Hello all. This was posted back in August 2005, but sadly has not been kept by the list archives; we have a gap of a dozen days or so, and whilst the end of this thread survives, anything before the 21st August is lost.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-August/thread.html
The topic in question has arisen again, and I wanted the opportunity to quote this, so I'm forwarding it back to the list so I have a citable source to point to. I promise I'm not just making it up... :-)
If anyone is interested, the current discussion is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#Amazon - basically, are Amazon internal catalogue IDs a useful and sensible piece of data to give as a reference? As may be apparent I swing towards HELL NO, but YMMV...
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com Date: 10-Aug-2005 19:20 Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] ASINs and ISBNs To: andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk, English Wikipedia wikien-l@wikipedia.org
Andrew Gray wrote:
According to Google, I've now done about a quarter of the pages mentioning ASINs. This seemed a good time to see what people thought - are there any real objections to me continuing, and purging all ASINs from wikipedia? I can't see any problem with replacing them with ISBNs, but it struck me some might object to removing the unique ones.
I think ASINs are very very very very bad things, and that you are doing wonderful wonderful work in purging them from Wikipedia completely.
--Jimbo
On Mon, 19 Mar 2007 22:06:36 +0000, "Andrew Gray" shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
If anyone is interested, the current discussion is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#Amazon
- basically, are Amazon internal catalogue IDs a useful and sensible
piece of data to give as a reference? As may be apparent I swing towards HELL NO, but YMMV...
+1 for HELL NO, especially since in the specific example cited Amazon turned out to be *wrong* (see above).
Guy (JzG)
On 3/20/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Mon, 19 Mar 2007 22:06:36 +0000, "Andrew Gray" shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
If anyone is interested, the current discussion is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#Amazon
- basically, are Amazon internal catalogue IDs a useful and sensible
piece of data to give as a reference? As may be apparent I swing towards HELL NO, but YMMV...
+1 for HELL NO, especially since in the specific example cited Amazon turned out to be *wrong* (see above).
-1 for HELL NO.
There are many cases where the amazon (.com, .co.uk, .de and .fr are different) contain metadata that simply is not available in other accessible catalogs. [[James Hanratty]] has an example. People understandably get a bit stroppy when you try to remove these amazon links unless you can find a better catalogue to use for verification.
+1 for systematic and careful improvement of citation data.
IMO, that the amazon metadata can be wrong is all the more reason why simply removing the amazon links / ASINs isnt the best way to address this. Incorrect citation data will be left behind unless they are handled case by case.
Like many other commercial databases that are referenced in Wikipedia content, Amazon is used because it is an accessible and extensive catalogue. If it goes down, we can deal with that then. If an ASIN disappears, we can deal with that like we deal with broken links. In the mean time, we can vet the use of amazon links to see if they can be replaced with links to international catalogue numbers that are built to be more stable, _where possible_. It wont take long; a team of about eight people fixed ~2500 articles with Invalid ISBNs in less then two months. (see [[User:EdJohnston/ISBN_fixing]] ). This ensures a bit of care is taken to ensure that the resulting citation data is 100% accurate, and the original contributor is respectfully contacted if the citation data cant be pinned down without guessing.
I am concerned that some people are foaming at the mouth to remove them all instantly (like suggesting that the ASIN template be deleted). There are WikiProjects that can deal with this, as it doesnt require admin privileges. While AN/I may be a useful place kick start a discussion, I dont think it is the appropriate platform to make any final decision on how to tackle these links.
-- John
On 20/03/07, John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:
-1 for HELL NO.
There are many cases where the amazon (.com, .co.uk, .de and .fr are different) contain metadata that simply is not available in other accessible catalogs. [[James Hanratty]] has an example. People understandably get a bit stroppy when you try to remove these amazon links unless you can find a better catalogue to use for verification.
But the thing is... why not just say
Jean Justice. "Le Crime de la Route A6". Laffont, 1968.
Not everything has to have a weblink next to it... why does it need to be "verified"? All that does is confirm the purported source exists; it doesn't actually give us any help in confirming the content of the source.
If you want better metadata than the fragment on the Amazon site, you can get it out of the BNF catalogue easily enough - it took me, with my patchy French, two minutes to find...
