User talk:XLinkBot

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This is the talkpage of XLinkBot (formerly SquelchBot), a bot designed to revert spamming, or other edits that introduce external links which do not comply with our external links guideline, or with the policy 'What wikipedia is not' (not a repository of links section). Please leave new comments here by clicking this link If your additions were reverted by XLinkBot, please take time to review our external links & spam guidelines, and take note that Wikipedia is not a repository of links, a directory, nor a place to promote your own work. If you feel your addition was within those policies and guidelines and are Reliable and Verifiable, and do not violate Copyright, you may undo the changes made by XLinkBot. Questions are welcome, however this talk page is for civil discussion and is not a complaints department.

FAQs: Why is my external link addition reverted? Why did the bot revert all my edits, and not only the one where I added an external link?

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anti geometric mean

dude......1st of all.u r so quick i appreciate it thanks for replying i know english very well.though not good in legal terms do u mean to say that me putting some external links in wiki page is not appropriate? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shrenujparekh (talk • contribs) 07:43, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi! Thanks for the remark. No, it is not inappropriate to put some external links, but certain external links do not pass our policies and guidelines, and simply should not be linked. Wikipedia's first aim is to incorporate information, not just to link to it. Have a look at the external links guideline, which tells you more. Regards, --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:57, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Muchas Gracias!

Muchas Gracias XLinkBot ! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Casadeandrade (talk • contribs) 19:07, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Prego! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:13, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

help me

help me, i dont speak so much english and i need some help to u.

please dont delete my article. please — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gerardpleitz (talk • contribs) 22:45, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, you are the best person to do that .. you might want to find some independent referencing, I am sure newspapers or similar will have talked about this subject. Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:12, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Help

How Do You Link Facebook Pages To Wiki Articles? T.Brown85 (talk) 23:25, 12 March 2011 (UTC)T.Brown85

The article contains an official link of the school - Facebook is then superfluous, if the facebook is important enough it is linked from the homepage of the school. Furthermore, there are many other reasons why this should not be linked, please see our external links guideline. Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:10, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

YouTube

Why do you keep removing the You tube of the video chanel from Gail Gilmore?? It is an addition to Wikipedia to show a link to her music

Thea de Boer — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thea60 (talk • contribs) 17:57, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your question. YouTube video's are discouraged for quite some reasons, they really have to add something to be suitable. Moreover, a lot of interesting information on YouTube is a copyvio. As the person that is performing is still alive, they do own the copyright on their work. I do not see any indication on the two youtube video's that were linked that these video's have the consent of the performing artist. Such video's should not be linked. I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:09, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

False positive

XLinkBot reverted the addition of File:usn@sendai.jpg. This is not an email address or link addition but I can understand why the bot picked this one up. 203.7.140.3 (talk) 03:28, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I am trying to filter this now, indeed 'collateral damage', sorry. I hope you simply undid the bot edit. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:15, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Official Channels

This bot has recently reverted the edits in of numerous additions of links to the official Youtube channel of various people/groups. None of which by me, but I thought I'd ask here anyway. Are links to official channels generally discouraged along with videos? I understand the copyright violation issues, but if we're sending readers to their official YT channels, where it's displayed with the author's consent on the public domain, surely it should be okay? Sellyme^Talk 04:35, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmm .. we could consider to re-write the revert-rule in such a way that it does not revert links to channels. I would need to have some proper links and see if I can distinguish them properly. Just as a note, that a link is a non-copyright violating link does not mean that we then automatically have to link to it, Wikipedia is still not a linkfarm etc. External links are there to tell more about the subject, I mean, a link to the official BBC YouTube channel on the page of the BBC is still not an appropriate external link. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:13, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

