Request for comment on finding aids

This fascinating RfC asks whether links to finding aids ("LFAs") should be allowed. We don't have a rule about them specifically, at the moment. Editors discuss whether LFAs might be prohibited by some of the limbs of WP:ELNO, and if not, then where in the article they should be included. In this RfC the community reaches the following conclusions:
Q: Are LFAs prohibited by WP:ELNO point 7?
A: No.
Q: Are LFAs prohibited by WP:ELNO point 9?
A: No, but they may be "discouraged".
Q: Should we have a rule that prevents them?
A: On the basis of the discussion below there are two positions within closer's discretion: either (1) that we should not, or (2) that there is no consensus that we should. Both those positions lead to the same outcome, so I need not choose between them.
Q: Do LFAs belong on Wikipedia or Wikidata?
A: No consensus. This means that it is inappropriate to move them from Wikipedia to Wikidata, or vice versa, for the time being.
Q: Where, in the article, should LFAs be placed?
A: The consensus is that editors should decide this on a case-by-case basis in the usual Wikipedian way.
I will make the requisite change to WP:EL as a result of this RfC. There may be places in the Manual of Style that need to be edited, and if so, it is my hope that someone who knows the MOS will be kind enough make the requisite edit for me.
I hope this helps.—S Marshall T/C 09:36, 20 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Should finding aids be allowed as external links? SpinningSpark 08:34, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This has been discussed before but no firm conclusion reached. Ongoing discussions on specific cases also occuring here and here. Finding aids do not usually lead to documents that can be read online, so they are nominally in breach of WP:ELNO #7 or #9. From a behaviourial point of view, their insertion is often indistinguishable from spam (single-purpose account inserting links to their employer's site across multiple articles) and they are often removed. However, some editors support their inclusion. Personally, I am in two minds on this, but perhaps Wikidata is more suited for this information. Either way, I think they should be explicitly mentioned in the guidelines to avoid future confusion. SpinningSpark 08:31, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

To share my two cents, I believe finding aids are useful, but not as useful as links to digitized content. I also believe that they are more useful for people who want to truly research more about a Wikipedia article subject than casual readers. I really like Spinningspark's suggestion about Wikidata...I think that using its "archives at" property (P485) might be the best solution. If we go that route, I would like to explore how we might better be able to connect that property with Wikipedia, as a lot of readers will never even know about that material if it is only on Wikidata. Michael Barera (talk) 16:16, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
If something is not accessible online it probably shouldn't be in the External links section. With respect to one of the links in the first discussion above, perhaps "The documents of O'Keeffe and Stieglitz are archived at Yale University [1]" would fit in Georgia_O'Keeffe#Legacy. Wikidata is a good idea but virtually no one knows about it. Reywas92Talk 19:35, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
On Wikidata and no one knows about it, we have a standard set of templates to direct readers to sister projects. There is no reason not to create one for Wikidata if there is a definite reason to send people there. SpinningSpark 19:51, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Finding aids to relevant collections in archives and manuscript libraries certainly should be included—and they should be directly included as links on Wikipedia, not obscured by linking them only via another project that most of our readers are not familiar with. For example, in an article about an individual whose extensive personal papers are housed in an archive or library and open for research, a link to the archive's or library's finding aid for that collection strikes me as an important, even essential, piece of information relating to that individual. Of course linking should be done reasonably and only collections with substantial contents relating to the person or topic that is the subject of the article should be included—but that is true of any type of links. I find it difficult to imagine a strong argument against linking to finding aids involving highly relevant content. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:05, 25 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Reading the most recent comments, I would like to make sure we are all talking about the same thing. Examples of "finding aids" I think should be linked are this for Rex Stout, this for Hugo Black, and this for Isaac Asimov. Is the argument really that there is nothing potentially useful to our readers in this type of link? Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:16, 26 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"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.
...
If the website or page to which you want to link includes information that is not yet a part of the article, consider using it as a source for the article, and citing it. Guidelines for sourcing, which include external links used as citations, are discussed at Wikipedia:Reliable sources and Wikipedia:Citing sources."
For some of the links above I do see that is clearly the case, it is a clear addition of data that is beyond what we include. We however, a) do not want a pile-on of such links (I presume that for certain subjects a number of libraries have such overviews and could be included - where the n+1th is not adding anything over the nth), and b) should make sure that we link to significant data beyond what is already in the article (or that it is a significant amount of data represented in a comprehensive way that is far beyond what Wikipedia would have in an article). Maybe this should be having it's own template explaining you are going to a finding aid-external link? --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:23, 29 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

