Wikipedia talk:External links

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External link cleanup in Ergonomics

Could someone take a look at the recent cleanup efforts of the external links in Ergonomics. A discussion has been started, but it doesn't say much yet Talk:Ergonomics#Recent_External_links_cleanup. -- Ronz 17:40, 5 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Question on Appropriateness

There has been extensive discussion on the Baseball project page on the amount of links found on many article pages. One of the sites in question is being discussed extensively. The only defensible point that I can find is that this site presents the data in a different fashion than some of the other sites. Nearly every site that includes baseball statistics includes information in a table or in a similar format. The site in discussion presents them in pie charts and graphs. If the information is identical to other sites, but presented in a unique fashion, is that a satisfactory reason to include the site in the external links section? I am not inclined to, since the other sites are already in place AND tables are the most familiar and recognizable format for baseball statistics. //Tecmobowl 02:57, 6 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's the information which we deal with here. Painting the information on the side of kittens does not improve it sufficiently to require a link to the same information in a different format. Charts and graphs are sometimes more useful than numbers, but does that site's presentation bring any new insights? Maybe one should wait for some reviewers to comment on how great the pie charts are, and then there will be sources which indicate that it's a useful site. (SEWilco 03:22, 6 June 2007 (UTC))[reply]

Thanks for your comments. There might be one or two tidbits of information that are not found elsewhere, but nothing I would deem substantial. As a result, I have suggested that this type of information be included in the article and then referenced. In case you want to read up on the disccusion, here is the link. I'll warn you, it's a scattered and heated discussion that seems to focus on my editing style rather than the topic at hand. Many thanks for your response! // 04:14, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Merriam-Webster Online

Apparently Merriam-Webster now hosts an "open dictionary"[1] (read: user submitted, no notability or reference required) on the same URL as their normal dictionary. I only noticed it when a user tried to cite MW Dictionary in their article on a neologism they made up.

Not certain whether or not this is common knowledge, but since they both originate from http://www.merriam-webster.com and only one is legitimate, I figured it might be worth a look. Bullzeye^{Complaint Dept./Contribs)} 17:09, 7 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Request for opinion on some links

I have made a call for removal of some links at Talk:Kushan_Empire#External_link_policies. The two sites I am asking to remove do not cite any reliable sources and one is a coin sales site, clearly a commercial conflict with an academic article. Another editor does not agree with my views, so I am asking for outside opinion on these links. If any of you can chime in on the talk page for the article it would help break a deadlock. Buddhipriya 20:58, 8 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Allstate

Could use someone to take a look at the article on Allstate insurance. User:Ombudsman keeps re-adding what I consider questionable links [2], and anons. come along adding other questionable links. Other IPs (often registered to the company) then come along and remove them. [3] It's questionable that the company edits its own article, but in this case, I don't think the links are appropriate. This cycle has been going on for a very long time. I have had conflicts with Ombudsman on other articles, so would like others to look at the links in the article. --Aude (talk) 03:06, 13 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Junky "official" sites

Another user and I are having a polite disagreement over whether articles about artists (in the wide sense of the word) may (or even should) link to what are indisputably the "official" sites of those artists when those sites are primarily promotional rather than informative. One of us reads WP:LINK to say that permission to link to an official site trumps advice not to include what's junky; the other reads the relative priorities the other way around.

The sites in question aren't evil (no popups that follow you after you've surfed elsewhere, etc etc.) and they may even be slightly informative; but they primarily exist in order to move product.

What's the collective wisdom here? -- Hoary 04:55, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well stated, I'm the other user in this disagreement. I'm happy to abide by whatever is the consensus of the community. Brian 05:08, 14 June 2007 (UTC)btball[reply]

Another Brian's opinion: I think people do (or should) reasonably expect a commercial or artist's official site to be largely promotional. If the reader doesn't want it, she doesn't have to click through. Brianhe 05:16, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You should link to an official site even if it is junky. I suppose spyware or whatever would trump everything else, but aside from that if there is an official site it "should" be linked. the guideline is clear on that. 2005 07:54, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The "in a nutshell" of this guideline says "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" and then, before the guideline gives examples of what to link to and what not to link to it states "no page should be linked from a Wikipedia article unless its inclusion is justified". My view is that the higher order purpose of this guideline needs to be taken into consideration - and that's to allow external links when they add value to the article. I've seen a whole spectrum of artists "offical sites" ranging from being an immediate storefront adding no value (IMO) to the article (other than perhaps the ability to see copyright versions of pictures produced by the artist that couldn't otherwise be included in Wikipedia) to sites that had very informative biography, awards information, links to reviews etc. I think the former (just a storefront) should be shot on sight. I can see the merit of keeping the latter. As it's just a guideline, not policy, we're free to use our judgment on this. Having said that, I've already agreed to abide by whatever the consensus is here. Brian 10:48, 14 June 2007 (UTC)btball[reply]

The consensus is: What should be linked: Articles about any organization, person, web site, or other entity should link to the official site if any. 2005 10:51, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, 2005, that's not a consensus. So far, I see three opinions here, mine, yours and Brianhe. I'll wait to hear from others, your opinion is clear. Thanks Brian 11:42, 14 June 2007 (UTC)btball[reply]

Of course it is. You seem very confused here. I stated the consensus. That is the text from the guideline. Just because you don't like it doesn't invalidate the consensus. Official sites should be linked. that is the existing consensus, and a very longstanding one at that. If you want to change the guideline then advocate that. But it appears clear that there is no widespread support for changing the lonstanding consensus. 2005 23:03, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Confused or at least not clear :-) I was looking for consensus here, in this discuss, not the previous consensus as stated by the text in the guideline 2005 mentions - as I had read the guideline as ambiguous. It's clear I'm in the minority, I've reinstated the links to official sites I deleted. There's such strong support for this that I don't see any reason to advocate a change in the guideline. Even though I personally don't like it, I'll live with it. There are plenty of other ways for me to make Wikipedia better. Brian 12:56, 16 June 2007 (UTC)btball[reply]

I think the official sites should be linked, even if they're lousy; one should expect them to be biased and promotional in nature, but they're the article subject's official presence on the net. *Dan T.* 13:27, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Just because the sites are the article subject's official presence on the web isn't really sufficient for me. The test is whether it adds value in an encyclopedia. I think that just a storefront does not but a site that has content that adds substance to the article might. Thanks for you comment, the consensus appears to be growing - and it looks like I have the contrarian view ... It would be nice to hear from a few more editors. Brian 14:10, 14 June 2007 (UTC)btball[reply]

I think any official site should be includeable. A person or group's website is part of their public presence; junky or not, it's noteworthy. Yaron K. 14:25, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A trend and consensus seems to be forming ... Thanks, Brian 15:24, 14 June 2007 (UTC)btball[reply]

It appears you didn't read the guideline before posting. The consensus is very specific and longstanding. Official sites should be linked. 2005 23:06, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a dyed in the wool exclusionist, but here I side with the developing consensus: an EL to one official site is always appropriate. My two comments, though: sometimes it is difficult to identify the "official site" (as opposed to one or more "official fan sites"), and a number of WP articles link to multiple official sites (common for musicians: an offical site, PLUS an "offical myspace page." In those cases, I think EL to the myspace page can go). UnitedStatesian

Can someone draw up a list of 'really really good EL official links' and 'really really bad ones' so I could grok where ya'll coming from? I think ultimately if there is going to be exceptions or guideline word changes we're going to need to bring some cards to the poker game. ;) JoeSmack ^Talk 16:04, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to add my voice to the growing chorus of editors who believe that official sites should always be included. I think some of the division here is about artist's websites. In the above discussion consider if your point of view would change if we were talking about the Coca-Cola article. We always include a corporation's website in their article, even though its always assumed that the corporation's site will be commercial in nature. Why would it be any different with an artist? In fact, I'd like to see an example of an artist's site that is not self-promotional in some way. TheMindsEye 19:10, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think if it can be established that an artist (or vendor) is notable and if it can also be established that the link is to the artist's (or vendor's) "official" site then there is no reason to delete the "official" link even if it is to myspace and even if there is little encyclopedic content there. I believe that wikipedia editors have creative license to un-include the link but the general rule of thumb is should err towards including the "official" link. I can't think of a universal reason not to include an official link but one reason might be that the site is so spammy that it will lock up most computers. Just my opinion, though. Isn't there a wikipolicy on external links to software? MPS 19:22, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Link to the official site. It may suck ass (previously referred to as "junky") right now, but that's not to say that it will always be that way. (this reason is in addition to the "but it's the official site arguments which are quite good; I just didn't feel like repeating them) EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:29, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, original questioner here. Thank you all for your time. You'll have easily worked out which was Btball/Brian's side in our little "argument", and may have inferred that I'm all in favor of adding official sites. Actually I'm not: if they're junky, I'd much rather they weren't included. I was a little saddened to infer from the article that they were to be included, and rather cheered to learn that Brian read the page otherwise. But oh dear, it seems I was right all along. -- Hoary 01:09, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I see there's a clear consensus. If someone is notable enough to have an article then they can have a link to their homepage, not matter if it adds nothing of value to the article. So be it. I'll restore the links I removed. And for the record, I did read the entire guideline, I just read it that whouldn't shouldn't be linked (promotional sites) could take precedence over the guidance that official sites should be linked. In the Coca-Cola example above, if their home site was only selling product and didn't have additional information that would improve the article, then no, I personally, wouldn't wante a link in the article. But I'm clearly in the minority here - and many of the official sites do have some marginal value beyond just selling product (some don't though) - so I'm quite willing to put my personal opinion aside. Thanks everyone. Brian 08:03, 15 June 2007 (UTC)btball[reply]
All links that I removed have been restored now. Thanks again. Brian 09:25, 15 June 2007 (UTC)btball[reply]

I don't see how we have any obligation to link to anything official. If the official site adds nothing to the article then why link to it? However, if it's junky and has the slightest bit of value, then link to it. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 16:49, 16 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Let me clarify that a bit with the statement that official sites almost always have some intrinsic value as a primary source if nothing else. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 16:52, 16 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to agree with J.S. I would add that most of the time an official site should be listed in the references or sources sections as a primary source rather than the EL section. Also, in a number of cases with television show articles, there are fansites that are recognized as reliable sources. Nohomers.net springs to mind. Cheers. L0b0t 21:34, 23 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Howto's, free code, tips and tutorials links

I am coming across many articles filled with these sort of links (an example would be Visual Basic. My understanding of external links was that they should be included if they add to the content of the page, in an encyclopedic way (or are the official publisher etc..). What is the situation with howto's?-Localzuk^(talk) 12:28, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding is that if external links could "add content", then they should NOT be external links but rather used as references. On the other hand, how-to's and such like are EXACTLY the kind of things that should be externally linked, as they provide useful content that is WP:NOT included in the 'pedia. Zunaid©® 14:47, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest that in most cases how-tos should not be linked. The important thing about an external link is that it be to a site that contains encyclopedic information by a reliable source (most often at a level of detail inappropriate for general encyclopedia article). How-tos don't constitute encyclopedic content and since external links should be kept to a minimum, it seems like in general they should not be linked. Wikipedia itself should not include "how-to" info (WP:NOT#IINFO) and I haven't seen an instance where a link to a "how-to" was appropriate. (Although, I don't rule out the possibility.) Nposs 14:58, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, we certainly don't want a whole sheaf of them as exist in Visual Basic... in most cases such as this, there are a few major portals/directories to which we can leave the job of linking specific how-to resources. I would say the general rule should be "maximum 1, only where of remarkable merit." -- Visviva 15:14, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Uh, keep in mind it needs to be written by an authoritative source as per WP:EL#Links normally to be avoided. I run into this all the time with cooking recipes; I'd say 99% of those kind of links I see added fail that criteria. JoeSmack ^Talk 15:22, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Being allowed to post links to info on our site.

