joshua.zelinsky(a)yale.edu wrote:
Quoting Will Beback <will.beback.1(a)gmail.com>om>:
'm not proposing removing all external links,
I'm proposing removing a
small number of links.
I hope that you aren't saying that all external links provide value and
we should never remove any external link that a well-meaning editor (or
greedy website owner) adds. If we stopped deleting external links and
removed the spam blacklist I predict we'd have more links than text,
especially in some topics. We include a large variety of links because
they provide encyclopedic value. If we determine that they don't provide
that value then we delete them.
Will
This is a strawman. The point is that we shouldn't be removing links from
an
article unless those links are somehow damaging to the content. The
distinction
between a random blog or a spam link to buy cars and Michael Moore's personal
website should be obvious.
There are many ways of damaging the encyclopedia, and by
extension the
content. Harassing Wikipedia volunteers indirectly harms content and
disrupts the community. (Yes, I know that the pat response is: "But
removing the links causes even more disruption!", to which my response
is "If we have a policy with a procedure then there needn't be any
disruption involved in handling harassment links).
Spam links don't damage articles, at least not individually, nor do
blogs. Are you saying that a link to buying cars is worse than a link
urging people to call an editor at work to complain about his editing?
W.