[WikiEN-l] Policy on adding (many, relevant) links to articles?

[Steve Bennett]

On 5/27/06, Seth Price <seth at pricepages.org> wrote:
> I've been working on an outdoors website that has a focus on parks.
> The idea is I can add photos, reviews, scores, and other information
> to a given park. The site is Wiki-like, in that people can correct
> and add information that is listed (like admission fee info and lat/
> long). I think that I have many pages that would be of interest to a
> person browsing related Wikipedia articles.
>
> So, I would like to edit a number of articles to add links to my
> pages. For example, I would link to my Yellowstone National Park
> (http://www.unearthedoutdoors.net/parks/140 ) from Wikipedia (http://
> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_National_Park ). Would this be
> acceptable? Could I do the same for many other pages?
>
> Like (for another example):
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erie_National_Wildlife_Refuge
> http://www.unearthedoutdoors.net/parks/1594
>
> Making these links makes sense, as far as I can tell, but I thought
> I'd ask about them first, because I'd be making a few hundred of them
> (at least) and I don't want to step on any toes.

G'day, welcome, and a couple of suggestions to you:
*Contribute other content as well as links. People who only add links
to their own site in Wikipedia are viewed with some suspicion, whether
deservedly or not.
*Links are of some value, but we would love it if you would actually
release the photos under GFDL and upload them to Commons, our
repository of multimedia content. Similarly, add information about the
parks to the park articles in objective, verifiable ways.
*Take it easy with the links, and go slowly. Add 10, wait a week, and
see what happens. See if any get removed. See if you get any comments
on your talk page. Then add another 30, and wait another week. Avoid
shocking people, and avoid being mistaken for a linkspammer.
*Only add links if they are among the most informative on the web for
a given article. I imagine Yellow Stone Park probably has mountains of
info on the web, but maybe a more obscure park doesn't. Use judgment
on each link, don't add them all blindly.
*Remember that Wikipedia is inherently egotistical - it does not
accept that better sources of information can or should exist. That
is, people will probably want to add everything informative that there
is to know from your site, then cut off the link. To put it
differently, Wikipedia wants to be the most informative site in the
universe on US national parks, and will not respect the right of your
site to be more informative than it.

Hope that helps!

Steve