Wikipedia:External links/Noticeboard

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Welcome to the external links noticeboard
This page is for reporting possible breaches of the external links policy.
  • 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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Linking to YouTube where the subject film is for rent/purchase[edit]

An external link was recently added to YouTube, claiming to link to the full film. This seemed an immediate red flag for copyright issues. However, the YouTube page in question is from a verified source, the film's studio. The content is a two-minute trailer with a link to buy the full film.

Is this an appropriate link for an article, or is this too much of a promotional link to an item for sale? —C.Fred (talk) 20:07, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

I still would argue that such links do not add anything beyond what is already told in the prose about the movie (when you want to know about the movie, you go to Wikipedia, if you want to see the movie you Google it and see whether it is available on YouTube, Netflix, or whatever. I also think that this fails WP:ELNO on the point that we should avoid linking to pages where one has to pay to see the content, and that this would be available on many 'rent movie'-sites (Netflix?) so this would end up to be a choice to where to link and to who to promote so they make money of it. --Dirk Beetstra T C 03:19, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

omniglot.com[edit]

There is a discussion to blacklist omniglot.com at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist#omniglot.com. Please read and join if you can help resolve it. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 20:16, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Links in Webby award lists[edit]

In our lists of Webby awards (see List of Webby Award winners for the overall article which includes links to the individuals), I notice some of the lists linking the website. I tagged 1998 Webby Awards and received responses on my talk page as well as them being removed from the specific article [1].

I'd hope we can quickly agree that it is inappropriate to link to the current websites of the award winners.

I can see some editors might find it acceptable to link archived copies of the award winners websites.

I'm unaware of any discussion on this, but haven't looked extensively. --Ronz (talk) 17:37, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

  • I think that this is an unusual situation in that the article is about an award ceremony where the award winners are websites, so it is directly helpful to readers to link to the award-winning website instead of just the wikipedia article on the parent company. For example if the 2005 award winner was www.cocacola.com then readers would gain a lot more from being linked to the website than being wikilinked to the article on the Coca Cola Company. But I really can't think of a good reason why the current website should be linked. While it is helpful to link readers to the websites honored in the ceremony, the relevant aspects of these websites only exist until the websites are updated (which happens rather frequently). www.cocacola.com looked much different in 2005 than it does today. So I think the thing to do is to remove the links to the current websites and retain only the links to the historical websites (via Internet Archive). This should benefit the reader with almost zero concern for commercial influence (since historical products are usually no longer for sale). I've worked a bit on these articles in the past so if this seems like a good idea then I'd be happy to implement the consensus on the relevant pages. Anyone care to weigh in? -Thibbs (talk) 23:14, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
    • Hmm... Well it's difficult to find a consensus when nobody is interested in discussing the matter. What say you, Ronz? It's been a week now and according to the page stats there are 318 people watching this page who haven't objected to my suggestion. Should we take this as a silent consensus? Just to reiterate, I'd like to remove the links to the current versions of the websites and only leaving the links to the historical versions (i.e. from the Internet Archive) of the websites. I'd be glad to take care of it myself if that sounds like a good idea. Shall I go for it? -Thibbs (talk) 00:08, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
      Disappointing that there's been no response.
      Can you think of parallels in other articles? When a movie wins an award, it doesn't justify a link to view the movie. The more I think about it, the more I'm against it. --Ronz (talk) 00:30, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
      The closest thing I can recall is this WP:VG discussion where consensus was found to link emulated versions of old abandonware video games to their respective articles. I think the main concern with linking to copies of films related to film awards is that such links would in most cases violate WP:COPYVIO. In other words if it was a film award for non-COPYVIO-implicating public domain films then I do think it would be helpful to readers to link to a reliably-hosted (e.g. at Archive.org) copy of the film. I have a hard time seeing the downside actually. Is the concern mainly that Wikipedia might be used for commercial promotion if we link to the historical versions of the relevant websites? -Thibbs (talk) 00:53, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Well it seems that there is general consensus (even if largely silent) to do away with at least the current (non-historical) exlinks, right? Given my 2005-era examples above, I just made this example edit at the "2005 Webby Awards" article. I'll refrain from doing any further edits to these pages until consensus is reached, but hopefully that's a helpful illustration for those who would consider my earlier comments re: the usefulness of providing readers with historical links to stable and accurate copies of the actual website designs that were honored at the ceremony. -Thibbs (talk) 19:01, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Definitely do away with the current links. --Ronz (talk) 23:27, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
OK that sounds good. I'll get to work on it. -Thibbs (talk) 16:44, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

culture.pl[edit]

