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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 wikipedia 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 wikipedia links could be looked upon as external links by "civilians". Versus veteran wikipedia 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 wikipedia uses the phrase "internal links" to mean links to other wikipedia 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 wikipedia 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 wikipedia 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 wikipedia 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 wikipedia are as slow concerning process as wikipedia 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 wikipedia 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)

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 wikipedia 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 wikipedia 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 wikipedia guideline against having long lists of external links means that wikipedia can't link to lists of links. The reasons for the wikipedia guidelines in my opinion are to avoid needless duplication of directories, and compilation lists. Why should wikipedia 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)

I'm hoping this isn't a rhetorical device where you deliberately shift topics so as to attack a straw man. We don't have an obligation to link to anything and no one is contending we do. The issue here is explicitly permitting if the article editors would like to; given that this guideline is interpreted very literally on many articles. jbolden1517 17:42, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

This illustrates exactly why Misplaced Pages:External links must be clear as to its purpose. Its introduction must be clear that it is not the guideline for citations/references. WP:CITE is. Articles can have many, many references/citations. So if the sites are considered reliable sources, then both of them can be cited individually for specific bits of info. But if the sites are only going to be linked to from an external links section at the bottom of the page, then Misplaced Pages:External links covers it, and the talk page will have to decide if they both merit being one of the few external links normally allowed. There are exceptions to this guideline, since it is a general guideline, and not a policy. See the many external links at Iraq War. The reasoning there is that it consolidates many of the external links from the many spinout pages. Some of those external links need to be moved to the spinout pages. --Timeshifter 16:49, 26 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 wikipedia 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)

Yeah, OK... and that line alone shows why you are actually guilty of everything you try to blame on others. That's far more of a personal attack than anything you've complained about by anyone else on this page. You really need to start playing by the same rules you expect others to follow. Your complaints simply can;t be taken seriously. DreamGuy 00:19, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

I apologize. One is supposed to comment on the edits, not the editor. I should have said that some of your edits are a detriment to wikipedia. --Timeshifter 16:37, 26 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 wikipedia 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)

I am not abusing the project, but people adding clear spam (and editors who take over discussion pages to make ridiculous accusations against good editors for personal reasons) are. If you'd actually read any of those guideleines and policies you quoted you wouldn't be making your attacks here, as they show straight out why your actions are incorrect. DreamGuy 00:21, 26 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 wikipedia 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 wikipedia guidelines say that people should be warned before reporting them to incident boards for violating wikipedia guidelines. They can consider themselves warned. I am all for going back to civil discussion. --Timeshifter 03:07, 24 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)

I think it transcends the "semi" bit. I remember going to an outdoor concert and the opening band (who had a few Top 20 hits, but I didn't like them; I was there for another band) was saying how tracks from their upcoming album were on their MySpace profile. EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:14, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Also many actors and actresses have official myspace pages. jbolden1517 14:48, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, I've got a handful of people (such as Kari Byron, Nathan Fillion, and Jewel Staite) on my friends list, and I know others like Seth Green, Will Farrell, and Zach Braff have profiles. Hell, Jon Favreau uses his MySpace profile to release information about Iron Man. It's very handy for the individuals, as they can quickly and easily connect with their fans (as well as the direct advertisement aspect). EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:14, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Linking to illegal content

I know this has probably been discussed before, but I am having a bit of trouble in a couple of articles related to this. Specifically, Clannad (visual novel) and Planetarian: Chiisana Hoshi no Yume which both have an external link to an illegal fan-translation website. I tried to remove them before, but then users added them in again. I just want to get a consensus here so that when they are removed again, they won't be put back. This also applies to the Haruhi Suzumiya (light novels) article where a link often pops up from time to time for the website with the English fan translations for the novels, but I think right now they've all been removed.--十八 11:03, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Links to illegal content should always be avoided. See The first point of wikipedia:external links #Restrictions on linking. Graham87 14:54, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

I am now currently having trouble removing the links to a fan translation site, Mirror-Moon, who translated Tsukihime and the first part of Fate/stay night, but editors keep reverting me.--十八 00:00, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

OK I'm reading the issue. I'd say the site is very questionable and damn close to the line, but I'm not sure it is quite over the line of a copyright violation. Misplaced Pages links are therefore likely safe. A translation patch is a derived work. However if they have made the derived work worthless without a copy of the game (which appears to be the intent) then its not a copyright violation as you are allowed to derive works whose sole usage is with copies you own (cleanflix case for example). So I'm not sure this is actually illegal content. The walk throughs are worse, but I think a court might hold that they unlikely to be entertaining without actually the game and thus they constitute a review i.e. fair usage. Why don't you ask Type-moon what their position is on this content? If they do object then you are absolutely in the clear. If they don't then we can link. I'd recommend we pull the links for now. The excuse being made (and feel free to quote me) of "is used as a reference" is nonsense. This is a legal matter, we damage article quality to not violate copyright. jbolden1517 00:31, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I do not believe I am able to contact Type-Moon as I do not have a high understanding of Japanese, and I doubt they'd take serious an email written in English for an online encyclopedia they are not even affiliated with. The translation patches cannot work without the game, yes, but Mirror-Moon is still freely distributing English translation patches without having gained a legal license on the material they are translating, thus I do not believe it is legal what they are doing. This same discussion could be applied to fansubs, and is the reason why we don't link to fansub websites.--十八 01:04, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree with your analogy and would assert you are absolutely incorrect in your understanding of copyright law. A program designed to change the content of a copyrighted work that is worthless in and of itself, without the copyrighted work is not a violation of copyright law. Fansubs are perfectly legal with regard to copyright. Some may be DMCA violators (because of DVD related issues) but I doubt it. The fact is fansubs aren't illegal and there is nothing to prevent wikipedia from linking to them. jbolden1517 01:24, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

But there are tons of fansubs that are for licensed anime. Is it not illegal to distribute fansubbed versions of licensed anime if nothing else?--十八 01:42, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

No, the fansub doesn't do anything unless you have the licensed content. It is not a violation of copyright law to alter your copy of a copyrighted work in whatever way you choose. Its perfectly legal to sell or distribute devices to help people do that. So no I'd argue that by in large it is perfectly legal to distribute fansubs. Now two caveats:

1. The big problem with fansubs is that the fansub works well with both pirated and purchased versions. A fansub for show that is not available for purchase legally and is solely or almost solely being copied might be a piracy facilitation. If the show were being sold in another venue (to say comedy central or shown in movie theaters) then yes you have just crossed the line.
2. Again be careful of DMCA issues. The above is only about copyright the specific technology used to make the fansub would need to be addressed regarding DMCA.

