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There is currently a debate going on at an article talk page as to whether or not leaked U.S. government documents are able to be linked to in its appropriate article. Some editors are implying that linking to it provides a method for further analyzing the subject in question, while others are opposed to it as they believe that the material is on copyright grounds, and thus should not be linked to per WP:ELNEVER. We would all appreciate a third perspective on this matter. Thanks. EricLeb01 (Page | Talk)04:43, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Regardless of what's currently written in the external links policy, practice in these types of cases is that the link will stay in the article. -Atmoz (talk) 17:47, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
She doesn't seem to know very much about the context. Wikileaks is a reliable source for the Afghan War Diary, because not only is the website the publisher for the documents, but the New York Times, The Guardian, and Der Spiegel have all deemed the documents as genuine and accurate. Therefore, the War Diary-dedicated section of the site is a reliable source. I'm not sure what exactly she meant by saying "nor a valid external link per the existing guidelines", however. In my opinion, the link should stay unless Wikipedia is specifically asked by the government to remove the link; otherwise, we are not in the wrong as much as any other website linking to the documents, which we all know is many. EricLeb01 (Page | Talk)21:44, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This isn't a reliable source issue. We don't link to copyright violations and then just wait for the government or a lawyer to ask us to remove it. We instead have policies. While conceding that in this particular case the link could stay, the issue is underdeveloped policy. If it reflects badly on Wiki to link to websites that don't license their images, we shouldn't be linking to websites that steal their material, unless other news media reckons there is a public interest in the disclosure.Bdell555 (talk) 22:50, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I now beg to differ. Not once, not twice, not thrice, not even four times. I could probably find over ten examples in a few more minutes of torrent sites, illegal download programs and clients linked in Wikipedia articles. Some times you just have to ignore Wikipedia policy. EricLeb01 (Page | Talk)23:48, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It should be noted that documents produced by the United States government or employees of the United States government acting in an official capacity are not usually protected by copyright. The only complaint with possible merit is that the documents were illegally obtained and that hosting or linking to the documents may be a criminal act. But that's a matter for WP:OFFICE and no one seems interested in taking the matter up there. ButOnMethItIs (talk) 18:38, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If that's the case why don't we throw out all of that WP:BLP policy and all of that copyvio related policy and just leave it all to WP:OFFICE. The fact is that if something is stamped with a C that has a circle around it, Wikipedia takes that seriously. But if stamped SECRET by a democratically elected government, that means NOTHING? This cannot just be dismissed out of hand. There has to be an argument about why Wikipedia protects copyright holders with reams of policy but has nothing protecting governments with a legitimate interest in security.Bdell555 (talk) 20:58, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Copyright protection persists even in the face of infringement, but state secrecy is generally vitiated by public dissemination. Wikipedia would never be an appropriate venue to release state secrets, but once they are published and widely distributed by other reliable sources, the secrecy claims are largely moot. I don't see how there could be any additional significant harm by Wikipedia linking to these documents after many major newspapers have already done so. Dragons flight (talk) 00:42, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think we are in general agreement here in that "after many major newspapers have already done so" is key. The problem is that there are currently no Wikipedia policies that would preclude "state secrets" being released here, and/or for Wikipedia taking a leading role in "widely distributing".Bdell555 (talk) 01:05, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thing is that Wikipedia is a tertiary source. We don't distribute leaks, we don't find leaks, we simply report and document leaks for historical and encyclopaedic purposes. Rest assured, if ever someone were to leak document information directly on Wikipedia, it would be removed as soon as possible. EricLeb01 (Page | Talk)01:25, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
By what policy would it be removed if it were a state secret? I happen to agree that Wikipedia is, or ought to be, a tertiary source, and indeed that is why I am opposed to direct link(s) when secondary sources have exercised their editorial discretion to make such links and have decided against direct link(s).Bdell555 (talk) 03:36, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If a state secret were to be directly published on Wikipedia, then it would be removed per WP:OR. If an article was made and linked to a leak before mass media reported on it, the article would be generally sourced by a primary source, and thus could be in violation of WP:PRIMARY, in itself violating WP:OR again. Again, the decisions of other media outlets do not reflect on ours. Unless we have a specific request from the US Government or the state of Florida to remove informational links to leaked material, we are under no obligation to remove them. Anything else? Because this is just going into circles. EricLeb01 (Page | Talk)04:46, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see how WP:OR would serve to keep a state secret off Wikimedia Commons but I'll grant that I should have specified and distinguished the Commons from Wikipedia. There is a discussion underway on the Commons about "controversial content" and I should have raised the issue over there. re "the decisions of other media outlets do not reflect on ours", I note that you say this in the same paragraph that you say whether "mass media reported on it" or not is relevant to whether a Wikipedia article should be deleted or revised. Fact is that the decisions of other media DO matter in that they create the material that allows Wikipedia to go with preferred secondary sources instead of primary. Consistent with that philosophy is following the lead of the secondary sources with respect to how to treat the primary. When the Wikimedia project is not following, it is pursuing its own agenda. In any case, I will grant the discussion is indeed at an end when one party starts to simply declare "this is how it is and how it is going to be."Bdell555 (talk) 08:43, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's more than merely "one party". Bdell, you have put forward your passionate arguments on multiple pages, and you have absolutely failed to gain any sort of consensus that Wikipedia needs this kind of policy at all, much less that any specific change should be made.
Additionally, based on your comments above, you might want to review the structure of the WMF projects. Decisions on the English Wikipedia do not affect any other Wikipedias, and they certainly do not change policies at Commons, or at Meta -- and, FYI, the discussion you link above is at Meta, not Commons. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:25, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I would challenge your assessment of Wikipedia's "consensus" on the matter by inviting you to head over here and explain, as a response to my observations about Wikileaks' BNP membership list leak, how you would distinguish a unanimous precedent that was decided by ArbCom. Bdell555 (talk) 19:47, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A 2006 ArbCom case about individual Wikipedians WP:OUTING other Wikipedians offwiki has no bearing on whether an external link to a notable website with zero information about Wikipedians is acceptable in the main namespace. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:18, 30 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
So it is "unjustifiable and uninvited invasion of privacy" if the info is about a "Wikipedian" and just fine if it is someone else? What is so special about Wikipedians that they have superior rights to privacy?Bdell555 (talk) 21:36, 4 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Providing private information about a Wikipedia editor on Wikipedia can interfere with Wikipedia's normal work. Imagine, for example, a person with a psychotic illness or a sexually transmitted infection: WP:OUTING that editor's private medical information could lead to disruption on Wikipedia (e.g., discussions about whether Wikipedia wants 'that kind of person' as an editor, accusations of rudeness, efforts to topic-ban an editor who has done nothing wrong on the basis of personal medical history, etc). The same type of information, disclosed about a person not editing Wikipedia, has no similar effect. The goal of WP:OUTING, WP:CIVIL, and similar standards for editors' behavior is to avoid disrupting the project. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:28, 5 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Want to make sure my external links are okay
I'm new to Wikipedia so please be gentle with me. I have a blog, www.grandpasipod.com /, on which I am posting audio files of radio programs from the 1940s. Some of this audio is previously unknown and unavailable elsewhere. I had the idea of posting links to relevant programs on Wikipedia pages that relate to them. For example, I have a recording that was conducted by Andre Kostelanetz. I put a link to that program in the external links section of his Wikipedia page. I did the same with the Wikipedia pages for Archie Bleyer, Buddy Childers and Cafe Rouge (Hotel Pennsylvania). Now I'm afraid I'm going to be labeled a spammer.
