Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2010-08-01/ESR meter

Where is the dispute?
Just seeking help regarding the acceptability to links to commercial sites. See article ESR_meter talk page.

Who is involved?

 * User:Pol098
 * User:GS3

What is the dispute?
Just seeking help regarding the acceptability to links to commercial sites. See article talk page.

What would you like to change about this?
Just get some advice.

How do you think we can help?
Just get some advice on the acceptability of links to commercial sites.

Mediator notes

 * I've asked whether he/she would like to join in the mediation. --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 12:31, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Administrative notes
LTC b2412 Troops Talk MedCab Talk? 09:54, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Discussion
Why, hello there! I'm NicholasTurnbull, your friendly mediator here at the Mediation Cabal. I'll see what I can do to help you out. There appear to be two separate issues here:
 * What URLs are appropriate as sources for content included in the article ESR meter?
 * What URLs are appropriate for inclusion in the External links section of ESR meter?

These two issues are related to one another, as in both cases the primary intent is whether the content is "encyclopaedic" -- in turn, whether it adds encyclopaedic value to the article. This, in essence, boils down to whether including a particular source or external link strengthens the article's ability to be a tertiary reference on the subject. Verifiability has the following to say on this:
 * Articles should be based on reliable, third-party (independent), published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy; this avoids plagiarism, copyright violations, and unverifiable claims being added to articles. Sources should directly support the material as it is presented in an article, and should be appropriate to the claims made.

As goes the use of the URLs for a source, commercial websites owned by manufacturers of the devices in question would most likely not be "independent" in this sense; that is, they are not likely to be purely objective statements of facts to be used in the article. As far as this goes, the use of the URLs I've seen on the page as sources is probably not appropriate unless they present important objective statements of fact framed in the source's POV. I'd recommend assuming good faith about why the links were included, as it may not necessarily be the case that it was done for the purposes of financial gain. I'd respectfully suggest that perhaps they may not be sources, but if someone does know of specific information on there used for the actual content of the article it would be helpful if editors could note them here.

Now, onto the subject of the use of the URLs as external links. This tends always to be a difficult one, in fact, as Wikipedia articles obviously cannot include every conceivable link to every conceivable mention of a topic. I often have said to people that "Wikipedia is not Google", and that is the important thing to point out: external links should as I see it be included in an article where, much as with the verifiability of sources, the addition of the link is useful for the encyclopaedic content of the page -- not necessarily because they are considered useful to people visiting the page in general. So I'd like to put the following questions to both of you. Based on External links:
 * Can they be sources? Is there any information on those manufacturer's websites that explains in a third-party way something about ESR meters? Does this information meet the criteria in WP:V?
 * Can they be external links? Do they meet the criteria in External links? What is added to the article as a result of the external links being there? Note that this does not mean asking whether the links would be useful to someone looking into the topic on Wikipedia, but instead how it helps the information as an encyclopaedia article.

I'd really appreciate the input from anyone interested in this, by answering the these two questions -- reading the two policies, Verifiability and External links before commenting. It might just perhaps be the case that the editor(s) adding the external links could be unaware of the Wikipedia meaning of "sources" and "external links" -- with specific reference to encyclopaedic content?

Please discuss below. :) --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 12:30, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

When my contribution was questioned I wrote a long response on the Talk page which (without rereading it in detail) is probably pretty much everything I have to say. Basically there's not a lot of useful material on ESR meters. I created the ESR meter article and wrote what I'd hope to find if I wanted to learn about ESR meters. An ideological attitude to avoid commercial pages at all cost doesn't seem useful in this case. If anyone wants to delete references I have no objection, but please try not to lose, or leave unreferenced, useful information (e.g., principles of operation, use of meter for battery testing, PCB short location, etc.). If anyone wants to make changes or delete the whole article, I don't mind; I've nothing to gain from it as nobody has added anything I don't know. Pol098 (talk) 16:37, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Mi experience here is that commercial links need to be extremely well justified or they go. A couple years ago I edited anchor and linked to which is a genaral article about anchoring techniques but is on a commercial site and in a matter of minutes the link was deleted and I was accused of spamming.

Regarding ESR meter, I do not see any justification for commercial links. Bob Parker's link is to a commercial product. The same can be said about the link to "comparison of six ESR meters". It is a commercial site with an interest in selling their own products. The site "hints for techs using an ESR meter" is also about using specifically one of the previously mentioned commercial units. I do not believe this is encyclopedic knowledge or information. It is purely commercial.

