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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4

Ancestry.Com?

Per an RSN discussion @ Ancestry.Com (along with the other 58+ times Ancestry.Com has come up on that Noticeboard before), what do people think about adding a section summarizing the general consensus about Ancestry.Com being used or not used as a reliable source? I was thinking something like one of the User-submitted contents sections...

Ancestry.com

  • As an external link: Nota bene* Sometimes. Using Ancestry.com as an external link can possibly be acceptable because of sourced information that is not available elsewhere, such as unique images, keeping in mind the first statement at WP:ELNO: "...one should generally avoid providing external links to: Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a featured article."
  • As a reliable source: ☒N Rarely. Information at Ancestry.com is often poorly-sourced content from pseudonymous/anonymous contributors.
  • Common issues:
  1. The Ancestry.com website content is user-submitted and is therefore considered not to be generally reliable.
  2. Ancestry.com does not exercise editorial control, material added to the site by volunteers does not have editorial oversight and is not vetted (see WP:QS).
  3. Ancestry.com often contains asserted biographical details such as date of birth, but using the website as a standalone source for stated facts in biographies (especially biographies of living persons) is not satisfactory if reliable sources for this biographical data are unavailable to otherwise verify the alleged facts. Extreme care should be used when attempting to use it as a source for any biography, especially WP:BLPs.
  4. Some editors think that if other published reliable sources cannot be found that verify asserted facts from Ancestry.com, then that information is—by definition—not important enough to include.
  5. Even though some of Ancestry.com is free, much of its content is only available behind various levels of paywalls—see ELNO#6.


Looking for some feedback before possibly adding this to the article. Shearonink (talk) 15:53, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

All seems above board to me. Accurately distills the various debates and threads I've seen at WP:RSN. Heiro 06:10, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
Looks good, except that point #3 is ambiguous: is it saying that using a DoB from ancestry.com is good or bad? Perhaps it should be recast to say that using ancestry as a RS for facts such as DoB for a BLP is not satisfactory—there would seldom be a reason to believe that ancestry should be regarded as a RS for biographical facts if no other RS is available. Johnuniq (talk) 07:07, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
Have tweaked it, per the Feedback above. Barring any other input, I'll add it to the article within the next day or two. Shearonink (talk) 16:48, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
All a bit lite - As an external link should be set to rare Nota bene* Rarely - The issue is not whether or not to trust ancestry.com, but how much you can rely on the type of primary records they have. What is not reliable is the information you may find on people's public family trees. You can't just take what you find from them and assume that it is correct. People, especially those who are not professional genealogists, can be sloppy or even dishonest. Should also remove "BUT... Nota bene* Sometimes there is Reliably-sourced content written by a known authority on the subject and that is more likely to be accepted." - as this is simply wrong and leaves a horrible loophole ( not vetted information) - the proper wording for this type of editor generated site can be seen below.Moxy (talk) 23:08, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
- "editors believe that if reliable published sources do not include the information that you have found only at Ancestry.Com (e.g., exact dates of birth or death), then that information is—by definition—not important enough to include."
Well, that's why we're discussing it here before it possibly gets placed on the actual essay page, attempting to summarize the general editorial consensus regarding using "Ancestry.Com" as a source or even as an external link, especially as it is spread over the 58+ separate threads about it on the Reliable Sources Noticeboard.
There are some professional geneaologists' articles or historians' articles on Ancestry.Com, that I think could be acceptable as an external link or even as a source, the material that should be considered as unreliable would be the family-trees & family-pages that are little more than written hearsay with little to no reliable referencing and are often just mirrored content from one tree or page to another. The problem with making a blanket statement like Rarely is that I just did a Wiki-Search for "ancestry.com" and found that it seems to appear at least 12,000+ times within WP's pages...so the general usage, I'm hoping as mostly External links, doesn't appear to be all that rare in practice. And, it should be kept in mind that "External links/Perennial websites" is not a policy or guideline, it is simply an essay and is to be regarded as a supplement to any pertinent policies or guidelines.
If Ancestry.Com is compared to the other user-submitted sites already mentioned in the essay, as an External link it is as least as similar to IMDb ("Yes") and to YouTube ("Sometimes") as it is to Find-a-Grave("Rarely")
"Sometimes" re:Reliable source should be changed to Rarely, so have tweaked that statement. Ancestry.Com/Rarely as an External link is not my understanding or experience of editorial consensus in this matter, I've always thought that "Note that the standards for WP:External links and WP:Reliable sources are different, so that a web page might be acceptable as an external link, but not as a reliable source" (from this very essay) made a lot of sense.Shearonink (talk) 06:02, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
I suggest going with what you have, with these edits: (a) Spell it "ancestry.com" (lowercase), or "Ancestry.com" (when at start of a sentence); (b) Change #5 so "some" is not underlined (no reason for that), and add "—see ELNO#6". Johnuniq (talk) 09:50, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
Thanks - capitalization issues all fixed & added that #6 bit. Shearonink (talk) 14:46, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
Overall I think this looks good, and I'm glad it was added. We can fine-tune any remaining details later. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:17, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

IMDb user-submitted content is reviewed

Why isn't this considered? I just had an IMDb reference deleted cursorily despite this fact. I find it highly unlikely that the reviewers simply allow all entries to pass without checking. Does anyone have something to add to this? __meco (talk) 09:49, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

I've also noticed some have reservations on allowing IMDB being used as a source. My view on it is that since it is already used in several articles about TV episodes (examples; All Good Things..., Elogium and Q-Less) then I think that's precidence enough to permit it to be used as a reliable source. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 16:15, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
Nah. In All Good Things... article, I see that it is a link to a documentary of a show, so I made some tweaks to ensure that IMDb is not reliable without removing it. What do you think? --George Ho (talk) 16:46, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
This is the link to what Meco refers.— Preceding unsigned comment added by George Ho (talk • contribs) 16:53, July 1, 2012‎ (UTC)
Although I appreciate the support, I must reject it seeing that it's based on a flawed premise. We have clear rules and procedures for establishing what constitutes a reliable source. How a source is presently being used in other articles is not relevant to this process. If WP:RSN should find unreliable a source that is widely being used then that would mean removing it from wherever it was used (all conditions being equal). __meco (talk) 17:36, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
And just to give the latest of many examples of non-reviewed IMDb content, here's director Josh Schwartz confirming another one today in Newsday here:

As for Schwartz -- an executive producer of such fare as "The O.C.," "Gossip Girl" and "Chuck," making his directorial debut -- he isn't pretending to be a convenience-store clerk in this movie, no matter what the Internet claims. "No," he says, chuckling. "I get asked about it a lot, but that's an IMDb mistake. There are convenience-store clerks in the movie -- just none played by me!"

Come to think, IMDb still says David Schwimmer was in the movie Biloxi Blues, though per Schwimmer he was not. --Tenebrae (talk)
Although there might be errors, it is the job of the contributor as well as the editor to find out the accuracy of the information. The logic used here that suggests that because the person who experienced something is the contributor so it is ergo inaccurate indicates that Victoria's article about Josh Schwartz and Tenebrae's comment about David Schwimmer in Newsday are unreliable because they are direct quotes. If the person who lived the matter cannot attest to his or her life as in the Wikipedia policy on IMDB, then Schwartz and Schwimmer's comments noted by Victoria and Tenebrae are unreliable. TaramTaram (talk) 19:56, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Comment - IMDb is an Entertainment industry standard source of work information by a for profit company, Amazon. The paid staff checked information affects the lives and careers of thousands of actors and actresses as well as crew and other support staff. Why anyone would believe that Amazon would knowingly allow false information to be posted seems naive at best.

Are there errors in this massive database, of course. Some errors are more noticeable than others. The fact that this database has errors does not invalidate its it purpose, use, validity, or integrity. Furthermore, IMDB has no control over how its database is used. The only thing it can do as a company is work to insure that this data is as accurate as they can make it so as to continue to be a viable business entity. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 17:33, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

As someone with an IMDb entry, I can assure you that the fact-checking process there is not of a rigor sufficient for me to regard it as a reliable source. A lot of what goes in there, especially with regard to less-popular subjects, is simply not checked well (if at all). While somewhat more reliable than Amazon reviews and the like, I strongly discourage its unthinking use if anything solider is available. --Orange Mike | Talk 18:35, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
Mike, as someone else with an entry, I can appreciate your anecdotal example, but I have found it to be quite the opposite. As has another User who commented here. Opinions are what brought us to this point and those same opinions are potentially preventing a credible source of information being used or at the very least, from being used properly. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 21:16, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
Would be best not to misguide our editors when it comes to user generated content websites.Moxy (talk) 21:55, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
OK, but how are you applying that broad and somewhat vague statement to IMDb.com? Are you claiming that the entire site is user generated? --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 00:00, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
You got it - to quote = Quite simply, a contributor is anyone who submits information for display on the site. There may be professionals there - but we have no clue who submitted what - are identities checked?. Changes are reviewed before they go on the site apparently - but who is checking this info and how are they doing so - are they checking for accuracy or just spelling and blatant vandalize? They also have a "Resume submission service", where people can post their own resume.....this is a grave concern when it comes to even simplest data like a birth-date. Basically if reliable published sources do not include the information that is at IMdb then that information should be questioned. If IMDB has some info and its reliable it should be found at a multitude of other locations (sources). It is however a great jumping of place for our editors. An entry like this is wonderful - but all this info can easily be-found in real publications by established authors. Would be best for our readers and Wikipedia's credibility if instead of linking (using) this site we link up and use real publication on the topics at hand - like Lawrence J. Quirk; William Schoell (2002). Joan Crawford: The Essential Biography. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 978-0-8131-2254-0. .. -- Moxy (talk) 01:39, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
Moxy, I wholeheartedly agree that if there is a source for a citation such a book or similar WP:RS that it should be used. But that is not the point we are discussing. I reject the claim that all of IMDb is unreliable as a source because of ignorance by WP editors as to how its operated. Rather than go on debating it, how do you suggest that we verify its credibility? --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 18:04, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Here are the usual questions:

  1. It has a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy.
  2. It is published by a reputable publishing house, rather than by the author(s).
  3. It is "appropriate for the material in question", i.e., the source is directly about the subject, rather than mentioning something unrelated in passing.
  4. It is a third-party or independent source, with no significant financial or other conflict of interest.
  5. It has a professional structure in place for deciding whether to publish something, such as editorial oversight or peer review processes.

It seems to me that the overall community viewpoint is approximately this:

  1. Not so much, although it's probably better than it used to be.
  2. Kind of, if you overlook things like the résumé service.
  3. This item doesn't really apply, because you're trying to come up with a default answer for the whole.
  4. Sort of, although that for-profit company presumably bought it because they thought it would drive sales of movies.
  5. Maybe, although the "deciding" seems to be rather scripted, with as little human judgment as possible.

Your own answers may differ significantly, of course, but if you had this discussion on a third (fourth?) page, doesn't that sound approximately like the answers you'd expect to get? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:22, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Google communites

I'd like to suggest adding this.[1] Dougweller (talk) 12:16, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Adding how? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 07:47, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Your input is requested: Template talk:Find a Grave#Summary of points regarding template verbiage changes

I've started a discussion regarding use of the Find a Grave template and whether the way that the template page is worded in accordance with Reliable sources guidelines or a generally accepted consensus about its usage.

After discussion and review of information posted on Wikipedia, including this forum, I posted a summary of pointed suggestions for changes to clearly state when to use/not use the Find a Grave template. Do you mind looking at it and responding at Template talk:Find a Grave#Summary of points?

Thanks!--CaroleHenson (talk) 17:37, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Facebook

I propose adding this to the section on facebook/myspace, before the last bullet:

  • As a source of free content: Nota bene* Sometimes. https://www.facebook.com/terms.php says: "When you publish content or information using the Public setting, it means that you are allowing everyone, including people off of Facebook, to access and use that information, and to associate it with you (i.e., your name and profile picture)." and "By "use" we mean use, run, copy, publicly perform or display, distribute, modify, translate, and create derivative works of." [1] So Public content on facebook is WP:free, but content just shared with friends or groups is not free.

I propose appending this too: See {{Free--PublicOnFacebook}} - a template I plan to create.


Handy reference: Free_content says:

A free cultural work is one which has no significant legal restriction on people's freedom:

  • to use the content and benefit from using it,
  • to study the content and apply what is learned,
  • to make and distribute copies of the content,
  • to change and improve the content and distribute these derivative works.[2][3]

--{{U|Elvey}} (t•c) 01:19, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

I think you are in the wrong place, Elvey. This is about external links, not about sourcing free content from them. --Dirk Beetstra T C 04:42, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Adding reflist here so that the references don't float to the bottom of the page.

  1. ^ https://www.facebook.com/terms.php November 15, 2013 version, accessed Aug 2 2014.
  2. ^ "Definition of Free Cultural Works". Retrieved 8 December 2011.
  3. ^ Stallman, Richard (November 13, 2008). "Free Software and Free Manuals". Free Software Foundation. Retrieved March 22, 2009.

