--- Rowan Collins rowan.collins@gmail.com wrote:
While I see your point, and even agree, it is probably preferable in such a case to put the link in a "references" section, rather than simply giving it some invisible immortal status in the "external links" section. By which I mean, if an editor can come along and say "this link gives me no useful information beyond what's already here", the link has ceased to be useful *as further reading*, which is what the majority of External links provide, so they are quite justified in saying so. If it was a reference used in *creating* the article, it should be cited as such, and then people will know that that is why it is listed, and comments about comparitive levels of content become irrelevant.
I agree with you, but would also like to point out that there are hybrid situations where an external link is both used as a major reference *and* still has enough good info in it to act as 'further reading'. What I do in this situations is put '(also used as a reference)' after the link in the ==External links== list. One could put the link both in the ==External links== and ==References== lists, but, IMO, that is a bit redundant.
Oh, and References can also be cited as such if only used to confirm information in an article. This is necessary due to the fact that so many editors don't add references at all.
-- Daniel (aka mav)
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail