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Contents
ELOFFICIAL for Adrian Bryant
I ran across Adrian Bryant today and couldn't find any profile or other information about Adrian Bryant on his official site, http://www.nowloss.com . I replaced it with his Facebook page, because it links his official site while having some information about Bryant. What do others think? --Ronz (talk) 18:09, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
YouTube link
A link to a lengthy YouTube link has been placed in Assassination attempts on Fidel Castro, and the uploader of the video and three others parts from the same documentary claims it to be "fair use" material. I'm not sure that this claim of "fair use" actually meets the standards for fair use. Not sure what to do. - Location (talk) 22:39, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
- It looks like there are seven parts, which seems much more like copyright infringement than fair use. Also there's not critical commentary, YouTube is not a news or educational website, and the substantiality of the work copied potentially undermines commercial opportunities of the copyright owner. In my judgment, we should not have a link to the video per WP:ELNEVER.- MrX 00:20, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
The Pirate Bay
WP:ELMINOFFICIAL says 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. The rather unique situation we have with The Pirate Bay is that it recently changed to a system where it uses 5 domains, thepiratebay.am, thepiratebay.gd, thepiratebay.la, thepiratebay.mn and thepiratebay.vg, cycling through all of the domains on a regular basis with none used more than any other. It would seem to be WP:OR to decide that one of these is the primary domain so we should be neutral and list them all. This is being discussed at Talk:The Pirate Bay after one editor insisted on removing all of the domains from the infobox.[1][2] I'm looking for some guidance and thoughts on the matter here. --AussieLegend (✉) 16:39, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
- I'm not following the discussion over there. But given the recent court rulings, I am curious as to what argument has been used to not trip WP:ELNEVER #1. Is it because we are linking to the main page of the site and not to specific copyrighted material? Normally I could understand that argument - but due to the court case, I'm wondering if we should consult legal@wikimedia.org on linking to any page of the site. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 17:05, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
- I agree with Barek. There is no requirement to provide an official link at all, and providing a directory of links to each of their domains seems to be a bad idea.- MrX 17:23, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
- IANAL but the website doesn't actually violate the copyright of anyone. I believe the court rulings stated that the website "facilitates" the violation of copyright which is a subtle but important difference to actually violating copyright. This is why it only ordered that thepiratebay.se domain should be seized rather than close down the site entirely. While there is no requirement to provide an official link, there is as far as I'm aware, no restriction. --AussieLegend (✉) 17:46, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
- Likewise IANAL but The Pirate Bay does not offer any copyrighted files for download, it is more like a searchable directory of material available via BitTorrent downloads. The other point that I made is that other sites such as Kickass Torrents do exactly the same thing.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 06:33, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
- The Pirate Bay ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
- Wikipedia is not based on literal reading of rules, so whatever the basis for the seizure of TPB's equipment and domain, and the convictions of its founders, it would be standard to interpret WP:ELNEVER as "no links". Wikipedia should not be used as a substitute for the TPB website, and should not be used to right great wrongs. Johnuniq (talk) 06:56, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
- This debate was originally started in May because of an objection to five links per WP:ELMINOFFICIAL. Creating a new rule for "no links to torrent sites" would need to be applied consistently across all articles about torrent sites.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 07:09, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
- To interpret WP:ELNEVER as "no links" would be incorrect. The founders are gone, so they don't apply. Merely having equipment seized doesn't demonstrate that the site has violated copyright. At this time the site itself does not violate copyright although there may be files on the site that allow somebody to find material somewhere else on someone elses computer that violates copyright. If we were to interpret WP:ELNEVER as "no links" then we wouldn't be able to link to YouTube because there is actually material on YouTube that violates copyright. WP:ELNEVER specifically addresses this saying 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. Based on this it seems that ELNEVER supports linking to The Pirate Bay itself, but probably not one of the magnet links. --AussieLegend (✉) 07:44, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
- To clarify, my question above was not asking if links to hosting and torrent sites in general should not be used. My question was specifically "given the recent court rulings" - other sites would only fall under the same question if there were also court rulings. Even then, I had not read the court orders - and I do not know if the US government recognizes those rulings (considering Wikipedia's servers are in the USA, that would also be relevant). This is why I suggested consulting with legal@wikimedia. However, if the ruling only impacts a single country-specific URL, does not constitute a shut-down order, and is not receiving US government support - then my question is not relevant and the original ELMINOFFICIAL question for our internal site rules is all that applies. Very sorry for not being clearer in my original question, I had not anticipated it to be viewed as questioning the the linking to web hosts and torrent directories in general. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 17:01, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