Hello, and thank you for the note. Unfortunately, the external links guideline generally directs that we avoid adding links. This is certainly not a slight against your site, but simply a reflection of the fact that there are literally millions of possible links for all of the different subject we cover. Additionally, any links to old radio programmes would also need to address the issue of copyright. However, there are certainly many, many ways in which you can contribute to the site. I would be happy to explain this in greater detail if you like. --Ckatzchatspy00:59, 30 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As long as you are not getting any monetary gain, and as long as no copyrights are being violated, I think links to some of these programmes could be quite useful. However, you probably shouldn't go posting external links everywhere that you think qualifies. It might be better to let people in groups such as Wikipedia:WikiProject Jazz know about the site, and let them work with you to decide which ones to use. Kingturtle (talk) 20:51, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hi I'm posting here to seek consensus regarding link to xkcd on this page. I've dealt with many external links and to me this clearly doesn't meet WP:EL, not by a long stretch, but there is one user who is pretty adamant about retaining it. His response to me was hardly constructive so I'm bringing it here for review. For the sake of convenience please try to keep the discussion on this page for now since the discussion was uncoordinated the last time this link was discussed. ThemFromSpace02:50, 8 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This was discussed ad-nauseum on the relevant talk page. It didn't come to the decision that ThemFromSpace and his friends liked so they created a fake summary, harassed me on my talk page, and then used an anonymous IP to edit war away the text..- Wolfkeeper02:57, 8 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My natural inclination is to remove stuff like this, but there is no need to be over zealous. The article is perfectly encyclopedic (as are, I think, its other links), so this one xkcd link is not just "more junk". I am not going to express a keep/remove opinion, but suggest the matter be left to the article talk page. Johnuniq (talk) 02:14, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Wolfkeeper, as a procedural point, WP:ELBURDEN says that any disputed link is removed unless/until there is a consensus to include it. So your recent comments on the talk page are exactly backwards: If the discussion closed as 'no consensus', then the link should normally be removed.
I'd like to see editors at that page reach a solution that they can all live with, where "live with" means that we don't see complaints about it every couple of months. IMO the link is neither prohibited nor required by the guidelines. It's in that mushy middle space, which means that editors need to get out their Best Editorial Judgment, keeping firmly in mind that whatever the outcome, it's Not the End of the World.
And if consensus really can't be reached, then I'd like to remind you all that there are more than three million articles out there, and a bunch of serious spam that needs attention from experienced editors (i.e., all of you). I'm sure you all could easily find something more productive to do than to argue over one borderline link. (Twenty years from now, will anyone here be glad that we spent several more irreplaceable hours arguing about this link?) WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:26, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but that works more your way than mine. I actually helped write the article, and me and others that helped write the article are generally much more likely to know what's best for the article. If you reread the discussion about this, most of the people that helped build the article support the presence of the link, and disagree with your claim that it doesn't meet WP:EL. It's the people that swung over from here, that probably don't entirely understand or necessarily even have read the article that are voting for removal, and they are resorting to what can probably best be described as 'dirty tricks' to try to force its removal. Particularly when there's evidence of vote stuffing the wikipedia is not a place where we simply count votes, and your arguments are simply not as strong. I'm pretty clued up on policy and guidelines and I genuinely don't know of a single policy that permits you to exclude this link.- Wolfkeeper18:51, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
WP:ELBURDEN plainly says, "Disputed links should be excluded by default until there is a consensus to include them." This is the community's view, even if it's not written on a page that says "policy" at the top of it. (You might need to read WP:PGE.)
I don't happen to feel strongly about this particular link: it's not blatant spam, after all. IMO it contributed less information than the lead of the article -- which means it fails WP:ELNO #1 -- but perhaps someone else would see value that I don't (e.g., a visual learner).
None of this changes the actual facts, which are that the link is disputed, and that standard operating procedure is to remove links unless and until there is a consensus to include them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:01, 12 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's just a content guideline; the actual policyisWP:CONSENSUS and it says that: Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. For instance, participants in a WikiProject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope, unless they can convince the broader community that such action is right.
In other words you don't get roll into an article, claim its not consensus, fail to get consensus to remove it, and then remove it anyway because 'it's not consensus' because you say so. Consensus is the arbiter of what goes and what stays, and you don't have it.- Wolfkeeper22:28, 12 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I found out that you were the person that added this incredibly dubious part of the guideline.[1] Give that it is at odds with the Wikipedias major policies, and given that you appear to have added this deliberately as a way of removing external links that you personally disagree with, I award you a WP:TROUT slap.- Wolfkeeper22:47, 12 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I added that section -- after a formal proposal, more than a month's notice, and multiple editors strongly supporting the addition. WP:ELBURDEN is the community's consensus on this point, just like WP:BURDEN is the community's consensus about putting information into an article. If you have concerns about it, you are welcome to start a discussion on the guideline's talk page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:58, 12 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Given the self-evident way you're abusing the guideline I'm going to have to start a formal process to have it removed. In meantime it's overridden by WP:CONSENSUS anyway. Removal of established material and links without consensus is clearly abusive. I'm even considering starting an RFC on you; this is not how things are done here.- Wolfkeeper23:37, 12 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If you want to propose changes to WP:CONSENSUS that would let you remove things in the absence of consensus, please go right ahead. In the meantime, the RFC failed, and a single sentence cobbled together by a few people and stuffed at the end of a minor guideline doesn't override one of the key policies of the wikipedia and the link is therefore staying in.- Wolfkeeper01:31, 15 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
So, what, exactly, is the big deal here? It looks like ELMAYBE #4 fits, but the link is certainly neither essential nor harmful to the page. Chill, please? And dispute the links, not the process or personalities, hmm? Jclemens (talk) 07:02, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
See the the RFC which was essentially a no consensus. Wolfkeeper here is arguing that the lack of consensus meant that the article should retain the link (due to the fact that this is how the article was prior to the RFC), while I and WhatamIdoing and others find that this means the link should be removed. The most recent actions: It was removed in mid-February by an IP, readded a week later, and subsequently removed. That portion of the article has been stable since. Wolfkeeper here essentially unilaterally readded the link a half week ago, and his talk page contributions[2][3] do not paint the restoring edit in good light, in my opinion. --Izno (talk) 17:15, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm in agreement over removing the link per the reasons given above. While the link doesn't hurt, it also doesn't help. It's a comic. It's not a news article or an academic paper. While I understand the creator is educated and has a loyal, hard-core following, that doesn't make it magically appropriate. It just looks out of place on an encyclopedia that is supposed to be formal in tone. By the way, as someone not educated on the subject (though I am a fan of the comic series in general), I have no idea wtf is going on in it. There's no explanation given or more material to read through. If I wasn't aware of the comic's popularity, I would assume it was linked to as some sort of prank by a linkspammy vandal. --13218:28, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Really? On WP:ELN whose unofficial motto is: we never saw an external linked we liked!. How surprising! Are you going to do all future discussions of all links here in a kangaroo court as well, without notifying anyone on the relevant pages prior to the discussion?- Wolfkeeper01:24, 16 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Link to my video documentary removed, how could this be?
