Wikipedia:External links/Noticeboard

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This page is for reporting possible breaches of the external links guideline. Post questions here regarding whether particular external links are appropriate or compliant with Wikipedia's guidelines for external links. Provide links to the relevant article(s), talk page(s), and external links(s) that are being discussed. Questions about prominent websites like YouTube, IMDb, Twitter, or Find a Grave might be addressed with information from this guide. Sections older than 10 days archived by MiszaBot. (For help, see Wikipedia:Purge) If you mention specific editors, you must notify them. You may use {{subst:ELN-notice}} to do so.
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Quran and Al-Fatiha

• Articles to use: Quran and Al-Fatiha
• External link 1: [Word by Word analysis of Quranic Verses]

Well, I cam here after a discussion with an aadministrator with his edit summary here. The Website cannot be a personal blog, or personal webpage, and it just gives a word by word analysis and interpretation of the maings of the Book in English Language and Urdu. I request to approve it to be added to these articles, it can be examined and is not an advertisement or vice versa. Faizan (talk) 08:55, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

It looks like a personal web site to me. Whatever it is, it credits its content to one person (with assistant) and fails to provide any information about who that person is or why we should trust him. The Internet is replete with interpretations of religious texts, and linking to any of them without a very good reason seems at odd with our goal to be a neutral encyclopedia. Rivertorch (talk) 16:50, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

ok. Faizan (talk) 14:16, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Steven P. Croley CV

Please remove the external link to Steven P. Croley's CV (footnote 5). It is outdated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.211.56.116 (talk) 12:39, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

It probably shouldn't have been added in the first place. Having said that, I'd note that that source is used to support no fewer than 17 different statements in the article, and I'm a little reluctant to remove the citation and leave the statements in place. CVs inevitably become outdated (and really aren't good sources for our purposes, anyway), but if they're ever marginally acceptable as primary sources until something better is found, I don't see why a given one would suddenly be beyond the pale inasmuch as it describes (accurately, we hope) what was the case at a given time. I don't recall running into this exact situation before, and I'd like to hear what other editors think. If no one else responds, you might consider reposting to the Reliable sources noticeboard. Rivertorch (talk) 16:44, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Larry Allen Abshier

In the article on Larry Allen Abshier, I found the link to larry-allen-abshier.co.tv to be useless because the page it refers to is in turkish and does not provide any information.

Now, my question is what should/can I do? This page is very specific and might be viewed very rarely which is why I refused to put this issue on the talk page. (The links might remain there for too long)

Should I just edit / remove the reference? Or is posting this issue here "the way to go"? Should I notify somebody of the Korea-Project? (Whom? How do I find the right guy?)

Any help/advise is appreciated. Shurakai (talk) 18:50, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

The link is used in an inline reference to support a statement about Abshier, so the principal question, I think, is not so much whether it's an appropriate link as whether it's a reliable source. There's a noticeboard for asking about reliable sources, and you're welcome to post your query there. Since you asked here, however, I'll go ahead and give you my opinion: there's no evidence that the page supports the content in question. Since the relevant paragraph makes no extraordinary claims, is primarily about an individual who is deceased, and begins by mentioning a book whose existence is verifiable, my inclination would be to leave the content as is and replace the reference with a "citation needed" tag—i.e., {{cn}}. Rivertorch (talk) 04:37, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Planet of the Apes (novel)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Per a discussion at Talk:Planet of the Apes (novel)#EL regarding a link that was removed after nearly three years on the Planet of the Apes (novel) article. I only want to restore the link to the site, not reuse the images on Wikipedia. This is how the EL appeared:

La Planète des singes at The Sacred Scrolls - History of the novel's international editions with book cover images.

The book cover images are obviously accurate and very useful to people interested in the Planet of the Apes novel's history. When I first saw The Sacred Scrolls page it answered questions I had about the book's different title Monkey Planet in the UK, for example. WP:ELBURDEN says Every link provided must be justifiable in the opinion of the editors for an article. I've been maintaining the article for nearly two years, and I found The Sacred Scrolls site to be very useful in ways WP cannot. We obviously cannot post dozens of book cover images on a WP page. The Sacred Scrolls is the main "go to" site for people interested in the Planet of the Apes series. Removing it on the issue that the page enables copyright infringement is not appropriate, as this was resolved at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions#External link copyright issue. It is not covered under WP:ELNEVER. WP:ELNO says one should generally avoid a list of certain EL types. Even if The Sacred Scrolls site meets one of those types, "generally avoid" does not mean in every case. The copyright has been cleared so there isn't a policy reason to keep the link out, we just need the intention behind ELNO#12 elaborated on. - Gothicfilm (talk) 18:23, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

