Links

External Links Section

This whole thing is kind of a mess. I'm working on cleaning it up. I removed some links that seemed to just be commercial links. I also moved links to homebrew clubs to a seperate section. I hope to subcatacorize all this a bit further to make it clearer in the next couple days and get rid of some links that seem like vanity links to not expecially informative personal pages.Frank 01:10, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hey! You deleted my homebrew club (BrewCommune) links! I replaced them in the effort to expand the online homebrewing community.

Sorry. Didn't mean to delete anything legit. Cheers! Frank 20:45, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I edited a misspelled link for the Northern Brewer forum (removed the "-s" in the URL). --Newcomer [please don't bite me!]

Hi, homebrewchatter.com keeps getting deleted. There is nothing commercial about that site. It's strictly a community for homebrewing discussion. What gives? It's not like homebrewtalk.com where they sell memberships and have ads everywhere. It's free and has a bunch of homebrewers who love to talk beer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ó Flannagáin (talk • contribs)

Please see the relevant sections of the external links guideline and the policy "What Wikipedia is not" particularly:

Also please note that in repeatedly adding the link without any discussion you appeared to be edit warring, which could have gotten you blocked from editing. --Stlemur (talk) 11:47, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The site's brewing forums are completely viewable without registering. I thought wikipedia was about sharing information. That's all HBC does. And, obviously, I wasn't the only person "edit warring." It takes two people at least. And I was the first to start the discussion, so looks like you could've been blocked from editing as well. I shall add the link again. Please let me know why you delete it if you do.

Ye cats. This article is a link farm.

Wikipedia is not a web directory for everybody and their uncle who knows how to brew beer. I'm about to go on a slash-and-burn effort to weed them out. Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak} 04:15, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why Are Links to the Forums Gone?

These were valuable links that included content that you can't just get at Wikipedia! These should be returned. We do not need everybody and their uncle's website on how to make beer, but listing a few of the prominent forums would be helpful for people who need an interactive environment.

If people want to find a prominent forum for homebrewing, they have Google. Wikipedia is not Google, nor should it be. Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak} 02:43, 30 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

One of the principle advantages of wikipedia over other fee-paying services is that it offers both well-written analysis of the subject and links to other web-resources. Frankly, having a pretty user name really does not excuse eviscerating an article of some of its most useful content based on a personal preference to make a unique creation look like every other flavour of vanilla in the market. On a further note; if you actually brewed any beer, you might realise that the homebrewing community in each country is proportionately rather small and relies on this kind of information exchange to keep itself alive. Rather than initiate a tit-for-tat reversion, I will leave you to consider this information at your leisure DavidP02 22:54, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your arguments are uncompelling in the face of WP:NOT and WP:EL. The fact that homebrewing communities may be small in certain areas of the world is utterly irrelevant to the stated mission of Wikipedia, the core philosophies of Wikipedia, and to the policies outlined at the links above. Ξxtreme Unction 23:53, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for replying.

I am aware of these policies having recently rejoined wikipedia having lost an old password. The point about the community being small expands into several areas, which are, I regret very pertinent. I guess your main objections would be linking to unverified original research; or, in terms of the links to fora, linking only to those which are mandated by the article. Owing to the small size of the community, many written references contain technical inaccuracies or are simply wrong; (there are notable exceptions). As such, there is an awful lot of nonsense or narrow-view information circulating. I regret that a certain amount of this has been perpetuated by this article. I have pointed out one glaring incidence in the chat here.

Whilst there are a few quality references out there, (UK: Graham Wheeler, Dave Line), alot of the most up to date information can only be found on these fora and their related sites. Some of them have become commercial to support themselves; others, from speaking to their owners and administrators, only hope to make enough from GoogleAds to cover their costs.

In short, I think I'd be the first to delete the clutter and one-step-from-advertising junk that often makes its way into hobby and pastime articles: in fact, I have been. However, with respect and whilst I am sure you have heard this one before, I feel the unction in this case has been somewhat too extreme. DavidP02 08:37, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Removing external links from an article does not eviscerate it of useful content. Links aren't content. If you think a forum thread meets WP:RS and contains useful facts, integrate its information in the article and cite the thread as a reference. That's why we're here for, not to build a directory to web resources. Femto 13:34, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Links

I added HomeBrewTalk because TastyBrew is listed but HBT is much larger with much more information including a Mediawiki based Wiki that is quite large and growing very fast!