Discussion Page

Please be familiar with WP:ELNO guidelines before commenting.

Twitter, MySpace and Facebook External Links are especially mentioned in "Links normally to be avoided", WP:ELNO, point 10. Recent ELNO Discussion confirms that it is the policy and the practice to remove MySpace, Facebook and Twitter when any other suitable official link is available.[1] (Note also that XLinkBot will automatically remove them.)

Answers.com links are being evaluated because the content is less closely controlled than Wikipedia. Article authors do not present their credentials, and do not give references for statements made in articles that can be checked. The Answers.com Disclaimer Page makes it clear that their material is not created in such a way that it meets the three Wikipedia core values: WP:SOURCE, WP:NPOV, and WP:OR. That is, Answers.com material is occasionally unreliable, biased, original research that is unsuitable as a reference.

I haven't read through all the discussions at the EL noticeboard or what the current consensus is but I disagree with removing external links (within a clearly titled "External links" section) because they're "inappropriate as a Wikipedia source". External links are not sources, they're not trying to be a source, they're not referencing anything, they're simply external links, additional information, which may or may not be helpful for the reader. I don't disagree that some external links are indeed inappropriate and/or contain unreliable information as per ELNO#2, but how can you remove external links with any sort of justification such as that they're "unsuitable as a reference" when they are not referencing anything in the article? (Note that I'm only referring to those links that are solely under the "External links" heading, not those ones being used as footnotes.) -- œ^™ 14:02, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The WiseGEEK discussions aren't elaborate, could be read in a couple minutes, and so far there have been no dissenting opinions. A core value of Wikipedia is verifiability, WP:SOURCE. Nothing WiseGEEK writes can be verified, because the authors do not state their credentials, do not footnote, cite no sources, and WiseGEEK does not allow any obvious editorial comment or criticism. I've checked dozens of WiseGEEK articles, and this has always been the case. This puts WiseGEEK on the level of a blog from a Wiki non-notable. "May be helpful to the reader" is not a criterion for inclusion as an external link, but rather disinclusion is: "Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a featured article." WiseGEEK articles are well below Wiki Featured Article standards. ELNO Checking (talk) 14:16, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

OK but I wasn't talking about just WiseGEEK. I'm opposed to the removal of any external links on the basis that they make bad sources when in fact they're not sourcing anything. But it seems consensus is against me so I'll just leave it alone. -- œ^™ 22:17, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In the few days this account appears to have been operating, you have generated a large number of changes on article pages, and generated a large number of comments on this talk page, with quite a few criticising your actions. I suspect this talk page will get very long very quickly ! You actions seem to some to make controversial changes to external links based on your interpretation on ENLO. Maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong, but I think you should look carefully at the changes you're making, and in grey areas discuss them on the article's talk page first. You're effectively doing drive-by altering of articles without due diligence and acting bot-like. There's no rush, slow down, look carefully.

Also, as you seen so keen on policies, you seem to have at least one other account (as 'caught-out' below). Again, you may have legitimate allowable reasons, but you should still read this, and apply it with immediate effect. Whether you are / are not an administrator should also be enlightened. The Yeti (talk) 14:10, 30 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You need to consider the number of edits vs. the number of rollbacks and comments. The last time I checked, I had one of the lowest rates of reverts I've seen in a Wikipedia editor. Regards, ELNO Checking (talk) 16:12, 30 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I wasn't aware there was such a tool that can show how many times you've been reverted. Can you please link me to this tool and the data you claim? -- œ^™ 23:50, 30 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's "deleted edits", rather than reverted or rolled back, per se. (Pardon, I probably haven't looked at the tool in a year.) The tool is X!'s Edit Counter [2].

ENLO Checking: Total edits 577, deleted edits 0. (Hmm. Apparently it works from data that isn't compiled every week.)

Piano non troppo: Total edits 53,231, deleted edits 645. That's 1.2%

And for comparison:

The Yeti: 1,480 edits, deleted edits 27. That's 1.8%

OlEnglish: 52,271 edits, deleted edits 1,106. That's 2.0%

ELNO Checking (talk) 04:37, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yup. That's deleted edits, not edits that have been rolled back or undid. It includes edits such as tagging a page with a CSD tag and subsequently that page being deleted. So users with high amounts of "deleted edits" as per X!'s Edit Counter could just be very active new page patrollers. Having a low amount of deleted edits, or high amount of deleted edits, really doesn't mean a whole lot, nor does the percentage of total edits to deleted edits. -- œ^™ 08:17, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I know there is no such tool that tells you how many of your edits have been reverted via rollback or undo. But that would be very interesting data to have. -- œ^™ 08:20, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I see the point about the CSD tags, but the percent of editors who are new page patrollers is relatively low. (I do the odd 50 at a time from the back of the queue, occasionally, myself.) I did check the tool when I first used it, and discovered that editors with a high number of deletes tended to be involved in edit wars, controversial edits, etc. Equally, I would expect an editor doing anti-vandalism, or making a large number of similar edits that are agreed upon by the community, and who explained edits giving a link in the Edit Summary would have a low percent of deleted edits. (That describes me.) I did some checking, it doesn't necessarily require using the watchlist. For example, I removed all links to a copyright violation site. I know my edits weren't undeleted, because an Advanced search shows the links are still gone. So the "deleted edits" measure still has some meaning, taken in context with other evidence.

A tool that *does* count undos or rollbacks wouldn't be terrifically difficult to write. Since any feedback for a conscientious editor is liable to be helpful, maybe I should suggest it. (Or write it.) One feature I'd like is a way of excluding (or at least separating) the count of deletes that an editor does on their own edits: Sometimes on anti-vandalism, I revert an edit I meant to keep, and have replace it; I hate to see my "count" go up due to a clerical error on my part! Another is a list of deleted edits that were made w/o an Edit Summary, or made repeatedly. ELNO Checking (talk) 22:05, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This diff [3] showed up in my watchlist with the edit summary "(Removes link to wisegeek.com, per WP:ELNO. Names no sources, author does not establish credentials. Minor copy edit with no meaning change)". There was no link to wisegeek.com in the article before this edit, so no link to wisegeek.com was in fact removed. The copyedit was in general a good one, but it seems odd to identify this as a bot edit targeted at a (non-existent) link. betsythedevine (talk) 18:00, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comment. You may be referring to the fact that the Edit Summary reads External Link, whereas a reference was deleted. That's quite true, and I should be more careful about that. In articles, editors seem to add WiseGEEK indiscriminately, either as a reference or an External Link. The practical effect is the same: WiseGEEK isn't a reliable source of information, anywhere, in any fashion.

ELNO Checking (talk) 18:06, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am glad you removed the link, which certainly did not belong in a reference as if it were the source of some info originally in a nyt article cited several times in the article. I still feel, however, that your copyedit changing (among many other changes) the word "excellent" to the word "nasty" is not accurately described as a "minor copy edit with no meaning change." betsythedevine (talk) 18:23, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. When the preponderance of changes are of a particular type, and there are many small changes, I tend to focus on the bulk of them in the Edit Summary, or at least the ones I assume to be potentially of interest to other editors. The particular change you mention, I thought was liable to misinterpretation in the context:

(Original) "In addition to the offending poster, the noun troll can also refer to the provocative message itself, as in "that was an excellent troll you posted"."

(As edited) "The noun troll may refer to the provocative message itself, as in: "That was a nasty troll you posted"."

I.e., since by the article's definition trolls are inflammatory or off-topic, with the intent of provocationm -- which would be held by most readers to be at least in some part "bad" -- it confuses the message to hypothesize that the speaker here appreciates "bad" as "excellent". The advantage of "nasty" here is that it doesn't assume the speaker is either for or against the troll message, but is merely noting it has "badness" -- which corresponds to the article definition. Regards, ELNO Checking (talk) 18:40, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The colloquialism "excellent troll" dates back to the early days of troll-lore and is a kind of troll-to-troll high five (or alternatively, a backhanded remark that what someone just posted could have been trolling.)

Wisegeek.com, whatever it might once have been, now looks like an ugly adfarm with a minimal amount of content serving mainly as bait. I was curious how the wisegeek link got attached to the reference title "nyt" and finally tracked it down. This well-meaning edit in 2009 was the culprit. Because the footnote still pointed to the NYT article rather than to the wisegeek page, nobody caught it until now. So thanks for that improvement to the article! betsythedevine (talk) 23:15, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate you looking into "nyt". I was curious, but not enough to track it down. :) ELNO Checking (talk) 01:04, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. WP:ELNO says "Except for a link to an official page of the article's subject, one should generally avoid:". Wikipedia:External links#Official links makes clear that WP:ELNO does not apply to official sites: "These links are exempt from the links normally to be avoided".