• Consensus has determined that open wikis that do not have a significant number of editors do not make appropriate external links, and this is reflected by WP:ELNO #12. This wiki's recent changes shows that there are no active editors, aside from a small handful that make a few edits every week or so, but as of writing this, no named accounts have edited the wiki in over a week. Open wikis are subject to vandalism and inaccurate edits, and without an active community of editors there's no guarantee of such things being noticed and corrected, which means that Wikipedia should not be linking to it. Even looking through the archives of this noticeboard, there are indidents of wikis that are more active than this one that editors have determined have an insignificant number of editors. Even if the number of recent editors are ignored and just the raw Special:ListUsers is taken into consideration, in the ~7 years this wiki has existed, only 166 editors have made any edits. Compare that to other wikis even on the same wikia domain, most wikis that are actually linked from Wikipedia have tens of thousands of editors on their Special:ListUsers page, and hundreds of edits every single day from dozens of editors. These wikis have an active community with content quality control and that quickly spots and reverts vandalism within minutes, and this one cannot make that claim. Adding a few images to the bottom of the page does not make it a unique resource because (1) those images are nowhere near the focus of that article, and (2) it is not a unique resource because those same images can be found all over the internet, hardly unique. - SudoGhost 00:02, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Let's see you back that up. Show me one other site where all those dozens of international book cover editions can be seen in one place, well organized. Or show me where you can see all of them spread out over different sites, which would be nowhere near as useful. And I know of at least two editors who will be watching The Sacred Scrolls and reverting any vandalism. There hasn't been much in the past, so there wasn't much call for revert activity. It's been a stable site, as was demonstrated at Talk:Planet of the Apes (novel)#EL. Future unreverted vandalism at The Sacred Scrolls is not a legitimate concern. ELNO #12 does not define a required number of editors. - Gothicfilm (talk) 02:53, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

"WP:ELNO #12 does not define a required number of editors" is a red herring that nobody ever suggested, so what point were you trying to make? This wiki has no editing community, and that's critical for the reasons given above. When your defense is that Wikipedia editors will be cleaning up an external wiki, which didn't happen until it was pointed out on the talk page, that should show you something; the wiki should be able to keep its content in check. When an external site has to do it for them, that's a huge red flag, in addition to the other reasons given. On the subject of the images, a simple Google search shows each and every book cover there, and it looks like that wiki just did what I did, used a Google search, and saved the results and put them on their site. This is supposed to make the site unique somehow? - SudoGhost 12:13, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

A huge red flag? In your opinion. You say the site is in danger of vandalism, even though it has little history of such, and when that concern is answered you don't like how unlikely future vandalism might be dealt with. All that matters is that it gets dealt with. And a Google search is not a good replacement for a well-organized site. - Gothicfilm (talk) 15:27, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Unless you can get WP:ELNO #12 changed, the opinion that "future vandalism" might be dealt with is irrelevant, since that's not the concern nor it is why the link does not belong. It's not an issue of not liking it, it's that what hypothetically happens in the future is not a reason to include a link. WP:ELNO does not give that provision, because that amounts to WP:CRYSTAL and neatly avoids the concerns that were brought up. Google-search results on a website also does not make it unique, so it also fails WP:ELNO #1. - SudoGhost 15:37, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Google-search results on a website? What's your evidence of that? Search results for images are not well organized. - Gothicfilm (talk) 16:07, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

The fact that every single image can be easily found through a quick Google search means the site is not unique, the criteria is not "well-organized". - SudoGhost 19:27, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

In your opinion. It is certainly better organized than a search result for images. - Gothicfilm (talk) 01:30, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

How can it be both better organized and unique? If it has something to be better organized than, then it is not unique. - SudoGhost 03:25, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

• Support I'm only going to quickly recap my comments at the article, since I have no desire to repeat everything I've already written. Three points were raised in opposition to the link, although I only opposed it on one: WP:ELNEVER. The copyright issue was addressed as detailed above, so I no longer have a problem with its inclusion in the article.

