Wikipedia talk:External links/Archive 30

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I added a case (#21) meant to prevent the situation where someone tries to link around the prohibition on copyvio. I would hope this is not particularly controversial as WP doesn't want to be in the business of contributory copyright infringement. Ronnotel (talk) 16:37, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

That's not a "should be avoided" thing. That's a "do not ever" thing. See #1 of "Restrictions on linking". VernoWhitney (talk) 16:45, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

clearly I missed that. I'll remove my addition. Thanks! Ronnotel (talk) 16:50, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

There was much discussion about this template at TfD and here about a year ago. Basically it seems that nothing much has happened since then, and now the template is back at TfD again. Opinions from those interested are welcomed. PC78 (talk) 00:57, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Should an external link to the official website of the subject of an article still be included in the External links section if it is already used as a source and linked to in such capacity in the article? Lambanog (talk) 01:46, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Generally yes, especially if it's not identified as an official site elsewhere in the article such as in an infobox. --Ronz (talk) 01:54, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

yes, as it is the "standard" place where readers would look for the official internet representation of the article's subject. The potential additional use as source/reference is a separate matter, that should be treated independently--Kmhkmh (talk) 05:00, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Recently another editor removed references to published books that had convenience links to text on Google Books apparently for that reason alone even though they were in the References section. Perhaps I overlooked it in these External links guidelines but there doesn't seem to be much said about such convenience links. I ran a search and only one instance of the word convenience turned up and it didn't address the issue squarely. Let me make my understanding of consensus clear: convenience links to referenced materials are allowed. This has been institutionalized in citation templates where URL is one of the first fields presented to be filled out. The current WP:EL guidelines seem vague. In an earlier talk page an editor claimed there were at least four or five references specifically mentioning this. Now there hardly seems any mention. What is happening? Lambanog (talk) 19:37, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

I assume you're referring to Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Removal_of_sources_from_Philippine_cuisine. The discussion there should clarify the situation.

My concerns is that a Further reading section should not be a way to get around WP:EL. --Ronz (talk) 19:56, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

You are removing perfectly valid published sources as references based on what grounds? Please clarify. Lambanog (talk) 21:36, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

I moved external links. I believe I've made that clear, multiple times now. --Ronz (talk) 22:27, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Convenience links or online copies of (print) literature are always welcome/possible providing they do actually deliver (free) online access and are not merely shop links for buying the book.--Kmhkmh (talk) 02:53, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

...except when the links are redundant to the ISBN magic word -- which links to books.google.com almost always are, for any book published in the last forty years. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:08, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining that. I've seen it done quite a bit, but only knew it was an exception for books. --Ronz (talk) 15:48, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Keep in mind that it's a 'use your judgment' issue. If the link to books.google.com (or other online service) would take the reader directly to a highly relevant chapter or page, then that might be a good time to include that "redundant" link. On the other hand, if you're adding it because you personally happen to like (and therefore use) Google in preference to other, equally valid options, then that's probably an unfair promotion of one website over another. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:03, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Why are links to the Open Directory Project considered acceptable? According to Wikipedia's article on it, "it is owned by Netscape, but it is constructed and maintained by a community of volunteer editors." In other words, it would seem to be run by volunteer editors such as us. However, the choices of those volunteer editors seem to get an automatic pass as acceptable links to link to while editors here can be hamstrung by certain provisions. What is the rationale? I ask because an article I am editing I think could benefit by linking to a blog run by a dedicated but amateur blogger but because of WP:ELNO #11 I am restricted from adding it. On the other hand, sources I consider far inferior are linked to by the Open Directory Project. Lambanog (talk) 07:00, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I think the dmoz is an alternative when there are possibly multiple external links which have some interest, but none are really suitable, or when there are e.g. lists of manufacturers pages available on dmoz. Such lists of external links would violate our 'we're not an internet directory'-policy. I don't think it should be a case, where if a link here fails inclusion, that one should then create a dmoz with that one link, and link the dmoz. It needs a bit of an evaluation of the 'quality' of the dmoz page linked to, is it a bit of a fair list etc.

You say you are prohibited to add a blog per WP:ELNO - WP:ELNO are links to be avoided, not links never to add. Although most blogs (wikis, forums, etc.) fail inclusion threshold, there are exceptions. If you say that it is a dedicated, though amateur blog - if it is well maintained, good on-topic, not too much spoiled with irrelevant replies by others, etc. etc., it may well pass. It needs to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, keeping the concerns of WP:EL in mind. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:07, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

You can post the blog link at WP:ELN and see what others think. We all know an inappropriate blog when we see it, but it's hard to document all the possible problems in a hard and fast set of rules. —UncleDouggie (talk) 06:58, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

I have come across this article Keith Law (singer and songwriter) that is solely sourced to MySpace pages, should they all be removed per ELNO? Mo ainm~Talk 10:43, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Only the official myspace of Keith Law could be a suitable external link, though if there are 'real' official pages, then the MySpace becomes also superfluous (often it is accessible from the official homepage). If it is purely sourced from that, and nothing else can be found, then sourcing is really a problem. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:55, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Webpages used to verify article content are not "external links", so ELNO doesn't apply. (Instead, they're WP:Reliable sources.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:41, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that WhatamIdoing meant to imply that all myspace pages qualify as a reliable source. But I agree that they aren't ELs. Take it to WP:RSN if in doubt. —UncleDouggie (talk) 07:04, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

We get occasional questions about internet petitions -- you know, "Click here to save the whales" or "Click here to tell this politician that we want a free lunch". The community removes all such links on sight, although the issue is not explicitly mentioned anywhere in the guideline.

Are online petitions a form of social networking? Would it be valuable to add it to WP:ELNO#EL10? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:57, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

They're not clearly ELNO #4, but that's what I'd say they are. ELNO #13 usually applies to them as well. They're links added to solicit participation in an event or activity. Such links fail WP:SOAP's mention of "recruitment."

I don't see value changing #10. I don't think I've ever had anyone disagree with removal of links to petitions once WP:EL was brought up. --Ronz (talk) 23:33, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

We've got yet another of these disputes at WP:ELN today. See Petition EL at Gilgel Gibe III Dam to comment. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:09, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't see them as networking unless people can connect with one another. I am for adding petitions for "people or other causes".--NortyNort (Holla) 21:51, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I think it can be slid under ELNO #11.--NortyNort (Holla) 21:52, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't like it in ELNO #11, because I can try to see someone arguing that if, say Glen Beck put up an online petition about Politician X, that people could (wrongly) say Beck is a "recognized authority" on politics. It fits under ELNO #4, but adding specifics to that nice, concise line would make it read worse. While it fits in #13, that one is already so complex that I wouldn't add it there. Ah, and as I look at it, #10 is best. Before, I always read that line as "No SNS, such as 1) Myspace/Facebook; 2) chat/discussion groups; 3)...." But actually, it's "No 1) SNS (like...); 2) chat/discussion...etc." That is, the line isn't about SNS, it's in general about sites designed to connect people in some way. Plus, grammatically speaking, it would be quite easy to add. So, how about we change the end to read "Usenet newsgroups, e-mail lists, or online petitions"? Qwyrxian (talk) 23:54, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I'd rather change ELNO#4, or create a new guideline on links that primarily recruit for participation or for information ("recruitment" is specifically mentioned in WP:SOAP). --Ronz (talk) 00:00, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with #4, I recanted myself over at ELN. How about "Links mainly intended to promote a website, recruit, petition or support a cause. See also external link spamming, noble cause and neutral point of view."--NortyNort (Holla) 10:51, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Just as a note, there is at the moment at the global blacklist a discussion, that started with one specific petition, which may go in the direction that petition sites may end up globally blacklisted. I noted there, that on en.wikipedia a handful of petition sites are blacklisted by a very broad rule.

There is hardly any reason to link to a petition. If it is open it is soapboxing for more votes, and the link really does not add any content, if the petition is closed, the only thing reasonably interesting are the numbers. In terms of sourcing, that would be a primary source (and if the result of the petition is notable enough to be mentioned here, there will be better sources), in terms of external links, that number only does not add anything that can not be added in the text. In short, petitions are a near WP:ELNEVER (though that part of the guideline only talks about legal issues and blacklist evasion ..). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:02, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

I've been trying to think of reasons why this shouldn't be in ELNEVER, and can't think of any. --Ronz (talk) 17:49, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Just the usual two reasons:

• An online petition might legtimately be the official website for some notable online-petition organization
• ELNEVER is stuff that we don't control: the office's copyright policy, and the blacklist. Everything else on this page is based on the consensus of the community; ELNEVER is stuff that's been 'imposed from on high'. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:08, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Responding to that:

• That is not a reason not to blacklist the whole domain. A lot of porn stuff is blacklisted, while the websites are notable enough for a page, see e.g. Redtube (abused, hence blacklisted). We still have the whitelist if something is needed.
• The blacklists are something we do control. It is our rule that one can not find ways of circumventing the blacklist. The copyright policy is indeed a case which is imposed from on high, though even if they would not have said that, I would have strongly favoured that ELNEVER anyway.

(Deep)links to petition sites are hardly ever necessary, not as a reference, not as an external link. They are misused on a significant scale, and often abused (in good faith and in bad faith!). I would suggest, that they are a near WP:ELNEVER, blacklist as soon as misuse is becoming uncontrollable, or when it starts to be significantly abused. Let the whitelist control the rest. Note that we already have a rule on our local blacklist which excludes a significant number of these sites! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:19, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

No, I mean that the reasons not to name online petitions in ELNEVER are that it might be an official link (official links are not exempted from ELNEVER), and because "No online petitions" is something that the editors at this page can choose, whereas "No copyright violations" and "If it's on the blacklist (without being whitelisted), then the software won't save the page" are not things that we (=the editors on this page, not the whole community) directly control.

Put another way, COPYLINK would still be enforceable (and enforced) policy, even if ELNEVER didn't exist, and even if this page was a paean to the benefits of contributory infringement. We don't control that policy here, and the things we do control here aren't in ELNEVER. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:34, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with WP:ELNEVER as well and depending how difficult it is to amend it, ELNO would work as well. Where is consensus on such policy reached? Also, if the petition is very notable and popular, one can 'Google it' and easily find it.--NortyNort (Holla) 09:28, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

We can do anything we want with ELNO. Would you suggest creating a completely new item, or adding it to an existing one? WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:24, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Here is what I had in mind for #4 C&P from my comment above: "Links mainly intended to promote a website, recruit, petition or support a cause. See also external link spamming, noble cause and neutral point of view."--NortyNort (Holla) 11:40, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

What do you think about a smaller change:

Links mainly intended to promote a website, including online petitions.

Is that good enough for you (at least as an interim measure)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:25, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

That sounds good, simple and effective.--NortyNort (Holla) 12:23, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

{od} I was going to add this to EL#4 if nobody has a problem?--NortyNort (Holla) 09:33, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I decided to be a bit bold and change it to "Links mainly intended to promote a website, including online petitions. See external link spamming." WP:PROMOTION specifically mentions advocacy, propaganda, recruitment, self-promotion, and advertising. --Ronz (talk) 17:05, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Note of Support, and good cross-linking. -- Quiddity (talk) 17:25, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Numerous articles contain lists (e.g., of software) in which some or all entries do not have an article, and probably won't have one in the foreseeable future (please note that I'm not talking about stand-alone lists). A couple of examples: 1, 2, 3, 4. What is the general consensus on external links to such software projects? WP:EL does not seem to be clear on this topic, since the external links in question are not directly on the subject of the respective article. – Adrian Willenbücher (talk) 07:21, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I have noticed a toughening of attitude in recent months, with the general view being that if an item has a Wikipedia article, we should link to that article, and if it doesn't, then we should probably not mention it since it is not notable.

WP:ELNO#20 is "generally avoid ... External links as entries in stand-alone lists. List entries should always have non-redirect articles on Wikipedia or a reasonable expectation that such an article is forthcoming, and thus be internally-linked only."

WP:MOS#External links says "External links should not normally be used in the body of an article."

However, some have argued that some lists would be silly if a reference were required for each item (because there would be, say, 100 items, each with a reference, where the reference is simply an external link). I tend to stay away from lists like that, but remove embedded external links where things are more clear. I only had a very quick look at your examples, but my initial feeling is that if there is no article, there should be no link. Johnuniq (talk) 09:21, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your input. I don't think that ELNO#20 applies, since it explicitly refers to stand-alone lists (although I'm not sure why the rule makes this distinction). Regarding references: would it be okay to replace those external links with a citation that contains an external link? If yes, wouldn't that be overly bureaucratic? – Adrian Willenbücher (talk) 10:25, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

There should almost never be external links within the body of articles. I would agree that if the external link actually verifies any of the material in the list-row, then it can make a useful citation (whilst keeping WP:Selfpub firmly in mind). If it's just marketing blurbs with no factual substance, then remove them entirely. Context is key.

Also, regarding your fourth example, it'd be useful to remove all the blank lines between bullet-points (see WP:ACCESS#Lists for explanation). HTH. -- Quiddity (talk) 16:48, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I've updated #20 to specifically mention embedded lists as well, because I couldn't find anything in the discussions about #20 specific to only stand-alone lists.

Changing such external links to citations is problematic on multiple levels. First, there are issues related to WP:REFSPAM: If a link was spammy to begin with, formatting it as a citation looks more like a way to get around the relevant policies and guidelines on external links than creating encyclopedic content. Second, there are multiple policies and guidelines that apply regardless: WP:SOAP, WP:V (especially WP:SELFPUB #1), WP:OR (especially WP:PRIMARY), and WP:NPOV (especially WP:UNDUE).

