Wikipedia talk:WikiProject External links Information & Wikipedia talk:WikiProject External links Links at HealthHaven.com

The archives of the discussion of WikiProject External links may be found here:
Archive 1

[edit] The CW Television Network

...has 56 external links in the "External news links" section alone. HELP! Morgan Wick 03:32, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I have added it to Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam's to-do list. Some of the links might be references for the article, but not sure which. --Aude (talk | contribs) 03:42, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 13:38, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] freehostia.com

What to editors think about freehostia.com links? They seem to fall into the category of forums, blogs, WP:OR sites or are the official website listed in articles on WP:NN topics. I think most could be cleaned out of articles. Typically I would discuss this at WP:WPSPAM, but I think most of those links have not been added as part of a spam campaign. JonHarder 23:02, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 18:44, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hello

Anyone here or is this project inactive? --Spartaz 12:03, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Same question? Deizio talk 13:59, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Seems very inactive, but I'm going to start using it at least. Havok (T/C/e/c) 19:47, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

So in order to help more here, Are you interested in preparing the guideline now? Check the talk page archive linked on the top of this page, for the previous efforts made. My plan is to read through them, resolve contraveries, then invite an admin to check it out, and then publish it on the project page and use it. Agreed? huji—TALK 14:31, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

This project was set-up the same time as Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam, which has become very active and has much the same goals. If nobody minds, I suggest redirecting these project pages to WikiProject Spam. --Aude (talk) 14:46, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree. But just don't forget to pass the list of articles gathered in this project for cleanup, to the fellows in the new project. huji—TALK 16:01, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

If we go ahead with this, remember to transfer all templates and such. I just fear the integration process will be to much, as they stand now they are the same but not. As WPEL isn't just spam, but general cleanup of external links as well. Havok (T/C/e/c) 14:32, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This project

Is there a future for this project? I hope so. I have read the discussion above about merging this with WP:WPSPAM — I don't think this should be done. There are issues that are very special for external links, e.g. dead external links. Dead external links is a topic that isn't covered in the scope on this projects project page yet, but it belongs here very well. I came here after having programmed a bot that tracks dead links, but there's also another site handling this problem. See

I also noticed that there are bot requests from time to time regarding external links, for example: example request. All this could be coordinated or assisted from here.

I would be happy if this project could be revived, as it seems to be quite inactive. These are some first thoughts on what we could do to make this more lively:

Link to this project from all relevant pages
Make a userbox for members of this project — this might sound rather irrelevant but it improves the visibility of this project a lot
Improve the project page
Improve the project template
Invite editors that work on similar stuff to join the project, see Recruiting

I'd be happy to put my energy into this if there's a chance to make this more lively! What do you think? Will you take part? — Ocolon 18:16, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bot approvals

Re: Wikipedia:Bot_owners'_noticeboard#Bots_and_external_links_.E2.86.92_WP:WPEL. It would be best to keep an eye on the page yourself, but I'll try to remember to inform you of any requests I see related to your area of activity.

For now, your comments are invited on Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/VixDaemon 4. Thanks! --kingboyk 23:03, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree about keeping an eye on this ourselves. But sometimes bots get speedily approved — it would be a pity if we miss one. Thank you. — Ocolon 08:26, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Added to Community Portal

I added this project to the list of fix-up projects on the Community Portal. Hopefully this will attract more editors to help out. --Gimme danger 23:56, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Cool :) Thanks, ( ar ky ) 00:30, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I want to add this rule...

I want to add this rule...

Links to content providers on pages that elaborate the content should be avoided. For example, COM port redirector, Emoticon and such articles should link to sites that may clarify the reader on what a serial port is. But it should not link to companies that provide serial port redirectors or companies that offer "free" emoticons.

I added it, but User:2005 removed it without reason... I started a discussion on the talk page to decide whether to have this rule or not... Please support... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:External_links#Add_this_rule_too... Mugunth 17:07, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually you added it without reason. Please start a discussion before adding totally new concepts to a guideline that states it is a consensus of editors. 2005 22:48, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I think this is already covered in WP:EL#Links normally to be avoided, in criterion 5. Happy editing! ( ar ky ) 02:05, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bibliographic record keeping discussion.

