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Blogs by bio subjects

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

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

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

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

This was discussed recently Wikipedia_talk:External_links/Archive_16#EL_to_be_reliable_sources:_Possible.3F. Agreement was reached on exactly this point. jbolden1517 04:00, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually, if you do a search on this talk page for the word "blog" you will see over and over and over again people saying that such links are not appropriate. In fact the section you linked to above does not seem to give the agreement in the language you used that you claim it does. Singling out a blog in the example given (an example that was added just recently and did not have broad support, I might add) gives entirely the wrong idea to people reading it. The sentence makes far more sense on it's own without an example that goes against general practice and is misleading without more information than what the example is giving. You can't cook up some new sentence to toss in their and get it all unclear and vague and expect it to stay as is. The whole point behind these guidelines is to be more clear, not less. DreamGuy 06:43, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

DreamGuy, which policy says that a blog written by the subject would fail to meet the standard as a reliable source for that subject's bio? SlimVirgin 06:56, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

What is unclear about that 2nd sentence> It lists a specific example of a situation where an unreliable source is highly knowledgeable. That is the two concepts aren't synonymous. Another example I gave (but that did not receive agreement, even though these are commonly linked to without controversy) is statements made by one of the parties in a legal dispute. Off the top of their head several people couldn't think of examples where the first clause applied jbolden1517 11:33, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

The passage was added without any sort of consensus and just flat out makes no sense, particularly the incomprehensible second sentence. We link to official sites, so the example is at best redundant. 2005 23:57, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd say that a subject's blog or other self-published website would be a form of official website. Further, a blog is considered a reliable source for the viewpoints, etc., of the blog writer. I don't see why we'd want to prohibit linking to them, even if we wouldn't use them as reliable sources for general information. -Will Beback ·:· 00:22, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Who is saying prohibit? It's that we do not encourage it above and in addition to their main website, and if we link to their main website there's no need to ALSO link to the blog, because presumably their website links to their blog. This is pretty basic External links policy concept here, I don't understand why people can't follow it. DreamGuy 12:49, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Since I noticed another attempt at reverting this is now 6 editors that have agreed with this point. Using blog is important since it clarifies that knowledgeable sources even if not reliable sources qualify for ELs but not RS regardless of format. jbolden1517 01:28, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

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

1. Calm down. Yelling and insulting does not assist in discussion
2. Multiple people are reverting you and multiple people are and have agreed. That is the definition of consensus. You are the only one disagreeing.
3. I don't find it credible that 2005, Jossi, Slimvirgin and Saban don't understand the argument being made. I've been very clear in the intent.
4. Stop confusing the issue of the phrasing with the topic. You are attempting to change the meaning (from blog to official website). If you would like to suggest an alternate grammar on the talk page that doesn't change meaning feel free. jbolden1517 13:21, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

1. Listen, if you want to have a conversation, have BEFORE YOU FREAKING ADD SOMETHING TO THE PAGE WITHOUT CONSENSUS. Don't go continually shoving your nonsense into what is supposed to represent the broad consensus of all of Misplaced Pages and then say you want to assist in conversation.
2. A consensus on a page like this is not "oh, we added something completely new and four people (out of all of Misplaced Pages) reverted it" when those reverts were not all on this same topic and showed confusion about the purpose of the section. Furthermore it is a lie to say I am the only one disagreeing, as 2005 above outright tells you you are out of procss.
3. First off, 2005 does not agree with you. Second, SlimVirgin doesn't apparently care about consensus at all from her changes to the page which have all been reverted. It's clear that people are reverting based upon the idea that we *can* link to a blog as a general principle (if, say, that's what counts as their main web site) and not on whether the ONE example we pick should specifically choose blog over many other examples we could choose.
4. And don't tell me if *I* would like to suggest alternate grammar to do so on the talk page when you never got approval from the talk page to put your version in in the first place. If you insist on talk page before a change, then we take that line out completely and then only put it up when the wording is fixed. If you insist you can put it there without discussion then I can change it to a version more in line with actual policy and one that does not confuse people without discussion. Make up your mind, because your complaints here are hypocritical. DreamGuy 13:39, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

And as far as the calm thing goes, I'm sorry, but making changes out of nowhere to a main project page of this importance without proper discusson first and then blind reverting all changes to it to your preferred version and making smarmy comments about wanting discussion while you've done your level best to ignore all of it pissing me off, as it should to anyone who cares about the integrity of this project. DreamGuy 13:42, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

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

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

And in the previous discussion 2005 himself even gave another good example of a biased but knowledgeable source (and one I wouldn't mind putting in as a second example) -- the Reagan library regarding an article on Reagan. So stop with the personal attacks, stop with the reverting. And start making a clear calm argument why you believe the one passage is better than the other. jbolden1517 14:08, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

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

Objections

I'd like those people objecting to the original example to suggest others. The purpose of the blog example was always to assert that ELs do not have to meet RS requirements. We could split this off into another whole point with respect to form vs. bias but something needs to be said about form. jbolden1517 01:42, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to see some reason why we should even consider changing this. The onus is not on those who object to encouraging adding blog links, the onus is on those who wish to change the guideline to make a case. Ipso facto, the old version is the consensus version, until and unless those who wish to make a change gain consensus for that change, and only then does the new phrasing become consensus. You are proceeding as though the change were the default action, and that's backwards. KillerChihuahua 19:31, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

The old version is the version with the blogs. The version with the example removed is the new version. It seems backwards because your history is backwards. jbolden1517 20:18, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

You know that is not true. You added this passage recently without any semblence of consensus. Additionally, no one has supported the wording besides yourself. As KillerChihuahua said, the onus is on you to present a reason why we should use the redundant phrasing you seem locked into. I don't see it ever getting a consensus because its not a good precendent to repeat the same information over and over in the guideline. Official things can be linked to. That is what the guideline says already. We don't need to say it again, and should not because that only makes it bloated and confusing, as in "Oh, you don't really mean stuff the first time." 2005 00:04, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I really wish you and dreamguy would start being civil and stop with the claims of dishonesty. Just to prove you are mistaken (notice I didn't say lying I'm AGFing) here is my first posts on WP:EL (main not talk) . You'll notice the comment about the blog was included. Now I think an apology is in order. jbolden1517 00:14, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Well I'm looking forward to your apology. As the edit clearly shows this text was added less than two weeks ago!! You statements to the contrary were not true. Please in the future take more care to not disparage other editors when you clearly know you are in the wrong. That new text was added without consensus and has no consensus. Your repeated reversions and additions of this text were inappropriate, and your personal comments about other editors completely out line. Now please focus on the issue at hand. You want to add redundant text to the guideline which you have not even made an argument as to why. Please try to achieve a consensus in a civil fashion to add this text, though as I said I can't imagine why people would want to add it since it merely repeats something stated in the guideline previously. 2005 01:43, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