- To interpret WP:ELNEVER as "no links" would be incorrect. The founders are gone, so they don't apply. Merely having equipment seized doesn't demonstrate that the site has violated copyright. At this time the site itself does not violate copyright although there may be files on the site that allow somebody to find material somewhere else on someone elses computer that violates copyright. If we were to interpret WP:ELNEVER as "no links" then we wouldn't be able to link to YouTube because there is actually material on YouTube that violates copyright. WP:ELNEVER specifically addresses this saying 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. Based on this it seems that ELNEVER supports linking to The Pirate Bay itself, but probably not one of the magnet links. --AussieLegend (✉) 07:44, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
- This debate was originally started in May because of an objection to five links per WP:ELMINOFFICIAL. Creating a new rule for "no links to torrent sites" would need to be applied consistently across all articles about torrent sites.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 07:09, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
- Likewise IANAL but The Pirate Bay does not offer any copyrighted files for download, it is more like a searchable directory of material available via BitTorrent downloads. The other point that I made is that other sites such as Kickass Torrents do exactly the same thing.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 06:33, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
- IANAL but the website doesn't actually violate the copyright of anyone. I believe the court rulings stated that the website "facilitates" the violation of copyright which is a subtle but important difference to actually violating copyright. This is why it only ordered that thepiratebay.se domain should be seized rather than close down the site entirely. While there is no requirement to provide an official link, there is as far as I'm aware, no restriction. --AussieLegend (✉) 17:46, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
The situation is indeed rather unique - there are not 5 official sites, but at any given time, there is only one official site out of those 5. The other 4 hence would violate WP:EL as they are not the official site at that time. One would have to edit on a regular basis changing the official site (or go through a template transclusion, not making the edit history of the article going nuts - you'd get people annoyed if that article would get so many edits).
The other solution, which was implemented earlier, is listing all 5. In principle the listing of 3 or 5 official sites is allowed under WP:ELOFFICIAL/WP:ELMINOFFICIAL, if there is sufficient reasoning (we generally do not list someones twitter next to their official own domain (also because the twitter is generally linked from that own domain), but if a subject is very well known because of their twitter, then inclusion of the twitter next to the own domain (and hence having two official sites of a subject) is very allowed. This situation is somewhat similar (though with the point that actually 4 links are not at any given time an official site).
As far as I have seen in the past, actual linking to the site or going to the site is not a legal issue, downloading material in violation of copyright is a problem, and I think that they want to establish that providing the service to download material is also a problem (I am assuming that TPB is not hosting the material as well). As per YouTube: linking to TPB (or youtube) is fine, linking to magnet links of material that is NOT violating copyright is fine (as for youtube, linking to material uploaded by the copyright holder of the material is not a problem), linking to magnet links of copyright violating material is not fine (as on YouTube, linking to material that violates copyrights is not fine). (note: I think that magnet links are not within the scope of Wikipedia anyway, but that is also true for much of the material that is on topic, not a violation of copyright on YouTube. --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:21, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
- Well put. Anyone visiting the site will not find any material that is illegal or a copyright violation in itself. A person would need to download a piece of torrent software and click on the download button for a magnet link. Also, as far as I am aware, The Pirate Bay website is not blocked in all countries, and is available in the United States for example. There are some armchair lawyers making decisions about the legality of the site which is admittedly something of a grey area. Even if the site was illegal in Sweden (which isn't exactly what court rulings have said), it would be up to other countries to decide whether to block it.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 08:40, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
- That gets to another point. Company A has a website http://somecompany.com .. that is verifiably its official website. Now, some global internet organisation decides that that website is not to be accessed by anyone in the world, and they make all the DNS servers / routers / whatever is needed to display a 'you're not to go here'-page when s.o. types in that address. Does that preclude us linking to it? I would say no - only when the organisation (and maybe even if it would be just some countries) would prosecute everyone who types in that link / follows that link because that is deemed illegal we might consider to globally blacklist it and remove it from our articles (as we do with links to sites with malware - protect the reader). We do not remove the official facebook link either because it blocked by the firewall in some countries.