On the Village pump (technical) there is a discussion to simplify the citing of commonly used sources, and more generally to improve our bibliographic record keeping. There are a number of options presented, some of which are ready for prime-time, and an organised effort is required to consider their suitability and prepare a well rounded proposal if any option appears to be workable. John Vandenberg (talk) 04:09, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Morgellons (Disregard issue resolved)

External links issues resolved among editors. Not sure how to remove from project page, would someone please remove Morgellons from list? Thank you. Ward20 (talk) 06:11, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Disregard, I figured it out. Ward20 (talk) 20:13, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] External Links

I have only recently started to try and add things on Wiki. I tried to place a link from my website about panic attacks and anxiety, onto several wiki pages (panic, panic attacks, anxiety) and they kept disapearing and so I persisted because I thought I had done something incorrectly to apply it, later I found to my horror it had not only 'not' been approved but I was temporarily grounded :( May I explain, I am a qualified RMN (Registered Mental Health Nurse) residing in the UK and the website (http://www.cragface.co.uk/index.asp) I designed has no pop-ups, no advertising and no commercial backing. It is purely a source of information in plain English for anyone suffering this debilitating problem and there is no other agenda. (Also for your information, the "membership log-in is there purely to ensure that people behave themselves on the message board and nothing else.) All the information is available to anyone and for free. If external links are not allowed...there appear to be at least two up there that need attention. One link doesn't work (second one) and another appears to be similar to mine but less informative. If it is not allowed that's not a problem to me. I just wanted to clarify what was incorrect in my actions or what content in PanicStop was disaproved of? Thanks. CragFaceCragFace (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 22:24, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Guidance requested on link relevance and placement

I'm having a bit of a problem with an external link recently added, and then re-added after my removal, on Bethlehem Steel. My first reversion was because it seemed like someone trying to advertise their own website, which still seems like it might be the case, and that the website is nothing more than a blog and doesn't represent a website linked to an academic institution or reliable source. User:Haeber and User:67.169.137.214‎ (who very well may be the same person, I'm not sure) are attempting to argue that it has valuable information. Upon reading through the blog post I partially agree that the information is interesting, however it didn't seem to actually include very much new or otherwise relevant information about Bethlehem Steel, but rather seemed more focused on Charles M. Schwab, who is related to Bethlehem Steel. I was wondering if I might have some additional guidance, both on the inclusion of the link in this encyclopedia and on the appropriate article in which it would be inserted. NcSchu_(Talk) 15:51, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] External links on Flag football

I was wondering if someone could help with an edit war I seem to be in on the Flag football page with User:LouPepe. He insists on adding an external link to a web site which I've repeatedly asked him to justify with regard to notability. What information he's provided in return has either directly shown it's lack of verifiability or it's origin as original research. He doesn't seem to be taking the hint. Have I lost my perspective? Could you provide some? Thanks. -- Bdoserror (talk) 05:26, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] .yu

.yu TLD is going to be completely replaced with .rs and a number of links will become dead. I suggest that this project deals with this, in the following way: I will make statistics of .yu links, and find what are .rs equivalents for for the most used links. Then perhaps a project member who owns a bot could search/replace all the links so identified, and we'll see what to do with the rest. This is of course relevant for all Wikipedias... Nikola (talk) 20:45, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

I have now done this. The statistics of .yu domain use on Wikimedia projects are available here. At the time of making the statistics, English Wikipedia alone had 7620 links to .yu domains.

Note that some (perhaps most) domains will stop working as soon as March, while all will stop in October. The domains could be fixed easily with the standard pywikipediabot. Here is a sample command I used on Serbian Wikipedia:

 python replace.py -weblink:webrzs.statserb.sr.gov.yu "webrzs.statserb.sr.gov.yu" "webrzs.stat.gov.rs"

[edit] The domains

This is a list of domains that are already search/replaced on Serbian Wikipedia or elsewhere. Domains on this list will likely cover more than 1/4 of all .yu domains.