2005 cite a diff with a personal attack by me. jbolden1517 03:12, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

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

Linking to sites which require registration

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

Yes, references are exempt from that rule. I've tried making this explicit in policy before, but last time it was reverted by a person claiming that it was obvious and didn't need to be pointed out. --tjstrf talk 08:25, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. I felt it was obvious that refs should be exempt, but the wording of the guideline seemed to contradict that. ElinorD (talk) 08:40, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Discussion seems to have established that references are entirely excempt from the provisions of this guideline, something that the guideline would do well to mention: it applies to supplementary non-reference links only. References are still subject to policy, however, and other guidelines may apply. Notinasnaid 08:45, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

The guideline does already say at the end of the lead paragraph The subject of this guideline is external links that are not citations of article sources. Is this sentence unclear or does it just get overlooked when people are focusing on a particular clause? -- Siobhan Hansa 14:59, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

It is very unclear what the topic of Misplaced Pages:External links is about. The nutshell and the intro to the article need to make clear the difference between external links and citation/reference links. It is confusing because[REDACTED] uses a different meaning for external links, than the normal meaning. Normally, any link with "http://" in it is an external link. From that point of view even internal[REDACTED] links could be looked upon as external links by "civilians". Versus veteran[REDACTED] editors. --Timeshifter 22:53, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

To further clarify... "internal links" to many civilians mean table of content links for navigation within web pages. But[REDACTED] uses the phrase "internal links" to mean links to other[REDACTED] pages. --Timeshifter 23:53, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid I'd have to plead guilty to not having read that properly. I'm sure I've seen it before, anyway, because I did work my way through various guidelines and policies when I joined, but when I wanted to know today because of something in an article I was working on, I went to the guideline page, ignored the lead, looked at the TOC, saw "Links normally to be avoided — sites requiring registration", and scrolled down to that. ElinorD (talk) 15:14, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

A slightly off-beat question: how am I to verify a ref if I can't view it without paying money? Sometimes subscriptions cost serious bank, and I've seen articles use almost exclusively refs from one pay-for-use website (example of such a ref: Mormons will use Olympics to cast positive image of church", O'Dwyers PR Daily, March 20, 2001.)? JoeSmack 00:36, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Essay and study sites

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

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

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

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

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

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

Caiobrz 20:59, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, the website you are referring to you, and personally adding to numerous anime-based articles, daisuke.com.br is a fansite (with which you are personally affiliated and where you are an admin, according to your userpage) which does not conform to several of the notability criteria mentioned on this project page and most certainly falls under numerous of the points mentioned under links to be avoided. Such fansites are certainly not "professional" nor "recognized" authorities, and should therefore not be included on articles. ···巌流 21:31, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

This is just your opinion, I'm asking for a civil discussion on Essay subjects, not your biased opinion on such. Also, both Misplaced Pages:Spam (which you acuse me of doing) nor WP:EL have criterea against worthy essays being linked, nor anything against the administrator of the site linking them as this would be pointless. ANN and other sites over the wiki EL are also fansites but are know to be quality sources of information, and also as stated on this very talk page, biased reviews can also be a valid source of information, though I refute any claim that the essays are biased since they do not present personal views, but rather factual depictions of the events on those titles and eventual speculations whereas no fact is present. I will wait for the opinions and resolutions of people that are more involved with WP:EL. I also think it's rude and dishonest you reverted our talk in your page and I ask you to do not change my postings in this page. Regards Caiobrz 21:41, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

You also fail to respect Misplaced Pages:Dispute_resolution whereas edit's should be avoided until a resolution and consensus and just started reverting everything to your liking, which is not only forbidden by wiki standards, but also not civil. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Caiobrz (talk • contribs) 21:44, 14 May 2007 (UTC).

I'm not certain I'm clear on what you're asking. You seem to be saying - these types of links tend to fall foul of these guidelines, but if they didn't wouldn't it be OK to link to them? In general I would say essays that have not been published by a reliable source and which do not come from authors who are established and respected experts in the field seem unlikely to be appropriate. -- Siobhan Hansa 23:49, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Of a) b) and c), there is no problem linking to non-offcial sites; there is no problem linking to reliable/expert fan or review sites; there is a big problem with copyvio material. No comment of the specific adding-your-own-links stuff. 2005 00:11, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I hold the view that these essays should not be linked. If WP:EL is ruled out for a moment, what about Notability? Larger fansites like Anime News Network are notable for being popular and well known, but the same cannot be said for the website you are linking. Generally, un-notable fansites are not linked on Misplaced Pages because Misplaced Pages is not a collection of links. And if not WP:N, then what about with Attribution? These essays are neither reliable (as far as I know this cannot be proven for a fansite) nor are they published except on a fansite. You say that these essays are unbiased, but can you be sure that all of them are? WP:A clearly states, "Misplaced Pages is not the place to publish your opinions, experiences, or arguments."--十八 01:41, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Discourse DB and database-style wikis

Hi,

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

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

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

How / where do you want to link it? jbolden1517 00:39, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry if I wasn't clear; the Misplaced Pages page for any specific topic had a link to the Discourse DB page for that topic. You can see the histories of those two Misplaced Pages pages I linked above, for instance, to see how the links looked before they were removed. Yaron K. 00:45, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

What's wrong with proposing the link on the talk page and asking other editors to consider adding it? -- Siobhan Hansa 00:48, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, assuming the editors agree to it in every case, what's to stop another user (or the same one) from removing all the links again, citing the same linking guidelines? Yaron K. 00:55, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Talk page consensus overrides guidelines. Even if this guideline were changed, there's nothing to stop editors deciding the link isn't appropriate for a page and removing it either. -- Siobhan Hansa 00:57, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Siobhan is correct. Consensus is allowed to change. Sounds like a WP:COI to me. Yaron, you shouldn't care if another editor deletes your link. This is why the WP:RULES discourage self-linking. (Requestion 01:29, 15 May 2007 (UTC))

WP:COI allows people to put links to their own sites. As Siobhan suggested it is a good idea to propose it on the talk page first. --Timeshifter 15:27, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, what I'm asking for is a possible update to the guidelines, taking note of this sort of hybrid wiki, so that not just Discourse DB but other, similar sites can be linked to. (And I'm not denying the conflict of interest, but surely you're not suggesting that only those with a conflict of interest care when their links are deleted. :) ) Yaron K. 01:40, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry but that doesn't seem like a good enough reason to make an exception since too many exceptions cause all sort of problems. It just wasn't a Zen thing, I was serious about my "you shouldn't" care comment. You are in for a barrel full of pain and suffering when you start adding external links to your own sites. Fight the urge, don't do it, I don't like seeing people suffer. (Requestion 02:52, 15 May 2007 (UTC))