I believe the purpose of Wikipedia is to be an encyclopedia, not a place where a hobbyist can come and find products or projects. There are plenty of other sites online for that.

The explanation as to the basics of how they work can be found on plenty of non-commercial pages. A quick Google search reveals quite a few in the first couple of pages and that is without looking too hard. (I have not looked at them in detail but they appear to be non-commercial at first sight.)


 * http://octopus.freeyellow.com/esr.html
 * http://ludens.cl/Electron/esr/esr.html
 * http://kakopa.com/ESR_meter/index.html
 * http://schematronics.blogspot.com/2008/07/esr-meter.html
 * http://members.shaw.ca/swstuff/esrmeter.html
 * http://members.multimania.co.uk/leeedavison/misc/esr/index.html

Interestingly the article at ezinearticles (dot) com/?What-is-ESR-Meter?&id=37998 is blocked by Wikipedia for reasons I do not know but it also has a good article on ESR meters.

I cannot see any need whatsoever to link to pages which are not only on commercial sites but are in fact promoting and selling specific instruments.

If a generic article about anchoring techniques is unacceptable because it is hosted on a commercial website even though it does not specifically promote or recommend any product in particular then pages dedicated to recommend and promote the sales of specific products are much more unacceptable.

I would propose getting rid of all commercial links in that page but I do not want to get into an editing war. GS3 (talk) 19:29, 9 September 2010 (UTC)


 * (I originally introduced the references objected to. I have no wish to maintain those links if the information can be referenced equally well; I don't want to be seen as the "defendant" presenting arguments "supporting" one side in some quasi-legal case, I don't care.) If you've got non-commercial links to document everything, that's great and I support using them. Personally I have no objection to links with commercial associations if they provide useful information rather than attempt to sell something, but if there is an equally informative non-commercial link it should be used every time. I'm not interested in promoting any product or company, but nor do I wish to emasculate articles for ritual purity. Another article where I have introduced a commercial link to support text is Freeview (UK) where I have used http://www.aerialsandtv.com, a website that I find has a great deal of very useful technical information but is maintained by an equipment supplier - maybe somebody would like to look at that article too. Pol098 (talk) 01:25, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Pol098, while I understand your arguments, what is being questioned here is not whether your intentions are straight or crooked but rather whether including those links is acceptable under Wikipedia's policies and, while I may be wrong, my understanding is that commercial links are not acceptable because they are suspect by their very nature and because links from here serve to promote them and give them traffic and credibility. Just like links to blogs are not acceptable even if they are not selling anything. It is my understanding that Wikipedia prefers to have no references than references supported by unacceptable links.

So, if you have no objection I will remove the commercial links and you or whoever feels like it can add references which conform with Wikipedia's policies. GS3 (talk) 18:09, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Is this mediation still live? If so, where is it taking place? Hipocrite (talk) 13:50, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Turnbull seems to be inactive at the moment. Xavexgoem (talk) 05:11, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I have gone ahead and revised the article. GS3 (talk) 18:19, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Pol098 last posted here on September 11 and did not respond to my post of September 12. I waited for six weeks and finally took the non response as an agreement to my proposal so I went ahead and removed the links from the article. It then took him just a few hours to revert some of my changes without consulting.

Maybe someone can explain to him some basic etiquette and manners because I do not think it is OK for him to disappear from this discussion and then revert changes while the issue is still being discussed here. GS3 (talk) 10:56, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Since this is still on the list of open cases, I'll say that I think that it is unreasonably restrictive to bar commercial links. We should understand that a company's site is very likely to be a primary source, and probably a biased primary source at that. I would certainly not want to describe a manufacturer's page about why their ESR meter is better as simply a "comparison of six meters" without saying who did it. Nonetheless, manufacturers' pages, like other partisan primary sources, are certainly usable as sources about themselves. An example of a good case for commercial citations would be if you have some secondary source that names the six leading manufacturers by market share, and you then provide an inline cite by each manufacturer's name with a relevant page. However, if you randomly add a few companies that make the meters without a secondary source to start with, someone might challenge that you have no reason to suppose that they provide a significant share of the market or are important enough to bother mentioning. There is also an unfortunately named policy WP:NOTDIR which sometimes is used to interfere with effective listings, though actually its text does not prohibit naming and linking to major manufacturers. In all cases the most crucial thing is to make sure the reader knows when a manufacturer is making a claim rather than Wikipedia or a secondary source. Wnt (talk) 20:04, 16 January 2011 (UTC)