Wikipedia talk:External links/Archive 35

External links in lists
The policy is a bit vague about how external links should be handled in stand alone lists. The example I came across is List of real estate companies of the Philippines. It includes links to the website of each company listed (as well as phone numbers). These external links come across as inappropriate to me, but I'm unsure. Any thoughts? Deli nk (talk) 13:22, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Seems promotional and inappropriate to me. IMO that list should be limited to companies that are bluelinked and/or reliably-sourced in a manner that establishes their significance. DonIago (talk) 15:10, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Then we need to make the guideline clearer, since such links are inappropriate. --Ronz (talk) 16:24, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Currently, the policy says, "Stand-alone lists or embedded lists should not be composed mainly of external links. These lists are primarily intended as internal navigational aids, not a directory of sites on the web." The word "mainly" suggests that including weblinks would be acceptable as part of a fuller listing.  How would you suggest making the guideline clearer?  Perhaps bringing in the concept of Wikipedia is not a business directory?  Deli nk (talk) 16:45, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I went through with a machete. I didnt actually check the philstar sources - they may just be adverts or directory listings and more should be removed. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  17:44, 4 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Let's get rid of the word "mainly". Any rare exceptions would be covered by IAR.- MrX 20:37, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
 * That would give "...lists should not be composed of external links" which might be confusing as worded. Is "...lists should not contain external links" consistent with your suggestion?  Deli nk (talk) 20:52, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes,, that would be better.- MrX 21:03, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree that the word mainly should go. --Dirk Beetstra T  C 03:25, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Since there seems to be agreement, I have made a slight change the wording. Deli nk (talk) 18:11, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

"Lists should not list external links" is going to be a problem. First, MrX's assertion aside, policing spam attracts editors who follow absolute rules absolutely. Secondly, we have a persistent problem with people interpreting "citation" as meaning "something enclosed inside ref tags". For some stand-alone lists, the 'external link' is a citation, but it's formatted exactly like an external link. We want those, both because they're appropriate at ELs in some cases (e.g., an official link to an organization that's being mentioned) and because they do verify the material (e.g., URLs to radio stations, in a list of radio stations).

What's meant by "should not be composed mainly of external links" is do not have a list whose contents are:


 * http://Radio1.com
 * http://Radio2.com
 * http://Radio3.com

nor even a list whose entire contents are:


 * Radio 1
 * Radio 2
 * Radio 3

but definitely do accept a list whose contents are:


 * Radio 1 – 91.1 FM. This is the first radio station to broadcast in this area.
 * Radio 2 – 94.5 FM. The second radio station founded; closed in 1998.
 * Radio 3 – 103.3 FM. The fifth radio station for this area; the name comes from the frequency number.

or (especially if each of these could be notable radio stations)


 * Radio 1 – 91.1 FM. This is the first radio station to broadcast in this area.
 * Radio 2 – 94.5 FM. The second radio station founded; closed in 1998.
 * Radio 3 – 103.3 FM. The fifth radio station for this area; the name comes from the frequency number.

And it is especially important to not end up with this:

List (redundant one)

 * Radio 1 – 91.1 FM. This is the first radio station to broadcast in this area.
 * Radio 2 – 94.5 FM. The second radio station founded; closed in 1998.
 * Radio 3 – 103.3 FM. The fifth radio station for this area; the name comes from the frequency number.

List (redundant)

 * Radio 1 – 91.1 FM. This is the first radio station to broadcast in this area.
 * Radio 2 – 94.5 FM. The second radio station founded; closed in 1998.
 * Radio 3 – 103.3 FM. The fifth radio station for this area; the name comes from the frequency number.

YouTube
Just a note about the change I just reverted:

The "YouTube" section needs to work equally well for both extremes on the whole YouTube-or-not-YouTube continuum. The first sentence is directed at the people who remove too many such links. The second sentence is directed at the people who add too many such links. Both of these positions are wrong, so we don't want to re-write it to favor either of them. The concept is neither "Although they're technically accepted, they're bad", nor is it "These are definitely permitted, as long as there is no LINKVIO here".

In general, YouTube links are more widely accepted now than they were when this section saw its last major re-write. The increased acceptance is due to an increase in the number of official channels and a change in people's expectations about rich content (i.e., more people have computers and internet connections that can stream video easily). WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:54, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I hear you. Please see how this new revision goes. Fleet Command (talk) 08:38, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
 * That looks acceptable to me. Thanks for boldly trying it.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:21, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah there is much more legal official material now than in the old days, when Youtube links where often under default assumption to link to copyright violations. That doesn't really apply anymore and many artists, broadcaster, institutions, universities use Youtube as as distribution media to offer (legal) content to the public.--Kmhkmh (talk) 09:06, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

External links in patent citations
There doesn't seem to be any info about how Template:Cite_patent creates an inline external link that by the nature of the code seems to be allowed. Should this and any other coded exceptions be addressed in this article?Timtempleton (talk) 19:35, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I certainly wish templates that create external links indicated the policies that apply, EL and REF in this case. At least this one documents recommended usage. --Ronz (talk) 22:22, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
 * User:Jonesey95 kindly informed me that the template isn't supposed to be used in the body of an article and updated the notes for that.  Didn't know that.Timtempleton (talk) 02:51, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
 * All I did was link to the existing guideline, specifically the section that includes this: "External links should not normally be used in the body of an article." The guideline seems pretty clear to me. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:20, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes - the guidelines for external linking are clear, except when templates are involved that automatically include an external link, as in the case I stumbled across with the cite patent template. More clarification is great in this case.Timtempleton (talk) 08:59, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm guessing that you didn't notice the bold text in this guideline's lead paragraphs. The external links guideline doesn't apply to citations. Many citation templates use external links, and as long as the templates are placed within &lt;ref> tags, there's nothing to worry about. - Eureka Lott 14:33, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Language
Any objection to this change? Nyttend (talk) 23:12, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
 * ELNO gets tossed around as if it were ELNEVER. I agree that normally we should avoid foreign language links, but I'm concerned about the implications of my former statement.... --Izno (talk) 23:22, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Preferred protocol for external links templates
Please note discussion, which may affect this page, at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Preferred protocol for external links templates. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits


 * Having found no consensus there, I have now opened an RfC on the matter. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:30, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

In-text links
I came here looking for some guideline regarding whether in-text external links are acceptable. I had always assumed they weren't and so expected to find a statement to that effect on this page, but I didn't. Is there some policy/guideline page that says anything about this subject? Everymorning (talk) 15:25, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Point 2 under WP:ELPOINTS. DonIago (talk) 15:30, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Everymorning (talk) 15:36, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
 * People still do it anyway. It says don't do it "normally" but "exceptions are rare", and then gives three examples: links to Wiktionary, Wikisource, external media. It should say "exceptions should be rare" cuz they're not really that rare, people do it -- mostly because of not knowing better, sometimes out of laziness or not caring. Drives you nuts. Wiktionary links are fine, but other than that external links don't belong in the body of the text. Herostratus (talk) 15:55, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