Thanks!--CaroleHenson (talk)

LinkedIn (again)

I wondered why LinkedIn was unsuitable as an external link, as it doesn't currently say. Apparently it's due to WP:ELNO #6 : "Sites that require payment or registration to view the relevant content". But I don't believe that's the case. After all, we can cite The Times without issue, and that requires payment or registration. Whatever the reason, I think it needs to go in the essay as to why LinkedIn is unsuitable. What does everyone else think? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 15:17, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

WP:EL (the guideline that ELNO is part of) only covers a site's use in the external links section, not as a citation. Citing paywall sources is fine per WP:PAYWALL but as external links they usually fail ELNO#6. January (talk) 14:59, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
I'd say it falls under WP:SPS, like a Facebook page. --Orange Mike | Talk 23:49, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Wikia

What's the consensus on wikia sites? I'd think they would be "EL yes, RS no". Thoughts? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 13:23, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Sounds right to this user. Specialized wikis, whatever the platform (wikia is only the most common), can give much more thorough discussions of a subject. (In some ways, I think these sites' lax requirements for well-sourced information is what enables this level of detail.) At any rate, it's wholly appropriate as a way to direct readers to in-universe discussions of fictional subjects, e.g. Wookieepedia and Memory Alpha. Wikia sites concerning non-fictional subjects might be a different story, though. Ibadibam (talk) 17:54, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
As a note on Wikia site, we should only redirect them to those sites if the site is well established. Wookiepedia and Memory Alpha are very well known, but a random site for a lesser known work that might only have a dozen contributors, we would not include even if it was the only wikia for that fictional work. --MASEM (t) 18:02, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
But where to draw a line? A while ago I saw an editor arguing that any wikia but those two are "too small" to link to (that was in the context of the Witcher wikia). I think that any wikia that has some relevant content is valid to link to; in particular if it is a wikia specializing in a given topic. For the Witcher example, I think all Witcher articles we have should link to the corresponding article on the Witcher wikia, and roughly, this should a standard practice. I.e., if a wikia about subject X exists, all our articles related to subject X should link to their corresponding articles on the said wikia, unless there's a consensus that said wikia for some reason breaches our other policies (through I cannot even think of when this could happen). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 06:18, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
WP:ELMAYBE doesn't use the number of authors as a factor in determining the relevance of an external link. A web page could have a single author and still qualify, so long as the source is knowledgeable (per point 4). So why does point 12 of WP:ELNO specifically call out open wikis as requiring "a substantial number of editors"? In my mind this has less to do with any requirement of scope or substance, and more to do with having a community that fights vandalism and ensures the project's credibility. If the wikia's editor base is keeping their pages patrolled, then that wikia is substantial enough for linking. Ibadibam (talk) 06:42, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
@Ibadibam: I think that's a good observation. At the same time, I found vandalism on Wikia to be pretty rare. It seems that the site has an active anti-vandal anti-spam meta community, if not two. The site is also actively maintained from the technical/maintenance perspective. Two anti-vandalism extensions are used often on Wikia. ProtectSite.... The other extension is AbuseFilter]. There are also blacklists, including spam blacklists, and a number of tools to deal with spam ([2]). As such, I think that we can consider even small wikias well protected against those concerns. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 10:39, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
The concern is not just spam and vandalism at the moment; it's also about activity and trying to predict what will happen to the site's activity in the medium-term future. A site with three active editors this month might have just one or even none next month. A site with 50 will almost always have a few present next year. The usual size requirement is on the order of 10 to 100: I've never seen a regular EL editor ask for less than 10, nor more than 100.
Another concern is the ease with which the site's contents could be changed in non-spammy/non-vandalistic ways. Wikia might be well-protected against spam (I wouldn't know), but no bot can protect articles against bad information.
As for the actual suggested addition: When Wikia sites come up at WP:ELN, they are almost always rejected. Therefore the accurate description of the community's actual practice is "Maybe" at best, or even "Sometimes, but usually no". WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:58, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
I think these arguments apply equally to DMOZ directory. For some reason that website gets a free ride on Wikipedia despite having poor quality content and being very spam-ridden (at least in the areas I have looked). pgr94 (talk) 16:54, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
pgr94, This is a tangent, but I think that reviewing our recommendation to use DMOZ would probably be warranted. Its quality seems to be lower than it was a decade ago. WP:EL originally recommended "web directories", with none named; in late 2006, DMOZ was added as an example, and then became the default. It's probably worth considering a return to the original, DMOZ-silent version. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:37, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
WhatamIdoing, is it really a tangent? Like a wiki, DMOZ is crowd-sourced. Nonetheless, it is spammy and extremely patchy. DMOZ has a large number of editors, yet the scope is so large, so all-encompassing that many areas of poor quality can be found. Clearly the larger the scope that the website covers, the more editors needed to ensure quality. This would suggest that small specialised wikis are more likely to be high quality. Secondly, an external link is good if it has content that is relevant, reliable, trustworthy, and stable. Whether a website is a wiki or not is only secondary. To me a blanket rule to include or exclude wikis is unhelpful. pgr94 (talk) 10:00, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
Small wikis (specialized or not) are more likely to fail NPOV (because one or two POV pushers can throw the whole thing off) and more likely to be unstable (because one or two POV pushers could join tomorrow, or everyone else could get bored and quit). This is true for any open platform, not just open wikis (links to closed wikis have never been discouraged). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:44, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
…and? NPOV is a Wikipedia-internal policy. We do not, and cannot, demand external sites to follow it as a policy to be considered reliable, verifiable, or significant. --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 23:33, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
We do, however, require editors to consider WP:ELDUE when they add external links. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:43, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
And we can remove links to sources if they evolve to become too partisan to be worthwhile (a different criterion to not being fully NPOV), instead of carpet-banning an entire category of links "just to be sure". --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 08:00, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
I agree that there's no "magic number" of editors that indicates the reliability and stability of a wiki. And for many topics there's really no good reason to link to an open wiki. But open wikis generally serve one very important function on Wikipedia, which I mentioned above: they are a dumping ground for in-universe content about works of fiction. Directing interested editors to Memory Alpha and Wookieepedia helps limit the content of Wikipedia's Star Trek and Star Wars articles to what's actually notable, and there are more cases of this specifically listed for this reason at WP:WAF. WikiProject Star Wars has even identified this phenomenon in their project guidelines. Fiction wikis keep cruft off of Wikipedia, and for that reason I think they should be allowed, unless they're demonstrated to have unreliable information—probably be decided best by the relevant wikiproject or taskforce, if one exists. Ibadibam (talk) 23:27, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
Directing editors elsewhere is quite a different matter than readers. If we're using external wikis as a "dumping ground", why would we want to send our readers there? Nikkimaria (talk) 23:53, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
So the readers can find in-depth information about a topic that interests them—information that Wikipedia can't really provide (or shouldn't anyway). Ibadibam (talk) 00:00, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
I completely stand by all User:Ibadibam has said here. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:40, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

I would say that wikis, whereever hosted, are just generally a WP:ELNO - most wikis out there do not give extra info, are not stable, do not have a significantly stable editor base. We do not link to other Wikipedia articles as an external link either. There are exceptions, some wikis are significant, and they can be linked. It is WP:ELNO, not WP:ELNEVER and we have WP:IAR - believe me, by far most of the wikis out there are not suitable, the ones that are are the minority. Note that the Wiki still has to pass the bar of adding something to the article that can not be included, and we should avoid linkfarming (we do not link because the resource is out there). --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:22, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

What makes the exceptions suitable for linking? What makes them significant? Ibadibam (talk) 18:33, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
While some generic statements can be made, they are not really very useful. It is a matter of "I know it when I see it", more properly expressed by saying that it is reasonably easy to justify (on talk) why a particular EL is an exception and is helpful for that article. Johnuniq (talk) 01:46, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
Ok, perhaps some examples? Like the aforementioned Wookieepedia? Ibadibam (talk) 06:11, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
I'd curious to see some bad examples. Because in my experience, practically all Wikipedia articles on fiction or games that have corresponding Wikia articles could benefit from a Wikia link. Why cannot we link from Juan Rico to http://starshiptroopers.wikia.com/wiki/John_D._Rico , Naruto Uzumaki to http://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Naruto_Uzumaki or (a specific case where I was reverted) from Times of Contempt to http://witcher.wikia.com/wiki/Times_of_Contempt ? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:40, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

I am still waiting for someone to explain why most wikias are not suitable for external links. I cited several specific examples above. Can someone can explain why the sample wikias (Starship Troopers, Naruto, The Witcher) - stable, vandalism/spam free, and clearly useful to the reader - are not satisfactory, or why they are not representative of wikias in general? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 08:28, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

In the spirit of collaboration I am pinging all past discussants: User:Ibadibam, User:Masem, User:WhatamIdoing, User:Pgr94, User talk:Nikkimaria, User:Beetstra. Those of you who disagree with restoring my proposed entry on Wikia, please explain to me why the examples I cited above are not legible for being included on Wikipedia. It has been my experience, over many years, that Wikia pages I've visted - a sample of several hundreds by know - are, with almost no exception, free of vandalism, and spam, and particularly in the context of topics of dubious notability provide a very helpful external link with much "further reading content". Their exclusion from Wikipedia articles seems not justified on the basis of "they are too likely vandalized/spammed". For the record, I am including a proposed entry on the Wikia below (revised in the light of comments above), so we are all on the same page with regards to what is it that I am proposing to include. PS. While I considered Nota bene* Sometimes rather than checkY Generally yes for a compromise version, the fact that hundreds of pages I reviewed seem fine, and next to none were vandalized/spammed, makes me stuck by the "generally yes" version for now. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 06:34, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
This is purely from the point of view that wikis on Wikia tend to be spam-free and vandalism-free - and those are not the only measures for making a wiki 'stable'. I see the addition of Wikia wikis also from the 'what do they add' point of view. Wikis are, by nature, not a reliable source of information, and when not operated by a large userbase generally also not a very complete source of information. Moreover, since most are open wikis, the information that they provide could be included into Wikipedia itself. The questions are then, a) should Wikipedia host that information as well (if so, it does not make a suitable external link), b) if not, is the information that is not on Wikipedia, but on the Wikia wiki, adding anything to the Wikipedia article that is necessary (if not, the link does not need inclusion) c) is that information reliable (is it referenced there, although it does not need to pass the scrutiny of WP:RS/WP:V/WP:NOR, we would not put an external link to information which we expect to be really unreliable, and en.wikipedia, orders of magnitude bigger than the bigger Wikia wikis, is by nature unreliable itself) and stable enough (and there may be other issues). And although Wikipedia has as a goal to write an encyclopedia, that is not necessarily true for a Wikia-wiki.
We do not add external links because they are on-topic or relevant to the subject, we add external links because they add something that we can not include that is however of encyclopedic value. Our aim should be to include encyclopedic information, not to add external links to it. Every external link one wants to add should be reasoned and one should be able to make a case for it (otherwise it is in contrast with our core policies), there are only few cases where that can be swept under a blanket of 'generally yes' or even 'sometimes', and I don't think that it is generally true for external wikis (Wikia or elsewhere). --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:39, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Proposed entry on Wikia

