Fibiwiki external link guidelines
This policy is based on the Wikipedia External links guidelines.
Fibiwiki articles may include external links to other web pages, but they should not be used in the body of an article. All external links must conform to certain formatting restrictions and be placed in the External link section of the article. Acceptable links include:
- Links that contain further accurate research and must be on-topic.
- Information that could not be added to the article for reasons such as copyright, amount of detail, or other relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article for reasons other than its accuracy.
It is not Fibiwiki’s purpose to include a lengthy or comprehensive list of external links related to each topic. No page should be linked from a Fibiwiki article unless its inclusion is justifiable according to this guideline. Moderators will delete any external link that doesn’t meet these guidelines.
This guideline does not apply to source citations that are supporting article content. If the website or page to which you want to link includes information that is not yet a part of the article, consider using it as a source for the article, and citing it.
Contents
Points to remember
- This guideline does not apply to inline citations or general references, which should appear in the "References" or "Notes" section.
- External links should not normally be used in the body of an article. Instead, include appropriate external links in an "External links" section at the end of the article, and in the appropriate location within an infobox, if applicable.
- Links in the "External links" section should be kept to a minimum. A lack of external links or a small number of external links is not a reason to add external links.
- In the "External links" section, try to avoid separate links to multiple pages in the same website; instead, try to find an appropriate linking page within the site if possible.
Restrictions on linking
For policy and legal reasons, editors are restricted from linking to the following, without exception:
- Material that violates the copyrights of others per contributors' rights and obligations should not be linked to. Linking to websites that display copyrighted works is acceptable as long as the website has licensed the work, or uses the work in a way that is compliant with fair use. Knowingly directing others to material that violates copyright may be considered contributory copyright infringement. If there is reason to believe that a website has a copy of a work in violation of its copyright, do not link to it. Linking to a page that illegally distributes someone else's work casts a bad light on Fibiwiki and its editors. This is particularly relevant when linking to sites such as Scribd or YouTube, where due care should be taken to avoid linking to material that violates copyright.
- Any website selling a product unless approval has been given by FIBIS trustees.
What to link to
There are several things that should be considered when adding an external link.
- Is the site content accessible to the reader?
- Is the site content proper in the context of the article (useful, tasteful, informative, factual, etc.)?
- Is the link functioning and likely to remain functional?
Each link should be considered on its merits, using the following guidelines. As the number of external links in an article grows longer, assessment should become stricter. When in doubt about the appropriateness of adding new links, make a suggestion on the article's talkpage and discuss with other editors.
What can normally be linked
- Articles about any organization, person, website, or other entity should link to the subject's official site, if any. See Official links below.
- Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that is relevant to an encyclopedic understanding of the subject and cannot be integrated into the Fibiwiki article due to copyright issues, amount of detail (such as interview transcripts, or online textbooks), or other reasons.
Links to be considered
- Very large pages, such as pages containing rich media files, should be considered on a case-by-case basis. Worldwide, many people have a low-speed connection. Unusually large pages or ones that include file formats which will require plug-ins should be annotated as such.
- A well-chosen link to a directory of websites or organizations. Long lists of links are not acceptable.
- Sites that fail to meet criteria for reliable sources yet still contain information about the subject of the article from knowledgeable sources.
Links normally to be avoided
Except for a link to an official page of the article's subject, unless approval has been given by FIBIS trustees, one should generally avoid providing external links to:
- Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a featured article.
- Any site that misleads the reader by use of factually inaccurate material or unverifiable research, except to a limited extent in articles about the viewpoints that the site is presenting.
- Sites containing malware, malicious scripts, trojan exploits.
- Links mainly intended to promote a website.
- Individual web pages that primarily exist to sell products or services, or to web pages with objectionable amounts of advertising.
- Sites that require payment or registration to view the relevant content, unless the site itself is the subject of the article, or the link is a convenience link to a citation.
- Sites that are inaccessible to a substantial number of users, such as sites that only work with a specific browser or in a specific country.
- Direct links to documents that require external applications or plugins (such as Flash or Java) to view the content.
- Any search results pages, such as links to individual website searches, search engines, search aggregators, or RSS feeds.
- Social networking sites (such as Myspace and Facebook), chat or discussion forums/groups (such as Yahoo! Groups), Twitter feeds, Usenet newsgroups or e-mail lists.
- Blogs, personal web pages and most fan sites, except those written by a recognized authority such as the British Library, The National Archives etc.