jbolden1517 02:02, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

So no I'd argue that by in large it is perfectly legal to distribute fansubs. Too bad most people don't agree then huh? Why do you think Media Factory sent a notice to AnimeSuki telling them to remove all fansub listings to products they produced? Or, even better, why there is a section questioning the legality of fansubs in the fansub article at that?--十八 04:01, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Not a relevant comparison in any way, unless AnimeSuki was not hosting encoded .avi files and just releasing the .ass scripts. --tjstrf talk 04:54, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I read the article (otherwise I wouldn't have known what a fansub is). I can send you a cease and desist letter for a legal activity. Those letters do not represent the law. A ruling has to occur. These works are being distributed for profit if they were a copyright violation they wouldn't need to issue cease and desist they could just report it to the police (i.e. this would likely be much more than just a civil violation). jbolden1517 11:52, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

No, by that argument nothing would ever be illegal until such time as a ruling was already made. That's not how the law works in the slightest. Copyright infringements are illegal but almost always are civil matters and not criminal even when they are distributed for profit. Calling the police would only be for the most severe forms with pre-existing specific court orders. This statement of yours above alone shows a tremendous amount of ignorance about the process. A cease and desist order would most assuredly be the proper and expected way of handling the situation you describe. DreamGuy 13:05, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I do not follow jbolden1517's argument at all that these are not illegal. They are derivative works without the copyright owners' permission. Period. That right there is illegal, regardless whether they are used with legal copies of the game or pirated ones. Worse than that is that the links being discussed here, even if they were 100% legal, completely fail other guidelines for external links. They provide no encyclopedic content whatsoever. Misplaced Pages is not a web directory, get rid of all that wherever you see it. DreamGuy 04:33, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Your understanding of copyright law is incorrect. First off having something is never a copyright violation. You can distribute derivative works under certain conditions (that for example is why we have all the fair usage images here). You can alter your copy of a copyrighted work in any way you like. For an example of a company that essentially does the same things as Fansubs (which is partially owned by RCA BTW) is ClearPlay. jbolden1517 11:47, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

No, you're are making straw man arguments completely unrelated to the real nature of the problem. I didn't say having anything was illegal, but distribution without the copyright owner's permission and without a valid fair use rationale certainly is. An individual can alter copies they own, but a site cannot distribute a derivative work without permission, and we cannot aid and abet that crime by linking to it ourselves. That's what we're talking about here... not to mention the wholly nonencyclopedic nature of the entire thing. Clearplay is not the same situation, or at least not to the same extent, because what they distribute is only information that allows people to skip past parts they think they won't like (which they do face lawsuits over, by the way). DreamGuy 12:44, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

P.S. A more accurate comparison other than ClearPlay (which Congress had to pass a special law to let it get away with what it was doing, if you read the article) is CleanFlicks, which was shut down as a copyright violator. It's the difference between distributing information on how to customize something you own versus distributing customized files with modified copyright materials (i.e. illegally derivative works). DreamGuy 12:58, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Well if you are familiar with the cleanflix case you'll notice the illegality was the act of copying back to another physical dvd, the change in medium, which cancelled out the first sales defense. It was not the act of providing the derived work. This was a very literal interpretation of first sales doctrine. That act occurs on the customer's site in the case of a fansub so your precedent doesn't apply. jbolden1517 13:18, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

You are simply incorrect. It most definitely was the act of distributing a derived work that was at issue, and that's exactly what is going on with the fansubs. Without Congress passing the specific exception for ClearPlay that would have been illegal also. There is no exception for fansubs. DreamGuy 03:25, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

contradiction

Avoid directly linking to any content that requires special software, or an add-on to a browser. It is always preferred to link to a page rendered in normal HTML that contains embedded links to the rich media. In an instance where a link to rich media is deemed appropriate, an explicit indication of the technology needed to access the content must be given, as in the following examples:

This contradicts itself. Try to avoid... would resolve the contradiction. Anyone object? jbolden1517 22:23, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

No objections from me. That is one of the things I proposed at Misplaced Pages talk:External links/Archive 16 #Clarification of rich media section. Per that conversation, I think the section needs a rewrite. Graham87 04:16, 27 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 wikipedia 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 wikipedia links could be looked upon as external links by "civilians". Versus veteran wikipedia 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 wikipedia definition: "Internal links" to many civilians (versus veteran wikipedia editors) means table of content links for navigation within web pages. But wikipedia uses the phrase "internal links" to mean links to other wikipedia 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 wikipedia 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 wikipedia 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 wikipedia 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)

I think the info about the nofollow tags discourages people from adding links to the external links section for the sole purpose of improving the rankings of their site pages in search engines. So it is useful info. I suggest moving it to the section titled "Important points to remember".--Timeshifter 18:37, 26 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 wikipedia 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 couldn't be more on topic. User:Timeshifter is both building linkfarms that bypass the rules and proposing changes to the rules that protect ref wrapped linkfarms. This is also going on over at Wikipedia_talk:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Shopping_Guide? where Timeshifter is trying to argue that WP:NOT#LINK doesn't apply to references. This is a problem. (Requestion 16:11, 25 May 2007 (UTC))

"Subvert", "linkfarm", "ref wrapped linkfarms"? Whoa... Why don't you go and insult the main editor at that page directly. Ask him if his motives are to create linkfarms or to reference his article? He is obviously another highly skilled person with which you are again assuming bad faith. You obviously think that any article with a list is automatically a linkfarm.

Here is a better example of this type of list discussion:

Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/List of Insurgents killed in Iraq

Many people have changed their opinion. Do you ever change your opinion on lists always being linkfarms?--Timeshifter 17:59, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not assuming User:John Spikowski "ref wrapped" those external links in bad faith. All he did was listen to the your advice where you said "With footnotes there is absolutely no doubt that it is a citation/reference. Just having inline links can cause problems sometimes, because some editors will claim they are spam external links. Please trust me on this." My argument is that simply wrapping a linkfarm in <ref>s does not change the fact that it's a linkfarm. (Requestion 18:59, 25 May 2007 (UTC))

If you check his user page, one sees that he works in this area of expertise. His user contributions go back to July 2006. He wrote up a good comparison and features page of various software tools in his area. He was actually promoting his competition by doing this. That is not indicative of someone trying to create a linkfarm. I pointed out to some of the people commenting on the AfD discussion page that, "The links are citation/reference links. See: WP:CITE#HOW and Misplaced Pages:Embedded citations." Some people still insist incorrectly, as you do, that embedded citation links are not citation/reference links. So that is why I recommended that they be converted to footnoted reference links. --Timeshifter 22:02, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not calling User:John Spikowski a spammer, I don't want to delete the page, and I purposefully did not get involved in the AfD. I only want to clean up the linkfarm and then everybody can get on with their business. (Requestion 00:04, 26 May 2007 (UTC))