See also: Template:Wikia, Template:Wikia content, and Category:Wikia templates
  • As an external link: checkY Generally yes.
  • As a reliable source: ☒N Generally no.
  • Common issues:
  1. As any user-submitted content, content on wikias is not generally reliable as a source.
  2. ELNO #12 recommends open wikis are to be avoided, "except those with a substantial history of stability and a substantial number of editors". This is primarily a controller for how likely are those sites vandalized, and how quickly is such vandalism reverted. Wikia, however, is a major wiki farm with a number of anti-vandal and anti-spam tools (see VSTF Wiki). As such, Wikias are not significantly more likely to be vandalized for a lengthy duration that Wikipedia pages. However, it is recommended that before adding an external link to a Wikia link from a Wikipedia, the editor verifies that the particular Wikia they want to link is not suffering from any serious vandalism or spam issues.
  • Oppose - again, the exclusion of Wikia links is based not only on the likelihood that they include vandalism and spam, but also on such factors as site quality, likelihood of appropriate updates, etc. Wikia sites are very uneven in that regard. Most are quite lax on copyright/fair-use issues (ELNEVER), are not neutral or accurate (don't meet ELYES), contain unverifiable research (ELNO#2), etc. See previous discussion here. Nikkimaria (talk) 11:59, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
    • (This discussion is the continuation of the one you linked to, BTW.) Wikia complies with DMCA takedown notices as a matter of policy, and the reliable Wikias have comprehensive fair use claims (e.g. Wookieepedia's policy). I'd say the presence of those policies satisfies ELNEVER. Ibadibam (talk) 18:37, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
      • The key point of that is "the reliable wikis" - how do you determine which ones those are? Wookieepedia is among the most developed and the largest, and so is already allowed. Nikkimaria (talk) 19:40, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
        • Yes, and that's why we need to get some examples of good and bad Wikias so we can all determine what that threshold is and come to a consensus on a guideline. Ibadibam (talk) 20:10, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
    • @Nikkimaria:, as User:Ibadibam has noted, you have to include some proof that Wikias are generally of low quality. I've stated, before, that in my experience, having read few hundred wikia pages, the vast majority were informative, and did not appear affected by spam, vandalism or such. And while both of our comments are based on OR, at least mine suggest I did some OR, whereas your comments are based on... what? Dislike of Wikia, or hearsay about it? Can you cite any source that compares the quality of Wikipedia or Wikia? Because if not, we are just dealing with a lot of "in my opinions". The point about copyvios is taken, but it can be accommodated with a note similar to that on our entry for YouTube, which essentially repeats ELNEVER, i.e. reminds editors to make sure they are not linking to pages containing copyvio content.
  • Comment - I still think there's a good case for generally allowing Wikia as an EL for fiction topics only, per the above discussion from April, and would support a proposed entry for Wikia that notes this distinction. This accounts for actual practice by several WikiProjects, and makes it easy to deal with the ELNO#2 problem that Nikkimaria has rightly raised. Ibadibam (talk) 18:37, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment Wikia as an EL definitely should be marked "Sometimes" and then provide the rationale of what we consider a decent Wikia (one with an established history and respectable user base side, at minimum). Saying "Mostly Yes" opens the door to a lot of poorly maintained Wikias. --MASEM (t) 20:54, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose as written. This is not an accurate description of actual community practice. This page is supposed to document what actually is happening, not what someone wishes it would happen instead. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:38, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose - no, these links generally fail WP:EL, except sometimes for really stable ones, or the ones which are the subject of the page. Where they are not the official website of the subject, they fail WP:ELOFFICIAL - we do not list all official websites about a subject, we do not need to link every facebook, myspace or blog, and neither the wiki of the subject. En.wikipedia is likely, by far, bigger than any of the wikia-wikis, and we still have a general disclaimer that what we publish should be considered unreliable. We are not including external links because we can, we are including external links because they add something to an article. We should not be including a Wikia-wiki just because it exists, that is beyond our purposes and fails our core policies. Inclusion of every single external link should be considered and reasoned, not because of a blanket. A Wikia-wiki is generally not a suitable external link, a Wikia-wiki is generally not a good reference, exceptions for both exist, and one should be able to defend that exception. --Dirk Beetstra T C 03:41, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
    • @Beetstra: Have you reviewed the three specific cases I listed above? Can you comment on why you would not support including those particular three external links? Please note I am not suggesting we should add wikia links wherever possible, but in cases where it is a clearly helpful page, as I believe is the case in all three examples I cited above. Would you be more supportive if we went with "sometimes" rather than "generally yes"? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:16, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
      • @Piotrus: - those are exceptions, that does not make it a status of "generally yes", it is a "generally no", there are hundreds, if not thousands, of Wikia wikis, and there will maybe be a couple which pass, and that number is likely in the same order as cases where a wikia-document is a reliable source (for a specific context). --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:02, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
        • The problem is not spam or vandalism, the problem is that they are, by nature, not reliable (often worse than Wikipedia), (often) incomplete and (often) do not add anything beyond what Wikipedia includes (or could easily include). It appears that you read WP:EL from a spam/vandalism point of view, I read it from a WP:NOT#LINKFARM/WP:NOT#DIRECTORY point-of-view - it is not our purpose to include external links for a subject just because it is on topic and free of spam, we include it only because it adds to the Wikipedia page beyond the point of what Wikipedia should include. --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:09, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
        • @Beetstra:. 1) You call them exceptions, but just like I told Nikkimaria - in my experience they are the rule. Can you cite any stats that most Wikia pages are poor quality? If we cannot find any stats, and agree on the quality for "most wikia pages", then we have to review them on the case by case basis, with the neutral version being not generally yes or no, but sometimes. One of my primary concerns is that "generally no" will be read by some people as "always no". You say that the three pages I linked above are "ok", yes" Well, I've been regularly reverted when I try to link those or others of similar quality on the basis of "wikia pages are always bad, no exceptions" (ex. [3]). My main purpose here is to have a rule saying that "sometimes, elinks to wikias are ok and they should not be removed by default with no exceptions allowed". Wikia links should be removed only if the target pages are problematic, not because we assume that all wikia pages are bad (because we can all find plenty of examples of high quality wikia pages which censorship from our elink sections does not benefit the reader, but on the contrary, denies them a helpful resource). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 07:04, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
          • I have removed many, many of them. I don't think that they are that commonly OK. With some exception, Wikis (including Wikia's) make bad external links. --Dirk Beetstra T C 07:29, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
          • You say "Wikia links should be removed only if the target pages are problematic, not because we assume that all wikia pages are bad" - that is putting the horse behind the cart - it is, and has always been: "Wikia links should only be included when their inclusion is justifiable" - and the latter is in line with our core policies. And the example you give is exactly that - that wikia is not the official link of the subject, moreover, in a next edit (here you do exactly what WP:EL is suggesting - incorporate the info if that is possible. We do not add external links just because they are on-topic etc. --Dirk Beetstra T C 07:43, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
            • @Beetstra: I hear what you say. Perhaps we look at some differen wikias. The ones I feel are related fall into the two categories I primarily use - gaming and fiction wikias. Fiction wikias often have much more developed articles on fiction topics, which we tend to limit due to issues with notability. The three examples I gave above fit into that category, but I could add one more. Back ten years ago when I started editing Wikipedia, a bunch of my articles were on fictional entries in the Honorverse. Now, most of them are gone, redirected and often transwikied to the active and informative http://honorverse.wikia.com/ . That wikia is the best resource on this book series out there - yet a number of people here would say we are not allowed to link to it. At the same time, the honorverse wikipedia article links to at least two set of forums dedicated to the series and another, smaller wiki, this one on wikispaces (no idea why this is not picked up by [4]. I could name dozens of other examples where I have seen extensive, helpful wikis on fiction topics that we cover that we are not linking too, and I find it ridiculous: all net savvy Internauts those days know that for those topics, those wikias are the primary guide. Excluding them is hiding from reality. Ditto for games. Let's look at NetHack - it links to on wiki, http://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Main_Page, but not to http://nethack.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page . Now, I am not saying here "keep wikia links" because "other crap is linked"; rather I am saying that wikis are helpful, people want to have them linked, and wikia is probably loosing out because it's easy to pick it up through external links search tool, so it's subject to periodic mass removals, whereas other wikis are not. Why is http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Main_Page being removed from BattleTech page? Any BT fan will tell you it's the premier resource for this franchise. And so on and so on. I am fine with changing my view from "usually yes" to "sometimes", but I'd like us to stop hating other big, reliable, and helpful wikis (which are usually, through not always, hosted by Wikia). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 05:26, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
              • @Piotrus:Honorverse has 65 references, long article; NetHack 26, reasonable article; BattleTech has 38 references, also quite a long article. Do those pages benefit so much from a link to a wiki, where Wikipedia itself is not reliable and stable enough to provide info itself. We do not link because the topic is the same, we link because they add something substantial. If you can make that case then that may be fine, but in most of those cases I don't believe they follow WP:NOT and WP:EL. --Dirk Beetstra T C 03:55, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose - EL Possibly, RS No. I would also recommend providing examples of the major ones (Star Trek, etc.) to provide a benchmark for the standard expected fir EL use. I can't imagine using one as a RS unless it has a RS footnote, in which case we should use the footnote itself. 71.23.178.214 (talk) 16:58, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
                      • Consensus does not necessarily trump policy, I think it depends on the situation. WP:NOT has longstanding consensus, and WP:ELNO has consensus against inclusion of Wikis .. that is a bar to pass. I think that if unclear, that removal warrants a question or discussion. --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:55, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Consensus can change, and that's what we're discussing here. It's probably fair to say that Wikia has generally become more reliable since it was first blacklisted, and much Wikipedia content has been transwikied to Wikia pages, as Piotrus noted above. It's about time this policy be updated to reflect actual practice, and consider Wikia a "sometimes". Ibadibam (talk) 19:09, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
    • I could even agree with rarely and a note that each link has to be justified on the talk page. But I don't believe there's a consensus for blanked removal of all Wikia links under semi-random lettersoup edit summaries. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 02:44, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
      • The lettersoup edit summary generally point to policies and guidelines which have long standing consensus - Wikis are discouraged specifically in one of the WP:ELNO's for a reason, and moreover I do believe that they, often but not always, fail the rest of the guideline WP:EL as well as the policy WP:NOT (as do many, many external links). As long as no clear consensus for an external link inclusion is there, I believe that they can be summarily removed per those policies and guidelines, and that that local consensus does not necessarily trump our core policies or guidelines either. Also note that actual practice may still fail our policies and guidelines. I think that our focus should be at writing an encyclopedia, not at writing an internet directory or a linkfarm. --Dirk Beetstra T C 05:47, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
        • While I agree with you, I think that as encyclopedia we fail the reader if we exclude links to what often is the primary source for information on a given subject. While it's reasonable to exclude those links in some cases (blatant copyvio, BLP, etc.) I don't believe this is the case with most wikia links. So by censoring them we are reducing the informational value of our encyclopedic articles. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 06:10, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
          • I think that with writing an encyclopedia, and following what we are not writing, we would not fail our readers. Finding other primary sources is what other websites are for (directory services, search engines). --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:19, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
"When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?" - Winston Churchill paraphrasing John Maynard Keynes. Wikia was founded in 2004. Since then, some of its "resident sites" have gone on to great things and others have not, similar to certain fan sites. The ones Wikipedia should include in EL/Further reading are those which are more extensive and in-depth than Wikipedia (not "or could easily include" as that's a hypothetical). Ask yourself: If I were researching the topic of this article, what would be seriously helpful to further my knowledge beyond what is included in this article? Some Wikias clearly make that cut. Based on what he's posted (both here and on his Talk page under On External Link Remova), it appears Dirk Beetstra has very strong feelings about External links, and presumably about the related Further reading section. I disagree with his strongly deletionist interpretation. As Jimmy Wales put it, "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing." That doesn't mean we include everything everywhere, that means we include the encyclopedic, and link to more extensive, in-depth sources for those who wish to go beyond that. I think including some examples of Wikias which meet that standard is useful, as it gives editors a benchmark. Suggesting an editor check if the article's subject has a Wikia (or similar) is akin to checking DMOZ for a category on that subject. It's a useful exercise, and may or may not result in either or both being included in that article's External links or Further reading - but you don't know until you (edited: aka Wikipedians considering adding links) look. So, I would recommend the Guideline be clear on that point. Note: Wikipedia articles aren't all equally extensive and useful, and therefore some are often referenced elsewhere while others are not. 71.23.178.214 (talk) 16:40, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
71.23.178.214 - unfortunately, the wording of our pillar 'What Wikipedia is not' and the external links guideline is against that argument - links are only included if they merit inclusion, not just because they exist. --Dirk Beetstra T C 03:38, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
I am not disputing that. Why are you claiming I am? I edited my above post to clarify "you" in case you thought I was referring to our readers, not our edutors. 71.23.178.214 (talk) 17:16, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
I was responding to your ".. it appears Dirk Beetstra has very strong feelings about External links, and presumably about the related Further reading section. I disagree with his strongly deletionist interpretation." - that is what I meant: one of our pillars is strongly against inclusion of external links, only those that merit, and the onus is on the one who wants to include links, not on the one who wants to exclude links. By the way, yes, the related Further reading section falls under the same scrutiny, as well as 'non reference' external links in the body of the text. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:53, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
The closest anything in Wikipedia:Five Pillars comes to your claim is Pillar One, which states that Wikipedia is not a web directory. It does NOT say editors must fight tooth and nail to delete all links but one current official link (not that I'm claiming this is your view, but what I've been recently seeing claimed by others as an excuse to "cleanse" articles). In my experience "the onus is on the one who wants to include links" has unfortunately morphed into stonewalling and WP:IDONTHEARYOU. I would prefer to view EL and FR in the same way as the other sections of articles, working together to inform our readers to the best of our abilities. Surely we don't want to include anything anywhere that doesn't have merit? We also don't want to miss the forest for the trees. That said, I would add that in the case of the Wikia wikis (and other wikis) most worth adding, they are generally about a popular topic and are therefore probably included in any web directory section about that topic. So, list the best one. That's what we've traditionally done with topics so large and/or popular that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of links with much merit. For example a Wikipedia article about a major country. I'm not aware of well-done Wikias about such, just pop culture topics. Still, same idea. 71.23.178.214 (talk) 16:37, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
The closest? No. "External links or Internet directories. There is nothing wrong with adding one or more useful content-relevant links to an article; however, excessive lists can dwarf articles and detract from the purpose of Wikipedia. On articles about topics with many fansites, for example, including a link to one major fansite may be appropriate. See Wikipedia:External links for some guidelines.", ".. Wikipedia is not a directory of everything in the universe that exists or has existed.", "The White or Yellow Pages. Contact information such as phone numbers, fax numbers and e-mail addresses are not encyclopedic.", "Directories, directory entries, electronic program guide, or a resource for conducting business. For example, an article on a radio station should not list upcoming events, current promotions, current schedules, etc., although mention of major events, promotions or historically significant program lists and schedules may be acceptable. Likewise an article on a business should not contain a list of all the company's patent filings. Furthermore, the Talk pages associated with an article are for talking about the article, not for conducting the business of the topic of the article." etc. etc. Those are all statements regarding that we do not include information just because it is on topic, we do not include all possibly relevant websites to a subject, or all external links which could possibly help an article. There is nothing there that blankets the inclusion of links. Wikipedia:External links guides us then with "Some acceptable links include those that contain further research that is accurate and on-topic, information that could not be added to the article for reasons such as copyright or amount of detail, or other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article for reasons unrelated to its accuracy.
Some external links are welcome (see What can normally be linked, below), but it is not Wikipedia's purpose to include a lengthy or comprehensive list of external links related to each topic. No page should be linked from a Wikipedia article unless its inclusion is justifiable according to this guideline and common sense. The burden of providing this justification is on the person who wants to include an external link."
For wikis, there are cases where it is justifiable to include the link, and some examples have been given here. But it must be justifiable, we do not just link because the topics are the same. If material is not encyclopedic in Wikipedia's sense of what an encyclopedia should be, then it generally also does not merit linking to. And links that are in violation of that, where editors think that they are not justifiable, can be blanket removed. --Dirk Beetstra T C 05:19, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
The point is that by excluding wikias we are not excluding "one fansite among many". We are excluding what often is the most informative website on a given topic, i.e. one of the two most relevant external links (the other being the official webpage of the topic, which is often much less relevant, if it exists at all). For example, regarding Honorverse, the Honorverse wiki is, without the doubt, the most useful link, as all editors familiar with that subject agree. To exclude it because it has some fair use issues (no piracy, publishers and author are aware of it, the problem is taking fair use a bit too far - fair use galleries, etc.) seems to me to put meta:copyright paranoia issues above the good of the reader. Everyone knows that in such a situation (when publisher/author/IP copyright holder is aware of the fan site's existence and expresses a tacit approval for it) the chances of Wikipedia being sued for simply linking to said fan site are abysmal low. Yes, we can stretch our rules to make a case it's illegal for us to link to it, but it's clearly the case of putting the letter of our rules over the spirit of building the encyclopedia (one which has external links section which the reader should find, presumably, useful, not with the most relevant link censored). When our article on The Pirate Bay links to the world's largest repository of pirated materials, and that's fine, and when we commonly link to websites that are known for violating fair use and numerous other copyright policies on a daily basis (ex. any and all news sites, which we know have problems with respecting fair use and free licences), but we cannot link to a website due to minor fair use violation, I sense a rule lawyer on a mission that has nothing to with building a better encyclopedia, somewhere... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:56, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
Piotrus, again, there are cases where you can justify inclusion - but that will be far, far from 'generally yes', I really believe that these are exceptions and that external wikis are generally not suitable. --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:06, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
Dirk, I said above I am even willing to accept the inclusion of Wikia with a "rarely" variable; exceptions are fine. What I am not prepared to accept is a current enforced de facto total ban and censorship on Wikias. Again, look at Talk:Honorverse case: there's a consensus it's a useful site, but an extreme interpretation of ELNEVER, stretching interpretation to fair use that if used consistently would kill almost all external links we use is being used to prevent its inclusion. As I mentioned earlier, editors don't seem to even censor other wikis, the Honorverse article links to another wiki of much worse quality. That's fine... but a link to the clearly most useful site such is censored "BECAUSE WIKIA". --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 01:01, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
There is not a ban on these sites, there never has been (then they would be blacklisted, likely, because every addition would be abuse). If there are editors de facto banning Wikia, then they should be talked with - changing this essay/document is not going to help (this is less than a guideline or a policy, if you include links and using this page in the argument people who remove the link will still say what I basically say, that policy and guideline advice against them).
The WP:ELNEVER generally is only for the specific pages on the external site which really violate copyrights (except if the majority of the site is problematic). Although I think that Wikia will have the same problem with Fair Use that we have, I do also think that Wikia will have strict rules trying to enforce that images are in fact Fair Use.
As per Wikia, I would argue that other wiki-farms should get the same scrutiny and treatment - I do think that Wikia is one of the 'better' wiki-farms out there. --Dirk Beetstra T C 05:04, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
@Beetstra: I am trying to talk to that editor (also active here) at Talk:Honorverse, but I think it's fair to say they disagree with your interpretation. Her latest criticism, as far as I understand it (and I am open to being corrected by her - I don't want to put my words in someone else's mouths, I am just trying to summarize my understanding of hem here) is that Wikia's hard-coded ads for other Wikias are often fair use violations and thus we cannot link to any Wikia site unless they stop advertising one another (or clean up all of their advert images) is, I think, a de facto ban on all wikias. Since that editor states that ELNEVER, as a policy, overrides the consensus of all the other editors on that talkpage, how else would you suggest can we try to discuss it? Since unlike the other editors there I believe you have no personal involvement with the subject and that Wikia, perhaps you could consider commenting there? I find your interpretation of ELNEVER (don't link to problematic pages like fair use galleries, but it's ok to link to the main site) very reasonable (and reflecting our usual practice, ex. in TPB article). More input from neutral parties could, perhaps, help resolve this issue. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 07:14, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
I don't suggest we ban all Wikia sites - this particular one is in total in violation of fair use (including on the page being linked to), and your proposed solution wouldn't solve it. Nikkimaria (talk) 11:38, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
WP:ELNEVER (better: WP:COPYLINK) indeed trumps consensus. That is in line with what I said earlier: local consensus/WP:IAR does not necessarily trump policies or guidelines (and in some cases, it can never trump it, as e.g. for WP:BLP, WP:COPYRIGHT, WP:NFCC, and some other cases with legal implications). --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:04, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
I changed my vote for EL from 'Sometimes Yes' to 'Possibly' as it makes sense, clarifies, and reflects what I see as the general consensus here. Thoughts? 71.23.178.214 (talk) 16:06, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
I don't think we have this option, and what's the difference between those two anyway? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 14:28, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

I have now added the Wikia entry with "sometimes" EL / "generally no" for RS, which I think is the consensus here, and the notes explaining it: if an otherwise relevant wikia is not affected by vandalism, spam or copyvio issues, it can be linked to. I hope this reflects my understanding of our consensus here? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 14:36, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

It does not reflect a reasonable understanding of the consensus above, which was against the proposed addition. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:59, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Proposed entry on Wikia ver 2

See also: Template:Wikia, Template:Wikia content, and Category:Wikia templates
  • As an external link: Nota bene* Sometimes.
  • As a reliable source: ☒N Generally no.
  • Common issues:
  1. As any user-submitted content, content on wikias is not generally reliable.
  2. ELNO #12 recommends open wikis are to be avoided, "except those with a substantial history of stability and a substantial number of editors". This is primarily a controller for how likely are those sites vandalized, and how quickly is such vandalism reverted. Wikia, however, is a major wiki farm with a number of anti-vandal and anti-spam tools (see [http://vstf.wikia.com/wiki/VSTF_Wiki VSTF Wiki). As such, Wikias are not significantly more likely to be vandalized for a lengthy duration that Wikipedia pages. However, some small wikias may not have sufficient vandal robustness, and editors should ensure that the wikia they are linking to is not affected by vandalism, spam and such.
  3. WP:ELNEVER is another consideration: many wikias have significant problems with copyright violating content, including fair use. Uploader need to ensure that the pages they are linking do not contain problematic content.