What's so special about broadcast media articles?
Yet in numerous broadcast media articles we have such abominations as Iowa Public Television and Wisconsin Public Television. Both fly in the face of the guidelines to avoid links to multiple pages in a single website and links to search results pages. The numerous links in those EL sections are clearly generated by searches of an [http://transition.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/tvq? FCC database] and a private company's database. Yet when I try to simplify the External links section by linking only to the databases themselves, I'm told by some media fanboy that linking to multiple search result pages is standard operating procedure. What gives? Why are broadcast media articles allowed to flout the guidelines when one simple link to the database itself could substitute for numerous links to numerous database search results? 32.218.33.187 (talk) 20:25, 18 May 2016 (UTC)
 * WP:ELPOINTS states that: "In the "External links" section, try to avoid separate links to multiple pages in the same website; instead, try to find an appropriate linking page within the site."
 * WP:LINKSTOAVOID adds that links to be avoided include: "Any search results pages, such as links to individual website searches, search engines, search aggregators, or RSS feeds."
 * We want users to find information in only one or two clicks, thus the FCC templates which link right to the station page. Your solution throws a user into the FCC database haphazardly without any guidance, where they have no idea where to type anything. We have them for every station, even a state network with 10-20 stations. Read WP:TVS; it's been unilaterally agreed to for a decade that an FCC template for each station is appropriate and meets ELNO just fine (and since the station's histories would just be repeating that it carried a state network over and over, we see no need to break out that monotonous information onto separate station pages at this point). The goal of Wikipedia is making information easy to access, not hard, and if it takes a template repeating 15 times, so be it. I stand by keeping the page as-is, and as for your 'fanboy' comment, I ask that you be WP:CIVIL.  Nate  • ( chatter ) 22:38, 18 May 2016 (UTC)
 * "haphazardly without any guidance, where they have no idea where to type anything."
 * Seriously, Mrschimpf? What about "call sign" or "city" are hard to understand? Wikipedia readers aren't morons. I ask that you treat them with a modicum of respect. (BTW, You still haven't addressed why the criteria you made up apply to broadcast media articles, but no others.) 32.218.33.187 (talk) 23:02, 18 May 2016 (UTC)
 * You're the only editor in eleven years who has had an objection to the use of TVQ's (along with AMQ/FMQ for their radio sisters), so I stand by the use of them as common MO for all broadcasting pages. Again, the common TVS policy has been linked for you to read; any objections, the talk page is next door. And I never made any aspersions about the ability of readers to understand; we link them to the proper information (in this case a government agency where all of the information is known and true), and the goal of an external link should never to be to confuse or frustrate the reader, no matter their level of understanding. The main FCC query page could easily do that. There is no "made-up criteria", but common policy that all the possible information is linked out in a page.  Nate  • ( chatter ) 01:32, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Look, Mrschimpf, if I had wanted to have a two-way discussion with you about this matter, I would have taken this issue to your talk page. But I already know from your repeated ownership behavior what you think. I brought the matter here so that disinterested parties could weigh in on the matter. So why don't you just stop wikistalking me, sit on your hands for a while, and give some objective editors a chance to comment? 32.218.33.187 (talk) 02:58, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * If you have an editing issue, you're supposed to inform the conflicting party; you did not, I found it was being discussed and said why I reverted your edits. I also meant WP:TVS's talk page, not mine, and all editors are free to comment on anything here. You're removing common templates without any discussion, which can be considered vandalism, and you're refusing to discuss the issue civilly. Again, I invite you to bring this up at WT:TVS for interested parties in the subject to comment on.  Nate  • ( chatter ) 04:08, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

The IP did correctly, and bring the discussion to a relevant noticeboard (this is not an issue where a local wikiproject can overrule policies/guidelines, so this should be brought to a wider audience). I can agree that it would have been good form to notify an editor with whom they ran into this issue. Nate, you are asking the editor to be civil, but "You're removing common templates without any discussion, which can be considered vandalism, and you're refusing to discuss the issue civilly .." is a chilling and contradicting comment in itself, implying that the editor, who in good faith tried to improve the page as they had concerns that the links were improper, is a vandal.

Now back to the subject of the issue - those linkfarms. And User:Mrschimpf, the criteria you give are in conflict with our inclusion standards - "We want users to find information in only one or two clicks" <-> we are not writing an internet directory for finding database entries for radio stations which are indirectly connected to the subject of the page (see WP:ELNO). Moreover, the technical information provided by the links does not help in helping the understanding of the subject of the page, and much of the necessary data can be incorporated (and sometimes already is) incorporated into the page (and could/should then be used as a reference for that specific piece of information, which it sometimes should but is not). As such, even if those lists are there for years (see WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS), they can still be in violation of our inclusion standards, and I second the IPs concerns and think that they should be removed (in fact, they should now even be removed until there is consensus on inclusion - and even a unilateral consensus from one wikiproject does NOT overrule policies and guidelines, and this local consensus is completely against the broader consensus of said policies and guidelines). --Dirk Beetstra T C 05:07, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * So the removal of a common template which has been used without incident for eleven years can be considered 'not vandalism'? The TVQ template leads to government information about television stations (and literally sources all aspects of Infobox TV, so basically we would have to remove it and nearly everything involving the infobox or a station's technical info), and you're asking us to overrule a decade-long consensus for the sake of page beautification brought up by one IP. I've been trained for years to assume blanking a template(s)=vandalism. Apologies if I have been mislead on that and that I have been working off TVS consensus over the years and that it's apparently in conflict of NOT#DIRECTORY I've never heard of before. This should be brought to a broader forum, I agree, but my asking of the proposal to take this to WT:TVS was merely to inform interested editors of the issue so that someone in TVS with template experience might be able to figure out a solution to this for state networks and which would apply in turn to WP:WPRS, which uses the same design for the AMQ/FMQ templates. If my statement was chilling, I do apologize for that but there needs to be some kind of consensus before a widely-used template is removed wholesale from pages.  Nate  • ( chatter ) 17:21, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * This is about the lists in the external links sections - you are now suggesting that it is referencing the information in the infoboxes, then it should be a proper reference for that information, not an external link. And on the articles references, they are just a directory and certainly not linked to the infobox (the links removed in this edit are not references to any infobox information - they could be a reference on the individual station's articles, but also there not an external link).  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 06:31, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 21 May 2016
The name of the movie used in sample external links should be "Babbette's Feast" rather than "Babette's Feasts"

Ccvickery (talk) 22:10, 21 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done — Andy W.  ( talk  · ctb) 22:51, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

interwiki in-text links


Is a link to a foreign language wiki regarded an external link? Should such inline links (like the picture's caption on the right at the Wroclaw article) to foreign wikis be avoided? HerkusMonte (talk) 16:54, 31 May 2016 (UTC)
 * No, it's not regarded as an external link, although some interwiki links to non-Wikipedia sites are available, and I think consensus would support treating them with extreme caution (that is, remove them unless very helpful for the article concerned). Sorry I don't have the information at hand, but there is a page somewhere saying that links to other-language Wikipedias are ok if no enwiki article is available. In fact, Interlanguage link (or its redirect Ill) can be used for that. Like every piece of text in an article, people might discuss whether an interwiki link is helpful and if it should be removed. However, there is no guideline supporting removal. Johnuniq (talk) 00:27, 1 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks, German wiki has such a policy, thought it would be the same here. HerkusMonte (talk) 06:50, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