You say you are not calling John Spikowski a spammer, but you say he created a linkfarm. Sounds like a distinction without a difference. --Timeshifter 16:02, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

There is a huge difference. Spammers usually add links in a self-promotional way. Linkfarmers are just misguided in their building of large quanities of links. The difference is that linkfarmers generally mean well. (Requestion 22:32, 26 May 2007 (UTC))

From Link farm: "On the World Wide Web, a link farm is any group of web pages that all hyperlink to every other page in the group. Although some link farms can be created by hand, most are created through automated programs and services. A link farm is a form of spamming the index of a search engine (sometimes called spamexing or spamdexing). Other link exchange systems are designed to allow individual websites to selectively exchange links with other relevant websites and are not considered a form of spamdexing."

John Spikowski is not a spammer, nor a linkfarmer. I think you owe him an apology. Every wikipedia page with lots of reference/citation links (tens of thousands of them have dozens of links each, or more) would be classified as a link farm according to your definition of a linkfarm. --Timeshifter 08:51, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes I do change my opinion on lists being linkfarms. Take a look at Category:Lists_of_software and Category:Software_comparisons. I have cleaned up, tagged for {{cleanup-spam}}, and/or currently watch most of the articles in those categories. I also have been involved in deleting the ones that were problem linkfarms. (Requestion 18:59, 25 May 2007 (UTC))

I got involved in some list discussion awhile back when I was checking out wiki farms out of my own personal interest in wiki farms. I found this page: Comparison of wiki farms. I later saw someone trying to delete that page, and I was amazed anyone would even want to do so. So I got involved in the AfD discussion, and learned about some of the controversy concerning lists and comparison tables. There are thousands of them on wikipedia. In AfD (Article for Deletion) discussions I saw some of the same mistakes being made in the application of the wikipedia guidelines by those who did not understand those guidelines, or by those who were abusing those guidelines. --Timeshifter 18:27, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I forgot to mention that the reason for my interest in List of Insurgents killed in Iraq is because I have done a lot of editing at Casualties of the conflict in Iraq since 2003‎. I keep related pages bookmarked. I know from many hours of work on that page, and related pages, of the difficulty in getting good sources of info concerning Iraq-war-related casualties. --Timeshifter 18:56, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, ref linkfarms are a problem, but they are a problem that should be dealt with at CITE - not here. This is just one guideline and it cannot be expected to cover all instances of links. By leaving a link to CITE in the nutshell, it directs readers to more specific guidelines dealing with the other major context for external links.Nposs 13:35, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

OK, demonstrate to me how WP:CITE or some other rule handles User:Timeshifter's ref wrapped linkfarms and I'll drop it. Until then, WP:EL covers this abuse, and I don't feel that citation change to the nutshell is appropriate. (Requestion 16:11, 25 May 2007 (UTC))

I can show you tens of thousands of wikipedia articles with many dozens of reference/citation links. If WP:EL was applied to their citation/reference links, then wikipedia would be greatly damaged. Because many of their citation/reference links would have to be eliminated. Because Misplaced Pages:External links only allows a very limited number of external links. WP:EL only applies to NON-CITATION external links. No matter how you try to say otherwise. --Timeshifter 17:29, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Unindent: Changing guidelines (or not changing guidelines) that apply to all of WP based on a single case is a bad idea. It is true that EL can't address the problems of Panorama Stitchers, Viewers and Utilities, but that isn't what EL is for. I don't want to discuss that issue in detail here, but I think there are several ways in CITE that the links could be trimmed down on that article. EL isn't a blunt tool for fighting spam - there are many more ways to deal with specific cases. It could also be that CITE should be improved to discourage overreferencing (which appears to be the major problem with the case cited above.) But again, take the discussion there. Nposs 16:53, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Other relevant guideline pages: I looked at Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style, followed some wiki-links there, and found some pages dealing with lists: Misplaced Pages:List guideline, Misplaced Pages:Categories, lists, and series boxes, and Misplaced Pages:Lists in Misplaced Pages. There are probably more guideline pages. --Timeshifter 18:07, 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. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by J.smith (talk • contribs) 12:24, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Clarification by using a disambiguation sentence at the top of the article

It can be put above the Manual of Style and nutshell boxes.

Currently there are 2 disambiguation sentences at or near the top:

For the style guide for interior links, see Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (links)

Here is a suggested disambiguation sentence that could be added:

For the guideline on citation/reference links, see Misplaced Pages:Citing sources.

This way we do not have to change the nutshell. --Timeshifter 17:51, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I like the idea of adding the "For the guideline on citation/reference links, see Misplaced Pages:Citing sources" disambiguation line to the top of the page. It doesn't change any implied rules and it's direct and to the point. It is a nice solution. (Requestion 19:05, 25 May 2007 (UTC))

I would also like to move a sentence in the introduction. I temporarily emphasized that sentence that was moved from the bottom of the introduction to the top. I also added a sentence about external links that are embedded citations. The additional sentence is temporarily emphasized and also put in italics. Here below is my proposed revision of the introduction. --Timeshifter 16:31, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

For the guideline on citation/reference links, see Misplaced Pages:Citing sources.

For the style guide for interior links, see Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (links)

This guideline is a part of the English Misplaced Pages's Manual of Style. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though occasional exceptions may apply. Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

Shortcut ]

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.

The subject of this guideline is external links that are not citations of article sources. Misplaced Pages articles can include links to Web pages outside Misplaced Pages. Such pages could contain further research that is accurate and on-topic; information that could not be added to the article for reasons such as copyright or amount of detail (such as professional athlete statistics, movie or television credits, interview transcripts, or online textbooks); or other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article for reasons unrelated to their reliability (such as reviews and interviews).

Some external links are welcome (see "What should be linked", below), but it is not Misplaced Pages's purpose to include a comprehensive list of external links related to each topic. No page should be linked from a Misplaced Pages article unless its inclusion is justified. Note that since Misplaced Pages uses nofollow tags, external links may not alter search engine rankings.

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. Refer to the citation guideline for instructions on citing sources. External links used as inline embedded citations are covered by Misplaced Pages:Embedded citations.