MOS:ANDOR

Please fix this page so that it follows the guidelines MOS:ANDOR and avoids the use of and/or specifically in the section Wikipedia:External_links#Links_normally_to_be_avoided -- 109.76.216.10 (talk) 02:36, 28 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This is not a wikipedia article, it is a guideline. Here it is better to be specific because people will argue that a sentence reads ‘or’ while they did ‘and’ which is not covered. Dirk Beetstra T C 04:03, 28 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Please read MOS:ANDOR, and MOS:SLASH. And/or is not the optimal way to write anything, and there is no reason why the guidelines shouldn't also follow reasonable style guidelines.
If it is important to highlight the possibility of "one or the other or both" then by all means do be specific, and use the extra few words to write it out and provide that extra clarity. -- 109.76.216.10 (talk) 14:46, 28 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
We don't write PAGs for rules lawyers. I've made a change as prompted. --Izno (talk) 15:00, 28 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Izno and 109.76.216.10:, I now saw the specific case, where arguing would not be an issue. I also agree that if arguing about it would be an issue, it would probably be better to write out the specifics. I do stand with the point however that our MOS is primarily written for mainspace articles, and that it is absolutely not applicable to material outside of content space. We have for example in one of our pillars, WP:NOT (a policy, not a guideline like MOS) the section WP:NOTMANUAL, where we state that we are not writing an instruction manual. However, most of our policies and guidelines are 'instructions' for how we write articles in mainspace. Dirk Beetstra T C 08:29, 29 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
On the contrary, Izno: Sometimes I do write PAGs to defend us all against rules lawyers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:25, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The MOS applies only to article namespace; however, the specific change in EL16 that was made is unobjectionable. Stifle (talk) 08:55, 22 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

ELNO 4-10

A suggested edit, and a very minor one at that. Instead of MySpace, should this restriction now mention a site more relevant/contemporary? doktorb wordsdeeds 07:47, 8 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Information icon Thank you for your suggestion. When you believe a page needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top.
The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons you might want to). Stifle (talk) 08:58, 22 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Linking to sites that reproduce portions of copyrighted material

Another user has raised concerns about linking to a web page that includes several screenshots from an episode of a television show (and many other screenshots from many other episodes on subsequent pages) per WP:LINKVIO. That user referred me to this conversation but I'm not sure how relevant it is. Do we have any consensus on issues like linking to an encyclopedia about a TV show that includes several such pieces of non-free media in it? Does LINKVIO only become relevant when there is non-free media with no meaningful commentary or useful content (per my understanding of the archived discussion)? Any thoughts? ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:53, 21 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not aware of a specific consensus on this. From first principles I wouldn't encourage linking to a site consisting only of copyrighted screenshots, but fair use in law is not quite as strict as Wikipedia's application of fair use principles so I would be more liberal in considering how much content is on the site. Stifle (talk) 09:02, 22 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Koavf, I would think that we could link to the page when we can reasonably argue that their use of the images is fair use. We cannot deeplink to the images directly. If their use is obviously not fair use, and hence copyvio, we should not link to them. The area is however a bit grey. Dirk Beetstra T C 10:39, 22 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
User:Koavf, LINKVIO becomes relevant when editors think that there is a "VIO" at the "LINK", not when editors think there is non-copyvio non-free content at the link, or when editors think that there is a copyvio on a non-linked other page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:34, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
WhatamIdoing, I don't think that anyone was concerned about the latter and I'm confused why you're bringing up the former. The question is if several screenshots constitutes a copyright violation. Linking to a torrent of Simpsons episode is clearly right out but is there some kind of threshold for how many screenshots is too much? If you have a 21-minute television episode and you link to a page with a dozen screenshots, is that a copyright violation? ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:14, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Koavf, if for those dozen uses they can reasonably argue that their use is fair use. Law is less strict than our Wikipedia rules, I doubt we would have a legal problem if we have 10 fair use images on one page, it is more that it conflicts with what Wikipedia stands for. Dirk Beetstra T C 18:55, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I bring up the "VIO at the LINK" point because what matters in terms of the LINKVIO policy is whether editors believe that the page with non-free screenshots constitutes a likely copyright violation. For a reliable answer to whether a given think constitutes a copyright violation, I understand that people consult lawyers. Failing that – it being out of most of our budgets – the folks at Commons, on average, seem to know more than the editors at Wikipedia (or at least to sound more confident in their pronouncements), and you could ask for advice there. What I can tell you is that the LINKVIO policy cares about actual copyright violations under US law, and not just more non-free use that we want in our own articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:16, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Developmental wikis: Sister projects or ELNO 12?

Some Metawiki:Proposals for new projects (which are unapproved by the WMF) have developmental (i.e. test/experimental/demonstration) wikis. They are generally not included in the Metawiki:Interwiki map, and therefore are not available as interwiki links.

A Template:Sister project template for one of these developmental wikis was recently discussed at Templates for Discussion with no consensus.