I have tried to add to the Anita DeFrantz page and entered a link to my YouTube documentary on her as a reference http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BsFSxS_H54. This documentary won 1st place in the 2006 California State History Day finals (Junior Documentary Division)and went on to the Nationals. Ms. Ms. DeFrantz' has also been gracious to put it on her website. I wanted others interested in her story to be able to see it and to have access to the information contained in it. Does anyone know why it was removed and what can I do about it? Thanks, Siegen McKellar —Preceding unsigned comment added by SwimSeagull (talk • contribs) 21:52, 8 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think you need to read the following relevant pages: WP:COI (there is a conflict of interest here as you've admitted that this is your video, even if your intentions are in the right place), WP:OR and WP:RS (it's nice that it won an award, but as you created the documentary and are not a published expert on the topic, it can't be included as it is original research and not a reliable source (even if the sources you used may be)), and WP:YOUTUBE. Again, I realize your intentions are good, but we just can't include this video simply because your intentions are good. There has to be some extraordinary reason to include it and I just can't find one here. Sorry. --13201:44, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Now that I've gone to your edits to look them over, anther relevant page would be WP:PROMO as your wording was highly promotional in nature. You didn't simply tack the URL on to a statement as a reference, you actively promoted it by talking about the award it won, who made it (despite not being an expert), adding unsourced statements that may or may not be sourced in the video, and using wording like "is now available on YouTube." --13201:59, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Inclusion of a fansite where no official site exists and it is (claimed) to be fairly unique, but it is slightly commercial
This conversation does exactly what it says on the tin.
The site www.greymansland.com claims to be the single best information source out there for all things Andy McNab, and currently there is no official site online it seems. But it is for the purposes of WP:ELNO an unauthorized and unofficial fansite not written by a recognized authority (infact, author/owner details are completely unavailable it seems). It also has a commercial aspect, with an Amazon shopfront on it, but it is not too intrusive, and you could hardly say that selling appears to be the primary purpose of the site (although it comes close imho).
So, is this sort of linking acceptable, or is it still barred per WP:ELNO? I ask this as a general point, because I can see this situation existing for many potential articles, and see no reason why there should be an exception just for this site.
I think, from Wikipedia:ELNO#Links_normally_to_be_avoided - the keywords here are 'normally' and 'generally'. Mick's commentary above centers around point 5 and, like him, I see the Amazon Rewards linking too, but would dispute that this site contains "web pages that primarily exist to sell" (my emphasis). - Alison❤23:43, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note WP:ELPOINTS says "Links in the "External links" section should be kept to a minimum. A lack of external links or a small number of external links is not a reason to add external links." Unless you can justify this under WP:ELYES, point 3, I don't think it should be included. This site admits it is a fansite, which normally should be avoided. Vyeh (talk) 01:06, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks all for discussing this. WP:ELYES point 3 'Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that is relevant to an encyclopedic understanding of the subject and 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.' I think our site is exactly that. Neutral might be debatable since we are a fansite, but that doesn't mean we're not critical or allow others to place critical comments (you will find examples of that on our News Page). We do feel we give a lot of information about McNab that cannot be placed on the page (such as news about book signings, but also photos, videos, exclusive interviews etc) but would still interest people who are looking for more information about McNab. Basically we are one-of-a-kind on Internet, at least at the moment. Slightly commercial..we only try to cover some of the expenses we make to be able to maintain the site. We are a long way from making any profits, and I doubt we will ever do!! Main goal (sorry if I repeat myself) is to provide accurate and up-to-date information about McNab that we feel (know!) people are very interested in. ACatharina (talk) 21:16, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The fansite in question is certainly not unique, as exhibited by this alternate Andy McNab fansite. If one fansite is allowed, then so should the other, and I personally believe that neither are of a reasonable, unbiased standard to be included in any article. 144.140.22.4 (talk) 23:46, 11 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If there is no official site then inclusion of dodgy fansites is not right. The EL policy is quite clear so it it should be followed. This is an encyclopaedia, not a link farm. Jezhotwells (talk) 02:25, 12 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
With all respect Jezhotwells and 144.140.22.4 - I know who you are - I'd like to hear the moderators/administrators opinions on this one. We are not dodgy and therealist.. is not a fansite, quite the contrary. Also for the mod/admins: I had nothing to do with adding the Greymansland link to the McNab page again, I'd like to conclude the discussion first! ACatharina (talk) 12:17, 12 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
At WikiPedia, admins are simply editors who have additional privileges (e.g. being able to block users) because they have the support of the community. What you are looking for is the opinion of neutral uninvolved editors. Start with the introductory material in WP:EL: "Some acceptable links include those that 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, or other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article for reasons unrelated to its accuracy." Clearly it is on-topic since it is only about Andy McNab and there is more detail (in particular the gallery and the videos) than can be included in the article. I took a look at www.greysmansland.com and I noted the interviews with Andy McNab. I believe that clearly meets the criteria of WP:ELMAYBE, point 4. (Who is more knowledgeable than the subject of the article?) Going down the list of WP:NO, I think the only points that need to be discussed are 5 and 11. Looking at the site, it does not exist primarily to sell products and it does not contain an objectionable amount of advertising. Point 11 applies. I don't see a reason to make a general exception for cases where no official site exists. (By the way, I looked at the references and it seems there used to be an "Andy McNab Official Website". Is there a reason the archived version of this site isn't listed in the External Links?) If it is included, it should be because there is a consensus among the editors involved in editing the article based on common sense. For what it is worth, I do have some tangential questions: (1) Why isn't the archive of the "Andy McNab Official Website" included as an external link (is there some issue of whether this site was authorized by Andy McNab)? (2) Why are the existing external links there? (They all look like reliable sources, which can be integrated into the article; and the Quick Reads link contains very little material related to Andy McNab - a picture of a book and a link to a short excerpt from the first chapter.) Vyeh (talk) 14:06, 12 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
........Hi Vyeh, point 5: 'Links to web pages that primarily exist to sell products or services, or to web pages with objectionable amounts of advertising.': Both Alison and MickMacNee already said (see above) that Greymansland doesn't seem to a site with primary purpose to sell - and it isn't! Point 11 'Links to blogs, personal web pages and most fansites' definitely applies, I never stated anything different. The question is whether our link would be allowed despite the fact fansite links are 'normally avoided'. Keyword 'normally' - this leaves room for exceptions and I think we would qualify to the exception :-) ACatharina (talk) 17:35, 14 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
..Additional reliable: interviews with McNab himself, photos, videos, the latest news on projects..Can't make those up (so reliable)and can't be placed on the Wiki page. I'd say that's a lot 'additional' Just because you obviously hold a grudge against our website/Andy McNab doesn't mean your opinion should be followed.ACatharina (talk) 12:16, 15 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No-one is holding a grudge against you or your website, however your admission of a conflict of interest in making this edit doesn't help your case. A fansite of this sort is not a reliable source - for all we know all of teh content could be made up. Now if someone could demonstarte taht this site is regarded reliable by other reliable sources then it may have some more validty. Wikipedia policies are achieved by consensus of the editing community and it appears that the consensus here is againts including the link as it is not in accordance with our policy at WP:EL. Jezhotwells (talk) 00:55, 16 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You know, when people admit a conflict of interest, we really should assume that they're trying to do the right thing.