Jean Justice. Le Crime de la route A6 [Texte imprimé][″Murder versus murder″]. Traduction et présentation de Claude Mourthé. - Paris : R. Laffont, 1968. - In-16 (20 cm), 343 p., carte, pl., couv. ill. 19,50 F. [D. L. 2867-68].
...but you can't give it a fixed URL, so I guess it may as well not exist. Catalogue number is FRBNF33059758 ;-)
In the mean time, we can vet the use of amazon links to see if they can be replaced with links to international catalogue numbers that are built to be more stable, _where possible_. It wont take long; a team
I think the problem here, to my eyes - and speaking as a librarian - is that *there is no reason to insist on catalogue numbers*. They're icing on the cake; they are not needed to find a work, and never have been. Trying to insist on keeping one which has active *defects* when we can simply lift the bib data to cite the work conventionally just seems to be futile...
On 20/03/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
If you want better metadata than the fragment on the Amazon site, you can get it out of the BNF catalogue easily enough - it took me, with my patchy French, two minutes to find...
Jean Justice. Le Crime de la route A6 [Texte imprimé][″Murder versus murder″]. Traduction et présentation de Claude Mourthé. - Paris : R. Laffont, 1968. - In-16 (20 cm), 343 p., carte, pl., couv. ill. 19,50 F. [D. L. 2867-68].
...but you can't give it a fixed URL, so I guess it may as well not exist. Catalogue number is FRBNF33059758 ;-)
Also, I feel the need to make a slightly odd objection here - why are we citing an English work *and* citing its French translation? Does the latter contain more information?
On 3/20/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 20/03/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
But the thing is... why not just say
Jean Justice. "Le Crime de la Route A6". Laffont, 1968.
Not everything has to have a weblink next to it... why does it need to be "verified"? All that does is confirm the purported source exists; it doesn't actually give us any help in confirming the content of the source.
Why do ISBNs and ISSNs have check digits? Wikipedia's citations needs to be verified because there is no other way to visually differentiate between
Jean Justice. "Le Crime de la Route A6". Laffont, 1968.
and
Jean Justic. "Le Crime". Laffont, 1968.
Having the ability to verify works means volunteers can chase down the ones that look a little sketchy. And rapidly double check the ones that do have the linkies.
If you want better metadata than the fragment on the Amazon site, you can get it out of the BNF catalogue easily enough - it took me, with my patchy French, two minutes to find...
Jean Justice. Le Crime de la route A6 [Texte imprimé][″Murder versus murder″]. Traduction et présentation de Claude Mourthé. - Paris : R. Laffont, 1968. - In-16 (20 cm), 343 p., carte, pl., couv. ill. 19,50 F. [D. L. 2867-68].
...but you can't give it a fixed URL, so I guess it may as well not exist. Catalogue number is FRBNF33059758 ;-)
While I do find the link to Amazon useful, my reasoning for using ASIN for works without another identifier is simply that it is useful to add catalogue identifiers to every citation and reference work in order to assist others that use the raw wikipedia data as input to other projects (e.g. librarything). The reality is that most people dont know about WorldCat, wont bother trying to use the LOC search, and definitely will be confused by our LOC templates. They will on the other hand add an ISBN or ASIN if it is sitting right in front of them, and our newer contributors will be mighty chuffed with themselves when they manage to add an Amazon link correctly. Learn to love the bomb.
{{ASIN}} allows all ASINs to be placed into [[Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:ASIN]] or a category if that becomes necessary. This allows others who care more for the utility of the these citations, beyond mere reading pleasure, to replace them with the an appropriate identifier where possible.
I see the ASIN template primarily as a way of classifying citations and the articles they sit on. I would expect that the [[WP:FACT]] project would endeavour to remove any ASIN from an article before it hit the front page. If {{ASIN}} become over-used (its been hovering between 50-100 for a while), they could plough through them in a clean-up exercise.
If we end up with a large number of ASINs that cant be replaced with a better identifier, a repository like WorldCat may come along and create verified records for them all, simply because they are used on Wikipedia.
Back to the ASIN B0000DQ7SP; as far as I can tell, there is only one online catalogue that has this work listed at present. People are far more likely to click on an ASIN than they are to ask a librarian about the book. A bit of babelfish and this ASIN lets me know there is a good chance that this work has photographs in it.
As an aside, this ASIN entry on amazon.fr is definitely not primarily for the purpose of generating revenue; it may not be philanthropic, but it is a public service.