The Wikipedia:External links and Wikipedia:Wikimedia sister projects guidelines do not currently contain any explicit guidance on whether these developmental wikis should be treated as full sister projects or as unstable open wikis (ELNO 12), or whether there should be a case-by-case consideration.

I propose to add to the relevant guidelines that unapproved proposals for sister projects are not sister projects, and "except for a link to an official page of the article's subject, one should generally avoid providing external links to" them. --Bsherr (talk) 16:41, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Bsherr, there seems to be some trend that we need to have sisterlinks templates in the external links sections. I do think that they need to comply with our inclusion standards: they have to add something that is not already in the article. I do remove the sister links to commons categories if the one image that is used in the article is the only article on commons in that category. Similar for duplication between a wikisource collection of 7 works while we have an external link to a complete library repository with dozens of works (with content of most works freely accessible) of the same author. Do note that sisterlinks are linked from the toolbox already. For lesser developed sister projects that 'being useful' argument is likely going to be less true. Dirk Beetstra T C 06:21, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Beetstra: Right, I agree. My question is, speaking strictly about unapproved projects, do we need the case-by-case examination, or is it possible to have a bright-line rule that none of these meet our inclusion standards? --Bsherr (talk) 14:01, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Bsherr, well, ELNO 12 almost completely boils down to being an ELNEVER - I am aware of only one open wiki which generally always passes. Small/experimental/demonstration/test wikis generally do not have a significant userbase and are not 'stable' (which is even true here on en.wikipedia sometimes stays for days/weeks/months - and we have extensive mechanisms in place ánd a significant userbase). Being a mediawiki-wiki does not change that necessarily. As I said, there are often reasons not to add a link to commons, wikisource or wikidata, let alone to a new project. Dirk Beetstra T C 14:19, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Cite_note-7

WP:EL#cite_note-7 provides an example of how to convert an embedded external link to a citation, but the example seems a bit dated and is using an WP:ECITE type of citation style that has been deprecated for quite some time now. Perhaps it's a not of pressing importance since even an ECITE is better than an embedded external link, but maybe there's a way to tweak the syntax a bit to convert the example to a WP:INCITE style without disrupting the note too much so that editors are not unintentionally given the impression that ECITEs are still OK. The template ((dummy ref)) could be used with a courtesy link to WP:REFB to avoid having to properly format a citation to an actual reliable source. For example, something like the following might work OK.

Yes: "The Red Cross issued a press release that said...[1]"

-- Marchjuly (talk) 21:41, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe we should strip all the formatting out of that, so that people can see that the links are different. The main point of that example is that those are not the same URLs. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:27, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not so sure that the main point is that the urls are different since that seems like it would be more of a WP:RSCONTEXT issue than and external links issue. If that's really intended to be the main point, then it seems as if the "Yes" example wouldn't have replaced the embedded external link to the Red Cross's website with a Wikilink to Red Cross and the "No" example would've embedded the official link for the entire sentence, not just the name of the source. (See the example given in WP:CS#Avoid embedded links for "Apple" to see what I'm trying to get at). I think the main point is to avoid doing things like Example.com. If the main point is as you say, then it seems that "No" example should've been formatted as "The Red Cross issued a press release that said..." and the "Yes" example should've been formatted as "The Red Cross issued a press release that said...[2]." -- Marchjuly (talk) 06:01, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Marchjuly, your point could maybe be added as a ' Better: "The Red Cross issued a press release that said...[1]"'. I do agree that the three should use the same external link. And the way I see the first one ('no') is often 'No: "The Red Cross issued a press release that said..."' Dirk Beetstra T C 06:11, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Guys, I wrote that. I know what my point was. That footnote belongs to WP:ELNO#EL19, which is about not linking "Websites of organizations mentioned in an article". It's not about the formatting. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:55, 4 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't realize you wrote that, so my apologies if I missed the point you were trying to make or even worse assumed that you missed the point you were making. However, if your point is to provide an example that shows how embedded links should be avoided (i.e. avoiding Red Cross in favor of Red Cross), then I don't think there's any need for a second link at all, either as a citation or otherwise (as is done in the example given for Apple in WP:CS#Avoid embedded links).
Why not just give

No: The Red Cross issued a press release that said (...).
Yes: The Red Cross issued a press release that said (...).

