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

[Anthony DiPierro]

On 5/28/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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

I think these are great suggestions.  I found another one at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Spam.

"Contribute cited text, not bare links. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia,
not a link farm. If you have a source to contribute, first contribute
some facts that you learned from that source, then cite the source.
Don't simply direct readers to another site for the useful facts; add
useful facts to the article, then cite the site where you found them.
You're here to improve Wikipedia -- not just to funnel readers off
Wikipedia and onto some other site, right? (If not, see #1 above.)"

Anthony

(by the way, should I be attaching the text of the GFDL to this
derivative work?  It's not a real question, so don't answer it.)