If you want a list, the ideal solution is to find an independent, reliable source that includes a list or could be used to verify a significant portion of the list. Alternatively, provide an external link to the External links section that links to a comprehensive list. --Ronz (talk) 17:29, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

So basically this means that if there aren't any good sources that show the notability of a certain item in such a list, then it shouldn't even be listed (in general)? That actually sounds quite reasonable. – Adrian Willenbücher (talk) 07:29, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

I have removed ELNO #20 ("#External links as entries in stand-alone lists and embedded lists. List entries should always have non-redirect articles on Wikipedia or a reasonable expectation that such an article is forthcoming, and thus be internally-linked only.") because it wildly misrepresents the actual rules about list contents.

WP:LSC explicitly permits list entries for which no article is expected, and has for years. There is no possible excuse for this guideline to spread such misinformation about list selection criteria.

Now, we could say something about the advisability of providing external links in lists. Perhaps you think List of paracetamol brand names would be enhanced by providing links to official websites for each entry; perhaps you think it would be degraded. But we have absolutely no business at this page saying that this list shouldn't exist. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:17, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

For reference; it appears that ELNO#20 was added in this edit based on a fairly short discussion, now archived at Wikipedia talk:External links/Archive 28#External links as stand-alone list entries. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 04:35, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

The text in ELNO#20 was wrong to say that list entries should have at least an expectation of an article, but WP:LSC makes no comment about external links, so there would be no conflict with a reworded ELNO#20 that says lists of entries with external links should normally be avoided. Johnuniq (talk) 07:44, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Exactly. We shouldn't be trying to summarize list guidelines, just stating the guideline for external links. I've restored just the guidelines on external links.

Yes, I was a bit concerned when I saw that the original discussion on ELNO#20 was so brief. --Ronz (talk) 15:10, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Let's talk about whether we want to have such a rule at all.

I think we can all agree that "List of software", with entries that solely say:

• Foo software
• Bar software
• Baz software

is highly undesirable. IMO, this is a violation of WP:NOTDIR.

But consider List of ibuprofen brand names. It has a two-column table that lists the trademarked/brand name, and the countries in which that trademark is used. Would it harm the encyclopedia if it acquired a third column that said "advil.com" and "aktren.de" and so forth (the official websites for these entries)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:23, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

What useful purpose would such a column serve to the article? --Ronz (talk) 17:28, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps it would serve the same purpose that the same link serves at Advil#External links. It might, e.g., help the reader determine whether this entry was the one s/he was looking for. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:49, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

In my opinion, the conditions in WP:ELOFFICIAL should not be taken too literal: these list entries are the closest thing to an article that those products have, and if you replace "article" with "list entry" in the guideline, then the respective links would count as official links. (Remark: I wanted to write the same argument as WhatamIdoing did, but I was too slow ;-) ) – Adrian Willenbücher (talk) 18:15, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that official links are exceptions to the normal guidelines. WP:ELOFFICIAL should be taken very literally because such links tend to be primarily promotional, in violation of WP:NOTADVERTISING and WP:SPAM. --Ronz (talk) 21:13, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

How is such a link more promotional than the list entry itself? Also, how is an external link in a list more promotional than an external link in an article? – Adrian Willenbücher (talk) 21:19, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

We control what's in the list entry, applying the appropriate policies and guidelines. --Ronz (talk) 21:47, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

The same can be said about articles. – Adrian Willenbücher (talk) 05:43, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

A list often contains non-notable items (i.e. items which fail WP:N and so are not suitable for an article), and hundreds of people add items hoping to promote their website everyday. Various guidelines make it possible to handle spam that is added to an article. To control spam in lists, we need to generally avoid external links in lists on the rational that if an item is not sufficiently notable to warrant an article (or a red link with a reasonable prospect of becoming an article), then the item is not sufficiently important for Wikipedia to provide a promotional external link (and such links are promotional, even if added by someone with no interest in such promotion). Johnuniq (talk) 09:07, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Re: "The same can be said about articles." I was comparing list entries to external links. We of course don't control the contents of the website linked from the external link, and those contents are usually intended primarily for promotional purposes, especially the initial webpage.

I agree with Johnuniq's comments on notability and spam. I'll add that there are accepted guidelines for creating lists of non-notable entries, but those guidelines do not include using external links to what might be considered official sites if the entries were notable. --Ronz (talk) 16:53, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

What seems evident from this discussion is that there is no established consensus on this issue. Lambanog (talk) 18:28, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

The only argument for inclusion of such links that's based upon Wikipedia policies and guidelines assumes ELOFFICIAL could be applied to entries in a list, rather than just the subject of the article itself. If that's the only policy-based argument that anyone has, then we appear close to consensus. --Ronz (talk) 18:52, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

It's also possible that URLs are being used to verify the list content, per WP:ECITE or similar style. Lists like this really should be verifying that the non-notable entries do verifiably meet the selection criteria. (WP:CITE lets editors make up any style they want, and we have no business telling CITE that they must exclude something that we might misinterpret as external links.)

A list entry like:

• Aktren[http://aktren.de]

might actually be more sensible reference style than a more formal approach, especially if the list is quite long, and the sources are just manufacturer's websites.

Don't you think that this:

• Aktren (Aktren.de 2010)

References

• Aktren.de website, accessed in September 2010

is a little silly? Using either parenthetical citations or footnotes will actually double the length of the page, without adding anything like double the information.

My point is that just because something looks like an external link in a list, that's not proof that it really is an WP:External link instead of a proper and necessary WP:CITE. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:24, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

That gets us off of the topic of external links. Do we agree if it's supposed to be a reference, it should be formatted as such? --Ronz (talk) 15:46, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

"Formatted as such" is a meaningless phrase. There are zero absolute requirements for formatting citations. <Ref> tags are strictly optional. A bare URL is "formatted as a reference" whenever any editor says that the URL is a citation. See, e.g., the example at WP:EL#cite_note-2, which uses a bare URL as a perfectly valid citation. (A citation that is highly susceptible to linkrot problems, but nonetheless still a perfectly valid citation/not an external link.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:05, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Good point. Editors need to distinguish references, regardless of formatting, from link added as official sites, examples, download sites, etc.

We can't rely upon formatting to determine when WP:EL applies. Maybe we need to be clear on this in the guideline, because it's a problem that WP:REFSPAM only partially covers. --Ronz (talk) 17:08, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, WP:EL#References_and_citation would probably be the place to describe it (for this guideline, although REFSPAM might benefit from a thoughtful expansion, too). Do we want to bring out the specific problem relying too much on formatting or labels, or do you have other ideas? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:17, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I've changed {{External links}} to remove the suggestion, "or by converting links into footnote references." If we want to suggest that editors convert links, we need better guidelines on how to do so. I'd rather just not suggest it anywhere. --Ronz (talk) 17:24, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I was recently using AWB to cleanup and expand some references associated to Medal of Honor recipients and User:Binksternet pointed me to a rule on external links I had never seen before which states per WP:EL, "access dates are not appropriate in the external links section". I would like to ask why adding accessdate to an external link is "innappropriate". The reason you add accessdate is to allow the users, bots, etc to see when the link was added or potentially last updated. This helps in determining if the link is still valid (potentially due to link rot) so if a link is very old it can be checked and potentially reset to a more recent date. I can think of no reason why this would be harmful or innaproppriate. For example, in the Richard Bong article I edited, I added several bracketted links to the Cite template and added accessdate to the Find a Grave template. Perhaps I could go with not using an accessdate or a retrieved date in cases were you have a bare link or a simple bracketted link but surely adding accessdate to templates like find a grave or Citations would be helpful and shoudl in my opinion be encouraged. My guess is that this rule has ben in place for sometime and might even predate the use of citation templates. I recommend this rule of not adding accessdates to external lnks be reviewed and considered for elimination. --Kumioko (talk) 17:28, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

My take is that the external links are more casual, and may be freely removed if they stop working; not the case for references. Such casual links do not need a formal access date.

If the accessdate parameter is useful for bots, is there a way for it to be hidden from human sight? Binksternet (talk) 17:46, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

They were added here after discussion here.

I don't see a problem with having accessdates, though I would also like them not to be displayed if possible. --Ronz (talk) 17:47, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

As I mentioned on my talk page I don't think that the accessdate is a bad thing. I agree that it may be unnecessary, but not bad. I also do not think that we can hide it since its basically built into the templates (Cite, Find a Grave or otherwise) nor do I think we should. The date isn't just there for the bots its there for the users too. If I look at a link and it says the accessdate is 2005 it might incline me to click it and see if it still works (and hopefully update the date too). I totally agree that external links should be more informal than citations and I am not trying to say that adding the accessdate would be required, I just don't think we should discourage its use when it is one of the approved parameters available in the Citation templates. --Kumioko (talk) 17:59, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Tangentially, would it be worth considering making accessdates small throughout, wherever they're used? They're not strictly part of the link/reference, and I often misread the date a citation was published as the accessdate (especially given that they are usually placed prominently at the end of the line). Obviously a topic to be decided elsewhere, but I thought I'd float it here. -- Quiddity (talk) 18:48, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

I think from a techical standpoint its possible but Im not sure that making it small would be the best result display wise. Its something that could be done though. --Kumioko (talk) 19:45, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Three points:

• Citation templates should not normally be used in the ==External links== section, because the output they produce is the wrong style. We want the link to be the first thing on the line, and the citation templates almost always list the author first.
• If we need to know when a URL was added, we can find out from the page history. Using a straightforward binary search, I can usually find the source for an unsigned comment, the addition of a URL, or whatever else I'm looking for in less than two minutes. For ELs, I rarely need that information, since if it's dead now, or working now, then I really don't care how long it's been on the page.
• Whenever someone reduces a font size, there's almost always a complaint at WP:ACCESS. {{Reflist}} receives a steady stream of complaints. "Slightly smaller characters" always means "slightly fewer readers can see it". WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:34, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

  I'm one of the people who complains about small font sizes in {{reflist}}! However, that's the part of the point: the accessdates aren't strictly part of the reference. Perhaps fewer readers should be able obliged to see it. I guess the alternative would be to not display or render the accessdate at all, but simply to leave it as a part of the template that can be filled in for the sake of other editors. (or, to make it only visible to logged-in editors, or via a preferences toggle, or etc). It would make our "References et al" sections more usable in a number of ways. I'll think about it for a bit longer, and try to do some more background-reading and sandboxing (as surely something similar has been proposed before..). -- Quiddity (talk) 23:32, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Regarding WhatamIdoings comments.

• If the style needs to be different then perhaps we can create a slightly different template. {{External link}} maybe but regarding the author comment normally the external links are links to websites that usually (granted there are exceptions) dont have an author. A little off subject but I don't necessarily like the Cite web format, too many periods (or full stops for you English folks) often makes it look sloppy.
• Regarding the article history comment thats true for articles with short histories but try sifting through the history for Theodore Roosevelt or Douglas Macarthur for a change like that (you might need a snickers cause your gonna be there for a while). My point is we need to make it easy for new users and non computer savvy folks to get at the information. Not bury it in the edit history of the article. --Kumioko (talk) 23:59, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

WikiBlame can search an article's history for you. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 14:05, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

The bigger question is: Why do you even care when it was added to the article? If the external link is working today, it's fine. If it's not working today, it should be removed. We simply don't need to know that a link worked on 01 Jan 2007, or 2 Feb 2010, or whatever the access date was, to figure out what to do with a link that is dead today.

(NB that the rules are very different for reliable sources.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:46, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with WhatamIdoing. Binksternet (talk) 02:26, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

For the same reasons you would care about it if it was being used as a reference. Let me pose this question to you; Why do you even care if accessdate was added to the link? Is it really hurting anything? Does it take something away from the article? Its also extremely hard to program for when you have a double standard and your trying to work with formatting and syntax changes for links. More to the point of the matter this came up because I was adding it to links on a Medal of Honor recipient. To explain, many of the MOH recipient pages have few links and I am trying to fix that. Im not really planning on going outside that group for this type of change cause thatll keep me engaged for the next couple years. Admittedly some recipients like Richard Bong have plenty of links but most do not. --Kumioko (talk) 02:37, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I also agree with WhatamIdoing. Let's not elevate "External links" in status by adding unnecessary complexity with official-looking templates and verbage. If an EL helps the article (per WP:EL) now, it should be kept; otherwise, remove it now. There is no need to know when it was added, and the text is distracting. Johnuniq (talk) 02:43, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I have already stopped adding the accessdate but I dont think its complex at all to add accessdate=XXX to an article. Its pretty cut and dry. You all seem to be under the misunderstanding that all the articles in WP are well developed. For example, I have seen many articles who dont even have a references section, just external links (which obviously is wrong in itself) so your comment to just eliminate it if it isnt paying immediate results to the article is way off. If were not going to take the time to display the link correctly, with some structure then we shouldnt bother with it in the first place and just eliminate the section entirely. I am going to continue with not adding it for now but I still haven't heard a very good reason against it other than the rules say it isnt needed and what seems to be a disdain for the presence of the section. The External links section is just as important as the See also section or the references section. It just serves a different purpose, to display links that do not directly reference material visible in the article. That doesnt mean it should just be dumped any which way on the bottom of the article. --Kumioko (talk) 03:11, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

At The Chicago Manual of Style Online: Chicago-Style Citation Quick Guide, under the heading "Websites", is the following information.