Question about (9 July 2016).
According to WP:ELMAYBE, ''the recommendation to consider professional reviews as external links was repealed [...]. The reviews should instead be used as sources in a "Reception" section''. Why then is the only one professional review to have a template, and where should it be used? Thanks. (Ps: the problem has arisen here). --Mauro Lanari (talk) 11:52, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
 * External links doesn't explain why AllMovie is an exception with a template of its own. --Mauro Lanari (talk) 15:41, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
 * AllMovie isn't one review only. It aggregates film metadata and user rating too. In that respect, it is like IMDb.  Fleet  Command ( Speak your mind! ) 17:12, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

wanting agreement before allowing these changes
An editor (User:Fuhghettaboutit) has changed "should not" (link to copyrighted material) to "may not" link to copyrighted material, which is stronger language. I'm not saying its wrong I'm just pointing this out.

Also the editor changed the text to clarify or specify that copyrighted material may not be linked to anywhere in the Wikipedia, including talk pages. This new language would disallow, on a talk page, something like "Look at this link, I think its copyrighted but I'm not sure, what do you guys think?

I'm not saying any of this is necessarily wrong, but let's get agreement that this is an improvement before doing, and the editors should do this for important rules generally. Herostratus (talk) 22:47, 22 July 2016 (UTC)
 * This is an improvement. Walter Görlitz (talk) 04:11, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Better, indeed. I suggest to revert again to the improved version (though continuing discussion if needed).  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 05:00, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Victim hotlines
Was suggested to post this question here. Replies would be most helpful if made on Talk:Domestic violence.

Regarding this article, is there any precedence for not including a portion of the external links section for large, national, almost certainly non-profit, victim hotlines? I realize WP is not for advocacy, but I'm not sure victim advocacy is really the type that policy is worried about. Comments welcome. Timothy Joseph Wood 21:49, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

What do I do if I find a hijacked link?
The article says that links can be hijacked (i.e. the domain expires and someone unrelated takes it), but doesn't say what to do about it. It's not a dead link, so I shouldn't add Template:Dead link. But what should I do? The article as it is doesn't say. -Thunderforge (talk) 01:08, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
 * The quick answer is to remove any external link that is not useful for readers with an encyclopedic interest in the topic (that is, which does not satisfy WP:EL). Sometimes, perhaps on more technical articles, it might be apparent that the link might have had really useful information and I have sometimes Googled trying to find if there is a new location so I can update the link. If a reference includes a hijacked link...well, that's a matter for some other noticeboard I guess, but I might use an HTML comment to remove such a link if I couldn't find an update. Johnuniq (talk) 01:50, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
 * The quick answer is to cite the specific version of the page that did have useful information on it, using the method at Help:Using the Wayback Machine if you don't have time to find a better reference. "Do not delete a URL solely because the URL does not work any longer." -- Link rot. --DavidCary (talk) 17:03, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

Text changes re link to copyvio
I think we went through this before, a while back? Not sure. Anyway, an editor (User:Fuhghettaboutit) made a change; I've bolded some text just to highlight the change (there's no bolding in the actual text). She changed this:
 * ''Policy: material that violates the copyrights of others per contributors' rights and obligations should not be linked

to this:
 * ''Policy: material that violates the copyrights of others per contributors' rights and obligations may not be linked anywhere on Wikipedia

This may be an improvement, but I've reverted it for the time being for the following reasons and invite discussion toward consensus first.
 * 1) It is almost never a good idea to make substantial changes to policies without discussing beforehand. This is an exception to WP:BOLD. Otherwise there's always the danger of substantive policy changes slipping in without really being broadly accepted. I've seen this.
 * 2) On the merits of scope, I'm not certain that this page should proclaim a policy that covers all pages and all situations of the Wikipedia, rather than just external links. I would think that WP:External links should perhaps limit itself to just proclaiming rules about external links? So if this sentence should indeed be a rule, perhaps it should go one of the copyright rule pages.
 * 3) On the merits of the rule itself, this new text would forbid someone writing, on a talk page, "Hey guys take a look at this link [link]. I think it's OK but it might be copyvio, can I get some opinions on whether it is OK to include as an external link?" I think we want to be careful about forbidding questions like that so I would like to see more discussion on that first.

Since the section ways "editors are restricted from linking to the following, without exception", it seems certain that the new text is OK. Is it helpful? It just doubles and triples down on the restriction which is fine, but makes doubly sure that a #3 type link on a talk page or on the EL noticeboard would be reverted on sight, and that seems the likely main difference. Do we want to be doubly sure of this?

Also, WP:COPYVIO "Copyright infringing material should also not be linked to" and it then points to this page. This seems odd since these kind of infringing links are also likely to come up as reference citation links. It should link to WP:COPYLINK you'd think, and WP:COPYLINK might be the place for this material, or maybe it should be in both places. Herostratus (talk) 17:00, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Google translate links
I have started a discussion about the use of Google translate links in citations and external links sections. Please comment there. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:22, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Ancestry.com
We have around 25 pages with links to the home page of ancestry.com, for example, on Joseph F. Ambrose, we have:



and:



Is there any reason no to remove the URL from these citations, and convert them to Cite census, or whatever suits the particular case? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:31, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I would indeed strongly suggest to make those links more correct, either deeplink to the correct information, or replace them with a reference that backs up the claim. --Dirk Beetstra T  C 20:33, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

PDFs - Acceptable or not?
There appears to be a view: External_links/Noticeboard that PDFs are unacceptable as ELs. This is ridiculous, let us clarify forthwith that they are acceptable. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:23, 28 August 2016 (UTC)


 * The most recent thread I found, from 2012, was Wikipedia_talk:External_links/Archive_33, where the only concern seemed to be "browser-based exploits". But we allow them in citations, which readers are also expected to click on to veify material. Allowing them in one place but not another doesn't make sense to me. Disallowing PDFs as sources (assuling they otherwise meet the standards) doesn't make sense to me, nor does having a technical prohibition that applies to one set of links but not another, placed right next to them. The current dispute aside, this prohibition may be outdated or poorly conceived. Felsic2 (talk) 00:31, 28 August 2016 (UTC)


 * It should be a source if it's that type of document. EL's are supposed to elucidate on the article.  Opening up EL's to documents, videos, etc, just get around the WP:RS requirement.  It would be a BLP nightmare if we allow exceptions that aren't easily verifiable as directly topical to the article.  --DHeyward (talk) 01:38, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Not always. For example, I know of many large government projects that are notable, and that can be sourced to very detailed documents, but the gov't agency overseeing the project also offers a "easy" fact sheet. We'd likely never reference the fact sheet, opting to use the more technical sources, but an EL to the fact sheet seems completely appropriate. I agree that many PDFs can be used directly as references, but not always, and there's clearly no disallowance to link to PDFs as long as they are being published by the agency that has the copyright to them (eg no links to things like academia.com copies). --M ASEM (t) 02:00, 28 August 2016 (UTC)