I think the above version should address all the issues discussed above. If anyone is unhappy with it, please state clearly why, and what should be changed to make inclusion of wikia possible. In other words, when can we link to wikia sites? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:31, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Rarely, as most Wikia sites fail either ELNO or ELNEVER. You're also again misstating the purpose of ELNO#12 - as previously explained, it's not just a measure of how little spam and vandalism a site has. (Plus, {{citation needed}} for claims about vandalism/reversion rates). Nikkimaria (talk) 11:33, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
I concur with you that the examples you cite violate fair use. However, we do link to thousand of other sites that violate it in a similar fashion - not as few exceptions, but in fact I believe majority of our external links fall into such category, as virtually all websites, including WMF projects, have various fair use problems. As such, I do not believe your interpretation of the policy ELNO/ELNEVER is correct, as if it was applied to all external links, we would have next to no Internet to link to. I have asked for rules clarification at Wikipedia_talk:Copyrights#Clarification_needed.
Regarding the spam/vandalism, there are no studies on this topic, hence no citation can be provided ([5]). The closest you can find is [6], which notes that most other wikis model their vandalism and spam fighting processes on Wikipedia. As such, the links I provided and are listed above are the best, that plus our own observations, which a) confirm that major wikias (the ones we would likely link to) are vandal- and spam-free, and b) are what the proposed guideline requires editors to do before adding a link, to verify that the wikia they link to is not an exception. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 11:58, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
Even if we accept that point a is true, which is questionable given that anecdotal evidence does not translate to factual data, b does not follow from that - because, again, we're not worried just about vandalism and spam in linking to wikis. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:03, 21 June 2014 (UTC)
So, pray tell me, what matters? Because we clearly link to some wikias. We do link to some wikia sites. Yu-gi-oh Wikia ([7]) is linked from Yu-Gi-Oh!, following a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Anime_and_manga/Archive_45#Allow_external_links_to_Yu-Gi-Oh.21_Wikia.3F. Naruto links to Naruto wiki ([8]). Memory Alpha ([9]) wikia linked from Star Trek or Wookiepedia ([10]) linked from Star Wars. Young Justice (TV series) links to Young Justice wikia ([11]), following a discussion at Wikipedia:External_links/Noticeboard/Archive_14. What makes those links acceptable? It is certainly not the fact that those sites respect copyrights to the letter, as just looking at the Star Trek and Star Wars wikias for example I see violations - such as a Death Star used in Wookipedia logo, or a number of decorative images used at Star Trek wikia, galleries full of problematic images ([12], [13]), and so on. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 16:49, 21 June 2014 (UTC)
oppose - Wikis still generally fail our inclusion standards per WP:EL/WP:NOT. I still do not see the need to have these separately mentioned here. Those wikis that pass can be discussed on a case-by-case basis, on the talkpages of the respective page. --Dirk Beetstra T C 03:15, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Petition sites

  • As an external link: ☒N - especially when the petition is still open.
  • As a reference: Nota bene* Sometimes - Generally, the only notable facts a petition site is reliable (albeit primary) source for, is for its existence; the petition wording; the start and end dates; and for the final outcome after the petition is closed. A notable petition will usually be reported on by an independent source, which will have the final outcome and may also have analysis of the results and its impact. Information about petitions should generally not be included without independent, secondary references showing notability of the petition.
  • Common issues: If no other sources exist defining notability, the information should not be linked, as it generally amounts to soapboxing and may result in BLP-type problems on pages about living people or active organisations.
  • General comment: A large number of petition sites are blacklisted and can not be linked to.

I again ran into one of those - https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Eastern_Connecticut_State_University&diff=prev&oldid=646103239 - and think that these sites warrant some general description (there are still not-blacklisted petition sites out there). I have boldly started that, feel free to edit it to perfection. --Dirk Beetstra T C 03:54, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

My main objection is in stating that petitions can't be used as reliable sourcese. We should not confused reliability with notability, and I disagree that a petition site is only reliable for verifying the existence of the petition. It's also reliable for the wording of the petition, the date launched, and the end date, facts which are frequently omitted from secondary sources. Also, the blacklist should not be the tail wagging the dog.- MrX 04:59, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
And actually, that is not what I said. I said that they are a reliable source for their existence and the final (and actually also intermediate) results. I'll reproduce (and adapt here in a minute). --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:02, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
Slight change, as a reference now 'sometimes'. Reproduced above (minus header). --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:06, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
Also, I do not think that we are wagging the dog. Truth is that petition sites on Wikipedia are regularly abused (as this editor in the above sample was doing), as well as that their mere existence is not worthy a note in Wikipedia. That is the abuse that needs to be kept out, it is the very example of what WP:NOT#SOAPBOX is about. --Dirk Beetstra T C 03:22, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
I know we've had the blacklist debate and I'm still waiting the evidence of regular abuse, especially for the more respectable petition sites. I can agree to the version above with the following modification:
  • As a reference: Nota bene* Sometimes - Generally, the only notable facts a petition site is reliable (albeit primary) source for, is for its existence; the petition wording; the start and end dates; and for the final outcome after the petition is closed. A notable petition will usually be reported on by an independent source, which will have the final outcome and may also have analysis of the results and its impact.
Something similar to this would be acceptable in my opinion.- MrX 03:47, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
Edits like above do show that it happens, and the petition-blacklist-rule does get a regular hit. I agree that pounding abuse like with regular spam (like what is hitting the blacklist at this moment) is not there, but editors are known to promote their cause using petitions (just like in the above edit) - the question is whether 50 individuals making 50 'individual' WP:SOAPBOX-violating edits using one site is of the same level as 1 'individual' making 50 WP:SOAPBOX-violating edits, even if either of them has possibilities of being used appropriately. The latter is what we regularly regard spam and abuse, the former is not less annoying to the people who have to clean it up, whereas it is preventable. For visibility, this might be better on XLinkBot, actually.
I'd like to see something added along the lines that statements about a petition should only be included if there are sources significantly independent of the petition (showing notability) cited along the primary source. --Dirk Beetstra T C 05:05, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
Another example: diff (that is 2 in just over a day). On a blp this time, " A bill concept that is hugely unpopular with a majority of his constituents" - hugely? majority? That is exactly information that the primary source is utterly unsuitable for (and I think the petition is not even open yet ..). --Dirk Beetstra T C 05:22, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
Fair point in your first paragraph, and I agree with your last two paragraphs. I have not objection to adding it to the essay.- MrX 13:42, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
I've merged in your point, and added a 'Information about petitions should generally not be included without independent, secondary references showing notability of the petition.' Tweaking may be necessary, if no-one tweaks within about 24 hours I will just copy/paste this in the page, and let further refining take place there. --Dirk Beetstra T C 05:18, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Clarification needed about what "Web presence" means

Where it says "when the subject of the article has no other Web presence" in at least a couple spots, does that mean a web presence under the article subject's control? What if there's a link to a profile of the article subject, but not under their control -- can an official Twitter page under their control be added under that circumstance? Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 15:54, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, an official Twitter or other social networking site can be used if there is no dedicated website for the subject. This is implicit in WP:ELMINOFFICIAL and based on common practice (on Wikipedia).- MrX 19:52, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
Thank you kindly for your response. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 20:54, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Twitch.tv

See also: Template:Twitch
  • As an external link: Nota bene* Sometimes. When it is relevant to describing the person and what they do on the internet. If there is a major conglomerate with a tangentially related Twitch account (Such as Microsoft's Xbox Twitch Channel), then it doesn't make sense.
  • As a reliable source: ☒N Generally No. If there is no better source to describe something, a Twitch video may be used but should be replaced with a reliable source as soon as one becomes available.
  • Common issues:


^Worth inclusion? I'm probably writing this badly. Zero Serenity (talk - contributions) 23:50, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

An example or two would be helpful. Does twitch TV host encyclopedic content that would expand on the information in an article, but that could not otherwise be summarized from reliable sources?- MrX 19:57, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
Well, I meant this more along the lines for twitch personalities, not so much as being a source. Zero Serenity (talk - contributions) 04:24, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Instagram

How about Instagram, and other user sites like it (e.g. Flickr, etc.)? Onel5969 TT me 22:03, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes!! Instagram is increasingly popping up as a "source" among our younger editors, and I think we need to add it to this page as a non-RS A.S.A.P.! --IJBall (contribs • talk) 03:59, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Findagrave tweak to text

I would like to make the following two changes in wording: --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 18:55, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Change 1

  • "As a reliable source: Almost never. It should never be cited if it is a circular reference to Wikipedia (WP:FORK and WP:CIRCULAR)." modified to Nota bene* "As a reliable source: Rarely With caution. It should never be cited for biographical information. It may be cited for the location of a burial, or and information contained on the tombstone." --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )
Why? Is there some recent or current discussion? --Ronz (talk) 16:04, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
  • No - that's often still user-submitted information. If I say that this is the tombstone of John Smith the author buried in London, there's no way to know it isn't the tombstone of John Smith the painter buried in New York City. The provision regarding circular referencing should also be retained. I agree though that "should never be cited for biographical information" is a useful addition. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:27, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
The New York Times is wrong on a daily basis, yet we use it as a reliable source. The print version has dozens of corrections each day from the previous day's version. The article I am reading now online has four error corrections appended to it. What is relevant is: Do they have editorial control where they fix errors. Findagrave has a mechanism where you submit a correction, it is reviewed and either accepted or rejected. The New York Times and Wikipedia have both published images of the wrong person, or misidentified people in group photos. Peek at the bottom of this article: Walter Cronkite, 92, Dies; Trusted Voice of TV News --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 16:41, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
As far as I am aware, Find a Grave has only reactive, post-publication correction, whereas NYT and similar also have proactive pre-publication correction. That is why, although NYT may also have post-publication corrections, it is considered more reliable. Nikkimaria (talk) 17:31, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
Then we should never, ever use the New York Times because their pre-publication quality control is inadequate. I pointed out some egregious errors in the New York Times, can you show me some egregious errors still in Findagrave? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 18:06, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
Feel free to take that argument to WP:RSN and ask for NYT to be considered unreliable. Examples of Findagrave errors, but that's really beside the point - a source can have an error and still be considered reliable, or can have no errors but still be considered unreliable. If I write a blog post, it may have no errors, but that doesn't make it an RS. Nikkimaria (talk) 18:16, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
That is a discussion from 2012 similar to what we are having here. People are arguing over whether someone should be name "Carl" or "Karl" and other trivial issues. A blog is an online chronological format that is independent of reliability. When Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman writes in his blog it is a reliable source. If you were notable enough to have a Wikipedia article, your blog would be a reliable source about you. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 18:21, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
There are more significant errors mentioned. We have special rules to determine the reliability of blogs and other user-generated sources. Per those rules, Paul Krugman's blog is a reliable source for an economics article, but Joe Schmo's blog (or forum post, or wiki article, or Find-a-Grave entry) is not a reliable source for any article, unless for example he is a recognized expert on the topic already. Nikkimaria (talk) 18:37, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
  • No. Judging by the responses, I assume there is no current or recent discussion that demonstrates we should be changing this. In general, we should encourage better sources, not worse. The general consensus is that findagrave is very poor source. --Ronz (talk) 17:39, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
I do not think that four people responding determines consensus, two of them positively and two negatively. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 18:08, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
You are aware that there's general consensus outside these discussions, right? That's why I asked if any new discussions may have happened. This is not the venue to attempt to change the wide consensus on this issue, nor on the quality of sources in general. --Ronz (talk) 18:20, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
It is the exact venue to change wording in this essay. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 05:55, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
It is actually strengthening the restriction. The only current restriction is not using it as a source when it uses Wikipedia text. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 05:53, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
The current restriction is "as a reliable source: almost never", as it is not a reliable source. It should not be used with care, it should not be used rarely, it is really 'almost never' as it is not a reliable source. And for most, if not all, of the information, there are better references (it is only a nuisance that they are maybe not very often available online: the actual records of the graveyards in question). The other sentence is there as a second warning, that one should not use the source at all, even if that particular case is demonstrably reliable, if that particular document is a copyvio (and it being a copyvio makes the chance of it being reliable even bigger). But basically, it is a wiki, it is not a reliable source by definition. Do not use this as a source barring some exceptions, hence, almost never. --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:03, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
  • When did "almost never" become equal to "never"? Mathematically and logically they are not the same. It is like saying that "almost zero" is "equal to zero", when there is an infinite number of fractional numbers as you approach zero as my friend Zeno explains. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 06:22, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
    • Who said never? I did not say never, I said, throughout, 'almost never', as has been codified for a long time in this essay, and as based on WP:RS, WP:NOT, WP:V, etc. etc. (By the way, talking about 'almost never' being equal to 'never', and in relation to Zeno, you might find 0.999... an interesting read, they are mathematically and logically the same). --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:41, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose It is still user-generated content. While it may "obvious" that the headstone refers to the individual alleged, the source remains user-generated and thus not based on a reliable source. There is still no evidence that Find-A-Grave has stated or determined that the burial location refers to the person in the article, biographical information or not. Further, I'd argue citing the headstone itself in an article is using a WP:PRIMARY source and without a secondary source, there's no evidence about the proper weight that should be given to the headstone meaning it is a possible WP:UNDUE impact issue. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 21:46, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose, and "almost never" should be replaced with "never". It is not a RS and pretty much the only purpose the links have ever served is for free promotion of find a grave. Bluntly, I've long felt the site should be blacklisted. Resolute 00:20, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose Likewise with Resolute. Any information available on FAG will either be available elsewhere in an RS, or if it isnt available elsewhere, either cannot be used in the article and shouldnt be linked to because FAG is not an RS. The only real use for FAG is 'where is this grave and what does it look like?'. Since we cannot actually treat that information as reliable, we shouldnt be putting an EL in to FAG to say 'See this site for more information'. Personally I think another blacklist discussion is warranted given the amount of eyes this issue has had this month. Only in death does duty end (talk) 12:42, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Findagrave is not a reliable source per Wikipedia's rules, period. Which is what matters here, if you want to change those rules it has to be done somewhere else on en-WP, not here. Thomas.W talk 13:10, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Change 2

  • "Some pages contain copyright violations (WP:ELNEVER and WP:COPYLINK). Find a Grave requests that copyright violations be reported to info@findagrave.com with a link to the relevant page or image. Never link to copyright violations on Wikipedia." with this added: "However, Please note that Findagrave's standard of fair use for images and text is less restrictive than the one in place at Wikipedia, and that the terms of service for the source of the obituary or biographical text determines whether that text can be reposted to Findagrave."
Could be added as an aside: "Find a Grave requests that copyright violations be reported to info@findagrave.com with a link to the relevant page or image; however, note that Find a Grave's standard of fair use is less restrictive than Wikipedia's". Nikkimaria (talk) 16:27, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
Why? We're here to write this encyclopedia, not to help write Findagrave. --Ronz (talk) 18:22, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
Because we already have guidance about reporting things to Find A Grave, and this addition clarifies it. I would agree with removing the existing guidance about reporting, as an alternative. Nikkimaria (talk) 19:10, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
I see no need, we are indeed not here to help write Findagrave. If people want an explanation they can ask on this talk. --Dirk Beetstra T C 03:40, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
People are asking and that is why we are here. We have no control over Findagrave, just our interaction with it here. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 06:24, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose The implication is that Findagrave's fair use interpretation is in fact correct. If a Findagrave page contains a direct copyright violation, there can be a discussion here about it, a discussion to remove the page linking and if someone chooses to report it to Findagrave and Findagrave removes the issue, it can be reinstated. If Findagrave does not consider it a violation, but people here do, then it will remain removed. It's just a matter of two different sites with differing views on copyrighted content. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 21:52, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Ricky81682. Thomas.W talk 13:11, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose WPs fair use is restrictive for a reason, Findagraves is less restrictive for its own reasons. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:16, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Change 3

You guys do realize that some cemeteries bulk add entries from their own records to Find-a-Grave, right? Find-a-Grave is pretty analogous to IMDb – some of their entries are user-added junk, but some of their entries actually come directly from the source and thus are 100% accurate. Wholesale disallowing of use of Find-a-Grave as an 'External link' is a terrible idea... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 00:03, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
I don't think anyone here has said it should be disallowed wholesale from the External links section? [edit: except now perhaps Resolute]. What I and others have said is that it's not an RS. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:25, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
@IJBall: You do realize that the original records are the reliable sources, and that those then should be used on Wikipedia. There is a difference between being correct and being reliable. Findagrave may very well be the first, but not the second. --Dirk Beetstra T C 03:13, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
I don't understand your point – the original cemetery records are not public records (or, generally, are not available publicly). In many cases, Find-a-grave is the only game in town for tracking down the location of a grave. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 03:16, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
Well, then I don't understand - what you are basically saying is that 'because we have no access to reliable sources, we use an unreliable source to source our unreliable information' ... ?? If you can not reliably source the information, it has no place on Wikipedia. That's exactly why Wikipedia in itself is an unreliable source and will remain so. And if you have a reliable source, then information from find-a-grave is superfluous per WP:ELNO #1, it does not provide any extra information than what is already in Wikipedia, or could be incorporated in Wikipedia. --Dirk Beetstra T C 05:56, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
No, what I said was F-A-G is a lot like IMDb – some of the information there is reliable because it comes directly from the records of cemetery houses. And the photos further help to verify. Pretending that F-A-G is completely useless and unreliable is a joke – it has a use on Wikipedia as an External link. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 06:33, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
The reliable information is only reliable by virtue of the reliable sources. That makes it hence not suitable as a reference. As an external link the story is different (reliability is less of an issue there), however, reliability is not the only issue why we discourage external links, there are other reasons in our pillars to exclude them and I have just given you one. --Dirk Beetstra T C 07:07, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
And do note, this section does discuss it's use as a reliable source, not it's use as an external link. --Dirk Beetstra T C 07:09, 13 January 2016 (UTC) removed, I should have reread the whole sentence. --Dirk Beetstra T C 07:10, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

ANI discussions

Looks like this entire discussion is an attempt to remove the documented consensus that's part of an open ANI discussion: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#User:Thomas.W_removing_Findagrave_links_and_the_place_of_burial_from_articles. Given that I specifically asked about ongoing discussions multiple times, why wasn't this brought up? --Ronz (talk) 18:50, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

I can't see a problem with using Find A Grave as a reference for certain details. I think the biographical text, which doesn't contain references, is probably not useful for citations. On the other hand, gravestone photos and others illustrations -- copies of birth and death certificates which some Find A Grave contributors add, for instance -- seem to me like they'd be helpful.
It's true that gravestone inscriptions are sometimes wrong -- as an example, the gravestone in the photo on the find A Grave page for Senator Obadiah German of New York indicates that he died in September 1841. However, newspaper accounts and the probate court records relating to the disposition of his estate make it clear that he died in September 1842. That said, written references are also sometimes wrong, and individuals intending to cite them on Wikipedia or elsewhere often have to attempt separating the accurate from the inaccurate in deciding which references to cite. All in all, I think using Find A Grave for information from things like gravestone photos is reasonable Billmckern (talk) 12:29, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
  • That just shows that some documents are inconsistent, but the date of final probate can be years afterward, my dad died in 2011 and his estate is still in probate now in 2016 for only having a single witness for his will, instead of the two required in New Jersey. The date that his will, will be proved will be in 2016. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 20:47, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
@Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): -- We agree. Your father's will might be going through probate in 2016, but if you read the associated documents, I'm sure they indicate that he died in 2011. Since probate courts deal with administering estates after people die, you can assume that the probate court is probably right.
I guess I should have been more precise. What I means was that if the gravestone has an 1841 death date on it, and the probate court has a record after 1841 which says in essence "we're here to administer the will of Obadiah German, who died on September 24, 1842", then you can be pretty sure that the probate court record is right and the gravestone is wrong. The same is usually true for a newspaper death notices, to -- in the case of Obadiah German, who I used as an example, there were newspaper death notices published in September, October and November of 1842 -- if the gravestone's death date was right, you'd expect to see newspaper articles from 1841.
Billmckern (talk) 21:12, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
@Billmckern: You are right that written references are sometimes wrong, however, they do have fact checking, and they do file errata to their data. The same happens with governmental data (somewhere in the grey history of my family tree there is a record where a girl is changed to a boy, and the boy gets married shortly after).
Wikis, however, generally do not have such mechanisms, Wikipedia does not have that to any significant extend, Findagrave does not have it either. The lack of that fact-checking mechanism is the main problem with this not being a suitable reliable source - the reliability is not based on whether or not they publish mistakes, the reliability is based on first checking what gets published (and hence most of what comes out is correct), and properly repair the few (serious) errors that slipped through. By the way, the probate court records and the newspaper accounts are the reliable sources, which would make the use of findagrave or even the picture of the tombstone superfluous (unless the mistake is noteworthy). It shows how limited the use of Findagrave is and hence if better, reliable sources are available (newspaper items, court records; which are almost always available) they should be used and findagrave can summarily be ignored (even if it is correct in comparison with the reliable sources). --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:46, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
  • Findagrave is not a wiki, it makes no use of the wiki software made available by the Wikimedia Foundation. It is a database run on MySQL. In a wiki, anyone can edit. At Findagrave, anyone can create an entry and if you find an error you can suggest a correction, and that correction is accepted or rejected. Unreliable sources have no editorial control, and errors are not corrected. That is what makes the New York Times reliable despite printing a paragraph of corrections each day in the print version, correcting the previous days writing. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 19:48, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
@Beetstra: -- "...the probate court records and the newspaper accounts are the reliable sources..." -- Yeah, that's what I said. I think a gravestone is usually a good reference, but not always. As with any reference, it needs to be compared to other available sources to test it for accuracy. But if there's no reason to think a gravestone contains inaccurate data, there's no reason it can't be used as a reference.
Billmckern (talk) 13:00, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
@Billmckern: There is also no reason to think that a random Wikipedia page contains any inaccurate data, still Wikipedia is not a reliable source and should not be used as a reference (barring some rare exceptions). The same is true for Findagrave, there is no reason to think that it contains inaccurate data, still it is not a reliable source and hence should not be used as a reference (barring some rare exceptions). --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:08, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
WP:USERG (part of WP:RS defines it as

For that reason self-published media—whether books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, blogs, personal pages on social networking sites, Internet forum postings, or tweets—are largely not acceptable. This includes any website whose content is largely user-generated, including the Internet Movie Database (IMDB), CBDB.com, content farms, collaboratively created websites such as wikis, and so forth, with the exception of material on such sites that is labeled as originating from credentialed members of the sites' editorial staff, rather than users.

Findagrave fits that description, even if it is largely correct. --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:17, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
According to WP:Linkspam "Citation spamming is the illegitimate or improper use of citations, footnotes or references. Citation spamming is a form of search engine optimization or promotion that typically involves the repeated insertion of a particular citation or reference in multiple articles by a single contributor. Often these are added not to verify article content but rather to populate numerous articles with a particular citation. Variations of citation spamming include the removal of multiple valid sources and statements in an article in favor of a single, typically questionable or low-value, web source. Citation spamming is a subtle form of spam and should not be confused with legitimate good-faith additions intended to verify article content and help build the encyclopedia."
I think anyone who doesn't want to use Find A Grave has to explain how Find A Grave links to pages with details such as gravestone photos are not "good-faith additions intended to verify article content."
Billmckern (talk) 18:03, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
If you want to change consensus, you'll have to convince others rather than trying to get them to change your mind. --Ronz (talk) 18:53, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
"I think anyone who doesn't want to use Find A Grave has to explain how Find A Grave links to pages with details such as gravestone photos are not "good-faith additions intended to verify article content."" - no, they wouldn't. They would if they wanted to argue that the person adding them was spamming, but what we're discussing here is rather whether it is reliable or not - a site can be added in good faith and still be unreliable. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:09, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
@Nikkimaria: -- The guys removing Find A Grave links -- Ronz and Thomas.W have explicitly stated that they regard Find A Grave as spamming. Billmckern (talk) 21:03, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
Even if so, they aren't everyone "who doesn't want to use Find A Grave". We can argue that it isn't reliable without arguing that it isn't being added/advocated in good faith. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:23, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
Side comment: I have no experience with Findagrave, but "user-generated" is a remarkably vague term in the policy here. There are major differences in reliability between sites depending on 1) if anonymous editing is possible, 2) if user registration is available for anyone, and if there is any approval process for members, 3) if users are able to introduce arbitrary edits or if they will have to go through moderator/editor oversight. Heck, I'm sure that e.g. most editors of Encyclopedia Britannica also use the work itself extensively, and would therefore technically qualify as "users". --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 17:29, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
  • I suggest you all read the discussion on Talk:Lloyd D. Brown, where there's a detailed description of what the linkspam thing is about, reflinks deliberately written in such a way that they add an extra external link to the Findagrave main page under "References" at the bottom of the page, in addition to the link to the article subject's page there. Which is pure linkspam, done only to get as many links to the Findagrave website as possible on Wikipedia, and increase their rankings in Google searches. Thomas.W talk 21:29, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
    Granted, the original addition of the link may have been in good faith. As for the rest, I'm not going to make guesses as to the intent of the editors, but the links shouldn't have been restored once, let alone repeatedly, especially in multiple articles. --Ronz (talk) 23:16, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

A good faith wrong addition is still a wrong addition. We do revert edits or remove data that is simply unencyclopedic or not following our policies/guidelines. For external links and references, those can be removed if they do not follow our inclusion standards, and it will then be on the person who wants to (re-)add the links to first give a good rationale why the link is needed. Most of these findagrave links are inappropriate/unneeded etc., the links should first be removed, and re-addition should be not blanket and/or without proper rationale. Such behaviour does amount to spamming (under wikipedia's definition - unreasoned and unjustified mass addition of links) and hence it could start to form a reason to actually blacklist to stop that abuse of the links and enforce rationalised discussion via the whitelisting requests. --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:27, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

If all people want to do is keep the link to the Find A Grave bio page for a particular subject while removing the link to the Find A Grave home page in the same reference, I can't see a problem with that -- that would mean Lloyd D. Brown at Find A Grave is OK, but Lloyd D. Brown at Find A Grave is not. But that's not what was going on for all of yesterday -- at one point, some contributors were removing the entire reference. I DO have a problem with that.
If we're going to argue about whether a particular Find A Grave page is a reliable reference, I have a problem with that, too. If a page includes something like a gravestone photo, that's about as reliable a reference as you can get. I belong to several legacy societies -- Society of Colonial Wars, Sons of the American Revolution, etc. All of them use gravestones as reliable sources when constructing a genealogy to prove descent.
Billmckern (talk) 12:29, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
Sorry, but unreliable sources get removed.
Also, you were accusing editors yesterday of removing sources when they were not, and you were edit-warring over the matter. Best not bring this back up as puts your comments here in a very bad light.
As you are aware from the now two ANI discussions, the recommendation was to discuss how the sources might be used at WP:RSN. --Ronz (talk) 16:01, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
@Ronz: -- My irritation level has peaked. You want to talk about a "bad light"? YOU accuse everyone else of bad faith. YOU decided that the criteria for "spamming" is "I personally don't like Find A Grave, so everyone else has to conform to my point of view."
How about this? Deal me out. You're clearly unreasonable on this topic in addition to being unpleasant to interact with. Do whatever you want, and the rest of us will fall in line. You'll get your way just by being so persistently obnoxious that everyone else decides it's not worth arguing over. Congratulations.
Billmckern (talk) 16:15, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
I'm sorry you're upset. I've not accused anyone of bad faith. I try to be aware of and follow general consensus, which I believe I have done in this situation. I'm sure I could have dealt with the situation better, and am open to recommendations. --Ronz (talk) 16:24, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
Cool down, everyone. This time of year is one big Christmas hangover, making everyone grumpy. I'm a bit grumpy today too, but I try not to take it out on others here... Thomas.W talk 16:32, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Notice of discussion regarding the {{tl:Goodreads}} template

A discussion regarding the {{Goodreads}} template (which links to Goodreads) is being held at WP:External_links/Noticeboard#Is_Goodreads_an_appropriate_EL.3F. – S. Rich (talk) 12:39, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Wikidata property

user:Pigsonthewing just added a series of WikiData properties for the links mentioned in this essay. I have reverted that, as I don't believe that that is info that should be here. Giving the property to me seems to suggest that we endorse them, even when the text says we discourage them. Posting here for discussion. --Dirk Beetstra T C 22:08, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