A citation to website content can often be limited to a mention in the text or in a note (“As of July 19, 2008, the McDonald’s Corporation listed on its website . . .”). If a more formal citation is desired, it may be styled as in the examples below. Because such content is subject to change, include an access date or, if available, a date that the site was last modified.

As a reader of Wikipedia articles, I appreciate being able to see an external link accompanied by the access date in characters of regular size.

—Wavelength (talk) 15:07, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

A possible use for access dates is that an editor who sees an external link and knows that the organization made a major update to their website, and if the editor has an idea of when the update occurred, the editor will know the link has probably died and should be repaired. Of course, the editor could check the link anyway, even in the absence of an access date, but this is more work. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:25, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

¶ I came here because of a notice at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style. I think External links should be easy to add (even if that means adding spam links is easy), and adding yet another new template will make Wikicode even more intimidating to the new editors we want to attract. I also like retrieval dates, and where appropriate brief indications of a non-obvious link's nature. When someone checks all the External Links for an article (as I once did for The Bronx) then a single notice should be appropriate, I'm not sure exactly where (e.g. "All were accessible on May 29, 2008"), but then you run into the problem of what to do with links that have been later added or adjusted. —— Shakescene (talk) 18:10, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

The difference here is the "External links" section is not, nor should it be, a list of references; they have their own section, for which access dates and specific URLs are needed. The EL section is more akin to the "see also" section, in that it contains a general link to related location, such as a company's website, as opposed to a specific link to a specific page. So access dates aren't necessary for the EL section. If a link breaks just remove it, or replace it with the updated one.oknazevad (talk) 18:30, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

To answer Kumioko's question above: Providing unimportant, non-actionable, and essentially irrelevant information increases visual clutter, makes articles harder to read, and degrades our signal-to-noise ratio.

I want to repeat the "non-actionable" item: It does not matter when a link was added. If you encounter a dead external(!) link with no accessdate, you should remove it now. If you encounter a dead external link with an accessdate from five years ago, you should still remove it now. If you encounter a dead external link with an accessdate of yesterday, you should still remove it now. The rule is: Dead external links get removed, full stop. The "last claimed date this external link worked" is really, completely, totally irrelevant.

(And, again, the rules are totally different for references, including lists of general references that have been mis-labeled as external links.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:55, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing description of what is and isn't actionable assumes the person deciding whether the link or isn't dead has little or know knowledge of the sources and websites associated with the subject. WhatamIdoing also presumes the only available action for a dead link is to delete it, but in reality, repair may be possible. If the person checking the article is relatively new to the Wikipedia article but frequently uses the sources and websites associated with the topic, the access date information may very well be actionable. Jc3s5h (talk) 20:00, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Imagine that the official website for a notable person has quit working (e.g., because the person retired and shut down the website). What would you do with this dead link, if the external link said "Accessed on 10 August 2010", and how does that differ from what you would do if those words didn't appear in the article?

And, if the answer is, "I'd do exactly the same thing in both instances", then what's the value of spamming those words after every, or any, proper, non-reference external link? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:30, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Let's say that only one particular paper by the notable person was relevant to the article containing the external link, and it was available on the official site. Let's say I'm a big fan of the notable person, and know a few on-line sources for the paper. So I would just change the link to another copy.

If the external link were written in a way that the URL was not apparent, but the access date was visible, I would know without bothering to click that the link needed updating.

In this example, the access date would be of marginal utility, but there could be other examples where it was of greater value. An example that comes to mind is the various versions of the U.S. standard birth certificate published by the Centers for Disease Control; some versions are formatted to suggest that a generational suffix is part of a person's legal name, other versions are formatted to suggest the opposite. Jc3s5h (talk) 21:17, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

So the utility of "Accessdate" for external links amounts to "If you somehow have knowledge that the website was reorganized on a given date, and that the reorg didn't properly redirect the page, then you can save yourself the trouble of clicking the link to see whether it is really dead."

What do you figure the odds are there? There are about ~150 million websites in the world. What percentage of those do you think you, personally, would be able to look at an access date and know that the website has been reorganized since then?

And if we're talking about a cost of five or ten seconds to add (and update) the dates on every single external link, to save you maybe five seconds once every five or ten years, doesn't that seem a little disproportionate? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:33, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

There is a fairly big issue here that I didn't bring up before that I think should be mentioned that ties in with when the link was accessed and that is of attribution. If we are putting links on an article, whether they are used as actual references or as external links we have a responsibility to give proper attribution to the publisher/author of the work. Which we are not doing currently with External links. The real issue here to me is WHY do we treat the structure or syntax of an External link any differently than a reference just because it doesn't directly reference material in the article? Does the fact that the link resides in a special section called external links eliminate or excuse us from our requirement to properly attribute links and references (even if they contain info not in the article) to their source? My opinion is no! In listening to the conversation so far I get the impression that some users feel the External links section is the equivalent of a scrap bin; we throw bits of things in it that we don't need at the moment, but might at some point in the future. Then later we pick through it for some useful scraps and discard the rest. I agree that in some cases there might exist some sites that we simply don't need the full workup on (personal sites, fan sites, blogs, you tube videos, dead that might be resurrected someday, etc). But to me the bulk of items currently found in External links (links to find a grave, Hall of valor, the various sports, political and movie databases, etc) should be attributed. Including, where possible, the accessdate. And, even if we dont attribute them we certainly should not be creating rules specifically instructing our editors not too. If we want the rule to say something like "isn't required" or "isn't needed" thats one thing but we shouldnt be telling people to not do it. --Kumioko (talk) 00:02, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

The URL itself is the only necessary "attribution". If the author of the webpage put his/her name on the webpage, then the reader who chooses to click on the link will see the author's name. Our readers generally don't receive any benefit from knowing the name of the author in advance. (When they might, editors add that information after the link.)

Here are some examples, because I think they might help clarify things for you:

External link	Reference
BMI calculator	Calculate your BMI - Standard BMI Calculator, Maryland: National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, 1999, retrieved 07 October 2010 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
Official website for Coca-Cola, Inc.	Coca-Cola Global: Soft Drinks & Beverage Products, Georgia: Coca-Cola, Inc, 2010, retrieved 07 October 2010 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
Words are inadequate by Dana Jennings	Jennings, Dana (16 March 2010), "With Cancer, Let's Face it: Words are Inadequate", The New York Times, vol. 154, no. 55, 389, New York: The New York Times Company, ISSN 0362-4331, retrieved 07 October 2010 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)

Basically, ==External links== is not in the business of "recognizing" or "honoring" or "promoting" an author's name. The reader doesn't need all of that extraneous information to decide whether or not he (or she) wants to click on a link to a calculator, or see the corporate website, or read an essay. We want to provide the reader with exactly the information necessary to make the decision, without needless clutter. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:53, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I appreciate you taking the time to break that down for me. I do understand what your saying I really do, but I guess its a matter of disagreement on the definition of extraneous information at this point for me. I appreciate that yourself and some editors may see little value in adding accessdates or other information to links in the external links section, but the more information we provide in our links, the better. Its never bad to give too much information. I look at it this way. Most of the articles in WP are less that B class. Most have some external links and most of those external links have some useful information that can be used in the article. In the cases of the articles that have been built up to FA then your statements may well be true, but for the rest of the articles that haven't made it to that state yet an External link is nothing more than an unused reference waiting for its information to be added to the article. Therefore the more information we can give our users, editors and each other regarding the status, condition and timliness of the link; the better. --Kumioko (talk) 01:37, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with your assertion that "the more information we provide in our links, the better. Its never bad to give too much information." I think that too much information can overwhelm the reader, and prevent him from making a quick decision to click on the link. We already have layout guidelines recommending against a sea of blue links in an article; as expressed at WP:OVERLINKING, this is a form of keeping the information we offer trimmed to a minimum. The same conclusion can be made about External links: that too much text will crush the reader under the weight, preventing comprehension and interaction. Binksternet (talk) 02:07, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Binksternet, is that only a theory about the experience of other readers, or has anyone actually reported that his or her own experience has been worsened by the presence of that extra information?

—Wavelength (talk) 02:33, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with WhatamIdoing and Binksternet. Particularly for external links, we should not bury the key facts under pseudo-official text that in fact has extremely little practical value. If an editor spends their time hunting for 404 external links and removing them without thought, we should sanction that editor – thoughtless removal is not helpful. By contrast, there should be no suggestion that an external link that seems unsatisfactory now should be kept because another editor added an "accessed [one week ago]" date on it. The key facts for an external link are the actual link, and a very brief and non-promotional explanation for what the link offers. Johnuniq (talk) 03:27, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I also agree with WhatamIdoing and Binksternet. As a reader, I want to be able to quickly make a decision on how valuable clicking on an EL will be for me. That said, we have thousands of poorly formatted ELs. When I see an article with 12 bare URLs, I usually take the time to delete at least half of them and format the rest so future readers know what each one offers. Here's an EL section I just gave the treatment to yesterday, and here's the mess I started with. —UncleDouggie (talk) 08:54, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

• I can't think of any reason why I would want to see an "accessed on" date against an external link, or what use it would ever be to me. I go along with some of the other opinions expressed that it is just needless clutter. 86.186.38.82 (talk) 03:35, 8 October 2010 (UTC).

There is also a practical issue to consider here. By far most links in the External links section are without access date or written in reference style. So unless there's a real strong case, why those links need to have an access date, it doesn't seem to be be a good idea to require that in a the guideline. So far the discussion seem to suggest an access date doesn't harm, but it is not of much use and ultimately just a question of taste. That however is not a good enough reason to require a reformatting of more than 90% of all current external links and requiring >90% of the active authors to change their editing practice as well.--Kmhkmh (talk) 15:12, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I think you mighth be misunderstanding me. I agree that that we shouldnt require it. But the current rules state that External links should not have it. I understand that some may not need it but I don't think we should be specifically telling people not to do it. It should, at the very least, be the users preference. Thats all I am trying to say in all of this. Why are we telling them NOT to use one? So far its mostly been arguments to the effect of its not required or needed. But that doesn't give me a reason why it shoudlnt be allowed. --Kumioko (talk) 15:34, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

What does having an accessdate do other than say you acessed the site this day? It isn't being used to cite sources, by their definition its suppose to work and if not, removed/redirected and doesn't denote any relevant info because it lacks context. For a citation, it has a purpose. You're claiming the info is verifiable and you accessed it on a specific date to confirm this and thus if someone comes later on, and the info changes either what's said must be updated or you need to find an archive; for external links your just claiming this is a link to a website and if its no longer valid, then it can be removed or in some cases an archived version can be added (and noted as such).陣内_Jinnai 16:08, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

In a perfect world your right the accessdate would be meaningless. But since most articles are less that even GA class many of the links in the external links section contain information that could and should be added to the article. Why not develop them so that when the time comes for the article to be built up they set and ready to go. Otherwise I have to click on it and hope it works. Your arguments are also true of links used as references by the way.

Its clear that I have the minority opinion on this issue and thats ok. As I mentioned before I put the question out here to gather concensus and its clear to me that the concensus is that links in the External links section need not hve an accessdate. So I am will quite quibbling over it. Its really not a major sore spot for me anyway its just one of those rules that didnt make sense so I presented it. I am going to leave this out here for a couple more days just to let anyone else comment if they wish.

One clarifying shot though. For the cases like Find a Grave, Hall of Valor, CONGbio and templates like that what is the desire of accessdates. Should they or should they not have them? --Kumioko (talk) 16:23, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

The real difference, that is the question you should be asking yourself, is "why do we insist on access dates for references?" Because when someone cites a source, they are making a specific claim to what the source says, which requires verification. Conversely, the EL's are not a specific claim at all, just a general pointer. If an EL doesn't work, a quick Google search can provide a suitable replacement, or outright removal might be better. Either way, the access date isn't needed for verification purposes. oknazevad (talk) 21:09, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

The first item under Wikipedia:External links#Links to be considered is

1. Repealed. (Professional reviews should instead be used as sources in a "Reception" section.)

...with the following for those who trouble themselves to read the source code:

<!-- Until October 2009, this item was: For albums, movies, books, and other creative works, links to professional reviews that have not been used to [[WP:V|verify]] information about the critical reception of the work or that contain information that cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article. -->

To the untutored soul looking for guidance on External Links this is likely to be confusing if not downright obscure. "Reception" apparently refers to public or critical reception, but this is hardly clear. Does a "repealed" section need to be there anyway?; if so, maybe the whole line could be wrapped in [square brackets].

