[WikiEN-l] Referencing policy/guidelines

[Gallagher Mark George]

G'day John,

> Since when have we banned the use of online subscription news-
> sites as
> references, or made it policy that dead links cannot be cited as 
> sources?The latter plainly contradicts [[WP:CS]], and a brief 
> overview of the
> relevant WP pages reveals no overt ban on citations from 
> subscription sites,
> but I just found out that somebody pulled out a bunch of such 
> references: <
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ketuanan_Melayu&diff=130291263&oldid=128633105
> >

That is incredibly stupid, just removing references willy-nilly.  Possibly the editor in this case attempted to find a Google Cache (temporary, but better than nothing) or Wayback Machine copy of the referenced document, but I doubt it.  Did he also go through Google, news libraries, his own personal reference library, etc., to find replacements, or leave that up to you?

> I was bold and reverted, but I would like to know if I didn't get 
> the memo
> or if I've always been misunderstanding how we do things.

Well, as far as subscription news sites are concerned, I don't see that as any different from citing newspaper articles published before the advent of the Web.  If I use a modern-day news story, I'll cite it the same as a dead tree newspaper article --- the link is included as a courtesy.  If someone found that the /Canberra Times/ (or whoever) had hidden the article behind a login screen, or had removed it altogether, I certainly wouldn't expect the reference to be removed.  It would still be a valid reference, even if the link wasn't there.

You may as well remove citations of books because they can't be read online.  Or of documentaries, because the film was pulled from YouTube.


-- 
[[User:MarkGallagher]]