- Open wikis, except those with a substantial history of stability and a substantial number of editors.
- Sites that are only indirectly related to the article's subject: the link should be directly related to the subject of the article. A general site that has information about a variety of subjects should usually not be linked from an article on a more specific subject. Similarly, a website on a specific subject should usually not be linked from an article about a general subject. If a section of a general website is devoted to the subject of the article, and meets the other criteria for linking, then that part of the site could be deep linked.
- Lists of links to manufacturers, suppliers or customers.
- Sites that are not reliably functional and/or not likely to continue being functional. For example, links to temporary internet content, where the link is unlikely to remain operable for a useful amount of time.
Redirection sites
URL redirection sites are not to be used. Examples of these sites include tinyurl.com, tiny.cc and the .tk top level domain. Most of these sites are listed in the Spam blacklist extension because they are frequently abused by link spammers, which means that it if we choose to reactivate the extension again in the future it will not possible to save a page that contains such a link. Because URL redirection sites are added to the blacklist whenever abuse occurs, you may create problems for future editors by using them.
If any of the redirection sites should go out of business, then the links will also become broken links.
Adding links to web proxies is prohibited for a similar reason. Instead, one should add a link to the original URL.
It is generally preferred to link to the exact destination of a link. For instance, if example.com is an automatic redirect to tripod.com/example, it is better to link to the exact page, even if the webmaster considers the redirect address to be more official.
Rich media
It is acceptable to link to pages rendered in normal HTML or plain text, but this is not always the case with pages using rich media formats (which may be incompatible with many users' settings and browsers). Check that the content type of the linked page is text/html, text/plain, or application/xhtml+xml (or another XHTML content type) as some pages may instead be rendered solely by platform-dependent plugins. Try to avoid directly linking to any content that requires special software, or an add-on to a browser. It is always preferred to link to a page rendered in normal HTML that contains embedded links to the rich media.
Where a link to rich media is deemed appropriate, either as a direct link or embedded within an HTML page, an explicit indication of the technology needed to access the relevant content must be given, as in the following examples:
- Interview (along with Lenny Kaye) November 11, 2005 on KEXP-FM; 53 minutes, includes three songs. (Windows Media Player, RealPlayer).
- Berkowitz, Joel, Avrom Goldfaden and the Modern Yiddish Theater: The Bard of Old Constantine (PDF), Pakn Treger, no. 44, Winter 2004, 10–19.
If an external link is to a page that automatically plays music or other sounds when visited, please add (plays audio) as a courtesy.
Linking to user-submitted video sites
There is no blanket ban on linking to YouTube or other user-submitted video sites, as long as the links abide by these guidelines (see Restrictions on linking and Links normally to be avoided). Many videos hosted on YouTube or similar sites do not meet the standards for inclusion in External links sections, and copyright is of particular concern. Links should be evaluated for inclusion with due care on a case-by-case basis. Links to online videos should also identify additional software necessary for readers to view the content.
Avoid undue weight on particular points of view
On articles with multiple points of view, avoid providing links too great in number or weight to one point of view, or that give undue weight to minority views. Add comments to these links informing the reader of their point of view. If one point of view dominates informed opinion, that should be represented first.
Official links
An official link is a link to a website or other Internet service that meets both of the following criteria:
- The linked content is controlled by the subject (organization or individual person) of the Fibiwiki article.
- The linked content primarily covers the area for which the subject of the article is notable.
Official links (if any) are provided to give the reader the opportunity to see what the subject says about itself. These links are exempt from the links normally to be avoided, but they are not exempt from the restrictions on linking.
Official links are still subject to standard formatting requirements, such as rich media labelling and not placing links in the text of the article. When an official website is used as a source to verify a self-published statement in the article text, it should be formatted like any other reference used in the article. Official websites may be included in some infoboxes, and by convention are listed first in the External links section.
No official link exists for many articles. Links to websites that are not considered official websites may still be justifiable under other sections of this guideline.
Minimize the number of links
Normally, only one official link is included. If the subject of the article has more than one official website, then more than one link may be appropriate, under a very few limited circumstances. However, Fibiwiki does not provide a comprehensive web directory to every official website. Fibiwiki does not attempt to document or provide links to every part of the subject's web presence or provide readers with a handy list of all social networking sites. Complete directories lead to clutter and to placing undue emphasis on what the subject says.