 * I don't see how allowing PDFs would alter the BLP landscape. The same rules should apply to content regardless of whether the link goes to a PDF or HTML page. A PDF is just as verifiable, or unverifiable, as a webpage. Felsic2 (talk) 02:09, 28 August 2016 (UTC)


 * it's easily seen in the case you are trying to shoehorn in. vpc.org is not linkable at the root level as it is a partisan, political organization with a prominent "Donate Here" button.  Outside the WP article on vpc.org where it would be ELOFFICIAL, it should never be an external link.  The fact that they created a pdf doesn't separate them from that problem.  That's quite different from 's example of a summary from reliable sources (though our article should summarize such a document making linking unnecessary as it is included in the article and sourced to the same detailed, technical source that the summary used - e.g. a "good article" on global warming would include the essential "Summary for policy Makers" statements in the article, sourced to the details.  The EL would be to IPCC as a whole, not the pdf summary for policy makers.).  The pdf Felsic2 is proposing doesn't pass muster at the site level even though the pdf is written to look like "research."  vpc.org is a partisan advocacy site and linking to the site brings up political donation requests.  The pdf is buried and hides it but doesn't change the character of the authors.  Youtube hosts a number of videos in very common formats and there are very few that I would trust as a direct EL for a living person simply because it's so easy to publish without review.  Ubiquity of the player is not a reason to bypass the guideline and we should be linking to straightforward sites that can provide the pdf or youtube link as their own reference.  Directly linking and deep liking is problematic and is one of the reasons ELNO exists.  --DHeyward (talk) 10:48, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

I don't see why we should exclude material just because it is a pdf. We do have discouraging rules for material that needs special software to be installed, but since pdf displaying software is quite widespread that should not be too much of a hurdle here. We do of course have to comply with the rest of the inclusion standards as described by this guideline (e.g., no linkfarms of 50 pdfs, or links to tangentially related pdfs after we have here decided that pdfs are fine). --Dirk Beetstra T C 03:32, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * This is moot. PDFs are already in widespread use on Wikipedia as references and external links. There is no impending "BLP nightmare" to fear. PDF is just a document format, like HTML, XML, doc, txt, etc.- MrX 03:33, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * That's not the full story. There was a time when viewing a pdf could install malware on the computer of anyone using the Adobe reader. Adobe would patch the bug, and a few days later a new disaster would be discovered. That went on for a couple of years and is an indication that Adobe software is fundamentally broken and should not be relied on for any purpose on the Internet. That consideration does not rule out pdf links because obviously they are useful and are used, but the story is more complicated than "PDF is just a document format". Johnuniq (talk) 03:42, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * You can say the same, only worse, for links to HTML documents. If there is a security problem with the web at large, then we must have no ELs whatsoever, anywhere. We don't even link to "HTML" anyway, we link to a HTTP URL and that can return anything it likes. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:22, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * with respect to this guideline, pdf is not a document format like HTML, txt - the browser you are using to display this page is interpreting HTML and txt. The browser is not capable of reading a pdf or a doc, by far most browsers do need an external piece of software for that to be installed.  That most people have that installed (or even that that is standard installed) is not a reason to plainly include it, it still falls under the #8 rule and editors still need to keep that in mind when adding external links, even to pdfs.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 03:43, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks, but I understand quite well how documents work and PDF is a document format and technically HTML is markup language. My point about it being extremely common still applies. This particular guideline serves no practical purpose and is apparently stuck in c. 2003.- MrX 04:36, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * No, it does generalise - there are places where computer technology is not that advanced and where pdfs are not necessarily easy to access (we had a discussion along those lines not too long ago). But I fully agree that pdfs are extremely widely used and commonly installed (I said something along those lines in my initial post).  That does not make this a 'html, pdf, xml, txt, etc. etc. are all free to add here'-place.  Even for pages which are fully html are restricted under parts of our 'links to avoid'.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 05:18, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * There is also the concern that direct linking bypasses the publisher. A pdf can be generated to look like it is a Nature article but if it's hosted and buried in a psuedoscience site, our readers won't know.  Where it lives is important context both in evaluation for the reader and other editors.  Direct linked PDFs hide the nature of the parent as do other formats.  Their should be a page that is simple html on the parent website that references these pdfs or videos.  If those pages are press releases or partisan/pov sites, it's a much better indication of the usefuleness of the document for an external link.  For example we wouldn't want a direct link to a creationist websites pdf that looks like reviewed and neutral material on evolution.  Coupled with the realization that n EL to the top level creationist site would be innapropriate in a evolution article, it becomes pretty obvious why we want simple, direct links that show the source of the material and not a link that triggers a reader that hides the source.  --DHeyward (talk) 11:06, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Most of those are better reasons for excluding PDFs from citation than from external links. Is there any reason why we'd allow them one place but not another? Felsic2 (talk) 21:32, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Can we come up with some language to express when a PDF link would be acceptable in an external link or citation? Felsic2 (talk) 19:30, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Best archive date
Hi there,

When choosing an archive url for a citation, should I use a date closest to the  parameter (in the cite web template) or the date in which the url first appears in the article? - Tim 1357  talk 04:03, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Closest to the access date. Edits can be made to web sources for corrections. Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:02, 24 September 2016 (UTC)


 * But in the case when there is no accessdate, then I should find an archive closest to the date of first addition to the article? Tim  1357  talk 02:02, 25 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Also, is it appropriate to set the access-date to the date of first addition to the article, if it was not present in the template before? Tim  1357  talk 02:07, 25 September 2016 (UTC)
 * If there is no accessdate... access the article and then find the closest archive. If you did not access the article on the date of first addition, then the accessdate is not an accessdate for you, and if you didn't add it then, you don't know what it said then. --Izno (talk) 03:26, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Need help figuring out how to best edit the hatnote for this article, to allow a more intuitive redirect
I was editing a company article and saw that someone had put in multiple external links to different product sections on the company website. I knew that was a no-no, and went to find the guidelines on external links to confirm. I typed in "external link" in the Wikipedia search box, and clicked on the result, which was a redirect to Internal link. I thought - that's strange - and changed the redirect to External links. I then realized that people looking for information about external links outside of the context of Wikipedia were going to be left hanging. There's nothing in the hatnote for this article to help those readers. In addition, since WP:EL already links to this article, I can't figure out how to add a note saying "external links redirects here." If someone could fix the hatnote to let readers know a) that both the WP:EL and external links articles redirect here, and 2) that for information about external links in web coding, they should go to Hyperlink, I could then make the redirect more intuitive. The internal links and Hyperlink articles should probably also be merged, with a subsection in the Hyperlink article covering the difference between external versus internal, but that's a bigger task.Timtempleton (talk) 20:03, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
 * External link redirects to Internal link which already has a hatnote at the top with a link to External links, so nothing needs to be done. "Wikipedia:" in front of External links means it's not an article in the encyclopedia but a page in the Project namespace which is for editors and not readers. The search box is mainly for readers and only searches articles by default. Add "wp:" in front of a search to search project space instead. There generally shouldn't be redirects from mainspace (articles) to other namespaces except in rare cases for terms which are implausible search terms for readers. See Cross-namespace redirects. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:43, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Based on what you're saying, then the only thing to do would be to merge the internal links and hyperlink articles.Timtempleton (talk) 18:08, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Using cite web in External links section?
Can the template cite web be used for External links section? For example, instead of:


 * Philippine Standard Geographic Code: Abra

wouldn't it be better to have provide details like:



— Sanglahi86 (talk) 07:27, 11 October 2016 (UTC)


 * there are no restrictions to using a template to provide the link (we also have specialised external-links templates, like official website), and I agree that that in some cases gives more clarity. --Dirk Beetstra T  C 07:37, 11 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much for the information. Sanglahi86 (talk) 07:47, 11 October 2016 (UTC)


 * If you need to use Cite web, you might like have a "Further reading" section instead. See MOS:LAYOUT for details.  Fleet  Command ( Speak your mind! ) 12:41, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I see no reason why Cite web cannot be used on regular external links either .. . --Dirk Beetstra T  C 13:31, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Then its a good thing I didn't say "don't use it there". But if you have anything against reading MOS:LAYOUT or just considering a "Further reading" section, please don't hold back.  Fleet  Command ( Speak your mind! ) 22:54, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Sanglahi86, please see WP:ELCITE (especially the paragraph under the colorful example), which discourages the use of citation templates. In particular, a visible access date is inappropriate for these links, because ==External links== need to be working every day, and get removed immediately if the link is dead, so the fact that it worked on a particular date is irrelevant. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:10, 29 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much for the valuable information. I will keep that in mind. Sanglahi86 (talk) 14:00, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
 * There are multiple "correct" ways to do this. If I were adding the link, then I might choose something like this:
 * Philippine Standard Geographic Code for Abra from the Philippine Statistics Authority
 * But this is only one option among many. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:38, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

These links are acceptable
User:Comfr, the problem with saying "the external links in the mobile phone article are acceptable" is that we don't know that they're acceptable in every single version of that page. We know that they were acceptable (in your opinion) in the particular revision of the article that you happened to see. We also know that another editor, who looked at exactly same set of external links as you, disagreed with your claim that those links were all acceptable. But we don't know if editors who read this guideline tomorrow, or next month, or next year, and who go to that article to see examples of what's acceptable will actually find only "acceptable" links there. Based on the article's history, they will probably find only acceptable links, but they might find a pile of spam.

So we're not going to tell them "here's a good example (90% of the time)". We're instead going to say "Don't put this kind of bad link in that kind of article, because we're tired of reverting spam". WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:35, 1 November 2016 (UTC)


 * User:WhatamIdoing, thanks for bringing this up. I agree with everything you say.  My only problem is dealing with a double negative.  The first negative is the section title, "Links normally to be avoided."  Everything is that section is about what not to do.  Then I get to item 5, containing an example with a second negative, "does not link."  The implication here is that the example contains only good links, which as you pointed out, might always be true.


 * I reworded the sentence, only because I was confused the first time I read it. No matter how the sentence is worded, the external links in the phone article may be changed at any time.  (Thanks for pointing this out.)  For consistency, I suggest either remove the example entirely, or provide an example of something that is not allowed.  The section contains two other examples.  One example proposes alternatives, and the other example demonstrates prohibited links.


 * How about, "For example, an article about cell-phones must not link to web pages that mostly promote or advertise cell-phone products or services."


 * Thanks for your many contributions to Wikipedia. Comfr (talk) 23:31, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
 * We used to have much more trouble with this sort of link. I haven't seen so much of it recently, though – although User:Beetstra will have a much more informed opinion.  What do you think, Dirk?  Can we omit the example altogether, or should we try to find a way to make it clearer?  WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:23, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
 * The 05:59, 31 October 2016 edit changed the example to read In contrast, the external links in the mobile phone article are acceptable, because they do not link to web pages that mostly promote or advertise cell-phone products or services. That is not satisfactory for the reason explained by WhatamIdoing above. There is no problem with the current wording, and it is not a problem if a reader has to pause and think about the issue to understand WP:ELNO#5. Johnuniq (talk) 01:18, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
 * As sole links I do not see this too much either (anymore). I do see sometimes that they are added as extra links (one official page, and then a sales page on the same domain), but that is also infrequent.  Of course, many official homepages of subjects will fail, strictly reading, WP:ELNO (often an about page is more neutral, as we tend to demand on whitelisting).
 * I am thinking .. For example, an article about mobile phones should not link to a page selling or promoting many different mobile phones, but rather could link to a page giving a neutral overview of many different mobile phones (suggested sentence for further discussion). --Dirk Beetstra T  C 03:21, 3 November 2016 (UTC)


 * What initially confused me was the word, "does," instead of "must" or "should." The above suggestion is much better, because User:Beetstra uses the word  "should."  I would support any change that eliminates the word "does."  Comfr (talk) 16:56, 3 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Have we reached consensus? If will wait a few more days, and if no one objects, I will change "does not" to "should not."    Comfr (talk) 04:04, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

academia.edu
This diff is my response to who has been posting several links to the personal profile of Frans Van Droogenbroeck on the registration-required academic social (or professional) networking site academia.edu. I have asked the user for a rationale for such links, but in the meantime have reverted them. It might be that there are open access versions of sources authored by that individual available through his profile on that site, but even if this is the case I am very leery of external links to the social (or professional) networking sites of individuals who are not the subject of the article in which the link is placed. If these are open access publications, one would assume they would be available on official sites of publishers or institutions, as well as on the author's personal social networking page. It seems to me that this might skirt the line of acceptability, and I would appreciate a word about consensus of which side of the line it falls. --Andreas Philopater (talk) 13:42, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
 * There's an example at this diff of somebody linking to resources on academia.edu rather than to a profile. That seems to me to come down just the other side of acceptability, but what is the consensus? --Andreas Philopater (talk) 15:28, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
 * It's blatant spamming by Witger. --Ronz (talk) 18:06, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