What I think is that this discussion is leading nowhere but thanks for your support (Alison/others). I know that Greymansland would be an excellent external link. The information there IS reliable no matter what (some) people may think. Even McNab calls us in an exclusive audio interview on our website (no, was not a hired actor) a 'great website'. But I'm not going to discuss this for weeks or months. Regards ACatharina (talk) 13:46, 16 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Links to Amazon.com
An editor has added books to the "further reading" section of History of Greece with links to Amazon.com. I've tried pointing to ##5 and 15 of WP:ELNO on their talk page, but they insist that the links as formed meet Wikipedia guidelines. Little help? RJCTalkContribs06:04, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Amazon and other commercial sites are not appropriate anywhere on Wikipedia unless they are the topic of the article (ie: a link to amazon.com would be fine only on Amazon.com). --13217:20, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's an interesting excuse the editor is using, free excerpt and text search. Which Amazon offers because it helps them sell their books (and you have to log in to your account to use it). But I wouldn't revert his edits calling them vandalism. Dougweller (talk) 18:20, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree it's not vandalism. Someone else reverted them that way. I would have done it myself without the vandalism tag, but I had already reverted three times. RJCTalkContribs19:02, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The Wiki rules say not to link to a page whose primary purpose is to sell things. But that allows links to pages that have an incidental purpose. In the case of "further reading" we are in fact recommending commercial products--books--primarily because they are the the basis of many RS --indeed the foundation for many of our articles-- and are a service to our readers. It's alarmist to see something negative in the possibility that an individual or library might purchase a book Wikipedia uses and recommends.Rjensen (talk) 22:55, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The primary purpose of Amazon.com is to sell stuff. Ergo, links to Amazon.com are to be avoided. Your noncommercial intention of linking to Amazon does not alter Amazon's rationale for creating pages on books with "buy me" buttons. RJCTalkContribs23:06, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Rjensen, I appreciate your good intentions here. Is there a particular reason why you feel that providing an ISBN link for each book would not have sufficed in these cases? The standard Wikipedia ISBN interface would provide the reader with links to both Google Books or Amazon.com for text access; is there some reason you feel that it was appropriate to favor Amazon in this case? --Arxiloxos (talk) 23:43, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The ISBN links are useful and cover all books. Only a limited number of newer titles are covered by the text search and excerpt provisions in Amazon and Google.com. Simple links to the ISBN will not tell the users that they should go to Amazon or Google because this resource is available to them there. Verifiability using RS is a very high priority for Wikipedia, and in history articles the main source of verification is going to be books. Sometimes one of the editors has a copy of the book; most of the time they do not. Verification of a statement in the article that references a specific book is therefore very difficult, but it's made much more feasible by the use of text search engines in Amazon and Google. In summary, the Amazon and Google links benefit the users, librarians, and especially the Wikipedia editors. Rjensen (talk) 23:56, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Right, and I agree with you to a considerable extent, but my specific question here is whether there was a reason you thought it appropriate to favor Amazon.com here, rather than the less overtly promotional environment of Google Books (where, for example, they usually provide links to multiple sellers rather than just one).--Arxiloxos (talk) 00:03, 11 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
in terms of policy, I think links to Amazon and Google have the same status. Personally, I find Amazon slightly easier to use. Amazon links to far more book sellers. For example, one of my "further reading" items that started this controversy was Boardman, John, et al. The Oxford History of Greece & the Hellenistic World (2002) excerpt and text search. click on the link and notice that Amazon sells the book, but also links to 57 other dealers, most of them small independent bookshops. Google does not sell the book, and instead links to only two book dealers, Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Both Amazon and Google also have very valuable book reviews on their pages; Amazon has reader contributed book reviews, which Google lacks. All in all, I believe these free features are a very valuable resource for Wikipedia editors and that linking to them is a positive service. Rjensen (talk) 01:36, 11 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In short, you are totally wrong. Your are entitled to your opinion, and you are entitled to use our process for amending guidelines and policies, but you are not welcome to edit war against consensus to include things clearly against the EL policy. Jclemens (talk) 01:55, 11 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As a point of clarification, ELNO bans links to pages if the page's primary purpose is selling things, regardless of what the editor's primary purpose is for providing the link. All links to books at Amazon.com have a primary purpose of selling books. If this needs to be clarified (i.e., editors of good will are honestly likely to hold different opinions about the rule's intent after a discussion), please leave a note at WT:EL.