1. WP:ELNO#1 – Opposition to the site has been that the page in itself does not constitute "a unique resource". The criteria however applies to the site, not uniquely to a page on the site. The site hosts over 1600 pages of content which provides substantial coverage of the topic. It's my conclusion the site is a unique resource, in that it provides substantial coverage that we don't provide, and are likely to never provide, so linking to the site is justifiable in this regard, and a link to this page inparticular seems reasonable.
2. WP:ELNO#12 – The interpretation of this guideline has proven contentious due to the ambiguous nature of the language. How is one supposed to interpret a substantial history of stability and a substantial number of editors? In one sense it's a drop in the ocean compared to the Star Wars open wiki, in another it easily surpasses the number we ask for when establishing a Wikiproject. Personally I think a raw number is somewhat arbitrary—a hundred editors can be more productive than a thousand depending on their commitment. Maybe the best way of looking at this is whatever it takes to create a substantial amount of content, which appears to be the case here.

• At the end of the day, it wouldn't hurt the article if the link weren't present, but it does provide readers with another research avenue if they don't find the information they are looking for on Wikipedia. Betty Logan (talk) 03:12, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

• That sort of rationale renders the entirety of WP:ELNO #12 moot then. Consensus has determined that insignificant editing community means that an external link is inappropriate. That does not somehow mean that "there's no bright line number, so we can safely ignore a community consensus-established requirement". I have looked, and I cannot find a single instance of an external link being appropriate with such few editors, in fact wikis that have a lot more editors have still been shown to be insufficient in terms of WP:ELNO #12. If nobody editing is somehow still significant, what could possibly be insignificant? The external link fails WP:ELNO #12, and only weak protestations have been given in response saying "well it's a vague guideline so let's ignore it". In that case, WP:CONLIMITED would apply and the external link would be removed anyways, since the larger consensus addresses something, and that reasoning has panned out here, any consensus which would purposely ignore that issue would be superseded by the relevant guideline. A WikiProject is not an external link, so that's a horrible example, and has nothing to do with WP:ELNO #12 in any capacity. You asked how you're supposed to interpret a substantial number? Well for starters, the wiki's RecentChanges should have someting other than two edits from IPs, one of which is vandalism. That you are unsure how to interpret a consensus-established rule doesn't mean it can be ignored, because by all measures this wiki falls short. - SudoGhost 12:00, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

• Support inclusion of the link. Along with Betty's summation of WP:ELNO#12 WP:IAR would certainly apply when all of the covers are available at one site. Far better one site than creating a linkfarm to numerous sites. MarnetteD | Talk 07:02, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
• Support As has been stated above, the site does provide a unique resource beyond what is available here as required by WP:ELNO #1. In regard to WP:ELNO #12, while the concern of future vandalism is legitimate there is no evidence of any history of vandalism on this site. In fact, even the few incidents that strangely occured in the last few days were quickly reverted. So the site does have a history of stablity as required by WP:ELNO #12. Of course, if at some time in the future that is no longer the case, the link can be removed from the page here at that time. Finally, I agree that WP:IAR applies. The link does improve and enhance the article here. SonOfThornhill (talk) 14:36, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

• See Wikipedia:What "Ignore all rules" means#What "Ignore all rules" does not mean. The site is neither unique (even a Google search can replicate the images, and that appears to be where the images came from), nor does it have an active community, and the raw number of editors isn't significant in the first place. "No history of vandalism" is not a requirement, a history of stability is required in addition to having a significant number of editors. Nobody has edited the wiki in over a week; obscurity and stagnation is not the same as stability, since the reason for that requirement is an assurance that vandalism will be quickly dealt with, and that has not been shown. - SudoGhost 14:46, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

What "Ignore all rules" means is an essay, not policy. You keep repeating the same opinions over and over. Soon this page will be as expansive as the article's Talk page. - Gothicfilm (talk) 16:22, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

...and yet what it says is true, WP:IAR is a policy...but isn't being used correctly here. You also keep repeating the same comments over and over, yet yours lack any explanation as to how it meets WP:ELNO #12 other than saying it's a vague thing, and therefore can somehow be ignored. - SudoGhost 19:27, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

That was responded to above and below. We're not obligated to follow your opinion of what is correct use of policy. And I'm not writing out paragraphs of the same thing repeatedly. - Gothicfilm (talk) 01:30, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

A diff supporting that assertion would help your case, because it is not "my opinion"; I did not decide that WP:IAR should specifically point out that essay, that was the result of countless editors and discussion because WP:IAR is often cited inappropriately. You don't have to "follow my opinion" because it's not my opinion, it's Wikipedia's consensus-formed opinion. - SudoGhost 03:20, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

• I don't think it belongs. Wikia is an open Wiki with little or no editorial control exercised over its contents. However good a page looks, it is likely to be original research and of little or no value. We should not be linking to it. --Biker Biker (talk) 14:59, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