External links to user-generated pages
Under, should "Blogs, personal web pages and most fansites (negative ones included), except those written by a recognized authority" also specify largely user-generated content sites such as the Internet Movie Database? Identifying reliable sources includes such sites under Self-published sources, which are "largely not acceptable". —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 01:06, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I tend to regard IMDB as a 'wiki'. IMDB is not reliable, and not suitable as a reference.  Although I do personally not fully agree with it, IMDB on a subject generally contains more information and detail than what Wikipedia articles on the same subject should include, and therefore IMDB is generally included as an external link.  See WP:ELPEREN.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 03:12, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Rapidly changing data
I suggest that "Links to be considered" should inlcude information that is subject to frequent change. One often sees lists and tables on Wikipedia that are a maintenance nightmare. They either need constant attention to keep up to date, or any ever growing procession of snapshots have to be posted periodically. It is much better for our readers to refer them to the accurate source information. SpinningSpark 15:48, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Good point. In my experience, "rapidly" just means faster than editors will or can be expected to maintain. This is a huge problem, and it would be nice to develop guidelines to address it. --Ronz (talk) 16:24, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
 * The article that prompted this is FTSE MIB which gets reviewed every three months. It is currently entirely out of date and no hope that it will ever be properly maintained.  Things that change no more than annually may have a case to be here; it is possible that someone might take an annual snapshot and that kind of historic information is what an encyclopaedia should be about, but any more frequently and we are just posting WP:NOTNEWS.  That's not the only example, several others spring to mind.  Rubik's cube contains information on current solver record holders.  That changes very frequently, but I have to admit it is kept reasonably up to date because the holders are always keen to see it is.  Other bad ones are various lists of military strength and hardware by country (sorry, I can't give you any links, I took them off my watchlist years ago because they were such a chore to watch over).  Those are a bit more of a difficult case because they tend to be referenced (if they are referenced at all) from a great variety of sources. SpinningSpark 17:18, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I think you should consider talking to WP:WikiProject Wikidata about this issue. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:10, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Wikidata is not and was not set up to combat rapidly changing data. Rapidly changing data is one of the motivating factors for the Commons data sets projects which was just deployed to Commons. --Izno (talk) 00:28, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't think that this is rapidly changing data. I think this is just a lot of data – with possibly a new number each day.  The fact that the stock index will be X tomorrow does not change the fact that it was A last Tuesday and B last Wednesday.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:13, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * For the purposes of Wikidata, rapidly changing is basically anything changing on the basis of monthly periods or smaller. (I don't know why you're arguing your opinion&mdash;I'm telling you this as a fact from the Wikidata point of view.) --Izno (talk) 13:08, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm trying to figure out why you say that this data is changing. The number for 31 December 2016 will never change.  Once entered, that data point should never be changed.  You will get more data each day, but the prior data should remain unchanged.
 * Now, perhaps Wikidata does not want to have datasets that contain daily information (e.g., amount of precipitation in a given location each day, historical stock or commodity prices, etc.). But "we don't do daily data" is not the same thing as "we don't do information that changes".  Historical prices don't change.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:26, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * The number for 31 December 2016 will never change.  Once entered, that data point should never be changed.  You will get more data each day, but the prior data should remain unchanged. That's a rather pedantic way at looking at what I said originally. But sure, I don't disagree with you now. --Izno (talk) 17:45, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

External links in foreign languages
The Lists of Soviet films article shows people -- directors and actors -- either without links at all, or redded-out -- who actually have significant articles in Russian language Wikipedia. Certainly better than nothing, so I tried inserting such a link (with the language flag). Unfortunately when I paste it into the edit box, Cyrillic becomes gobbledygook: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9C%D0%B5%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B2,_%D0%92%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%B9_%D0%92%D1%8F%D1%87%D0%B5%D1%81%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87 (this is for the Russian article for director Мельников, Виталий Вячеславович -- film director Vitaly Melnikov). Is there a way to add links to other language articles so they remain legible (in that language) in the edit box AND functional? LADave (talk) 20:06, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Try Мельников,_Виталий_Вячеславович. - MrOllie (talk) 20:28, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
 * You can still use the ru article's title. That said, maybe you should instead use Template:ill with WD and/or the Russian link. --Izno (talk) 20:43, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Official website template
A bot is changing all instances of links to official websites to official website. It has something to do with Wikidata.

The guideline says: "Use of the template official website is optional." Because of that, I've asked the bot operator to stop until consensus is established, but he argues that this is a trivial issue. Is he correct that no one will mind, do you know? SarahSV (talk) 16:25, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
 * In general, I'm against forcing editors to use templates such as these. They add another layer of objects that an editor has to keep an eye on, and any future changes to the format of the template may make the display different to other external links in an article. I haven't seen a convincing argument as to why mandating the use of templates on external links would help this wiki. Hchc2009 (talk) 16:29, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks . I believe the eventual aim is that they would be controlled by Wikidata. Where is the best place for the bot operator to ask for consensus if he wants to continue? SarahSV (talk) 17:05, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I'd suggest an RfC here? It is this guideline which would need changing, and an RfC would give it wider visibility. Hchc2009 (talk) 17:12, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Good idea. Okay, I'll suggest that. SarahSV (talk) 17:43, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
 * The discussion with the bot operator is at User talk:Ladsgroup. SarahSV (talk) 16:42, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Before noticing this, I put some details at WP:External links/Noticeboard. I haven't thought much about the issue but there are dubious features. First, someone monitoring a few articles would have to also monitor the Wikidata pages (not easy in practice!) if they wanted to see when a passing editor or spammer had changed the official website. Second, the move increases the general techno-babble associated with editing—wikitext is gloriously simple and using unnecessary templates is, well, unnecessary. Third, it is only a matter of time before someone cleverly makes official website also show the "official" Facebook/Twitter/Fad-of-the-day URLs, not to mention the "official" websites for every continent and more. Johnuniq (talk) 00:12, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I would revert that last problem as a pillar violation, though I can see that we then get a discussion over that which is going to be a battle. And that over and over if it at first doesn't succeed.
 * It does indeed also increase the number of targets for spammers. WikiData will now have to handle that for all wikis ...
 * Then I noticed the following issue, which is believe is going to make editors mad beyond believe (it already had me) .. blacklisting the official site can result in funny problems. It is now technically possible to add an official site (through WikiData) while it is blacklisted here.  And the 'next editor' on the page will run into the spam-blacklist filter while not adding external links.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 03:39, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
 * "...it is only a matter of time before..." please avoid such FUD. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:50, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
 * the first copy of official website has already sprung in existence, where practically every transclusion that I have seen was a violation of our inclusion standards .. I don't think that this is FUD, it is reality/Murphies Law. --Dirk Beetstra T  C 17:57, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Te template has many benefits. It populates categories such as
 * Category:Official website not in Wikidata
 * Category:Official website missing URL
 * Category:Official website different in Wikidata and Wikipedia

We can't enforce people use it but we continue using a bot to convert links. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:12, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