I am a staff member who helped build crystallakeafterdark.com Earlier I put links to our section on the films to Part 1-5 of the Friday the 13th film pages for each section. I also originally posted links to interviews we'd done with stars of part 2 on the part 2 page. Those links were deleted and I was told to only post the link to the section on the movie. I did but even that was removed. I pointed out that the owner of campcrystallake.com had posted links to his film sections and interviews so I saw no reason why I couldn't. I was told that it was a conflict of interest because I might be the owner of the site. Well I'm not. I just helped build it. I was told that having the links on Wikipedia wouldn't add or increase our hit rating. I said I wasn't posting the info for that reason. The sections and interviews have info. I always thought Wikipedia was for sharing info. And I know the fans of Friday the 13th would be interested in the info provided. Plus my links were deleted before anyone asked if I was the Site owner. And like I said before it was the site owner of campcrystallake.com who posted those links to his site. So why is the owner of one site allowed to share his info and someone who isn't the owner of a site not allowed to? Seems pretty hypocritical to me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Crystallakeafterdark (talk • contribs) 23:15, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you are associated with a site, you shouldn't add external links to it, and especially not a lot of links. Links to the other site you mention should be removed if you stated the situation correctly. In you case, you should post the links on the article talk pages, and ask another editor to add them. I was going to put one back myself then saw this post. As someone associated with the site, suggesting the link on a talk page is the way to go. 2005 23:22, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

O.K. I'll make the requests on the talk pages then. Thank you for your time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Crystallakeafterdark (talk • contribs) 23:29, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

you can add any content you want to wikipedia provided that it is encyclopedic and licenced by the author for use on wikipedia. If you are not the original author then we don't know if the content is approved for release to wikipedia via the GNU Free Documentation License. Posting links to helpful how tos isnt the same as writing it in the encyclopedia. In any case, linking your own site smells of WP:COI regardless of whether this is your actual intention. MPS 14:23, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, you can't add any content... we have all sorts of policies all over to explain what can and cannot be added. New users should go read the welcome message links. Sounds like you should also if you are giving out that advice.

And this example is pretty clear WP:SPAM. DreamGuy 16:44, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe you didn't read the part where I said "provided that it is encyclopedic." I will assume that you didn't. When I say encyclopedic I mean WP:ENC which is pretty much in agreement with what you said. Hurrah for agreement! MPS 16:55, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

O.K. since it's obvious that it's o.k. for the owner of campcrystallake.com to have links to his movie pages and interviews that he himself added it should be perfectly fine for me to have links to a site I helped with added as well. But since it appears you two seem to think my adding them would be a COI as you put it I'll either have someone else add them who isn't affiliated with the .com or skip it and expect to see the links for all of the campcrystallake.com web site removed.— Crystallakeafterdark (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. The preceding unsigned comment was added at 23:36, 15 June 2007 (UTC).[reply]

The reason I've made few is because they were all deleted. I'd be a lot more inclined to do more and get out of this topic if I was allowed to share the info I have. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Crystallakeafterdark (talk • contribs) 00:15, 16 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Usernames that contain a domain or imply a web address (such as yours, Crystallakeafterdark AKA crystallakeafterdark.com ) are not allowed as usernames and eventually the account will be disabled. see Inappropriate usernames. Please also review the relevant policies such as WP:SPAM, WP:EL and Specifically WP:COI. If you need further clarification, feel free to discuss your link dispute further at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam, as this talk page is primarily for Wikipedia:External links policy discussions. --Hu12 23:59, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why didn't you just say that in the beginning? That my username was inappropriate. I registered under that name because I assumed you'd like to know someone associated with the site was providing it so you knew it was a good link. It's a wonder you guys get any kind of information collected or contributed with all these asanine rules and restrictions.

You know our site links to wikipedia quite a bit. Maybe I should change it to another information provider. One that appreciates when they are referenced and wants all the information someone is willing to share. Also how does one change their username? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Crystallakeafterdark (talk • contribs) 00:10, 16 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Banning usernames that happen to be the same as the second level hostname of somebody's site (without a TLD in the username -- "crystallakeafterdark", not "crystallakeafterdark.com") seems rather silly. It's possible there are many users who own domain names that contain the sequence of characters found in their username, if both domain and username are based on their personal name or nickname, for instance. *Dan T.* 00:21, 16 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikifur

It's been pointed out to me that someone has gone through and linked many, many articles to Wikifur, a very small wiki that does not even come close to meeting WP:EL guidelines on stability, size, and reliability of information (not to mention the whole no links to anything that only represent what we should have here once articles become Featured Articles thing). Wikifur is a site for people who follow the furry sexual lifestyle, and the sites that are linking to it often have nothing to do with that. On top of all that, Wikifur also is basically a Google Ad delivery device, and quite spammy. I would appreciate if some people here would take the time to do a search on wikifur and help me remove them, and also to explain to anyone who might complain about the appropriate about the WP:EL rules on this matter. Thanks. DreamGuy 00:32, 17 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Furry sexual lifestyle"? I wish! That's like saying Star Wars fandom and it associated site is all about sex with Wookiees. Look at the front page and tell me that again with a straight face. :-) GreenReaper 03:34, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Just a quick note, this issue is arising out of a dispute that's been going on over on Talk:Therianthropy for a few days now, there's a lot of pre-existing discussion of the matter over there. Folks might want to take a look at what's going on there before joining in, we'd welcome additional opinions. Bryan Derksen 00:38, 17 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

DreamGuy started removing these links without any further discussion so I've also brought it up at WP:AN/I#Rapid-fire external link removal by DreamGuy. I wish there wasn't such an all-consuming rush going on here, even if it turns out that WikiFur really doesn't satisfy the guidelines there's no reason not to wait a few more days until consensus is reached. Bryan Derksen 00:55, 17 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, the rush seems to be averted. On with the actual meat of the dispute. Bryan Derksen 01:18, 17 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have a question Bryan. Why do you care if the Wikifur links are removed? (Requestion 01:35, 17 June 2007 (UTC))[reply]

Because it seemed like a useful and informative source of information on the subject. I don't recall any more why therianthropy is on my watchlist, but when DreamGuy removed the entire external links section I decided to check up on them and restored the ones that didn't seem inappropriate to me. Bryan Derksen 01:46, 17 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OK, that is a fair answer. We see so much COI here that I had to ask. (Requestion 03:09, 17 June 2007 (UTC))[reply]

WP:EL says to avoid "links to open wikis, except those with a substantial history of stability and a substantial number of editors." The meta:Interwiki_map is full of such poor quality wiki's ~~so we have a conflict of rules~~. Maybe Wikifur should be removed from the interwiki map? I think the key issues here are the spam and COI points. The site does seem spammy and the added links do seem out of control. I've been seeing a lot of template and inter-wiki abuse lately. I would like to know who is adding the Wikifur links and why. I would also like to know why there are 114 furry.wikia.com external links when there is a working inter-wiki link. (Requestion 01:35, 17 June 2007 (UTC))[reply]

I just realized that since this is the English Wikipedia then WP:EL overrides the authority of the interwiki map. Still, I would like to know who is adding the Wikifur links and why. Is this a spam and a COI problem? (Requestion 01:39, 17 June 2007 (UTC))[reply]

I'm not sure how COI is an issue. External links are, generally speaking, involved with the subject of the article they're in in some way so there's almost always a conflict of interest of some sort there. If you're asking whether I personally have a conflict of interest, I don't think so; I've never edited WikiFur before. I'm sure that in some cases WikiFur links probably have been added inappropriately but the dispute at therianthropy arose because DreamGuy is arguing that there are absolutely no possible appropriate external links to WikiFur. I think that's far too dogmatic and doesn't fit what the guideline actually says. Bryan Derksen 01:46, 17 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Who is adding the WikiFur: links? That could be a COI issue. How many WikiFur interlinks are there? Does anyone know how to do a linkseach for interwiki-map links? (Requestion 02:47, 17 June 2007 (UTC))[reply]

In most cases, I am adding the interwiki links, though often as a replacement to an external link added by someone else. There is a clear potential conflict of interest there, because I am the founder and chief administrator of WikiFur. However, I only add the links when I feel that it's the right thing to do - when the current WikiFur article contains information that Wikipedia could not on verifiability grounds. Moreover, these links are of obvious use to people - using Google Analytics, I can see that on average, Wikipedia visitors visit 10 other pages on WikiFur in each visit, higher than any other link source in the top 25 (including search engine results). I'm willing to give others access to WikiFur's Analytics data to confirm this if they wish.

