[WikiEN-l] A war on external links? Was: Inside Higher Ed: Does Wikipedia Suck?

[Samuel Klein]

On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 2:09 PM, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at fairpoint.net> wrote:
>> On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 6:10 AM, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at fairpoint.net>
>> wrote:
>>> Yes, that disposes of them. The point is to have external links and
>>> further reading available to users of the reference at the foot of the
>>> article. The consensus to routinely remove such material arose a few
>>> years ago and it diminishes the utility of Wikipedia as a reference
>>> work.
>>>
>>> Fred Bauder
>>
>> I don't think there's such a consensus, site wide.  I have seen
>> articles where someone OWNs it and there is a local consensus.
>>
>> Keep in mind that we risk ending up with our articles web link farms
>> which is are not maintained in any consistent manner.
>>
>> I support good links, and add them.  But there's a downside there too.
>>
>> -george william herbert
>> george.herbert at gmail.com
>>
>
> External links and further reading are content like any other content.
> They require maintenance and sound judgment. What I object to is the
> meataxe approach to editing with respect to external links and further
> reading as well as article content. We all understand the problem when
> it's done with article content.

I agree that this is a similar problem.   In theory, the 'external
links' section of an article should grow and take shape in proportion
to the article's size and maturity, not stay constant over time.  We
have been doing a good job of expanding footnote-style references and
external links -- I spoke to a business school class yesterday where a
student said "isn't excellent citation one of Wikipedia's main
attractions?" -- but there is also value in links to general further
reading.

A feature to improve the curating and presentation of these links
might be handy.  We have a few places were having a  "set of links" as
a first class member of the wikiverse would be useful
 * external links or further reading
 * a list of images related to an article (which may not all fit
neatly in the article)
 * interlanguage and interproject links to a set of articles about the
same topic

SJ