More than one official link should be provided only when the additional links provide the reader with significant unique content and are not prominently linked from other official websites. For example, if the main page of the official website for an author contains a link to the author's blog and Twitter feed, then it is not appropriate to provide links to all three. Instead, provide only the main page of the official website in this situation. In other situations, it may sometimes be appropriate to provide more than one link, such as when a business has one website for the corporate headquarters and another for consumer information. Choose the minimum number of links that provide readers with the maximum amount of information. Links that provide consistent information are strongly preferred to social networking and communication services where the content changes rapidly and may not comply with this guideline at any given moment in time. Fibiwiki does not exist to facilitate corporate "communication strategies" or other forms of marketing.
Longevity of links
It is very important to consider whether the link is likely to remain relevant and acceptable to the article in the foreseeable future. For example, it is not useful to link to a webpage that changes often and merely happens to have a relevant picture or article on its front page at the moment. Consider locating and linking to "permalink" versions of web content, and trying to find resources which have a commitment to keeping content available at the same address.
What can be done with a dead external link
Links to dead URLs in a list of external links are of no use to Fibiwiki articles. Such dead links should either be updated or removed.
Note that some dead links are caused by vandalism (for example, a vandal disabling links to products competing with the vandal's favoured product): it is worth checking to see if there is a working version of the link in an earlier version of article. Some vandalism of this type is quite subtle, such as replacing ASCII letters in the URL with identical-looking Cyrillic letters.
Hijacked and re-registered sites
URLs can be "hijacked" or re-registered for a different purpose after a (Domain name) registration expires. Even if the URL seems to remain valid (it still "works"), if it no longer points to the desired information, then it needs to be handled as a dead link.
How to link
- These directions show how to create a link in the classic wikitext editor.
Link with no text (code and example output):
[http://example.com/]
[1]
Link containing text:
[http://example.com/ The RFC-mandated example.com website]
The RFC-mandated example.com website
All text following a space is taken as the text to use for the link. Embedding wikilinks into the link text is incorrect; instead choose the appropriate words to link.
"The [[RFC]]-mandated [http://example.com/ example.com website]".
"The RFC-mandated example.com website".
If there are no meaningful words that can be used for the link, a link with no text is preferred to using self-referential link text, such as "click here" or "this link". These types of self-references should be avoided.
External links section
If an article has external links, the standard format is to place them in a bulleted list under a primary heading at the end of the article. External links should identify the link and briefly summarize the website's contents and why the website is relevant to the article. The heading should be "External links" (plural) even if only a single link is listed. If several external links are listed and the subject of the article is a living person, organization, web service, or otherwise has an official website, it is normal practice to place the link to that site at the top of the list.
If you link to another website, you should give your reader a good summary of the site's contents, and the reasons why this specific website is relevant to the article in question. If you link to an online article, try to provide as much meaningful article information as possible. For example:
== External links == * [http://example.com/link_1 Link 1] * [http://example.com/link_2 Link 2]
Most external links should present different details from citations. For instance, a concise description of the contents and a clear indication of its source is more important than the actual title of the page, and access dates are not appropriate in the external links section. Because citation templates were not designed for use in the External links section, editors that use citation templates in this section should be careful to ensure the resulting description is appropriate for an external link.
References and citation
Sites that have been used as sources in the creation of an article should be cited in the article, and linked as references, either in-line or in a references section. Links to these source sites are not "external links" for the purposes of this guideline, and should not normally be duplicated in an external links section. Exceptions—websites that can be both references and external links—include any official sites for the article topic, or websites that are specifically devoted to the topic, contain multiple subpages, and meet theabove criteria.
Maintenance and review
Inappropriate and duplicative links may be deleted by any editor; if the reason for the deletion is not obvious, please explain on the article's talk page.
For articles that require extensive clean-up of external links please use the Clean-up Template by adding {{Cleanup}} to the top of the page.
Searching for URLs in external links
Special:Linksearch is a tool to search for URLs in external links. For example, one might search for all Fibiwiki pages linking to yahoo.com at Special:Linksearch/*.bl.uk
Handling disputes
This guideline describes the most common reasons for including and excluding links. However, the fact that a given link is not actually prohibited by this guideline does not automatically mean that it must or should be linked. Every link provided must be justifiable in the opinion of the editors for an article. Disputes about links can be addressed to the Fibiwiki moderators listed on the Fibiwiki Contacts page.
Disputed links should normally be excluded by default unless and until there is a consensus to include them.