I also add links back to Wikipedia in all cases, even when everything on the Wikipedia article is covered by the WikiFur article. Indeed, most WikiFur article has a multitude of inline links to Wikipedia to explain general topics (see page text matches). We also have a well-used template for compliance with inter-wiki transfer of text from Wikipedia to WikiFur (though likely some of those articles have been deleted on Wikipedia by now). Our links are not a one-way street. GreenReaper 21:10, 17 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please then remove all those links you have added. By showing good faith and removing them yourself you save other editors the work of tracking them down and removing them. 2005 00:20, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No. I think they should be there, and that removing them would lessen the use of Wikipedia to readers. If you wish to remove them, please do so because you think the opposite, not because of who added them. GreenReaper 00:57, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No they should be removed on sight because WP:EL, WP:SPAM and WP:COI all make clear they are spam because of HOW they were added. Again, if you think they thing deserves linking you should follow the various guidelines and policies, after removing the links yourself rather than have someone else clean them up because they are the encyclopedia's definition of spam. 2005 01:02, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I respectfully disagree. The ultimate objective of this project is to build a good encyclopedia. Removing links that I think are useful would run counter to that. GreenReaper 01:05, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Of course you think they should be there, it's your site, and that's why this is a COI problem. I would recommend that GreenReaper not add anymore WikiFur: links. (Requestion 01:08, 18 June 2007 (UTC))[reply]

If you would like to give some examples of links that I made which you think are inappropriate, I will be glad to discuss them with you. My criteria for adding them is above. I don't see anything wrong with them. GreenReaper 01:15, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I just read User:GreenReaper/Conflict of interest. Hmmm, COI is "fatally flawed" and you "do not follow it." This is going to be a problem. (Requestion 01:27, 18 June 2007 (UTC))[reply]

It warrants a review of his contributions, perhaps, but if we find that he's added a WikiFur link to an article that upon due consideration is actually reasonable to have then removing it would be cutting off our noses to spite our faces. Perhaps we could request a list of such articles for us to have a look at, and that in the future GreenReaper suggest the addition of WikiFur external links on the article talk pages first so that at least one second opinion would be involved for each? That's usually what I do in a situation where someone with a conflict of interest has already done a bunch of work, there's no point throwing it away if it's actually to Wikipedia standards. Bryan Derksen 01:49, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The correct process is simple. All the spammed links are removed, then if GreenReaper (or anyone) wants to suggest a link on a talk page, fine, but spamming COI links is inappropriate on multiple levels. If the site is worth something, someone else who doesn't own it will add the link. there is no problem here with making the encyclopedia weaker. the only problem is blatantly inappropriate actions. We can't have every website owner adding their links in a lot of places just because they think they are cool. 2005 02:16, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sure you can. People do that all the time, and they are removed or not based on other people's appraisal of their value to the article. That's how wikis work. If people felt that WikiFur links were not useful then they'd keep getting removed and I would eventually get tired of adding them - but they don't, because they are useful. GreenReaper 02:40, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The issue is not that people are capable of making spam edits. Just because a spammer can click the edit link does not mean that is the end of the story. There are guidelines and policies, which you can ignore if you want, but being a reasonable person will be more effective. Clearly the links to your site now can and will be removed by anyone now as violating consensus policies and guidelines, so this "I'll do anything I please" tactic is not a very productive one. 2005 02:58, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone can remove anything, but I will certainly argue for their replacement if I think they are useful links, on that basis. That would be why I'm here now. GreenReaper 03:06, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm fine with people looking at my contributions - indeed, I encourage it. I'm not so keen on the idea of having prior restraint on editing. Given the amount of work I do in Category:Furry, starting a talk page section each time I wanted to make an edit involving a WikiFur link would result in more conflicts than it avoided. People are already free to revert any additions if they think they're inappropriate. I certainly don't feel I should self-censor my actions because people have the idea that I could be adding bad links, without any evidence that I am. That's focussing on the contributor rather than the content. GreenReaper 02:36, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Egads, the "I'm above the law" argument. Sad. 2005 02:18, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

COI isn't a law. It's a guideline designed to avoid conflict between contributors, at the expense of excluding potentially valuable contributions, and because of the disadvantage I disagree with it and do not follow it. I do however take care to ensure that my links are useful ones. If you don't believe me, go and look. GreenReaper 02:36, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The one link I just looked at was utter junk. 2005 02:58, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Which one was that? If you're talking about the one on Therianthropy, I didn't put that in, nor was I involved with the prior discussion to do so. I did switch it to interwiki format. GreenReaper 03:47, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

2005, Do not remove any external links soley because they are added by GreenReaper. COI exists as a premptive measure for the most part, removing things simply because of the contributor is groundless in policy. If you need another person to step up and say they think the link is useful I am that person. Content, not contributor. NeoFreak 04:29, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't be absurd. It is standard practice to remove spammed links based on the contributor. Of course that is normally an IP address just adding 30 links in a row, but the same applies here. Abuse needs to be dealt with when it is found, especially when it is arrongant and contemptuous of other editors and multiple consensus. The Wikipedia does not exist for bullies to act like bullies. Honestly, what were you thinking when you wrote this? 2005 05:44, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I find myself a little surprised to be in the situation I'm in, I usually side with DreamGuy on the occasions that we've crossed paths. In this instance I'm not sure I can do so. I think that in the context of this particular article that WikiFur would be an acceptable external link. While it is a wiki which, according to the guideline (and commonsense), should be avoided the guideline also makes exception for those wikis with a history of stability and a large body of active editors. I think this to be a reasonable exception. I see no conflict with the guideline here as WikiFur is the fifth or sixth most active wikis under the wikia domain with a active body of hundreds of editors. The second issue raised is the "featured Article" clause. This website does in fact have material that would not be used in a FA because of the stipulations that wikipedia has for citations and reliable sources in a FA. Alot of the good but unverifiable material hosted on WikiFur would of great interest to the general reader (who is the ultimate audience of wikipedia) cannot be hosted here in a FA. This issue is covered in the "Links to be considered" section of the guideline: Sites which fail to meet criteria for reliable sources yet still contain information about the subject of the article from knowledgeable sources. The other potential stumbling block for WikiFur is the clause: Any site that misleads the reader by use of factually inaccurate material or unverifiable research. See Reliable sources for explanations of the terms "factually inaccurate material" or "unverifiable research". Now this is up to debate but there is two ways of reading this. The first is that is written to imply that any website that does not have the same or a greater degree of verifiability as wikipedia should not be included. In my opinion this would eliminate the use of external links. The other way to read this is to exclude sites that have been identified as being frankly or obviously misleading due to "Factually inaccurate material" and "unverifiable research". Using the second interpretation of the clause I see not problem including WikiFur. So the possible objections include:

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

This is resolved by the inclusion in WikiFur of material that cannot be hosted in a wikipedia featured article due to verifiability rules.

Any site that misleads the reader by use of factually inaccurate material or unverifiable research. See Reliable sources for explanations of the terms "factually inaccurate material" or "unverifiable research".

This is resolved in that no misleading material on WikiFur has yet been identified and as explained above.

Links to open wikis, except those with a substantial history of stability and a substantial number of editors.

This has been resolved in that WikiFur is one of the most active wikis on the net, top 5 for wikia.com and it is home to a dedicated team of hundreds of editors. Alot of traffic and editing.

The upside for including WikiFur includes the three primary criterion:

It is accessible to the reader
It is proper in the context of the article (useful, tasteful, informative, factual, etc.)
It is a functional link, and is likely to continue being a functional link.

Also for the inclusion under the sections of "should be linked" and "should be considered":

Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to copyright issues, amount of detail (such as professional athlete statistics, movie or television credits, interview transcripts, or online textbooks) or other reasons.
Sites which fail to meet criteria for reliable sources yet still contain information about the subject of the article from knowledgeable sources.

So on that train of thought is there any further objection to the addition of WikiFur on context relevant pages? As outlined above there is no ban on wikis in this guideline and it fulfills not only several obvious inclusion criterion but also makes a case for itself in the exception clause of wikis. If there is in fact any further objection a specific explanation of why would be most helpful. Also, as a edit conflict add on I'll say that there is a huge "furry" editor community on wikipedia and one of the reasons that WikiFur was created and grew so quickly was the removal of furry related material from wikipedia. I was one of those editors removing the material but I think the transwiki of the information to WIkiFUr and the addition of the external links was a great solution, good for the reader and for wikipedia. I'm very, very un-furry (but not anti-furry). I've killed more non-notable furry articles than I can count so I can guarentee you there is no COI here. NeoFreak 01:52, 17 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This diff demonstrates 2 problems I have with interwiki-map links. For example; this Phenix internal link is really an external link to Wikifur:Phenix. This sort of renaming is deceptive. Maybe we should add some wording to WP:EL that says interwiki links must have visible prefixes? The second problem demonstrated is the linkfarm quality of 17 Wikifur: external links which violates WP:NOT#LINK. It seems a bit excessive. Interwiki links should go at the bottom like all other external links. (Requestion 03:05, 17 June 2007 (UTC))[reply]

I think that diff shows a great judgment call, that was a fucked up article. I totally agree that Interwiki links should go at the bottom under the External Links section, I never suggested otherwise. All external links should be clearly marked as such and placed accordingly. As a matter of fact this was one of the issues I failed an article's request for Good Article status for. Are we in agreement over the appropriatness of the WikiFur link for the EL section? NeoFreak 03:44, 17 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, in that particular case I think interwiki links were being misused. Usually what I do when I find interwiki links embedded in article text is to turn them into reference footnotes, just as if they were ordinary external links embedded in the article text. They may subsequently suffer further at the hands of our referencing guidelines. In this case they aren't being used as references, though, just surrogates for internal links. A link to WikiFur's "Extinctioners" article should suffice for all those sub-articles too. Bryan Derksen 04:43, 17 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There are situations where I think the use of more than one interwiki link is appropriate, but I agree that was excessive for such a small topic, simply because some of the characters that editor linked to have very little information. If a link defines a term which has a meaning in a particular subculture but which would never deserve a Wikipedia page (or it has already been deleted), I see far less of a problem. Wikipedia doesn't want to cover it, so we might as well link to somewhere that does. GreenReaper 03:04, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My view would be it depends on the article. It looks like a large community portal, and as such, would be valuable on community articles (much as we sometimes link to major fansites for other fandoms). By this I'm thinking articles like Furry Fandom and Therianthropy, that specifically mention the online community. It provides a background on the community that Wikipedia doesn't, so would be valuable there.

Looking at DreamGuy's edits, some of the articles it was on were weird. Taxidermy and Kopa standing out. The same would go for pages on authors, artists, books etc... even if they are furry, our references should really come from sources that can verified. Especially more so if it's people that are still alive, as some of the articles that had the link seemed to be. It has all the usual wiki problems (can't background check editors, can't cross-check it and know it'll keep the same quality, etc).

