Talk:Paul Allard

POV nom

Several statements in the article seem to attack the subject's research ethic. For example: He leans too strongly to the side of conservatism, and the value of his work is spoiled by his reluctance to deal unsparingly with dubious and spurious Acta and Passiones... --Infrangible 01:18, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

• I read those mainly as the verdict of a more structured discipline in back viewing one of the earlier illuminaries in the field. Essentially, classroom and text commentaries, if you will. Einstein had his critics too. Don't know that NPOV is appropriate, so I'm replacing with an inline {{POV-assertion}}.
• The article doesn't even name his birth town, family connections and such, so it stays a stub. // FrankB 04:46, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Internet Archive

Works by or about Paul Allard at the Internet Archive does not seem appropriate to include as an external link. WP:LINKSTOAVOID includes "any search results pages, such as links to individual website searches, search engines, search aggregators, or RSS feeds." That link is a search result. Flyte35 (talk) 13:00, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Nevertheless there is wide consensus to link to archive.org a partner of Wikimedia and one of the largest and best archives on scanned books in the world - the only way to do so is through their search engine. The search is very flexible (see documentation options at {{Internet Archive author}}) and the results are pretty accurate. WP:LINKSTOAVOID is a guideline not a hard inflexible rule for the sake of it. There have been other RfC's on this, and the results have always been to link to Internet Archive. I will revert one more time, if you revert again I will open an RfC. -- GreenC 13:32, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

OK, so why do you think this a necessary link to include in this article? The guidelines say to avoid search engines. This is clearly a search result. Obviously archive.org is an incredibly useful source for information if I'm looking to find specific material, but just including a link to archive.org search seems far too general. Users can perform archive.org searches for any Wikipedia subject if they're interested. Flyte35 (talk) 14:48, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

It's not an open ended search, it's a specific search that results in a list of 108 books by or about Paul Allard. That's it, 108 records. Some near the bottom are false positives, I could work on a custom search string to filter those out, but the vast majority are correct. 108 (or 90 or whatever) scanned books is a good thing to link to. It's the largest archive of scanned books by Paul Allard on the Internet. The question is rather why wouldn't we link to such an amazing library of books. Saying readers can find it on their own misses the point of having external links. -- GreenC 15:32, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

I don't find that argument terribly compelling. I realize that archive.org is a good digital library, but the guidelines are pretty clear about avoiding links to searches for external links, and I don't see there's any great reason here to ignore the guidelines. I think we've pretty much reached the end of this discussion here, though. If you'd like to open an RfC that might be useful; I'd like to hear someone else's perspective on this. Flyte35 (talk) 18:55, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

A guideline isn't terribly compelling when unsupported by an argument. It's a guideline not a hard rule, guidelines are meant to guide not proscribe. You need to present arguments addressing the points I made, and not simply lawyer the guidelines. Do you understand why the search guideline exists? -- GreenC 21:26, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Right, the fact that there isn't a hard rule is the reason we're having a discussion here. If there were a rule there would be no need for a discussion. There's a guide and the guideline suggests avoiding a search result. The burden of proof actually rests with you to prove why it should be included because, according to Wikipedia:External links, "some external links are welcome [but]... no page should be linked from a Wikipedia article unless its inclusion is justifiable according to this guideline and common sense. The burden of providing this justification is on the person who wants to include an external link." You're the one who wants to put the material in there. Flyte35 (talk) 21:38, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Please see this RfC. There is unaminous support for linking to Internet Archive. I also have a list of about 2 dozen editors who send me private PM thanks for adding this template to articles. I have never seen anyone complain, despite being in 16,000 articles for years representing millions of page views. If this is not wide consensus I don't know what is. You have provided no rationale other than blindly wikilawyering a guideline. You even say Internet Archive is a good resource! -- GreenC 22:49, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

OK, you win.Flyte35 (talk) 00:09, 4 August 2016 (UTC)