Any call to not link to ASINs because it *may* have incorrect data should bear in mind that people link to Wikipedia in spite of the same possible problem. WorldCat also has problems. I don't have much experience with LOC but I'm sure they have problems too. By linking to any/all of these resources discrepancies can be easily spotted, and enquiring minds will usually do some digging and we can expect that all of these external resources will become more accurate over time.
Also, I feel the need to make a slightly odd objection here - why are we citing an English work *and* citing its French translation? Does the latter contain more information?
My guess is it has been put on the enwiki to ensure all works about the subject are listed, or perhaps in preparation for a French translation of the English article.
-- John
[This is mostly me blowing off steam, but there's an actual serious proposal in here too...]
On 20/03/07, John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:
Why do ISBNs and ISSNs have check digits? Wikipedia's citations needs to be verified because there is no other way to visually differentiate between
Jean Justice. "Le Crime de la Route A6". Laffont, 1968.
and
Jean Justic. "Le Crime". Laffont, 1968.
Having the ability to verify works means volunteers can chase down the ones that look a little sketchy. And rapidly double check the ones that do have the linkies.
But the thing is, once we've verified the bibliographic data is correct, we're done. End of story. We no longer need the catalogue reference, in the same way we wouldn't need a note saying "this book is borrowed by Sally, remember to add the publication details when she brings it back".
Basically, this is my objection. The Amazon link, or the LoC link, or any other link, is *not a source*; I mean, really, what are we verifying? That a work by this name and with this metadata appears in an online catalogue. Nothing more. It does not verify the assertion that this is a relevant work, or that it is one we used. It is simply what we use to sanity-check the metadata in our own list of sources. Once we've done that check, we've confirmed we've spelled the name right and got the year correct, we don't need to keep that link or that catalogue code; it's an internal editorial reference, and it can be kept on the talk page or junked, but it's unneccesary and somewhat misleading to keep it with the citation.
ISBNs are a special case - we keep them around because MediaWiki can do cunning magic with them, and we faintly hope we can hack something similar together later for LCCNs. But it would not materially harm the intellectual integrity of our listed references to quietly lose every ISBN overnight, because they're icing and not cake.
While I do find the link to Amazon useful, my reasoning for using ASIN for works without another identifier is simply that it is useful to add catalogue identifiers to every citation and reference work in order to assist others that use the raw wikipedia data as input to other projects (e.g. librarything). The reality is that most people dont know about WorldCat, wont bother trying to use the LOC search, and definitely will be confused by our LOC templates. They will on the other hand add an ISBN or ASIN if it is sitting right in front of them, and our newer contributors will be mighty chuffed with themselves when they manage to add an Amazon link correctly. Learn to love the bomb.
But *what does it matter*? As above, once we have the bibliographic data, we don't need a link or a code to another place listing that data - it just seems futile. Our readers are going to follow that link and find, er, nothing of any use to them.
As for reuse, I think a much more effective solution would be to start writing something to parse {{cite book}} templates for their bib data...
...which prompts a thought. Could we expand the citation templates and have default-non-displaying fields, like the hack we have with persondata? This would allow us to silently include all the catalogue identifiers we could wish for, BNB codes or BNF references or LCCNs or OCLC codes or, hell, even LibraryThing work IDs - without the objectionable issues of including and displaying unhelpful links (or the limitation of only including one ID number). We could then fiddle it with different div IDs so that people can select in CSS to display ISBNs or ESTC numbers or whatever their little heart desires...
(ESTC is probably one of the rare counterexamples to "no comprehensive identifiers before 1960s", but I don't see us citing too many of its works...)
I see the ASIN template primarily as a way of classifying citations and the articles they sit on. I would expect that the [[WP:FACT]] project would endeavour to remove any ASIN from an article before it hit the front page. If {{ASIN}} become over-used (its been hovering between 50-100 for a while), they could plough through them in a clean-up exercise.
I did :-) About August 2005 I killed almost every ASIN listed on Wikipedia, as unneccesary and unhelpful. I am utterly astonished to find people encouraging their use, as may be apparent...
If we end up with a large number of ASINs that cant be replaced with a better identifier, a repository like WorldCat may come along and create verified records for them all, simply because they are used on Wikipedia.