IMO in this instance the ISBN magic words are sufficient. Readers who like Amazon (or Google Books, or their local libraries, or...) can certainly scroll down the page and click the links they like best instead of the many other options. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:52, 11 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In the article on Alex Jones, people keep posting links to his websites under the website subsection. While it's no big deal and I can remove them, the complaint I have is that I have removed the links several times in the past. It appears some editors keep adding the links in the article when they know it's a violation of policy. The links belong and are appropriate in the external links and infobox areas, but not in the heart of the article. These editors should know better. Burningview ✉ 01:19, 11 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I went ahead and removed the links (they are already in the External Links section). You should consider deleting the sentence "The best known of these sites are www.infowars.com and www.prisonplanet.com," as it is just begging have a link (or maybe it could be rewritten to say InfoWars and PrisonPlanet. In any event, there needs to be a source that says these are the best known sites. You might consider dropping a note about external links not being in the body of the article to any editor that adds such a link. Vyeh (talk) 12:16, 11 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Links to political 'anti-blogs'
I deleted the link to CoupeDeval.com in the External links section of Deval Patrick as it's one of the usual 'anti-blogs' which seem to exist for all politicians but which we don't include. I considered it clearly Wikipedia:ELBLP, so I didn't expect the deletion to be controversial. As it's been re-listed (and I received a snarky message on my Talk page about it), I leave it to you. :-) Flatterworld (talk) 14:22, 11 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Blogs in general shouldn't be included unless they are written by the person the article is about. Blogs attacking a WP:BLP-protected topic should never be included, even more so when the blog/site isn't even notable in the first place (Alexa). If there is legitimate criticism about him, there will be plenty of reliable sources that can be used to cite information within the article. --13217:14, 11 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is not directly an EL question, but I hope people won't mind giving suggestions for how to deal with Provisioning#Server provisioning which includes the spam magnet "There are many software products available to automate the provisioning of servers, services and end-user devices from vendors such as Stratavia, Sigma Systems,[2] BladeLogic, IBM,[3] or HP." These four edits added the Sigma Systems item. Would it be too bold to remove the whole sentence? I was inclined to list the companies in order of my guess at company prominence, while removing the two references, which could be regarded as WP:REFSPAM. However, IBM is so big, that there is no clear mention on Wikipedia of the product identified in the IBM reference, so that is a good reason for keeping it. Johnuniq (talk) 02:27, 12 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
IMHO, I don't think it would be an issue for removal. The sentence itself is pretty promotional in tone. If I were to have stumbled on the page, I would have removed it, whether or not I knew the issues surrounding it. --13203:34, 12 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'd kill the links as refspam, too. Have you considered leaving the first, rather generic part of the sentence, and just removing the "from vendors such as" parts? Or is "software exists" not WP:DUE or encyclopedic in your opinion? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:10, 12 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks all. Someone has removed the recent addition, and my inclination is to leave the others (established text) for now, but will watch and perhaps remove list if necessary later. Johnuniq (talk) 23:34, 12 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Google books overview being used as a link
AtMitanni a Google Books overview page is being used as below:
Besides the fact that there is some edit-warring and sanction breaking involving Armenian related issues here, I've reverted it (and it's been replaced) because I can't see how it meets WP:EL and the fact that the page doesn't seem to even mention the Mitanni or Armenians (unless I'm missing something). Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 20:16, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I initially removed it due to the site appearing to be a personal blog, as well as the SPA behavior of Bonzothedog (talk·contribs). My primary concerns about the link are:
Related to ELNO#4; to date, the only edits to article space by Bonzothedog (talk·contribs) have been to add links to this one site. This is common behavior of single purpose accounts who exist to promote a specific URL. Although to the user's credit, they have stated a willingness to work with the community and have now started a discussion about a different issue in an article.
For ELNO#11; I fail to see where this blog site is created or maintained by any expert in the field of German cuisine. The site's own "about" page makes clear the site is written by amateur cooks. The links being added provide no context, no historical information, not even nutritional information - it's simply someone's recipe blog presented with photos.
For articles where existing recipes exist, WP:NOT#REPOSITORY can also be an issue. In some additions, there are already links to recipes that have only slight variations from the new one being linked, so the new link was redundant.
Please note, I am not saying that recipe links do not provide value; but I saw potential issues with this specific source as well as the initial behavior of the user adding it. In some cases, where no other recipes are linked, this site could be useful until a better recipe link is found - although I think it would be best if an established editor who did not have the appearance of being an SPA were to be the one to review and re-add the link in those cases.
I have attempted to encourage discussion on the individual article talk pages, but I'm not going to start those discussions myself. Especially in cases where existing links to very similar recipes exist, I feel that the addition should be discussed individually on the article talk pages in order to weigh which is the better currently available site(s) to link rather than having a directory of very similar recipe links. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 15:33, 15 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I ran across the same problem recently. It isn't often that we should have links to recipes, and when we do, there needs to be a pretty convincing reason why the link is exceptional. I have a huge collection of recipes, recipe books, and recipe sites, and pay subscriptions to several and have RSS links to a number of recipe blogs, and I've never run across this one. I am curious if there has ever been a discussion about links to recipes - and if we do have them, I'd think we'd link to some of the more famous sites like epicurious.com, etc. Dougweller (talk) 16:33, 15 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
@ Dougweller: How famous a site is should be a criteria to link to it??? As far as the info that you find on that site is important and famous isn't the popularity of that source unimportant? Please, ask yourself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bonzothedog (talk • contribs) 17:52, 15 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You need to sign your posts. I said there needed to be a pretty convincing reason why a site was exceptional, and asked if there had ever been a discussion about linking to recipes. Thinking more about it, you'd also want the recipe to be exceptional, that would be part of the reason you'd link, and I'm still not convinced about a link. After all, most recipes you can find easily enough on the web. Dougweller (talk) 17:56, 15 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I am astonished that the matter of links to recipes hasn't been discussed and resolved before. Maybe www.dmoz.org is the answer to providing visitors with information without opening floodgates to commercial sites. After all, almost all recipe sites are commercial. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 20:31, 15 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As for popularity, given the Alexa rank, I would say it is very modest for now [4]. Also the site says : "We are amateur cooks and like to present you Germany from it's culinaric point of view". At present there are only 6 main dishes and 4 desserts, so the coverage of German food looks pretty low. Their plum tart photo is yummy, but that's not enough.
I have checked the edits by Bonzothedog and the link in question. That link is clearly unhelpful for Wikipedia and should be regarded as linkspam. The site is just another recipe collection with no evidence of particular merit (it might be the world's best, but there is no evidence of that). Googling for quarkkeulchen recipe finds over 10,000 hits, and we are not going to add them all to Quarkkäulchen. Johnuniq (talk) 04:49, 16 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
@all: What or who is an authorized source for recipes?
Do you know any agencies or institutions that certify recipes? Is a cookbook authorized enough?