87.206.148.160 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) has been adding ELs to culture.pl to relevant articles. I reverted the link added to List of Nobel Laureates in Literature and Nobel Prize in Literature as not adding anything to the article. The links seem on-topic, in the case of stubs they seem to be adding information, in the case of longer articles they strike me as linkspam, but other than the two Nobel Prize articles, I cannot really judge. Choor monster (talk) 12:30, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Yeah it is not a spam link. Check pl.wiki article. OccultZone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 13:24, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
Seems like spam to me... I didn't check each of IP's ~40 edits, but they all appear to be in External Links or adding the EL section. And, the ones I spot checked all were pointing to the same culture.pl site. Stesmo (talk) 20:21, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
It's definitely an ip spamming links. --Ronz (talk) 22:45, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
While it may at times be appropriate as an external link or a source, it's been spammed a great deal to articles that aren't being reviewed closely. Lots of review and cleanup are needed. --Ronz (talk) 22:45, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Internet Movie Database[edit]

Is Internet_Movie_Database an ok external link? It appears to fail 1, 2 and 12 Wikipedia:External_links#Links_normally_to_be_avoided Govindaharihari (talk) 17:33, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

It doesn't fail #1 and #12. It's actually a very unique resource in that it pools information that usually is not contained within a single resource i.e. links to news stories and professional reviews, release dates and age ratings for different countries, soundtrack listings, awards, a synopsis and parents guide, alternate versions, technical specs, filming dates and locations etc. I can't think of a single resource that offers all of that, which makes it unique in my book. Even though it is built via user contributions it is not "open" i.e. contributions have to be accepted. It arguably fails criterion #2 which is why we don't accept it as a reliable source per WP:RS/IMDB, but generally the information is useful if not entirely accurate and provides a good starting point for any potential research or extra corroboration of a source. It often appears as an external link on film articles, but given the questionable editorial oversight it is probably not a good idea to stick it on articles about living people. Betty Logan (talk) 18:12, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
Wikipedia:External_links/Perennial_websites#IMDb says, "Generally yes, if the subject of the entire page is exactly the same as the subject of the IMDb page that you're linking." --Ronz (talk) 18:32, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
User:Betty Logan and User:Ronz your feedback and advice is appreciated, thanks Govindaharihari (talk) 21:25, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Link removal without the possibility of improving the contribution[edit]

Dear Sir or Madam,

My intention is to add a web link to certain Wikipedia fungus pages redirecting readers to an external webpage describing clinical cases of fungal infections. The website in question is www.fungiquest.net, where the user can look through a database to find clinically valuable information. Unfortunately I added the web link redirecting Wikipedia reader to the main page, whereas it should have been adapted so the reader will immediately reach the webpage showing only the cases of a certain subgroup of the respective fungus. Ohnoitsjamie removed the links. I discussed this topic with Ohnoitsjamie and proposed to change them to deep-linking directly to the respective fungus cases. He insisted it is link canvassing and that I try to spam these links thus, without valuable information. FungiQuest is a tool for clinicians directly linked to FungiScope, an international study on rare invasive fungal infection internationally recognized and appreciated in expert audience. This work is endorsed by all leading scientific societies in the field of medical mycology including ISHAM (International Society of Human and Animal Mycology), ESCMID (European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Disease) and ECMM (European Conference on Medical Mycology). Thus, to me it is incomprehensible that such valuable information for clinical doctors to improve patient care might be considered spam. There are other external links accepted like Pubmed subpages (biggest journal database). Trough FungiQuest you are able to access the biggest Database of invasive fungal infections cases, not available through Pubmed.

This links are not an advertisement and just should offer more information to readers. I do not try to promote a website or a product, just a direct access of clinical case data related to the fungus. I work in Infectious Diseases and since a while with rare invasive fungus. I did contribute with the Geotrichum page and I was surprised nobody checks it before it got public. Nonetheless, my intention to offer direct available clinical cases is considered spam? Decisions like this do not encourage further contribution to Wikipedia or the correction of erroneous information published on these invasive fungal infections. For most clinicians Wikipedia is the first source of information when facing such rare disease in their patient. I would herewith like to demonstrate the need and importance of including the link to Wikipedia.

Thank you for your consideration.

LuisaDG (talk) 13:02, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

I've explained to this user multiple times to the user that we do not allow single purpose accounts with a conflict of interest (in this case, affiliation with a university project) to canvass links, regardless of the quality of the links. Besides, links of high-quality/high relevance are inevitably added by numerous other high-volume editors that don't have single purpose agendas. In addition to WP:ELNO, this is a case of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. OhNoitsJamie Talk 13:33, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
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