• It has been demonstrated how the site is useful and valuable to readers who are interested in the article's subject. And I also agree that WP:IAR applies. The link does improve and enhance the article as a starting point for research. - Gothicfilm (talk) 16:30, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

• Weak support. I can see merit in the arguments of both sides here. I'd almost always avoid placing such an external link in an article myself, and I fear the slippery slope that could lead from acceptance of such links. However, WP:ELNO is a guideline, not a policy, and as such its "bright lines" really aren't all that bright and can be overridden by WP:IAR fairly easily: all that should be required is someone making a reasonable case that the link provides a uniquely useful resource for our readers (that case was made) and that it's unlikely to do any harm (that case was made, too). I don't like it, but that's neither here nor there. Rivertorch (talk) 17:18, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

• Be careful with saying "WP:ELNO is a guideline, not a policy", that suggests that only policies should be followed. Being a guideline doesn't mean it can be ignored when inconvenient, guidelines must be followed unless a good reason is given to ignore it. WP:N is a guideline, and WP:AFD shows that a guideline is not something that can be ignored just because a given thing is "unique" or "useful". Not to mention that in this case, "unique" is demonstrably false, it's not unique if the images can be found elsewhere, especially when the images are nowhere near the focus of that site, and are only found buried deep in the page after a bit of searching. - SudoGhost 19:37, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

A bit of searching? One has only to scroll down the page, and at least five here found it useful despite that hardship. "Unique" is not demonstrably false because of a Google search - you could obviously say that about anything on the web. And the most important rule is WP:Consensus. - Gothicfilm (talk) 01:40, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

I really truly do not see how something is unique if it also exists elsewhere, that goes against the very definition of the word unique. You could indeed "obviously" say that most images on the web are not unique, and that is why images aren't convincing factors in determining if a resource is unique, especially a wiki that took the images from elsewhere on the internet. - SudoGhost 03:20, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

• No further comment after two and a half days. Five support restoring the link to the site. Two are against it. I think this process is done. Thanks to those who contributed. - Gothicfilm (talk) 16:04, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

"Useful and unique" seems to be the consensus here, but that's only half the issue. Nobody has even tried to argue that the number of editors on the wiki is substantial, only that WP:ELNO #12 is too vague or should be ignored. A small group of editors, however, cannot decide that WP:ELNO #12 can be ignored or that it does not apply; the wider community consensus would supersede that, and that is policy. - SudoGhost 03:20, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

I'd suggest an RfC at this point. I consider the consensus shaky, and SudoGhost makes a valid point about local consensus. Rivertorch (talk) 07:50, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Betty, MarnetteD and SonOfThornhill all addressed WP:ELNO #12 in their Support statement. And I agree with the position that it is met - the site is useful and valuable to readers who are interested in the article's subject. I posted a request asking for more comments at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Novels. - Gothicfilm (talk) 05:22, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

It would be most helpful if you made your notifications neutral, as required by WP:CANVASS. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:05, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

The notification I posted briefly explains why this discussion is still going on. Those who see it can judge for themselves. - Gothicfilm (talk) 13:37, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose link: a further reading source has been added that includes the cover images supplied by the site as well as additional information. This disproves the "unique resource" hypothesis. Furthermore, because open wikis are inherently unreliable, having a reliable source for such information is far preferable. Finally, a wiki with fewer than 30 active editors cannot be said to meet the "substantial number" clause of ELNO#12. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:05, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

It has well over 30 editors, but I'll leave that to the others who have debated that point on the Talk page. ELNO #12 does not define a required number of editors. Your book to be used as a further reading source does not include all the cover images supplied by the site. And an offline source is obviously not very useful for most online readers. Now that Betty Logan has added a Google preview link I can see some of it, but I only get a limited number of views and the page it's supposed to directly jump to, 269, does not display. Instead a msg says the page is unavailable for viewing. I can see that page 270 has 12 black-and-white cover images. That is not comprehensive, nor is it better than the dozens of color images of covers that can be seen at The Sacred Scrolls site. You have not demonstrated the site is inaccurate either, if anything this book backs up its accuracy. Though note the book describes itself as "unauthorized", and it's out of date, being published in 2008, three years before Rise of the Planet of the Apes. - Gothicfilm (talk) 14:09, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

It should be noted that The Sacred Scrolls site has over 40 cover images in full color vs. the dozen black & white cover images available in the Timeline book. Plus each of the covers on the The Sacred Scrolls site can be clicked on individually by the user for a larger detailed view of each cover. This is not true of the Timeline book preview link. This does make the The Sacred Scrolls site a unique resource for users. SonOfThornhill (talk) 14:26, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