This isn't how cataloguing works, sad to say. You can't create a verified record without the book in your hand; if they had the book in their hand (well, stock), it would have been catalogued eventually regardless...
(WorldCat isn't a repository. It's a union catalogue of thousands of libraries. I suspect none of them are the Institute for Philanthropic Bibliography...)
As an aside, this ASIN entry on amazon.fr is definitely not primarily for the purpose of generating revenue; it may not be philanthropic, but it is a public service.
I fear you jest! It's there because someone wanted to sell a copy and has now sold it, or because amazon.fr picked up the details from one of their databases and put it up in the hope someone would list one... Amazon.com certainly prune old ASIN pages; I've known them vanish. There's no guarantee the code will ever be reused; if the same work reappears it may well get a new code, or the old code may be recycled for a different work. There is no "standard" to it, no published information on how it works or guidance on using it; it's not intended for external use.
WorldCat also has problems.
I have strong views against WorldCat as well, but that's another rant - vast quanties of very sloppy cataloguing, and a misleading presentation as being substantially more comprehensive than it is. (Remember, you have to pay to join the consortium...) I would argue (almost) as strongly against arguing we should routinely include OCLC id codes, or whatever it is they use; I got very het up recently when someone wanted to spam the Worldcat "author pages" across Wikipedia.
Also, I feel the need to make a slightly odd objection here - why are we citing an English work *and* citing its French translation? Does the latter contain more information?
My guess is it has been put on the enwiki to ensure all works about the subject are listed, or perhaps in preparation for a French translation of the English article.
I would discourage calling it a "source", then... "further reading" can cover a multitude of sins.
On 3/20/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
Basically, this is my objection. The Amazon link, or the LoC link, or any other link, is *not a source*; I mean, really, what are we verifying? That a work by this name and with this metadata appears in an online catalogue. Nothing more. It does not verify the assertion that this is a relevant work, or that it is one we used. It is simply what we use to sanity-check the metadata in our own list of sources. Once we've done that check, we've confirmed we've spelled the name right and got the year correct, we don't need to keep that link or that catalogue code; it's an internal editorial reference, and it can be kept on the talk page or junked, but it's unnecessary and somewhat misleading to keep it with the citation.
Some of the Amazon ones being discussed here were not as part of a bibliographic entry but were being used for facts quoted in an article, e.g. release dates, etc. In that case, it IS being used as a source, and that's a different case.
I think it is useful to keep cataloging information around, for the use of subsequent editors to the article, but I agree that it serves little purpose for the reader in most cases. Perhaps in these cases the entry should be in HTML comment form or be an ignored parameter passed to a cite template.
-Matt
Matthew Brown wrote:
Some of the Amazon ones being discussed here were not as part of a bibliographic entry but were being used for facts quoted in an article, e.g. release dates, etc. In that case, it IS being used as a source, and that's a different case.
I think this is an important distinction. Often, the Amazon link is the easiest, best, most reliable source for a certain fact in an article. Should it be replaced ''if possible''? Sure, and no one would object to such a replacement. To simply try and remove the references without replacing is a problem.
The ASIN? Not helpful. ISBNs are more standard and useful, and I can't imagine a worthwhile defense of using ASINs when we're able to use ISBNs so well. But there are two discussions at work here, and it's important to separate the two.
-Jeff
On Tue, 20 Mar 2007 17:23:05 -0400 (EDT), "Jeff Raymond" jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
I think this is an important distinction. Often, the Amazon link is the easiest, best, most reliable source for a certain fact in an article.
Um, except that in the particular case at issue, it also turned out to be wrong...
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Tue, 20 Mar 2007 17:23:05 -0400 (EDT), "Jeff Raymond" jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
I think this is an important distinction. Often, the Amazon link is the easiest, best, most reliable source for a certain fact in an article.
Um, except that in the particular case at issue, it also turned out to be wrong...
Well, at least inconsistent with other, less-reliable sources.
-Jeff
On Tue, 20 Mar 2007 20:48:37 -0400, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
I think this is an important distinction. Often, the Amazon link is the easiest, best, most reliable source for a certain fact in an article.
Um, except that in the particular case at issue, it also turned out to be wrong...
Well, at least inconsistent with other, less-reliable sources.
No, inconsistent with *all* other sources. The idea that they are less reliable despite being right when Amazon is wrong is somewhat perverse.
