Currently the data in Wikipedia section links is being dumped from functional accessibility in the database.
(In theory it could be accessed by searching all edits to an Entity.)
Dumping data that Editors have carefully selected as useful seems to reduce the power of MB. And be a strange direction for MB to be heading in.
One idea is to have the WPsection links transfered automagically to the Annotations.
Are there better ways forward?
(It may also be worth considering how better to respond to any future changes in what external links are acceptable.)
This issue of what to do with the Editor selected data contained in those anchor links does not appear to have had any discussion about it.
But maybe I’ve missed the discussion.
Is it worth us discussing a whole category of data being deleted from MB, without any apparent consideration of either the value of that data or alternatives to deletion?
I think that discussion is probably worth having.
What do you think?
Personally I don’t mind removing the links to sections of articles.
Wikipedia articles are not a static document but are able to be edited over time.
Anchor links may move over time and no longer point to the same article so link rot is highly possible.
The main problem is you want to link to a concept and articles can cover multiple things.
Ideally I would edit wikipedia and split these sections into thair own articles.
If you want to copy text from wikipedia to the annotation section you can as wikipedia is under a licence that allows you to do this but be careful to properly attribute that this is where you got the source from.
Include the url and the date the information was retrieved to give some idea how out of date the information is.
All links face this issue.
Wikidata probably reduces the frequency of link rot to almost zero every century.
But other links such as Allmusic, discogs, Amazon, Facebook, Linked-In, Twitter etc, etc are vulnerable to link rot.
Yet we see the value in having these rottable links.
You’re correct stating Wikidata links, this is the solution to Wikipedia link rot.
But your comparison between Wikipedia section link rot and Allmusic, discogs, Amazon, Facebook, Linkedln, Twitter, etc. is unfair.
Wikipedia section link will rot as soon as someone renames a title or rearranges the page.
I remember linking to sections was disregarded since long time before we had this new forum.
You are warned when you try to link to a section:
Links to specific sections of Wikipedia articles are not allowed. Please remove “#whatever_section_you_wanted_to_link_to” if still appropriate. See the guidelines.
Do not link to Wikipedia redirection pages, but to the un-redirected source page. Do not link to anchors on a wider page (Page_Name#Page_Section), even if they are specifically about this work. You should only add this relationship if the page itself is about the work.
Yes, I 've seen the guidelines.
But can find no previous discussion around how the data in WP section links is best dealt with.
I understood that the general principals were “Trust that Editors are competent unless shown otherwise. And don’t delete data from the database unless you are confident that doing so improves the database.”
Yet around this data there seems to have been no consideration to the value of the data before the removal process started.
And now the removal process continues and the community for the most part stands by and lets the deletions continue without examining the issues.
This seems at variance with the basics of having a community created database project that proceeds in an orderly way.
But when we read the page, OK, it cannot really that much of a great loss as they are just the result of release name search in *.wikipedia.org, somehow.
Funny example to pick. Technically the wikidata link is also “wrong”. It points to the film and not the soundtrack. This is a good example of where it would be helpful if we could officially bend the rules to point a soundtrack at the film page. Clearly that is what the Wikipedia link was trying to do.
I am trusting the competence of Editors to have selected quality WPsection links.
As I trust those Editors to have selected quality blogs, fan pages, bios, show notes, discography links.
If being able to find erroneous data in a type of data field is the new criterion for removing all instances contained in that data field then blanking the db is clearly the way forward.
For Soundtracks the link to the film is very relevant when no soundtrack link exists. As a wikidata link fills in information at the top of the page for the Release Group it would be good to allow it.
I don’t know how to officially make a request to tweak the guidelines.
You can click the chain icon below your post above, click New topic, place your new linked topic in the MusicBrainz / Style category then make the request there.