We don't need an exception to the rule. We need a new rule. Because the existing one is not logical in my opinion. See my discussion farther down. There seems to be a misunderstanding about wikis, number of editors, and stability. I have a question for Yaron. Yaron, do you have final say as to what stays in the wiki? Or can any editor come in and change everything at discoursedb.org? Does anyone else have a say in final decisions in your wiki? In other words is there some kind of editorial control in limited hands? --Timeshifter 15:14, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

My first response was in relation to your particular addition rather than the general idea that the guideline should be different for "DB wikis". Now I've had a chance to look at DiscourseDB and I'm not sure I understand how it's any different to any other wiki. It seems like you just have a set style for presentation and a fairly narrow focus for appropriate content. Is there anything that makes DB wikis more inherently reliable than other wikis? -- Siobhan Hansa 01:10, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes; as I noted before, there's no free text; few to no complete sentences; no analysis or synthesis of information. Instead it's all pieces of data, most of which are easily verifiable online. It's analogous to a version of Misplaced Pages that was composed of nothing but "list" pages. Yaron K. 01:35, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

That doesn't seem to make it inherently more reliable though - it could still be full of incorrect information or lean towards a very one-man POV. I think one of the points of wanting plenty of editors is to ensure there's some substance to a wiki, and it's not just a one man show so to speak. An open wiki with a decent reputation ought to have more than a few editors. -- Siobhan Hansa 01:58, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

From my point of view, the current guideline discouraging links to "open wikis" (and why only open ones?) is a rather serious example of instruction creep. It seems far more appropriate to stick to the simple criterion of whether the page in question provides a useful, unique resource, as determined by the working consensus of editor-readers. Sometimes pages on very small wikis do provide such a resource; sometimes pages on (cough) very large ones do not. This is, of course, a judgment call, but if we can't trust our collective judgment then this whole project is in trouble. -- Visviva 01:50, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree with your point of view, To be an external link a page must provides a useful, unique resource, as determined by the working consensus of editor-readers would be a wonderful policy. I'd love to get that line in there. The problem is that isn't the policy the policy has a great deal to do with who owns the resource (a corporation or an individual), what sort of format its in, what their purpose is for running the resource, etc... The result is that we have to constantly add to this guideline. jbolden1517 10:43, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you, jbolden. People have to use common sense, and look at each external link. Blanket prohibitions against wikis make no sense. That is why there are some caveats in the current guideline about using wikis as external links. I think there would be additional clarity with your idea of adding this: To be an external link a page must provides a useful, unique resource, as determined by the working consensus of editor-readers. The spirit of the guideline overrules the technicalities. Because no guideline specifics can cover all eventualities. Guidelines are not policy anyway, and so talk page and admin consensus, etc. override a too-strict interpretation of a guideline. --Timeshifter 03:51, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

discourse db may be a beautiful and unique flower, but the guideline is worded on the basis of it being an open wiki, i.e. anyone can edit it. that is also why it is pointedly worded regarding history of stability and a large user base. JoeSmack 04:08, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

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

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

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

No bot was used, I removed them myself using help from GeorgeMoney's monobook script. Large amount of editors = stability, because someone is always going to be around to keep on eye on things. Without such an open wiki can't be stable (and i could demonstrate that quite easily, except i don't carry WP:POINT to any other wiki either). JoeSmack 05:00, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikis have many tools to block problematic editors and IPs. So it is not true that an open wiki without a large amount of editors can not be stable. I edit a wiki at wikia.com and that was a question I asked before I started a wiki there. Jimbo Wales started wikia.com and it uses the same software base as here at wikipedia. --Timeshifter 09:57, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Wiki tools can block people (administrators etc) but you need people behind the guns. Wikis aren't just automatically stable when they are started. JoeSmack 12:55, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikia.com has enough administrators to handle those kinds of problems. I don't know how the discoursedb.org wiki is run. But from what I have read the many forms of wiki farms and wiki software have all kinds of methods for restricting access. Most wikis are not nearly as open and overwhelmed with editors as[REDACTED] is. --Timeshifter 14:57, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

What kind of methods? I'm surprised; I haven't heard of any beyond users looking after things. JoeSmack 16:29, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Please see Comparison of wiki farms. There is a vast array of types of wiki software and tools. There are all kinds of ways to make a hierarchy of control for all the many individual wikis. People mistakenly think all wikis are similar to[REDACTED] in its openness. Wikis can have many levels of openness. Some parts can be more open than others. The individual wiki can be put in the total control of one person, or a group. Or a group hierarchy. In many wikis those controlling the wiki can change the rules within their wiki at anytime. In order to control problems. Many websites had these levels of hierarchal control before wikis came around. The number of editors is not important to stability for many wikis or websites. I think the problem with wikis or websites dealing with political, social, and religious issues is we really can't make blanket rules. The article talk page has to decide on how they put a variety of viewpoints in their external links. I think links to pages on sites like discoursedb.org are very helpful. Of course to avoid promotional conflicts of interest the editors at such a site need to go through the article talk page first before adding such external links themselves. --Timeshifter 04:13, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

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

Even if anyone can edit at first at an "open" wiki, they can be booted immediately if they become a problem. Or their edits can be blocked temporarily. And swiftly because there is no need to go through a long consensus process as at wikipedia. People are thinking that wikis outside[REDACTED] are as slow concerning process as[REDACTED] is. Misplaced Pages has to have a slow deliberative process to maintain its reputation for complete openness. But other wikis can operate as fast or slow as they want. What matters is their end product, and is it a useful stable external link for wikipedia. The reputation of the controlling editors is shown by the articles in their wikis, and the sources they list for the info in those articles. Discoursedb.org is almost nothing but article titles and sources. So an article talk page can determine if a link to an individual page from discoursedb.org would be a good external link. They can balance any perceived spin from a discoursedb.org page with links to other articles. Many[REDACTED] pages have a few external links to a few compilation pages from various sides of controversial issues. --Timeshifter 04:39, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Without a large user base actions aren't going to be swift - there are too few users to carry out them out fast enough or closely enough. JoeSmack 04:44, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I edit a wiki myself. I have a watchlist for it I check daily or several times a day. --Timeshifter 04:58, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Ah, now I see why you're so gung-ho. ;) Do you check it say, oh, every 10 minutes? In 10 minutes a lot of vandalism or spam can happen on a wiki. And I bet from several users it could make more mess than you could clean easily in a day, especially if all were persistent. JoeSmack 05:02, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I have had very little vandalism on the wiki I edit. It is easy to stop most vandals. Just semi-protecting the wiki temporarily would stop most vandals since only registered users could then edit. Semi-protection is easy to do. But I have seen so little vandalism, and so minor, that I have not needed to do even that. Other levels of control are to require email addresses during registration followed up by confirmation email to that email address. It is easy to stop or prevent vandalism. --Timeshifter 07:58, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure everyone has had such an easy experience as you. :/ JoeSmack 18:19, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

