Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 12:49:26 +0100 From: Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] A war on external links? Was: Inside Higher Ed: Does Wikipedia Suck? To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Carcharoth wrote:
That probably misses the flux. How many links are added and then almost immediately removed? That won't be picked up in something like that, I don't think.
Anyway, the point is not that external links are systematically persecuted (they may be patchily persecuted); but that they now have few actual rights.
Charles
And why should links have any particular "rights"? External links should be justified in the same way as any addition to the article. They may not require the same verifiability standards, but they should be judged to be a recommended place for further reading. In some way or another, they should add content the editors judge to be useful, and not simply be about the subject. Considering that for every good link I've seen inserted, I've also seen one that was useless or even misleading or libelous, why would they need any special protection?
I see no reason why we need additional policy and bureaucracy specifically for links.
Sxeptomaniac