at Trafalgar Square, The Princes Trust, Buckingham Palace, Las Vegas, Tony Blair’s son Leo’s christening, to name a few. Could you describe what this incredible journey has been like for you? The people that inspired Zoe Birkett to start singing are not mentioned in the original article... isn’t that of interest to a reader? Was there anyone in particular who inspired you to want to sing professionally? Yes, Whitney Houston, Tina Turner and Aretha Franklin

and that doesn't add to the understanding of the subject? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.194.30.192 (talk) 19:22, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Two points:

• WP:ELYES specifically calls out links to interviews as a desirable type of link.
• We don't really care what the rest of the website says or does. We care about the contents of the exact page being linked. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:28, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

That's not really true. We certainly do care about the overall goal of the site, as links primarily inteneded for marketing purposes are not encyclopedic in nature. Furthermore, interviews typically can be found in several locations, so picking one on a marketing site is in very poor form. It's also clear the purpose of the editor adding the links is to spam Wikipedia. Stealthy spam, or spam the pretends to have an encyclopedic purpose, is even worse than blatant spam, as there always are editors who get confused and do not delete it right away like ought to be done. DreamGuy (talk) 19:53, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Please go read the guideline so you know what you're talking about. In particular, when you get to ELNO #5 (the complaint being made here), be sure to click through to the footnote, which says "Web pages, not websites. Evaluate the specific page that the link takes the reader to, regardless of other pages in the website." WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:09, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

If Gemini2305 is linked to the site, and there are concerns over the too commercial content of the site, then Gemini2305 is certainly not the right person to insert these links, and probably not even the right person to argue that they are good links to have (it should stop at a mere friendly suggestion). If uninvolved (established) editors think it is a suitable link then that is their choice. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:00, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I appreciate the views added here.. I wasn't aware that by adding a link that I could not be a part of the debate or discussion as to the merits of it. (I have seen editors add links elsewhere) It appears to be a 'closed shop'. Given that is the case I won't comment again. I will however, add my final comment. I take exception to the comment "It's also clear the purpose of the editor adding the links is to spam Wikipedia. Stealthy spam, or spam the pretends to have an encyclopedic purpose, is even worse than blatant spam, as there always are editors who get confused and do not delete it right away like ought to be done." This is simply false and a lie! How on earth could you know my motive for placing a link? The interviews are genuine interviews with the actors and actresses. They are in my opinion of value to the Wikipedia article. IF you think that a substantial amount of traffic will result from Wikipedia due to this in my opinion you are very mistaken - and any seo value is extremely limited or of zero value (imho). These are FACTUAL interviews with real people - if you were to take the trouble to contact the interviewees who the Wikipedia articles are about I am sure they would agree that they would like a link to an article about them and by them. You also state that there are many interviews on the worldwide web.. em.. not of this type no there isn't. I will leave you to do the debating but please do it without criticizing my motives for posting a link, as it is simply to provide what I consider to be valuable content (and so does the actor(s) who the article is about). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gemini2305 (talk • contribs) 21:31, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

No, Gemini2305, I was not saying that you could not be part of the discussion, of course we expect explanation and discussion, but please do take care with promotion etc. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:06, 6 February 2012 (UTC)