It should be noted that the book has over 350 cover images, most in full colour and detail - judging the book by a single page is a poor choice. Open wikis are inherently unreliable (and "unauthorized" too); books from identified authors are not. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:13, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Sorry but that is just not so. Much more than a single page can be viewed in the link Betty provided, the cover images are not in color, they are all in black and white. Most of the 350 covers provided are not for the original novel by Pierre Boulle but for novelizations, comic books, home video, etc. The book is a good reference and should be included on the page but it is not a good replacement for The Sacred Scrolls site. SonOfThornhill (talk) 15:52, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

• The book sounds great for the further reading section. Not so good as an EL. Accessibility is the main issue with this book. I saw the whole thing that's available online - many pages, but the covers are only seen together on that one page in black-and-white thumbnails. It has some thumbnail covers here and there on other pages. Only this book's cover itself is in color. The Sacred Scrolls has dozens more of the original novel's international editions well organized, in color, and easily accessible for online users. And you can click on them individually for a larger detailed view, as SonOfThornhill explained above. - Gothicfilm (talk) 16:00, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't have an opinion, because I haven't looked at the link or the page. I can answer the question above about "How is one supposed to interpret a substantial history of stability and a substantial number of editors?"

Generally speaking, the goal is enough active editors that if most of them quit, there would still be many available to catch vandalism on the page that we link to. This means that we need to have enough editors on both an absolute and a relative scale.

• In terms of the absolute number of editors, 10 editors making a change each day (or at least most days) is normally the minimum. IPs count, if the wiki allows them. More than 100 different contributors per day is always sufficient on this score.
• In terms of the relative number of editors, you need enough people-per-page that you can be reasonably sure that every page is being watched. There's no set ratio, but use your common sense here. 100 editors a day is obviously enough to keep track of changes on 100 pages, but obviously not enough for 100,000 pages. You might also consider whether the specific page that we're looking at is likely to be heavily watched.
• In terms of history, we expect the wiki to have been running for a couple of years, and to generally have had an acceptable number of editors throughout. We wouldn't want to accept a site based on activity during an unusual spike of popularity. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:26, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

The Sacred Scrolls is not like WP where a registered user needs to check their Watchlist, and it only shows activity on pages they've edited themselves or added to their list. If anyone looks at any page on the Sacred Scrolls site, they are shown a Recent Wiki Activity box on the right side of the page. It lists the last few pages on the whole site that have been changed. They can then easily click on any page listed there. The See more link there and the Wiki Activity link at the top of every page gives all activity going back weeks. Multitudes of people could be routinely making sure there's no vandalism, and as long as there isn't any, their watchfulness would not be registered as activity. So it's not necessary for hundreds of editors to be making changes everyday. Just one person checking any page can easily discover if there's been any vandalism anywhere on the site. And the site's history shows there's been very little. Its stability should not be held against it. There's no reason why a site like this should be getting updated every day. The original series is more than 40 years old. The original novel we're discussing here is 50 years old. - Gothicfilm (talk) 00:36, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

It's "stability" isn't being held against it, it's the fact that there is no activity or editors making any edits, and that's what WP:ELNO #12 is looking for. We can't speculate on if someone is or is not looking at a site to ensure that it isn't being vandalized, it has to be shown that if vandalism were to occur, it would be dealt with. This is done by ensuring that there are editors around to check for those sort of things and showing a history of stability. When a wiki's RecentChanges only shows 5 edits within the last seven days, all from IP editors and two of them involving vandalism, that's not a case for "a substantial number of editors"; it would be difficult to find a wiki with fewer edits than that, so that's far from substantial. - SudoGhost 06:09, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

So you're admitting the site is stable, and when there is vandalism, it's dealt with. That is all that matters. - Gothicfilm (talk) 08:21, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

No, I'm not. Stagnation and obscurity are not the same as stability, and there's no significant number of editors, and that is what matters. In no way is stability "all that matters", especially assumed stability based on speculation. - SudoGhost 00:47, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Chartstats.com and Chartarchive.org

Noted amongst bot requests :- Wikipedia:Bot_requests#Chartarchive.org

Apparently compiling UK chart data isn't allowed by Database rules.

Does anyone know of a US source for equivalent data so Feist applies? Sfan00 IMG (talk) 09:53, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm not an expert in this area, but it was my impression that a mere list of facts (e.g., which UK singles were at which position on which date) cannot be copyrighted. You might ask at one of the music-related WikiProjects. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:30, 5 April 2013 (UTC)