This both clarifies the purpose of the page, and directs people to the pages they may be looking for. All without changing the nutshell. The embedded citations sentence is necessary because those external links are not covered by this guideline on non-citation external links. Inline external links used as citations are covered by Misplaced Pages:Embedded citations. The guideline was much clearer in previous revisions including a recent one discussed higher up. So that is why I am returning the gist of the embedded citations info from that reverted revision. See Misplaced Pages:Embedded citations. Its introduction is below.--Timeshifter 16:31, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Embedded citations provide an option for citing sources on Misplaced Pages. This approach is to place a numbered external link in the text of the article like this: and also put a full citation in a References section.

• 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.
• A separate entry in the References section is required. It should include as much information as possible about the source! If the link breaks, other editors must still be able to find the source, either as a paper copy or at another URL.
• A full citation might include the link, quoted title, author, title of publication, volume, issue, page, the date of publication, and the date retrieved.
• An embedded external link is placed after the period at the end of a sentence, or, when within a sentence, after the comma or semicolon at the end of a clause.
• If you are not yet familiar with external link syntax, read Misplaced Pages:External_links#How_to_link first.

Note that the embedded citations introduction is very clear about the external links it is discussing. It states: "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." So there is specific precedent for saying what external links are NOT covered by a guideline, and what ARE covered by a guideline. --Timeshifter 16:31, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Timeshifter, we already went over this and it's not going to happen. The new disambiguation line will be sufficient. (Requestion 01:09, 27 May 2007 (UTC))

Who is we? Most everybody else agrees with me. In fact; until the recent reversion the introduction was much clearer. The previous introduction was arrived at by consensus. Only a few disgruntled editors such as yourself are trying to keep the introduction vague as a means to muddy the waters as to the rules governing external links. You have said clearly several times that you are trying to make this external links guideline apply to citation/reference links. You are in the minority on that. --Timeshifter 08:40, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Can a couple people check out this diff? Timeshifter made 18 consecutive edits to this WP:EL talk page which moved some sections around and deleted some comments. I don't think the removal of the "potatoes or 10 gallon hats" nutshell was appropriate." I'm not sure what else was changed. Not sure why either. (Requestion 01:21, 27 May 2007 (UTC))

Is everything a plot to you? I moved a related section down. I deleted the extra nutshell that I thought I originally added, and someone else vandalized without leaving a signature. I first just deleted the vandalism. Then I realized that the same nutshell was in the same section twice. I can put back my extra nutshell if you want. But I am trying to avoid duplication. Which is also why I moved the related section closer. So interested people can read the whole discussion. I really don't appreciate this constant accusative tone against everybody you disagree with. I think it is called paranoia (the popular meaning of the word). --Timeshifter 08:40, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Strengthening the Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines to make spamming more difficult is my mission. You happen not to share my mission. I don't think it's paranoia and I'll let you decide if that qualifies as a plot. (Requestion 20:00, 27 May 2007 (UTC))

I oppose spam. Citation/reference links are not spam, though. And keeping you from deleting citation/reference links is not a plot to promote spam on my part. --Timeshifter 21:32, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I never said that citation/reference links were spam. I said that they could be spam. It's fairly obvious what your WP:EL mission is. (Requestion 22:13, 27 May 2007 (UTC))

And what is my obvious WP:EL mission, pray tell? I don't appreciate the uncivil insinuations. As several others have suggested, you need to take the discussion about possible citation/reference link spam to Misplaced Pages:Citing sources. Because Misplaced Pages:External links does not cover citation/reference links. Remember the disambiguation sentence you approved?: "For the guideline on citation/reference links, see Misplaced Pages:Citing sources."--Timeshifter 22:26, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Check the history log, the nutshell addition that you deleted was not vandalism but it was a clever, relevant, and humorous point made by a regular contributor to this page. I'm not sure if that editor agrees with me or was making fun of me, in anycase it should not of been deleted. (Requestion 20:00, 27 May 2007 (UTC))

Feel free to put it back, along with the signature and timestamp. Without the signature and timestamp it just looks like vandalism. If it was added to the nutshell that I added, then it was definitely vandalism, and the duplicate nutshell should be left out. --Timeshifter 21:30, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Nope, it wasn't added to your nutshell. You deleted it and it is your responsibility to put it back. Even if you were WP:AGF'ing, what you did still amounts to petty vandalism. I suggest you fix your mistake. (Requestion 22:13, 27 May 2007 (UTC))

I don't know who added the nutshell. Me or someone else. If you can prove that someone else added the nutshell originally, then I will gladly return it. I need a diff. You said you found one. --Timeshifter 22:19, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Well here is the diff. (Requestion 22:58, 27 May 2007 (UTC))

I returned the other nutshell. I also added the unsigned template:

{{subst:unsigned2|12:24, 25 May 2007|J.smith}}. --Timeshifter 23:08, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I will be changing the introduction to the above proposed version unless I hear some alternatives. Requestion does not want the introduction clarified as he does not want Misplaced Pages:External links to not apply to citation/reference links. Even the previous longstanding consensus version of the introduction (see this revision) was clearer than the current introduction which was introduced without discussion. See this diff. --Timeshifter 09:07, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to revert you on that change. One mention of WP:CITE in the disambiguation section at the top is sufficient for clarification purposes. (Requestion 20:00, 27 May 2007 (UTC))

You did not just revert my moving of the sentence up farther in the introduction. You actually removed the sentence, thus making the subject of this guideline less clear than before. See this diff. Fortunately, User:2005 put the sentence back in the introduction. As I said, you are in the minority concerning your desire to make Misplaced Pages:External links apply also to citations/references. It does not apply to citation and reference links, and never has. Please stop abusing the intent of this wikipedia guideline. --Timeshifter 21:26, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I did intend to remove that sentence. I agreed to the disambiguation line that we discussed above because I thought it would allow us to clean up and reduce the introduction. My mistake, I should of known better. (Requestion 22:13, 27 May 2007 (UTC))

I moved the "nofollow" sentence from the introduction down to another section. As was discussed on this talk page. See this diff. --Timeshifter 09:27, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Good move. It is much better down there. (Requestion 20:00, 27 May 2007 (UTC))

I consolidated the disambiguation sentences at the top of the article. As was agreed on this talk page. See this diff.--Timeshifter 09:30, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I like that. (Requestion 20:00, 27 May 2007 (UTC))

Striked it out because I changed my mind. I had no idea this would cascade. You know the saying, "give them an inch and they'll take a mile." (Requestion 00:55, 28 May 2007 (UTC))

User:2005 moved a sentence. I added another sentence. Here is the end result:

The subject of this guideline is external links that are not citations of article sources. If the website 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. Refer to the citation guideline for instructions on citing sources. External links used as inline embedded citations are covered by Misplaced Pages:Embedded citations.