The code was improved to recognise minor changes as slashes. Opposing the categories is not beneficial in any way. Wikidata was created in order to reduce inconsistency between various Wikipedia sites. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:47, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
 * 1 and 3 are not beneficial to Wikipedia. I don't care at all if the website is different here or there. And 2 is empty (but that may be due to other bot work of course, I don't know). 1 and 3 each already have some 20,000 articles in them, so that's another artificial backlog of 40,000 articles thanks to Wikidata and some bots. 60 Minutes supposedly has a different official website here and on Wikidata. Ours is http://www.cbsnews.com/60-minutes/ Wikidata has http://www.cbsnews.com/60-minutes . Hurrah, lost a minute to find out that we have a "/" at the end which they are missing, but which makes zero difference. What an utter waste of time and resources. I guess some general discussion about the Wikidata invasion is needed (at Wikiproject Cycling, they have trouble enough stopping enthusiastic Wikidata spammers from taking over our layout as well, even though the Wikidata layout doesn't even follow the accessability guidelines), but for now let's simply and clearly oppose this template, these categories, and the bots adding the template everywhere. Fram (talk) 13:45, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Fram Adding this step in the conversion, protects Wikidata too. In the past we had problems with data insertion from English Wikipedia.
 * I couldn't give a flying fuck about protecting Wikidata from bots, it's hard enough protecting enwiki from bots and semi-automated editing. Wikidata was a minor good idea when it was used for interwikilinks. Now, not so much (if at all). "The code was improved to recognise minor changes as slashes." Really? Strange, as my check above was done at the time of writing. The improvements seem to have very little effect if the very first example I check, on a not really obscure article, already gives this result. Pushing these maintenance categories is not beneficial in any way. Another example, the second one I check: 2010 Australian Open. We have http://www.australianopen.com/en_AU/index.html, they have http://www.ausopen.com/index.html Both are "wrong" (well, not really, both work) as they result in http://event.ausopen.com/ Will changing the article or the Wikidata entry improve anything? No, not at all. If people at Wikidata want such categories, they can run bots there and add categories there. But who cares that the official website on our site is different from the official website on another unreliable wiki? Maintenance categories where no actual maintenance is needed are not beneficial. Fram (talk) 13:59, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
 * 1 and 3 are both beneficial to Wikipedia. As for "Wikidata invasion", please refer to WP:AGF. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:50, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

to help with the tracking categories if possible. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:33, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Magioladitis, what tracking categories are missing, or needing modification? Frietjes (talk) 14:36, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Frietjes http://foo.com and http://foo.com/ should be recognised as the same item. Is this possible? -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:41, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Magioladitis, yes, just use, replacing the two URLs with parameters and replacing the 'true' and 'false' with the categories or lack of categories as desired. Frietjes (talk) 14:46, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Magioladitis, added something similar to the LUA module. Frietjes (talk) 14:50, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Another issue is dead links. External links last on overage about 7 years before going dead, so in time most instances of will contain a dead link. How is this dealt with? Do we just replace the URL with a URL to wayback? If so, the link is no longer the official URL, but a URL to somewhere else (Wayback, Webcite etc). It creates problems with mismatch at Wikidata since the link rot bot InternetArchiveBot does not run on Wikidata (IABot is adding about 5000 waybacklinks to enwiki a day, including replacing links in ). Or when a link dies do we replace with ? Or tack on an extra ? Or should contain a new argument archiveurl and archivedate like CS1|2? These questions apply to all external links templates. -- Green  C  15:33, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Even this would be easier to handle with a template. We'll find a way. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:06, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

As a Wikidata-editor, I feel that the main spam-problem is import from Wikipedia, among them en.wikipedia are among the greatest! Your page here: Malmö tells that it has a "website". But, does bricks on the ground have websites? Well, they can have fansites, tourist information sites, but official website? No! www.malmo.se is the official website of Malmö City, but as you can see, you have a completely different page for that! Malmö is also located in Burlöv Municipality, which have another official website: www.burlov.se. Why haven't you spammed that to the article? That there is a parameter website in a template, does not mean that it has to be filled every time the template is installed into a page. -- Innocent bystander (talk) 17:04, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Innocent bystander True but we don't discuss a parameter website in a template. We discuss a template that every time you type it it will display the official site. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:15, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
 * It is however an important observation. Malmö has the website set here in the template, but the same website is also available on WikiData, and may not be correct.  I think this is very similar to what User:Fram means by '...the official website on our site is different from the official website on another unreliable wiki'.  We have enough troubles with unreliability on en.wikipedia, now we get automagical transclusion of more unreliable information from another wiki.  Similar to automatic translation of unreliable pages from another wiki.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 17:21, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
 * You should be aware of that the "official website"-property includes a little to much of "non-official websites", since it has been filled with data from the "website"-parameters in the Wikipedia sites. People fail to recognize the difference between "official website" and "other websites". I have used this property very little (not at all actually) on svwiki, since I know it to often is full of sh*t.
 * You should be aware of how many times I have removed this property for places in Sweden. But the users who adds them outnumbers me...
 * The last thing I have added to our templates on svwiki, is the option to only transclude WD-claims that has a real source. To not use those claims who have those "imported from:"-references. -- Innocent bystander (talk) 19:38, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Innocent bystander There is a more general problem with external link anyway. Thank for the heads up though. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:40, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Previous discussions

 * Requests for comment/Wikidata Phase 2 (May 2013)
 * Template_talk:Official_website/Archive_2. (April 2014; resumed in 2105)
 * Bot_requests/Archive_62 (December 2014)
 * Bot_requests/Archive_64 (May 2015)

-- Magioladitis (talk) 22:30, 20 December 2016 (UTC)


 * so this is the first time that we have a wider discussion about it? No VP discussions whether this should be implemented?  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 03:36, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Dirk Beetstra Full implementation has not discussed yet. See Bots/Requests for approval/KasparBot for instance. We need this conversion so as said "so humans can go back and make the appropriate fixes". The conversion only enables the tracking categories without any other further change. It is true thought that a lot of editors already use the Wikidata values. This also happens in Infoboxes while it has not fully decided yet. As you may see this is a slow discussion that spans in a period of 2.5 years.-- Magioladitis (talk) 07:45, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Maybe or  know more and want to comment. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:53, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Recall that the tracking categories were created in 2015. So, the arguments here should be whether we want to track differences between en.wp and Wikidata. No migration has ben decided nor implemented in large scale. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:55, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
 * What I meant was that there does not seem to be a wider discussion whether this template should use/display WikiData values (whether that, for this template, is desirable, whether it is 'correct', etc.). I am in favour of using WikiData for identifiers and certain immutable data, but that does not go for every possible datapoint that is available from WikiData.  For this template, I am weary about several problems (and I see several concerns above), and I think that this specific data is not good data to transclude from WikiData due to those concerns.  Whether you want to track is a different question (for that, except for the category flood at the bottom that I generally ignore anyway, I couldn't care less).  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 09:25, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
 * The fat of the template is not for me to judge. I understand your concerns. I wish we ha more feedback from the Wikidata team on the matter. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:28, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Ehm, sorry, but who cares what the WikiData team (or even, WMF) has to say. I am more concerned about what the en.wikipedia community has to say.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 09:47, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

"We need this conversion so as said "so humans can go back and make the appropriate fixes". Then implement it on Wikidata. It's not logical that every wiki-language version will check whether the wikidata value and their own value are the same. Wikidata can do this centrally. And then the Wikidata editors can go through these thousands of "problems" to check whether any really are problematic and need changing. 2016 Summer Olympics is included in this category, but needs no change on enwiki. 2016 Paris–Roubaix is on that list because we link to the English language version, Wikidata links to the French language version. No change on enwiki needed. 2016 Ryder Cup: we have the right one, Wikidata is outdated (but works as well, it just redirects to what we have). No action on enwiki needed. Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres: we have it without the http, they have it with the http, no change needed. Nicolas Achten, Didier Agathe, all the same issue. Aerodynos JA 177 Evolution, link doesn't work on Wikidata, ours (to webarchive) does...

