Wikipedia:External links/Noticeboard

Welcome to the external links noticeboard
This page is for reporting possible breaches of the external links policy. Post questions here regarding whether particular external links are appropriate or compliant with Wikipedia's guidelines for external links. Provide links to the relevant article(s), talk page(s), and external links(s) that are being discussed. Questions about prominent websites like YouTube, IMDb, Twitter, or Find a Grave might be addressed with information from this guide. Sections older than 10 days archived by MiszaBot II. (For help, see Wikipedia:Purge) If you mention specific editors, you must notify them. You may use {{subst:ELN-notice}} to do so.
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External links to YouTube audiobook recordings

I am wondering if the YouTube audiobook links added to Secrets at Sea and The Mouse with the Question Mark Tail with this edit and this edit are acceptable as external links or are copyvios. They were originally added to the "References" section of each article, and I moved them to "External links". I'm not quite sure, however, if they should instead be removed completely per WP:ELNEVER and WP:COPYLINK. -- Marchjuly (talk) 15:06, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

The YouTube channel owner "Audiobooks" appears to have no declared indication if they are the rights holder or not to have the ability to publish of if they are just skimming something like Audible to repost the content. Without strong affirmation of being a rights holder, this is a copyvio. (Even that said, I can't see the need to link even to an official audiobook recording even if offered freely than just using the physical book as a reference). --MASEM (t) 15:24, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

• It's definitely a copyright violation. A quick search for the title shows that this was never released for free and I found that the publisher does indeed charge for the audiobook. It's highly likely that this was recorded off of Audible or Overdrive and then uploaded to YouTube, as was said above. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 07:28, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for checking into this Masem and Tokyogirl79. Just for reference, I removed the links a few weeks back per ELNEVER, but this is nice to know in case someone tries to re-add them. -- Marchjuly (talk) 08:16, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Promotional or OK?

Wolpat has twice inserted this link to a YouTube video that appears to be a commercial for a company's products. Is it OK? 32.218.38.104 (talk) 20:56, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Promotional. And so are several of the other links in the article. Wikipedia is not a sales catalog. - MrX 21:14, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Promotional. I do not have any strong objections to linking to their YouTube channel, however, they already have an official website to which Wikipedia already links. - Location (talk) 21:31, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

I just thought I'd add my two penny worth, if I could... I consider myself still new to Wikipedia, as even a good few months in there is still an awful lot to learn, especially with rules, regulations, policies and so on. It's a definite that I have learned that any given policy can be interpreted in about 100 different ways on a 100 different pages. But specifically on this subject, I put in most of the external links under discussion after watching them all (more than once), and satisfying myself that they all actually would show and/or tell the person watching them something new and different, and that they included something of interest that was not in text. I believe they all contribute something individual, and enhance the quality and quantity of information that this Wiki page offers. I absolutely agree they are created to promote, but I don't see them as adverts per se. I do think they are valuable, and would like them to be retained. I am also interested in how the Wiki community at large views this. I would also ask, would it not be more appropriate to discuss before deleting? --Wolpat (talk) 22:44, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

The content of those videos are about 95% promotional, 5% informational in my opinion. The big issue I see it that it is not objective. A manufacturer is not a good source of objective information on their own products. Phrases like "Investing in world-class operations to provide the best value" and "Oshkosh is ready to build JLTV to the highest standards...right now" are empty marking cruft of no educational value. To answer your question "would it not be more appropriate to discuss before deleting": discussion is always good, but disputed links should normally be excluded by default unless and until there is a consensus to include them per WP:ELBURDEN. When 32.218.38.104 first reverted your link addition as spam, that was your queue to open a discussion on the talk page to seek consensus for including it. Perhaps linking to the company's YouTube channel, as suggested by Location, would be a good compromise.- MrX 23:22, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Deletion occurred after discussion with MrX and Location above. Because their views seemed unequivocal and accorded well with established policy, no further discussion seemed warranted at the time. Linking to the company's YouTube channel does seem like a reasonable move. 32.218.38.104 (talk) 23:25, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

That all appears to make sense. As I say, I'm still learning, so am happy with the results here, and hopefully have a better grasp of this process. The compromise is also fair, and I'll track down the YouTube channel and put in a link for that tomorrow.--Wolpat (talk) 23:50, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Put the YouTube Channel links in, and I believe correctly; it's links not link as I could not find a single 'corporation' channel, but only a channel per division, which I suppose makes sense. I've also added some more content, and hope to add a bit more as time allows. I might try and get permission to use some old pictures from the book I cite.--Wolpat (talk) 10:23, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

DUH!!!! Just found a Corporation YouTube Channel ( https://www.youtube.com/user/OshkoshCorp/ ) It's dire... I'd vote to leave the others up as this is next-to-useless; the others deliver more content (albeit with a sprinkling of PR...), while this is pretty much a waste of a link. Happy to work with the general consensus though. Note to self; look twice next time!--Wolpat (talk) 10:50, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

What Location suggested above and what others responded positively to was including this YouTube channel, not a half dozen others. 32.218.36.183 (talk) 14:53, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

That's all well and good, and while the 'Defense' YouTube Channel is a good one (it's the bulk of their revenue I believe), the point I tried to make was that some might argue that as this is a 'Corporation' page and not a specific 'Defense' page, the sole external link of this type should be to the Corporation channel, and not to that of one division of the Corporation. Like I said, I'm happy with Defense, but I fear we may end up going through all of this again when A.N. Other decides they are not. Thoughts?--Wolpat (talk) 15:25, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

WP:CONS, WP:CCC. 32.218.36.183 (talk) 15:36, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. They look like gobbledegook, but at some stage in the near future I will sit back for a read, and will hopefully come out the other end with a little more in-depth knowledge of the workings of Wiki. Thanks again.--Wolpat (talk) 16:02, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

John E. Stith

John E. Stith (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

The EL section in this article about an author appears to have an inordinate amount of promotional-like links to social media sites. - Location (talk) 23:19, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes, clearly. I have removed most of the social media and other WP:EL-violating entries. See also WP:ELMINOFFICIAL for more details. GermanJoe (talk) 23:39, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

A. J. Weberman

A. J. Weberman (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Weberman appears to be a bit of a crank who has put up a number of iffy webpages, one of which appears to be an attack page. I think all four should go, but I'm hoping someone can take another look. Thanks! - Location (talk) 23:38, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

The links to his site appear to be WP:BLP violations to me. In some cases even the title is a BLP violation. I removed the ones I saw there. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:50, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Wolfram Alpha

I'm seeing a recent uptick in additions of external links to Wolfram Alpha by different throwaway IP addresses: see e.g. Special:Contributions/37.139.70.1, Special:Contributions/78.138.97.85, Special:Contributions/82.103.129.244, Special:Contributions/103.246.96.184. Given the nearly-identical edit summary but vast distance in geolocation of these addresses, I'm guessing some abuse of proxying services to disguise the origins of these edits. My feeling is that Wolfram Alpha should by presumption be disallowed as failing WP:ELNO #9 (search engine results) but we have currently over 1000 of those links. Anyway, I'm not sure what to do here other than offer a general heads-up. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:41, 21 November 2015 (UTC)