So in a nutshell, yes as a further info of the community, but no as a reference source for facts (particularly on living people). Polenth 05:03, 17 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There is a twisted reason that the Kopa article had a WikiFur link but trust me when I say you don't want to know what that reason is. *shudder*. Anyway I'm prety much in agreement with what you've said but I did assume that you statement would have been obvious to most. Then again you know what they say when you assume (it makes an "ass" out of "u" and "me"). I would hope that anytime that WikiFur is linked to that it is because there is a direct corelation between the wikipedia article and the linked WikiFur article. For example "WikiFur's article on Fursuits". That way you understand the source right off the bat and get a direct link to the relavent article. NeoFreak 05:13, 17 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If anything was obvious to everyone, we wouldn't be having the debate. ;) Polenth 05:45, 17 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

For the moment, my reply is in this diff but I hope to add more soon. Please be patient and thank you. Mermaid from the Baltic Sea 16:27, 17 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Great, looks like the people who spammed it in the first place are now busy campaigning for it here with deceptive claims. I hope that we have enough people here who are sane and can see past such nonsense to overrule what is a very obvious attempt to spam a site full of Google ads with minor, unreliable, unverified, unstable wiki, in direct opposition to very clear rules on WP:EL. If nothing else the sheer number of pages that have the site deceptive listed as See Alsos and internal links definitely need to be cleaned up, and I hope that the obvious WP:COI can be cleared up. When a handful of Furry fans are pretending to be reliable, encyclopedic sources we have a very real problem. DreamGuy 20:46, 17 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You opened the discussion here, so this is where it's being discussed. I think you are selling WikiFur short. We've been around for two years and have 7,000 articles and a large number of regular editors, including 16 active administrators, many of whom are recognized authorities within the fandom such as furry convention organizers or MUCK wizards. The Google ads are there because our site host places them there - the community makes no money from them - and they are hardly intrusive. The wiki certainly contains information that is unverifiable, but that's part of the point of it. It is extremely useful to its target audience, many of whom are looking for that information on Wikipedia and not finding it because of Wikipedia's verifiability and notability guidelines. There's no real way I can prove this conclusively, but people wouldn't be making donations to help us promote the site online and at conventions if they didn't think it was a worthwhile project. GreenReaper 21:39, 17 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Could we have the input of people who are normally on this talk page instead of just letting all the pro-furry people rush in and try to monopolize the conversation? It looks like they are trying to set up a fake sort of consensus here by posting early and often. Of course the pro-furry people are going to fall all over themselves trying to promote the site, what about everyone else? I thank the couple of people who didn't carry over from a furry page, but we need a lot, lot more to get past this clear WP:COI. DreamGuy 20:49, 17 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Excuse me? Are you trying to say people involved in the topic shouldn't be part of the discussion? I'm not going to start adding links to this over at WikiFur, but I'm for sure going to say something here if I think you're wrong. GreenReaper 21:21, 17 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

DreamGuy, I was hoping you could address my previous post. I think I've laid out very clearly why WikiFur is permissible under the guideline as it reads already. I deal with alot of the same clean up type stuff that you do and I know that you can often feel like a broken record facing off against a never ending supply of people that "just don't get it" but a less combative tone would go a long way here. NeoFreak 04:29, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

was really, intractably certain that as soon as it came to WP:EL there'd be a swarm of supporters for him, and that hasn't happened. He may still be proven to be interpreting the guidelines correctly, but there are statements that outside of Therianthropy, everyone would 'know' he was right, and that hasn't happened. This makes for 'pro-furries monopolizing the conversation' (since no matter how many times I bring up that I was watching the page for the same reasons he was, I want the link there, so I'm pro-furry, you see). --Thespian 21:34, 17 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Back to the subject , and IN GENERAL when there is a major external site, whether commercial or not, that clearly has a very important source of information on the subject, it is appropriate to link--once. It is not appropriate to link to addition subpages of even an important site unless there is unique material there which could not otherwise be located. It is not appropriate to link to every external site, commercial or not, that offers information. It can sometimes be appropriate to use a specific site as a references, if it would be a RS for the information. (This can be additional. Sometimes it can substitute for the external link. My experience with this question is not on this topic, but on the e-books and similar pages, where there are a few very important vendors, and many minor ones. On some pages all commercial links are removed, on some pages there is a standard for which are major. COI sources can play a useful role in pointing out material, but the evaluation of the appropriateness should not be done where there is COI. Many external site webmasters and owners have added important material to WP from their extensive knowledge of the subject--but anything apparently COI requires strict scrutiny from those without. It is a positive step for those with COI to declare it--then other can look. I do not know what are the actual circumstances here. but this sort of a guide has proven useful elsewhere. For general principles, there is sometimes an advantage in editors uninvolved in the specific subject, but to determine just what is significant content, this can require those who know about the topic. Obviously everyone involved in editing a site will want material about it, but the consensus of WPedians is normally enough to maintain reasonable coverage. If some parties think otherwise, then a RfC is warranted. Adding and removing sites without discussion is of course editwarring, is unproductive, and can lead to blocks of all involved--it takes two to edit war. DGG 23:34, 17 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not a regular on this talk page (I don't recall ever editing here before) but I'm also not a "pro-furry" person so I don't know whether you're referring to me here. I assume you are referring to GreenReaper, though, since he seems to be involved closely with the project. What's wrong with having outside "experts" contributing, provided they're being rational and informative about the subject like GreenReaper has been so far? He provided a bunch of information about WikiFur that I would have had to do a lot of digging to find otherwise. Disregarding that would be like holding an AfD and disregarding the input of anyone who wasn't an AfD regular. Bryan Derksen 01:40, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Spamming something you own, and saying you will ignore multiple guidelines may be "rational" to you, but its extraordinarily contemptuous of every one else. 2005 02:58, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with focussing on who people are rather than looking at how good their edits are. Contempt is a strong word, but it is true that I do ignore the (few) guidelines that I think are wrong. At the same time, consensus is not a guideline, and I have not ignored it. A previous discussion involved the position of such links. I personally felt that as they were related articles they should be in See also, however the consensus was that they should be in External links. I still disagree with that, but I follow it. GreenReaper 03:15, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As the founder of WikiFur you may want to consider recusing yourself from the disussion now that you've made your position clear. It's up to you. NeoFreak 04:29, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am a furry and I consider WikiFur to be a terrible source or external link. The wiki is, to say the least, kind of sketchy. I know a number of people who have articles on WikiFur and they are often poorly written, highly biased, do no reflect reality, ect. There are several articles on people who are disliked in the furry community which are poorly written, and a lot of furry authors have glowing articles, probably written by themselves or their friends. The whole Wiki is not a reliable source of information, and just because you have 8000 monkies typing doesn't mean that they're going to produce something Wikipedia can use. -Perhaps- we could use it for limited purposes, such as stating what at least some furries think, but it is not an acceptable source of information and promoting it via wikipedia is unethical at best. Wikipedia has high standards, and WikiFur does NOT meet our standards. Titanium Dragon 09:10, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. That's a far better assessment of the quality over the other reasons for removing the link (ie, labelling it a 'competing' wiki, insisting that wikis were never to be linked to, etc). The issue initially 'exploded' because the reasons for the removal were blanket ones based on the supposed 'rules' of WP:EL, and an editor who insisted he was 'enforcing' them (despite the fact WP:EL is a guideline). If an assessment like this had been given as a reason at the start, it would have gone a very different way. Something that many people are forgetting in this discussion is that the initial problems, as they started on Therianthropy, was more about edits in which the editor brandished WP:EL like a sword, claimed it said things that it doesn't, claimed that wikis were NEVER to be linked to (instead of 'normally to be avoided', which is not equivalent to 'always to be avoided'), and told people, repeatedly (in the talk page and in the changelog comments) that the edits he was making were 'NOT OPEN TO DISCUSSION'. DreamGuy would, at this point, like to claim that the issue is about 'the furry issue' and WikiFur, but the problem was never over that, it was merely set off by him reverting the edits of 5 or 6 other editors who thought the link was acceptable.

I am not furry, but friends of mine who are think of WikiFur as being a decent referral space. I will definitely keep your opinion in mind, as I was assessing it based on appearance, ratings on Wikia, and content as it appeared to me without being involved in your community. Despite DreamGuy's constant accusations that I am somehow 'pro-furry', all I've ever been is pro-neutral assessment, and I've tried to do my best to be neither hugely pro- or anti-furry when looking at things like this. --Thespian 15:23, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I am not a "Furry" (I'm not even sure what that is, to be honest, and someone asked for opinions of people who frequent this page, rather than the furry culture. Here's my opinion, for what it is worth: If you own a site, it is in violation of WP:COI to add links to that site to any page, no matter how good that site is as a resource. The correct procedure is spelled out in the WP:EL guideline - add a request to the Talk page and get a consensus of editors that it can be added. If such links were added by the owner of the site, then they need to be all removed, and the procedure followed as-written. The merits of the site can be discussed in the individual talk page discussions - I suggest we refrain from doing that here. I also suggest that the owner refrain from adding any more, and in a show of good faith, cut and paste any links they have made to the respective talk pages, where true discussion among involved editors can ensue. -- Alucard (Dr.) | Talk 15:10, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This started out of an issue on Therianthropy, and the owner of WikiFur was *not* the person who added the link there, as far as I have seen. It's being brandished now, but that's really a different issue from the one that was causing the problem, which was DreamGuy removing links to wikis and declaring that all other wikis are 'competing', that wikis should *never* be linked to, etc. This discussion is ranging all over the place, but note that the first entry in this thing was said editor declaring he was going to go through and remove *every single link to WikiFur* from Wikipedia, regardless of where it was, how it got there, whether within context it might be acceptable (ie, on pages about the subculture), etc. He was temporarily blocked in the middle of this action to stop him.--Thespian 15:32, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, no, no. I never claimed that no wikis should ever be linked to, just ones that fit the description here of ones to be avoided that offered no other compelling argument. You keep focusing on some nonsense about how you think I was doing something other than what I clearly spelled out. The fact of the matter is that the link on that page -- and the links to the vast majority of pages that have been spammed to this site by the site owner, often deceptively as See alsos and internal links -- do not many ANY part of the EL rules, and in fact violate several of them. You need to stop lying to yourself about my motives and face the fact that you just were ignoring very clear rules because you were offended. DreamGuy 20:03, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sigh

23:28, [14 June 2007] DreamGuy (Talk | contribs) (6,997 bytes) (→External links - OK, considering that the WP:EL guideline SPECIFICALLY SAYS NOT TO LINK TO COMPETING WIKIS this is not up for discussion)