In terms of what the guideline actually says, rather than excluding Twitter, as your edit summary would suggest, the guideline mentions it specifically here: "More than one official link should be provided only when the additional links provide the reader with unique content and are not prominently linked from other official websites. For example, if the main page of the official website for an author contains a link to the author's blog and Twitter feed, then it is not appropriate to provide links to all three" I cannot find a prominent link from the official website (which seems rather badly designed) to the Twitter feed, so there's no guideline-based reason that I can see to presume it is inappropriate for the article to do so. If you disagree, we should probably seek feedback on the question at ELN. I'm not sure that there's anything that supports removing links to official Facebook sites either, but as Facebook is already being used as a source in the article, it isn't essential to include it at ELs. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 18:59, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As you saw, I retained the link to MySpace that you replaced in the article, which is what I imagined you were specifically talking about.

But using the rational you provided, any individual who put unique information on a page on any social networking site whatsoever -- that did not link to all of their other social networking sites -- would be allowed to include an External Link to that site. Essentially, that would overturn the purpose of WP:ELNO, point 10, which is to exclude social networking sites from External Links.

ELNO Checking (talk) 01:36, 30 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, I was talking about all of them. WP:ELNO does not apply to official sites, so, as relates to official sites, point 10 doesn't matter. The full quote is "These links are exempt from the links normally to be avoided, but they are not exempt from the restrictions on linking." The factor to consider there is the ease of access and the type of information offered. Again, quoting the guideline:

If the subject of the article has more than one official website, then more than one link may be appropriate.... More than one official link should be provided only when the additional links provide the reader with unique content and are not prominently linked from other official websites. For example, if the main page of the official website for an author contains a link to the author's blog and Twitter feed, then it is not appropriate to provide links to all three. Instead, provide only the main page of the official website in this situation. In other situations, it may be appropriate to provide more than one link, such as when a business has one website for the corporate headquarters and another for consumer information. Choose the minimum number of links that provide readers with the maximum amount of information. Links that provide consistent information are strongly preferred to social networking and communication services where the content changes rapidly and may not comply with this guideline at any given moment in time.

There is no blanket provision for removing social networking sites that are official; instead, these need to be weighed against other factors, including whether our readers can easily find links to these from prominent placement on the official site. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 01:52, 30 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

All right, I see the dilemma now.

It has long been the practice to remove MySpace and other social sites unless no other single official link is available. As prominent examples picked off the top of my head the Featured Articles on The Beatles, Madonna (entertainer) and the Good Articles on Lady Gaga, Britney Spears. Also, as it happens, only one of these articles has an official page in External Links that mentions another social site -- those other "official" social sites surely exist, but are not mentioned in External Links. The wording of the section you quoted is also at odds with the most recent discussion in ELNO, [4] so apparently some discussion in ELNO is necessary to clarify. Thanks. ELNO Checking (talk) 02:30, 30 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Then, yes, that seems like it will need clarification. :) In the meantime, however, it's probably best not to remove these links when they are "official" unless their removal is consistent with what the guideline actually says. I've never to my knowledge even looked at a Twitter, but it will confuse our users to have their content removed in a way that contradicts the guidance we're giving them. Currently, WP:ELNO can't be a reason to remove an official link, since the guideline says it does not apply to official links, and more than one official link is permitted when the additional links are not prominently displayed from other official sites. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 11:36, 30 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Recent discussion does not confirm this: [5]. Recent discussion upholds the current guideline that official Facebook and Myspace sources may be appropriate even in addition to an official site if they are not prominently linked and if they offer additional encyclopedic value. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 00:32, 20 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is this an alternate account of this user? If so please identify yourself as such. Chubbles (talk) 19:17, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Correct, although I haven't used or even looked at that account for months. I did just now, following your comment. Reviewing the changes since my last, I don't see any unusual problems, there? (Although I'm surprised a bot added the "400 most active Wikipedians" tag, I probably would have removed it.) ELNO Checking (talk) 01:28, 30 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The removal of all external links except the link to Neil Carlill's official website does not provide the reader with a good source of information from which to find out more about the subject of the article. First and foremost, Neil Carlill has not developed his own website other than to upload an image of the Chicanery album cover. His website is not at this point a good source of information; however, the websites of the other projects with which he is involved collectively provide good information that can give the reader a better understanding of the full spectrum of his interests and capabilities. I have read through the guidelines, and I understand the overall intent. In the case of this particular article subject, a non-generalized approach to selecting appropriate external links may be the best route to afford the reader a degree of value. I will add back links that I perceive to be valuable. I am certainly available to further discuss the issue. Doc2234 (talk) 12:37, 30 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You are providing a long overdue service! The bizarre decision to have {twitter} and {myspace} and {facebook} templates have caused a diarreah of social network spamming and iam glad someone is doing something about it!Active Banana (^bananaphone 11:04, 19 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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