If I may interject here, "10 minutes" seems like an absurdly high threshold for wiki monitoring. Not even Misplaced Pages can routinely pass that test. This seems like a case of the desire for the perfect being the enemy of the good. Yaron K. 20:32, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

2nd example, party to a legal case

For example a blog written by the subject of a biography article. I'd like to add or filings made by a party to a legal case in on an article on that case Again not a reliable source (bias...) but a knowledgeable source. I'm thinking given the comments a 2nd example would be useful. jbolden1517 02:06, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I edited the guideline nutshell to this:

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

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

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

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

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

This sentence at the end of the intro was removed:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This does seem to be something that comes up frequently and is important to make clear. So I support making changes. I rather like the idea of adding it to the nutshell. Your wording for the nutshell is fine with me, though anything that is short and basically says the same would also work. Alternatively we could promote the statement about what the guideline covers to the very top of the lead, and maybe bold it or highlight in some other way.

I don't think we should be encouraging non-citation embedded links. And the older sentence you are referring to and the paragraph you are recommending contradict themselves by linking to Misplaced Pages:Embedded citations which says This style of external link should only be used as a citation for a specific section or fact. Other external links should go in an External links section as described at Misplaced Pages:External links. I think we are better off recommending as a guideline that external links should be in an external links section, or at the very least that external links should not be added in a way that could be thought to be an inline citations.

To add more to this discussion I also think we could clean up the How to link section. It could be read to imply there are two ways of linking external links - external links sections and citations - which is rather confusing when we say the guideline isn't about citations! -- Siobhan Hansa 01:02, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

All good points. Here is a link to an archived talk section where this confusion was previously addressed and resolved with the clearer introduction.--Timeshifter 01:32, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

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

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

==References==

<references/>

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

This looks like a good way of handling the end of the lead paragraph. But will it meet the need of catching readers' eyes enough that they really know what the guideline is about? I think making it more prominent could still be a good thing. -- Siobhan Hansa 01:06, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Any suggestions? --Timeshifter 01:34, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

WP:EL is about external links. That much focus on citations is completely inappropriate for the beginning of this guideline. That's what WP:CITE is for. Also, Timeshifter's threat to "report you to WP:ANI" isn't appropriate either. (Requestion 01:22, 17 May 2007 (UTC))

WP:EL is about external links - but we do see this confusion demonstrated again and again and it seems like we do need to be clearer. How about bumping the this guideline is about external links that are not citations into the nutshell? That's focusing on this guideline and increasing the visibility of something that seems to often be overlooked? -- Siobhan Hansa 10:48, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

That seems fine to me, although other ways are fine with me too. I'd just add at this point though that the confusion has hardly anything to do with the guideline. It clearly says this is not about citations. Some people just don't read it or care what it says... and still wouldn't even if we put it in 32pt flaming letters. 2005 11:08, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

It is true that some people do not care, but other people are just confused. I was one of those people at one point. So were some other longtime editors. See this archived discussion. I think something in the nutshell would help a lot. Almost everybody reads the nutshell on a guideline page. --Timeshifter 12:32, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Please participate in the discussion, Requestion, before taking any further action. That is all I am asking. We have recently had useful civil discussion on another talk page, and I believe you are operating in good faith. --Timeshifter 01:26, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Requestion. I see that you have again deleted the longstanding paragraph in question without discussion here first. I added a 3RR warning template banner to your talk page. If you keep it up, I or others may report you to Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR. This is a friendly warning in hopes that you cool down. You can also self-revert. For more info and how-to please read Misplaced Pages:Three-revert rule. --Timeshifter 01:46, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I reverted to the version that has been stable for the past 12 days. Let us do some basic math. I've reverted you 3 times and Jossi has reverted you twice. Hmmm, what does that mean? (Requestion 02:38, 17 May 2007 (UTC))

It means you are wikilawyering. Jossi did a partial revert one of those times and kept part of what I put up recently. Jossi has not reverted the longstanding stuff which was done through consensus. Please do not cast aspersions on Jossi. The 12-day-old stuff did not pass through any discussion. It was created through an undiscussed deletion of longstanding info in the intro. --Timeshifter 03:20, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Edit war? I just learned I was supposedly edit-warring on this page, and I wasn't even aware that I was editing this page. If I'm to be accused, I might as well weigh in:

• It pains me to see good faith editors get so wrapped up in all of this -- the points disputed just aren't worth fighting (by either side) another good editor to the point of 3RR.
• The nutshell distinction between refs and standalone external links at the end was a good idea.
• I sense Timeshifter's concern may be with overly aggressive deletion of suspicious inline links or footnotes from texts where the links may be there to meet the requirements of WP:V and WP:OR
• I sense Requestion's concern may be more with giving free reign to spammers.
• As someone that cleans up spam all the time, I'm inclined to side with Requestion's sparser wording. If a link has been spammed inline, in most cases it's still a crummy link and will not meet WP:RS. In the rare cases where it might somehow meet WP:RS, there are certainly WP:COI and usually WP:NOT and/or WP:OR issues; examples of that would be a scientist spamming links to his own work or a POV-warrior spamming POV links to support POV text. Anyway you slice it, spam -- that is adding links in violation of WP:COI for whatever reason -- reduces encyclopedic value.
• As for wikilawyering, anything we write here or at WP:RS is going to be twisted, then cited ad nauseam by angry spammers. Just look at the history of my talk page.
• For a spammer, a link's a link. Inline, footnote or "external", they don't care and will usually add them anywhere.
• If you go with Timeshifter's paragraph, I would modify it as follows:
  • Timeshifter: "Care must be taken not to delete inline links and external links if it looks like they are being used as references."
  • A. B.:"Think carefully before deleting an inline or external link if it looks as if it's being used as a reference, it meets the requirements of the Reliable Sources Guideline and it has not been added in contravention of other guidelines such as the Conflict of Interest Guideline. If the text it's supporting is encyclopedic and worth keeping, try to find an equal or better link."