From!To
webrzs.statserb.sr.gov.yu	webrzs.stat.gov.rs
www.rastko.org.yu	www.rastko.org.rs
www.reprezentacija.co.yu	www.reprezentacija.rs
www.blic.co.yu	www.blic.co.rs
www.beograd.org.yu	www.beograd.org.rs
arhiva.glas-javnosti.co.yu	arhiva.glas-javnosti.rs
www.srpsko-nasledje.co.yu	www.srpsko-nasledje.co.rs
www.dnevnik.co.yu	www.dnevnik.rs
www.srbija.sr.gov.yu	www.srbija.gov.rs
www.kurir-info.co.yu/Arhiva	arhiva.kurir-info.rs/Arhiva
www.kurir-info.co.yu/arhiva	arhiva.kurir-info.rs/arhiva
www.kurir-info.co.yu	www.kurir-info.rs
arhiva.kurir-info.co.yu	arhiva.kurir-info.rs
www.prvaliga.co.yu	www.prvaliga.rs
www.mitropolija.cg.yu	www.mitropolija.me
www.spc.yu/sr	www.spc.rs/sr
www.sk.co.yu	www.sk.co.rs
www.ekoforum.org.yu	www.ekoforum.org
www.svevlad.org.yu	www.svevlad.org.rs
www.posta.co.yu	www.posta.rs
www.glas-javnosti.co.yu	www.glas-javnosti.rs
www.fscg.cg.yu	www.fscg.co.me
ww1.rts.co.yu/euro	ww1.rts.co.rs/euro
www.belex.co.yu	www.belex.rs
www.beograd.org.yu	www.beograd.rs

Nikola (talk) 22:05, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Austrian School

Could users familiar with WP:EL assess the worthiness of this restoration of links? Thanks, the skomorokh 05:36, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] NZ on Screen

Discussion moved to Wikipedia talk:External links#NZ on Screen.-gadfium 07:50, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

[edit] "Top ten" lists

I've been dealing with an editor who has added a series of links to the Guardian newspaper's "top ten" lists to numerous articles. (One example is "Gemma Malley's Top 10 Dystopian Novels for Teenagers The Guardian, August 29 2007" in the Dystopia article.) His/her intentions seem good, but as best I can tell this is not an appropriate use of the external links section. The editor has repeatedly restored the links, so I'd like some input here regarding this matter. Thanks in advance. --Ckatz^chat_spy 04:35, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Hello everyone, as the editor in question, I also welcome your input. I believe that many of these links could potentially be beneficial to potential readers. For example a teacher for instance may be reading the dystopian article, and at the end they are provided with a list of 10 recommended dystopian novels for teenagers (for example). Ckatz, seems to believe that these violate WP:EL although he/she has failed (despite repeated requests) to point out specifically how. We have had an ongoing discussion about the matter at my talk page ---> User talk:Redthoreau#External links for those interested. Of note as well, I have reverted Ckatz's reverts once or possibly in a few article twice, however Ckatz may have violated 3 RR against me in the last 24 hours at least 3 separate times .... Instance # 1 = on List of poetry collections - 1rr, 2rr, 3rr. Instance # 2 = on Dystopia - 1rr, 2rr, 3rr. Instance # 3 = on Short story - 1rr, 2rr, 3rr. Any suggestions of possible recourse? Solutions? etc Thanks. Redthoreau (talk)RT 05:36, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Red, The burden is on the person that wants to include external links. This means that you have to demonstrate that the link complies with this guideline, not demand that Ckatz prove that it doesn't. See WP:ELYES and WP:ELMAYBE for typical reasons in favor of a link. See WP:ELNEVER and WP:ELNO for common reasons for excluding a link.

