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Talk:Comparison of Start menu replacements for Windows 8

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by A Quest For Knowledge (talk | contribs) at 15:44, 15 December 2012 (→External links in article body (Copied discussion from my talk page to article talk page): I completely agree that there's been plenty of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT from the very beginning. But there's nothing I can do about that.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Latest comment: 12 years ago by A Quest For Knowledge in topic External links in article body (Copied discussion from my talk page to article talk page)
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External links in article body (Copied discussion from my talk page to article talk page)

Latest comment: 12 years ago18 comments3 people in discussion

Hi, A Quest For Knowledge. I noticed you removed a tag that I put on the article List of Start Menu replacements for Windows 8. When removing maintenance templates, please be sure to either resolve the problem that the template refers to, or give a valid reason for the removal in the edit summary. I placed the template because the links do not seem to meet the criteria at WP:ELYES and in fact some of them lead to promotional product pages (see WP:ELNO). If you disagree please let me know! --Noiratsi (talk) 21:37, 4 December 2012 (UTC)Reply

Sorry, at first I thought the tag was placed there by a bot. I'm not sure if I would have reverted if I knew it was a person. But yes, I do disagree. I've seen such lists before where the company website was listed as link. I can't remember any of them off the top of my head, but a search reveals List of software for molecular mechanics modeling that does this. There are others, too. Granted List of Start Menu replacements for Windows 8 isn't in a table format yet, but that's something that can be done later. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:27, 4 December 2012 (UTC)Reply
WP:EL is pretty clear on this: "Wikipedia articles may include links to web pages outside Wikipedia (external links), but they should not normally be used in the body of an article. All external links must conform to certain formatting restrictions. 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.
"Some external links are welcome (see What can normally be linked, below), but it is not Wikipedia's purpose to include a lengthy or comprehensive list of external links related to each topic. No page should be linked from a Wikipedia article unless its inclusion is justifiable according to this guideline and common sense. The burden of providing this justification is on the person who wants to include an external link."
Also WP:LINKFARM says "Wikipedia is neither a mirror nor a repository of links, images, or media files. Wikipedia articles are not: Mere collections of external links or Internet directories..."
You can note that WP:EL is a guideline, but WP:LINKFARM is a policy that must be adhered to. So if other articles have external links in the article text they need fixing, not emulating. Since you reverted my removal of the external links against this policy, I would ask you to revert yourself and restore the page in compliance with Wikipedia policy. - Ahunt (talk) 12:18, 11 December 2012 (UTC)Reply
Official links are allowed in articles. So, for example, the articles on Microsoft, Google, Apple all have links to their respective web sites. See WP:ELOFFICIAL. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:48, 12 December 2012 (UTC)Reply
Yes, but official links are those which meet two criteria:
  1. The linked content is controlled by the subject (organization or individual person) of the Wikipedia article.
  2. The linked content primarily covers the area for which the subject of the article is notable. (my emphasis)
This article is not about an individual item but rather about a category of items, so WP:ELOFFICIAL doesn't apply. If the individual items (i.e. start menu replacements) listed are notable in their own right they can have their own individual article and that article may contain a single external link to the official page. At least, this is how I understand the guideline. As Ahunt points out, this article in its current form goes expressly against WP:LINKFARM. --Noiratsi (talk) 13:16, 12 December 2012 (UTC)Reply
I have tro agree with User:Noiratsi, the official link format is widely used in WP articles, but as that explains this is for one official link listed in the "External links" section for a single topic. What we have here is exactly a Linkfarm and by policy it has to be fixed. The article falls afoul of WP:SPAM right now. - Ahunt (talk) 15:30, 12 December 2012 (UTC)Reply
  • If Wikipedia had articles for each of these programs, every single article would have links to their official site per WP:ELOFFICIAL. But since we don't have articles for every single one, the official link should go here. But either way, the net effect is the same: each program gets an official link. This is agreed upon policy. So, if the net effect is the same, how can you justify making the article less informative to our readers? Which brings me to my second point:
  • Our purpose in creating this encyclopedia is to serve our readers. I have yet to see a justification why providing our readers with a less informative article benefits our readers. Would anyone like to take a stab at answering that one?
  • Finally, as I pointed out earlier, other 'list' articles have links to each official web site. For example, there's List of software for molecular mechanics modeling. Yet, I've seen no one complain at List of software for molecular mechanics modeling about this. Why is that?