¶ As an additional confusion, when I tried above to Wikilink this subsection with External links without the magic prefix "Wikipedia:" it led me to Internal link. Is there some way to fix the redirects for this (perhaps to disambiguations)? Namespace differentiation is not intuitive, unconscious or automatic for most of us. —— Shakescene (talk) 08:22, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

that seems to rather odd and personally I don't agree with the "repealed"- approach anyway. Obvious should be placed outsite the External links section as soon as he us used as a source, but that holds for any link used as a source and not just reviews, so there is no need to list a special treatment which in addition might be even confusing. And as far as he "Repealed" is concerned as long as a link to a review is not yet used as a source and a reception section is not written, it might very well be placed under External links and migrated to references or notes later when it is actually used as such.--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:14, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I opposed its removal, and my opinion hasn't changed. These are reasonable links to consider. However, the item (if restored) might benefit from a reminder about ELNO #1 (the 'spamming external links is not an adequate substitute for writing the article'). WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:53, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

An editor who was warned not to include a wiki and a forum to Ubuntu (operating system) has now decided it's OK to write an extended ad for them in the body of the article. Is this acceptable or is it just a way of avoiding these guidelines? Feel free to look at the recent additions. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:10, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, they is then avoiding this guideline, but it might still be a case of WP:SPAM ... I'll have a look. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:35, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

FYI, see Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)#Propriety of links to Findagrave.com. --Kumioko (talk) 16:33, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

This keeps coming up, but we've agreed tiem and time again that there's no encyclopedic reason for those links. Some group mass-spammed a bunch of them, and now with the template existing it makes it difficult to remove them permanently, as they try to claim that the existense of a template means that the link is fine. DreamGuy (talk) 20:44, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Im not going to get drawn into a big debate again for the next three weeks (you can read my comments from the last month again) but I will say again if you can find a better reference/link with the information. Use it, otherwise its contributing something to the article. Just cause we have a template to a website with thousands of hits doesn't mean its spam anymore than the bots that are creating these thousands of stub articles for towns, streets, asteroids, politicians, etc. Just cause you don't like it doesn't make it spam.--Kumioko (talk) 20:52, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

EL says, "Wikipedia articles may include links to web pages outside Wikipedia (external links), but they should not normally be used in the body of an article." Attempting to define "normal", is the following example a valid exception?

Concern expressed on talk centred upon undue emphasis (see Archive 3) noting the HTTPS link was added "to protect users from eavesdropping". (diff). Might this be considered a normal illustrative example, or is the link being promoted to help people circumvent laws? Wikispan (talk) 15:46, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

I would not attempt to guess the motives of editors placing the link, instead just looking at whether its placement is valid. It appears to me the sentence in question is discussing the protocol (https), or URL directly, and to leave it out would actually be awkward. Kind of how the article bitly, theres only so many ways to describe the URL without dancing around the fact that the topic is the URL... Now personally, an announcement web site 'supporting' SSL doesn't seem all that groundbreakingly noteworthy, but if there is some exceptional reason why piratebay is doing so (legal action, etc.) and that has received some coverage in real-world sources, could be a valid usage.Cander0000 (talk) 17:02, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Motive is clear from the original edit summary. "HTTPS'd links to thepiratebay.org & static.thepiratebay.org to protect users from eavesdropping." (diff) For this reason, two editors insist on having the secure link on prominent display. Wikispan (talk) 21:09, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

No such motive. Placement of a reliably sourced fact, of immediate utility to a web-browsing reader was my motive. Please WP:Assume good faith - except for an occasional uncivil word, my motives are above reproach, as has been proven repeatedly. --Lexein (talk) 21:55, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

There is no encyclopedic reason to have a direct external link there. It can just say (using https instead of http in the URL) instead. Hell, I'm not sure it's even noteworthy to begin with. And we also explicitly prohibit links to copyright violations, so any direct link to Pirate Bay is going to need a very good justification. There isn't one in this case. DreamGuy (talk) 20:56, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

(I have four direct corrections to repeated allegations above at User Talk:Lexein/ELcorrections but they can be ignored for the purposes of advancing the discussion:)

• The introduction of SSL by The Pirate Bay was indeed due to legal action. The Swedish Parliament mandated warrantless continuous surveillance by all ISPs in Sweden of all traffic crossing Swedish borders^[1] see also Wikinews. A three reliable sources, (@ diff5530) news-reported change in a notable organization's behavior in response to a direct, political, surveillance threat against itself and yes, its users, seems precisely notable, and completely hands-clean of WP:UNDUE. Opposition to the addition included: it was (1) unusual for an infobox, (2) merely a publicity stunt, (3) furthered copyright violation, and (4) made Wikipedia look bad, which I argued against as (1) irrelevant (special case), (2) false, (3) unsupportable by an inconsistently worded WP:LINKVIO policy which misquotes the underlying court ruling (link? page? site? domain? server? host? who cares?), and (4) false.
• This is not a WP:NOTAFORUM and not the appropriate discussion page to bring up "protecting users" or "help people circumvent laws"). To be clear, I did not and do not advocate "protecting users" beyond the simple statement that Wikipedia provides identical protection of passwords and content, but not endpoints, with its implementation of https:, and is therefore not a reason to exclude on the basis of "protecting users". And further, "Wikipedia helping people circumvent laws" is indefensible on its face. Wikipedia cites sources, and includes quoted text from those sources, or paraphrases them.
• Any insistence that prominent display is sought is false - what is sought is usable, informative presence as opposed to de facto censorship, undue deprecation, or the already noted awkwardness. See also correction #2.
• Now, to focus the discussion on options. It is not Wikipedia's purpose to promote, and it should also not demote the very subject of three RS to a footnote or External Links, far from the infobox - that would be undue deprecation, would it not? My suggestions are one of three:

1. Add the compact form "URL: thepiratebay.org (SSL)" in the infobox (cited), or
2. Italicize the link in the article body, per MOS "words as words": https://thepiratebay.org, or
3. Write prose: in the article body, a non-live version ("SSL, accessed with https://thepiratebay.org") of the link, with the real live link as an External Link. This has been seen as acceptable in other articles, with many, many live links.

--Lexein (talk) 21:44, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

WP:EL is a content guideline. It speaks in general terms, and accepts that there may be exceptions. That is fine; there is absolutely no need to change anything on this page.

Instead, this is a content issue, and therefore any discussion belongs on the talk page of that specific article, where consensus can decide what editors want, for that specific instance.

In other words - I see no need for a change to this page; the guideline seems quite adequate, and allows for exceptions. To discuss that article, use Talk:The Pirate Bay. Just please bear in mind the prior discussions, which I believe resulted in a general agreement for the status-quo, which is a) not to have the https: link in the infobox, but to b) have it in the body. Personally, that seems like an acceptable compromise, but if you do feel strongly about it, feel free to discuss it there.  Chzz  ►  22:11, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree that there is no need to change this guideline. The right place to escalate discussion of this link beyond the article take page, if needed, is WP:EL/N. Of course, that won't stop me from offering a quick opinion. The link in any form is promotional and should not be in the article. Coverage from reliable sources of the site supporting SSL and the legal implications for the site and its users is desirable. The fact that this is missing from the article reinforces that the purpose of the EL is promotional. SSL should also be wikilinked to Transport Layer Security for readers who aren't familiar with the technical details. This link is far more encyclopedic than an external link to a site offering access to copyrighted content used without permission. —UncleDouggie (talk) 00:37, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi,

Let me congratulate you for maintaining such a wonderful site: http://wikipedia.org/

I visited your site and was really impressed with your articles and pages on Debt consolidation. I must say that you have spent lot of time and effort to ensure your visitor to gain benefit through quality informative contents.

I would appreciate if you place a link of my site: http://www.ovlg.com/ within the content to your page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_consolidation. It will give extra mileage to my sites and help to gain some extra values in the eyes of search engines.

Or If you want then I could write a guest post on your site with an article related to Debt consolidation, I believe this increase the interest of your readers. The article will be 100% original, written just for your site and will not be posted elsewhere. Of course this will be completely free for you, however I would appreciate a live link back to my site. If you’re interested in this idea, please get back to me at angelasanders99[at]gmail[dot]com.

Looking for your positive reply.

(61.11.71.226 (talk) 05:38, 23 October 2010 (UTC))

Actually, it would very likely 'not' give that extra mileage. For various reasons, wikipedia's use of a link doesn't affect the use of most common search engines. ([1]). You can contribute to Debt consolidation today since you have this expertise. As to the site 'ovlg', since you appear to be affiliated with the site, it would likely not be well-received if you created it directly (it would be seen as more of a press release than an encyclopedia article). You could Request_article, though, and see if a neutral party would be interested in creating an article.Cander0000 (talk) 17:09, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Hello Admin,

I am really very glad to get your response to my request.

If you can not provide a link from the content then its okay. Wikipedia is very highly reputated site. If you could provide a link to my site from your site then it would help me and my site immensely to grow up the reputation of my site. I know that adding a link of my site may be a very small thing for you but a link from Wikipedia means a lot for me. So I shall be highly obliged if you kindly add a link of my site: http://www.ovlg.com/ in the resource section of this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_consolidation.

Eagerly waiting for your positive response.

Thanks & Regards,

Angela Sanders

(61.11.71.226 (talk) 06:06, 26 October 2010 (UTC))

No thank you, Angela. We're not here to promote your firm. Thanks. Kuru (talk) 14:08, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Hello all. Though probably no on cares, just here to chime in that, from my perspective, having links to content can actually *add* to wikipedia's usefulness, for example, in this user's opinion, recent changes to Music_OCR have made the page less useful, rather than more. Cheers! Rogerdpack (talk) 21:14, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

There are always exceptions, but in general if a firm line against external links were not taken, every paragraph of every article would have ten external links. An encyclopedia anyone can edit plus a high Google ranking mean strict guidelines need to be followed. Johnuniq (talk) 21:27, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

"This page in a nutshell: External links in an article can be helpful to the reader, but they should be kept minimal, meritable, and directly relevant to the article."

In the preceeding, "meritable" is not a common English word and the one definition that I found is of little help in this context.[2] Looking through the archives, especially Archive 17 where the wording was formulated, contributors seem to understand it to mean "having a high degree of merit", a criterion distinct from "reliable and authoritative". Perhaps "complement the article in a unique and valuable manner" would be clearer. It was added by Mike1 (talk · contribs) in 2007 and the wording has changed little since.[3][4] Walter Siegmund (talk) 05:35, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that any clarification is necessary. I don't believe that we've ever had a question that hinged on a precise definition of that word. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:38, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps "meritable" could be replaced with "of high quality"? I think that captures the intent, is easier to understand, and would be more useful. Walter Siegmund (talk) 00:40, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm concerned that people might interpret that as meaning a well-designed website. Ugly, poorly written, "low-quality" websites might merit inclusion under some circumstances, and beautifully written, well-designed, high-quality websites often do not merit inclusion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:53, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Why is it "they should not normally be used in the body of an article" instead of never be used? Is see no good reason not to make it absolute. duffbeerforme (talk) 10:55, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

There are some exceptions, where is directly linked-out to external info (from my direct experience, {{chembox}} directly links out to proper identifiers; quite some infoboxes have the possibility for a link to the official homepage of the subject, some company pages have a link to financial info, sometimes you see links to map-locations; in principle linking to wiktionary (which you sometimes see for words) is also an external link - but that is all info which en.wikipedia does not, and should not, keep by itself). All the rest, no - they should simply be either linked internally, or not linked at all. If an organisation is not notable enough for an article and internal links to that article, then they should not be replaced with an external link to the organisation. I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:20, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes it does, thanks. duffbeerforme (talk) 11:41, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

There seem to be missing information to (direct links) executable and packed files? --Perhelion (talk) 11:05, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

• I don't believe we should ever link to executable code even it if it warned ; there's just too many issues with the portability/platform support of the code, viruses, etc. A link to a download page for an executable is fine, that gives the reader the choice to download further or not. --MASEM (t) 14:43, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

I remove a fair number of external links citing ELNO #19. Lately I have had a number of editors challenge the removals because they believe the removed links fall under "What should be linked" #1 (Official websites). While it is true that they are official websites, they are official websites of organizations other than the subject of the article they were removed from (and almost always the official website corresponding to a different article).

I think the current wording about the one-to-one relationship between an article and its official website is clear, but somehow it isn't always getting through. Is there a way to tweak to the wording that clarifies without further confusing the intent?

In general, I believe that outside of official links, external links should not be used when we have an equivalent article to link to. It would be appropriate to note this in the guideline. ✤ JonHarder ^talk 12:20, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, wording should be added to WP:EL along these lines:

A link to an associated topic should be in the form of an internal link to an article (not an external link). The official link for an associated topic should only appear in the article for that topic.

That might be in the "Official links" section (WP:ELOFFICIAL), although something about linking only to an article should probably be in "Important points to remember" (WP:ELPOINTS). For reference, these are relevant to embedded external links:

• WP:EL reference note 3 (at bottom) implies that a link to an article is good, but not an embedded external link.
• WP:MOS#External links says that external links should not normally be used in the body of an article.
• WP:CITE#Embedded links also rejects an embedded external link.

Johnuniq (talk) 09:43, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I usually encounter this when someone wants to declare their charity to be an "official" link for a disease or cause. I don't buy that argument (and if that's the specific context, WP:MEDMOS#External links is worth a click). For articles other than people, products, and organizations, there usually is no official link. Nobody "owns" algebra, or walking, or heart disease. Under ELOFFICIAL, we already say that "No official link exists for many articles," and perhaps it is this that needs expanding.

I don't think we want to make an claims about internal linking; we should leave that to WP:SEEALSO. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:46, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

First, external links should not be in the body per WP:MOS (some exceptions, but this NEVER is one of those exceptions). The body is just mainly for internal links, same goes for tables, lists, &c. There it should in principle be focussing on the internal link (where sometimes a column with the official sites can be added, though it should generally be superfluous, as the articles linked to contain the external link.

Similarly, I see in external links sections contain sometimes '[http://www.example.com/example example] on [http://www.example.com example site]' - I would also there argue for [http://www.example.com/example example] on [[Example site]]'.