OK. That's enough edit-warring for me for now; I'm off to feed my parrot. --A. B. 22:40, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

My main concern is reducing WP:EL instruction cruft so that spammers have less weasel room. I'm all for mentioning WP:CITE but in moderation. We need to keep in mind that <ref>'s are the new spammer frontier. Maybe the "==References== <references/>" stuff could go at the end in the how to link section. It definitely does not belong in the introduction. Uhh, and User:A. B., your parrot? I thought it was my parrot. (Requestion 00:34, 18 May 2007 (UTC))

OK, you can have your parrot back. --A. B. 01:08, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Please send bird back to Belgium. Much workforparrot.net remains. (Requestion 14:24, 18 May 2007 (UTC))

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

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

A. B.'s wording would be fine somewhere in the middle of the article. My concern is keeping the introduction simple and to the point. How about removing the leading "edit lock" sentence and replacing it with a combo of the last two sentences? The first line would say something like "This page is a style guide, describing how to use external links in articles. For instructions on citing sources and creating references refer to the citation guideline." WP:CITE gets one prominent mention at the start and then we get on with the business of external links. (Requestion 20:51, 19 May 2007 (UTC))

I am confused. Can you give me a suggested version of the complete introduction that you could live with? --Timeshifter 17:59, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

OK, here it is:

My goal is to simplify and reduce. The simpler the intro, the more focus the citation disambiguation gets. Actually my inspiration for that first sentence was taken from WP:CITE. The second sentence is a combination of the previous last 2 sentences that have been deleted. Note that the {{redirect|WP:EL|information on edit locks|Misplaced Pages:Edit lock}} line is removed since it just clutters things and I don't think anyone confuses the two. If the "edit lock" needs to stay then maybe it should be moved to the start before the 2 boxes. I also removed some specific examples that were in parentheses but that can be a topic for a different day. (Requestion 21:01, 20 May 2007 (UTC))

Requestion, thank you for moving us forward on this. I think this is cleaner, but does not directly tackle the ambiguity between external links that are used as citations and external links that are not - since this comes up reasonably often and since citations are important to Misplaced Pages, I think we ought to be explicit at the start. I suggest changing the first sentence to

If we want to make the lead shorter I think we could move the bit about no-follow tags down the page, I don't think it is particularly useful at that point in the article. It's irrelevant to non-spammers, and those people who are actually checking out our policies before deciding whether to promote their site through us will probably read more than the lead. -- Siobhan Hansa 14:33, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

External citation / reference links are external links. In my opinion everything in WP:EL applies to WP:CITE except for the when to use it and the technical how to link sections. Shouldn't all the WP:EL avoid, self-promotion, adverstising, COI, redirection, dead link, and hijacking wisdom also apply to citations? How is spamming and linkfarming in the <ref>'s any different? (Requestion 15:33, 21 May 2007 (UTC))

Well that muddies the water a bit! I thought people on this talk page were clear that the guideline does not apply to external links that are citations. But apparently not. There are several stipulations in the "Links normally to be avoided" section that are not normally applied to citations. For instance sites requiring registration or payment are routinely linked to in citations as a service to other editors; foreign language sites are appropriate in a much larger range of circumstances for citations than for general external links; being a unique resource is not important for a citation - we link to more than one citation that supports an assertion (in fact we encourage it) but not to external links that repeat the information given in a previous external link. More than that though, the guideline has been edited over the last nine months at least (that's how long I've been monitoring it) from the point of view of the external links section - we haven't been considering it from the point of view of citations really and from time to time consideration on this talk page of some changes have been stopped by someone pointing out that the guideline does not apply to citations. Is this something we need to revisit? -- Siobhan Hansa 16:11, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

The fact is that people put external links everywhere. They inline-embed them, they put <ref>'s around them, they are used in templates, and sometimes you even see them in the External links section! (: The WP:CITE guideline is absent any abuse criteria and to compound this problem I've heard arguments that WP:NOT#LINK doesn't apply to citations. So if WP:NOT and WP:EL don't apply to citations then I guess blatant COI self-promotional spam is welcome in references. (Requestion 20:21, 21 May 2007 (UTC))

People do all the things you say, but that doesn't make those links citations. And this guideline applies to non-citation external links even when they are embedded inline or surrounded by ref tags - if it's not a reliable source for one or more assertions in the article it's covered by this guideline. I think there are real problems with COI citations, we have the COI guideline and the NPOV policy, but they aren't unambiguous. COI citations (to good sources) are more useful to us than COI external links, because they do provide something we value - verification. The real reason we have a problem with keeping these out of Misplaced Pages isn't because this guideline doesn't apply, it's because the community as a whole isn't a hundred percent behind an instance on non-COI editing. That's why the COI guideline is loose, there are frequent disagreements between good faith, experienced editors over AfDs of articles that even those who want to keep think are puff pieces, and some experienced editors love Template:COI and others think it's too WP:BITE. If this guideline is going to cover citations I think it will need to be weakened somewhat (or made very complicated) to reflect our current practice and policies - I don't think that's a good thing. -- Siobhan Hansa 21:29, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Well the latest spam trick is to exploit this WP:EL / WP:CITE loophole. I see quite a number of the professional spammers doing it and it is just a matter of time before it gets more widespread use. They put in a <ref> that is loosely applicable and hope it sticks. Trying to delete established references, even if they are poor quality, is extremely difficult because the regular editors defend them even if they didn't originally add it. As you can imagine, fighting this type of spam with the current rules is almost impossible. (Requestion 22:07, 21 May 2007 (UTC))

What loophole? There certainly is not one in this guideline. If WP:CITE or WP:RS need wording changes, those discussions should happen there. Citation spam is of course obvious and the more clever spammers go for that. Here we need to emphasize that this guideline is not about citations, but all external links not used as citations. The single best tool we have to fight citation spam is the external links section. As long as it is there, most spammers will spam that, and fighting that spam is far easier than a correctly structured cite. Also, an EL sections makes it easy to move inline external links to a more appropriate section, and makes it easier for editors just passing through articles to see any links that are not truly on the topic of the article (like external linking to a business just casually mentioned in an article. So again, there is no loophole. There is only making this guideline helpful by addressing user-friendly ideas as well as spam prevention ideas. 2005 22:41, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Citation spam is far from obvious if it is done well. The loophole is that WP:CITE doesn't cover prohibited abuses like WP:EL does. So, either WP:EL covers WP:CITE's shortcomings or it's open spam season on citations. Take your pick. (Requestion 23:57, 21 May 2007 (UTC))

I think it is really obvious to the regular editors of an article when a citation link does not apply. It either supports an assertion or it does not. It is either a reliable source or it is not. Some overzealous website owner may go around and try to find articles where his site pages can be used as citations. I don't think that is wrong. What is wrong is if that overzealous website owner or contributor goes around dropping in links to external links without going through the talk page first. Correctly-placed citations almost always improve an article. Misplaced Pages is in great need of more citations. Misplaced Pages is not in great need of more external links. We just fundamentally disagree on this issue. I think your efforts to delete citations is a huge detriment to wikipedia. I have seen overzealous spam fighters do far more damage than overzealous website owners/contributors. For example; overzealous spam fighters have deleted large parts of many extremely valuable, unique lists and charts by calling citations "spam." I think the problem on all sides is the overzealousness. We just need to inform these website owner/contributors to go through the talk pages. We should not be going back and deleting hundreds of citations. External links, maybe. But not citations. Citations survive the consensus of the article editors. I watch citations carefully on the pages I watchlist. I may let external links slide. So I appoint you to watch over the external links. In the end you are contributing little to[REDACTED] in my opinion. You are contributing a lot to spam fighting. But I don't think that is all that important frankly. I think we could summarize the whole[REDACTED] external links policy in a few sentences by just emphasizing that there should only be a few external links for most articles. Some may need more at the discretion of the editors. Some very busy compilation pages with many breakout articles have many external links. See Iraq War. But it is the focal point for many breakout articles, and so there is some justification there. This whole fight reminds me of the neverending fight between deletionists and inclusionists. :) --Timeshifter 16:28, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Am I overzealous in calling this a linkfarm that is wrapped in <ref>'s? (Requestion 20:24, 22 May 2007 (UTC))