True, but the link that I became aware of this through was to the Victoria Philharmonic Choir, where it would likely be a good resource and referencing point, as opposed to say, a Twitter feed. The VPC article only has two references and one external link at the moment, which seems rather little for an article of its size, but again, I know nothing about it, so I'm going by a hunch here, really. In any case, it's probably still a good idea to raise the argument to get clarification for future incidents. Sellyme^Talk 11:18, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I had a look, but first some general things. Not having an external link (or only few) is not a reason to add one, the links should actually add something to a page. That may be true for an official YouTube channel, though. However, YouTube here can be swept under the carpet of the 'social networking sites' (MySpace, FaceBook, etc.), this YouTube is another web-presence of the subject, while there is an official website already listed on the Wikipedia page of the subject. That makes, generally, all other of such websites not really suitable as external links - first of all, they don't add, most of the time, stable extra info (twitter feeds are a good example of totally unstable and often not adding anything, unless you want to browse through hundreds of feeds to find something that is encyclopedic and not already mentioned in the article), often they are prominently linked from the official website (and since Wikipedia is not a linkfarm, they are not really necessary as they are properly linked - this is also the case here), and then, if they are not prominently linked from the official homepage, then sometimes it is a question whether it is actually the official page of the subject (there are many imposters or unofficial sites of subjects on many of the social networking sites).

So here, it is linked from the official homepage, and it contains just a couple of videos .. I would not say that this is a very needed link here, this is not adding any real information. I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:48, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for all the clarification. I'm presuming the rule is generally going on what you (as a plural) feel is right, then? I checked WP:EL and there doesn't appear to be any hard guide-lines regarding Youtube channels. Again, thanks! Sellyme^Talk 12:41, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

YouTube ticks some of the WP:ELNO-points (one needs to install software, many of the video's on YouTube are just not suitable or adding to pages here, are superfluous to other links there, some are plain spam (you can earn money with your videos on YouTube) and then of the ones which are of real interest, quite some are unfortunately copyvios). However, there are enough that are suitable, but it needs evaluation on a case-by-case basis. We do find however, that new users are not aware of our policies and guidelines (and especially the WP:COPYRIGHT concern is a big one), and have chosen to revert such links by new users on sight (under strict bot-rules), to notify the editor and asking them to reconsider. Rules should have a low error rate (a bit depending on the site), and a quick check on YouTube reverts which I did (I need to do a full analysis once) showed that most of the reverts were correct (and of the ~10 I quick-checked at least 2 were copyvios ..). If stats show that the reverts are too often wrong, then something needs to be done about it (we could consider to make the rule more precise where possible, or to remove it completely). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:11, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Too aggressive?

This edit seems too aggressive to me. The anon did a fair amount of good work, but the entire edit was reverted based on one link to a blog? Does this happen often?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:06, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi Jimbo. Thanks for the questoin. It is a setting ('revertoneedit=0'), which we have tried both ways. Generally, this does not happen too often, most of the edits it reverts are on single plain link-additions. The multiple edit revert / single edit revert is a bit of a loose-loose situation. Sometimes reverting one edit out of a handful leaves a broken page (editors trying to get the format right) or non-reverted spam (editors first spamming text, then creating the external link), on other times it, like here, reverts (way) too much. The messages XLinkBot leaves on the user's page try to explain this in as friendly terms I think possible (the messages can be adapted in the settings as well), and invites the editor to re-do the edit if needed (and I hope that recent-edit patrollers and/or other regulars on the page where the bot reverts also help in that - XLinkBot operates without bot-bit so its edits show up in the recent changes).