I agree. It's very confusing to be reading about how to handle various links and see the WikiData information. It would be useful to keep track of these somewhere though, as there are problems with templates that draw from WikiData. I've not paid too much attention to the discussions. Seems like a topic for WT:EL. --Ronz (talk) 19:29, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
Your comment about supposed "problems with templates that draw from WikiData [sic]" is utterly irrelevant. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:34, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
Given there are real EL problems caused by templates drawing from WikiData of this type, it's relevant, but as I indicated, it's not an issue to address here, so in that respect it is irrelevant. Please drop it. --Ronz (talk) 15:57, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
Again: My edits to the page had nothing to do with drawing data from Wikdata, so your comment is irrelevant. Please drop it. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:06, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
Your revert used the bogus claim that "That is of no value in this essay." There is, of course, much value in using {{Wikidata property}} to provide details of the relevant properties on Wikidata, where people can - and are welcome to - add the identifiers which this page says are only occasionally wanted on this Wikipedia. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:34, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
There is much value in drawing data from wikidata - but this essay is not the place for it. It is contradicting the text of the essay, confusing, and how to incorporate official links by pulling wikidata is not the subject of this essay. --Dirk Beetstra T C 20:49, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
It seems from your latest comment that your revert was based on a lack of understanding. My additions had nothing to do with "drawing data from wikidata", and were - I repeat - to provide details of the relevant properties on Wikidata, where people can - and are welcome to - add the identifiers (emphasis added). There was no contradiction of the text of the page, whatsoever. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:15, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
So, that is how clear your addition was .. Do you really expect me, or others, to understand that in the context of discouraging additions on en.wikipedia, that the box on the right then means that Wikidata does welcome them? Or do they understand that while we should not be using it here, they can us the wikidata link .. this essay is about which ELs are suitable on en.wikipedia, it is not the place to draw attention to how to pull the data from WikiData, nor is it a place to advertise that this data is welcome on WikiData. --Dirk Beetstra T C 21:45, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
I have no insight into your thought processes, but it should be patently obvious to an average observer that a box saying "Wikidata has a property for X" means that "Wikidata welcomes values for the property for X". Once again, my additions had nothing to do with "how to pull the data from WikiData [sic]". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:17, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
You don't appear to be addressing the concerns: Giving the property to me seems to suggest that we endorse them, even when the text says we discourage them. and It's very confusing to be reading about how to handle various links and see the WikiData information and It is contradicting the text of the essay, confusing. Simply, we don't want content that is contradictory to our purpose here, listing frequently added external links and how they should be addressed in the context of EL. --Ronz (talk) 15:53, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
The former is an opinion utterly without merit. The second is an opinion utterly without evidence. The latter I did address. Contrary to your deleted comment and extant edit summary, I understand fully why this page exists and what it is used for. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:06, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
In a way, my biggest concern is that this essay is about what en.wikipedia has adopted in its policies and guidelines. What other wikis decided, with the addition specifically singling out WikiData, is besides the point of this essay. It could be part of a short section at the very bottom of WP:EL and/or WP:NOT. --Dirk Beetstra T C 16:13, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
"Specifically singling out WikiData [sic]", where such data is welcome (not to mention made available to each and every sister project, including all the Wikipedias), especially when it is not wanted here, is particularly pertinent here. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:06, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
Given that no one agrees with you, I don't see the need to continue here. If you want to consider others' viewpoints as possibly being relevant and important, then perhaps we should continue. --Ronz (talk) 16:24, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Despite the above discussion where there was no support for the addition of this information, Pigsonthewing found it necessary to re-add the properties (now with a disclaimer). Even with the disclaimer, I do not agree that it should by in this essay, as I have indicated before. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:53, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

Agreed. Johnuniq (talk) 00:34, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

Daily Mail RFC

There was a Daily Mail RFC that concluded that "Consensus has determined that the Daily Mail (including its online version, dailymail.co.uk) is generally unreliable, and its use as a reference is to be generally prohibited, especially when other more reliable sources exist. That might be worth adding to this page. —BarrelProof (talk) 05:22, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

This explanatory supplement says Note that the standards for WP:External links and WP:Reliable sources are different, so that a web page might be acceptable as an external link, but not as a reliable source, or vice versa. --Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 16:57, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Another list or an expansion of this one? (Amazon, iTunes, etc)

Can we nudge this list to be broader, or start a new list? Amazon as a link is currently under discussion ( Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam#amazon.com), and there are other sales websites that are similarly (mis)used in Wikipedia (iTunes immediately comes to mind). I don't know how much Amazon has been discussed as a link elsewhere, but having it on a list like this for reference would be of tremendous help. --Ronz (talk) 16:58, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

As an external link, hardly ever, as a reference, only if this is REALLYthe only place where binliographic data is available, ote, should be replaced on sight where possible. Fits perfectly in this list. --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:05, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
I agree with this, I want to add that sometimes a book publisher will cut a deal with Amazon rather than going through a third party such as Penguin Random House. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 18:12, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Without looking through the discussions, I'm guessing Amazon and iTunes will have similar descriptions: sometimes useful as primary sources for certain details, rarely used as external links. eBay has been brought up. I assume eBay would need to be treated more like a self-published source. What others are worth including? --Ronz (talk) 15:13, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

For ebay I would link to search results rather than a particular seller. For example, I used ebay in reference to 1 rin coin but worded it broadly. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 15:26, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
I'm not sure what consensus there is for using search results like that. I know I outright remove such search results with little thought. Seems like a primary source supporting content that probably violates OR. --Ronz (talk) 17:05, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
Well for ebay linking to a specific entry would be giving advertising to one person or company. Amazon is nice as the ISBN & release info is on one page while a list of sellers is on another. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 17:27, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure when I'll have time to review all the past discussions in order to find what consensus there is. Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_167#Amazon.com.2C_Target.com_and_Itunes_sales_pages_as_reference_for_discography has some summarizing and mentions Target.com, which we should consider including. --Ronz (talk) 15:54, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

We totally should expand this. Few years ago I tried to add a discussion of wikia links here. We need to have an easy-to-find page on more websites than just the few linked here. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:57, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

@Piotrus: I was WP:BOLD and went ahead with the expansion. Feel free to add your input. =) - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 14:40, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
@Knowledgekid87: I see you've added a section on Amazon, I roughly approve - I'd just make it clear that reviews/etc. are not reliable. I wonder if we could revisit the wikia/fandom case (Wikipedia_talk:External_links/Perennial_websites/Archive_3#Wikia). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 10:10, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
Done, for Wikia I would start a fresh discussion someplace in order to sample the current consensus as the discussion you linked is like 3 years old. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 14:32, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
Adding to this, I miss iTunes etc. I do see those in my current EL cleanup spree and quite some (as external links) that give a high 'buy us on iTunes' feel (anyway, they should generally go). --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:15, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
@Beetstra: I have also seen iTunes come up a lot, do you have any recent discussions for reference? - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 14:33, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Encyclopædia Britannica

A suggested addition:

Encyclopædia Britannica

  • As an external link: checkY Generally yes. The Encyclopædia Britannica can be a valuable source for general information about topics.
  • As a reliable source: Nota bene* Sometimes. The Britannica can be a valuable source for general non-controversial information.
  • Common issues: Articles in the Encyclopædia Britannica are written by experts and can provide good summary-level information. However, some of its articles have not been thoroughly reviewed for neutral point of view, selective omissions, emphasis bias, and accuracy of all details. The Encyclopedia also does not cite its sources, so it is generally not possible to determine the basis for the information it provides. Some editions of the encyclopedia can also be out of date, especially for topics on which scientific and technological developments have occurred or new discoveries have been made. In particular, the eleventh edition (published in 1911) was a major scholarly achievement of its time and is now in the public domain (and tens of thousands of its articles were copied directly into Wikipedia, where they still can be found), but the outdated nature of some of its content makes its use as a source for modern scholarship problematic.

For background, please see User talk:Doug Weller#Britannica isn't a reliable source?

—BarrelProof (talk) 21:13, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Interesting. Thanks!
I assume there are multiple RSN discussions about it. Seems like it would be in a new category, but I'm not sure what that might be. The rather unique problem with this and similar sources is that while it's highly regarded as a source, the information on specific topics from it may be presented from a narrow viewpoint. --Ronz (talk) 21:58, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
Yes, now that you mention it, in fact I do see quite a few discussions of its reliability in the RSN archives. In my view, the fact that a lot of people would expect it to be unquestioned as reliable is why we should provide some guidance about citing it. I have bumped into two discussions of its reliability in the last few days, in which the consensus seems to lean toward not accepting it as sufficient in either case. —BarrelProof (talk) 22:18, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
I think it would help to link some RSN discussions, though I have to say that the discussion you already identify is the clearest I recall seeing.
As far as a category goes, we currently have "Social networking websites", "User-submitted contents", and "Objectionable contents". Britannica is none of those, and the recent proposal to have a "PoV content" section didn't get agreement. It is a POV issue though. --Ronz (talk) 22:37, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
Yes, it needs a new category. That could simply be something like "Tertiary works" (or "Other Encyclopedias" or "Unsourced tertiary works"). As for finding old RSN discussions, I'm running low on time, but you can just type "Britannica" in the archive search box at WP:RSN. A lot of discussions pop up. —BarrelProof (talk) 23:17, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Seems like a valid summary, and it would be good to have this listed here. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:56, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, but no. Encyclopedia Brittanica fails WP:ELNO#EL1: everything in their (generally short) articles should be in our (generally much longer) article on the same subject. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:51, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

Instagram?

No mention of Instagram! Someone added an Instagram link to this article which I have argued about: [15] Is this practice acceptable? RobP (talk) 16:36, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

In that case it should not be added as it available from the official website link when you scroll down. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 16:56, 8 September 2017 (UTC)
If you've only had one or two discussions about a website, then please use Wikipedia:External links/Noticeboard. Websites should generally be listed here only if we have to deal with multiple disputes over time. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:10, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

I would like advice. I have read the Wikipedia policy for conflict of interest, external links, links to videos, AND read through the talk page of a proposed policy on YouTube videos that did not reach consensus.

All of those sources state that YouTube videos CAN and SHOULD be linked in external links if they provide benefit to readers that is otherwise not available in the text. It states that videos should be considered based solely on content and copyright—and nothing else.

I have created over 500 videos on the topics of medicine and physics. Most of them are pretty dry and add nothing to wikipedia, but my video on Hepatic encephalopathy was done with some planning and feedback. I have received many complements from med school classmates and professors. It is very valuable, at this time in history.

I originally added a link to my video and one other video (on the same topic) within the external links of the Wikipedia article. It was deleted by a user with “NOTLINK”. I spoke with the user and explained the video and he recommended I should post it using request edit, to navigate the conflict of interest.

So far, all users have “declined” solely for the purpose that it MIGHT earn ad revenue for me, or because the medical topic is too delicate. None of thos are actual valid reasons. And I can plainly see from their response that nobody has actually viewed the video.

So, I’m trying to reach out to the larger Wikipedia community that have more sophisticated expertise in the matter of external links. What is the appropriate course?

Thanks for your helpTmbirkhead (talk) 06:01, 13 December 2017 (UTC) Tmbirkhead (talk) 06:01, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

My original intent, with typing here was to ask for help, but to also initiate that some guidance needs to be created as to when it is NOT appropriate to decline a requested edit. It’s not OKAY to decline simply because it’s a link to YouTube (as one user has argued is their reason). It is not okay to decline because the content creator might earn money from it (the second reason posted). And it is not okay to decline because it is a sensitive topic — when you haven’t viewed the content being linked (the third person who declined).

I have one person supporting the requested edit and three against, for those stated reasons. Tmbirkhead (talk) 06:06, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

@Tmbirkhead: There is no 'SHOULD be linked in any of our policies or guidelines. At the very core, the question is what it adds over what is already in the article (and actually, what could/should be in the article). I agree with the responses on the talkpage, there is no need for the youtube to be linked. --Dirk Beetstra T C 07:45, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
@Beetstra: Thank you for taking your time to consider the link’s content. I have seen you as one of the resident officionados on this topic. I only hope to be educated on this subject so that a similar mistake is not made in the future. With that in mind, could you help me discern the difference between the link I proposed and the links at Axillary artery, Trypanosoma cruzi, hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy, mouse models of breast cancer metastasis, vesicular transport adapter protein, dermatology, spasmodic torticollis, Watson’s water hammer pulse, Diamond-blackfan anemia, Necrotizing fasciitis, and heart murmur?
@Tmbirkhead: You mean this spam? --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:32, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
@Beetstra:, I’m doing all of my navigation on my iPhone. It’s a mess. So, I’m not completely sure I’m viewing the page-link correctly. So, I’m not sure what you’re asking or how to answer. I thought a small handful of people would look over the content I produced and judge the whether or not the content improved the experience of other readers of the article. It has become obvious to me that different agendas are in play. If I upload to commons, my video is 100% approved, but hosting on YouTube makes me unqualified (with no consistent reasoning). I have attempted to improve Wikipedia as often as I have had time, over the years. I have donated money as well. I think I’m jaded and it may be a while (wait for the community to be more clearly guided) before I make any other attempts at contributing, at all (whether editing out nonsense, or donating $5 when the message shows up every year). Thanks for your time. I do hope you and others work toward creating an official policy for YouTube links. I know that it was attempted at one time but without consensus. Please consider resurrecting that, debating ideas, and at least consider that you might be wrongly-directed in your current philosophy. I mean no disrespect. My goal is to know, everyday, that my philosophy is definitely wrong somewhere, and when someone can adequately point out where, I’ll change that part of my philosophy. Tmbirkhead (talk) 11:00, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
@Tmbirkhead: On the first article you linked, there were some stray youtube links that were spammed, on some of the others there were some links that clearly failed our inclusion standards.
It is fine that the video is being accepted on commons. But that is something completely different. That still does not necessarily mean that the video should be included in this document. Images and videos generally help in clarifying the content (the phrase 'a picture says more than a thousand words'), but that does not mean that we can just scrap every thousand words for images, or that we have to include images and videos until the article turns into a cartoon. There are also limits to that. There is no need to duplicate information over and over.
We do not need a special guideline for YouTube inclusions (and one for wordpress, and one for blogspot ...) .. our current policies and guidelines are rather clear: we include material if it significantly expands on what is already in the article and that information cannot reasonably be included. We have to keep our goal in mind: writing an encyclopedia. It is content that we are after. --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:07, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
@Beetstra:, The content that we are after is NOT contained in the wiki article. It IS contained in the linked video, and CANNOT be (or perhaps has not been) included in the article. My edit request was nothing more than a request to say, hey I think this content is so extensive that it cannot be neatly placed in an article with this formatting and retain its dodactic advantage. SO, I’m hoping others can weigh-in on the content I’ve Produced, and provide an opinion, based on the content. It’s content we’re after.Tmbirkhead (talk) 11:14, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