That page survived an AfD with no consensus. Some of the people who voted for deletion may not have seen the changes made after they voted. Many links were converted to citation/reference links. The external links were moved to an external links section. Now it is clear which links are external links and which are not. Many links were eliminated because they did not source anything specific. It is now a good article. --Timeshifter 09:37, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Now it is a linkfarm. Wrapping the external links in refs doesn't change a thing. (Requestion 14:41, 23 May 2007 (UTC))

It is certainly not a good article, and link farm could apply, but the problem isn't that this guideline isn't being applied to references - it's that WP:NOT, WP:V and WP:RS aren't being applied. -- Siobhan Hansa 16:44, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

No, citation spam is obviously a problem. You said so yourself, so let's not reverse course now. Once again there is no "picking". If WP:CITE doesn't cover something it should, bring it up THERE. This guideline does not cover citations. 2005 00:56, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

I choose to disagree. My opinion is that the WP:EL guideline does cover the usage of external links in citations and references. I'll change my opinion when someone improves WP:CITE to cover this issue but I doubt that will ever happen. Why duplicate effort when this fine guideline is perfectly capable of covering both uses? (Requestion 01:35, 22 May 2007 (UTC))

So make a proposal in village pump or somewhere else to combine the two, but in the meantime discussing CITE here is a waste of time, and not very considerate to the people who watch CITE for discussions. No matter what we do here, no decision changes CITE. 2005 05:18, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Out of curiosity I went back in the history a few years and looked at revisions for some years. This guideline has always been about external links using the[REDACTED] definition. Meaning those links that are not reference/citation links. It may take some digging to figure it out though in some of those revisions. That is why we need to make it clear again in the introduction. In some revisions it is a LOT clearer than other revisions. There are many external link guidelines that do not apply to citations/references. For example; concerning references it is common to cite the same article, book, author, web page, website, etc. multiple times in an article.--Timeshifter 19:21, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

If WP:EL does not apply to external links then the name needs to be changed. No amount of additional wording will change this potential for confusion. (Requestion 20:21, 21 May 2007 (UTC))

The name doesn't need a change because the guideline makes the distinction clear. This guideline talks about external links that are not citations. We need one sentence that says that, and then move on. 2005 20:44, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

How about putting that one sentence in the nutshell instead of farther down in the introduction? How about this nutshell:

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

The more specific nutshell allows us to remove these 2 sentences from the end of the intro: "Refer to the citation guideline for instructions on citing sources. The subject of this guideline is external links that are not citations of article sources."--Timeshifter 09:50, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

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

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

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

I also agree that the nofollow stuff it too technical for an intro and should be moved down below somewhere. With that move, the last two paragraphs might even be able to be combined for even a bit more reduction. (Requestion 15:33, 21 May 2007 (UTC))

Nofollow shouldn't be on the page. It has nothing to do with anything, and won't effect anything anyway. It's nothing but chatty page bloat. 2005 20:44, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Links to online libraries

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

Well, that depends what specific pages on these libraries you link to. Some of the searches may bring up unrelated titles, so that would be no point in adding such links. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 20:39, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Why would a resource from an online library be any different than a resource from somewhere else? I'm not sure if I even understand the question. jbolden1517 20:44, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I do not understand these attempts to create blanket rules against linking to directories such DMOZ, tc.eserver.org, discoursedb.org, etc.. I think they should be encouraged for non-controversial topics. They are oftentimes immensely useful and encyclopedic. I did not even know of tc.eserver.org, and would not know if not for someone adding them as an external link. For controversial political, religious, and social topics we should let the article talk pages decide which specific directories to include. Are we no longer going to trust article talk page consensus, and admin oversight? There are already adequate ways to prevent extremely offensive stuff from being linked to. --Timeshifter 04:28, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

We do trust admins and talk pages. This isn't a hell-in-a-handbasket type of situation. JoeSmack 04:40, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm all for adding links to useful resources but I think we should be wary of giving any informational website an open license to add links to Misplaced Pages. It isn't good for neutrality and I don't think we want another DMOZ discussion. (Requestion 21:53, 18 May 2007 (UTC))

I found the linksearch patterns interesting. The names of the tc.eserver.org pages are perfect matches to the Misplaced Pages article names. Hmmm, so I did a little digging. I found out that a Geoffrey Sauer is the director of EServer.org. A User:Geoffsauer created the eserver.org article and has edited his own bio. If you look at his contribs you will see a whole lot of eserver.org external link additions. A bit more clicking shows a bunch of SPA's and IPs from Iowa. Looks like a basic COI spamming to me. There are 322 hits when you take out the "tc." and do a Special:Linksearch/*.eserver.org. This could be really big and messy. Probably should move this over to WT:WPSPAM when this discussion concludes. (Requestion 22:15, 18 May 2007 (UTC))

Good catch. I've started a spam investigation Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam#eserver.org and a COI notice. --Ronz 02:59, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Please do not go hog wild and delete a bunch of useful external links. It is obviously not a directory of spam. The only problem may have been not going through the talk pages. But even that seems to be a minor problem. I am sure the editors on most of those pages noticed the link being added, and allowed it to happen. Sending a bot or crew to go through and delete all those very useful links would be a violation of the consensus of most of those talk pages that did not object to the link being added. Maybe just put a note on the talk page for Geoffsauer, User talk:Geoffsauer, and ask him to go through the talk pages from now on first before adding those links. --Timeshifter 04:53, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd leave this comment on the COI page or WPSPAM page where it is being discussed in this direction. JoeSmack 04:57, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Feel free to copy anything there. And/or to link them to here. I also just left a note at User talk:Geoffsauer pointing out the discussion here. I ask people to imagine being in the shoes of the editors at DMOZ, tc.eserver.org, discoursedb.org, and to try to follow the[REDACTED] guideline to not bite the newcomers. They are trying to help in my opinion. Their directories are uniquely valuable resources. --Timeshifter 05:07, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

