Maps, Directions, and Place Reviews
YouTube videos
The following was recently added:
This addition was not discussed. Linking to videos is frequently used in musician and band discography sections, specifically to link to the video. That makes this patently false as it does inform the read about the subject, whether it is the song or the style of the song. Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:47, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
Linking for the purpose of promotion is contrary to Wikipedia's policy on promotion, and that is so whether it is mentioned in this guideline or not, so it is not "patently false". For some reason Walter Görlitz seems to have taken the wording to indicate that linking to videos is always wrong, which is not what it says at all. Linking for the purpose of attracting readers to web content, rather than for the purpose of providing information on the subject of a Wikipedia article, is contrary to Wikipedia policy, whether the linked web content is a video or anything else. The fact that links to videos can exist for legitimate purposes no more invalidates that point than the fact that links to a company's web site can exist for legitimate purposes invalidates the point that linking to them for the purpose of attracting customers is contrary to policy. (By the way, I don't understand why the section heading restricts the topic to only YouTube videos.) The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 19:10, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
Linking to youtube videos that explain a subject is fine, but linking to a video in a list just because it is the subject of that item is EXACTLY the same as linking to a non notable company in a list of companies that produce subject X. In that sense it is plainly promotional and not helping the reader to understand (necessarily). That is exactly what our policies prohibit. I therefore also agree with this addition, and think that wikipedia should be cleared of such lists similar to what is prctice with company lists: if they are redlinks they need proper independent sourcing, not external links to YouTube or company websites or whatever. Discographies should not have these links anymore than lists of software that have a certain feature. There simply is no reason to link a video on youtube there. -Dirk Beetstra T C 20:04, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
And it was added back here, but the consensus was that the original wording is not appropriate. Walter Görlitz (talk) 21:56, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
As Fram so persuasively reminded me, not so long ago, YouTube videos should be linked only if there is no suspicion at all that the video may be in breach of copyright, whether that linking is in article mainspace or not. But provided the video has been posted officially by the musician(s) concerned, I see no great problem with using it to illustrate, for example, a given notable composition or performance. I'd take exception to Ronz's assertion that "Articles about musicians and bands tend to be very bad, prime examples of WP:PROMOTION." This seems to me to be a gross and unfounded over-simplistic generalisation, especially where classical music is concerned. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:10, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
If we're done discussing policy, guidelines, and consensus, then I'd like to restore the content once again. No one is arguing that it is appropriate to have links to videos that are clearly promotional rather than demonstrating encyclopedic content. --Ronz (talk) 14:37, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
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- If community practice has diverged this far from (at minimum, your interpretation of) the written rules, then the written rules need to be updated to reflect the actual practice of thousands of editors.
- I think that a comparison between printed and recorded works is reasonable and appropriate. (Note that "recorded works" is not as narrow as "videos on YouTube".)
- I have looked at your other comments. I find that I agree with some and disagree with others. For example, I think that a link to a film trailer, although intended by its creators to promote the film, might actually be appropriate. I'm pretty sure that people can learn something from viewing it that they can't learn from reading about it. Also, film articles routinely lead with posters, which are produced by the same people, and with exactly the same promotional goal. I see no logic in putting one form of advertising directly at the top of an article while disclaiming a discreet, labeled link to another at the end on that grounds that it, too, is advertising materials. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:38, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
Office Website Templates Video
I have been challenged that twitters on twitter removals that twitter should be excluded from our WP:ELMINOFFICIAL, and hence always be listed when it is official and active. As that is a change in what policy/guideline state, I think that it should be clarified. There is some distinction whether the official twitter is listed on other official websitesor not. --Dirk Beetstra T C 03:28, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
Rebooting the discussion .. what we are discussing here is why the guideline should be changed to reflect the opinion that twitter feeds should be linked next to other official sites / twitter should be the main official site of a subject. --Dirk Beetstra T C 03:31, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
- diff - Wikipedia:External_links/Noticeboard#Abbey_Rangers_F.C.
- diff
- diff - Talk:Chrystia_Freeland#Twitter_link
- diff (afterwards somewhat cleaned; facebook and youtube multiple times linked from official site)
- diff (forgot about this one)
- diff (site is linked from official site)
- diff + that user:Patar knight found it necessary to mark my removal as a serious BLP violation.
