Wikipedia talk:External links

Bot to increase use of external link templates

Editors watching this page may be interested in Wikipedia:Bot requests#External links bot. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:44, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

What to do if Original website was replaced by predatory dsngerous website

Please see my question in Wikipedia_talk:Citing sources#What to do if original website was replaced by predatory dangerous website. - Altenmann >talk 06:22, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

For any future readers, this is covered under Wikipedia:External links#Hijacked and re-registered sites, and in the |url-status= parameter of most Wikipedia:Citation templates. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:55, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Phishing

Shouldn't phishing sites (sites that try to deceive the reader that they are the "official" site of a bank or similar, so that they can steal things from them) be included in links to avoid? Cambalachero (talk) 14:29, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

We would handle those under either Wikipedia:External links#Hijacked and re-registered sites or WP:ELNO#EL3 (malware), but it doesn't seem to be a significant problem in practice. We don't ever have arguments over whether it would be better to keep the phishing site instead of the official one. Adding that would probably amount to unnecessary WP:Instruction creep with no actual change in behavior. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:54, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 30 March 2024

Mrsone40 (talk) 02:59, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

 Not done. Please provide a description of the changes you want made. ― novov (t c) 06:39, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

ELs and lists of websites

Should we allow using external links in some fashion in lists of websites? I was looking at List of fact-checking websites recently and recommending it to my students as a useful tool, except that for many entries on it there is, well, no link to the relevant website. One has to google for it or click through to references (media reports/scholarly works) and search inside them for a link. This is hardly ideal.

Looking at some examples. Some just list notable websites - easy. But many list websites which are not notable or do not have articles yet, and this is where there is a lot of mess. Some don't have links anywhere, ex. List of fact-checking websites which would be a valuable educational tool, but right now it is quite annoying to use because, well, it does not link to said websites, just to some mentions of them. Some lists do it by having an infobox for each entry (ex. List of medical wikis). Some have a table with a (non-clickable) URL field: List of North Korean websites banned in South Korea, List of websites blocked in the United Kingdom. Some have embedded links which IMHO seem to clearly violate this policy (ex. List of online image archives).

So it seems to me that many lists do link, prominently, links to websites they discuss. Which, frankly, seems reasonable. Maybe it's time to work out a best practice and write up in the policy? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:58, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

@Piotrus, have you read Wikipedia:External links#Links in lists?

There are two separate considerations:

• whether to include the websites at all, and
• (if yes) how to format them.

In the ==External links== section itself, we would expect to find a web directory that contains lists of websites; we would never want to see 100 separate links to 100 fact-checking websites. In the list itself, it is possible to include the external links (subject to the formatting requirements). WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:16, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing I did but that section seems to recommend against including such links in the list, which to me is counterintuitive and as seen, not respected anyway by many lists. Consider: ... the lists themselves should not be composed of external links. These lists are primarily intended to provide direct information and internal navigation, not to be a directory of sites on the web. Granted, than it says The rules about whether to include an external link in a list apply regardless of the method used to format the list. - but what rules? Then we have examples, with restaurants used for 'no links' (why? it is not explained) and elections as 'links are ok'. This is very arbitrary. In other cases, such as for lists of political candidates and software, a list may be formatted as a table, and appropriate external links can be displayed compactly within the table: - fine, but what are those 'other case' where it is ok or not ok? Frankly, all we are saying, apparently, is that we should not include links in the list, but sometimes it is ok, then we say effectively, that for restaurants it is bad, for politial candidates and software it is ok. Very random, very confusing. I feel this section needs a total rewrite. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 22:40, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

"The lists themselves should not be composed of external links" is about formatting. It means you N shouldn't do anything that looks like this:

• [1]
• https://example.com
• Example.com
• Example

That sentence does not mean that you can't have external links as part of a list; it only means that the external links shouldn't be the only information in the list. Readers deserve more than a link to an external website. If we had a List of websites selling clothes, you Y could do something like this:

• Example (https://example.com) – Considered one of the first e-commerce stores to address the shirt without stripes problem with an AI-based search system that only gives the wrong answer once every third time, Example began selling menswear in 2021 when the founder discovered that his favorite clothes no longer fit properly.

