Talk:Bridges (Broods song)

Repeated introduction of linkspam

Links to pages that exist to sell products should not be used. Articles should be based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. A shop, such as itunes, that is trying to sell the product is not reliable source. Independent sources have no conflicts of interest (no potential for personal, financial, or political gain from the publication). That counts out shops.
Pointing to WP:FA#Music does not show us anything that says "They are considered reliable". WP:FA#Music makes no mention of links to shops. Following a few random links I found no links to itunes.
A better place to look would be Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Sources, specifically the Sources to avoid section which states "Online retailers such as iTunes and Amazon.com should also be avoided." duffbeerforme (talk) 13:06, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

I can appreciate where you're coming from but there are few other source available to verify release information, especially outside of the UK and US. Several articles have successfully been through FAC with references to shop pages. For example, 4 Minutes (Madonna song), Diamonds (Rihanna song) and Maya (M.I.A. album). Adabow (talk) 20:02, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

If it doesn't appear in any independent reliable sources is it really worth including? The exact date of release in multiple markets is really a trivial detail. No reason to add linkspam to the article. Since Wikipedia should avoid using shops, the details are trivial and Wikipedia is not here to promote the sale of this song any shop links should be removed. That there is problems in other places does not mean we should include problems here. duffbeerforme (talk) 08:28, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Can you point out the policy which discusses this? The closest I could find is WP:ADV which states "Choose which pages to link based on the immediate benefit to Wikipedia readers that click on the link, not based on the organization's tax status or your guess at whether the website's owner might earn money from the link." The reason I referred to FAs is that those articles have been scrutinised and recognised as Wikipedia's finest work; from that we can deduce that silent consensus is that these links are acceptable. Adabow (talk) 00:10, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

The best I know of at this point is in the closely related WP:ELNO, about Links normally to be avoided. 5 is "Individual web pages that primarily exist to sell products" which is what each of those amazon pages are. IMO the FA system is flawed. It relies to much on the one reviewers opinion and a pass is treated too much as immutable. duffbeerforme (talk) 13:36, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

That guideline specifically states "This guideline does not restrict linking to websites that are being used as sources to provide content in articles." Adabow (talk) 00:17, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

That's why I said related. It does not directly apply (same as WP:ADV) but the reasoning behind it is universal. Wikipedia is not here to help shops sell products. A non existent silent consensus (I could equally pick out examples that don't have shop links and claim that is a silent consensus for not using such links. And if you look at 4 Minutes (Madonna song) at the time it was promoted you'll see no links to amazon or itunes) vs a Wikipedia:WikiProject that specifically says to avoid them? Perhaps a better one to look at is WP:QUESTIONABLE. "Such sources include websites and publications expressing views that are widely acknowledged as extremist, that are promotional in nature, or which rely heavily on rumors and personal opinions." (bolding added). "The proper uses of a questionable source are very limited." duffbeerforme (talk) 12:37, 2 April 2014 (UTC)