But no. Of course you've never claimed that no wikis should ever be linked to. Nope. Or claimed that the WP:EL says things that it does not say. Or do you want to try another excuse? --Thespian 20:43, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Then I would suggest that this discuss stay on topic and stop getting off into the emotional weeds. So what we are trying to determine, here, as I see it, is whether the WikiFur is, by nature, linkable as a WP:EL in that it meets the exception criterion of the "Links to be avoided" section, point 12 ("Links to open wikis, except those with a substantial history of stability and a substantial number of editors."). Or is someone saying that there is some other reason why it should not be linked? If a result is to be achieved here, I think we need to limit the discussion to the salient parts of WP:EL, and how it should be applied. Either way, I feel that the owner of WikiFur needs to desist from adding links to pages, and should remove the ones that have been added, and follow the correct procedure, whatever his or her opinions on the WP guidelines may be... -- Alucard (Dr.) | Talk 15:46, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's why I brought it up. I am of the opinion that DreamGuy didn't want to link to WikiFur for other reasons, and seized upon the nature of WP:EL; WIkiFur may well not be a good link; I thought it was, but I've always said I'm willing to let it go if I'm wrong or consensus says elsewise. However, I *do* think under WP:EL, it does stand; it's several years old, has a couple hundred editors, and is the 4th or 5th largest and frequented wiki on Wikia. DreamGuy was insisting it was 'no competing wikis', and then, when enough people pointed out it doesn't say that, said that it fails for point 12 (which I think is untrue). Again, content might yet be the issue, but DreamGuy has oddly said little about content, and has instead been sticking to the non-existant 'competition' argument and argument that it isn't substantial, which I also think fails. I agree with you that the Wikifur owner should not link to his site, but that's covered in other guidelines, and can be addressed under them.--Thespian 17:35, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So you are assuming bad faith on my part and willing to completely ignore extremely clear rules on WP:EL because of your bad faith? And this "competition" claim was not the main thrust of my argument, so it's ridulous for you to claim so, and further I did explain what I meant by that (the part about not linking to sites that add no information above what Wikipedia articles can and should already have), several times, so it's ridiculous for you to claim I didn't explain that. Basically everything you've said in your summary here is completely wrong. I have a very strong history here of very good edits, both in removing POV-pushing and removing spam, and that's what my edits were about. Your actions and your comments here show a complete disconnect with how Wikipedia is supposed to work. DreamGuy 19:58, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, if one goes through my earliest points on this, while you were scolding people and yelling at them, I mentioned several times that I genuinely believed you were acting in good faith. It wasn't until you got unbearably 'my way or the highway' in your interpretations of guidelines, that you started telling people that rules that didn't exist (your thing with 'competing wikis') were set in stone, that you told people contrary to all the most basic rules of wikipedia about working together to build something amazing, that instead, there was to be no discussion of link removals you made regardless of other editors on the page, furry and non-furry, thinking it should be there, that I decided you are, indeed, acting in bad faith. I really did assume good faith for as long as I can, but you are abusive and rude. After I wrote the above, I looked at things like your RfCs and other people's Eequests for Arbitration involving you, and this is an extensive issue of yours going back for years; the complaints people had about you in 2004 are word for word in some cases what I had written. But by all means, after years of complaints that you can't seem to work in a team-environment, feel free to say that I don't understand how Wikipedia is supposed to work. --Thespian 21:03, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, and the complaints the *I* can't work in a team environment invariably come from people breaking rules quite dramatically trying to stir up trouble and ignorant people not looking into the situation and following along blindly. And, yes, I will say again, from your comments here and your actions it's very clear you do not understand how Wikipedia is supposed to work. See WP:ENC for the basics, as those alone are probably going to be a big surprise to you. DreamGuy 06:27, 19 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And it's funny you should mention my RFCs, as if you'd bothered to look at them they are from YEARS AND YEARS ago, and in any case all they do is prove that bad editors made complaints that were in general found to be nonsense. In fact one of them that was filed had the vast majority of everyone who had complained about me PERMANENTLY BANNED from Wikipedia since then as unrepentant POV-pushers and harassers. So trying to pretend that the fact that I have RFCs against me or that other people breaking policy filed requests for arbitration doesn't prove that I am a bad editor, it just proves that bad editors get pissed off when I enforce the rules here. It's nice to see you joining in on their nonsense, shows your true stripes. DreamGuy 18:10, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Also to Add:: At the risk of flogging a dead horse, after you removed the links a couple times with nothing more than a comment that you were removing the links, someone brought it up in talk. Your first post on this does not say, "I think this is a poor link because of (reasonable assessment of content)." It's actually an attack on Mermaid from the Baltic Sea, accusing him of harrassment. Then when Bryan, Myself and Neofreak chimed in stating we all believed there were reasons to keep the link, and each explained them civilly, You responded entirely with an argument based on WP:EL and stated that "Hello, WP:EL is EXTREMELY clear on this point." (which as several people here who lean towards your side have said, it is not). At no point did you say anything other than 'WP:EL says we shouldn't link to this (paste bits of WP:EL), end of discussion'. If you'd given any sign that you'd looked at the site and were making your decision based on an actual assessment of the number of editors, stability or content, things would have gone very differently than they did with your declaratives. I believe your POV is very skewed on this subject after several years of trying to keep the nutcases from running the asylum, and you are as much of a danger to NPOV as the radical furries are, at this point. --Thespian 23:24, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Accusing me of POV bias is nonsense. It's solely based upon the fact that it's a poor quality wiki link that clearly and unequivocably does not meet External link guidelines. And, yes, I have accused Mermaid of the baltic sea of harassment, his harassment is well documented and undeniable, as he has gone around blind reverting all sorts of changes I made to tons of articles, often only claiming he objected to one part (typically the removal of a spam link) but reverting spelling, grammar and many other changes as well. The guy is a clear menace. And from your actions here you're not looking much better. DreamGuy 06:27, 19 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Being called a possible menace by someone who has responded to lots of this page with threats and bluster, but not yet to the actual lie he was caught in up there? Hmm. Unlike our other issues, which are really coming from a irreconcilable personality conflict, lying is actually one of the few concrete reasons for assuming bad faith. I will no longer be responding to you. Even though I have repeatedly said that I'm flexible on the link, and I'm interested in a resolution for this and future pages, it's just not worth dealing with you to get an answer. --Thespian 07:11, 19 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Would you please stop these personalized comments. Your comments are miles past beating a dead horse. Stay on the topic and don't clutter this page with irrelevant, personal criticisms stuff. 2005 00:14, 19 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We need to start removing the links already

At this time we know that someone from the Wikifur site was on a coordinated campaign to add links to his own site to a huge number of articles improperly. This is an obvious and blatant violation of WP:SPAM (especially considering the Google ads all across that site), WP:COI (open and shut case, he admitted it on this very page), and WP:EL (about linking to your own site, etc.). If he does not have the decency to remove them we should start doing it already. And at the VERY very least we need to get rid of all the "See alsos" that link to that other site, because they aren't just spam but deceptive stealth spam from people thinking they'd get a Wikipedia article. DreamGuy 20:07, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It seems noone is really objecting to removing them from non-furry articles. Non-furry as in not related to the furry community... something happening to have fur doesn't make it count. And I don't see anyone objecting to moving the 'see also' links to external links on furry articles. I can't see it would sabotage the debate to do those two things, but I think caution should be taken in removing them from furry community articles yet. People haven't finished the fist-waving thing.

As for the GreenReaper issue, it seems to me it should be discussed on his talk page. That's where editors in the future will be checking if they want to know if he's had COI issues in the past. Polenth 20:33, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Conflict of interest is covered on my user page, including a link to a previous discussion (mostly with User:DreamGuy) that I saved specially. It's not like I've been trying to hide my associations or opinions. GreenReaper 20:58, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a question of hiding affiliations, it's a matter of following the very well-stated Wikipedia guidelines about WP:EL and WP:COI. We can debate the merits of Wikifur and similar Wikis in the page, and that is an appropriate place for it, but we can not cherry-pick which WP guidelines we choose to follow. The correct procedure is that if you are directly affiliated with a site (as GreenReaper is with Wikifur) then the correct procedure is not to just add links to one's site directly into WP pages, but instead to discuss any additions of links to the site on the respective article's Talk pages. The wording of the "advertising and conflicts of interest" section in this guideline are quite clear on this issue. Exceptions should be discussed and consensus reached BEFORE action is taken, not after. This was not done, because it seems to me that GreenReaper feels that this procedure should not apply in this case. Other editors seem to feel that it should apply. I feel that appropriate remediation would be for GreenReaper to remove the offending links from the articles, and open up a discussion on the relevant Talk pages for inclusion. Separate and distinct to this can be the discussion below about whether such links are appropriate or not. -- Alucard (Dr.) | Talk 21:30, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The best way to change a guideline is to demonstrate it's not appropriate in a particular case, which is what I've tried to do. As for exceptions, the discussion link above points to the prior Village pump discussion that ended up with general agreement that they should be kept in External links. I have asked what's wrong with the links I made - over a long period of time - but most of what's been said is "if you're not following the guidelines, you're not a team player", even though I had already obtained an exception (and no, I've not added any links in article space since this discussion came up yesterday).

Worse, the suggested procedure is an attempt to coerce editors into personally removing links they feel are appropriate. I won't make such edits, because I believe them to be wrong. If people here agree they're inappropriate for Wikipedia, then they'll be removed, and while I won't like it, I'll accept it - but I won't act on the assumption that they are inappropriate based on who I am. That's an entirely different kettle of fish. GreenReaper 23:30, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Frankly, if you refuse to follow Wikipedia:External links' rules prohibiting linking to your own site, and if Wikipedia:Conflict of interest is beyond your capacity for understanding, and understanding that you are breaking Wikipedia:Spam rules, then you should not be making edits anywhere on encyclopedia. Why is it so many people with a website of their own think rules against spamming only apply to other people? You are in clear violation of numerous Wikipedia policies that are core and basic to how this site operates. At this point you're lucky you haven't been blocked and the site entered into our blackhole list so that no page anywhere can link to it, ever. DreamGuy 06:33, 19 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

At the risk of being on-topic, people have been posting lots since DreamGuy first posted about the links, and noone disputed my comment on what people didn't seem to be disagreeing with. So I'm taking it noone is going to get too upset at it being deleted from non-furry articles, and moved to the proper place on the furry ones. Unless there are any startling last minute objections, I think we should start getting this underway. Polenth 17:03, 19 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Other than the avoid open-wiki WP:EL issue I see a number of other problems with WikiFur: linkage. What would be great is if someone could document with diffs all of the WikiFur link additions. This diff I mentioned above demonstrates a couple problems and I suspect that there are many more diffs like this. I also suspect that User:GreenReaper is responsible for a large number of them. If there is enough strong evidence then opening SPAM and COI reports might be the next step. First though, we need some diffs to discuss. (Requestion 17:23, 19 June 2007 (UTC))[reply]

Here are some diffs for you. I stopped at the first one I found for each article, so there will be others elsewhere in the history. Polenth 20:23, 19 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

GreenReaper's Edits In Main Text: [4] [5] [6] [7]

See Also: [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15]

External Links: [16] [17]

Present Since Page Creation: [18]

Other Editors In Main Text: [19] [20] [21]

