[WikiEN-l] Fwd: ASINs and ISBNs

[Matthew Brown]

On 3/19/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Mon, 19 Mar 2007 22:06:36 +0000, "Andrew Gray" <shimgray at 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