I think it is a mistake to look for a list of pre-approved cases for which links are desirable or undesirable. Whether they're helpful depends on multiple factors. These factors include, but are not limited to, the length of the list (longer = more likely, as hundreds of little blue clicky numbers makes it harder to find the real references), the proportion of non-notable subjects, the real-world role of websites in the subject matter (e.g., high for political elections and open-source software; low for brick-and-mortar businesses), and editors' best-judgment, common-sense-based estimate of what readers will want from that page. That last point, in particular, really has to be determined by consensus, not by an algorithm laid down in a guideline.

(The choice of subject matter in the examples is firstly because I had Babette's Feast on my mind when I wrote the original, and secondly because campaign websites have been a ongoing source of confusion, especially for non-notable candidates in notable elections.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:29, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing So is this ok? I still think we need to make this more clear in the guideline here. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:50, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Are you more concerned about editors thinking that a list of websites should keep the names of those websites a secret, or are you more concerned that editors will not be able to make the connection between the table formatting (given in the example) and bulleted list formatting (not currently given as an example)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:37, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Would you like to see an example like this added?

• Alice (Republocrat, https://example.com) – campaigned on her expertise and won 51% of the vote.
• Bob (Demican, https://example.com) – campaigned on his business acumen and received 47% of the vote.
• Carol(Greebertarian, https://www.example.com) – received 2% of the vote.

Or would it be more pointful to say that lists of websites should include links to the websites? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:42, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Saying the latter plainly, like you just did, might be best. It is common sense-ical, and as I said, our guideline could you copyediting for clarity as I found the cited section confusing/partially contradictory. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:11, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Hmmm, both. I was indeed puzzled as I thought the guideline implies the urls should be not disclosed (due to spam concerns?), then the examples we have are arbitrary and not clearly inclusive of most types of lists. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:13, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

I've copied the example over and added lists of websites to the short list of typical examples.

URLs can be visibly disclosed or not; sometimes "Official website" or a simple [2] link could be more graceful (and space conserving, for the last one). But if it's a list of websites with unusual names, then it would just be silly to disguise the name of the websites. I could also imagine a campaign website that uses a political slogan instead of the candidate's name, in which case it might be informative to disclose the URL (think "LawAndOrder.com" or "LowTaxes.com"). If a website is defunct but should be disclosed for some reason (and an internal link to Pets.com or TheGlobe.com isn't sufficient for some reason), then it could be WP:Nowiki'd. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:08, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

External links as references

Within the "Longevity of links" section, the "What can be done with a dead external link" subsection begins with: "Within the ==External links== section, dead URLs are of no use." There is no mistake as to the meaning.

The subsection has a "main articles" Wikipedia:Citing sources#Preventing and repairing dead links and Wikipedia:Link rot. The first "main article" points to preventing and repairing dead links --- as sources, and can be confusing.

The second actually states "About|(primarily) link rot in Eternal links", that omits "section".

It is my understanding that Wikipedia has evolved (a fairly long time ago) towards it not being acceptable to use a link in the "External links" section as a general source. Sometimes a determination requires some exploring but sometimes a link in the "external links" section is factored as a citation. On some articles it is more clear if there is no other sourcing and only a link in the "External links" section.

It could be just my misunderstanding but it seems to add a level of confusion to use a "Main" link to the Wikipedia:Citing sources (WP:DEADREF) when the subject is the External links section in articles. There is an obvious difference between an "External link" and a link in the "External links" section. -- Otr500 (talk) 17:55, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Does this address your concern? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:37, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

I do like that better. -- Otr500 (talk) 21:45, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

On the more general subject, for the purposes of Template:Unreferenced, any URL anywhere on the page (to a webpage that contains something relevant to the article) should be treated as a source. What makes something be a source is whether it contains information that verifies any part of the article. Obviously, some ways of formatting the citation for a source are better than others, but the formatting isn't what makes something be a source. Articles aren't wholly unreferenced merely because the formatting is suboptimal. (The {{no footnotes}} template is used for URLs that are in a list at the end instead of being properly formatted into ref tags.)

