Talk:PhpBB/Archive 3

message: My sense of things is that the problem centers around:
# the usage of the term "official" (as defined by outside sources, or represented by partisan or POV parties), to have a meaningful bearing on a Wikipedia article.
# the attempt by partisan parties to edit a Wikipedia article according to partisan standards rather than by agreeing to consensus or finding other solutions
On the first point, the term "official" does not have substantial meaning here. We make our own rules about what can and cannot go on an article. On the second point, I agree with those who have characterized this as an improper attempt to bogart an article, centering around what is deemed "unofficial". A simple find search for 'unofficial' on the page confirmed this.
Someone wrote: "I simply believe that allowing even one unofficial external link would be a bad precedent, because determining whether a Web site is worthy of inclusion in the external links section is very subjective and will eventually lead to never-ending arguments over the value of a certain site."  This is wrong, and this fallacious type of justification can be applied to any context where a partisan's claimed desire to put an end to "never-ending arguments" is in fact just a rhetorical veneer, for "we get to decide, because we're official." Put simply, partisans must live with the inconvenience of "never-ending arguments", and no form of censorship should be accepted as a solution.
That being the foundation, the elementary compromise solution is to simply separate "official" and "unofficial" links, and include brief notes on what their content is. I like to get as much information about the site linked to, before I click to it. Caveats and warnings can be included, as long as they are brief and understandable --ie. not based on some partisan notion of what is proper and what is not. How can we agree on those descriptions? The descriptions must be NPOV, of course, and I would encourage the partisans present to familiarise themselves with that policy. (NPOV is in fact our first policy, taking the goal of creating an encyclopedia as an axiom, and understanding civility is a clear second.)-Ste|vertigo 04:43, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think breaking it into sections is a good idea. As an example of how to handle external links, I think we should use Microsoft Windows as a guide. For sites dealing in hacks/extensions, I think it'd be reasonable to place some of them in a sub-section called "Extensions/Hacks". —Locke Cole • t • c 08:38, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I am all for this idea, provided that we have in place a function to make sure links are useful, valid, and comly to Wikipedia/s guidelines Anon 09:10, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Separation of links is perfectly fine with me, but I'd appreciate it if we could let this mischaracterization of myself and various other users as some sort of official representatives of the phpBB Group die out. It is dead wrong, and to see a mediator use it is rather disappointing. æle ✆ 19:18, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

text: As I said above, I am not (any more) against "non-official" links. I'm against the specific link to phpBBHacks for the reasons of genuine copyright violation and objectionable amounts of advertising. Pti 19:21, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I have inserted a new section and added a selection of the external links listed above. These links (and the act of adding them to the article) are, I believe, in compliance with Wikipedia guidelines and/or policy (specifically WP:EL, WP:NPOV, amongst others). I have also removed the ownership claim to the article made in the comments. —Locke Cole • t • c 22:31, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Apologies if anyone has felt slandered by a label. I simply wanted to drive home the point that we must find agreement with regard to the terms and labels. All that said, its good to see some agreement among all parties. The external links/Refs section on Microsoft looks like a good example indeed. Edward (Anon) -- I would suggest you refrain from removing any links for now, and instead put notes which assert what content is what. That said, if any removal is non-controversial, and not just by your own opinion, then there's no issue with removing it. The function is consensus. - there is no automatic function for inclusion or exclusion. -Ste|vertigo 01:39, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mediator comments 

message: I haven't been able to find evidence for half of the listed features for phpBB 3.0, therefore the sources tag. I think this sort of information would be better represented by a few links instead of an inline list. æle ✆ 01:36, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  phpBB 3.0 feature list needs sources