Please, have a look at the links in the stuffed cabbage article for example:
We all just move in a circle as long as on the one hand links to bobbinis-kitchen.com/ are declared as useless but on the other hand websites that have the same qualities like bobbinis-kitchen.com are denoted as valid links. e.g.:
External links from stuffed cabbage article
*『kåldolmar』recipe
* Stuffed Cabbage Rolls - Kåldolmar
* Kåldolmar - Stuffed Cabbage Roll
* Cabbage Rolls – “kåldolmar” Recipe #230100
* The ultimate Russian comfort food Irakli Iosebashvili, October, 28 2009, Russia Beyond the Headlines, article with a recipe
* Sarma Recipe
The bobbini-Url I linked to gives an empiric example for a/several german recipe/s. A recipe that you can find 10000+ times on any searchengine but not one time on wiki:
Does that make sense?: Talking about something but having no example for it?
I've chosen bobbinis-kitchen.com/quarkkeulchen and 3 or so other pages because I'm convinced about the authenicity (after I've compared and cooked several of their recipes) and that is absolutely enough.
Don't you agree instead of quoting any web statistics about the url? Completeness of an example, how famous a site is or how many recipe books you have at home aren't the criteria that count, are they?
But an article without an example is dead and not vivid.
@Anneyh: Is the coverage important?
@Johnuniq: And all the other 10000+ recipes you have found about Quarkkeulchen are unhelpful and unimportant, too? Please, don't judge emotional about other users' behaviour.
Please, forget about a catalogue of wiki-rules that is so big and intransparent that noone can fullfill all requirements unless becoming a pseudoscientist for a moment.
Do you believe in my peaceful intentions when you read about someone that supports what I linked to??
Do you understand what I mean?
I would appreciate your honest answers.
Yes, there are a lot of poor or inappropriate links in food-related articles. We're discussing this one at the moment. If you'd like to help clean up others, feel free to do so.
I'm against the link or anything similar. I tend toward removing external links to recipes, unless it's from an expert (a notable chef, or an expert on the dish or cuisine), per WP:ELNO#11. --Ronz (talk) 22:40, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Here is an example of www.dmoz.org. As this site is used for many external links at Wikipedia, why not for articles about dishes? Bonzothedog: Is this recipe suitable? Assuming good faith, I presume that you are not promoting any single site, but rather just looking for a good recipe in external links section to help visitors. Is that correct?
On the first sight the dmoz articles seem to differ in just one point from the bobbinis-kitchen.com-Articles. You can find them over dmoz.org. That's all. Other differences? Does it really matter where the example article links come from as long as their content is a correct example for the wiki-article? More or less an example link should give a more vivid view on an article, I think. What do you think?
Yes, but who knows if it is credible? It is a commercial link. You might be promoting it.
For articles that have no external link, or a dubious link, dmoz is useful in a number of ways.
It makes an immediate improvement to the article, as it gives something in external links to click to find a recipe for the article subject. That is better than nothing.
It provides a number of results, giving a choice from which visitors can compare.
It avoids battles by users promoting a commercial site vie for placement in external links.
It can be replaced when an alternative link is found (and shown to be an improvement).
Ideally, one or two credible, verified recipes at non-commercial sites would be best. In lieu of that, an external link to a google search, example: apple pie recipe -com (showing non-commercial sites) would actually be my choice. No ads in your face. No agenda. No promoting their brand of butter.
External links and references to former GeoCities sites
There has recently been some discussion over at the Administrator's Noticeboard regarding links to pages formerly hosted by the now-defunct GeoCities. An automated process of redirecting GeoCities links to a partial archive has raised a number of red flags with various editors (including me). It is apparent that a consensus needs to be reached on the best way to deal with these links.
The problem
There are currently 11,000+ articles which link to GeoCities URLs, whether through references or external links
There are currently 5,000+ articles which have had their GeoCities redirected to oocities.com (a partial archive of GeoCities pages which by its own reckoning hosts only 2 million of the 38 million GeoCities pages.
Given the nature of free web hosting services, many of these links are of dubious value. However, many of them are useful sources.
A solution?
User:Moonriddengirl suggested establishing a working group here to deal with this problem, so here I am. Based on discussion at WP:AN, I propose:
Manually reviewing articles (to be clear, explicitly NOT talk pages, archives, etc.) which contain links to GeoCities or oocities.com
Where these URLs appear as external links only, either a) point to an active site which serves the same purpose; b) redirect to a Wayback archive; or c) remove the link entirely if it falls under an WP:ELNO category.
Where these URLs are cited as references, either a) point to a currently-available resource which supports the same claim; b) redirect to a Wayback archive; or c) remove the reference and the text it supports. Obviously c) would only need to happen if no archive of the page exists and there is no other reference for the information available, and it's what we should be doing anyway in line with WP:RS.
On the face of it, this looks like a big job, but it is achievable. If 10 people tackled 10 articles a day (or 30 people did 3 a day), it would be done in under 6 months. That's not such a long time considering these links have now been dead for nearly 10 months.
I'll raise my hand. :) Most of these pages are unreliable and unusable, anyway, but some of them are valid content. I can easily average 10 articles a day, although with my usual work approach I'll probably cluster more than that into every few days. --Moonriddengirl(talk)16:06, 15 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent, thank you. Once consensus is clear that this (or some variation) has the community seal of approval, it would be good to start a little project page to keep guidelines in place and track progress towards the ultimate Geo-free goal. Katherine (talk) 17:44, 15 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As said before there probably werent 38Million geocities pages available at a time but only 38 Million user account (both inaktive and aktive ones) a better impression gives the following fact: Geocities when it was alive was visited about 5 Million times a day.
OoCities stated that they specially collected all pages linked at wikipedia and indeed a part of about >90% out of the pool of these 34.000 pages are available there.
As iam already done with a lot of research on the topic and have a complex Regex and handmade lists in AutowikiBrowser i will of course volunteer and be able to change effectivly semi-automated all geocities.com links to archive.org/..../geocities.com/ one's which will work there, which will as said before only be about 50% because they only have about 50% avaialable. at least this will already solve half the issue within weeks and within consensus.
please note: i strongly suggest just to stick to the question how to update but not declare each and every single free webhost link an outlaw. i assume that most contents on wikipedia are linked with a good reason by people who actually had knowledge about the single topics and i think so do you also. Thus to decide which are worth to stay at wikipedia even available or which should better be removed just because geocities was a freehost is a whole other question. and please, its not right to make it something which everyone can decide on his own neither you guys just while updateing some links. there must either be a general discussion about wikipedia's view on free webhosts - which would be a much more striking bigger thing - or there should be a discussion/consensus about every single link deletion which occurs. Thus i strongly suggest again to seperate both issues, which will only make this updateing issue easier. if wikipedia had strict general prejudices against freewebhosts there were no links to geocities (orginially 34.000 links, angelfire 5000, tripod (10.000), sites.google (40.000) and so on. Furthermore, if you delete any reference links you will even more definitely harm Wikipedia.
