Talk:History of Knoxville, Tennessee

Deletion of C-SPAN link
Recently, I added this link to this page (and several other similar links to similar pages). Shortly thereafter, it was reverted. I need to ask for discussion of this.

First, I not only added that link, but I also improved the categorization and the categories' sort order, and those improvements were deleted along with the link.

Secondly, the external link itself featured a variety of video tours, interviews, and discussions that are directly related to the history of Knoxville. For instance, there was an interview about the 1982 World's Fair, shot on the fairgrounds, with a woman who wrote a book on the topic, and both the book and the author (Woodward) were already mentioned in our article. There were there segments with another author (Neely) who is also mentioned by name in the article, and whose work is cited as article references at least five times. There are tours of the Blount Mansion and the Bijou Theatre, both of which are mentioned in the article. There is an interview with the official historian of Oak Ridge Laboratories. Each of these videos (as well as the others I have not mentioned) deal with one aspect or another of the history of Knoxville and/or its outlying areas.

I don't see how the addition of this link hurts anything in terms of the common sense test; I also don't see how it violates ELNO. I think that it offers additional resources for wiki readers who are interested in the history of Knoxville.

I am open to discussion of rationales for keeping the link off the page, but I would like to hear the specific rationale(s) first. Thanks KConWiki (talk) 02:44, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I was able to find the content you referred to, buried in a small frame tucked in-between a plethora of unrelated material for C-SPAN. I think the content fails WP:ELNO #1 & #8 specifically, not to mention the fact that your editing history overwhelmingly suggests that your sole criteria for inserting the link is that it is from C-SPAN.  Whatever the intention behind it is, the end result is the same in that it appears to be WP:LINKSPAM. - SudoGhost 03:50, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Let me respond to each of these (and please know that my intent is not to be contentious, and I also appreciate the need to patrol against spam and editors with less-than-noble intentions)...


 * buried in a small frame tucked in-between a plethora of unrelated material - I agree that there is other material at the header of the page, and that there are links to the pages for other cities prominently featured, but I don't think that the pertinent videos are that hard to find; They are just a quick scroll down from the top of the page.
 * ELNO #1 - Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a featured article. - I think that these do meet this criteria.
 * ELNO #8 - Direct links to documents that require external applications or plugins (such as Flash or Java) to view the content, unless the article is about such file formats. See rich media for more details. - I concede that I did not include any notation of this. Forgive my ignorance on this specific aspect of editing, but if I were to just note that Adobe Flash Player was required, that I would cover this objection?
 * your editing history overwhelmingly suggests that your sole criteria for inserting the link is that it is from C-SPAN - I make no secret at all that I assert that there is a ton of excellent content on a variety of topics that C-SPAN has put forth, and that I think that Wikipedia would benefit from selected links. (To quote from my own user page: "My interest in C-SPAN (which began in the early 1990s) has a commonality with my interest in Wikipedia (which began in the early 2000s) - Namely, that both are fantastic vehicles for the free exchange of ideas and information in a non-sound-bite manner, for any parties (expert or amateur) that are interested in taking the time to absorb the ideas and information offered. C-SPAN and Wikipedia go together like peanut butter and jelly, and I want to help give other Wiki users easy access to the great work that C-SPAN has done on a variety of topics.") However I would not be adding the links did I not specifically think that the pages involved (and their readers) would benefit from them. To use this example again - I can easily imagine a reader who has taken an interest in the history of Knoxville finding material of interest in the interviews and vignettes at this link. I have a more difficult time imagining a reader who clicks the link and finds it totally irrelevant, even if they did not find any material of specific interest to themselves. The other, already-existing links there are fine, but I think this one adds material that is pertinent and unique.
 * Whatever the intention behind it is, the end result is the same in that it appears to be WP:LINKSPAM. - I just dispute that it is linkspam. The closest thing I could find on that page is this: Review your intentions... ...If you are here to tell readers how great something is, or to get exposure for an idea or product that nobody has heard of yet, you are in the wrong place. I want to point out that practically every member of the U.S. Congress has a link on their article that points to their appearances on C-SPAN. I have never heard this referred to as spam. What I was essentially trying to do was the same thing with selected cities.

So, I appreciate you taking the time to read this, and again I want to emphasize that I am not trying to be a pain, and that I do appreciate the important contributions you make to keeping WP clean and unencumbered by unnecessary links. However, I do want to ask you to reconsider in the light of my comments above. I will not replace the Knoxville or other similar links that were reverted unless there is consensus to do so, however I am planning on going back and restoring whatever categories I added (such as "History of Tennessee" for this page) that got caught in the reverts.

KConWiki (talk) 05:15, 25 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Will this CSPAN page remain permanently, or will it go away after the show airs in October? Bms4880 (talk) 15:17, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi - Sorry, didn't check this page til just now. Actually, the interviews / tours / etc. all aired in October 2011, rather than not airing until Oct. 2012. Here is the link, and here is the wiki page I made about the School Bus & LCV program. KConWiki (talk) 02:05, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Timeline of Knoxville, Tennessee
What is missing from the somewhat recently created city timeline article? Please add relevant content! Contributions welcome. Thank you. -- M2545 (talk) 13:06, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on History of Knoxville, Tennessee. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080723130216/http://mcclungmuseum.utk.edu/newpermanent/archaeology/exhibition/woodland.html to http://mcclungmuseum.utk.edu/newpermanent/archaeology/exhibition/woodland.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110718182312/http://www.ci.knoxville.tn.us/about/histpresv.pdf to http://www.ci.knoxville.tn.us/about/histpresv.pdf

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Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 18:56, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

Floods and Sinkholes
So, there have been some floods and sinkholes in Knoxville after a couple months of torrential rains. Apparently there have been at least 4 people dead, should we add this to the history? Mrrusty (talk) 21:04, 27 February 2019 (UTC)