Look, I'm completely open to the idea that we should have a community-wide RfC on whether 'list' articles should have links to official web sites. Can someone start such an RfC? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:53, 12 December 2012 (UTC)Reply

You don't need an RfC - we already have a policy that prohibits exactly this. You are quite correct normally a list like this would have wikilinks to the articles on each item listed. The fact that, with one exception, the Wikipedia articles don't exist says to me that the topics are non-notable. So what we have here is a list of non-notable subjects. To me that means that this list is non-notable itself and that the article itself should probably not exist, although I was willing to go with redlinks for a while to see if articles were created. To answer your question: why do some other articles have lists of external links in the text? Because they haven't been fixed yet to conform to policy and they need to be. The fundamental point is that Wikipedia articles are not just lists of external links, like this one is. - Ahunt (talk) 01:10, 13 December 2012 (UTC)Reply
As Ahunt says, external links policy is already pretty clear, if a little confusing at times. I second the view that List of software for molecular mechanics modeling and other similar articles need some attention and that they would need most if not all of their external links removed to meet policy. If they then become lists of redlinks, they may be eligible for deletion. It is never a good argument to say "such and such an article does it, therefore it's okay". Here are some links that outline the policy or guidelines editors have agreed on.
From links to be avoided:

External links should not normally be used in the body of an article. Exceptions are rare.

[...] one should generally avoid [...] stand-alone lists [...] composed mainly of external links.

From What Wikipedia is not

Wikipedia articles are not [...] mere collections of external links [...]

Wikipedia encompasses many lists of links to articles within Wikipedia that are used for internal organization or to describe a notable subject. (my emphasis)

[consider] a well-chosen link to a directory of websites or organizations. Long lists of links are not acceptable.

From the purpose of lists (navigation):

Lists contain internally linked terms.

I think this is fairly clear. An RfC isn't required to help us figure out what the guideline is here, but might be useful if you wanted to try and change the guideline. --Noiratsi (talk) 06:50, 13 December 2012 (UTC)Reply
As regards the article itself, I think what has emerged from this discussion is that it's a candidate for deletion. I'm nominating it accordingly and I'll note this discussion in the nomination. --Noiratsi (talk) 07:23, 13 December 2012 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for nominating it for deletion, given the above conclusions I think that is the best place to have a complete discussion on the fate of this article. - Ahunt (talk) 11:27, 13 December 2012 (UTC)Reply
Do you actually have a policy/guideline which explicitly states that WP:ELOFFICIAL links are not allowed in list articles for items where we haven't yet created an individual article yet? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 02:28, 14 December 2012 (UTC)Reply
I've always understood WP:ELOFFICIAL to refer only to (and sanction only) links in single-topic articles. If you interpret it differently, perhaps we should consider discussing it and rewording it. It also only specifically mentions organizations, websites, people and "other entities" (which I agree isn't too clear). Which particlar passage is it that suggests to you that it's okay to have official links in lists of software? Since WP:ELOFFICIAL is in effect suggesting an exception to the general 'no links in articles' rule, it's a question of whether it does specifically allow these links, not about whether it doesn't. --Noiratsi (talk) 06:40, 14 December 2012 (UTC)Reply
"Do you actually have a policy/guideline which explicitly states that WP:ELOFFICIAL links are not allowed in list articles for items where we haven't yet created an individual article yet?" Yes, WP:ELOFFICIAL specifically says that: "The linked content primarily covers the area for which the subject of the article is notable." The subject of the article is "List of Start Menu replacements for Windows 8" so any official links included would have to be about a "List of Start Menu replacements for Windows 8", not the individual members of that list. Also as per that same page "Official websites may be included in some infoboxes, and by convention are listed first in the External links section." So they still don't go in the article text, they go in the info box (if there is one and in this case there isn't) and otherwise in the external links section. - Ahunt (talk) 10:34, 14 December 2012 (UTC)Reply
I was asking for rule which explicitly states that WP:ELOFFICIAL links are not allowed in list articles for items where we haven't yet created an individual article yet, not your personal interpretation of why you think some rules means that. Since no one has provided such a rule, I'm left to conclude that it doesn't exist. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:32, 15 December 2012 (UTC)Reply
Since I have quoted it but you keep on with WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, I guess we are done. - Ahunt (talk) 15:00, 15 December 2012 (UTC)Reply
Agreed, this discussion isn't getting us anywhere. The deletion discussion will decide the fate of this article; as for external links I am looking into how the guidelines can be made more concrete and I'll let you know if a discussion gets started. --Noiratsi (talk) 15:11, 15 December 2012 (UTC)Reply
I completely agree that there's been plenty of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT from the very beginning. But there's nothing I can do about that. Heck, I deserve a barnstar for all the hard work I've put into this article, not this nonsense. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:44, 15 December 2012 (UTC)Reply

Maximum PC forum post

Latest comment: 12 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

I found a forum post with titled "A List Of Start Menu Replacements for Windows 8"[1] that has several Start Menu replacements that should be integrated in the article. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:56, 13 December 2012 (UTC)Reply

The forum post itself is of course WP:SPS, but the links in it are usable. - Ahunt (talk) 15:06, 13 December 2012 (UTC)Reply
OK, I've added them all to the list. I'll start looking for sources later today. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:32, 15 December 2012 (UTC)Reply
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