The subject is the edit summary from the edit that removed NSK's link. Independent of the particulars of NSK's site, this summary is not a valid excuse, wikipedia articles can grow to a level of completeness that most external sites cannot match, yet a lot of our information comes from external sites, and it can be important to cite those sites even though their information has been included in the article and a subsequent editor unfamiliar with the history may now consider them redundant.. -- Silverback
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Hello.
Please check http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Homo_floresiensis&diff=0&o...
It is about the removal of an external link to my site that I first inserted in October. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Homo_floresiensis&diff=6952756... 952087
The link is this: http://portal.wikinerds.org/node/103
I insert only links that I truly believe are informational and I have no interest to insert any bogus links. I truly believe that my report is informational.
Please explain why it was considered inappropriate and give me a link to any external links policies that you may have.
The link was removed by Adam Bishop. He contacted me through e-mail and I answered promptly. I explained my concern that my link was removed because it was pointing to a "competing" wikisite. He said that the link was spam because it was pointing to my site.
Other links to my site removed by Adam Bishop have been featured on Slashdot.org - check: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/28/1825218 and http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/19/174240 - Links to wikinerds.org that were featured on these Slashdot stories were added (and subsequently removed by Adam Bishop) in this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Software_Foundation_Europe - I have since inserted links to the Slashdot stories because I believe that they are informational.
All that happened the same day I decided to start contributing some of my articles on Wikipedia (and thus relicensing some CC content under GFDL for your use) - See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zsync
I don't agree that I should not be allowed to post links to my site just because it is mine. This isn't spam.
I post this message on the mailing list because I want a clear answer on whether my link about Homo Floresiensis was spam or not. If the other admins agree with me that self-linking is not spam then I would like Adam Bishop to reconsider and post a public apology on his userpage stating that my link on Homo Floresiensis was not spam. If you decide that the link was not informational, I have no problem with this. But I truly believe that describing it as spam was unfair. Adam Bishop stated in the History log of the Homo Floresiensis article: "01:45, 12 Jan 2005 Adam Bishop (removing spam)"
I also promise to not post any other external links without asking on the mailing list or the village pump first.
-- NSK Come to see the new wikiprojects at http://portal.wikinerds.org _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 13:49:55 +0000, actionforum@comcast.net actionforum@comcast.net wrote:
The subject is the edit summary from the edit that removed NSK's link. Independent of the particulars of NSK's site, this summary is not a valid excuse, wikipedia articles can grow to a level of completeness that most external sites cannot match, yet a lot of our information comes from external sites, and it can be important to cite those sites even though their information has been included in the article and a subsequent editor unfamiliar with the history may now consider them redundant.. -- Silverback
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.
--- 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)
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