Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Academy/Using external links

As the internet keeps growing, so does the amount of information on it that can be used to cite articles on Wikipedia. An external link to a reliable source can be an irreplaceable source of information when composing an article.

External links to off-site websites are advantageous to our project because they allow anyone viewing a page easy access to see the information used to develop an article, whereas books, magazines, journals, and other published material may not be so easily accessed and in some cases may not be within a reader's capacity to obtain. The downside is that external links to websites have a tendency to change over time, and in changing they may no longer display any useful information, or in a worst-case scenario may be simply be "dead" with a 404 error. When this happens, it can affect the verification of the information in articles as well as an article's rating on the assessment scale.

Reliable sources

"Articles should be based upon reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Reliable sources are necessary both to substantiate material within articles and to give credit to authors and publishers in order to avoid plagiarism and copyright violations." — Wikipedia: Reliable sources, 4 July 2009

Since its opening to the public, the internet has rapidly become the medium of choice for people all over the world to publish information for others to read. As some sources might of questionable reliability, Wikipedia has implemented a policy of using reliable sources: all sources used to cite material added to our site are required to meet minimum standards for reliability.

As a result, if you decide to add external links to an article you should first ensure that the source in question is reliable. In this context reliable means that the information in the article is accurate, up to date, and free of any fringe theories or blatant points of view (unless those are the subject of their usage in the article). Accuracy in an online source can be checked by comparing the information on the website to other websites or offline media; if the other sources agree with the information in the website then the material is likely to be accurate.

In this context "up to date" means that the information is accurate for the time in which it was presented, but this definition depends on current events for validation. For example, an article on an obsolete vehicle from World War I could potentially be sourced to websites that have not been updated in some time, because the information on a WWI-era vehicle is unlikely to change; however, an article on an ongoing conflict would require much more recent and updated information.

The requirement for an article to be free of fringe theories or blatant points of view should be taken as an effort to make sure both sides views are presented in the article and present in such a way as to allow those reading the article to draw their own conclusions. If undue weight is added to one side or the other then the article will favor one position over the other, and this puts an article and the editor(s) who added the material to the article at odds with Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy. Being at odds with policy is a fast way to find yourself reprimanded, and in a worse case scenario could result in being banned from Wikipedia, so do make an effort to ensure neutrality in the article.

The last point that should be taken into consideration is the source of the information. The word "source", as used in Wikipedia, has three related meanings: the piece of work itself, the creator of the work, and the publisher of the work. All three affect reliability. The components of the piece of work were addressed above. The other two points address important factors that can impact the overall reliability of a website. The website should be published by a third party so as to help ensure neutrality and accuracy, although there are some exceptions to this rule. For more, see WP:SPS.

External links and our articles

Further information: Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Academy/Using external media

"Wikipedia articles may include links to web pages outside Wikipedia but should not normally be used in the body of an article. Some external links are welcome, but Wikipedia's purpose is not to include a comprehensive list of external links related to each topic. No page should be linked from a Wikipedia article unless its inclusion is justifiable." — Wikipedia:External links

Once you are reasonably satisfied that an external link meets the above requirements for reliability, you should consider the following.

To begin with, Wikipedia is not a collection of internet links. If you attempt to add a large number of external links to an article's external links section, or to even add a single external link to multiple articles indiscriminately, you are liable to find your edits reverted. We do not need articles that link to dozens of external links, especially if the links do not add to the contents of the article. This does NOT apply to links that are used as inline citations or as references; those should appear in sections labeled "notes" and "references", respectively. If your external link is not used as a reference or an inline citation in the article in question, then it really should be omitted unless there is a compelling reason to add the link.

Another point to consider is that external links sometimes go to sites which require registration or membership, and that such links can not be accessed by the vast majority of readers. Links to these types of websites should be kept to a minimum.

When adding an external link, you should consider the site you are linking to. Some websites (such as those sponsored by governments or museums) rarely move or delete content, while others, such as news sites, update very frequently. Take this into consideration when adding an external link, as the faster a website updates, the greater the odds are that the page you wish the reader to go to may no longer exist.

Dealing with dead links

A unfortunate side effect of linking to internet sites, either as external links or as sources, is that the net is very much alive. It grows daily by leaps and bounds, and in this growth pages do end up separated from the collective. When this happens, the pages are no longer fit for use on Wikipedia.

Dead links on Wikipedia crop up frequently, and are identified in a number of different ways. Editors may notice a link is dead, or automated scripts may flag a link as being dead. The end result is the same: the link in question must be resurrected, suitably replaced, or removed.

The first thing you should do if a web link you are using dies is check the linked site in question. It is entirely possible that the websites may be experiencing some sort of technical problem; if that is the case, the link should be up and running again shortly. Another possibility is that the site may have been updated or redesigned, in which case it may take a little searching to relocate the needed information

If the external link can not be relocated, then the next step is to try resurrecting the link. Resurrecting dead links can be accomplished by using the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine (located here). The archive traces its roots back to 1996, and they have saved all pages online from their respective time periods, which enables the general public to look at fully functional web pages from back in the day. This service has been instrumental in assisting Wikipedians with relocating external links lost as the internet moved forward. Linking to previous versions of these archived websites has been ruled an acceptable means of citation by those who track reliable sources. You should note that information saved at the Internet Archive does not usually become available until about six months after it was initially saved, so take this into consideration when looking through their archives.

If the Internet Archive fails to return the website in question, then the next best thing is to attempt to locate an acceptable substitute for the website in question. Acceptable substitutes are those websites that meet reliable sourcing standards and have similar information on the topic in question. Although they may not exactly replace the website you lost, they should be able to pick up most of the cited information with little to no loss in coverage. Note that if you end up having to replace old external links with newer external links, you will need to ensure that the information in your article agrees with the new citations, so you should be prepared to trim information no longer supported by your new source.

Lastly, if all else fails, you will have to remove the external link outright. When this happens it usually involves scrapping or rewording parts of the article to compensate for the loss of the non-functioning external link. If this happens, you should endeavor to make certain that all mention of the material you have cited to the source in question is removed or reworded to compensate for the loss of the source. The information you cited to the link should not remain in the article unless you can resurrect the old link or locate suitable replacements for the lost source. In such cases you may wish to consider looking to printed sources; as these are not subject to link rot, and as such can remain in an article indefinitely subject, of course, to new scholarship becoming available at which point an article should be updated appropriately to include all views in due weight.