Basically, this is a lot of bot edits, a lot of system checks needing to be done to populate the categories, and then thousands of manual checks to do the "necessary maintenance", all for extremely little actual benefit (yes, there are undoubtedly some cases where the link on enwiki no longer works, and the one on wikidata does, but this seems to be very rare compared to cases where no change is needed or cases where Wikidata is wrong). Add to this the extra chances of errors and vandalism being introduced through Wikidata, which will go largely unnoticed (I will not start checking what "(‎Created claim: Property:P3143: 817530; ‎Created claim: Property:P3138: 294549)" means), and you end up with a net negative.

Don't add the template, or change the template to ignore wikidata completely (no maintenance categories, no picking up information from Wikidata) Fram (talk) 09:33, 21 December 2016 (UTC)


 * I do actually agree. Remove the WikiData-date retrieval, and then, there is actually no need to have the maintenance categories.  This is just not the type of data that you want to transclude from there, it is too much editor specific, often incorrect, and gives editing problems.  Write a script to pick up the official websites from every page here, and compare that with the WikiData value if you want to improve the data coverage on WikiData, don't abuse en.wikipedia for that.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 09:56, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't agree. There is zero reason not to get the official-x link/ID from Wikidata, and quite frankly the above looks more like anti-Wikidata rabble rousing than it does like useful concerns. Someone has the problem, and whether that problem is here or there (really it's objectively mostly here) is really just a question of "We (certain specific persons) just don't want to deal with it". So don't. People who are interested will make the appropriate changes as necessary and the worst you'll have is edits you can already hide on your watch list. Specifically:
 * I see no editing problems besides the rabble rousing above and perhaps some unfortunate BRFA-approved bots.
 * I don't see how the information is editor specific.
 * The statements above re: checking data there: either these are misinformed (in that the best you can do is set up some bots and update static pages) or they are trying to shift work away. As I said, the work should be done regardless, and saying "it's not my problem" is certainly not in the spirit of collaboration.
 * Regarding languages on Wikidata, those actually do need change such that the official website has a language of work qualifier, so that there are both official websites there. Last I checked the module here correctly looks for the English qualified version first.
 * In general: everybody here wants Wikipedia (and Wikidata) to be better (so I might advise a dose of WP:AGF). I'm happy to answer questions if you (plural) have them, but the above indicates some (possibly pre-)judgement on some points or another, rather than fair assessment of the work these people are doing. Specifically, people can work on whatever they want here, and, it is not your job to tell them what they can or cannot do if there is indeed value to their work. That you elect not to consider it valuable is irrelevant to the facts of the situation. --Izno (talk) 10:55, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
 * And one more thing: this discussion is largely premature, and wrongly placed. If we want to talk about this, the right place is Template talk:official website, so that editors interested in that template are tuned in to this discussion. --Izno (talk) 11:00, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
 * no, I would say that this needs to be discussed on a global forum like a Village Pump. Does the community agree that ALL possible data should be transcluded from WikiData, does the community agree that NO data whatsoever should be transcluded from WikiData, or does the community think that that has to be evaluated for each situation independently.  If it is the first or the second, then we are ready, if it is the latter, the community needs to see whether there are general guidelines that can show what data should be transcluded and which not, or whether that really needs to be discussed project/community wide for each parameter.  Seen the concerns here, and the scope of pages (all of them), I would suggest that this needs broad community input.
 * "I see no editing problems besides the rabble rousing above" Nice way to get people to collaborate. "There is zero reason not to get the official-x link/ID from Wikidata" except for all the reasons that have been explained in vain above. "Someone has the problem, and whether that problem is here or there (really it's objectively mostly here)": using "objectively" is all very well, but the facts seem to contradict you. ""We (certain specific persons) just don't want to deal with it". No, we don't believe there is anything to deal with, or certainly not in this labour-intensive, vandalism-prone way with very little result. "I don't see how the information is editor specific." I don't think anyone claimed it was editor-specific, seems like a strawman. "As I said, the work should be done regardless, and saying "it's not my problem" is certainly not in the spirit of collaboration." You start from a wrong position: "the work should be done regardless" is simply not true. Letting a deadlinkbot loose on official websites will be a lot more productive than this. "everybody here wants Wikipedia (and Wikidata) to be better": no, I don't. I don't care how good or (usually) bad Wikidata is, as far as I am concerned everything but the interwikilinks may be deleted from it, as in most cases all I notice is people trying to push data (and layout) from the unreliable Wikidata upon enwiki, making it harder to edit, track changes, prevent vandalism. If people want to use enwiki as a source for Wikidata and then use Wikidata to populate other wiki-languages, and those are happy with that, be my guest. But I see no reason to mass-import data from Wikidata here; most of the things there are unsourced and the quality isn't any better than what we have here.
 * The discussion, by the way, doesn't belong on a template talk page either, it belongs at VPP.
 * "Specifically, people can work on whatever they want here, and, it is not your job to tell them what they can or cannot do if there is indeed value to their work. That you elect not to consider it valuable is irrelevant to the facts of the situation." I see that my opinion of whether their work adds value is irrelevant, while yours is objective and universally shared and should be accepted as gospel. On the other hand, you have not shown any bit of criticism to be actually invalid, you have only claimed it to be so. Basically, all you have done is some ad hominem attacks (arbble rousing) and some strawman arguments, coupled with arguments from self-declared authority. Yep, that's very convincing. Fram (talk) 11:13, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

We should think globally and act locally. Not think only about the English Wikipedia. I am an editor in multiple Wikipedias. I try to spend as much time I spend here to other Wikipedias too. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:56, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Zero reason?
 * 1) The data needs to be locally overridden in case of local blacklisting - causing discrepancies that we have to deal with.
 * 2) local blacklisting of WikiData-transcluded domains does give editing problems (and very unclear ones!) here.
 * 3) Official websites of subjects are not always 1-on-1 defined - something that our editors have to deal with
 * 4) It is difficult to control here what is happening on WikiData, e.g. spam - I have just reverted and blacklisted a massive set of links of a massive sockpuppet set of official homepage altering spam accounts - and that turned out to be the second set from them - we have to deal with that.

If you think that the community has different thoughts, then you would urge you to gauge what the community at large thinks. This one has been locally implemented, has only been discussed in local forums (and sometimes hardly discussed, just implemented), and has, until now, even not been notified to the policy and guideline pages that govern the data that should be transcluded, let alone global forums. As I said earlier, I am not anti-WikiData - there is a lot of information that can be transcluded and which I (have) encourage(d) to be transcluded. This is not one of them. --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:22, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Magioladitis, can the template/module check the spam blacklist? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:00, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * WhatamIdoing I think could answer this. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:40, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
 * a lua module on this site should be able to load [//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist]. Frietjes (talk) 19:05, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Magioladitis, I think it would be a good idea to update official website to check for spam.  This is a problem that could affect all of the active communities, so if we (i.e., not me ;-)  could solve it once here and "export" the Lua module everywhere, we'd save people the trouble of re-inventing the wheel.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:21, 12 January 2017 (UTC)