of course. iam pretty aware of those discussions and i noway tryied to question your expertise - what i said before is just resonably not to decide to delete parts of wikipedia "just by the way", okay? its simply reasonable not to mix both things up. Talking about geocities there are a maxiumum of 34.000 links, which just can be updated - talking about quality of free webhosts as well as private tiny pages which both are rarly most liable. But there is no connection between both issues because this applys probably to millions of links within wikipedia and probably noone would agree if anyone came here and ask to delete a majority of all those links, depending on his personal view, whereas the updateing process can be done with less human work but semiautomated or even fully automated. Thats what i tried to point out. Also in general i see certain sources of mistakes to remove important links, which were made in the first decade of the web and do just no more look like lieable on the first impression, as long as taking nowadays view because they have a primitiv layout and lots of blinking gif animations which are today seen as dubious. But in the 1990s they were a standard. Thus it would take probably years to decide which to delete and which to update wherease it only will take weeks to update them all proberly. Long story short, it just makes no sense to mix both issues and only complicates the discussion on updating them. i hope you agree.
(edit conflict) No, I don't. If the links are inappropriate, either for sourcing or as ELs, they should as a matter of course be removed. Any editor is empowered to remove content that doesn't belong; that's the way Wikipedia works. Automated work cannot be approved here. --Moonriddengirl(talk)18:24, 15 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Of course it can be an automated task to replace every "http://geocities.com/" with an "http://web.archive.org/web/*/geocities.com/" and there isnt any source of mistakes. But you are clearly mixing up two seperatable issues and i dont see why in the world you think they need to be mixed up?
for references its even more striking because of the nature of references, if you define a reference dubious then you also define the fact writen in the article dubious and you have to delete this also, and if you possibly do any mistake because you are working on a list of 34.000 links without possibly haveing any personal relation to all the single articles than the damage will not just be to lose a external link but also to make the whole wikipedia article less liable
however, once again: why dont you just stop mixing up both things. once again the facts: updateing 1000s of links "at once" was reasonable. checking every single link on wikipedia for deletion was also reasonable but need necessary to be done carefully by a human who knows about the specific topic or better a consensus on every single deletion. --Updatehelper (talk) 19:03, 15 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There is no reason not to mix things up. Human volunteers can do both things at once. If you get approval for an automated conversion process to wayback, that's fine; but the appropriateness of the links still needs to be verified. --Moonriddengirl(talk)19:04, 15 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In terms of updateing there its clearly an automisable take and thats why its just contraproductive/complicateing to try to mix both things, because geocities is totally dead, whereas archives grow and even links which are not available now can possibly become avaiable later, thus this step can only improve things even if done automated. every further improvments by human work are optional and completely seperatable --Updatehelper (talk) 19:17, 15 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
....
Getting back to the original idea of updating Geocities links, it appears that Archive.org has a substantial collection of Geocities material not yet online, material that was collected for them by many people during the same shut-down window when oocities was creating its 2M page Geocities collection[5]. And according to Archiveteam, "There have been other parallel projects also mirroring GeoCities besides Archive Team. These include Archive.Org, Reocities, Oocities, geocities.ws, and Internet Archaeology. All groups appear to have gotten different amounts of the GeoCities collection, and most are now sharing data to track down gaps and share copies." betsythedevine (talk) 03:48, 16 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't like tedious manual work checking links, and I probably won't help out if that's the result (sorry!), but I think it's the only way we can accurately get this resolved. I don't care too much which archive we use, but I think archive.org should be a good one to check first. Having a list of dead GeoCities links generated, and then a list of pages in an archive corresponding to the deadlinks, should help greatly at first. —fetch·comms15:48, 16 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You're looking at this all wrong. The best approach to this would be to go to the list that Kuru asks for below, find some articles on topics which interest you, read them, then determine whether the dead GeoCities link is salvageable. And while you are doing that, fix any spelling & grammar mistakes which annoy you, do some fact checking (either adding sources or that {{fact}} tag), & maybe add some content. Or even simply add a suggestion or two on the Talk page about how you'd like to see the article improved, like asking questions you had which the article did not answer. Maybe we won't reach the 10 articles a day quota Katherine proposed above, but doing that will drag a large number of articles at least one step towards respectability. -- llywrch (talk) 06:09, 18 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'd be happy to help, but it would be preferable if someone could generate a scratch pad page with all of the affected pages so we can cross them off or annotate them there instead of working from the linksearch list. I had not been following the ANI discussion, but now that I've read it I'm a little surprised. Quite a few of the oocities links were an empty page with nothing more than a reference to archive.org and some google ads - that's completely unacceptable. I'm also a little fuzzy on why we're entertaining geocities sites as reliable sources - what are some examples of an acceptable reference from those kinds of sites? Subject created or official sites, I suppose? Kuru(talk)19:22, 16 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've looked at a bunch of Geocities pages since this started, and very few of them are reliable. "Very few" may be overstating. The only one that's immediately coming to mind is a school I saw that used to use it as their official site, but since Geocities went off they've evidently ponied up for a real website anyway. --Moonriddengirl(talk)19:33, 16 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the main value of archived Geocities pages is historical -- they mostly demonstrate how some entity chose to represent itself at a particular point in time past. Here again, the time-stamp information preserved by the Wayback Machine adds context that is missing from a naked page mirror. betsythedevine (talk) 20:13, 16 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Quite a few of the archived pages I've looked at have links through to live sites hosted elsewhere. Seems like many people prepared for the shutdown by setting up new sites and updating their Geocities accordingly. That should be useful in cases where we want to retain a site as an external link. Archives are going to be useful in some cases (references, maybe), although I would guess in the majority of instances the appropriate action will be to delete the link. Katherine (talk) 13:43, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I would be interested in taking part in this project. The amateur-published material in Geocities is a significant resource of information about our common past; it would be a shame for Wikipedia to lose those connections. I notice that there are already guidelines and even a template useful for linking to archive.org. Also, there is now a slightly different proposal on the original ANI concerning ways to treat Wikipedia's Geocities links. Should further discussion take place here or there? Questionic (talk) 12:58, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I am happy with this proposal also. In addition I really think the geocities-to-oocities edits on Talk pages should be reverted sooner than later. They make the discussions inaccurate and were edits of other editor's comments. And in article space, I think every single oocities link could be changed to geocities except on the article Geocities, so that simple regex could be completely automated. Uh-oh now I'm just recreating my proposal! The other thing I advocate is marking all geocities links {{dead}} soon, another task that could be fully automated without causing too many problems. (That simple way of marking dead has the advantage of triggering SmackBot, which cleans up other problems.) And... I think we should be clear about whether we are going with Archive.org only or leaving room for other archives. Either way is OK with me, since this is a already a big project. -Colfer2 (talk) 13:56, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Remove them all - the usefulness, and more importantly, the reliablity of those links/site isn't that great. Important facts can be sourced from better third party places. Lugnuts (talk) 17:39, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Article Talk space: done! I have completed reverting Updatehelper's geocities-to-oocities edits in Article Talk space. I just did a simple search on "oocities" and made about 330 reverts. I will double-check it tomorrow or whenever the space is re-indexed and reflects the edits I made. There were only a few exceptions where I left "oocities" in the space, when it was intended by the editor. -Colfer2 (talk) 03:49, 18 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand why you are doing this. The oocities cites are necessary in order to see what people were referring to in those talk page discussions. The compromise you came up with, where you separately list the oocities cite is OK, though. -- Ssilvers (talk) 04:39, 18 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I can see your point. It might be a matter of policy over practicality. At least the Article Talk space is a better place to work this out than Article space. All geocities links are dead and won't be coming back. Ideally each one that we keep should at least be marked {{dead}} and given a parameter that links to archive.org or to a choice of archive links. Your example is great, because oocities has it, but archive.org does not. But the oocities edits caused a lot of problems, and not just policy problems (linkspam, copyvio, do not edit comments, etc.). They often made a Talk discussion into nonsense, for instance when people were discussing whether to allow geocities links, or describing a search pattern.