Linking to external wikis

I would like to continue part of this discussion (now archived) called "EL pimping of free content sites". In particular, I would like more editors to weigh in on this point:

How do external wikis provide a unique resource beyond what our own articles would contain if they became Featured articles? I worry about the lack of editorial control. SourceWatch in particular seems to have some very biased and POV articles, and is one of the most frequently linked-to websites on the English Wikipedia. Regards, MoodyGroove 19:43, 6 June 2007 (UTC)MoodyGroove[reply]

Also note that SourceWatch has its own template even though it is not bound by Wikipedia's editing guidelines and the Foundation has no control over the content. One editor replied to this issue before the page was archived (see below). Thanks in advance for your opinions. MoodyGroove 16:49, 18 June 2007 (UTC)MoodyGroove[reply]

You're correct on everything you say (well, except possibly about SourceWatch, which I haven't seen and can't comment on). External wikis should be avoided at all costs, and certainly not encouraged with templates. And some attempted new policy page that went up a while back got soundly rejected. So we should start to remove competing wiki sites when they come up (and I would include such things as NNDB, as it's the same concept and process even if not explicitly called a Wiki project). DreamGuy 22:01, 6 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It should be noted that Wikipedia:Linking to other wikis is a FAILED attempt at rewriting policy. The essay on that page has no resemblance to the real way Wikipedia handles things. It exists at this point only to document completely incorrect notions. DreamGuy 20:13, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I really think that would be a bonus to revisit; so much of the stuff that accumulates under WP:POKEMON could be eliminated/prevented simply by having a Pokemon (or whatever) wiki out there that then gets linked instead of building up fancruft - Wikipedia for a general article on the subject, and then a link out to a place that can specialize. I seem to recall that was part of the idea of Wikia to begin with, and it makes so much more sense than Wikipedia storing complete descriptions of every Doctor Who episode or Star Wars gun type.--Thespian 17:49, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

One argument for is that "public" donated money should not be spent on maintaining content of interest to a limited audience. Honestly, though, the audience for Pokémon is probably far larger than that for, say, Oregon Supreme Court justices. It is however likely that Wikipedia does not entirely satisfy Pokémon lovers due to its requirement for verifiable, reliable sources, so another site should exist. From what I've seen, if the topic is sufficiently popular then it will almost certainly become a success, eventually containing most of the information on Wikipedia plus lots of other information that can't be contained here. GreenReaper 18:13, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please, get over the "competing" thing. :-) Most separate wiki projects contain content that Wikipedia does not want. Usually they provide a place for original research, or levels of detail that were considered excessive for Wikipedia. Some were created specifically for this purpose. The fact that a site contains original research does not prevent it from being a valuable external link to readers who do want original research. Nobody is suggesting that wikis should be used as references, but Wikipedia isn't in the top 15 sites in the world because it's a good reference - it's because it's useful, and so people link to it. Many other wikis are useful, too, and where this is the case they should be linked from Wikipedia. GreenReaper 17:44, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not particularly concerned about the competition. If the political wiki in question subscribed to WP:NPOV I might find it more palatable. Deciding what's propaganda and what's not is highly subjective, and can in fact be propaganda (unlike articles about Pokemon -- at least as far as I know). I'm glad people find the Wikipedia to be useful, but with that usefulness (and notability) comes some degree of responsibility. Is there something about external wikis that make them exempt from the first "link normally to be avoided" criteria? MoodyGroove 18:15, 18 June 2007 (UTC)MoodyGroove[reply]

Yes. Many wikis contain either original research, use sources that Wikipedia considers unreliable, or include extra detail beyond that which would be considered appropriate for a featured article, yet still contain information about the subject of the article from knowledgeable sources. For example, I suspect you would not normally be interested in a timeline of furry convention attendance, or lists of furry LiveJournal communities, media links, or convention resources, even if they were compiled by knowledgeable sources. However, there are those that are interested, and these readers are best served by a link to sites containing such relevant content - if it's good enough. The question as I see it is "how good does it have to be?" - do you draw the line at a certain number of editors, or pages, or stability, or quality (how to measure quality?), or what? These values may be different for each topic, and this is why the current guideline uses the word "substantial" - because it depends. GreenReaper 18:37, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the embedded links to Wikifur in your post. It's bad enough you add stealth spam to your own site on Wikipedia pages, but to do it here also is just abusive. DreamGuy 20:13, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So what am I meant to do? Not give examples of what I'm talking about - resources which can be of use to other people? It's hard to discuss the content of other sites without showing people the content. GreenReaper 21:00, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In reply to your concern about point of view - yes, this is a concern, which is why it may be useful to label such links with more than just a title. For example, "Conservapedia, an encyclopaedia with articles written from a conservative viewpoint". Of course, sometimes this is a value judgment in itself. GreenReaper 18:41, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It is not a question of being useful. For example; linkfarms are useful but there is a policy against them. The reason why WP:EL says to avoid links to open wikis is the same reason why it says to avoid links to blogs and personal websites. It is about quality control. Wikipedia does not want to link to low quality websites that can be changed on a whim. WP:RS isn't a requirement for external links but WikiFur: would never qualify for use as a reliable source. (Requestion 18:43, 18 June 2007 (UTC))[reply]

Quality is an important part of usefulness. If a site is low quality then that makes it less useful to readers. That would factor into whether or not it should be in the external links. We don't want Wikipedia to be a linkfarm - but we might well link to one, like the Open Directory Project, if it contains high-quality links. We might also link to a wiki, if it contains high-quality information on the topic over and above that provided by such links. I don't think the mere possibility of change is a huge issue as long as bad changes are highlighted and reverted quickly. This can be evaluated on a per-link basis by examining the page history, and is one reason for requiring a substantial number of editors (enough to watch over recent edits). Most topics that have the notability to be in Wikipedia at all will be considered "high importance" to some degree and so the corresponding pages on them are likely to be monitored particularly closely. GreenReaper 19:39, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We might also link to a wiki if it contains high quality information on a topic over and above that provided by what links? Again, my problem with external wikis is that we have no control over their content. Are you suggesting we need to subscribe to those wikis and watch for changes so we can revert them? Frankly, I can't understand why you think it's a good thing that other wikis may contain original research or lack reliable sources (from the standpoint of our editing guidelines). Why not just link to personal blogs then and make it a free for all? MoodyGroove 20:05, 18 June 2007 (UTC)MoodyGroove[reply]

My apologies: "over and above those links [provided by a high-quality link farm]". I am suggesting we estimate the quality of the link at the time that the link is being made - just like all other links. We shouldn't have to excessively monitor links to wikis; instead, as part of the criteria we should ensure that they are being monitored already. There are several ways to evaluate this - the general reputation of that site as a resource, the quality of the page's contents at the current time, and the history of edits to that particular page spring to mind.

Such links are of value because Wikipedia's editing guidelines result in leaving out information that some readers would find useful. We don't want to store or reference every item of information in the world, but it helps to point people to places where they can "find out more" . . . if those places end up helping readers rather than misleading them. We do not generally link to personal blogs unless it is for a topic about the person, because even if they are accurate we might not be in a position to judge their accuracy. However, we might well link to a wiki that uses this as one of its sources, if that wiki had a history of identifying sources that are reliable within its community. That way, we use the "topic-specific knowledgable" wiki editors as a filter - having first checked their work.

As I see it, there is little difference between wikis and other collaborative sites such as MobyGames or IMDB that do not specifically use wiki technology other than the potential for vandalism - and my experience has been that vandalism is easily countered on modern wikis. These databases are widely viewed as containing useful information that is appropriate as an external link, and so can topic-specific wikis. GreenReaper 20:50, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The mention of MobyGames is rather ironic. GreenReaper is spamming Wikipedia with interwiki links to GreenReaper's WikiFur: site. The MobyGames founders are spamming Wikipedia with templated mobygames.com links. Neither group believes that WP:COI applies to them. (Requestion 21:43, 18 June 2007 (UTC))[reply]

Yep. And they've had similar debates about them as well, including the current discussion - though the main problem there appears to be the work of single-purpose accounts which are dedicated to adding them regardless of the content of the MobyGames article concerned. That is, they're not even thinking about whether or not it's a suitable article to link. GreenReaper 23:50, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

GreenReaper, considering your involvement with an external wiki, I'm not sure it's appropriate for you to be involved in a policy discussion about it. MoodyGroove 00:50, 19 June 2007 (UTC)MoodyGroove[reply]

OK. I personally feel it's silly to exclude people who would be directly affected by a policy from its discussions, but I've said my piece. I'll be watching. :-) GreenReaper 01:09, 19 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's my point, GreenReaper. We're all directly affected by policy, but you have a material interest in the policy beyond the desire to write an encyclopedia, which after all is the goal of the project. "Its goals go no further, and material that does not fit this goal must be moved to another Wikimedia project or removed altogether." MoodyGroove 01:30, 19 June 2007 (UTC)MoodyGroove[reply]

BZZZZZ. There is nothing that I know of which prevents someone with COI from participating in discussions. COI is addressed for voting and editing articles. As long as any possible COI is disclosed, that person can contribute to the discussion. I'm willing to be proven wrong, but lets not run someone off just because they have a vested interest. Lsi john 01:13, 19 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

WP:COI suggests that, to avoid a COI, one should "avoid or exercise great caution when participating in deletion discussions about articles related to your organization." As a corollary, it seems obvious to me that one should "avoid or exercise great caution" when participating in policy discussions as well, if there is a COI. We all have a vested interest in the project. That's different than a conflict of interest. MoodyGroove 01:53, 19 June 2007 (UTC)MoodyGroove[reply]

That being said. If I had a potential (or actual) COI, I certainly wouldn't try to monopolize the discussion, lest people discount my opinion entirely. Lsi john 01:15, 19 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Nobody is suggesting that wikis should be used as references..." That sentence alone explains why wikis should almost never be linked. As discussed here nearly endlessly, and as the guideline makes pretty clear, external links should be to sites that could plausibly be used as references, if not for the topic of the article then for something else. One example is a Reagan library article extolling the virtues of Reagan could be an external link, but it would not be appropriate to source a statement like "Reagane was the best president ever." It could however be cited as a reliable source for Reagan's birthday. If it can't be used as a reference for anything, it should not be an external link. 2005 21:14, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Then why would SourceWatch (not even a sister project) have it's own template? Does that not encourage people to link to SourceWatch? MoodyGroove 02:01, 19 June 2007 (UTC)MoodyGroove[reply]