Agreed, many things don't have an official link, so be it. So that is over, your 'official link for heart disease' is not the official link for Heart disease, it is however the official link for Your Heart Disease Organisation - and if the organisation is not notable enough, then sorry, but that official link just has no place anywhere in Wikipedia. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:22, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

A reason to make a claim about avoiding links to topics that can be internally linked in "See also" or elsewhere is that the practice is prevalent. Three examples on my todo list are United States Forest Service links, Royal Academy links, and Oxfam Australia links. I haven't looked at these yet, but most of the links to the official website in these lists will be in the external links section, some will be embedded links within the article and some will be double links as noted above. I have a list of around 250 examples like this that I am working through. Articles that use links in this ways tend to use other links in this manner, so the more I work on my list, the larger it grows. Because this practice is so widespread I continue to believe it would be helpful to state something about it in the guideline. Is there a wikiproject (or should one be created) where these links can be listed to share the cleanup effort? ✤ JonHarder ^talk 14:02, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

As with many others, access to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography website is free for many people (especially in the UK), but not all. Avoid? WCCasey (talk) 00:56, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

In any case you can list that link simply under references or further reading instead of external links. So it is not really a question whether it can be listed, but rather in which section.--Kmhkmh (talk) 01:54, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Placing such links in the further reading section may not be a good solution. Because the layout guideline considers "Further reading" and "External links" as similar in scope and purpose, the external links guidelines will apply to the further reading section when links are present there. As for the references section, many editors frown on new items that weren't actually used to build or expand the articles. Because spammers try to slip in links in that section, additions are scrutinized and often rejected simply because there wasn't a clearly associated prose addition to the article. A link is most likely to be accepted if it is used as an inline citation. ✤ JonHarder ^talk 15:21, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

General frowning by some editors is no excuse for blocking entries in external links, reference or further reading sections without a proper reason. Frowning Editors, who simply reject additions out of hand, because they don't find a formal inline citation without taking a closer look at the entry itself and considering the overall article situation (oversourced, undersourced, quality if the sources, length of references, further reading or external links sections, ..) as well are to be frowned upon themselves. Either an addition is of real merit to readers or it is not. A (detailed) biography in some well known national biography dictionary/encyclopedia/compilation often is. Also more or less by definition further reading sections do not contain material being used for specific prose additions. The external links guide doesn't necessarily apply in most cases for such a link under further reading, as you can simply reference the print edition and provide the link as an convience link to an online copy.--Kmhkmh (talk) 16:41, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

#12 refers to sites that mirror or fork Wikipedia. I would like clarification that a site, which does not mirror or fork Wikipedia, but which has a copy of an article on it, is not a "mirror or fork" for the purposes of #12. I would like to add the wording here, that this rule refers to sites, not articles. If the New York Times, copied some small article from here, for use in an editorial, we would not suddenly start declaring that the New York Times was a "mirror or fork" under Rule 12 Wjhonson (talk) 03:44, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Context matters. If the link is to the home page of a site that happens to contain some copies of WP articles as a small portion of its content, then no, I don't think that would be excluded by ELNO 12. If the link was directly to a page that was a copy of a WP article, I think that would be excluded, even if the larger site it was from had other content. My rule of thumb would be this: if the link in question would still be a good EL if all material derived from WP was removed from it, then it should not be excluded as a mirror or fork. --RL0919 (talk) 06:09, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Context for this question is importat. This refers to an active discussion at WP:ELN and is forum shopping. If you have feedback on the issue, please provide it in the active discussion: Wikipedia:External links/Noticeboard#Two genealogics links. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 11:35, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I greatly resent the insinuation that asking for input here is forum shopping. Moodriddengirl is an editor directly involved in this edit conflict. Feedback should be brought here, where it is appropriate. This is where the discussion on language for this article should take place. Wjhonson (talk) 19:35, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

However you may resent it, there is an active discussion on this situation at another board, something you declined to mention above. Pointing to the conversation there would have been perfectly appropriate her per WP:Consensus: "You can obviously draw attention to the issue on noticeboards or other talk pages if you are careful to add links to keep all the ongoing discussions together, but best practice is to choose one appropriate forum for the consensus discussion, and give (as much as possible) a single neutral, clear, and objective statement of the issue." --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 19:40, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Since I resent it, I suggest you stop pouring oil on the fire. The discussion here is not about this issue, it is about the language in this article. "Best practice" is not a requirement, it is a suggestion. If you are not going to here, address the issue of the language in this article WP:External links, which I brought forward, then it's pointless to add to the conversation here.Wjhonson (talk) 23:02, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

We don't link to the page that mirrors or forks - if subject has a link to example.com/subject, and that page is a mirror or fork of our Wikipedia article, then that is a mirror or fork in the line of this guideline, even if example.com/othersubject is not a mirror or fork; if example.com/subject is not a mirror or fork, but example.com/othersubject ís a mirror or fork, then we can link to, on subject to example.com/subject. If most pages hosted on example.com are mirrors/forks of Wikipedia, then the whole site should be treated as such, as even the pages which are not mirrored/forked would require backchecking to see what they are, and as such likely do not add anything reliably true. Note, that if example.com/subject is a partial mirror or fork, without proper clarification of what part is mirrored/forked/sourced from where, then that makes the partial mirror/fork in total useless, and should be discarded as being unreliable/not providing any useful information. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:59, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

The page in this case, does provide additional useful information, which our article does not. The page was in fact a source for the article on our site. I have explained this to Moonriddengirl multiple times already. The page had some information, which was incorporated into our site, and then expanded on our site. The author of that page subsequently, copied the bio portion of our page, back to a sub-set section of his page. His page was never a mirror of ours, ours was never a mirror of his. It was a symbiotic growth of two sites, exchanging information, if you will. That, in my mind, does not fall under EL 12.Wjhonson (talk) 19:35, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

If they've copied material from Wikipedia, and then made changes to it, it is definitely a WP:FORK from our purposes. This is true even if they have copied as little as one paragraph. "Symbiotic growth" is exactly the sort of WP:CIRCULAR situation that we're trying to avoid. (It's just barely possible that if the person copying from the Wikipedia article is unquestionably a world-famous subject-matter expert, we might overlook it—but even then I wouldn't bet on it.)

I see no support for changing this guideline. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:16, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

That is not what occurred. The page existed before, with content on it. The bio was the only part copied, and it is not the most important part of the page, which existed before our bio. The page was used as a source to build the bio here, and then the author of that page, took the bio and added it to his pre-existing page. They did not "copy material from Wikipedia and then make changes to it". Not at all. That is not what happened.Wjhonson (talk) 03:11, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't matter: The page is partly from a Wikipedia article, and partly not. That makes it a fork for our purposes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:34, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

I just blundered across a section that looks like it could use a trim:

Hijacked and re-registered sites

Occasionally a site will either be "hijacked" or be re-registered for a different purpose after a registration expires. In either case, while the URL is still valid, it points to a page with different or altered content, which can lead to inappropriate content being linked, including in some cases pornography sites.^[2] Sites that have been hijacked or changed after reregistration should not be linked; they should be handled in the same manner as dead links.

This repeats nearly everything twice, and uselessly raises an irrelevant "pornography" and "inappropriate content" issue (we have no problem linking to porn sites if there's a reason to).

I'm changing this to:

Hijacked and re-registered sites

URLs can be "hijacked" or re-registered for a different purpose after a registration expires.^[3] While the URL remains valid, it no longer points to the desired information, so it needs to be handled as a dead link.

Wnt (talk) 17:03, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

The "which can lead to linking to inappropriate sites" should stay, but otherwise I think it's a good consolidation. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 17:13, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't really understand what "inappropriate" even means in this context, except that the desired information isn't there. If it means that the site might otherwise violate WP:EL, well, that's true of every site whether it has been hijacked or not. In any case I'd request that if you think that this needs to be added back to make the edit yourself, because I don't really understand what I'd be trying to say. Wnt (talk) 17:18, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I find it worrisome that this policy talks about vandals using identical-looking Cyrillic letters to cause dead links. As a rule these were associated with IDN homoglyph attacks - fake banking sites, collecting visitor information for fraud, getting people to enter passwords that can then be used to hack with, etc. As explained in that article, many modern browsers warn of such altered URLs, but it is still worrisome that Wikipedia isn't using bots to find them. I wouldn't think it would be that hard to write one to look for mixed ASCII and Cyrillic characters in a domain name. In any case, I'd be concerned that simply fixing such a link might not be enough - the dead link might have been preceded by a serious phishing expedition. It seems like they ought to be reported somewhere special. Wnt (talk) 17:14, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

please help with right way to do it. I work better with samples of how and i tried reading and i 'm getting it wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nflcars (talk • contribs) 00:58, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

This user has been blocked, and his loan-oriented website might want to be checked for spamming. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:46, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I started Wikipedia:External links/Perennial websites because we're getting the same questions at ELN. I've added a few samples; please feel free to expand. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:44, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

The lead sentence says that ELs "should not normally be used in the body of an article." I've recently run across a couple of uses of ELs in constructs in the article body but outside of the article prose which appear useful, and it seems to me that this guideline should make it clear that such EL placements are allowed—even encouraged. One example of this was in an article with an image similar to File:View_from_BT_Tower_webcam.GIF, which had a link to the webcam in the image caption. I can't seem to locate that example at the moment -- I think it was a different but similar image in an article about some other location -- but the point should be clear from a look at that wikilinked image. Another example is the External media template, which is currently transcluded by over a thousand articles. A couple of examples which strike me as adding value to articles transcluding it are:

• Puerto Rico#Commonwealth
• Minnesota Public Radio#Broadcast coverage

How about changing the language there to say something like, "... should not be included in the body text of articles, but might usefully appear in infoboxes, Photo captions, and the like." (somebody can surely improve on my clumsy wording there)

Also, the guideline says, "If an article has external links, the standard format is to place them in a bulleted list under a primary heading at the end of the article." This can be construed as recommending against placing constructs such as the External media template in the EL section; indeed Template:External media/doc#Where to use appears to construe it that way. However, it seems to me that ELs can be usefully placed in the EL section in ways other than as bulleted list items. One article which does do this (probably not a particularly good example) is Coral reef#External links. How about changing the wording here to something like "... in a bulleted list or encapsulated in templates such as {{External media}}, {{Commons category}}, {{Wikisource}}, {{Wikisource1911Enc}}, and others created for the explicit purpose of presenting external links." Again, someone can improve on my clumsy wording there. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 03:38, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Did you read the footnote at WP:ELPOINTS #2?

And, yes, the recent discussions have indicated that editors shouldn't be using the bulky {{External media}} template under ==External links==. Instead, they should use a plain old link, just like any other, and use the template up in the main article, if the media ought to be part of the article (e.g., a link to a piece of artwork being discussed in the section).

National anthem of South Africa, for example, uses the template incorrectly. There's no good reason why that link should be highlighted in a special box instead of formatted like any other link, e.g.,:

• Audio link to the National Anthem, instrumental only (MP3)

It seems to me that WP:SISTER issues were addressed here once upon a time, but apparently have been dropped since then. I haven't encountered anyone who thinks this guideline opposes the sister templates. Indeed, the opposite has been the bigger issue: in the past, editors have believed that such links must always be provided (even if the linked page is worthless) and that the templates are the only acceptable way to present the links. So I don't overall think that we really have a problem that needs to be solved here. (Perhaps others will think it a bigger issue.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:51, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

I vagely remember there was some rule to avoid linking to https versions of sites, but I can't recall where it found it and why it shouldn't be done. Does anybody know more about it or did I remember wrong? Yoenit (talk) 18:22, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

In WP:ELMAYBE, #1 (regarding professional reviews of creative works) was repealed in 2009. The current writeup for #1 has existed throughout 2010 into 2011. I referenced #1 in the removal of review spam, and someone got the wrong impression of this (that the repeal was repealed). Would it be worthwhile to move WP:ELMAYBE #1 to the end of the "Links normally to be avoided" section? I was going to be bold and do it myself, but I was not sure how the anchor links would be impacted. The original criteria is a bit in the past now. Erik (talk | contribs) 21:01, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

No, I don't want to see it moved and I don't read the current version as you do. Not every review link under external llinks is automatically link spam. The point here is to encourage readers in incorporate those reviews into a reception section rather than just adding them under external links. However without a significant reception section already in place it can be beneficial to add a reputable review (temporarily) under external links to provide readers with some external review information for the time being at least and to provide material that another author might incorporate into the article later on.

There is a difference between not encouraging something (the encouraging of adding/collecting review links was repealed) and disallowing it altogether.--Kmhkmh (talk) 22:41, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

You are right that not all professional reviews under external links are linkspam. While some editors with a COI will solicit their film reviews, other editors will want to share Ebert's reviews across articles. I do not see the same middle ground as you, though. If we no longer encourage adding professional reviews and instead encourage for them to be added into the article body, this seems to me to mean that we should normally avoid adding reviews. Hence my suggestion to move the item to the appropriately titled section. Your logic can still apply in the occasional cases of using them, though I would prefer putting reviews for potential use on the article's talk page. It would help to update the guidelines; it seems strange to keep a "Repealed" statement for more than a year. It's like a red mark on a paper, and we should address that mark. Erik (talk | contribs) 23:10, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Looks like we essentially agree. However while I also agree that the "repealed" looks a bit odd I'm still not really comfortable with moving it. Even if you emphasize the "normally avoided" there is also a difference between not encouraging(now) and discouraging (after the move). Plus in practice (at least in my experience) WP:LINKSTOAVOID is often used as a much sharper sword and engaged/opinionated (quality control) editors all to often ignore the "normally".