(tbc) ... --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:47, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
Official website template
I see there was some edit warring this week over how strongly to encourage the {{official website}} template. I've never particularly used this template myself, but I've got nothing against it. It doesn't add any decorative formatting (which I'm glad of), but it sounds like it does make it possible to find out whether the link currently in the article is the same as the link in Wikidata's records (if any). This was given as a reason to encourage it, and it was reverted with the claim that "Data comparison with Wikidata is not a goal of enwiki or the articles".
I'm willing to believe that very few editors actually do compare it, but I wonder whether we ought to be doing more of that. We've had some occasional problems with spammers replacing "official websites" with their own. It seems to me that this kind of spam would be easier to find if we compared our links against Wikidata's entries, and then manually checked any discrepancies to make sure that the article hadn't been targeted by a spammer or vandal. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:00, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
- Me: We could use their data to flag spammers and vandals here, which helps improve Wikipedia articles.
- You: Yeah, but they could use our data to identify problems there, which doesn't help us - so we shouldn't do this.
It certainly doesn't make sense for editors to on the one hand claim that this template is encouraged "as it allows data comparison with Wikidata", and on the other hand remove the local website and get it from Wikidata instead (which means that no more comparison is being made, it just is copied). See e.g. this edit, where the link to the English-language landing page of the official website was replaced with the Wikidata-driven Swedish version of that page, or this example (provided by User:SlimVirgin) of the same user replacing a working link here (actually already using this template) with a wrong link taken from Wikidata.
I wouldn't mind using a template that didn't have the misused functionality of getting the website from Wikidata instead of inserting it locally. I also wouldn't mind if that template then had the underlying hidden functionality of checking the website and the one provided at Wikidata, to populate hidden categories (I think it would be better if such comparisons were made on Wikidata, not on every individual language wiki, but for the sake of compromise...). But I object to a template which takes the website from Wikidata, and I strongly object to editors removing perfectly valid values from enwiki because the same functionality may at best be added by Wikidata.
We should get a bot run to fill in all instances of the template without an actual website provided here, and then drop the "no value = get the Wikidata one" from the template. We should not instruct users to use the template, and certainly not for Wikidata reasons. Fram (talk) 12:35, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
Fram This is not the thing discussed here. Here we discuss edits like this one. Whether to use the direct url system vs the template one. The other edits should be discussed in two diffrent discussions entitled "Should we obtains and use WikiData official website data on Wikipedia articles?" and "Should the official website given to English Wikipedia viewers should directly link to its English section?". So there are three discussions. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:52, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
Listing of ab/misuse
- revid - 2 'official websites', WikiData has something else, which is wrong under en.wikipedia standards
- revid - right is there, other is wrong. Official profiles are not official websites per sé
tbc. --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:19, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
Magioladitis above said "One of the reasons to compare data is that once the data is verified to be correct on Wikidata to remove it from the local Wikipedia to reduce the chance of vandalism, simplify wikicode and enable changes from a larger audience." Luckily we don't do this (in general), as usually enwiki is much quicker to correct issues than Wikidata. Goign through the first ten examples at the category, starting from F, I came across F4 Spanish Championship. The official website[1] was changed early in 2016, as reflected in this enwiki change from January 2016. However, Wikidata still has the link from February 2015 to this site, which is now a completely unrelated webshop. So much for using Wikidata to avoid spamming and to get quicker changes thanks to the larger audience etc. Urijah Faber as well has the right website now on enwiki, but an outdated (domain for sale) one on Wikidata "imported from enwiki". While opposite cases probably can be found as well, it would make much more sense to keep the website local, on enwiki, and regularly update Wikidata with changed "imported from enwiki" data, instead of promoting the reverse as is now the case. Fram (talk) 08:40, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
Port Elizabeth
I have attempted to remove all external links from this page except the official local government page under WL:ELNO #13. however, a user has taken quite an exception to this. Port_Elizabeth#External_links. LibStar (talk) 08:08, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
External links in a "Notes" section
I ran across Jenna Jameson, that has three external links listed under a "Notes" section, and posted it in the External links/Noticeboard. I haven't noticed this practice before so thought I would mention it. Otr500 (talk) 13:07, 7 October 2017 (UTC)
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