[WikiEN-l] A war on external links? Was: Inside Higher Ed: Does Wikipedia Suck?

[Matt Jacobs]

>
> Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 16:33:36 +0100
> From: Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] A war on external links? Was: Inside Higher
>        Ed: Does Wikipedia Suck?
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
>
> Matt Jacobs wrote:
> >> Anyway, the point is not that external links are systematically
> >> persecuted (they may be patchily persecuted); but that they now have few
> >> actual rights.
> >>
> >> Charles
> >>
> >>
> >
> > And why should links have any particular "rights"?  External links should
> be
> > justified in the same way as any addition to the article.  They may not
> > require the same verifiability standards, but they should be judged to be
> a
> > recommended place for further reading.  In some way or another, they
> should
> > add content the editors judge to be useful, and not simply be about the
> > subject.  Considering that for every good link I've seen inserted, I've
> also
> > seen one that was useless or even misleading or libelous, why would they
> > need any special protection?
> >
> The point would be no different from (say) unreferenced content: there
> the distinction between "may be removed" and "must be removed" is quite
> important. And there is the "right", not of the link but the editor
> adding it, to have "good faith assumed": other things being equal,
> assume that the link was added to help develop the encyclopedia. The
> onus is not always on the editor adding to an article to "justify"
> additions: that is a very unwiki-like attitude, if I may say so.
> > I see no reason why we need additional policy and bureaucracy
> specifically
> > for links.
> >
> >
> For one thing, the page WP:EL is very bureaucratic as it stands; the
> good part of it is the "maintenance and review" section, where templates
> for tagging links regarded as potential problems are mentioned.
>
> Also, this discussion thread reveals fairly clearly that there are
> differing views on the matter.
>
> Charles
>

 I see nothing unwiki-like in suggesting that a person should defend their
additions to an article when disputes arise.  That's a pretty standard
expectation in any collaborative environment.  There's no lack of assumption
of good faith involved in an editor removing an addition if they have reason
to believe it is not beneficial to the article.

Sxeptomaniac