You say tomato, I say tom-ah-to. I think this is a WP:COI issue and WP:WPSPAM issue more than an unique resource one. JoeSmack 05:12, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Why the disrespect and incivility? This talk page is about external links. There may be conflict of interest problems in how the links were added. But that is for discussion elsewhere for the most part. Do you think they are useful pages as external links? --Timeshifter 05:23, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not trying to intending to be disrespectful or not civil. I think Misplaced Pages:External_links#Advertising_and_conflicts_of_interest speaks to this very precisely. It was added in spamming manner by the creator, and right now that is my concern. JoeSmack 05:31, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

OK. I see your point. I think the problem is solved though. From Jehochman on the COI noticeboard section on eserver.org is this: "What do you know! He received a warning on 13 December 2006 , and hasn't made a single COI edit since. He did do a few little fixes to clear up image licensing problems, but I don't see any problems with those edits." --Timeshifter 07:21, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

That is not a solution and that might not even be an accurate statement. (Requestion 19:22, 19 May 2007 (UTC))

Update: I've tracked down some more socks and the current count is 249 external eserver.org link spams. The complete list is at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam#eserver.org. Jehochman mentioned that User:Geoffsauer received a warning on Dec 13 2006 . I'd like to point out that Geoffsauer violated that warning here on Jan 18 2007. Sorry about this duplicate update post but it's hard to avoid when the conversation is going on at 3 different places! (Requestion 21:27, 21 May 2007 (UTC))

You find one link way back in January, and continue to call him a spammer. You are so insulting to people. See Misplaced Pages:Civility Misplaced Pages:Please do not bite the newcomers. --Timeshifter 09:40, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

The link in January corrects an erroneous statement that Jehochman originally made and that you reposted here. Geoffsauer was warned in December 2006 and then spammed again a month later in January 2007. Also, User:12.216.41.63 spammed a bunch of eserver.org links on May 18 2007 which is the day this thread started. Ohh, and about WP:BITE, Geoffsauer is not a newcomer, he has been spamming Misplaced Pages since Decemeber 2004. Please User:Timeshifter, if you insist on being rude, at least get your facts straight. (Requestion 14:31, 23 May 2007 (UTC))

Geoffsauer made one mistake after being warned in a roundabout way in December 2006. Get over it. Get over yourself. Stop being rude. Stop calling people names. Stop insulting people. Stop violating all these[REDACTED] guidelines: Misplaced Pages:Assume good faith, Misplaced Pages:Civility, Misplaced Pages:Please do not bite the newcomers, and Misplaced Pages:No personal attacks. You are doing more harm than good. Do a cost-benefit analysis of your actions. Ask yourself what your motivations are. --Timeshifter 02:28, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Why treat it differently? Because it's a link to a list of links. Maybe best to treat them similarly to DMOZ? --Ronz 03:05, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I think the confusion comes from thinking that the[REDACTED] guideline against having long lists of external links means that[REDACTED] can't link to lists of links. The reasons for the[REDACTED] guidelines in my opinion are to avoid needless duplication of directories, and compilation lists. Why should[REDACTED] allot valuable editor time to duplicating DMOZ and other directories and compilation lists of links? But we should definitely take advantage of them by linking to them. Especially for the non-controversial stuff. Good info is good info is good info. The more the better. Misplaced Pages is not paper. We have the room for a few good external links. --Timeshifter 04:53, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

"Room" doesn't mean it's helpful to readers to have a long line of links. Fewer is better. And this particular case mentioned here is clear spam and should be reverted. DreamGuy 05:17, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Did you read this whole section? Did you read the last sentence in my last comment just above yours? "We have the room for a few good external links." --Timeshifter 05:25, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Lists of links should normally not be linked to. These are worthless links that don't meet the criteria of the guideline, especially in non-controversial topics. We should only resort to a link list when there is no other alternative, which should only be the case in very broad or controversial areas. 2005 07:30, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

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

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

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

I absolutely agree with you, 100%. The only thing i'd add (to avoid mass spamming of talk pages) is to evaluate if you should be adding the link at all after reading proper COI guidelines. JoeSmack 17:46, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Just to throw in $.02 I don't think lists of links are necessarily bad links. For example the Haskell (programming language) article links to a link farm at readscheme.org which is extremely useful for finding papers on more advanced topics. Again the quality of the link rather than the form is what's important. jbolden1517 20:23, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Nicholas Carr

Here is an example. Nicholas G. Carr. His articles in Harvard Business Review are best sources. His weblog is very well known. His official website less so, and mainly promotional for his books. I'd argue the weblog link in the article is legit. I'd further argue that at present the article has a good change of being defaced in the name of WP:EL. jbolden1517 16:56, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd argue that in borderline cases we should leave it to the people involved into the article to decide within the context of what is best for the article and not what bests fits a over-broad guideline.

A guideline can't draw sharp a sharp line in the sand. All a guideline can do is define the white black and grey. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 22:58, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

That's exactly my position which is why I oppose the current wording. All over the wiki people don't feel they have that discretion because of the current wording. jbolden1517 23:28, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

It appears that the blog link is still there and there doesn't seem to be any movement to remove it. How does this case demonstrate the problem with the guideline? Nposs 01:37, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

It demonstrates when a blog should be directly linked to even when an official website is available. It was a counter example to Who is saying prohibit? It's that we do not encourage it above and in addition to their main website, and if we link to their main website there's no need to ALSO link to the blog, because presumably their website links to their blog. This is pretty basic External links policy concept here, I don't understand why people can't follow it. DreamGuy 12:49, 18 May 2007 (UTC) jbolden1517 01:47, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Since when do we have an obligation to link to every official site? In any case, the spirit of the guideline is to have a few as possible... within that context the editors of the page can make thier own choices. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 02:58, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Guidance for external links, ResearchChannel

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you for your interest. Your statement above: There will be one person working with me who when she feels there is a ResearchChannel video that would complement a Misplaced Pages article would like to contact the related talk page and suggest that the video may be appropriate to that article. She would give a description of the video and a link to the ResearchChannel page where anyone interested could review the video. We would then follow the consensus of the talk page., is an excellent approach. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 20:53, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree this is an excellent approach. BTW you may want to consider Wikiversity for educational materials jbolden1517 21:30, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Jossi and jbolden1517 that the talk page is an excellent approach. For reference we had bad spam problem with researchchannel.org about a month and a half ago. They added about 200 external links and several editors helped in the removal of those links. This spamming resulted in a huge amount of wasted effort. Here are the related threads:

• User_talk:Requestion/Archive_1#Linkspam_ast.cac.washington.edu.3F
• User_talk:Requestion/Archive_1#The_original_source_for_those_links
• Wikipedia_talk:External_links/Archive_16#Clarification_of_rich_media_section

It is important that we stress to User:Tim Lorang that spamming Misplaced Pages with more researchchannel.org links will not be tolerated. (Requestion 21:52, 21 May 2007 (UTC))