Unfortunately a lot of these people just make up their own templates for spamming purposes and then stack the voting deck whenever any vote to delete them come up. It's all a calculated game with these people. Make a template, spam it all over, and when one link is removed somewhere as being bad, say it has to stay because it's already been proven to be a good link or else it wouldn't have the template and wouldn't be on all those pages. It happens again and again with all sorts of sites of no real value that just spread everywhere. These people are shameless. DreamGuy 06:41, 19 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There's a big difference between external links and references. References are things that back up what we put in Wikipedia, ie, they're a foundation on which our credibility is built. External links, on the other hand are a collection of resources that we think a reader interested in the subject may also find useful for various reasons. It's reasonable to refrain from using wikis as references in almost all circumstances because their mutable nature means they're a foundation of sand. But if a wiki has proven to consistently be a good resource for further reading on a subject, then even if the specific details on the page change from day to day it's still the sort of thing we want readers to be able to find even if it's not suitable for backing up facts within the article itself. They may even contain references that can be used directly. Bryan Derksen 05:40, 19 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Then why not link to high quality discussion groups, listservs, and bulletin boards? A user might also find those useful for various reasons. MoodyGroove 13:02, 19 June 2007 (UTC)MoodyGroove[reply]

Absolutely false, in more ways than one. Good lord, read the guideline. 2005 06:38, 19 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with User:2005. You seem to be under the mistaken belief that the External links is used as a web directory for any sites that might be of interest. Wikipedia is NOT a web directory. Any links, whether they are used for references or for external links, should have an encyclopedic, informative purpose. Sites at the other end of a link do not have to meet our NPOV guidelines (but if they have a slant we should mention it in the description of the link to give a heads up) and so forth, but they still need to be informative and of a certain quality and provide something other than what we should already have in the article. DreamGuy 06:41, 19 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think that what Bryan is saying is more that the External links section is basically the "Further reading" section by another name. That seems to be what you're saying as well, and is a sentiment that I and other Wikipedians would agree with: guidelines aside, EL sections should contain those links (and only those links) which present useful resources for readers to continue their study of the topic. I'm not sure what 2005 thinks is "absolutely false" here. Perhaps this is part of a larger conversation? -- Visviva 06:58, 19 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps you should read the guideline too. The external links section is certainly not for any/all "useful resources". The guidelines states several things clearly, and if you read it you can see that links basically need to be over and above the article, and be material that can not be integreated into the article for reasons stated, like level of detail and review-like opinion. The guideline further specifically calls out unstable blogs and wiki because it would be foolish to link to a URL that might have completely different content on it tomorrow. While a segment of the editor community thinks we should link to whatever they like, that's why we have guidelines. In this case, quality material over and above an article is a goal. Simply "useful resource" is not. In one article I dealt with in the past couple days, an editor added three external links to a list of articles by the subject of the Wikipedia article. All were "useful resources", and all were entirely redundant to the list of articles on the subjects official site. Likewise, a short, unstable external wiki article, with no authority or reliability or level of detail above our article here may be useful in its way to a person, but its useless to the encyclopedia an an external link. 2005 08:17, 19 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

But the question of whether WikiFur is "unstable" is up for debate. The guideline specifically says that "those with a substantial history of stability and a substantial number of editors" are not to be avoided just because they're wikis, so wikis are indeed potentially capable of sufficient stability to be used as an external link. Bryan Derksen 14:46, 19 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how the guideline contradicts what I said, and I don't even see how DreamGuy's comment contradicts what I said either - he's arguing against a position that I didn't actually take. The guideline's first paragraph says "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)." That's pretty much what I was saying, external links are to direct the reader to stuff that's not in the article but that may be of further use to him in learning about the subject. I don't think we should include all links we can dig up that match this description, that would be silly, but that's not what I was addressing. Bryan Derksen 14:46, 19 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The words unrelated to their reliability are important, in my opinion. I'm not comfortable with the suggestion some editors have made that external wikis may contain original research or unreliable sourcing (so the content could not be used on the Wikipedia) but still be valuable to Wikipedia users. Valuable for their pursuit of what? Promulgating random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information? I don't think we should promote original research or unreliably sourced material of any kind, whether in the articles, in the external links, or anyplace else. The internet is full of original research (self published blogs). So unless a self published blog is written by a recognized authority, we generally don't link to it. Why? Because there's no editorial oversight or control. We have editorial oversight on the Wikipedia, because the editors hold each other to our editing guidelines. If an external wiki is not bound by those guidelines (or very simliar guidelines), it is not in principle any more reliable than a self published blog. This is less serious for the Star Trek or Harry Potter wiki than for political wikis sponsored by nonprofit groups like The Center for Media and Democracy (started by and environmentalist and political activist) and tend to have a liberal bias (but of course deny it). So it's not as easy as you might think to "label" the wiki in the external links, because someone will revert it as POV pushing and demand a reliable source to prove that the wiki is "left wing" when they describe themselves as "nonpartisan". It's not easy to find a reliable source in the mainstream media that labels organizations in this manner (unless it's a conservative organization). SourceWatch claims that "unlike some other wikis, SourceWatch has a policy of strict referencing, and is overseen by a paid editor." And yet it's easy to find articles like this. They also link to organizations like the LaRouche movement. MoodyGroove 15:16, 19 June 2007 (UTC)MoodyGroove[reply]

It turns out that WikiFur's policies explicitly include Wikipedia's own NPOV policy as their own: Policies and guidelines: What is WikiFur?. In the current conflict that led me here I see this as a situation where links for "information that could not be added to the article for reasons such as copyright or amount of detail" is more significant - as other examples, Comixpedia may have way more information about some particular webcomic than we actually want in Wikipedia, or Wookieepedia may have tons of detail that would excessively burden a Wikipedia article, and so rather than try to incorporate it we put a link at the bottom of the relevant page. The information there is generally not being excluded from Wikipedia for reasons of unreliability. As you say, there seems to be a distinct difference here between the fiction-related subjects and the politics-related ones in this regard - the term "politicruft" doesn't get used much but "fancruft" was common. I tend to stay out of political articles myself. Bryan Derksen 16:48, 19 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I can understand why. My primary interest is medicine and biotechnology. I started editing more political subjects because I came across some biased and poorly sourced articles, particularly with regard to the Bush administration, the War in Iraq, neoconservatism, and other related articles. My personal opinion is that violations of WP:NPOV are more damaging to the Wikipedia's credibility than the infantile vandalism that goes on. But I agree that the types of wikis you refer to are unlikely to be a problem, especially if the specific articles linked to are high in quality. But they should probably be linked to by editors who are not directly involved in the external wikis. MoodyGroove 17:27, 19 June 2007 (UTC)MoodyGroove[reply]

Several comments here have expressed concerns that we should not link to certain wikis, or perhaps to other sites, because they are not suitable as references. However, the precise purpose of the external links section is to provide material that may be of use or interest to the reader but that does not serve as a reference for the article. External links, according to policy, include links that would not serve as references for the article were the article to be comprehensive enough to be FA-status. The policies of Wikipedia need not apply to these sites; they do not have to be NPOV, for example (although its certainly nice when they have that policy as well...). There is a caution about other wikis because very small collaborative efforts have challenges dealing with misinformation and vandalism. Stable wikis with adequate contributor membership, however, may provide readers with a level of depth that Wikipedia cannot. This is why we link to Wookiepedia for Star Wars information, for example. A similar claim could be, and has been, made in good faith for Wikifur, which appears to have subsantial membership and a long and fairly stable article history. I can see no compelling reason why links to this resource should not be permitted for the handful of topics in its narrowly tailored environment that also meet Wikipedia's standards of inclusion. Serpent's Choice 21:25, 19 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that external links should be evaluated on a case to case basis, which is exactly why I don't think SourceWatch deserves its own template. It gives the appearance that SourceWatch automatically has the blessing of the community. I have nominated Template:SourceWatch for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Regards, MoodyGroove 21:39, 19 June 2007 (UTC)MoodyGroove[reply]

You need to read the guideline. First, it is a guideline, not policy. Second, you can disagree with it, but the language is plain, and the intent is pretty clear. External links can have point of view, that part is right, but the guideline makes clear that external links should be for material over and above an article while still having merit. The Wikifur link on Therianthropy for example was ridiculous. It was a few paragraphs adding nothing of value to the Wikipedia article. So it fails on multiple accounts: zero authority, few contributors, no extra value information too detailed to be added to the article, etc. If a wiki is to be linked to, the guideline makes plain that it has to be an extraordinary wiki, NOT just one on the topic. And that wiki has a higher threshold to meet than a "normal" website, due to the anonymous and unstable nature of wikis. External links should meet the criteria of being a reliable source for something. A POV site, like a very opinionated review, can meet that for release dates of a film, age of an author or something factually similar. Such a site can be considered reliable, even if opinionated, by other sites. Such a site may not have anything citeable for an article (or may be redundant to other sources cited), but it is a meritable external link. Sites with no reliability or authority or merit or independant trust will almost never be useful as external links. Blogs, wikis, personal sites... all these can be linked when very exceptional, primarily due to their authority via either large/popular participation over a period of time, or personal authority of one contributor. There may be articles on Wikifur that could merit a link, but anything like what was tacked onto Therianthropy is worthless to the encyclopedia as an external link, even if some users might find it useful. In general wikis are about the worst possible thing to link to, since anybody can wander in and add any sort of drivel, so if you want to link to one, it better really, really merit it. 2005 22:11, 19 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm willing to accept that, I'm hardly an expert on therianthropy and opinions on the usefulness of the material about it on WikiFur can reasonably differ. My main problem has been DreamGuy's insistence that this guideline absolutely forbade any and all WikiFur links, an absolutist approach like that is IMO bound to lead to conflict and the omission of at least some valuable links. I'm pleased that consensus seems to be developing that a case-by-case context-sensitive approach is reasonable. Bryan Derksen 23:15, 19 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If by "consensus" you mean "we have enough pro-furry people, including an admitted hard core spammer, to totally swamp over the people who normally have discussions here" -- It's very clear from WP:EL guidelines on stability and quality, not to mention the not linking to sites that only have less than what the Wikipedia articles should have, prohibits Wikifur links. All you've done is shown that a dedicated group of single-issue complainers can show up as a group and cause mischief. I think you'd find that "it better really, really merit it" won't hold for any of the articles currently linking to the site. Well, of course you wouldn't because you thought it belonged on Therianthropy, and the clear consensus of people without agendas to push is that it doesn't. So now you conveniently ignore that, switch the topic to links in general, and still argue for it in general to save face instead of to do what EL rules say we should do. DreamGuy 18:23, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not really sure what you're driving at here. I was under the impression that the reason you brought the discussion to this talk page in the first place (and started mass-removal of all WikiFur links) was that you wanted to make this a more general discussion. Many of the people who have participated in this discussion are not "pro-furry," even some of the ones who started out back on talk:therianthropy weren't (such as myself - I'm curious what agenda you think I'm pushing here), and it seems to me that you're still the only one who's holding the viewpoint that EL absolutely forbids any and all WikiFur links no matter what the circumstances are. Bryan Derksen 23:43, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Linking to petitiononline?

