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I'm not sure where to bring this, so I'll raise it here. Maybe someone else who frequents this noticeboard will have a better idea of what venue would be best for this type of concern.

It has recently come to my attention that the article for actor Vanessa Marquez includes a police bodycam video featuring her fatal shooting (albeit partially off-camera, towards the end), as well as the events leading up to it; there is also an external link to the same video. The video has been part of the article since May of this year; the external link has been there since March 2020. The footage of her incapacitated body, along with any identifying shots of the officer doing the shooting, are both blurred, and the video comes with a viewer discretion warning at the start and narration throughout, so it's not as if no effort was made to show the situation with respect towards Vanessa and the officers. However, it still feels like something that should at least have community input before it is included in an article.

Thoughts? Kurtis ^(talk) 13:34, 5 December 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I'm not a regular at this noticeboard, so take my advice with many grains of salt.

• Given the video is in the article, I don't think the external link is necessary.
• I'm not sure what you mean by "community input" – WP:NOTCENSORED reminds us against being touchy on that score. Regardless, I think Talk:Vanessa Marquez would the place to raise issues with displaying the video itself.

Cremastra (talk) 21:54, 10 December 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Kurtis, thanks for posting this. @Cremastra is correct that the link should at most be in one place. Either the ((Listen)) template in the section about her death should be removed, or the link under ==External links==; we should not have both.

For the rest, I think your RFC at Talk:Vanessa Marquez#Request for Comment: Inclusion of police bodycam footage should answer your question about whether editors want to include it at all. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:53, 11 December 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@WhatamIdoing: You're welcome, and thank you for linking the RfC. I think that's the best place to discuss whether or not the video should be included. @Cremastra: Wikipedia may not be censored, but we should still be cautious about how loosely we interpret that rule. Depicting someone's mental breakdown and fatal shooting in a video is the kind of thing I really think should be discussed so that if it is to be included, it's with community consensus. Kurtis ^(talk) 00:37, 16 December 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

2603:6000:d102:a66d::/64 was listed at WP:AIV due to adding external links like this. Any opinions on those edits? Johnuniq (talk) 02:44, 26 December 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

It looks like an archived copy of the official website, which would be fine. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:17, 26 December 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I have a question about templates like ((Magic: The Gathering card)) that are being used to essentially embed external links into articles (either in the lede section of body sections). The documentation of Template:Magic: The Gathering card states that the template should only be used in "External links" sections when used in articles, but at least in Odyssey (Magic: The Gathering) that is not the case at all. This template looks like it's being used quite a lot so I'm wondering if the use of this template in general (there are others like ((NASDAQ)), ((Bibleverse)), etc.) has ever been discussed and any type of consensus reached as to whether they're OK to use in the bodies of articles. I don't know exactly how many of these templates there are, but I'd imagine many were bodly created very earlier on when Wikipedia was just starting out and probably never were discussed over the years as relevant policies and guidelines started being fleshed out and further developed. All three of the documentation pages for the templates listed above state they should only be used in external link sections or in infoboxes, but that doesn't really seem to reflect how they're being used in many cases. They are all being used so many times that unilaterally going around an changing them all might (even with the best of intentions) might be seen as disruptive. There has already been an RFC for the "NASDAQ" template at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Ticker symbols in article leads so I guess that's sufficient for that particular template, but I'm wondering if the same thing needs to be done for the others individually or whether it can be done for such templates as a group generally. Even with that ticker symbol RFC, though, there's no telling how many have just ignored it or were just unaware of it when using the template. For example, AAON, ACI Worldwide, Alliance Fiber Optic Products and Amalgamated Bank were found by hovering through the first column of "A" listings at Category:Companies listed on the Nasdaq so there might be more. Of the four I found, three look as if they might've just slipped through the cracks during whatever post-RFC clean up took place, but at least one was an article created a few years after the RFC. -- Marchjuly (talk) 21:56, 31 December 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

NASDAQ was previously used in the first sentence for many articles, but since the 2012 RFC it has mostly been used in infoboxes. Bibleverse has been generally accepted, although there's at least one editor who objects to it. Similar templates include Template:IETF RFC. Generally, the unifying theme is that the contents are commonly referred to through some standard mechanism (whether that's RFC 2119 or Genesis 1:1 or an Opus number for music), a tendency not to have a matching Wikipedia article (we would link to our article about RFC 4824 but we [weirdly] don't have an article about RFC 2119, so the external link template could be used in that case), and some acceptable website (authoritative or otherwise) that contains primarily the text of that item.