In particular, I think you're going to have to make a case for why links targeted to specific populations are desirable for all of our readers. Wikipedia is not just for teenagers and their schoolteachers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:00, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

WhatamI, I appreciate your input. I read all of those particular policies, specifically when Ckatz stated that my inclusion of these links was in violation of WP:EL. I was open to Ckatz's claim that they were, but Ckatz never displayed exactly how they were in violation (despite me repeatedly requesting clarification – as can be seen in my above TP link). My contention obviously was that these links were beneficial to the reader. They were not glaringly link spam, were not a personal web page, a blog, a site selling merchandise etc. Moreover, in reference to the dystopian article, I added both a top 10 list of dystopian novels for teenagers and for adults (2 different lists). Being that some dystopian novels have adult themes, I felt both were warranted, and would encompass all potential age groups. I didn't interpret it as an issue of proving their "worth", because each time I included one, Ckatz removed them claiming a violation of WP:EL. How they were, I am still unaware. Redthoreau (talk)RT 06:11, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I understand your frustration, but it's what Ckatz said is pretty much irrelevant: The fact is that you must have consensus to add links. (Since their addition was reverted, you clearly do not have consensus for their addition.) You get that by explaining the links' value on the article's talk page and why you think the addition is justified. If there's no agreement to add them, then they don't get added. Good luck, WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:03, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

[addendum]] I just wanted to state that I no longer wish to dispute this matter, and am happy to cede to Ckatz's rationale. Thanks Redthoreau (talk)RT 04:30, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

[edit] External link added to Sustainability

I wonder if I could get an opinion on a link recently added to Sustainability. The link was first added as a citation to a self-published article.[1]. I excluded it as not in keeping with WP:VER. However, another editor suggested that the link could go into the External links section. The individual then re-inserted the link (this time to what appears to be a self-published newsletter).[2] I'm not so sure including it is a good idea, since if we add this link, we will have trouble excluding dozens of others (the article has been a link farm in the past). I've read WP:EL for guidance, but this one seems to be a borderline case. It is related to the article, but... Any advice on groundrules would be much appreciated. Sunray (talk) 07:56, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

By all means no! This guy is clearly a POV spammer as I had a big fight with him over at Simple living where multiple editors have agreed with me that the link doesn't belong. In fact, this link was this guy's very own essay as he had admitted on several occasions. After the initial discussion, I took the link to COIN When I pointed him at WP:EL he accused me and the other editors of "vandalism". ELNO # 1, 4, and 11 applies here. Them From Space 16:53, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Having read this (and the related Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard#Simple living external link) I've found quite a few links to this site (and the apparently related nariphaltan.virtualave.net) that seem to exist only for the purpose of linking. They have now been cleaned up, but we may need to keep an eye on this. (Se also Special:Contributions/Ruralface, a new account.) --Ckatz^chat_spy 17:50, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks much. This is most helpful. Sunray (talk) 18:15, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

More to this, regarding possible alternate accounts and URLs... Akraj (who has added "nariphaltan" links in the past) asked about adding an EL from "pune.sancharnet.in/nariphaltan" to an article on dreams (at Dreams); the linked document is identical to one from the other "nariphaltan" URLs. --Ckatz^chat_spy 17:22, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Also, the IP User:218.248.79.4 and the URL "etagriculture.com", which appears to solicit articles for publication. --Ckatz^chat_spy 05:28, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I submitted the first two to WT:WPSPAM where User:A.B. deferred it to the local blacklist. Them From Space 06:50, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Need help with "search links" violations

I'm out of time, but would love to have someone follow up on these obvious violations of WP:ELNO #9 for me. I started with inappropriate links to search results at Media Matters's website, after questions at WT:EL involving Jake Tapper, and I would love to have someone click the link in a few hours (or tomorrow) to make sure that there hasn't been a mass-reversion (I begin to suspect the involvement of an "agenda account" here). Note that these links in Debbie Schlussel and L. Brent Bozell III have been incorporated into the text in a perhaps acceptable fashion, but as of this time, those two should be the only mainspace uses for that link string.

