Quoting Will Beback will.beback.1@gmail.com:
William Pietri wrote:
Will Beback wrote:
WE can argue over how much of a positive improvement there'd be, but it's hard to argue that our articles are defaced by removing a link that isn't a source.
It's not hard at all, Will.
If you'd like to see how easy it is, go propose that we remove all external links that aren't sources. Or even just external links to sites where the subjects of articles self-publish. Or forget proposing. Just go do it.
You will find an ocean of people willing to tell you those links do indeed belong in the articles.
And once you have discovered that they are all in the encyclopedia for good encyclopedic reasons, then perhaps you'll have an easier time accepting that we are not willing to compromise the encyclopedia's content. Especially for something where even you admit the benefit is arguable, and where some of us argue that there is harm, not benefit at all.
William
I'm not proposing removing all external links, I'm proposing removing a small number of links.
I hope that you aren't saying that all external links provide value and we should never remove any external link that a well-meaning editor (or greedy website owner) adds. If we stopped deleting external links and removed the spam blacklist I predict we'd have more links than text, especially in some topics. We include a large variety of links because they provide encyclopedic value. If we determine that they don't provide that value then we delete them.
Will
This is a strawman. The point is that we shouldn't be removing links from an article unless those links are somehow damaging to the content. The distinction between a random blog or a spam link to buy cars and Michael Moore's personal website should be obvious.