Editors also have to watch out for people (including me, back in the day) who changed ==References== sections to say ==External links== if the contents of that section were just WP:General references instead of WP:Inline citations. Genrefs have never been banned, though they are not adequate substitutes when inline citations are specifically required. You can "legally" use a genref for some simple material ("The capital of France is Paris") but not for something like a direct quotation, because WP:V specifically requires an inline citation for all direct quotations. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:08, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

@ WhatamIdoing. A blank "References" section would show as not having a source even if there was a source in the "External links" section. "Any URL anywhere on the page" would be with the assumption that a url or link didn't have copyright violations.

I just recently changed an "External links" listing to general source at St. Nicholas Church, Louny. That was before I was going to convert the url's and found both to be 404 errors. My justification was basically that an "External links" section is one of the optional appendices and can be deleted. Plus, a general source is a source. Wikipedia has gravitated to it not being acceptable to source through the external links section. There was an article that showed to be unsourced and my attempting to correct this ended basically with an unsourced article. WOW! It is a good thing that the current state of the article does not determine notability. -- Otr500 (talk) 23:38, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

It sounds like you were starting with a {{no footnotes}} article, and ended up with an {{unreferenced}} one. If you thought the URLs were genrefs, then leaving them in the article, but tagging them with {{dead link}} would be an intermediate option. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:53, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes, thanks, I had to stop but was looking for sourcing whoch I plan to resume. -- Otr500 (talk) 01:14, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Author's names order

In some articles when an external link is to an item with a named author sometimes the order is Surname Given Name in the style familiar from outside WP. In others the order is Given Name Surname. Is there supposed to be a WP style? Mcljlm (talk) 23:21, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

@Mcljlm, are you asking about Wikipedia:Citing sources? In the ==External links== section, there usually isn't any author's name given. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:44, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm not talking about citations WhatamIdoing.

In External links sections authors are usually mentioned when the link is to a book at the Internet Archive/Google Books or an article. Mcljlm (talk) 16:55, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

@Mcljlm, can you give me a link to an example or two? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:41, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Till_Eulenspiegel#External_links, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Britain#External_links, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Slovo#External_links and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lubbock,_1st_Baron_Avebury#External_links includes examples of named authors WhatamIdoing. Mcljlm (talk) 07:57, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

@Mcljlm, most of that appears to be due to people incorrectly using WP:Citation templates like {{cite web}} in the ==External links== section. Usually, authors aren't included in the ==External links== section. If they are named, then it most often looks something like this:

• Relevant Page by Alice Author in The Newspaper

There is no prescribed format, but there is a preference for having them look obviously different from the citations (e.g., don't use citation templates). WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:45, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Notes formatting

Can someone take a look at this edit made by CopperyMarrow15 in August 2023? When the "notes" were converted to WP:SRF#Explanatory notes in change their numbering from numerical (1, 2, 3, etc.) to alphabetic (a, b, c, etc.). Since these notes are are referred to using Wikilinks in edit summaries or on other talk pages, all of the links no longer work. If there's a way to use {{efn}} with numbers instead of letters of the alphabet, then that might be preferable so that links to the notes still work. If not, then perhaps the bold change should be reverted to re-establish the WP:STATUSQUO and allow it to be discussed a bit. If using "efn" is the way to go here and it's impossible to convert them to a numerical system, then perhaps WP:ANCHORs should be added so that links to the old system work again. -- Marchjuly (talk) 21:26, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Such links can't be preserved forever anyway; even if the old formatting style were restored, the numbers change every time an earlier ref is added to the page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:46, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

I understand that, but "anchors" can be updated each time a note is added or removed. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:37, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Do you want to replace all of the links in past discussions that currently link to something like "WP:EL#cite_note-6" to a newly created, permanent anchor? When that footnote becomes #cite_note-7, we can't add an anchor to its old #cite_note-6 location, as that number will be needed in for a different place on the page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:09, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

I thought just updating the anchors for the efns being used in the EL page would work; however, after thinking about it a but more, you're right that there's much more involved than that. As long as there's a way to link to the notes like before, things should be fine. Thanks for the feedback. -- Marchjuly (talk) 03:13, 19 April 2024 (UTC)