Talk:Fire protection engineering

I removed the link to ONE fire protection consultant. There are many of them all over the place. This is not the place for advertising of one's goods and services.

I also tied it into the major articles on the topic of fire protection on Wikipedia and added the fire category. --Achim 22:27, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Fire engineering is a masters degree at my uni accessed from a civil or mechanical BE. Fire engineers are also involved in designing fire safe buildings etc, eg doors that will open easily for people to escape but will still stop fire, and of course sprinkler systems etc. I am an undergrad student and so dont really feel qualified to talk about this though so don't trust this too much:)Randomkeys 04:02, 8 August 2006 (UTC) -don't trust this too much

Citations needed for academic institutions

What would qualify as the needed citation? It's not too hard to link to a specific schools' webpage for the program in question, would that suffice?

63.139.220.200 (talk) 16:40, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

As long as the webpage directly supports the claim - sure. Kilmer-san (talk) 20:12, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Restored organization links

I reverted this [1], as they are appropriate links. Reference [2], section 3.1.3, 'What should be linked', "Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to copyright issues, amount of detail (such as professional athlete statistics, movie or television credits, interview transcripts, or online textbooks) or other reasons. " Kilmer-san (talk) 17:05, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but these links violate WP:ELNO #13 Sites that are only indirectly related to the article's subject. The article isn't about the schools themselves, but about the topic of fire protection engineering. There is no material available on those pages that contains material that would result in a copyright violation if it was linked to and cited in the "references" section. I have reremoved the links. ThemFromSpace 22:02, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I want to understand your point, but it appears you may be painting with a broad brush. First, why would a link to the Society of Fire Protection Engineers not be applicable? It contains an "... amount of detail... which would not be appropriate for the scope and depth of an encyclopedic article, but should be acccessable by one intersted in furthering thier knowledge of the article's subject. Second, are you claiming that the links to schools - at which fire protection engineering is taught - would be viable if the article were "Fire Protection Engineering Education"? Kilmer-san (talk) 22:34, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

The detail has to be relevant to the topic at hand. Detail about the society itself should go on an article about that society, if that topic is notable. Even if it was about education the links wouldnt be appropriate. An article like "University of Maryland Fire Protection Engeineering Program" should contain the link to the UMD FPE program, although one would be hard pressed to assert that particular article's notability. Links to specific societies shouldnt belong in general articles. If so, we would have hundreds of links in practically every article. Most all text-based links can be incorporated into articles and cited in the "References" section. Links that contain copyright violations, like long lists of relevant statistics, or valuable images, should be included in the "External links" section. ThemFromSpace 04:23, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I take your point that in the ideal Wikipedia world, the information contained in most external links should be limited to those issues which are sufficiently notable to be included in the WP article and referenced to the external link as a source. But Wikipedia is not ideal, and the WP guidelines include the use of External Links, partially because until an article can be made 'perfect', referring the reader - who came to Wikipedia to learn - to a good neutral external link is better than not including it all. Maybe it will be included as a Reference later on, maybe not.

External links to well recognized organizations which are respected in the field of endeavor is done all the time in WP. For example, the External Links in the articles of similar scope, such as [Civil Engineering], [Electrical Engineering], [Structural Engineering], and [HVAC]. Again, I think you have a good point that the salient portions should eventually be incorporated into the body of the article - but until they are, what is the harm of referring the reader to these references? Kilmer-san (talk) 00:46, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

The guidelines allow external use for only certain things, and corresponding organizations are not one of them. Just because other stuff exists doesn't make it appropriate. I'm working hard to clean up Wikipedia's links and those articles will be gotten to eventually as well. Please also see WP:NOHARM. Just because it doesn't cause harm doesn't make it right to link to. Wikipedia isn't an indiscriminate collection of information nor is it a linkfarm. The problem now isn't with this article but with those others that you've pointed out. 02:49, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

We seem to be skirting a debate about how the guidelines should be interpreted, which is going to get us nowhere. In trying to find common ground in this: There is good information in these links. I agree this information should be incorporated into the article with References, and in that case, the links removed. The question really seems to be: is it better for the article to have this information available as a link now, or delete it until it is incorporated in the manner you suggest? Inclusion or exclusion? Perhaps we can compromise and place a Template:External links on the page, restore the links temporarily, and ask for help in moving the material from the links to cited References? It seems the Wikipedia:WikiProject External links seems to promote this approach of working to make things better by consensus and giving it a little time rather than simply deleting. I will move this to a higher priority of my "to do's" . What say you? Kilmer-san (talk) 19:59, 2 May 2009 (UTC)