Guy (JzG)
On 20/03/07, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
[sorry for duplicate]
Some of the Amazon ones being discussed here were not as part of a bibliographic entry but were being used for facts quoted in an article, e.g. release dates, etc. In that case, it IS being used as a source, and that's a different case.
It's an unrelated issue that came up at the same time, that. I'm all for using Amazon as a source for (eg) reviews or other data only available through them, but not for using Amazon as though it were a standard bibliographic source.
I think it is useful to keep cataloging information around, for the use of subsequent editors to the article, but I agree that it serves little purpose for the reader in most cases. Perhaps in these cases the entry should be in HTML comment form or be an ignored parameter passed to a cite template.
I'm beginning to feel there's actually something to this nondisplaying parameter trick. Do we use it for anything else?
On Tue, 20 Mar 2007 21:27:37 +0000, "Andrew Gray" shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
'm all for using Amazon as a source for (eg) reviews or other data only available through them
Reviews? Not ''user'' reviews, I hope?
Guy (JzG)
On 3/20/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
[This is mostly me blowing off steam, but there's an actual serious proposal in here too...]
On 20/03/07, John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:
<snip>
Having the ability to verify works means volunteers can chase down the
ones that look a little sketchy. And rapidly double check the ones that do have the linkies.
But the thing is, once we've verified the bibliographic data is correct, we're done. End of story. We no longer need the catalogue reference, in the same way we wouldn't need a note saying "this book is borrowed by Sally, remember to add the publication details when she brings it back".
Basically, this is my objection. The Amazon link, or the LoC link, or any other link, is *not a source*; I mean, really, what are we verifying? That a work by this name and with this metadata appears in an online catalogue. Nothing more. It does not verify the assertion that this is a relevant work, or that it is one we used. It is simply what we use to sanity-check the metadata in our own list of sources. Once we've done that check, we've confirmed we've spelled the name right and got the year correct, we don't need to keep that link or that catalogue code; it's an internal editorial reference, and it can be kept on the talk page or junked, but it's unneccesary and somewhat misleading to keep it with the citation.
ISBNs are a special case - we keep them around because MediaWiki can do cunning magic with them, and we faintly hope we can hack something similar together later for LCCNs. But it would not materially harm the intellectual integrity of our listed references to quietly lose every ISBN overnight, because they're icing and not cake.
Hmm. I strongly disagree with this; keeping the ISBNs around means that it's easier for other people to find the work in question. In a variety of ways, yes, through mediawiki magic; but even without the link, people could search for the book with an ISBN manually in all the places listed on special:booksources.
The point of listing sources is *not just* to verify facts in an article. It's also to give readers a list of other places to look for more information on a topic. ISBNs, or any other unique identifier, help tremendously with that. They help you verify that the edition or translation of the work that was meant in the article is, in fact, the one that is likely to be found by readers. It is often very difficult to search online library catalogs properly and find what you're looking for, especially when you don't have familiarity with the work in question; ISBNs help.
In addition, listing the ISBN makes it easier to verify and re-verify a reference if you suspect vandalism. It is, in fact, important to continue to have the quick sanity check available that a work was cataloged somewhere, that it actually exists under the title claimed, etc., and that the subject headings match what the topic claims. Library catalogs can also tell you fun things like the promising-sounding work quoted is actually a work of fiction. Thus I'd argue that being able to find a work in a library catalog is important; and ISBNs help with finding. Unfortunately, of course, they also don't exist for all works.
<snip>
...which prompts a thought. Could we expand the citation templates and have default-non-displaying fields, like the hack we have with persondata? This would allow us to silently include all the catalogue identifiers we could wish for, BNB codes or BNF references or LCCNs or OCLC codes or, hell, even LibraryThing work IDs - without the objectionable issues of including and displaying unhelpful links (or the limitation of only including one ID number). We could then fiddle it with different div IDs so that people can select in CSS to display ISBNs or ESTC numbers or whatever their little heart desires...
(ESTC is probably one of the rare counterexamples to "no comprehensive identifiers before 1960s", but I don't see us citing too many of its works...)
An interesting idea... it'd be nice to improve the citation templates; but it would also be nice to get them in wider use. They're pretty complicated as it is.
<snip>
If we end up with a large number of ASINs that cant be replaced with a
better identifier, a repository like WorldCat may come along and create verified records for them all, simply because they are used on Wikipedia.