The Talk pages should not have been converted geocities-to-oocities. Instead dead/archive links can added ad-hoc by interested editors. Or use a responding comment, which is the clearest way, and completely legit. Here is the responding comment I used, restoring oocities and keeping geocities, after Ssilvers reverted me: diff. -Colfer2 (talk) 05:14, 18 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I really should have left edit summaries on my 330 edits. People do not like seeing goecities reappear on pages they are watching. -Colfer2 (talk) 11:43, 18 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Even when done in good faith, one should typically not edit the comments of others. So I fully endorse Colfer's returning them to their original form which linked to Geocities. –xenotalk13:17, 18 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A workspace was requested, above. I've just used my major work 'bot to make the external hyperlink search, for namespace 0 only. The list of pages and contained URLs is rather large, it turns out. I can create a series of workspace pages with tables for noting cleanup actions taken so that people can collaborate and check things off as they are dealt with. Do you really want these, Kuru and Fetchcomms? Uncle G (talk) 13:57, 18 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm afraid that checking things off is going to massively slow things down. What about just creating a divisible list where people can take chunks to work on? --Moonriddengirl(talk)15:29, 18 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Already created. It didn't all fit on one page and didn't render as a single table. It exceeds MediaWiki size limitations. So I broke it down into 52 groups of ~250 rows each. But I'm not going to the fuss and bother of uploading multiple pages unless such a worklist is actually wanted. Uncle G (talk) 16:38, 18 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Maintaining lists seems like a lot of extra work to me. A simple search in the article namespace for geocities would allow progress to be tracked, maybe a table showing the number of hits remaining each day/week. Just run a search and note the number each day? Just to show progress, doesn't need to be accurate. Example below. Katherine (talk) 09:28, 19 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This table would probably do for a good long while, but eventually we'll run into redundancy of labors when people start evaluating the same links, not knowing that others have already checked them. Any way we can flag a link as checked? Or perhaps encourage null edits with comments in edit summary? --Moonriddengirl(talk)12:07, 19 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I was going to say that once an article has been checked and the links removed it shouldn't come up in search anymore, but of course if a link is changed to the Wayback copy, it's still going to have the G word in the URL. Although a search for www.geocities.com/* will only return those that still have the old Geo-links. Hmm. Is there a case you can think of (that is obviously completely escaping me) where a checked article would retain those trigger words? I like the idea of leaving a note in the edit summary, or a commented-out comment next to the link, if there is a case where we'd retain it. Katherine (talk) 13:05, 19 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I remove geocities on sight. I have never found anything there that was wikipedia reliable, its the past guys, this is a totally different time, forget about geocities and move on. Redirecting any of them to oocities.com is a further waste of space. I would go to them and attempt to cite the content to a WP:RS and add that citation if there is no available reliable source then delete the addition, or add a fact tag if it is totally non controversial and not related to personal detail about living people.Off2riorob (talk) 14:11, 18 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That sounds right on par with my own checks of random selections. Most are deletes, some should point to a new site, a very few are a source that needs to be re-references. Katherine (talk) 09:28, 19 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
hello, just droping some notes on the recent posts:
i am working on a full spreadsheet with colums: article/geocities URLs/available archive locations. (does anyone want it?)
archive.org contents in general go online within 6 month after archival
Like said before. At least a million of links from wikipedia go to free webhosts of similar or less average quality as geocities. Thus its seems plausible to either define the subject of discussion as expanded to the whole list of all free webhost or to keep it simple and talk only about updateing geocities links which can be a bot task, dont it? --Updatehelper (talk) 13:22, 19 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
We don't improve Wikipedia on an "all or nothing" basis. If a Geocities link doesn't meet policies and guidelines, removing it is improving the project even if it doesn't remove a link to some other equally unsuitable website. --Moonriddengirl(talk)13:25, 19 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It seems like there's enough kind souls willing to get their hands dirty with this, so I'm going to set up a project so we can coordinate and track progress in whatever way (or ways) people find useful. Does anyone have thoughts on a name? Two ideas: WikiProject Geocities is rather specific; WikiProject DeadLinks has longer-term potential if this needs to be repeated with another defunct webhost. Opinions: yes, no, better suggestion? Katherine (talk) 13:36, 19 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
what iam pointing out is also simply that we are currently touching three differnt possible efforts :
1."deadlinks" in general is a big thing. already about 500.000 links from en.wikipedia.org go to archives (most archive.org).
--> wikipedia is missing a sophisticated, high performance bot task to do this. exsiting deadlink list seem by far smaller than the amount of links which could indeed be deleted/updated
2."poor quality of freewebhost contents" - also at least a million links (dead & alive ones)
-->requires a enormous amount of human(team)work and would - once done - have a giant effect on wikipedia.
3."updateing of a few 10.000 dead geocities.com/ links"
-->requires either boring human work for a 100 hours, or a bot task, which needs to run only once, which can easily be done with the list i made. afterwards they literally move into the pool of "2." --Updatehelper (talk) 14:12, 19 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Amazon overlinking tool
Check out this tool at Linkypedia, it is noting all the links to Amazon and rating pages by number of links to them, it could be a great way to fight overlinking to Amazon as a reference in Wikipedia! Sadads (talk) 16:02, 18 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Defer to WPSPAM
