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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Delphir (talk | contribs) at 16:26, 3 September 2020 (→‎whattime.is). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
    Welcome to the external links noticeboard
    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.
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    Y-axis.com

    This editor appears to be adding spam links to https://www.y-axis.com/ to articles about immigration. I've reverted some, but could do with help identifying and removing other spam links to this site. Cordless Larry (talk) 10:35, 10 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Further investigation uncovered a small sockfarm, as documented at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/AnanthSV. Request to add the site to XLinkBot's list made at User talk:XLinkBot/RevertList#Y-axis.com. Cordless Larry (talk) 08:13, 13 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Can I get some feedback on the links at Mary Tyler Moore#External links? I think we should remove the last three linked here as they are more-or-less arbitrary instances of the many dozens of media appearances and interviews that she did in her life. Thoughts? ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:42, 8 July 2020 (UTC) @WhatamIdoing: Thanks.[reply]

    Looking at that, I'm thinking that all the rest needs to be re-thought. I'd rather have any of those "arbitrary" links than the Find-a-Grave link. I wonder whether there should be something standardized and similar to {{Medical condition classification and resources}} for entertainers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:56, 12 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I'd move them to the talkpage, so if anyone wants to use them in the future for inline cites, they can. I do this from time-to-time, such as removing this list from Šarūnas Bartas' page. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 19:44, 12 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I concur with Lugnuts about putting them on the talk page. Erik (talk | contrib) (ping me) 22:02, 12 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I think that the interviews (or other similar links) might be more valuable and interesting to readers than the rather boring database-y links above them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:32, 13 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    The question to ask about an EL is if it can be incorporated into the article body. Consider WP:ELNO #1. Reviews don't belong per WP:ELMAYBE #1. As for interviews, it depends on whether or not the interview is extensive enough to be a unique resource even if one tries their best to implement it into the article. Erik (talk | contrib) (ping me) 12:53, 13 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I see that Koavf brought this here because he was unable to get a consensus for his edit on the article talk page. He's also used this discussion as "consensus" for removing the links. [1] This is WP:gaming the system, since he did not inform the only other participant in the talk page discussion (me) that he had opened this discussion, therefore giving his viewpoint an advantage.
    My opinion is that the two links are interesting enough, and totally innocuous enough (i.e. no copyright violations or other violations), that including them is worthwhile to the reader. Therefore the links should remain. (Although I see that Koafv has reverted me again). Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:32, 15 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I also note that Koavf did not even reference the consensus discussion on the talk page when he opened up this discussion. This, therefore, is WP:Forum shopping. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:38, 15 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Beyond My Ken, You explicitly asked me to get consensus and also said that you wouldn't discuss it any further, so I did this per your request. What would you propose I have done differently? ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:39, 15 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    You get consensus ON THE ARTICLE TALK PAGE, and you know that - and if consensus can not be reached there and the question needs to be taken elsewhere YOU INFORM EVERYONE INVOLVED IN THE ARTICLE TAKE PAGE DISCUSSION OF THE NEW DISCUSSION. You've been here a long time, qand these are things you definitely know, so the only explanatuion for your behavior is that you were doing whatever was necessary in order to WIN the discussion i,e, WP:Battleground behavior.
    Considering the circumstances under which you opened this discussion, I do not consider it to be a legitimate consensus discussion. Anyone who wishes to get involved should go to the proper venue, the article talk page. This discussion should be closed. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:48, 15 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Beyond My Ken, There was an attempt to get consensus on the talk page and consensus was not reached. You wrote explicitly to get consensus and also that you were not interested in discussing it any further. I was not trying to cut you out of the conversation: please feel free to add whatever you want here to justify these links. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:53, 15 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    This noticeboard is the correct place to ask questions and seek additional views about external links. This is one of the correct places to form a consensus. There is no written rule that requires someone who asks for help here to inform everyone involved. However, I agree that it is the normal practice and that it is normally helpful.
