Marc Riddell wrote:
on 1/24/07 8:50 PM, Geoffrey Burling at
llywrch(a)agora.rdrop.com wrote:
Three or four years ago, Jimbo ranted about all
of the external links he
was finding in articles. IIRC, his point was that we didn't need any external
links, that a Wikipedia article ought to stand on its own, and be better
than any other website on the subject.
Maybe we should have listened to him.
At least one value of external links that I can think of is that they
provide access to additional information which, for a variety of reasons,
cannot be included in the Article's text.
Yes, I think this is important, but I also think external links are
overused. It would be weird to have an article on Amazon without a link
to
amazon.com, or an article on the Embassy of France in the United
States without a link to
ambafrance-us.org. But that doesn't mean the
article on the card-game hearts should link to some random website
giving opinions on good and bad strategies (as it did until recently).
-Mark