This isn't how cataloguing works, sad to say. You can't create a verified record without the book in your hand; if they had the book in their hand (well, stock), it would have been catalogued eventually regardless...
(WorldCat isn't a repository. It's a union catalogue of thousands of libraries. I suspect none of them are the Institute for Philanthropic Bibliography...)
Indeed. WorldCat is a merged catalog of most [not all] of the works in its member libraries, which are worldwide, but in general the consortium is prettily heavily US-biased.
WorldCat also has problems.
I have strong views against WorldCat as well, but that's another rant
- vast quanties of very sloppy cataloguing, and a misleading
presentation as being substantially more comprehensive than it is. (Remember, you have to pay to join the consortium...) I would argue (almost) as strongly against arguing we should routinely include OCLC id codes, or whatever it is they use; I got very het up recently when someone wanted to spam the Worldcat "author pages" across Wikipedia.
Now... also as a librarian, I am actually strongly in favor of using WorldCat links and OCLC numbers, when available, *especially* as a substitute for ASINs and other commercial unique identifiers. It's only recently that the entire WorldCat database was made freely available at www.worldcat.org, but we should take advantage of it. True, member libraries still have to pay to join OCLC, and it does appear more comprehensive than it is, but it's also, to my knowledge, the best free source of global cataloging data we have -- and the motives behind the OCLC projects are far more in line with our own that those of commercial booksellers.
And while the cataloging may be sloppy, for older books the cataloging is still tons better than what you'll find on most commercial sites, including Amazon. For non-ISBN books, the OCLC record will at least a) tell you what the book is; b) show you where it's held in the world; and c) link you to the LCCN, for an extra bonus -- all of which is better than you'd get with no number at all, if you are a regular reader who doesn't know that worldcat exists. And for all of the books with OCLC records, worldcat will tell you the nearest free place that has a copy of the work -- in other words, your public library. Even if it's not perfect, this seems to me a tremendous service that we should promote, in line with distributing knowledge to all people and all that.
<snip>
I would discourage calling it a "source", then... "further reading"
can cover a multitude of sins.
I'm in favor of strict source sections and liberal further reading sections, myself... and I worry when the two get confused :P
-- phoebe
On 3/19/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Mon, 19 Mar 2007 22:06:36 +0000, "Andrew Gray" shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
If anyone is interested, the current discussion is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#Amazon
- basically, are Amazon internal catalogue IDs a useful and sensible
piece of data to give as a reference? As may be apparent I swing towards HELL NO, but YMMV...
+1 for HELL NO, especially since in the specific example cited Amazon turned out to be *wrong* (see above).
ASINs, in my opinion, are not a useful and sensible piece of data to give about items that have Wikipedia articles, and should not be used as e.g. reference IDs for rare books.
However, I am vociferously against removing links to Amazon which are in use as valid references without the replacement of those references with better sources.
Part of the point of references is so we know where information came from. Removing it because EWWW IT'S A COMMERCIAL SITE is in my opinion contrary to our mission.
-Matt
On Mon, 19 Mar 2007 18:17:39 -0700, "Matthew Brown" morven@gmail.com wrote:
Part of the point of references is so we know where information came from. Removing it because EWWW IT'S A COMMERCIAL SITE is in my opinion contrary to our mission.
Nothing against Amazon as a source, it's the "click to buy" bit that causes the problem. And that not least because it is but a small step from that to spammer.com publishing the Betamax release date, as the sole site to do so, and then adding itself as a source for this "vital" information.
Guy (JzG)
On 3/20/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
Nothing against Amazon as a source, it's the "click to buy" bit that causes the problem. And that not least because it is but a small step from that to spammer.com publishing the Betamax release date, as the sole site to do so, and then adding itself as a source for this "vital" information.
I disagree - accurate sourcing is more important than trying to prevent spammers from rules-lawyering. I believe it's impossible to write an airtight set of rules to prevent those editing in bad faith from doing bad things that does not also prevent us from doing many good and worthwhile things. Instead, we must rely on the overall good judgment of Wikipedia editors and admins, who ARE sensible enough in the main to distinguish spam from legitimate sourcing.
Perhaps a sensible step would not be to display such a source as a link, thus not getting spammers the click-throughs they want?
-Matt