    Beyond My Ken, please review WP:ELBURDEN. If there is a lack of consensus to include the links, then the links go out. No consensus = no links. If you want to include them, then you have to prove that there is a positive consensus for inclusion – not merely that inclusion is "status quo". This is different from the approach taken to article content, and it sometimes surprises even highly experienced editors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:04, 16 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    @WhatamIdoing, Lugnuts, and Erik: Per above. The other user who commented at Talk:Mary Tyler Moore was not informed that this discussion was occurring (per my reasoning above), so in an effort to get good faith consensus, I'm pinging you that he is writing here as well. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:12, 16 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    • Seen we have an article with 112 references and ~5 pages widescreen prose I am going to ask: can someone explain what these interviews add over what is already in the prose? --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:26, 16 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • Well, the last one seems to be a video interview of her talking about how she delivered a particular catchphrase in a show. That qualifies as a "unique resource" as far as ELNO #1 is concerned. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:32, 17 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        WhatamIdoing, wow .. she delivered a particular catchphrase in a show? That seems like good article content and hence material that should be in the article. Dirk Beetstra T C 10:22, 17 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        The article can, and probably should, contain some text about it. But for copyright reasons, the sound of the delivery is probably going to have to come from an external link to a video. It's true that there are ways of some specialized ways of recording pronunciation, rhythm, pitch, and even facial expression in text, but that won't do most of us any good. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:39, 17 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        WhatamIdoing, there is nothing wrong with a reference to a voice recording (or video) to make the point. Dirk Beetstra T C 13:34, 18 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        That'd be a non-independent primary source, which is less than ideal. In a perfect world, we'd support such content to something like ISBN 9781683309697, have a free license for the video, and put the video straight in the article as an illustration. But since we don't currently live in an ideal world, it would be normal to put the video in either ==External links== or in Template:External media. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:07, 18 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        WhatamIdoing, we’re getting in a strange discussion then ... so no-one else cares about it, therefore we dump it in the EL. Some minor fact. So we get back to my initial comment, what does this significantly add over 5 pages of widescreen prose and 112 other references. See intro of WP:EL.
        I am can live with a couple of well-chosen interviews if there is a reasonable defense (and I see your point above, just playing devil’s advocate). I am much more interested in the standard dump of imdb and findagrave in EL sections, do these really add here (and I am afraid that is a more general question)? —Dirk Beetstra T C 17:26, 18 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        I do think that the "standard dump" is a more general question. If they're sufficiently standard, then why aren't we dumping them in Template:Authority control or in something like Template:Medical resources? I'd rather see a few reasonably defensible, specifically hand-chosen "special" links in an ==External links== section than a "standard dump" of the same four links in every single article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:39, 19 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        On the question of "what this adds over five pages of text", it adds the ability to hear the actress's intonation. Even if there were a hundred pages of text and a thousand refs, that would not substitute for being able to hear the actress. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:54, 24 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Keep the links; three are not excessive. They are relevant and certainly more useful than FindaGrave, IMDB, etc. --K.e.coffman (talk) 03:18, 17 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      K.e.coffman, to that I would agree as well .. I have a feeling that the imdb and findagrave links are just added because .. well ... I don't know .. because we don't disallow them sufficiently. I guess we should re-assess imdb and findagrave and determine that they should not just standard be added, but only if they actually add more info, and then prune the rest. Dirk Beetstra T C 10:21, 17 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Bibliographic information and photographs of fiction and non-fiction works/books

    If personal websites contain tons of bibliographic info and images that are not on Wikipedia, but personal websites are not allowed to be added to Wikipedia as external links, how do we help users access such info if we cannot point them to a website that is more in depth than Wikipedia? Do we place more info on Wikipedia? I have often found better and more comprehensive info on websites other than Wikipedia. Does Wikipedia want to replace such websites? Thanks in advance for your answers and thoughts. Pawabu talk 18:09, 23 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    This[2] is the website in question, a personal website by a non-expert which is why I reverted it (and I don't think it meets ELNO 1 either). Doug Weller talk 08:41, 24 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually, the website homepage was NOT linked to or reverted. Instead, it was this webpage [3] for the famous novel KING SOLOMON'S MINES. I am particularly interested in all of the bibliographic information contained on this website's individual webpages for myriad novels and non-fiction works, and the vast number of images of hundreds of books. Is Wikipedia at all interested in assisting its users with finding webpages such as this one? Or, instead is Wikipedia wanting to get bigger and become an amalgamation of such webpages, so such webpages don't need to exist? Or, ought Wikipedia instead link to such webpages? What is Wikipedia's aim, intent, goal? Also, who determines if someone is an expert? How does a webpage get deemed a webpage by an expert? Seems to me this is highly arbitrary and subject to opinion. Pawabu talk 18:09, 23 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    The edit in question said:
    As a general rule, a link to a page with 30–40 photos of different parts of the original edition of a 19th-century book would be an acceptable link for an article about that book.
    Whether the site is maintained by an amateur, a professional, a for-profit business, or a non-profit organization is irrelevant. WP:EL has never made such a distinction, and all such proposals have been rejected.
    Doug Weller, could you explain how you would incorporate a large number of photos of the books in the article? I don't think that it would be a favored option under WP:GALLERY. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:52, 24 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Doug Weller Are you planning to reply to the above? Pawabu talk 30 July 2020 (UTC)
    WhatamIdoing Since Doug Weller is not explaining why a webpage that has numerous photographs a book is not allowed as an External Link, am I free to again include the external link? Pawabu 10 August 2020 (UTC)
    Pawabu, perhaps it would be best to post your suggested link on the article's talk page, and see whether anyone there has an opinion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:53, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Please see Wikipedia talk:External links#RFC on how to format external links. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:52, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Common rooms in colleges

    XLinkBot reverted a link on Lincoln College, Oxford relating to the 'common rooms' of the college. These links are not the official links of the college, they are the links for the common rooms. To me, they fail WP:ELOFFICIAL ("The linked content is controlled by the subject (organization or individual person) of the Wikipedia article; The linked content primarily covers the area for which the subject of the article is notable.") and WP:ELNO #13 ("a website on a specific subject should usually not be linked from an article about a general subject")

    It now turns out that this is a common external link throughout these colleges, included because they are commonly included and hence a consent by silence. Of course, such a consent is not overriding policy/guideline. I'd like to gauge how these links are or are not appropriate. --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:00, 2 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    They exist on many college pages but not all. They clearly don't meet WP:ELOFFICIAL as while the common rooms are supported and partly regulated by the colleges they are fundamentally combination Students' unions and social clubs. My own view on WP:ELNO is that it's marginal, but it's hard to make a strong case that they really should be there. There is often some sort of link to these sites through references earlier in the article, and that may be a more appropriate solution.
    Related to this, but more clear cut, is the presence of links to college boat clubs in the infoboxes. This seems to me clearly excessive, though obviously they do belong in the separate articles for the boat clubs where these exist, such as Brasenose College Boat Club. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 11:36, 2 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    whattime.is

    Delphir (talk · contribs) has been adding links to whattime.is in various articles since May 2020. Consistently, they are adding them as the top external link in the article [4], [5] which is ludicrous. They left a post on my talk page [6] calling the site "important". Rather than revert, I'd like some additional thoughts on this as an external link for Wikipedia articles. For the city articles, I don't think it meets WP:ELYES. For the time articles [7], there's a very, very, very small chance - I don't think so, so outside thoughts would be nice. Ravensfire (talk) 16:00, 3 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]


    Just wanna say my position on this. All of the mentioned links are a valuable content, directly connected to the wiki-page's content (city pages) they are published on. While Ravensfire (talk · contribs) reverted all of them with "spam" reason what is a total contradiction with linked content. I would also appreciate if someone will review this (and for sure I'm ready to accept any criticism) so we can finally close this discussion. Delphir (talk) 16:26, 3 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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