But in the course of cleaning out that mess, I found a list of about three dozen links to search results from Salon.com (click here) that needs to be reviewed and (most likely) removed (or, perhaps, replaced by one particularly good article from the list).

As background, search results are unacceptable primarily because they change: a page that had six interesting links today might be buried by a hundred trivial ones next month. (Also, I like to think that our readers are smart enough to run their own searches.)

My thanks to anyone that looks over a few of these, WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:55, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Diff

I've tried doing link cleanup for the Diff article. Let me know how I did, or perhaps help me respond to any backlash? This is my first attempt at this, so we'll see how this goes, I guess. --Ashawley (talk) 05:28, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

What you've left looks good to me. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:01, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] disputes over external links?

Resolved. Link moved from "external links" into references. Gabbe (talk) 13:04, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

If there's a dispute on an article talk page over whether a specific link in an article is "directly relevant" or not, what is the proper forum to ask for fresh eyes to look upon the issue? Is there a noticeboard or something remotely similar?

Specifically, there's currently a discussion on whether the article Zeno's paradoxes should contain a link in its "External links" to a BBC article on the shortest time measured, and I'm looking for more people to say what they think. Gabbe (talk) 21:22, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I realize this specific dispute is already resolved, but the new External Links Noticeboard just went live, and such questions can be taken there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:36, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Flashy sites

A remarkable percentage of "official" sites seem to use Flash and so forth. Some sites use it intelligently to show things in motion, many just use it to have graphics move around rather than stand still. The most laughable sites (in my perhaps minority view) have material in conventional web pages that might be browsed by just about anyone (e.g. with an aural browser) if they only knew it were there, material that's only accessible via Flash navigation (and is thus unknown to search engines). In Category:External link templates (which oddly calls IMDB "Highly reliable"), I see no mention of a template to label such EL ("official" or other) as requiring plug-ins or similar. This does say For example, all links to YouTube videos should, if applicable, indicate that Flash video software or a web browser supporting H.264 is necessary to see the content -- but no template. I wish such a template existed. Unfortunately I'm not a template programmer. (If such a template does already exist and I've overlooked it, do please set me right.) -- Hoary (talk) 04:59, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I think that most editors simply type the text by hand, but there are templates, e.g., Template:YouTube, that include it. See here for a couple of examples (and a bunch of navboxes that aren't relevant to this discussion). WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:58, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

A {{requires flash}} tag or whatever would be simple to knock up, I suppose. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 13:41, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Though then again there'd be quite a risk of well-intentioned misinformation, as I imagine many editors either don't know what's running the spectacle in front of them or don't know precisely what's missing when there's no spectacle in front of them. (I'm not putting myself above these people: Often I don't know myself.) So perhaps this needs a bit more thinking through before a template is launched. -- Hoary (talk) 14:21, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I've been thinking about this since your notice on Template talk:Official and I think this may fit in well with some of the other external link template stuff. Ultimately I'm thinking some form of "meta template" may be the best way to handle some of these issues. If we go with a separate template for now though, we might want to consider naming it {{Flash required}} to at least begin to standardise this stuff with other templates such as {{Subscription}} and {{Registration required}}. Perhaps we should also be talking to Wikipedia:WikiProject Accessibility to find out what sort of metadata would be helpful to those who use screen readers? Some sites have a separate HTML-only link that might be helpful to provide with such a template too. --Tothwolf (talk) 00:14, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure how popular/used (as opposed to "potentially useful) such a template would be, although I have no objection to its creation. Template:Official, which has been around for more than three years now, is only used in about 12,000 articles (~0.4% of Wikipedia's articles). I suspect that most editors will simply type the information by hand. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:50, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] 2001 Cincinnati riots

This article could use some help in cleaning up the external links. It has been tagged for over 3 years, and at present has almost 40 external links. I will be looking at it over the next few weeks, but any help would be appreciated. DigitalC (talk) 20:30, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

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