[WikiEN-l] Fake it 'till you make it? Internal links that look like academic citations

[Stephen Bain]

On 2/27/08, Brian <Brian.Mingus at colorado.edu> wrote:
> If this is the policy I would be happy to come up with a database query that
> deletes all such references.

I think that would be rather difficult, even if it were desirable. An
average citation template, for example, will probably have several
internal links (eg, date, author, publication title) and you couldn't
even search for references with internal links but no external ones
(references to books for example, generally won't have external
links). That's without considering the different referencing systems!

Nevertheless, self-citing is not acceptable, and it should indeed be
removed where it is encountered. If something is cited in another
Wikipedia article, it's best to reference the source it cites
directly, rather than trying to reference it indirectly through that
other article.

-- 
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com