It is the 3rd paragraph in the introduction. It returns the previous clarity to the introduction as to what this guideline covers. It is clearer and shorter than the last clear introduction that was removed without discussion during this edit earlier in May 2007.--Timeshifter 21:52, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

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)

J.S, you wrote: "I realy don't see why WP:EL shouldn't apply to external links within citations." Well, it doesn't. The introduction, nutshell, and/or title of the article need to be clear about this. The introduction has been much clearer in the past. Even the recent past until someone reverted it to an unclear version. Many past revisions of the introduction over the years have been much clearer about this. --Timeshifter 17:10, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Give it up Timeshifter. People don't agree with you. (Requestion 22:55, 27 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)

Many laypeople and beginner editors are going to come to this guideline first to find out the rules, and correct methods of insertion, for external links. So we need to be absolutely clear where they need to go for the guidelines concerning various types of external links. We need to let them know right away without wasting their time. That means using the title of the article, the nutshell, the disambiguation sentences, and/or the first paragraph of the article. We need a nested tree of info concerning external links:

Misplaced Pages:External links

Misplaced Pages:Citing sources

Misplaced Pages:Embedded citations

Each one covers a different area concerning external links. The bottom 2 overlap. --Timeshifter 17:20, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Creepy. Very creepy. EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:58, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Introduction unclear again

Requestion has completely rewritten the introduction without discussion. See this diff. --Timeshifter 23:20, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Timeshifter can you please stop violating WP:MULTI. It is becoming next to impossible to follow all of the duplicate threads that you have started. The WP:EL diff removed a couple unnecessary sentences and it was discussed above. The nature of the red diff algorithm makes it look like a lot more was changed than actually was. (Requestion 00:49, 28 May 2007 (UTC))

From WP:MULTI: "Centralized discussion: Avoid posting the same thread in multiple forums." I am posting all of this on this talk page. Your new complete rewrite also deleted all 3 disambiguation sentences at the top that everybody agreed with. The new rewrite leaves the introduction vague again as to what this guideline covers. --Timeshifter 00:56, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I will move the related sections down to the bottom of the page with this one. --Timeshifter 00:59, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Don't go moving stuff around. That will just add more to the confusion. (Requestion 01:15, 28 May 2007 (UTC))

Stop telling people what to do. I follow correctly-interpreted wikipedia guidelines, not wikipedia editors. --Timeshifter 08:51, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

At the same time Requestion is using the vagueness of Misplaced Pages:External links to support the deletion of large parts of lists and charts that took years to compile. See Comparison of time tracking software.

See this diff:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Comparison_of_time_tracking_software&diff=130518351&oldid=130227200

Requestion supports this huge blanking of much of this chart. That represents almost 2 years of work down the drain. He also supports the deletion of embedded citation/reference links in this chart that do not meet his misinterpretations of wikipedia guidelines such as Misplaced Pages:External links.

Another editor will only allow entries that have their own wikipedia pages. So Requestion deletes the links. And the other editor deletes entries that do not have their own wikipedia pages. So between the 2 of them they have created a reference-free chart that is much smaller than the original chart.

I did not edit this chart. But I have experience with other lists and charts. There is no wikipedia guideline (correctly applied) that allows this huge deletion of much of the chart, and almost 2 years worth of work.

Here is the chart before the mass deletion of much of it:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Comparison_of_time_tracking_software&oldid=130227200

Imagine all the work it took over almost 2 years. The links are embedded citations, though I would format them differently. See: Misplaced Pages:Embedded citations. --Timeshifter 00:38, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Nothing is lost, it's still all in the history log. (Requestion 00:49, 28 May 2007 (UTC))

Several other new entries added by other editors since then have also been deleted. It is a big unnecessary jumbled mess that will need to be eventually sorted out. --Timeshifter 00:58, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

The enthusiasm of Timeshifter and Requesition for improving this guideline is admirable. A favor, however - can you please move the personal vendettas to the relevant User talk pages. Your constant back and forth has made it difficult to follow any lines of argument and has sufficiently bloated this discussion page. Both of your are trying to force a point of view without proper consideration of WP:CONSENSUS. This is not a popularity contest nor a cage match of ideas. This is a place to discuss the guideline - not to discuss other editors. Please, take some time to cool off and come back with constructive suggestions that don't simply reiterate the same positions that been the source of so much unnecessary contention. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nposs (talk • contribs) 03:54, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Nposs. Consensus was reached previously, and the guideline was made clear. In early May 2007 an editor removed the info that made the intro clear. Without discussion. Only one editor, Requestion, is blocking consensus now. In the meantime in the last day another very useful page has been abandoned by a highly skilled editor due to Requestion's misinterpretation of Misplaced Pages:External links. See:

Panorama Stitchers, Viewers and Utilities (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views).

Here is the talk diff with John Spikowski's reasons for giving up. He abandoned the page, and redirected it to a completely different page without merging the very useful list. It could not be merged with the page he redirected it too. --Timeshifter 08:50, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree, the back and forth has gotten voracious and quite uncomfortable. A cool off period may be in order, or at very least moving the discussion off this page for a bit. I respect both of you and your opinions, but it is getting out of hand. JoeSmack 07:32, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

JoeSmack. You are the editor that said in a discussion with me that unless a wiki is being checked on every 10 minutes it can't be stable. Another editor wrote: "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." So, I think you are still mad at me for disagreeing with you elsewhere. --Timeshifter 08:38, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not! I wasn't mad at you to begin with; I don't get angry here on Misplaced Pages, I get concerned. :) I didn't see that response, but I routinely revert bad edits under this arbitrary 10 minute threshold, and routinely see others do it too. JoeSmack 15:21, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

SlimVirgin has made the introduction clear again. See this diff:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Misplaced Pages%3AExternal_links&diff=133987237&oldid=133953476

I am happy with it. --Timeshifter 08:58, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I've reverted the various changes that were never discussed here. 2005 10:27, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I am happy with your last version too. Here is the diff:

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Misplaced Pages%3AExternal_links&diff=134048891&oldid=133987237 --Timeshifter 10:49, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm also happy with 2005's version. It disambiguates but it doesn't change the rules. (Requestion 17:31, 29 May 2007 (UTC))

Maybe User:2005 and User:SlimVirgin can combine their 2 versions of the introduction.--Timeshifter 10:51, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think I would be happy with such a combined version. (Requestion 17:31, 29 May 2007 (UTC))

Why am I not surprised? --Timeshifter 06:18, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