An extended explanation of the one revert / multiple revert can be found in the User:XLinkBot/FAQ. I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:15, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Note, this behaviour is similar to the behaviour of the anti-vandalism bots .. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:30, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

The reverted editor is not an anon (sorry, Jimbo), and has some contrib history at de, but little here. Seems to be a genealogist unaware of (or perhaps unconcerned with) wp:DIRECTORY or at least de:WP:WWNI#7. Some coaching is probably in order. LeadSongDog come howl! 17:53, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Not saying that this is the case here (I really do think this was a good faith addition): Also, although wordpress is a pretty 'clean' blog, well controlled and well contained, it does get spammed (generally under a conflict of interest, people advertising their own blog - not directly to get financially better, but to get a name etc.), and wordpress does have some form of pay-per-view (but that is for high-profile editors - "We have a feature called Ad Control that lets WordPress.com bloggers with a lot of traffic (generally 25,000 pageviews/month or more) and appropriate content turn on AdSense and Skimlinks for their blog and split the resulting revenues 50/50 with us. If you’d like to apply to try Ad Control, please use the form below to send us a message."). Moreover, it is a blog, generally a discouraged place to link to, as they do not have editorial overview, and (though for wordpress that is not too general) some blogs do have inappropriate material (amongst others, material in violation of copyrights etc. - anyone can publish anything on a blog). But that is all besides the more technical point of what you asked at first. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:39, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks... :)

thx for welcoming me i am new to wikipedia!!! i sort of like editing here. ^_^ btw...how come i couldn't add that link? i just want to understand why so i'll be careful in the future. -71.107.153.154 (talk) 21:18, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the question. Blogspots are generally not suitable as an external link, the same here. For more information, see the external links guideline, in the links to be avoided section blogs are specifically named. I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:45, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

oh okay thx! :) -71.107.153.154 (talk) 01:13, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

I think something's gone wrong!

Hello!

I think this robot has gone wrong! I have recieved a message telling me my link has been reverted, but it hasn't. Why is this?

--LegoCityBusDriver (talk) 07:23, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, it undid your edits, but you already removed the external links yourself before the bot reverted it. Don't worry, all is fine. Some external links, to whatever site, are discouraged or hardly ever useful, and we have chosen to remind new users of that. Wikia is indeed part of the same company, but they are discouraged to link to because they are wikis, just as Wikipedia itself. Just as Wikipedia, the information there is volatile, unstable, and it is hard to check if things are true (on both ends) - and hence, links to wikis are very often not suitable (but there are exceptions). I hope this explains a bit, happy editing! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:04, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Facebook Link Deletion

You deleted a Facebook link which had been cited under the heading "references" As it was not used in a footnote, but was consulted in writing the article, it seemed appropriate to cite it as a source for the article. Are Facebook references automatically being deleted? If it is used in a footnote will it also be automatically deleted. Facebook is more and more the source for things like date of birth, or College degrees or former employers. As more people move away from maintaining personal web pages, automatically deleting Facebook as a reference is becoming not tenable. --Benfeing (talk) 06:09, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Eh, facebook not only fails our external links guideline, I think it also fails our reliable sources guideline. Facebook links should only be used in very few cases, and to 'proof' someone's birthday .. I don't think that is sufficient for that .. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:10, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

You make an excellent point about Facebook. However, personal web pages and corporate business web sites are routinely cited on Wikipedia as references without this kind of automatic rejection. Information shown on a personal or corporate Facebook page is no more or less reliable than the exact same information entered by the exact same person(s) on their Facebook pages. My concern is that people and companies are increasingly abandoning their web pages in favor of Facebook entries. For example, Facebook has become the primary marketing tool for recording artists, movies and TV shows where previously information on those person(s), films, shows and companies would have come from web pages. At the same time, many individuals have completed Facebook entries who otherwise have little alternative publicly available reference sources. Some of the more detailed information on Facebook such as birthdays, city of origin, schools and prior employers is publicly available only on these Facebook pages. A policy which deletes the Facebook references cited as sources will then leave the article in question lacking references and therefor subject to deletion. I think the status of Facebook has to be reconsidered as well as any "Bot" which automatically deletes Facebook references. We cannot attribute reliability to web pages and then automatically question the same type of information coming from Facebook pages. Is there a way to have this discussion in a larger forum?--Benfeing (talk) 14:15, 24 March 2011 (UTC)