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Wikipedia:External links/Noticeboard/Archive 6

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by MiszaBot II (talk | contribs) at 06:40, 12 January 2011 (Archiving 2 thread(s) from Wikipedia:External links/Noticeboard.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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In the Alexandra Powers article I created I found a website that says she is in Scientology. Here's the website: http://www.truthaboutscientology.com/stats/by-name/a/alexandra-powers.html Should this be used as a reference in the article? Please let me know. Neptunekh2 (talk) 15:54, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Probably not. 1. It doesn't appear to meet the requirements of a reliable source, however sincere the writer may be. 2. Note the disclaimer on how short the turnover rate is for Scientology members, including that a majority leave 2 years after initiation. Also note that that particular entry has not been updated since 2008. --Patar knight - chat/contributions 06:34, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Open Source Heroes of Might and Magic Engine

Is it appropriate to link to open source implementations of Heroes of Might and Magic engines in the External links section of the article? My addition to Heroes of Might and Magic III was reverted without explanation.Smallman12q (talk) 19:15, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

It was probably reverted per WP:ELNO #10: "Links to ... discussion forums/groups (such as Yahoo! Groups)". I suspect that many editors revert links that appear to be chat rooms on sight. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:27, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Linking internally to other wikipedia sites

What's the best way to do this. On several tennis charts here on English wikipedia when a player's name is listed of course it is also linked back to the particular player's main article. No problem. However many players, especially Spanish and French players, have no English wikipedia page to link back to. They do however have their own articles in the respective Spanish and French wikipedias. I've been linking those names to their foreign language articles. Some have even been linked through google translation first so we can read it here on this English encyclopedia. Is there a better way to lnik these names? I feel the links are important and certainly if someone ever creates a proper English wikipedia article for that person it would be switched to an internal link. An example would be at the article World Covered Court Championships where someone like Irene Bowder Peacock has a perfectly good french wiki article from which to use information. Thoughts? Fyunck(click) (talk) 00:40, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

According to Help:Interlanguage links#Inline_interlanguage_links, red links are preferable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:49, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
I just read it and that's not quite what it says. It says "if the subject is a good target for a future article here, then in most cases that topic should be red-linked." I'm not so sure these candidates are good targets for articles here. Sort of borderline. But it does have good suggestions that I might try. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:18, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
The standards for athletes aren't very high, so I think we could eventually end up with articles—but you should use your best judgment. Good luck, WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:43, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

At Talk:Particle swarm optimization#External Links to Source-Code there is a dispute about inclusion of links to open source code implementations of the algorithm. A minority faction argues that these links technically don't meet WP:EL requirements, the majority faction believes it is common for Wikipedia technical articles and articles on computer algorithms specifically to have a good selection of such links, which indicates there is general Wikipedia consensus in favor. --Kvng (talk) 16:38, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I believe this edit re-adds the links which are in question (the next edit removed these). I see both sides and understand these reasons to remove the edit: the subsection headings (Implementations, Other Media) are dubious since they draw undue attention to the section, and invite violations of WP:NOTDIRECTORY; a general reader does not find helpful information on the topic at the links. On the other hand, a reader who is actually interested in the topic (as opposed to someone who only wants a quick feeling for what the jargon might mean) would need links like these as the next step after reading the article. In programming, only a certain amount of background reading is helpful before one needs to engage with a working program, and a link containing "further research that is accurate and on-topic" (quote from WP:EL) is necessarily going to be precisely like the links in question. I know that if I had time to develop an interest in Particle swarm optimization, as a reader I would want the links. It's likely that Google finds the links (and more) quite readily (so they should be removed), yet it can be very useful to include the most helpful links in the article. My only conclusive feeling is that this article does not warrant a dispute over links (i.e. any WP:EL violation is minor). Johnuniq (talk) 00:31, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
We shouldn't link to specific examples in an article about a broader topic (ELNO point 13). I don't see how any of these specific implementations give a reader an encyclopedic understanding of the more general topic of the article. If any of these implementations have an article of their own the links should be in there, but we don't need them in Particle swarm optimization. A directory page containing a bunch of these together would be an acceptable alternative as an EL. ThemFromSpace 22:52, 1 January 2011 (UTC)