What consensus means

This is a pretty important page on Misplaced Pages. Any changes that are going to be made should have a pretty broad base of support already in place on this discussion page before they are actually implemented. Timeshifter has been doing a lot of talking, but not getting much agreement and also getting a number of disagreements. That's not consensus. SlimVirgin has several times now just up and changed the policy quite dramatically. That's not consensus either. Please stick to offering up suggestions on how to make changes. If any of them are necessary then a number of people wlll agree. Until then you shouldn't be making any changes. DreamGuy 11:21, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

The only person disagreeing with the idea of making the introduction clearer as to exactly what Misplaced Pages:External links covers is Requestion. --Timeshifter 11:45, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Amen. Changing the guideline without consensus is rude and presumptuous, as well as just dumb since the changes will be reverted. And in case some don't get it, even good ideas should not be added without consensus, since at a future date anyone could remove them because they lacked a consensus when added and we are back to square one, with a contentious disagreement to boot. I don't get people who think their own opinion is all that matters, but that's not how this guideline is going to work no matter how many times someone tries. 2005 21:38, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

List of Mind Mapping software

I did some routine cleanup of external links in List of Mind Mapping software. A couple of editors are complaining in Talk:List_of_Mind_Mapping_software#Linkfarm. Could someone take a look? -- Ronz  21:33, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I took a look I agree with them. The article is a list of software. For any article that doesn't have a wikipedia page a link to the official website is reasonable (as per List of bicycle manufacturers). I don't think this was a link farm, I agree with the editors of the page. Our policies shouldn't make pages less useful to readers. jbolden1517 02:47, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

The usefulness of an article is how well it covers the topic at hand in an encyclopedic manner. A list of links isn't necessarily useful. "What Misplaced Pages is not" is pretty clear on the issue: WP:NOT#LINK Articles are not "mere collections of external links or Internet directories. There is nothing wrong with adding one or more useful content-relevant links to an article; however, excessive lists can dwarf articles and detract from the purpose of Misplaced Pages." I don't find the List of bicycle manufacturers to be a good example of an implementation of external links. Ideally, the list would direct readers to articles about notable bicycle manufacturers. Adding external links to the non-notable ones has two bad effects: 1) it is a disincentive for editors to create red-links for manufacturers that probably should have articles 2) it encourages every dude with a garage and a blow-torch to add his name a link to his website. This pattern of editing actually rewards those who edit Misplaced Pages for promotional purposes. Nposs 04:07, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

They are not mere external links. They are citation/reference links. See the wikipedia guideline section I quoted farther down. It is from the same guideline page you quoted from. Non-notable entries should not have their own wikipedia pages. All entries (like all info in wikipedia) should be verifiable. The easiest way is to link to their home pages with an embedded citation. --Timeshifter 11:00, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think this article is as useful as Comparison of IRC clients, which includes well-organized tables full of objective information. I have some experience with List of search engines, which has a rule that all entries need to have their own Misplaced Pages articles. That tends to keep spam out, and it establishes a minimum notability requirement. Would anything important be lost if such a rule were imposed here? The entries in this article are mostly unsourced. (There is nothing backing up the statement that is made about each package). Removing the software packages that don't have their own articles would eliminate that problem because we assume that the free-standing articles about the separate programs would include their own sourcing. EdJohnston 04:59, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Only the topic of a list or chart has to be notable. Individual items on the list do not have to be notable. From WP:NOT#DIR:

"Of course, there is nothing wrong with having lists if their entries are famous because they are associated with or significantly contributed to the list topic, for example Nixon's Enemies List. Misplaced Pages also includes reference tables and tabular information for quick reference. This site search, and this one, pull up thousands of examples of lists and comparison tables. Merged groups of small articles based on a core topic are certainly permitted."

I will keep repeating this wikipedia guideline as necessary. Software lists and charts should not consist mainly of companies with bigger advertising budgets and better press. Misplaced Pages does not support shared monopolies (also called an oligopoly. --Timeshifter 10:48, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I will be reverting this list to the last sourced version with all the reference/citation links. From Misplaced Pages:Verifiability (emphasis added):

This page in a nutshell: Articles should contain only material that has been published by reliable sources. Editors adding or restoring material that has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, or quotations, must provide a reliable published source, or the material may be removed.

This is from an official wikipedia policy page. --Timeshifter 11:20, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

From Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources (emphasis added):

"Misplaced Pages:Verifiability says that any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged needs a source, as do quotations, and the responsibility for finding a source lies with the person who adds or restores the material. Unsourced or poorly sourced edits may be challenged and removed at any time. Sometimes it is better to have no information at all than to have information without a source. See that page for more information about Misplaced Pages's policy on sourcing."

That is from the introduction of that page. So people who are removing citation/reference links are seriously violating wikipedia policies. --Timeshifter 11:33, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I think your argument for suggesting that external links to the websites of products/etc. that are not notable enough for their own article is a bad precedent. I also find that it is not supported by the policy you quote. You suggest they should have an external link because the guideline says "any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged needs a source." The existence of a website/product/organization is not "likely to be challenged." Your logic appears to be that since any unsourced edit can be challenged, all edits require sources. That is incorrect and bad precedent. The external link you claim is being used as a reference is only supporting the fact that the software does indeed exist. No one is removing items from the list of mind mapping software claiming they do not exist and then refusing to do Google search to see if it does exist or not. If we wanted to get entirely legalistic (interpreting guidelines literally), it could be argued that the website of a piece of software does not constitute a "reliable source" (WP:RS) since it constitutes a "self-published" source. You'll have to find another way to prove that these inline external links that do not support any important fact (other than the fact that someone has a website) are references. Nposs 12:53, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree with Nposs. Adding any item with a website to a list article makes WP an "indiscriminate collection of information." I fall back on the words of WP:N: "List articles, though, should include only notable entries; for example, only notable writers should be in List of English writers." That guideline is pretty clearcut to me. UnitedStatesian 13:18, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

That guideline page is contradicted by this quote below from a POLICY page. From WP:NOT#DIR:

"Of course, there is nothing wrong with having lists if their entries are famous because they are associated with or significantly contributed to the list topic, for example Nixon's Enemies List. Misplaced Pages also includes reference tables and tabular information for quick reference. This site search, and this one, pull up thousands of examples of lists and comparison tables. Merged groups of small articles based on a core topic are certainly permitted."