I suggest for now, that we just wait for some additional input by others.--Kmhkmh (talk) 23:23, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

As it is currently, it's confusing. Three possibilities: encouraging, not encouraging or neutral. IMO select quality professional reviews have a place in External Links as a courtesy to readers. EL and Footnotes are not mutually exclusive, the same link can be contained in both, when an emphasis on that link is desired or significant to the article. Green Cardamom (talk) 02:43, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I decided to rewrite WP:ELMAYBE #1 so it is clear that the recommendation was repealed. We will do not have to move anything to WP:ELNO since that discussion would be a new can of worms. Let me know if it reads okay. Erik (talk | contribs) 14:38, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

For most A7 bands, external links are filled with MySpace, Twitter, Soundforge, ReverbNation, Facebook, and the like. Since these articles are quickly deleted, there is very little harm done. However, it seems that there are many, many bands (random example) and other articles that link to Twitter or similar sites. With rare exception, I can see no purpose to these links except to provide advertising. So why are they allowed? What purpose does it serve other than to get someone to go and buy something? (Not twitter, obviously, but certainly links like Allmusic, Discogs, Myspace, etc.)

It really seems like we're crossing the line from a relevant external linking process to something that is advertising. Templates like {{MySpace}}, {{Twitter}} and {{Facebook}} just seem to exacerbate this problem. — Timneu22 · talk 17:41, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

And I'll also point out WP:LINKSTOAVOID, which makes the existence of those templates quite wrong! — Timneu22 · talk 17:48, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Although I mostly agree that that these should never be used as references in some cases I am ok with it being used as an External link if it is an official site of the band or performer. Since Facebook and the like are free and very very popular many bands and performers are opting to use that as an official site than having expensive elaborate webpages. I would say that Allmusic and the like that actually sell merchandise should be banned (unless there is some compelling reason not too), in the cases of Facebook, myspace, twitter and the like I would say generally delete them but it depends on whats there. --Kumioko (talk) 17:50, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Take them to deletion? Dougweller (talk) 17:51, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Take what? Those three templates? — Timneu22 · talk 17:53, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

In the case of these templates I would recommend combining them into 1 and calling it social media (or something) that allows you to link to all three (and potentially others if needed) in one template. It would be rather easy to make and I think would be better than having a handfull of independant ones if we keep them at all which unfortunately I think we probably will need to do. --Kumioko (talk) 17:55, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm saying the links are spam; I don't want to create a template that makes it EASIER for people to add them! This discussion is about the links themselves, and only part of the discussion is related to the templates. — Timneu22 · talk 18:00, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

If a band has an official web site, that site will likely have links to their social network pages, and thus those additional links can be deleted. There are probably cases, however, where a band uses their Facebook or equivalent page as their official page, and if that's the case, the "official" page should be kept and all other social networking site links removed. Basically, barring other circumstances, there should be one and only one official band "link", anything else is extraneous. --MASEM (t) 18:04, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

That's fine and I agree, but do we need these templates at all? Dougweller (talk) 18:21, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Likely no more harmful than ones like {{official}} or the like. If anything, Twitter may be unnecessary since I can't think how that would be an "official site". --MASEM (t) 18:24, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Twitter accounts of celebrities are often verified and thus a very relevant source of info and great site of interest to readers. It's nonsensical to regard all social networking sites utilized by those in the public eye as spam and unnecessary here.►Chris Nelson^Holla! 18:26, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Again, its most likely the celebrity has an official site or even a Facebook that will include the Twitter link. It's not necessary for us to define all social networks that a person may be on, simply one external link where they can learn more, that being the official site. --MASEM (t) 18:29, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I have no problem with the templates, per se, but we need to be very deliberate about killing all external links except the one "Official" website. Wikipedia has no obligation to make it easy for people to "follow" their favorite bands/companies/celebrities/whatevers. Link to the one official website; if the company or band wants people to follow them on Twitter, then the company or band can publish information about Twitter on their own websites. Its not our job to promote these entities. External links for a band should probably not contain more than 2-3 links AT MOST, and most likely should only have a single link, as a matter of common practice. --Jayron32 18:57, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

It's not about promotion - it's about being thorough and facilitating people's access to information. Who cares if the official site may have a link to twitter? By that logic, let's just list Google.com for everyone's external links, because they'll have links to everything else.►Chris Nelson^Holla! 19:03, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

No, its about finding a balance between what is worthwhile content for an encyclopedia and not reducing the quality of our articles which turns them into unreadible lists of trivia "facts" and writing quality prose. Wikipedia is not a linkfarm. Access to a twitter feed provides zero content which is worthwhile for the text of an article. By the logic of my arguement, we link to the official website, period. All else is superfluous. Wikipedia articles are not supposed to be collections of stuff someone might find "useful" or "interesting". They are about making editorial decisions over the quality of text, from the first letter to the last letter, on every article. Having massive, unregulated linkfarms at the end of articles degrades their quality. Insofar as we have to draw the line somewhere, the line should be drawn at one official website, no more. --Jayron32 19:13, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

WP as an encyclopedia is not meant to be thorough, it is meant to be a tertiary, summarizing source. --MASEM (t) 19:17, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Jayron's point about linkfarms is exactly what I'm talking about. It's no wonder that lots of A7 bands say "why can't I have my page?" when many existing band articles (especially the borderline ones) have external link sections that appear to be little more than advertising. The only difference between say, Therion (band) and Some Awful Garage Band is that Therion has some coverage from better sources, but people trying to create new pages see all the advertising links and wonder why they cannot do the same thing for themselves. Again, Therion is a random example. — Timneu22 · talk 20:38, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

If I may. We could argue the symantics of what WP is and isn't supposed to be but the bottom line is that we are not going to get a concensus for completely eliminating these links so we need to plan on how to deal with them accordingly. Wether that is using 1 template for all or separate ones for each. --Kumioko (talk) 19:25, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

The question if we should delete the templates (or not) is different from the question being asked, whether such links should be included. The templates are simple means of having a quick way to format ELs to standard sites in a consistent manner. Just because they allow links to Facebook or Twitter doesn't make them bad. It's whether the links (templated or just bracketed in) are appropriate. If we find that it's never appropriate to include, say, Twitter, then there's no need for the template. On the other hand, if we discourage using Facebook pages when official web sites are available, that doesn't make the template useless. --MASEM (t) 22:40, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

My thoughts:

1. See WP:ELPEREN for the usual arguments.
2. Just because something is not normally a valuable link does not mean that it is never a valuable or appropriate link. For example: Shouldn't we provide a link to a Twitter feed when it is the only WP:ELOFFICIAL link?
3. Any editor who sees a patently inappropriate inclusion of a Twitter link should feel free to remove it. Whingeing here about it is neither necessary nor helpful. Just fix it and move on.
4. No amount of talking here will delete any templates. If you want to waste your time by losing a deletion discussion, then go to WP:TFD and nominate the Twitter template. But you've been warned: At this time, the community isn't going to support deletion, so it will be a waste of your time. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:03, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

In order: Good link, well put, absolutely, damn skippy. --Jayron32 01:21, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

"What purpose does it serve other than to get someone to go and buy something?". Gee, let's see: so people can listen to the music of the band, or watch their music videos, or read their blog, or find their gig listing, or see pictures of them, etc. etc. If all the link does is sell something, it's spam. If it does something more and is operated by the band, it may well be useful. This argument that all social media is spam is simply not true (who sells stuff on Twitter?). Fences&Windows 02:48, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

First, I already said there's not really selling on twitter. But re so people can listen to the music of the band, or watch their music videos, or read their blog, or find their gig listing, or see pictures of them... that's all promotional. A single link to the official site should suffice. Getting a user to watch their video or find a list of gigs... not the purpose of WP. — Timneu22 · talk 13:30, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree that having these templates only exacerbates the situation, as their presense implies that these links are acceptable when in practice only a small minority of them are (as opposed to the IMDB and DMOZ templates where a link there is generally beneficial). The problem with these isn't spam per se, its that they are mostly just unencyclopedic. Twitter links are especially unwelcome as they are volatile and contain little vital information. Myspace can count as an official site in situations where no better one is allowed, but it should be used sparingly. Facebook can be appropriate as an "official" link in articles about Facebook groups/phenomena, etc (but should be avoided in biographies, where most of the links currently reside). ThemFromSpace 03:43, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I was going to say something like that, but you put it better than I could have. I'd also submit that there can be issues with people's Facebook accounts getting hacked and posting things like 419 scams and advertisements to shock sites all over the place (as is what happened to my uncle once), and we really don't want to have links to a person's account when something like that has happened. Basically, I'm with ThemFromSpace here; do MySpace and Facebook when we absolutely must, but only when we absolutely must (and not in biographies), and dump Twitter altogether because it doesn't really add much. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 05:58, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

This is indeed a perennial discussion. Simply: if there is an official site (www.band.com), then all of myspace.com/band, facebook.com/band, twitter.com/band generally become superfluous. We are not a linkfarm, we do not link to all possible external sites of a band (see the often ignored intro of WP:EL). But yes, for some bands the myspace is the official site, and there may even be bands who have as only official site the twitter (one can then argue, what does the twitter actually tell about the band, and do we really need this external link - see again the often ignored intro of WP:EL, stating that not having an external link is not a reason to add it, and that it still needs to add something that the Wikipedia page can't tell - I do not think that WP:ELOFFICIAL will trump that).

XLinkBot reverts (non-templated) myspace links - Quite some time ago I checked 30 consecutive removals by XLinkBot. IIRC, about 19 were plainly violations (not working, not remotely related to the subject, plain spam, placed on disambig pages, placed on page with same name but about completely different subject, inappropriate per WP:MOS, or random additions), the other ones were often not directly linked to the subject (as in, on the page of the band, myspace pages of the members of the band were added - in some cases the members were notable enough for own Wikipedia pages, where the myspace would have been more proper, or actually fansites, etc.). In the end, there was one sure left, where I personally would not have reverted, the page contained one external link to the official band-page, and the addition was of one second link, the myspace. That one is arguably not a violation of WP:EL, but one could call it superfluous, and 4-5 little 'maybes'.

Regarding Twitter specifically - In one earlier discussion the twitter of Britney Spears was discussed. When I at that moment went to that feed, I was kindly informed that Britney just told her father via Twitter that she was coming home to eat his birthday cake - now WHAT exactly do twitter feeds ADD to Wikipedia pages if the information is volatile, non-encyclopaedic, etc. (not saying that it is never encyclopaedic, but the chances are IMHO very small).

In short, if there is an official link, remove all the rest (except if e.g. the myspace is giving significant MORE info than the official homepage which can not be included in the Wikipedia page - which will be extremely rare). If MySpace is the official one, then the rest can go and MySpace stays. One can strictly apply WP:EL, WP:NOT#REPOSITORY and WP:NOT#DIRECTORY to these links. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:34, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't see the need for any MySpace/Facebook/Twitter ELs at all, they pop up in searches almost as easily as Wikipedia. They are also popular sites and if you love the band so much, you'll find their blog. But I agree, in the meantime and without a larger consensus, the best thing is to just have one official EL.--NortyNort (Holla) 10:25, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Here's my rule of thumb. If a band's primary website is Myspace, Facebook or Twitter, they most likely are not a notable band. Every notable band I can think of has a specific, unique domain as their primary website. I am sure there are a few exceptions, but I don't know of them. So, if the band's official site is via Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, or the like, the links should be removed from the article. However, if the Myspace, Facebook, Twitter sites are secondary or supplementary *and* official (such as The Beatles official site on Facebook), then the external links should remain. As for using these sites as references, I would only use press release information posted on these sites that cannot be found elsewhere. Most of what would be posted at the Beatles' facebook page would count as a primary source, and primary sources are not to be used in articles. Kingturtle = (talk) 18:50, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

This is unfortunately completely incorrect. I have noted with great chagrin a growing tendency for notable artists to make, at best, a placeholder website which says "See our MySpace", with absolutely zero website content. Others simply have no other website but a social network site. It's dreadful, and while these bands are not in the majority, it seems to be a new reality. Sure, it can be a sign to check to see if the band are nobodies, but to proceed like it's a rule is completely flawed. It's also pretty biased to assume you are a reasonable arbiter of what is or is not an acceptable official medium. If the link is useful and official, leave it. To those who think that links are "spam" need to remember that some people add them to be helpful and informative, not to spam other readers, and that some readers come here for information you may not find interesting. - BalthCat (talk) 23:35, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Could there be some clarification on acceptable uses of external links in the body? This guideline reads, "they should not normally be used in the body of an article." However, no examples of valid cases are given, making it difficult to resolve disputes, such as this. – VisionHolder « talk » 20:22, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

And this. This debate has being going on for a while (starting here) and it's getting a little ugly. Both articles are lists of web videos, and initially featured direct links to external websites (like Youtube) where the links could be watched. These links were small and unintrusive - for example, episode six of the Nostalgia Critic was linked like this: (6) - it was not a bare URL.