The issues here are threefold. The first few videos are medical articles that have external links to YouTube. The last few have YouTube as a primary reference, but most of those references appear to be covert ways of link-spamming as they either don’t relate to the article, or they are docu-Case-studies that are disguised as evidence. In one case, an article about blackfan anemia, there is a short excerpt about a lady who helped to popularize the condition with reference, not to a specific video, but rather the reference is to her YouTube channel. If the article were about her, it would be appropriate and even listed as “Should” be in External links. As one guideline states that external links SHOULD link to a personal webpage, blog, etc. of a famous public figure of the article is about that public figure. In this case, the article wasn’t about her and the link did not establish the stated fact (that she popularized the condition). Please understand, I’m not saying there “shouldn’t” be a link somewhere on Wikipedia (or on that page) to her channel, but I am pointing out that the reference section is the wrong place for that link. The third issue is that many have suggested that, if the video contains information not in the article, I should update the article and use the video as reference. However Doing that would allow me to make any one of a dozen possible additions and the link would/could be added (whether I choose to put in a lot of work or a little). The video simply covers way more info than the article. Secondly, one user, @Doc James: has already deleted two or three of my edits, in the past, because they weren’t from a certain “set” of pre-approved sources. The edits in question were all significant, but because they were sources designed to tutor students taking medical board exams, he deleted them (or in one case he warned me that I should find a better source). Lastly, citing my own video is problematic because my video cites the largest sources. However, there are several one-on-one conversations with the professor of therapeutics and Pharmacology as well as lectures by a gastroenterologist/hepatologist (a professor who has won several teaching awards) that contributed, but aren’t cited due to being considered commonly available knowledge (e.g. the teachers weren’t the primary researchers discovering these concepts AND the many concepts are considered requisite knowledge for all people in their field)—they also are aware of the video and have given it their blessing with no desire for citation of our individual conversations. The MOST important thing, I think, is to consider how excellently the video is ABLE to educate a future physician on the topic vs how the wikipedia article is currently aimed at the lay public. The video starts at a level of “undergraduate” and moves through the information using a more “clinical reasoning” style. The video also focused on maintaining some major elements of evidence-based learning, which are not recapitulatable on a Wikipedia article. There is (potentially) an enormous value.

with the (potential) value of the video in mind, how does it fall short while so many others do not? Should I attempt to update the Wikipedia article and cite the video? Doc James (mentioned above) stated on his talk page, that he’d be more willing to entertain the video if I only uploaded it to commons; is this bias AGAINST a platform a bit Orwellian or is it the community standard? And if I offered to send you the MP4, would you be willing to watch it, and reconsider? if my many critics on this would at least agree to accept the MP4 and judge it’s merits alone (without regard to the site hosting) I would completely accept the opinions as they land, with no rebuttal. Tmbirkhead (talk) 10:23, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

We are about creating an encyclopedia HERE. We are not a link farm. Please see DMOZ for the group interested in creating groups of links on topics. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:43, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
Adding a link in one article does not constitute making "a link farm", and it's kind of insulting of you to suggest that's what's going on. If your objection is "I hate YouTube" or "I hate videos", then that's fine, but that's just your personal opinion.
There are some perfectly valid, guideline-based reasons to exclude many videos from the ==External links== section. For example, we can and should remove videos that only contain information that's already in the article, per WP:ELNO#EL1. This is pretty typical for videos, especially in the genre of short videos that are oversimplified for teens and children. But I very seriously doubt that an 44-minute-long lecture on pathogensis of liver disease as it affects the brain, with slides and whiteboard drawings of some relevant molecules and anatomical structures, and aimed at med students is going to have less information than even the most complete form of this article. In fact, that sounds exactly like the last item under WP:ELYES, which says that editors should normally include links that "contain neutral and accurate material that is relevant to an encyclopedic understanding of the subject and cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to...amount of detail". WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:32, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
Not that my opinion is worth any salt, but I believe that WhatamIdoing makes a compelling point. Context, as ever, is the deciding factor in these things. I'm not averse to rules-of-thumb, or guidlines, but that is all they should be - means of being able to demonstrate the spirit of the law. (20040302 (talk) 21:48, 9 January 2018 (UTC))

Legacy.com

typical sites
social networking
  • Instagram
  • periscope
blogs
  • ameblo
  • blogspot
  • blogger
media sharing
  • youtube channels
  • vimeo channels
  • flickr
personal promotion
  • proboard
  • soundcloud
product selling
  • Amazon
  • iTunes
  • eBay

I'm wondering if Legacy.com would be worth adding to WP:EL/P#User-submitted contents since its likely more WP:QS than WP:RS. It basically takes obituaries published in various papers an re-published them on its website. The fact that it sometimes charges for such content is not really an RS, but the fact that it doesn't generate its content or seem to have installed any sort of resonsible editorial control probably is. Also, it's not clear whether the original obituary is WP:UGC/WP:SPS (i.e., written by someone connected to the deceased) and underwent editorial vetting when first published in a newspaper, etc. -- Marchjuly (talk) 03:56, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

@Marchjuly: Seen that some of the entries get quite a number of subheadings, I wonder whether it is worth to have a 'sidebar' on the right (see example at right) in each section with some 'lesser' domains which fall into that category (or even per sub-section), and use the very well known one(s) as the worked out example - we work out twitter, linkedin and facebook, but have in the infobox all the others (myspace, Instagram, youtube-channels, own blogspot blogs, tumblr, linkedin, vimeo channels, soundclouds, weibo, vk, proboard, ameblo blogs, periscope, pinterest, bebo, flickr ....) that typically fall in the same category. --Dirk Beetstra T C 05:29, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
That seems like a reasonable alternative way of incorporating such information. -- Marchjuly (talk) 06:40, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
I disagree with the proposed sidebar here, we don't have that many subheadings given the length of the essay. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 16:33, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
@Knowledgekid87: You prefer that they all just get listed in the headings ('if we are talking about facebook, then the same reasoning goes for periscope - if we are talking about youtube, then the same reasoning goes for vimeo - if we are talking about myspace, the same reasoning goes for soundcloud and proboard ..')? --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:22, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
Sorry I had read something you wrote wrong, might have been sleepy. I'm okay with adding sidebars to the different sections, I like the status quo layout though as there aren't that many examples used. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 14:07, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

There are some more things I would like to change in the essay:

  • On the social networking sites (linkedin/myspace/facebook/etc.), and on the subsection of YouTube (for the channel), I think we should strongly point to WP:ELMINOFFICIAL (and possibly bolding of only one per said guide). For the social networking sites that is worded on each of the items, and could be put into a lede on that section.
  • On the same group (social networking + YouTube) - Barring some very rare examples where a twitter feed overall is suitable as a primary reference (it's mere existence?), the 'feed'/'channel'/'account' is never suitable as a reference. Only specific tweets, facebook posts, youtube videos are suitable as references.
  • Amazon/Ebay similarly could have a lede explaining why such 'selling sites' are unsuitable.
  • (and then incorporate above discussion). --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:29, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

Decision to apply ‘Supplement’ template

Where was the RfC to apply that template? Wikipedia talk:External links/Perennial websites/Archive 2#RfC: Proposal for promotion of Wikipedia:External links/Perennial websites to a guideline ends w a mention of ‘supplement’ but no discussion specific to that. Thx, Humanengr (talk) 20:45, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

Do you belive the template should be removed and if so why? This was done long ago with no problems and has been linked from the guideline since it's Inception. Lot of community input over a long time on its talk page. There is no need for an RfC to use the template when there was clearly so much input into the page by so many. An RfC is not a requirement for consensus but one tool to determine community norms.--Moxy (talk) 21:37, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
I don't see this page as filling a 'gap' — cf. instructions for use of that template: "The noun supplement does not mean "an interpretation" nor just "something added". It means precisely "something added, especially to make up for a deficiency", in this case a lack or gap in an official Wikipedia's policy or guideline." Rather it strikes me much more as an application of principles, policies, guidelines to entities external to WP than an interpretation, elaboration, … of the p-p-g. Make sense? Humanengr (talk) 05:36, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

Remove "as a reliable source"?

I propose removing the "as a reliable source" information for the websites listed here. That's WP:RSP's business. wumbolo ^^^ 17:08, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

Oppose best we explain both usages here as there's different criteria for both ...no need to make editors go to a different page that's almost unreadable when we can quickly explain things here in a more specific manner for these few sites.--Moxy (talk) 21:51, 28 December 2018 (UTC)
Oppose - The information here is the fine the way it is. In my opinion the colors need to be amended on the other table to include "Situational" sources as the red is misleading. Amazon.com for example can be used for release dates, and Youtube for another example can be used if the channel is official. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 22:03, 28 December 2018 (UTC)
The main problem with the other page is the main text your supposed to read is mini sized and full of broken-up sentences cuz it's jammed into a little box. Good to see there is some sort of navigational TOC there now to help with the scrolling nightmare. The reason this page works well is because people use the shortcuts to link directly to the site they are referring to in a discussion...( eg. Facebook shortcut usage). .. without the shortcuts it's going to be hard to get people to even use the page... as not too many people are going to link to page hoping people will scroll to find the specific website they're talking about. --Moxy (talk) 22:13, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

Discogs

I have run across Discogs being used as a reliable source. This site is "...a user-built database of music." and therefore is not a reliable source per WP:UGC. Otr500 (talk) 10:06, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

Discogs redux

There is recurring discussions on Discogs concerning reliability so it should be added.
I'm fine with adding this one as it is debated. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 01:36, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Added. feminist (talk) 18:48, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Tumblr

Can Tumblr also be added to Social networking websites? Tumblr is increasingly being used as a source by inexperienced editors and I think the time has come to provide guidelines about using a Tumblr blog as a reference. Pyxis Solitary yak 09:12, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

Instagram

I've added Instagram to WP:FACEBOOK because it's a subsidiary social media site, just like MySpace which has already been included for a long time. SteveStrummer (talk) 21:36, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

"Official" Facebook Profile as a source?

Hello, I'm new here and curious as to the consensus on this, as I couldn't really find a whole lot online about it. But are "official profiles" accepted sources? The way I read it is that sometimes it can be? Say an official webpage for an individual points to their profile, could information found there be used for minor biography information of living persons, such as DOB, high school, etc? Please clarify or point me in the right direction. Thanks!IrishRhino139 (talk) 05:17, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

In general, I would think not. Facebook has no means of authenticating its users, so anybody can set up an account and claim to be somebody. For example, I could set up an account and claim to be Ivanka Trump. In a specific situation, if there's a strong indication that a Facebook account is genuine and the only source of certain information, I would argue the merits of using that specific page at WP:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. But chances are, if it's worth repeating in an encyclopedia article, it's been widely reported by more reliable sources than Facebook users. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 05:26, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
What about if they have the verified tag? Zero Serenity (talk - contributions) 06:26, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
Exactly my question. Using the above example, say Ivanka Trump's official website links to her official FB page. Would that not be an indication that the account is genuine? Obviously, Ivanka Trump has been reported about everywhere so that kind of information is readily available elsewhere, but for some, it may not be. I'll post on the other notice board like you suggested. Thanks!IrishRhino139 (talk) 06:57, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
@IrishRhino139: it is as descrubed here, official, verified facebooks and myspaces can sometimes be used as a reliable source, but indeed keep in mind that anything worth mentioning on Wikipedia will likely already be elsewhere, and as we are often dealing with BLPs in case of facebook references, we should use sources with care. --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:13, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
...or are linked to from the organisation's official website, publicity material, or suchlike? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:19, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB

These keep getting added as external links. Example: Macon County Line. Is this a legitimate use? --Guy Macon (talk) 16:25, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

We'd be better putting them into {{Authority control}} and deploying that. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:16, 30 September 2020 (UTC)
See discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Adding IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, and Metacritic to external links (wherever possible). --Guy Macon (talk) 23:00, 30 September 2020 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 173#Adding IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, and Metacritic to external links (wherever possible) (current link after archiving) Alexcalamaro (talk) 04:58, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Fandom.com (and similar sites)

Can an article about a fictional TV character link to fandom.com? This would provide more detailed information beyond what's in the WP article. 2601:640:4000:3170:D76:4674:7265:8FB3 (talk) 19:23, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

No. Fandom/Wikia is not considered reliable sourcing therefore it does not fit here. Zero Serenity (talk - contributions) 22:04, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
Why is IMDB allowed as an external link but Fandom is not? As it says here, IMDB is not a reliable source. 2601:640:4000:3170:A92B:B732:D71B:29DF (talk) 17:25, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
==External links== do not have to be reliable sources per WP:ELMAYBE. ==References== do. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:09, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Wikinews

What are odds of Wikinews (sister company of Wikipedia )being considered a reliable source?--LostCitrationHunter (talk) 15:23, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Approximately zero, except when the content in question is about Wikinews itself (e.g., "Wikinews once published an article with the headline of ______", citing that same article). Wikipedia:USERGENERATED sources are not considered a reliable source for almost any purpose. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:10, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

FindaGrave "Common Issue" error

Item #5 in the Find a Grave Common Issues rationale is incorrect. When a grave is designated "Famous" Find a Grave "manages" the particular grave. Users and readers cannot change any information. They can suggest changes or corrections. Official Find a Grave editors/employees decide on the changes. Same thing applies to the cemeteries that Find a Grave lists. Corrections are submitted via the website feedback link and reviewed by Find a Grave employees. – S. Rich (talk) 14:23, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

"Famous" bios are user-submitted and lack evidence of fact-checking, and besides represent only a small portion of content. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:41, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
Find a Grave also contains copyrighted material such as scanned newspaper articles that are not correctly cited and cannot be transferred as a source to Wikipedia. Yes, it has editors that review or control some cemetery content. However, I find errors in that content frequently, whether incorrect family relationships or gaps/mistranslations in cemetery content--and the editors are either slow or never update the content, even with documentation. The bottom line is that it is mostly user created and is, therefore, unreliable. Rublamb (talk) 18:58, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
Also, when the person is "Famous", there should be better sources available to editors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:11, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
What you both say is true, but does not address my point about the particular argument. Find a Grave DOES exercise direct editorial control over those entries. (And Find a Grave will correct errors that are pointed out for cemeteries and persons, famous or not.) Your arguments are fallacious. Some errors do not mean everything is in error. There is information that is 1,000 percent correct, such as the dates we see on gravestones. Many sources of data are completely reliable such as the US Department of Veterans Affairs or Find a Grave User No. 6 -- War Graves. Relying on the opinion essay WP:ELPEREN to remove such WP:NOTEWORTHY FAG entries -- not used as a source -- ignores the WP Guidance we see in WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. – S. Rich (talk) 15:29, 9 March 2023 (UTC)
@Srich32977, context doesn't really matter for ==External links==. There isn't much opportunity for context in a URL.
I wonder if you could tell me whether you are unhappy about a single link to this website being removed from a particular article, or if your interest is closer to adding dozens/hundreds of links to this website (e.g., to many "Famous" pages)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:10, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Ancestry.com again