Misplaced Pages can not set an ironclad rule on what entries to put in lists and charts. It actually makes sense to only put notable writers in List of English writers. But it makes no sense in Nixon's Enemies List or software lists and charts. Otherwise wikipedia would be propping up business oligopolies. --Timeshifter 13:39, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

We've already been over this. WP:NOT#LINK overrides WP:NOT#DIR in this case. No matter how much the rules are twisted and how much a bunch of external links shapeshift into references, Misplaced Pages is not a linkfarm. (Requestion 17:28, 29 May 2007 (UTC))

The links being deleted are citation/reference links, and not just external links. I think there needs to be some kind of Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Lists and charts. Kind of like Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Countering systemic bias and many other wikipedia project pages. Someone needs to start it. I am sure many editors will join it if it gets started. Because there is a group of editors going around and blanking large parts of list and chart articles. They are violating wikipedia policies by deleting sourced info and the citations for it. It is a very serious violation of wikipedia policies when looked at correctly as blanking sourced info.--Timeshifter 11:56, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Can someone who likes the current List of mind mapping software point to a similar article that you think is well done? It seems to me that this is a weak article, since there are no sources to justify the particular selection of software packages, nor the comments that are made about each package. As others have noted, just pointing to the web site of the maker of the software does not provide a reliable source. These days nearly every product on the market has a web site, so that is no mark of distinction. Someone mentioned Nixon's Enemies List, but that one is extremely well-sourced as an historic list, and as a bonus every person on that list also has their own article. If a third party had made an analysis of mind-mapping software and we reported the list of what they considered notable, that might be one way to do it. Misplaced Pages is not a directory; an article should add some value, and not just echo what is said on the web sites of the makers. EdJohnston 13:37, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages should not be propping up business oligopolies by only listing the programs with the best advertising budgets and media connections. Money often buys media coverage through advertising in the same issue in which the program is reviewed. A "scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours" system. There are many software lists and charts. They have various formats. The one rule-of-thumb that most people seem to agree with is that a software list or chart must tell something specific about most of the individual programs. Features, points of distinction, etc.. Otherwise it is just a directory, and it is against wikipedia guidelines to create directories on wikipedia. There is no point anyway in duplicating directories that are usually already on the web. It wastes wikipedia editors' time. It is the details that make the chart or list encyclopedic. Plus the WP:NPOV nature. That makes many of these lists and charts unique on the web. No sneaky POVs to push one product over another. No advertising language. No reviews. --Timeshifter 13:48, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Discussion begun over at the village pump: Misplaced Pages:Village_pump_(policy)#List_articles_full_of_links_as_.27references.27

It seems the "nofollow" argument is invalid: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam#Invisible_inkspam. -- Ronz  15:20, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm puzzled by User:Timeshifter's reference to 'business oligopolies.' Misplaced Pages does its own investigations as to what information is worth keeping. We try to see through advertising and find out what's really important. There is no justification for including a software package in one of our list articles if our *only* research is to look at the website of the maker. We should be using secondary sources, and citing them at the bottom of the article. I do not see any secondary sources in List of mind mapping software that comment on ANY of the software packages used. (The Medical Education article is paper-based, not software-based). EdJohnston 20:45, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

(Unindent). WP:CITE and WP:Verifiability cover citation/reference links. See this section of WP:Verifiability. That section, titled "Self-published and questionable sources in articles about themselves", states:

Material from self-published sources and sources of questionable reliability may be used in articles about themselves, so long as:

• it is relevant to their notability;
• it is not contentious;
• it is not unduly self-serving;
• it does not involve claims about third parties;
• it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the subject;
• there is no reasonable doubt as to who wrote it.

So in an article discussing the existence and features of their program, a link to their homepage, features page, etc. is allowed. --Timeshifter 03:10, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for the duplication of some of the info at Village Pump. From Misplaced Pages:Village pump (policy): "Discussions older than 5 days (date of last made comment) are moved here. These discussions will be kept archived for 9 more days. During this period the discussion can be moved to a relevant talk page if appropriate. After 9 days the discussion can only be found through the page history."

So some more of the talk there will be moved here eventually anyway. --Timeshifter 03:14, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Timeshifter, you keep quoting WP:NOT#DIR and specifically Of course, there is nothing wrong with having lists if their entries are famous because they are associated with or significantly contributed to the list topic. Can you tell me how each of the items in the list are either famous because of their association with the topic or how they each have significantly contributed to the list topic? Their mere existence in the list doesn't add significant value to it, it just makes it longer. Also, why have you said on your talk page that User:Requestion's viewpoint is in the minority? From what I can see here it is in the majority, and over at the village pump there is an equal number on both sides...-Localzuk 08:34, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Opinion is split on lists and charts and the notability of items on them. I suggest we let the talk pages of the articles decide. I have been reading the talk pages of some more lists and charts, and over time they have many of the same discussions we are having. As I said at the Village Pump, I now believe that a satisfactory compromise is to avoid duplicate linking by not putting an inline link on the list or chart page if there is already a wikilink for the entry. This solves most alleged spam problems, and does not delete entries. Requestion is definitely in the minority on this talk page here. He is trying to make a radical change of this guideline. Elsewhere Requestion's popularity varies by talk page, and by the day. So does mine. There is room for compromise on issues outside this guideline. --Timeshifter 04:32, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Requisition does not appear to be in the minority in believing that the inclusion of lists of items that simply link to company websites and which do not provide additional encyclopedic information in someway is inappropriate. His opinion that this particular guideline should apply to links that are used in citations is in the minority, but that's does not mean he is not part of a larger agreement that the type of lists you are defending are basically directories. -- Siobhan Hansa 14:01, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

This talk page is about Misplaced Pages:External links, and as you and others have said, Requestion is in the minority in trying to to make this guideline change radically to apply to non-citation links. You are misstating my position on other lists and charts. I have never said I supported "lists of items that simply link to company websites and which do not provide additional encyclopedic information". I do not appreciate my position being misrepresented. And a pragmatic solution seems to have been reached on many lists and charts concerning citation/reference links. People have allowed wikilinked entries to serve as the citation/reference for those entries. So there is no duplication of citation/reference links on multiple wikipedia pages - thus blocking their utility as spam (intended or not). So when there is no separate wikipedia page for an entry the citation/reference link remains on the list or chart page. Notability discussions about lists and charts, and their entries, is wide and varied. But that discussion needs to be continued at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Lists, as does discussion about sourcing lists. Because neither discussion is about non-citation external links (the topic of Misplaced Pages talk:External links). --Timeshifter 17:24, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I apologize if I have misstated your position - It wasn't my intent, it is what I understood from your previous comments and what I believe Localzuk was inquiring about in the comment you responded to when you simply suggested Requisition was in the minority. Localzuk was drawing your attention to the fact that WP:NOT#DIR requires a list to be more than a simple collection of all associated entities and that items should in some way be famous or significant. I do not believe that a simple link to the main page of a website is appropriate as a citation in most cases - it is simply an external link wrapped up in the pretense of being a citation, and then it also fits under this guideline. -- Siobhan Hansa 17:52, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Apology accepted. Actually there are 3 problems here. Notability, encyclopedic value, and citations/references. WP:NOT#DIR says that items in a list do not have to be notable in themselves. The topic of the list must be notable. But there are conflicting wikipedia guidelines, and list and chart editors vary widely in their treatment of that issue. That is offtopic for this talk page. A simple list of entries without some details, features, etc., is usually (not always) considered to be a directory. Depends on the list. That also is offtopic for this talk page. Ontopic is WP:CITE and WP:Verifiability. Those guidelines cover citation/reference links. As does Misplaced Pages:No original research#Primary, secondary, and tertiary sources.--Timeshifter 18:32, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