Are links to petitiononline suitable for wikipedia articles?

An editor would like This link: http://www.petitiononline.com/effexor/petition.html in the Venlafaxine article. I think the link is unsuitable for wiki, and that the negative aspects of venlafaxine either are already covered or can be covered better using other verifiable attributable sources. I'm I right, or should I let that link stay? Thanks. Dan Beale 17:16, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Petitiononline links are horribly nonencyclopedic. About the only time they could EVER meet EL rules is if some instance of such a position became covered by news media and somehow necessitated a Wikipedia article on the specific petition. Since that'll never likely happen it can be quickly removed as serving no purpose whatsoever for all articles. DreamGuy 18:14, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I mostly agree. I don't think that it's useful just for articles about specific petitions. Such links could be used in an article as a supporting source in conjunction with another high-quality source that specifically mentions petitions and gives WP:WEIGHT enough to include links to actual petitions. --Ronz 18:24, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If there is a high quality source mentioning a specific online petition, link to the high quality source. The actual petition still doesn't meet WP:EL. DreamGuy 18:59, 21 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, they're not, per Wikipedia is not a soapbox. >Radiant< 12:28, 21 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Satanism External Links

I had an ongoing battle over the EL section over at Satanism, Theistic Satanism, etc. Alot of churches are coming in and plugging their websites and some folks are even putting in their own self-published books are refs and pretty much just writing essays for articles under the guise of being experts" (but that's another matter I suppose). I've said my piece in the talk pages but if some of the more familiar editors could review the talk page contents and give some insight I would be most appreciative. NeoFreak 22:20, 21 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I thought you didn't want anti-spam insight, judging from your comments in favor of Wikifur above. But, hey, I love stomping spam where ever it comes, so this could be fun. DreamGuy 23:46, 21 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If this continues to be an ongoing issue you may want to bring it to the attention of Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam --Hu12 00:01, 22 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well I wanted to get some outside input. I've been trying to clean up these article for some time but I'm outnumbered by the folks that sit the page. I didn't want the slash and burn that needed to happen without some outside consensus. I'm glad for all the help but there's alot more to do (including heavy rewrites at a later date). I'm very anti spam, I just thought that having WIkiFur on related article wasn't a big leap. Still, I don't want to drag that discussion over. I can guarentee there will be reverts so I'd recommend the page be watchlisted for now. Thanks again to DreamGuy for the quick response. NeoFreak 00:06, 22 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

One possible solution is to whack all the external links and replace them with a single dmoz entry. Let people add their favorite screeds there. BTW {{dmoz}} is useful for this. Brianhe 04:03, 22 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Find A Grave

I have seen the widespread use of the Find A Grave site as an EL using both {{Find A Grave}} and a traditional link formating. I find the site to be very inconsistent in that some of the pages are useful, and some are not. Is there some reason that prevents the information on that site from simply being incorporated to the articles? I don't know why it is considered an acceptable EL as much of it borders on trivia. //Tecmobowl 21:15, 24 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'd agree that it is usually a useless external link, though sometime sit might be okay. Yet another spam link template that should be dealt with. 2005 21:47, 24 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, yet another spam template that is going to be extremely difficult to remove. Sigh. The {{Find A Grave}} template is used about 250 times and it was created in Dec 2005 by Jim@findagrave.com who was warned and then blocked. Hmmm, COI and SPAM but that's nothing. A linksearch for findagrave.com [39] reports 44451 hits! Yes that's forty-four thousand external links. Most of them seem to be at Wikipedia:Find-A-Grave_famous_people. What sort of official Wikipedia project is that? I slapped a notability tag on the Find A Grave article too. (Requestion 22:25, 26 June 2007 (UTC))[reply]

Good lord. An entire project designed to spam. Afaid I don't know, is there a way to "afd" projects like this? 2005 23:26, 26 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You can nominate WikiProjects for deletion by listing them at Miscellany for deletion. --Muchness 03:14, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Take a look at Burial places of monarchs in the British Isles where it is being used as a reference. Without thinking about it too much that seems reasonable to me. Thanks/wangi 21:58, 24 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

References and ELs are two totally different things. There are certainly some pages that have valuable information. I am questioning whether it is considered a unilateral EL (and used as a templated). //Tecmobowl 22:14, 24 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Unless the article is titled "Celebrity Graves", I would think its purpose would be strictly as a reference, as you're suggesting. It was useful in pointing the way to the true death date of John Henry Lloyd, for example. Baseball Bugs 23:43, 24 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Muchness et al Looks like we need to kill of this site in instances where it does not provide useful information. //Tecmobowl 12:08, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Featured article criterion

I'm coming in late, since I only became aware of this when external links started being removed from articles of interest to me, and I'm unable to trace the stated reason back to its starting point. Looking at the criterion 1. Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a Featured article. it seems to rule out just about everything except official websites. So, if this criterion means what it says, I think the whole guideline could be reduced to a couple of sentences, and a bot could be used to eliminate 99 per cent of external links. Looking at the discussion above, clearly some editors favor this.

I think this guideline is silly. To take an obvious example, if Wikipedia has a two-sentence stub for a bio, how does it help things to exclude reference to biographies elsewhere on the web (but not on the subject's official page). Obviously, one would hope that if the article reached FA status, the useful info would be incorporated, but it seems silly to exclude material from (by my calculation) 99.9 per cent of articles on the basis that it would not be needed in the remaining 0.1 per cent.

To sum up, I'd suggest that either (a) the guideline should be reduced to two sentences: "External links should not be used. The only exception is unique resources beyond what the article would contain if it became a Featured article."; or (b) criterion 1 should be scrapped.JQ 11:37, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How you can get to this misunderstanding of the guideline escapes me. Obviously the featured article statement implies nothing about only official sites. And just as obviously we want people to add material to articles, not merely instead add external links. The Wikipedia isn't here to make lists of links. It's here to have encyclopedic articles. 2005 20:39, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

JQ I think that is a pretty dramatic statment. What articles are you looking at? Perhaps that would help us to understand where you are coming from. //Tecmobowl 20:43, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As regards my understanding, I got to it by having the guideline cited to me as a basis for deleting external links from stubby articles, rather than, as earlier versions of this guideline suggested, leaving the link in place until someone got around to incorporating useful information. I've deleted the sentence. It seems to be a recent addition, and I see nothing in the Talk page to suggest that it represents, as it should if it is to be there, the considered consensus of many editors, and therefore effectively binding on the whole of Wikipedia. JQ 20:44, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The text has been there for a long time, and plainly is the consensus of editors as virtually no one wants the Wikipedia to be lists of links rather than well written articles. 2005 20:53, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the consensus that it needs to stay there. I was trying to revert the out of process removal of it when someone else beat me to it, and I suspect that a number of editors were all trying to put it abck at the same time. It absolutely cannot be removed without some thorough discussion here that would give some strong reason and a strong number of supporters to overrule this longstanding consensus. DreamGuy 20:57, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. That particular sentence was added to this guideline by UninvitedCompany in November 2005.[40] -- Satori Son 21:12, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough, but it wasn't in more recent versions I looked at [41] or [42] for example. And there was content suggesting that external links could be left until the useful material in them had been incorporated in the article JQ 00:45, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

JQ I agree with 2005 and DreamGuy, it's pretty well established here. That being said, do you have any examples of stubs that you find problematic? //Tecmobowl 20:58, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I came to this from Stephen Peter Rosen, where I was reverting a bunch of deletions by a sock of vandal EdwardWittenstein. One was an EL from Sourcewatch, which was promptly redeleted by user USer:Jayjg who quoted this guideline at me. The article was a stub linking to a much more complete one at Sourcewatch. In this case, I copied in some useful content, but that's a slow process.JQ 21:08, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

full book texts at wowio

Wowio is providing legal full text downloads free of charge for copyrighted works such as Slaughterhouse-five, which are unavailable from comperable sites for free material such as Project Gutenberg. Gutenberg links are clearly preferrable, but for copyrighted works where there is no current alternative, wowio provides an excellent resource. Registration is required, and it is solely advertisement supported, but considering the value of a full-text resource I would consider adding these links to appropriate articles. Thoughts? ∴ here…♠ 03:03, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely not, per the 2nd paragraph of Wikipedia:Copyrights#Linking to copyrighted works and also per Wikipedia:External links#Sites requiring registration. --Quiddity 03:09, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And per that, I removed the link in the comment above. Absolutely not under any circumstances, not on talk pages either. DreamGuy 03:28, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There is no copyright violation, I've re-added the link. Removal is warrented after discussion has ended. ∴ here…♠ 19:55, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Unless I'm misunderstanding the comment, I don't think the 2nd paragraph of Wikipedia:Copyrights#Linking to copyrighted works applies as an obstacle in this case. The full text downloads in question are licensed and distributed in accordance with copyright law. Clearly the registration issue remains, but the question is — does the benefit of providing a unique resource to the reader justify overriding the guideline? --Gmanacsa 06:48, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, they're not quite the dubious-legality outfit I assumed them to be from Here's description (and my prior experience); So yes, that Copyrights policy is probably irrelevant here. But they are "only available to people living in the United States", and they require authenticated-registration, both of which still makes them thoroughly non-recommended. They're not really providing any additional encyclopedic information either. Plus the idea of reading Slaughter-House Five with embedded advertising is utterly repellent. People should use a library. --Quiddity 17:56, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This was incorrectly perceived and quickly rejected as an illegal service -- lets start again. Libraries are wonderful, but you wouldn't oppose links to Project_Gutenberg based on your desire for folks to get out of the house. Since copyright violation is also not a concern here, the only remaining valid oppositions are 1) registration requirement, 2) USA only, and 3) advertisement. I was also initially opposed, removed these links, and asked that they stop being added. However, upon further review, this really is a uniquely valuable service potentially warrenting exception. I bothered to register and download the text and have put up two screenshots of the pdf here and here. As you can see, the advertising is quite limited -- 2 intro pages and 1 on the end. The text itself includes all of vonnegut's images and typesetting and is devoid of ads beyond an occasional publishing company title. The wowio site is also completely devoid of advertising, and appears to be as well intentioned as possible -- providing otherwise un-free copyrighted full-texts in a cleverly legal manner involving compensation to the copyright holder. This is a legal unique resource providing access to materials valuable to those users able to take advantage of them. A second round of opinions? ∴ here…♠ 19:55, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]