Essentially, those against the links are quoting the external links policy, while those for the links argue that it's a list of episodes (i.e. not a "normal" article) and removing them makes the page less useful. Those against the links argue that Wikipedia isn't about usefulness, it's about being encyclopedic. Without wanting to give my position on the debate away... those for the links think this is a rather odd argument to make... 60.226.67.88 (talk) 05:33, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Stand-alone lists are Wikipedia articles. duffbeerforme (talk) 11:47, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Really? Gosh, I'm so glad you're here to tell us these things. Seriously though, I realise that every page on Wikpedia is an "article", Duffers, but to Joe Public a "list" article is not a normal, encyclopedic article (i.e. it's not the kind of thing that you'd see in a paper encyclopedia). I did put normal in brackets, you know... 60.226.67.88 (talk) 08:28, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Not true: This page, for example is in Wikipedia but not an "article". More pointfully, disambiguation pages and redirects are in the main namespace, but are not considered articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:44, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

It seems to a bit of an artificial question, since you can always use footnotes/inline citations for those external links. This way you can keep the links (assuming they do indeed source/confirm article content at all) but you don't have them in the article's text body.

As far as the video nerd game thing is concerned that seems to be a bit tricky. You certainly could argue that an exception from the general rule is acceptable here, because those links are clearly useful/beneficial to readers and I don't really see a conflict to being encyclopedic. The list doesn't become more or less encyclopedic in dependence of those links. So far so good. There might be however a potential issue with such links from the perspective of the bigger picture. While you can argue those links are acceptable in the list of angry video nerd episodes, they would have been unacceptable in the angry video nerd article itsself. So there might be some "smart spamming" ahead by simply creating lists in wikipedia and using them as a backdoor for having linkfarms.--Kmhkmh (talk) 05:54, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

On the video nerd game thing, it's not just the policy of external links, it also goes against Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not, specifically Wikipedia is not a mirror or a repository of links, images, or media files and Wikipedia is not a directory. And I disagree that their is no conflict to being encyclopedic. It makes it more a fan site and directory and less an encyclopedia page. duffbeerforme (talk) 11:47, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

It depends how you read those. You can argue they are not really violated. For example yes we don't want link farms, but an article containing a lot of links is not automatically a link farm. For instance you might think of a long article which primarily using sources that are available online (inline citations), such an article might contain a rather large number of links, but it is obviously no link farm. So it depends on the purpose those links serve. Now in the case in question, you could argue, that those video links can be seen as links to primary sources (i.e. the original episodes) and hence they are not seen as a link farm. Furthermore there is nothing unecyclopedic with providing references or links to (primary) sources of articles subject. In articles on cultural subjects, we of course provide links to an online copy of the subject provided it's legal. If you wrote an article about a book, a movie, a painting, a sculpture then of course you would provide links to free online copies of the book, movie, painting sculpture, etc.--Kmhkmh (talk) 14:29, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

There already is some clarification in the guideline. Did you read the first footnote?

In the specific example, the Gibson book should either be a properly formatted citation (a WP:PRIMARY source for the fact that such a book exists) or a properly formatted external link in the proper section.

Lists are a special case. It would be silly to have a list of fifty items followed by a separate list labeled ==External links== that repeats all fifty items, but this time with fifty external links, just so we can say that all the external links were corralled in the "correct" section. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:19, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

I'd suggest we hold off on the debate on this page until it's resolved on The Angry Video Game Nerd's Discussion Page. It seems silly to have (essentially) the same argument on two pages. I brought this to the attention of this page because things were getting a little ugly on the Nerd's page, but things seemed to have cooled down there and they're asking for comments/votes. 60.226.67.88 (talk) 08:28, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Discussion of changes to this content guideline or whether a pattern of linking conforms to this guideline needs to occur here, not on a project's talk page. -- Donald Albury 14:40, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, by all means, continue the discussion. I would never dream of ordering people around. It's just that I brought the debate here so we could get a neutral point of view on the subject, but now that people who have strong feelings on the debate (particuarly duffbeerforme) have weighed in, we're just repeating ourselves. I just thought once the discussion on The Nerd's page was over we could use it as a precedent when discussing when ELs are appropriate in the body. Again, I would never dream of ordering people around, but perhaps this debate should stick to a general discussion on when an EL is appropriate in the body? In other words, let's try not to discuss The Nerd's page in particular? 60.226.67.88 (talk) 22:49, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

I would think that List of The Angry Video Game Nerd episodes is good example of how not to add external links, none of the links in that article are appropriate for the article body. The exception is for things like Template:New York Stock Exchange certainly not for adding links to youtube videos. Refer to note 1 on the EL page. MilborneOne (talk) 23:04, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

I totally agree with MilborneOne. Johnuniq (talk) 23:29, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Well if the main (only?) issue is the article body and and article body links should be internal, then he could put the links to the episodes in footnotes to resolve that.--Kmhkmh (talk) 20:56, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

URLs that do not support article content should not be placed with the citations that do. For example, if the sentence says "Apple, Inc. said today that...", then putting http://apple.com in the citations is always wrong. (A link to a press release in which they say "that" would be correct.)

Lists are sometimes awkward for citations. Personally, if I were worried about it, I'd go find a friend at WP:FL and ask for advice. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:05, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

yes but we have here the analogon to a the press release links. If i'm not mistaken the links point to the original episodes on youtube. Not you generic website or video for the show itself.--Kmhkmh (talk) 00:04, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

I think there should be mention somewhere, or at least a link to Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(self-references_to_avoid), specifically WP:CLICKHERE, but I'm not sure where or how best to integrate it. When linking to external sites it's important that users don't use phrases like "click here". -- œ^™ 01:06, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Where is easy: The answer is WP:EL#How_to_link.

How to phrase it is harder. Perhaps someone would like to make a bold effort. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:10, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Boldly attempted with the edit shown in this link. :) --RL0919 (talk) 00:27, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

The case in point is Allison Iraheta. The official website per the article is http://www.allisoniraheta.com/. As of today, that redirects to her Facebook page, facebook.com/AllisonIraheta.

Should the infobox and External links sections still show the AllisonIraheta.com domain, or should they be changed to the Facebook page? —C.Fred (talk) 22:32, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

I would change both links to www.allisoniraheta.com (lowercase)—the EL link is different. That official page currently redirects to FaceBook, but that is not our concern. For one thing, by using the official link we are removing any confusion concerning whether it is our opinion that FB is the official page. Also, it may change in the future and again that is not our problem. Johnuniq (talk) 00:47, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Officially we should never be using redirect sites. Link to the facebook site itself. If the owner (who hopefully is the subject of the page ..) of the redirect domainname decides to change the redirect to something else, this link may not be working anymore or not be what it says it is. And when the subject decides to set up the official site then it can be added at that time. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:07, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

The section heading for what we briefly call ELYES ("What should be linked") seems to have confused an editor into thinking that it is "ELALWAYS" (which does not exist).

I propose changing the section heading to be more accurate: "What should normally be linked".

This makes it appropriately parallel with ELNO, and indicates that there are exceptions to each of the three of the ELYES items, such as:

1. ELOFFICIAL links cannot be linked if they're blacklisted (without whitelisting). We do not link to dozens of websites, even if they are all official websites (e.g., [5]).
2. Links to books or music scores are desirable, but ELNEVER's copyright restriction trumps this, and so does the 'no links to Amazon' ELNO rule.
3. Interview transcripts are great—but the mere fact that such a transcript exists does not oblige us to link to it. Imagine trying to link to every interview transcript for a recent US president, or every relevant mathematics textbook. Baseball articles benefit from links to serious statistics—but not a link to every single baseball stats site in the world. Ditto for movie credits.

Does anyone object? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:06, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

What can normally be linked would seem to be better fit if the issue is they think it means always.陣内_Jinnai 21:42, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

• I have no objection. The reasoning is sound (as there's always exceptions to a rule) and the phrasing sums that up nicely. oknazevad (talk) 22:10, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

 Done I took Jinnai's wording, which I thought better than my suggestion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:45, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

I would fix it, but I'm not quite sure where it should go... but it's redir'd to Media richness theory. First sentence in section 4.6 Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by CutOffTies (talk • contribs) 14:26, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Edokter fixed it. Thank you for letting us know about the problem. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:07, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

I was wondering whether there is now a blanket ban on YouTube links, since User:XLinkBot reverts the addition of Youtube links automatically. If so, I strongly oppose this. There are a large number of people/events who draw their notability from Youtube videos (both by them or about them), like Antoine Dodson, Ted Williams, or Asmaa Mahfouz. These articles have to have the links to their respective Youtube clips in the "external links" section. A bot automatically reverting the addition of these videos is not helpful. --bender235 (talk) 13:28, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

No there is not a ban on YT links - but that said the average link that is added by editors to WP from YouTube fails WP:EL for relevancy or being a straight-up copyvio. If you believe the link is not one of these, and XLinkBot reverts the addition, you can undo it and XLinkBot will not do anything else. But be aware: many videos from which YT personalities have been derived are copyvios and we should not be linking to them; we can link to other sites or articles that subsequently link to them (it's not skin off our back) or better yet use those articles as references in the work. --MASEM (t) 13:45, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

The following are previous discussions and a summary which may help in understanding the background:

• Wikipedia talk:External links/YouTube
• Wikipedia talk:External links/YouTube 2
• Wikipedia talk:External links/YouTube 3

• Conclusion at EL Perennials
  ⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 13:56, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

It might be worthwhile to notice (in particular for bot operators), that while there are still a lot of copyvio and other unwanted or unsuitable material on youtube, there is also in increasing amount of legal and suitable material on youtube. This mainly due to the fact tham various news agency and TV broadcasters have started to maintain their own public youtube channels over the recent years. A similar trend can be seen with many artists/musicians providing samples of their won work on youtube. also a lot educational material is uploaded from universities and various institutes. All those cases provoded suitable links for WP either as references or as external links or even in a separate video dodument section if one exists. So while in the early years much of the youtibe material had not suitable for WP, there was a shift in recent years towards more suitable material.--Kmhkmh (talk) 14:03, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, Kmhkmh, we know. By far the most of the material on YouTube is not a copyvio, that is absolutely true. Then added, there are an increasing number of official uploaders, which makes these video's even reliable sources! However, YouTube video's still are very, very often unsuitable as an external link. That, say, the BBC uploads a news item themselves does not necessarily mean that we have to link to it in external links sections. We are not a linkfarm (use it as a reference, see intro WP:EL). Added to that, much of the info that is linked, is often indirectly related to the subject, or superfluous as the info is already in the article. Then still, one needs to install software for it, it is NOT accessible to a large number of readers, and it still requires reasonable bandwidth to be really useful. That are a LOT of WP:ELNO things (not to mention the intro and WP:NOT#DIRECTORY/WP:NOT#REPOSITORY. True, there will be mistakes by bots reverting YouTube (but that is true for any process .. even for human editors removing links), but XLinkBot is extremely soft and friendly, one can always revert the bot (as suggested by it), etc. etc. But seen that quite some reverts are reversions of copyvio material, inappropriate video's, even plain spam (yes, one can earn money on YouTube), and hey, then the other WP:ELNO things, I still believe that the mistakes by bots will be very, very occasional. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:48, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Well we never have to link to anything (other than an official website maybe) and nobody suggested something like that. The topic of the discussion is a "blanket ban on youtube link" and the point here is imho that we have to link to suitable youtube videos (of course not) but that (yes) we can :-). Whether we actually do or not is up to the authors writing the article.--Kmhkmh (talk) 20:20, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

I would disagree with the claim that By far the most of the material on YouTube is not a copyvio, that is absolutely true." but otherwise agree with your statements. DreamGuy (talk) 19:21, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

I guess most of the material is private video's uploaded by the creator .. movies of grandma's birthday, the first bicycle ride of the daughter, babies doing their first steps, you name it .. all perfectly non-copyvio .. and all perfectly totally unsuitable as an external link too. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:32, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

YouTube links can be used perfectly well and consensus on various noticeboards, articles, and policy pages means that the community agrees (I wrote an essay: WP:VIDEOLINK). The bot is being misused and needs to be shut off until it functions in accordance with the community's wishes. I do not see how it could be possible to code it in a way that lets the acceptable ones stay but might be something to test out.Cptnono (talk) 19:15, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Your claims about a pro-You Tube consensus are simply not true. You can write an essay all you want, but official policy trumps your own personal opinions. It is very rare for any YouTube link to pass our copyright policies or External link policies. DreamGuy (talk) 19:21, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Actually it is not "rae" unless you talk about the percentage of suitable youtube video compared to the total amount of youtube videos. That would be correct but it is entirely pointless statement. I mean you wouldn't argue we shouldn't reference books just because the majority of books us not suitable. As I understand it the current consensus is a decision on a case by case basis. This means we shouldn't frantically add masses of youtube links just because we can, however we shouldn't have bots routinely removing arbitrary youtube links either (at least not without a close supervision and/or a case by case inspection).--Kmhkmh (talk) 20:29, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Consensus trumping WP:EL? YouTube needs software installed, YouTube is inaccessible to quite a number of readers .. etc. I think I clearly stated that there ARE good YouTube links, but that they are rare. A LOT of it is unsuitable for linking. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:23, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Well they re not rare (see above).--Kmhkmh (talk) 20:30, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Reading the essay - I think that sums up pretty much why YouTube is hardly ever suitable, and hence, under a strict set of conditions, reverted automatically by XLinkBot. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:26, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Actually what criteria for youtube links does the XLinkbot currently use?--Kmhkmh (talk) 20:38, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

If it's a youtube link, it removes it, but does not attempt to remove it again if its change is reverted. --MASEM (t) 20:43, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

There is no additional criteria. It just removes any youtube link in the external links section of any article?--Kmhkmh (talk) 21:37, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

We know there is not a blanket ban on youtube videos. However, XLinkBot operates by community consensus because it is rarely wrong, and because it leaves a polite and informative message on the reverted user's talk page which includes "If you were trying to insert an external link that does comply with our policies and guidelines, then please accept my creator's apologies and feel free to undo the bot's revert." I have taken an interest in checking external links for quite some time and I frequently find that XLinkBot has correctly reverted a link addition by an unconfirmed user before any human had to worry about it. In an ideal world, no one would ever be reverted without deep thought and possibly a discussion, but in practice it would not be productive to have a bot flag hundreds of edits for human inspection, and then have pointless human activity. The real advantage of XLinkBot is that by reverting a user, a small problem (dubious links added to a couple of articles) does not become a large problem (dubious links added to tens or even hundreds of articles). That is because the new user who is adding the links is quickly informed that their edits are being noticed, and that there are guidelines covering what is reasonable. Yes, it would be possible to find errors that XLinkBot has made—however one can peruse ANI, for example, and find many much more serious cases where misguided editors have bitten lots of new users: problems cannot be totally avoided. Johnuniq (talk) 00:41, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't necessarily object against using XLinkBot for removing (mostly) unwanted youtube links, but i still fail to understand how it works in detail. How does an article or a user edit get selected for a youtube removal?--Kmhkmh (talk) 02:01, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

XLinkBot only pays attention to IPs and brand-new editors (first ten edits to accounts less than four days old). So every person in this discussion can easily add YouTube links all day long, but if a total newbie does it, XLinkBot reverts it (once). It's a simple WP:UNDO action, so it takes away the whole edit, not merely the link. It does not edit war, ever, so if you revert it—even if you're a newbie—it lets the link stay (unless and until a human removes it).