See this section of WP:Verifiability. That section, titled "Self-published and questionable sources in articles about themselves", states:

Material from self-published sources and sources of questionable reliability may be used in articles about themselves, so long as:

• it is relevant to their notability;
• it is not unduly self-serving;
• it does not involve claims about third parties;
• it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the subject;
• there is no reasonable doubt as to who wrote it.

So in a wikipedia article discussing the existence and features of an entry on a list or chart, a properly-formatted citation link to the entry's homepage, features page, etc. is a citation showing that the program and features exist. As I said previously though, there is no need to duplicate the citation link if there is a separate wikipedia article for the entry. This avoids most of the possible spam problems.--Timeshifter 18:35, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

You seem to be repeating the same arguments verbatim. The point that User:Siobhan Hansa was hinting at above was that this type of article is basically a directory, and WP is not a directory. A program should *not* be included in List of mind mapping software entirely on the basis of what is said on their web site. The quote that you have now given us from WP:V (twice in the current thread) is IMHO to allow the subject of a biography to testify as to their own date of birth, and stuff like that. The very context you are quoting from is more oriented to biographies rather than statements about a company. Certainly the corporate web site of a piece of software is not a reliable source as to the value of their software. EdJohnston 19:41, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

EL pimping of free content sites

I would like to point at:

• the general {{FreeContentMeta}}
• {{Memoryalpha}} being replaced with {{Memory Alpha}}
• {{Hpw}} being replaced with {{HarryPotterWiki}}

This is a move by User:Phil Sandifer to enhance the visibility of external links that are recognized as Free Content sites. I understand wikipedia wants to promote the use of Free Content, but this seems a bit over the top to me. Also the fact that the redirects leave people no choice about which of the two forms they want to see on their articles, seems premature to me. The whole discussion kinda got out of control because of User:Matthew's involvement, but that doesn't take away from the fact that several people so far have objected, and that some admins now seem to support this replacement simply because Matthew opposed it. Some more input would be appreciated from users that regurly touch the EL subject.

TFDs:

• Misplaced Pages:Templates for deletion#Template:FreeContentMeta
• Misplaced Pages:Templates for deletion#Template:HarryPotterWiki

Users that have opposed this full replacement seem to be:

• User:Matthew
• User:Illyria05
• User:Sohelpme
• User:Sceptre
• User:Visviva
• User:A. B.
• User:Requestion
• User:Elonka
• User:RockMFR
• User:Titoxd

Please try to give your objective opinion on adding the boxes, replacement of the old link, etc and try to avoid being pulled into any edit warring. I'm trying to pull more people into this discussion, because it now seems to be a Matthew vs. the admins issue, which is clouding the discussion more than a bit. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:37, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I have also proposed a solution to the edit conflict --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:40, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

The tactics people use to violate this guideline are mindboggling sometimes. 2005 20:24, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure WP:EL applies here since the TfD's are about inter-wiki links that are internal links. The potential for abuse is still there but it's just different. A lot of the spirit of WP:EL should apply though. (Requestion 20:29, 30 May 2007 (UTC))

These are links to Wikia, not Misplaced Pages. Wikia links certainly don't deserve special treatment. 2005 21:02, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Man... it sure would have been courteous for someone to mention this discussion to me... In any case, I think there is a valid reason for keeping these. Two, actually. First, it is consistent with our mission to promote other free content resources. Second, these provide a helpful way to direct people as to where to add different kinds of content. Too many of our articles on fictional subjects are badly clogged with in-universe minutiae. And people rightly resent having this information removed. It's a strange case where we can consistently generate a consensus that this kind of information is inappropriate, but can't generate a consensus on many given pages. This practice is an attempt to combat that courteously - by promoting other, better places for these activities and trying not to treat those projects as inferior. If, and I say this from experience, you move somebody's lengthy plot synopsis to a Wikia they will complain that the Wikia is obscure. If you replace it with a link to that Wikia, they are, in my experience, much happier. And that's the crux of this - these templates are a useful tool for improving the project and helping shape topics that have been resistant to our best practices. They do so in a way that seems to me entirely positive - they promote free content, they promote contributing to free content resourecs, and they promote higher quality articles on Misplaced Pages. The downsides - that these sites aren't non-profit (hardly an issue to my mind, as Misplaced Pages, though non-profit, is not opposed to for-profit enterprises) and don't have quality assurance (can be fixed by pushing for the changes that already have wide support at m:Interwiki map, and anyway, Wikiquote doesn't have much quality assurance either) seem to me lesser than the upside of better free content resources, here and elsewhere. Phil Sandifer 19:21, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

List of companies working in Technopark

Given the discussion above Wikipedia_talk:External_links#List_of_Mind_Mapping_software and related discussions, I'd like others' opinions on List of companies working in Technopark.

I consider the article a linkfarm, and started cleaning up the links when I noticed there were only 2 internal links in the list of 110 entries. I considered this reason enough to propose the article for deletion.

Since then, two entries have been removed and six others have been changed to internal. That gives 8 internal links in a list of 108 entries. -- Ronz  19:57, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Looks like a linkfarm that will be very difficult to keep clean. Removing everything but the blue links is probably the best option. But then at that point why not just merge what's left of the list into the Technopark,_Kerala article? (Requestion 20:25, 30 May 2007 (UTC))

This discussion is offtopic. Please discuss it elsewhere, such as at

WP:CITE

WP:Notability

Misplaced Pages:Notability (organizations and companies)

Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Lists.

I will copy this over to Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Lists. --Timeshifter 17:31, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Policy discussion about external links and references in lists

Subsequent to the mind mapping discussion, user MPS has made an interesting policy suggestion over at: Misplaced Pages:Village_pump_(policy)#Proposal_to_avoid_duplicate_links.2C_and_to_shorten_page_load_times_for_dialup_users. Your comments and suggestions would be welcome. Nposs 20:30, 30 May 2007 (UTC)