[WikiEN-l] External links in articles, and a citations feature?

[Graham Burnett]

Hi all- on the Anarchism talk page jack lynch has stated;

"External links within the article are against wiki policy."

To which I replied;

"PS. Where is it wiki policy not to use external links in articles? I always
thought citations were a standard way of referencing, if it is policy it
should be changed forthwith."

Which admit I wrote whilst feeling a bit snotty towards this individual,
however, I've never seen anything which says external links are against
'policy', I use them all the time in much the same way i'd use citations,
and can't see what's wrong here, please can i have some clarification from
the rest of the community.

Personally i'd like to see MORE external links/citations, and was even
thinking of proposing a feature for including citations or attributiuons
within articles (for example, I've used some stuff that has been told go me
personally by people (ie, by ex-members of Crass for the Crass article,
which can't be verified by Google, but is none the less useful and
encylopedic (or even vice versa- Micheal claimed someone from Crass was in a
band called Trapeze- google verified this because someone else had written
it on a dodgy unresearched website, but my primary source (ie, the people
themselves) confirmed it was bollocks. Iyt would be nice to have a
'citation' feature that linked to quoted sources, much as the end of a
chapter in an academic book has a 'notes' section at the end...

Cheers Graham burnett (quercus robur)




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