as the example? -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:14, 4 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Marchjuly, now looking deeper into that, that would be the better option. Dirk Beetstra T C 05:54, 4 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
When we say "Don't add 'Websites of organizations mentioned in an article'", then someone comes around and says "But there are websites to businesses and non-profits all over articles!" Well, yes, WP:Inline citations, which commonly (but not always) use ref tags, are a thing here. That's why https://www.redcross.org/ is a bad idea in the article body, but https://www.redcross.org/full-URL-pointing-to-specific-page is okay. WP:EL#How to link explains how to format ==External links==. Other pages explain how to format citations.
I think it might be helpful to understand why you were looking at that footnote in the first place. Did you read "Except for a link to an official page of the article's subject,[5] one should generally avoid providing external links to:...19. Websites of organizations mentioned in an article—unless they otherwise qualify as something that should be linked or considered" and decide to click the (two) footnotes, or were you at some other part of the page, and just happened to see that footnote, without knowing what sentence it followed? WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:35, 8 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
WhatamIdoing, I have the feeling we are conflating two issues here:
  • No The [http://www.redcross.org Red Cross] issued a press release that said (...) vs. Yes The [[Red Cross]] issued a press release that said (...)
and
  • No The Red Cross issued [https://www.redcross.org/full-URL-pointing-to-specific-page a press release that said] (...) vs. Yes The Red Cross issued a press release that said (...)[https://www.redcross.org/full-URL-pointing-to-specific-page] vs. Better The Red Cross issued a press release that said (...)<ref>[https://www.redcross.org/full-URL-pointing-to-specific-page]</ref>
(the first, externally linking the organisation, not meant to be a ref - we do not 'ref' the existence of the organisation by the website of the organisation; the second a inline external link meant to be a ref where we do not ref in that way). Dirk Beetstra T C 07:47, 8 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@WhatamIdoing: I'm assuming that you mean me when you write "you", but my apologies if you don't. Anyway, I've been aware of this footnote for quite sometime, and I often cite it in edit summaries or point people to it when I remove an embedded link from the body of the article which is simply intended to serve a sort of quasi Wikilink for pages for subjects that don't have Wikipedia articles written about them. I've always felt the footnote was a bit dated because it suggests using a citation style that's been deprecated for a couple of years now (we shouldn't really be suggesting embedded citations any more), but also found it a bit confusing partly for the reasons given above by Beetstra. The note seems to be trying to do two things at once using a single example: let people to know not to embed links to organization pages that are not intended to be references and also to show that linking to a specific source (webpage) is better than linking to a general webpage (i.e. WP:RSCONTEXT). The first thing, I get because that is an external links issue, but the second thing seems more of a citing sources issue than external links issue and I think confuses things. Perhaps it would be best to have two "Yes/No" examples like is done in WP:CS#Avoid embedded links: one for the embedded link to the organization's page that's not intended to be a citation and one for an embedded link that's intended to be a citation. -- Marchjuly (talk) 09:41, 8 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It isn't try to do two things. It's trying to do one thing. The one thing is "Don't like to websites of organizations mentioned in an article". The one thing is "Don't put https://www.redcross.org anywhere the body of any article".
The formatting is completely irrelevant to the point. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:06, 8 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
If that's the case, then there doesn't seem to be any need to use two different URLs in the example. If the only point of the example is

No: "The Red Cross issued a press release that said..."
Yes: "The Red Cross issued a press release that said..."

then maybe that's how the example should be written, without adding any second link used as a citation (embedded or inline) to the end of the sentence. This is the way it's being done for the similar example given in WP:CS#Avoid embedded links. That example doesn't use a second link to represent a citation, even though the page is about citations, because the point (as you point out) it's trying illustrate is the same: "Don't put http://apple.com anywhere in the body of any article". -- Marchjuly (talk) 21:37, 8 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Marchjuly and WhatamIdoing:, I agree with Marchjuly, the point there should be 'don't use inline links'. If we have to make a point for refs, then that should be in another footnote (which will look somewhat similar, but it is a different point). Dirk Beetstra T C 05:32, 9 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with using a wikilink for the "Yes" example is that people add these URLs mostly to non-notable organizations (i.e., a blue link is impossible and a red link is inappropriate). How about reducing it to the "No" example, and changing it to a hypothetical example? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:12, 9 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Technically, a red link might not always be inappropriate per WP:REDYES, but I think your suggestion is very workable. Since I didn't originally add the note, I'm not sure why "Red Cross" was used as an example. (The same goes for the "Apple" example in WP:CS#Avoid embedded links.) Maybe instead of making up a hypothetical example, we should just use "Wikipedia" instead. For example,

No: Wikipedia is the free encyclopedia."

might work OK. A clarification (if deemed necessary) could possibly be added which explains that a Wikilink may be acceptable when an article about the subject exists, but an embedded external link is still not acceptable even when a corresponding Wikipedia article doesn't exist. Do you think that would illustrate the same point you were hoping to make with the original note? -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:57, 9 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think they were in the news that week, so it was handy. Let's start without any additional clarification. We can always add it later if there is evidence of confusion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:30, 12 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Waiting to see if further clarification is necessary seems fine. — Marchjuly (talk) 04:16, 13 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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