That said, I do not think that links such as the one found in Odyssey (Magic: The Gathering)#Torment would likely be approved by the community as being sufficiently similar. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:49, 1 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thanks for the input. I've added some ((Please see)) templates to relevant WikiProject and template talk page to try and get more people involved in this discussion. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:49, 2 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Bibleverse has been generally accepted, although there's at least one editor who objects to it. I'm guessing you mean me? I'll just say that my experience is very different from WAID's – I've seen plenty of editors object to it, and very few experienced editors who actually prefer embedded links to footnotes. The Bibleverse documentation says that the template should not be used in the body of an article; this warning has been in place for years, and I don't believe anyone but WAID has ever formally contested it. Sojourner in the earth (talk) 19:37, 2 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• I think that the MTG card template is closer to ((Bibleverse)) and its usage is generally fine. Bibleverse is fine because very often an article might want to cite a relevant passage, and the reader would want to check for themselves. If a card is being addressed directly along the lines of "CardX was listed as one of the most famous cards from the expansion due to blah blah blah", linking CardX so that it's not just a name is very relevant. In the case of Black Lotus (Magic: The Gathering card), there is in fact an article to link, but that's not that common. Now, I can see possibly not using it for just passing mentions in raw texts, but I think that it's especially fine for, say, bulleted lists or paragraphs specifically about a card. SnowFire (talk) 03:57, 2 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

  I don't think it's similar. If someone is mentioning the name of a document, a link that lets them find out what the document itself directly says might sometimes be valuable. (Is Sonnet 29 the one about the summer day or the one about being old? A quick look at Wikisource [which is an external website for our purposes] tells you that it's the one about envying other people's social status!) However, a link to a different website that tells you about the document is not the same as one that is the document. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:20, 6 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I added a section on Flag of San Antonio, but it kept being removed, even with citations and external links. Unable to upload my own images for reasons I am unfamiliar with; I believe it was an "autoban" mistake. Haven't been able to appeal or ask for help or clarification. I just created a Wikipedia account so forgive me if I am not entirely familiar with everything yet; all I wanted was to add a section for a movement to adopt a new city flag, similar to that of the Keystone Flag movement in Pennyslvania. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lowqualityposts (talk • contribs) 22:47, 8 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

As the removal clearly said, the sources don't support what the paragraphs said. None of those references say anything about Maxwell Feldmann or his proposal. A post by Feldmann is not enough. You need to show that the proposal has been covered by reliably published sources independent of him. StarryGrandma (talk) 20:10, 13 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I added "How to Escape Nibiru", podcast by Brian Dunning as an EL and User:Juxlos reverted it calling it a " literal promotion plug".. I wasn't of course trying to promote anything, just adding something of interest. Does this fail WP:EL? Doug Weller talk 15:42, 14 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Just noticed it looks as though the editor searched for Dunning, see also [1]. Doug Weller talk 15:58, 14 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Juxlos, what's your concern? Generally speaking, Wikipedia:We don't care what happens to your website, so if an external link leads to more traffic – well, we don't actually care. What we care about is that the linked page is relevant and interesting. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:19, 14 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

[2] an el at Bennachie. Doug Weller talk 12:05, 15 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

No, because they don't add anything more than the article. We're an encyclopaedia and as have enough images of the subject, this uncurated link of photos adds nothing more to the article that already has several photos. That's my opinion not entirely based on policy. Although, not going to lie, there are some damn good photos in there. Maybe I'm talking myself out of it, not sure. I guess it can't really hurt can it? Canterbury Tail talk 14:04, 15 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The Wikipedia:External links guideline doesn't address image galleries directly (we get about one question/dispute per year about it), so generally the point is whether, using your best editorial judgment, you believe the images represent "a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a featured article" and "neutral and accurate material that is relevant to an encyclopedic understanding of the subject and cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to copyright issues, amount of detail...or other reasons", or not. For example, editors can realistically be expected to disagree over whether the five images currently in the gallery of that article are basically the same as the ~1,400 images on the Flickr page (not the same number, of course, but the same basic value to the reader). Some people find photos super helpful and informative, and others just don't care about them, so we'll get differing opinions, with nobody being "wrong".

It's not banned, so if you think it's useful, I'd suggest adding it and seeing whether anyone objects enough to revert it. If they don't, then that's implicit consensus, and you're set (at least until someone actually does object). If they do, then WP:ELBURDEN applies, and you can have a chat on the article's talk page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:11, 16 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

thanks all. Doug Weller talk 21:38, 20 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Yes Mrsone40 (talk) 22:13, 22 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Curlie is the successor to DMOZ. We have a long tradition of including links to DMOZ in lots of articles and the current template, ((Curlie)), has 6,746 transclusions. I saw it recently and thought "who uses these anymore?" Web directories used to be essential tools, and many people have good feelings about the DMOZ in particular, but in 2024 ... I can't remember the last time I used one or heard anyone talk about them except as part of some techno-nostalgia.