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

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

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

cinedelica.com

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

I don't know a thing about any of this. I did just now take a look at User:Stantheman1874's contribution logs and my quick rough guess is that about 50 cinedelica.com external links were added. Other than the standard please see WP:EL, WP:NOT, WP:COI, and WP:SPAM there isn't much else to say. Maybe we need to improve the spam templates or add new wording to the edit page. What I really want to know is why do people think Misplaced Pages is a linkfarm? (Requestion 01:58, 23 May 2007 (UTC))

Spammer says: "And what I don't appreciate is some specky gimp staring at the computer screen and deleting all of my links just becaue it violates his sensibilities." Well, with that attitude and misplaced sense of entitlement, Misplaced Pages is obviously not for you. If you want to be able to add your own links and not have them removed by others, make your own site. DreamGuy 02:50, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

You two are so frequently uncivil, expecially to newcomers, that it borders on personal attacks. See: Misplaced Pages:Assume good faith, Misplaced Pages:Civility, Misplaced Pages:Please do not bite the newcomers, and Misplaced Pages:No personal attacks. As I said previously, I think you are doing more damage than good for[REDACTED] due to your overzealousness. You are driving away very skilled people from wikipedia. I think you owe many people an apology. --Timeshifter 09:32, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I don’t want to get involved in the personal dispute here, but reverting edits by someone who adds 50 links to their own personal site and not one contributing edit otherwise, hardly constitutes driving away skilled editors. I don’t see why we need to encourage this type of editing as it shows a need for personal gratification over a honorable one. If the user would like to volunteer their time to help create or expand articles like the rest of the volunteers here, type away... -- I already forgot  talk  20:27, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I count 6 insults in your comment. Thanks for sharing. NOT. --Timeshifter 01:53, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but you are not going to drag me into what ever dispute you have going on. PS Borat quotes suck. -- I already forgot  talk  06:26, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

If you count 6 insults there then you are seeing insults that don't exist. It's just matter of fact statements. DreamGuy 02:10, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Exactly why you guys are a detriment to wikipedia. --Timeshifter 02:20, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Y'know, all that happened here was someone added {{spam-i}} to the page of someone who needed it. It was entirely appropriate; perhaps the language is bad -- that "mere directory of links" is quite condescending to my ears. Maybe it needs to be tuned up for the ears of good-faith but so-far unschooled new editors. --jpgordon 20:39, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Timeshifter, I don't particularly care if you think I'm uncivil to spammers. It's ridiculous. Someone abusing the project needs to be told not to, and there's no way to say to be matter of fact about that without it showing just how horribly abusive the person is. If you are here to defend spammers and criticize those who don't then YOU are the one trying to drive off valuable editors and encouraging bad editors to stay. YOU should apologize. DreamGuy 02:10, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

DreamGuy wrote: "Someone abusing the project needs to be told not to...". I am telling you to stop abusing the project. See again the[REDACTED] guidelines you are violating: Misplaced Pages:Assume good faith, Misplaced Pages:Civility, Misplaced Pages:Please do not bite the newcomers, and Misplaced Pages:No personal attacks.--Timeshifter 02:22, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

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

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

the guideline in a nutshell

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

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

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

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

I don't think it's proper for a nutshell to say what something is not. It should describe what something is. (Requestion 17:44, 24 May 2007 (UTC))

Delineating what something is not, helps in describing what it is. --Timeshifter 17:49, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

None of the other nutshells resort to exclusion. Besides, there are quite a few things that this guideline is not. (Requestion 18:25, 24 May 2007 (UTC))

There are many, many guidelines, and many official[REDACTED] guidelines. See:

Misplaced Pages:List of policies.

Category:Misplaced Pages official policy.

Category:Misplaced Pages guidelines.

Even if what you say is true, it is a straw man argument. --Timeshifter 19:27, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

That wasn't a straw man argument. I'm not trying misrepresent your position. I just don't like your suggestion. (Requestion 21:06, 24 May 2007 (UTC))

It is a straw man argument because it is irrelevant. --Timeshifter 01:56, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." Actually Misplaced Pages doesn't think it means what you think it means. Please Timeshifter, if you're going to make references to informal fallacies then at least attempt to use them correctly. It think you meant red herring but in your case it might be time for the WP:TROUT. Inconceivable! (Requestion 02:29, 25 May 2007 (UTC))

So your objection to the claification is because it includes an explaination of what the page is not? You are saying there is confusion. This clears up the confusion, does it not? That's not a rhetorical question, you do agree, right? If so, then, you are saying an objection to including a negative in a nutshell is more important than making the nutshell clear, and clearing up a litany of problems. Please provide an explanation of why you think this way. 2005 02:55, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

My objection is this "wrapped in refs" linkfarm example that has been architected by User:Timeshifter. The orchestration was discussed here and also on that article's talk page. This is an attempt to subvert the Misplaced Pages rules to allow linkfarms. (Requestion 04:24, 25 May 2007 (UTC))

Whoa, let's stay on topic please. Please provide an explanation of why you think not having a negative in the nutshell is more important than clarity. 2005 06:49, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

This page in a nutshell: Adding external links can be a service to our readers, but they should be kept to a minimum of those that are meritable, accessible and appropriate to the article. This guideline talks about external links that are not citations, potatoes or 10 gallon hats.

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

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

Let me just say that I don't support your twisted misrepresentation of what I said. I don't appreciate it either. (Requestion 21:29, 24 May 2007 (UTC))

Also, external links are NEVER required to create a proper citation. When a citation is complete the external link is only there as a aid to the reader. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 22:47, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Linked pages can be citations/references. Not all links are citations/references. This guideline is only about links that are NOT citations/references. Many people get confused by this. Thus the proposed change in the nutshell and article title.--Timeshifter 02:04, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Requestion wrote: "If WP:EL does not apply to external links then the name needs to be changed. No amount of additional wording will change this potential for confusion." It is you who is doing the twisted misrepresentation of the meaning of "external links". Another example of a straw man argument. --Timeshifter 02:01, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Wrong again. That is not a straw man argument. What I created was a false dilemma. Like I said above, please try to keep your logical fallacies straight. (Requestion 02:42, 25 May 2007 (UTC))

This is all almost irrelivent... it would be a very rare situation where a site that fails WP:EL would qualify as a Reliable source... and almost never as a reliable secondary source. I realy don't see why WP:EL shouldn't apply to external links within citations.

Also, if the only citation something has is an EL, then the it has an incomplete citation that should be expanded to a full citation that dosn't rely on the external link... for quite a number of reasons. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 02:55, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

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

Sure, archive it... doesn't make much of a difference to me, but it still seems like the conversation is active. *shrug* Either way... ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 03:01, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Template MySpace

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

I'm thinking many semi-notable bands use myspace as an official website... and in those cases the template would be acceptable/usefull. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 12:23, 25 May 2007 (UTC)