My personal manifesto
editExternal links exist to provide extra information that is not included within Wikipedia. Links to commercial websites have their place, but this is limited. Sometimes a commercial site will have the best information available on a particular topic, in which case it is appropriate to link to that information - but only if the information is presented in line with the standards that Wikipedia upholds internally. Primarily this means NPOV, and in this instance it means a limited emphasis, if any at all, on selling the company's own products.
For example, suppose that you are writing an article on widgets and you discover that Acme Widgets Inc. has a page on its website with a long, detailed history of widget manufacture. As long as the history itself is NPOV it's appropriate to include an external link to it, even though the site as a whole exists to sell Acme products. However, if it's a long, detailed history of widget manufacture with particular emphasis on the great advances made by Acme products... then thanks, but we'll live without it. (Long term, of course, we should be looking to have our own article on the history of widget manufacture).
External links can occasionally be useful for linking to directories of other links. For example, it would be much more appropriate to link to a comprehensive webring of fan sites for a particular celebrity than to link to each of the fan sites individually (or only to those where the webmaster happened to add themselves).
On the whole, I am ruthless with external links. We do not need spam and we are not a link farm.
My standard spam warning (to be adapted as necessary)
editPlease do not continue posting links to ..... into Wikipedia articles. These will be removed and, if you continue, you may be blocked from editing. We do not welcome [[Wikipedia:Spam|spam]]. --~~~~
- How would one go about building consensus to eventually get this adopted as a general practice, or official policy (preferably the latter)? This seems like a very good idea. Ignore this if said idea's already been implemented.
Pages likely to attract spam
editThese pages are likely to attract spam. Use Related Changes and look out for anon edits, especially to External Links sections. Please feel free to add to this list. Criteria for inclusion are:
- Has attracted spam at least once in the past
- In your judgement, is likely to attract more
Pages should meet both these criteria to be included here. For example, pepper spray has been spammed, but is probably not a high risk, so won't be included - otherwise the list just gets unworkable. The most likely pages are those where there are a lot of online, web savvy businesses offering a product or service (e.g. Search engine optimization) or where a persistent spammer keeps coming back (e.g. Golf).
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