XLinkBot is always playing the odds. The odds are very high that links to YouTube, groups.yahoo.com, *.blogspot, etc., when added by a newbie are inappropriate. Several people have gone through its contributions to verify its accuracy, and typically report that >95% of what it reverts probably needed to be reverted. You can have a look yourself if you want. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:56, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the info, that seems an overall reasonable bot behaviour.--Kmhkmh (talk) 14:16, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

I had a look myself yesterday, and found indeed that most of the YouTube links added and removed by XLinkBot were questionable to say the least. Kmhkmh, don't be mistaken, although there are good YouTube external links out there, they are still discouraged as external links - links which contain data which is inaccessible to many users, links which need special software installed, links which are needing considerable bandwidth to be really useful are simply discourage, and YouTube is in that category. Moreover, much of the links that I see added are maybe on topic, non-copyvio, but still not adding anything (but turning Wikipedia into a linkfarm). We do not have to link to all youtube videos out there (especially since they are so strongly discouraged).

Now looking at new editors / IP editors (which are not specifically whitelisted) - they are in good faith sometimes adding a youtube link, but they are often not aware that they are strongly discouraged, and that some are even 'forbidden'.

XLinkBot operates under a strict set of rules - it does not revert to itself, it does keep a very strict 3RR on a page, it leaves on a first revert a remark (and 'forgets' a user after 4 hours ..), goes through the whole set of warnings (where the first two are also good faith remarks!), and in the end it may report a user but then that is still under review. Then it does not revert references (except when a rule is specifically for references), only new users, etc. etc. I don't think it makes too many fatal mistakes on links which are, strongly, discouraged anyway. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:04, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

No i don't see suitable links as "strongly discouraged" and there needs to be a clear distinction between suitable links and the unapproptiate behaviour of IPs or new users. You cannot use the latter as bogeyman to discourage the former and you can't use the former to excuse the latter. Btw iff the Xlinkbot works as described above, I have no issues with that, that a sensible measure to avoid overlinking and unwanted youtube links.

If you write an article about a song or piece of music and there a legal copy available on commons, youtube, archive.org, then of course you can (and imho even should) link it. If write a biography of some person and he's given somewhere an extensive (video) interview, then of course you can link to that. If there is is extensive documentary feature available on the subject of some article, then you might link that as well. If write an article on an film, that happens to be (legally) available online (like Star Wreck) then of course you can (and should) provide a link (in this case it might of often coincide with the "official website" anyhow). .....

The argument that youtube links require special software rings a bit hollow to me since it applies to other things we regularly link as well (like pdf files, various content in commons, official websites designed using rich content, archive.org) more over these days most browser installations can handle youtube videos.

And even the bandwidth is not much of an argument as you don't have to click on a link if you have a low bandwidth connection (contrary to overly long WP articles, the reader actually has a choice there). Not every link needs to useful to every single reader and I don't see why a youtube link would really bother a reader with low bandwidth. I would be a different thing, if the link wouldn't work for the majority of our readers, but i don't see that being the case with youtube.

Adding an individual suitable link does not turn an article into a link farm. Sometimes this argument sounds almost like phobia to me ("let's better not a(ny) link, because someday the article might turn into a link farm").

--Kmhkmh (talk) 15:02, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

The general point is that the link has to be generally suitable for readers to access and to get more info from. Pdf files, YouTube video's, pages that are only contain rich content (and are useless without - e.g. if they do not have a plain html version) are pages which are discouraged by WP:EL because they do need extra software (and for YouTube, 2 years ago it was installed on over 98% of the computers, but with some of the new devices I heard that some can not access YouTube because the plugins are not available). Similarly, huge files should have similar constraints (or it should at least be mentioned clearly). They are of less use to a large part of the world.

Note, the word is 'discouraged' - not forbidden. But if a youtube video does not significantly add to the article, don't add it .. if the youtube video is link number 25 .. don't add it. There is no need to link to it just because it is available. It is not that I want to forbid to link to YouTube, just that I think that the level of content on YouTube should be higher than e.g. a plain text website, because there are additional concerns.

As to linkfarming, the problem is a 'spam event horizon' - there are 15 links, so there come number 16, 17, 18 ... Sure, the first well chosen links are fine, but when the less well chosen links come in, or start, it sometimes goes fast.

Another note .. some youtube video's are spam - YouTube does have affiliate programs where people earn money when video's get seen.

My main reaction is against the suggestion that XLinkBot applies a blanket ban on YouTube video's. That is certainly not the case. I was asked yesterday how many external links there are added on en.wikipedia in a day. On the 9th of Februari that were 26,192 links. That is a lot to check manually, and unfortunately a lot of it is spam .. but certainly not the biggest part. I did now another quick count .. of that 26,192 recorded link additions (which do not include link additions via templates!) there were 304 to youtube.com (>1%!). 17% of all link-addition-edits is by IPs .. that is about 55 links. If I find in 10 reverts one very likely copyvio, and the others were not too appropriate either, then that makes one think (and that is only YouTube ..). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:12, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Nobody suggested that XLinkbot performs a blanked ban. People tried to understand what the bot actually does. Which is now clear, I assume (as well as the original question whether there is such a thing as blanked ban on youtube). As far as I can see there are no objections against XLinkbots current behaviour.

As far there link spam is concerned nobody suggested the scenario you are discussing. The article that triggered this discussion had 0 weblinks. The scenario I was talking about above was about adding an well chosen individual link to an article with no links or at least a low number (single digit)

Discouraging the individual suitable links is currently in formally stated WP:ELNO. However imho it does not really reflect current practice nor the results of previous discussions (being rather neutral than discouraging). It is (like links to be avoided #1) an (intentional) overstatement, that only works because in practice it is often not applied literally and used with great restraint only (i.e. usually not for suitable links)

--Kmhkmh (talk) 19:06, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Youtube & XLinkbot

Somebody has requested for XLinkbot to be shutoff due to this discussion which is worthy of notice here.

Quite frankly, if the videos aren't copyrighted then let users (attempt to) download the videos and upload them to the Internet archive. We happily link to compliant videos over there. If the video link is embedded and unobtainable then it falls outside of what we want for our readers in the first place...full accessibility and non-commercial interests. No hoops to jump through.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 01:09, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

I can't speak for all of them but I know that the FedFlix WikiProject is uploading freely distributable video content because the Wikimedia servers are limited to 100MB and Youtube does not have that limitation. I also disagree somewhat that Youtube by default is unsuitable for an External link. I think it should be limited and certainly not with Copyvio but I can see occassions were it could be beneficial. --Kumioko (talk) 01:13, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Also being legally available online is not necessarily mean there's no copyright at all, i.e. a transfer to archive.org or similar is not necessarily possible. In any case it requires additional work and expertise we can't necessarily expect from editors/readers.

I'm fine (in fact I support) in favouring archive.org, fedflix and other non commercial video repositories over youtube, so anybody is welcome to replace a youtube link by an archive.org/fedflix/commons link if the material was uploaded there, but remove a legal and useful link without replacement is an entirely different story, which i strongly oppose.

As far as the bot is concerned as long as it only perfoms one time (not repeated) deletions of youtube links added by IPs or new users, I'd see that as a not perfect but for the time being arguable measure - at least as long as the youtube links added by those 2 groups have a fairly high amount of unsuited links.--Kmhkmh (talk) 02:03, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

If you are ok with Fedflix then we need to at least allow for Youtube links because many of the files that Fedflix is uploading are being added to Youtube because they are too large for the other venues. Additionally more and more government agencies are adding Freely distributable content to Youtube for various reasons so if we completely eliminate youtube then we tell fedflix and the others not thanks were not interested. I do think the linking should be limited but not completely eliminated and disallowed. --Kumioko (talk) 02:07, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

But Kumioko, established users can add YouTube links and XLinkbot won't (shouldn't) revert them, right?. XLinkbot is only reverting IPs and new users under the pretense that those users are not familiar with our policies (which is true 90%+ of the time by my guestimation). This isn't about a complete ban on YouTube links...and shutting off the bot would only allow those IPs and new, unestablished users to add them.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 03:07, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, I agree the bot in general is doing an appropriate job. However, I think we could probably look into making it better by seeing if their are any particular patterns that are (correctly) reverted as being appropriate ELs and have the bot ignore those.陣内_Jinnai 03:18, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree, if the bot in the future employs that some rudimenatry "ai" or pattern matching to leave links youtube links alone, that have ahigh likely hood of being suitable, then that will be a welcome improvement for sure.--Kmhkmh (talk) 03:29, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

@Kumioko: For the bot see Berean Hunter's answer (it's just a measure to keep the spamming of unsuitable youtibe links at bay). As far as I'm concerned I'm not just fine with fedflix but any suitable (and legal) youtube link, that icludes various news agencies, tv broadcasters, institutes and universities as well as artists uploading their stuff to youtube. The guideline allows such links anyway, though formally it is still discouraging them (based on a imho somewhat outdated "html only" & bandwidth argument). For details on that see the discussion in the sections above as (including the links to older discussions in the archive). The overall message is, that if you arre working on an article and you have a suitable and legal link you want to include, just do it (the bot won't interfere there and most likely no ther editors either).--Kmhkmh (talk) 03:25, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification but I am not sure that's true about the bot. I rarely use Youtube links but in my experience the bot will quickly eliminate the link if left so I don't bother anymore. --Kumioko (talk) 03:28, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing describes it in the thread above in better detail. If it is reverting established users, that is news to me. If somebody has diffs to that effect, I'd like to see them.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 03:45, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

We know the bot does not revert all youtube links because that is the way it is designed (see User:XLinkBot), and LinkSearch shows there are well over 10,000 links to youtube (the first 5000 are here). In addition to raw links, there are 5000 pages using {{Youtube}}. Johnuniq (talk) 02:51, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

I find the post quite .. insulting, to be honest. I have said already that shutting the bot down is overkill, and that I would like to see how many of the reverts of YouTube by XLinkBot actually were bad reverts. Of a small subset I did quickly (about 10 reverts) I found at least 2 copyvio's, and what I saw more was mainly not really suitable as well (maybe one). I don't feel like repeating all the problems there are with YouTube videos being linked (of which copyvio is only one, and certainly not the most often occuring one) - simply, YouTube and other video sources are discouraged for a number of reasons and I think that it is good that new users are notified of those 'restrictions'. If you think they should be lifted, get a change of WP:ELNO for the rules covering it. And then there are all the saveguards that are implemented in the bot (and if some should be more lenient, then show me the problem and we can change it). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:26, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Oh, come on, now. Most major newspapers or magazines are not going to give you their archived stories for free these days. As long as you provide the complete source so a person can trundle down to the public library and look at a paper copy — oh, sorry, microfilm copy — there is nothing wrong with citing a source requiring registration. It makes as much sense as citing a book or a magazine for which one has to pay to see a copy. Even an interlibrary loan is going to result in shipping charges — if the book or magazine is available at all. Many serious researchers already have a subscription to http://www.highbeam.com/ or http://www.footnote.com/, and if they don't they can ask a librarian to get the info for them — provided they have a complete and thorough reference. There are even templates to use to warn people about individual cites — like Library card required and Subscription required. The Internet world is moving on, and this section should be scrapped. Sincerely, a friend to all, GeorgeLouis (talk) 21:37, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that is why the section starts with 'Outside of citations'. If something is behind a pay wall, you can cite it as a source but should not put it in the external links section. That seems reasonable to me. - MrOllie (talk) 21:44, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

(Sheepish grin.) Yes, I realize that now, although it took me a while to read the footnote at the bottom of the page. Sorry. May I buy you a cuppa tea? GeorgeLouis (talk) 23:31, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

This particular page is solely for discussing improvements to the written WP:External links guideline itself.

To discuss ==External links== to individual websites, please go to Wikipedia:External links/Noticeboard. To discuss the use of individual websites as citations, go to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:55, 7 March 2011 (UTC)