The section on Ancestry.com contains these claims: (1) The Ancestry.com website content is user-submitted and is therefore considered not to be generally reliable. (2) Ancestry.com does not exercise editorial control, material added to the site by volunteers does not have editorial oversight and is not vetted (see WP:QS). I am extremely familiar with this web site, and I know that both of these claims are false. Ancestry contains two types of material. One type (by an extremely large margin, the bulk of all material) consists of copies of official records, such as birth, marriage, death and immigration records obtained from governments, baptismal records from churches, lists of graves from published sources, etc. The other type of material is user-contributed, and is kept separate. Subscribers get their own workspace where they can construct a family tree, upload photos, etc.. Subscribers have the choice of whether to make their workspace visible to other subscribers. So it is often possible to see other subscribers' material on a person of interest, but it is always possible to see that it comes from another subscriber rather than from an official record. Without a doubt, the subscriber-contributed material can't be considered reliable, but the official documents are as reliable as official documents usually are. Using the latter involves the usual problems of working with primary sources, especially the difficulty of making a positive identification of the person each record is about. (An anecdote: I thought Ancestry's DNA program was a stunt until I discovered a relative who had been adopted at birth and didn't know who her birth family was. True story.) Zerotalk 14:53, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Zero0000, being correct is not the same as being reliable. You’ll have to get the consensus at WP:RS/N and overturn what is written here: wp:ANCESTRY.COM (and that something has an own redirect under WP:RS does mean something). Yes, it is sometimes usable as a primary source, but secondary sources are preferred. Dirk Beetstra T C 18:12, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
@Beetstra:, the description at wp:ANCESTRY.COM is correct already. I wrote here because the description here contradicts the description at wp:ANCESTRY.COM. Looking at the various discussions at WP:RS/N, I see the few people who understand Ancestry being drowned out by people making false assertions such as (1) and (2) above. What I'm getting at is not about reliability; it is about whether a website should be described accurately or inaccurately. Zerotalk 08:29, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
Belatedly, agreeing fully with Zero0000. The bulk of material at Ancestry.com is official records which are primary sources. It is extremely misleading to categorise the entire site as "user-generated" when a great deal of its material is nothing of the sort. Ghmyrtle (talk) 18:50, 26 July 2020 (UTC)
Just discovered this now. I've been an Ancestry user for over 10 years and agree with Zero0000. At what point can the description be modified? - kosboot (talk) 18:24, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

@Ghmyrtle: @Kosboot: I rewrote the description. Please check that I got it right. Zerotalk 04:07, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. I don't think that user-generated material regarding living people is usually (or ever - I could be wrong) accessible to anyone other those who have added it, or those who have personally been given direct access by those who added it - that is, it is hidden by default. As most of the material that is provided at Ancestry.com is not user-generated, it is debatable whether the site as a whole should be listed here under the heading "user-generated". Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:57, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
Quite right. I moved it to the "Companies" section. Zerotalk 09:45, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
It's much better. Again, as a steady user of Ancestry, I'd say about 5% of the material is user-generated (family trees and DNA results). The other 95% are scans of official documents (infrequently with emendated transcription from users). Perhaps if you could specify this disparity, by saying, yes, there are two types, but the official documentation makes up the overwhelming bulk of the site. Also, for library users (Ancestry has a special version for libraries), the user-generated content is not available. Thank you! - kosboot (talk) 10:45, 22 December 2021 (UTC).
Actually a lot of the user-generated content is available in the library edition. I'm not an individual subscriber and I can see a lot. I think you can't search for family trees by name, but if you search for a person it shows you hits in family trees and then you can see the whole tree except recent generations if the user has made it public. Anyway, I editted the text again. Zerotalk 11:43, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Rephrasing User:Beetstra, being "reliable" is not the same as being correct. In my own work at Ancestry I've found many official records, especially decennial censuses and draft registrations more than birth or death certificates, but also including these, to be contradictory with other such records, or even self-contradictory within a single document, such as birth date and age making no sense. There seem to be two different reasons for these discrepancies: self-reported information is per se "user generated", and depends on the respondent's concern for privacy, honesty, reliable memory, or simply annoyance at being interrupted. Second, consider the interviewer, who is under pressure to complete as many forms as possible; and especially when there are language or accent difficulties in understanding, may also make assumptions rather than asking all specific questions – such as deriving age from reported birth date, or native language from reported country of origin. For some reason that I don't understand, with many people their immigration date shown from 1900 through 1930 might be different on each census. Milkunderwood (talk) 01:12, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Since we are talking about external links here, Ancestry is going to be pretty worthless as an external link because it is behind a paywall. Rublamb (talk) 01:16, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Find a Grave "Sometimes" check mark

Following the {{User:Yoenit/exclamation mark}} – Nota bene* for the ELs we see the terms "Generally yes", "Sometimes", "Maybe", "Generally no", and "Almost never". The term "Rarely" is not used, and WP:EL does not use the term with regard to ELs. ("Rarely" is not used with regard to the "As a source" listings.) In order to bring consistency to these notations I've changed the Find a Grave notation to "Sometimes". This word is used in the following sentence. And the notation about Find a Grave as an EL is now consistent with WP:EL guidance. – S. Rich (talk) 17:14, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

The list, as it's been used in the past, looks like this:
  • checkY Generally yes
  • Nota bene* Sometimes
  • Nota bene* Maybe
  • Nota bene* Rarely
  • ☒N Generally no
  • ☒N Almost never
I grant that Find-a-Grave is the only one that has used "Rarely", but it's been using that language since 2011. Before that, since the very first version of this page in 2010, the Find-a-Grave entry said "Generally no". I wonder, therefore, why you think that it should be "standardized" on a much more accepting level than ever before? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:51, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
I would suggest going back to generally no. As per WP:LINKSTOAVOID #1 . Moxy- 21:20, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Here's the problem: we generally understand the differences between "Yes", "No", and "Maybe". But what is the difference between "Sometimes", "Maybe" and "Rarely"? Or between "Generally no" and "Almost never"? Or between "Rarely" and "Generally no"? These are labels slapped onto the listing with no definition and no basis in general WP guidance or policy. Moreover, the WP:RSPI does not discuss these symbols. But because they are big and colorful symbols, they get attention. And then if you seek to add the Arlington National Cemetery FindaGrave number to the article you get slapped down – with WP:ELPEREN (an essay) cited as the rational. But the actual WP:EL is not cited as the rationale and it does not support these symbols or descriptives. – S. Rich (talk) 21:57, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

I have no problem with better "symbolic" wording. More concerned with wording that implies FaG is anything more then a Wiki. We should not be leading our readers to a website with zero academic credibility controlled by the public and family members simply for a photo. Moxy- 22:11, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
No, "simply for a photo" is not correct. LDS Genealogy recommends FAG as a resource. But let's stick to the issue – can we define and limit these terms, and put those definitions into the instruction page? And then add the colorful check marks? – S. Rich (talk) 22:31, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
No clue who LDS ...looks like another privately held website with no credentials.....but what wording do you have in mind? Moxy- 22:48, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
It's the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is a huge deal in genealogy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:51, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
It specifically says it's not part of that association and is privately held. Moxy- 22:55, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
RSP is a five-year-old attempt to do for RSN what we've done here for much longer. If RSP didn't choose to provide definitions for symbols that pre-date RSP's existence by almost a decade, then that's not really our fault here. In general, you should not expect any particular sort of similarity between ELPEREN and RSP; after they copied this, they diverged significantly to make it better suited to their volume.
I think the symbols are helpful in that they catch the eye. However, they could be removed, and the words that follow them would still be what really matters, and the words would still represent what the basic dictionary definition says. This isn't a case of us calling an article "neutral" or a subject "notable" within the meaning of our own jargon; when we write "Sometimes" for one and "Rarely" for another, we mean that the first is more frequently going to be accepted than the second.
Srich, it sounds to me like your real problem is that you'd like to include Find-A-Grave links on a lot more articles than other editors. Have you considered making the case for the community to be more accepting of these links? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:51, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
Personally I wish there were Find-a-Grave links in the external links section of articles. There use to be, but then someone (not a bot as I recall) went around removing all of them, saying they were not authoritative or something similar. - kosboot (talk) 13:55, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
I am okay with Find a Grave as an external link as it usually includes a photo of the grave and burial location that cannot be included in the main article. Rublamb (talk) 14:56, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
Template:Infobox person has a |burial_place=option, and a matching parameter for exact GPS coordinates, so burial locations could be included there.
Do you have any guess as to how often a photo the grave is both available and actually appropriate for a Wikipedia article? When I think of the graves for my family members (none of whom are notable), I can't really imagine anyone outside the family wanting to know what the grave looks like, and even within the family, I think most people wouldn't be interested. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:07, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing: There are a lot of non-family related reasons to look at gravestones – for notable and for non-notable people. How elaborate is the tombstone? Did the veteran get mention of significant awards? Is there a religious symbol on the stone? How is the upkeep? The Boothill Graveyard (Tombstone, Arizona) itself a tourist attraction. Tombstone tourists make special visits everywhere. Others work to preserve tombstones. Much of Egypt's economy is based on people visiting the graves of the pharaohs. With these factors in mind Wikipedia can be a resource for such interest as it is a starting point. And Find a Grave is one stone to be used as we build our compendium of knowledge about everything. (Again, we must not use FAG as a source in our articles, but it is very acceptable as an External link in articles.) – S. Rich (talk) 16:55, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
Tombstone tourism sounds like a good travel topic for Wikivoyage. Please consider starting an article there, where it would be welcome.
I happen to like looking around old cemeteries myself, but I've been given to understand over the years that mine is a rather unusual view. So what will you say to the editors who think that links to Find-A-Grave are unimportant? How would you help them differentiate between the better or worse options? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:43, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
Although I do not support Find A Grave as a source for Wikipedia because it is a user generated resource, it makes perfect sense as an allowable external link. I liken it to a resource akin to IMDb; user created but widely used and checked and updated for lots of editors. Find A Grave includes information that may not be in a Wikipedia article, including date of birth, date of death, and the names of a spouse, children, and parents. This information is collected from cemetery markers and public records that are not allowable sources for Wikipedia. Whenever possible, this website includes a grave photograph and often includes a photograph of the person. These images are often unique to Find A Grave because they are provided by volunteers and family members; however, the photos do not have the copyright status to be shared through Wikipedia. I agree with @Srich32977 that there is visual information to be gained from seeing the tombstones. In addition, the specific cemetery that a person is buried in can also be informative. In terms of interest in burial locations for Wikipedians, note that the “person infobox” includes two ways to include burial location. In addition, there are articles about famous or notable cemeteries in Wikipedia, that include lists of notable people who are buried there. Although Find A Grave may not be a source for Wikipedia, it can help fill in the blanks or lead an editor to allowable sources. Rublamb (talk) 00:11, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
@Rublamb, permanent grave markers are allowable primary sources; use {{cite sign}} to cite them. Public records are generally allowable sources for dead people. (Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons rejects them only for living people, not for long-dead people.) The only real concern is whether the "Robert Smith" named on the grave marker is the particular Robert Smith (disambiguation) that the article is about. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:18, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
I have yet to find a guideline in Wikipedia that specifically says a tombstone or public records (Census or birth, death, and marriage records) can be used as references. WP:RSPRIMARY comes the closest, but still indicates that primary sources "must be used with caution in order to avoid original research." Which leads us to the question: how does one get to a tombstone to use it as a source? If you visit a cemetery or take a photo yourself, that would be original research. (And that option is highly unlikely for most editors anyway). If you find an image in an allowable source, that source would the used for the citation rather than the tombstone. Sources that include a photograph of a tombstone are rare except for really famous people, which is one of the reasons Find A Grave is a unique resource.
It is important to remember that we are talking about a possible external link, not a reference for articles. WP:EXTERNAL says, ” Some acceptable external links include those that contain further research that is accurate and on-topic, information that could not be added to the article for reasons such as copyright or amount of detail, or other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article for reasons unrelated to its accuracy.” The issue here is not whether the info in Find A Grave can be found elsewhere but whether it meets this criteria for an External Link. IMO, it does. Rublamb (talk) 00:48, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Verifiability#cite note-7 which says "This includes material such as documents in publicly accessible archives as well as inscriptions in plain sight, e.g. tombstones." Public records are "documents in publicly accessible archives" and tombstones are tombstones, and both are therefore clearly allowed by the WP:V policy.
Reading "inscriptions in plain sight", whether they're Blue plaques or signs at museums or tombstones, is not a case of an editor making stuff up that's never been published in a source before, so of course it's not an OR problem. They are primary sources, and all primary sources (including those found in a newspaper) need to be used with caution. In the case of tombstones, that would mean being cautious about assuming that a tombstone that says "Robert Smith" is the particular Mr Smith whom the article is about, and it would also mean not turning a conventional inscription like "Beloved Husband and Father" into a statement that the entire family loved him. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:01, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
Thanks--it is really into the weeds when you have to look at an efn to find an answer. (Now it is going to bug me as to why vital records provided by Ancestry are not allowed to be used as a source as it is an electronic archive). However, I think we can agree that most Wikipedia editors do not visit the burial places of the people they write about to take photos and capture information. Nevertheless, the ability to use a tombstone as a source in Wikipedia helps prove that Finda A Grave meets the standard for reliability needed for an external link. Rublamb (talk) 01:36, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
Also, just found that 60% of the entries in Find A Grave have a photo. Rublamb (talk) 01:38, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
> the ability to use a tombstone as a source in Wikipedia helps prove that Finda A Grave meets the standard for reliability
Well, it's a bit more complicated than that. The tombstone itself might be a reliable primary source. (That means you could usually write a sentence like "The tombstone is black" or "The inscription on the tombstone says 'Here lies a master baker'".) However, Find-A-Grave has a lot more content than just what you would see if you went to the cemetery.
(External links don't have to be reliable sources per WP:ELMAYBE.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:57, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
Please, to be clear, I like including FindaGrave in the External links section of articles. (This is part of building of our encyclopedia.) And I think the essays and information pages related to FindaGrave are being misused. There was (is) a conflation about FindaGrave as an un-reliable source for citations verses the acceptable addition as an External link in WP articles. But the vague, overlapping, undefined, unsupported "check marks" we see only adds to WP editing policy confusion and misuse. Solution? Either remove the check marks from this explanatory essay, or reduce the choices to 3 simple descriptions – "Yes", "No", and "Maybe". – S. Rich (talk) 02:15, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
There is a big spread between "maybe" meaning "usually but not always yes" and "maybe" meaning "usually but not always no", and conflating the two helps no one, per WAID. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:14, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
I was referring to Find-a-Grave only as an external link. As an amateur genealogist, I know most others in the field would caution when using gravestones/markers - a large part of the time they provide incorrect information. - kosboot (talk) 10:15, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
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