The content of these links seems to be a combination of links already easily found in relevant Wikipedia articles, the most obvious links that would come up with any search, and some spam. Over time, we've come to see the external links section as something to be used sparingly, but these remain.

I brought this up at VPI, but it didn't get much of a response. I don't want to nominate the template for deletion, because it's entirely possible there are still good uses of it. What I'm hoping to figure out is under what conditions should we be using it? I'm having trouble thinking of any. After all, if there are good links at Curlie, why wouldn't we just link to those sites directly from our articles? Why risk the low quality stuff that we would decline to include?

This is not an RfC because I'm curious to hear from those who value these links and get some thoughts about the rationale for inclusion. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:52, 31 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

See also Wikipedia talk:External links#Curlie as spam and Wikipedia talk:External links/Archive 41#Rule about the limit to the number of links in an "External links" section? and other prior discussions.

In Wikipedia articles, there are two ways to use a web directory (of which Curlie is merely the most popular example):

• One is to provide a link to a good collection of external links. This would mean finding a particularly good page (Curlie or otherwise) that has a long list of links that you really think would interest readers. This link would represent giving readers a link to a page that is a clear improvement over them just doing a web search. Compare, e.g., this web directory of legitimate online mental health assessments, compiled by a mental health professional, against search engine results, which might include incorrect, outdated, or joke "assessments".
• The other use is to discourage Wikipedia editors from filling the ==External links== section with a long list of links. In this instance, it doesn't really matter what the contents of the linked page are, because our main goal is to solve behavioral problems by telling editors that their link should be submitted to Curlie instead of creating a sprawling linkfarm here. I recommend this particularly when editors are adding "just one more" charitable organization. This is likely the reason editors chose to add a Curlie link to Alcoholism. It doesn't matter if it's any good, so long as it stops the spam for services in each editors' area.

WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:35, 31 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The line at WP:EL which considers web directories as links that can be considered has existed since the earliest versions of the page. That diff is from 2005, though it looks like it draws from other preexisting pages, so the guidance might be older. That would make sense, since in 2005 directories were past their heyday, but still something people used from time to time. It's entirely possible there are some good parts of Curlie, but I'm yet to come across a useful one linked in an article.

I could see some unusual circumstances where a directory is useful, but it's not the norm. Most of the links to Curlie I've seen seem to have been added because the link exists, not because it provides anything useful. I don't see why we'd need to generalize guidance about directories in order to add a link here and there that happen to be a directory. Also, how careful is Curlie about medical topics like alcoholism? Clicking around the site a bit, I find that they have rich resources on e.g. Reiki, which has "Bill's Reiki Page" but nothing about how it's a pseudoscience (beyond its categorization as "alternative"). Hop over to nutrition, and there's a link to Kenny & Joann's raw blog, where they have a handful of posts to help you "restore immunity" and try to sell their services. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:44, 1 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

It sometimes surprises editors, but external links are not required to be reliable, neutral, or non-commercial.

The general trend towards interpreting advice pages seems to be that anything not explicitly allowed is prohibited, so I think it's valuable to mention it. I don't think we should suggest Curlie by name, however. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:56, 8 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This makes it sound like we have no standards at all if it's not listed at ELNO. That may be true (there may indeed be a lot that feels through the cracks between ELYES/ELMAYBE/ELNO), but it's hard to interpret the spirit of the intersection of WP:FRINGE, WP:NPOV, WP:RS, WP:NOT, and WP:EL as indicating we should push people to Bill's Reiki page and whatever people or businesses decided to use Curlie for promotion. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:20, 8 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The article Reiki might or might not benefit from a link to any web directory (Curlie or otherwise). However, a web directory might be better than nothing (e.g., if the absence makes that section a spam magnet) or than "official" sources (like an organization of Reiki practitioners – an "open" web directory has the possibility of including links from an anti-Reiki POV).

Any external link can be removed by any editor for any reason, and it can't be restored unless and until there is evidence of an actual consensus for it (per WP:ELBURDEN), so I prefer to think of it as "letting editors use their best judgement" instead of "no standards at all". It's okay for someone to add it because they think it will be interesting to readers, and it's okay for you to remove it because you think it's uninformative. (See the line in WP:EL that says Is the site content proper in the context of the article (useful, tasteful, informative, factual, etc.)? if you'd like some ideas about complaints that won't make it sound like you're POV pushing.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:18, 8 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Your view is welcome. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:12, 19 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]