- We have decided in our guidelines (in a way, WP:IAR) that we link to the official website of an entity in our Wikipedia articles on that entity (with restrictions, WP:ELOFFICIAL, and overruled only by WP:ELNEVER). At any given time, one of these is the official site of the subject. If, say, America decides that it is illegal to go to even go to that website, it is still the official website. Unless the landing page is in itself a copyright violation (hence should not be linked to for legal reasons), or installs malware or similar (to protect the reader), I do not see any Wikipedia restrictions in linking to that website. (And if such restrictions exists for any given website, if restrictions exists on websites that you're not even allowed to follow a link to it or type it into the address bar, then Wikipedia should codify the solution to that restriction in WP:ELNEVER). --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:20, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
- The Swiss Courts ruled that the site is illegal and jailed all of the founders. The courts no longer can shut down the site because it is moving from country to country and the operators are anonymous. The legal arguments that it doesn’t actually violate laws because it is merely a directory were rejected by the courts, all the way to the Supreme Court of Sweden. TPB is continually changing the site’s urls due to seizures by numerous countries and other legal actions. By continually updating links to the site to help users get around the legal rulings, Wikipedia may be exposed to the same charges of aiding and abetting copyright infringement as the founders. IANAL, but it would seem that is the purpose of WP:ELNEVER. Objective3000 (talk) 13:01, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
- One of the ironies of this debate is that The Pirate Bay is no longer the most important torrent site anyway. By Alexa ranking and general consensus among users, KickassTorrents is now the most important torrent site, even though The Pirate Bay remains the site that the average person is likely to have heard of. It is also the most common focus of debates about the legality or otherwise of torrent sites and tends to receive the most media coverage.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 13:18, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
- The Swiss Courts ruled that the site is illegal and jailed all of the founders. The courts no longer can shut down the site because it is moving from country to country and the operators are anonymous. The legal arguments that it doesn’t actually violate laws because it is merely a directory were rejected by the courts, all the way to the Supreme Court of Sweden. TPB is continually changing the site’s urls due to seizures by numerous countries and other legal actions. By continually updating links to the site to help users get around the legal rulings, Wikipedia may be exposed to the same charges of aiding and abetting copyright infringement as the founders. IANAL, but it would seem that is the purpose of WP:ELNEVER. Objective3000 (talk) 13:01, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
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- What I find odd is the pitched battles over inclusion/exclusion of these links from WP. It’s not as though anyone is having any trouble locating these sites. Let the pirate blogs take the heat and let WP do what it does best – document the site. WP is not a directory. Objective3000 (talk) 13:54, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
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- Look, I have no trouble finding pages linking to/mentioning their websites: see here, here, here (though not linked), here. That something is illegal, does not mean that it is illegal to talk about it, or to point to it. 'Look, he is robbing a bank'. If anyone can show me a reliable source stating that a website was taken down (or even, just a document was taken down or altered) because that website having documentation pointing to these three websites, then we can reliably say that Wikipedia also should not be linking to that. --Dirk Beetstra T C 03:31, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
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- Despite Objective3000's claims to the contrary, the site is not illegal. It has been raided by Swedish police and could have been taken down but it wasn't. All that has happened is that the courts have decided that the domain name should be seized because it "facilitates" copyright violations. The courts seem happy to allow the site to continue operation on another domain so there is no evidence that the site is illegal. The founders, who are no longer involved with the site are not proof that the site is illegal so this aspect of this discussion should not be an issue. The issue is how we list the urls in the infobox. --AussieLegend (✉) 11:01, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
- The court ruling both convicted the founders and ruled that the "site" itself was illegal. That ruling has not been reversed and is still in effect. The site is illegal under the law. It doesn't matter who runs it. Also, the Swedish government did take down the site in that raid. It remained down for eight weeks until they found another host. It has been up and down since.Objective3000 (talk) 11:09, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
- This is really tiresome. The ruling was against the site run by the founders, not the present site. You really need to give up on this unless you can provide verifiable evidence that the present site is subject to the rulings of the past. The site only went down in the 2014 raid because hardware was removed that was required to run the site. It wasn't a takedown. You're making ridiculous assumptions. --AussieLegend (✉) 11:21, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
- Please stop adding snide remarks to your edit summaries. Removing the hardware and arresting the operator were effective methods of taking down the site. The fact they got it up again in Moldova (until they were thrown out of that country) doesn't mean that the Swedish courts were "happy" to allow the site to continue operation. Objective3000 (talk) 11:41, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
- This is really tiresome. The ruling was against the site run by the founders, not the present site. You really need to give up on this unless you can provide verifiable evidence that the present site is subject to the rulings of the past. The site only went down in the 2014 raid because hardware was removed that was required to run the site. It wasn't a takedown. You're making ridiculous assumptions. --AussieLegend (✉) 11:21, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
- The court ruling both convicted the founders and ruled that the "site" itself was illegal. That ruling has not been reversed and is still in effect. The site is illegal under the law. It doesn't matter who runs it. Also, the Swedish government did take down the site in that raid. It remained down for eight weeks until they found another host. It has been up and down since.Objective3000 (talk) 11:09, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
- Despite Objective3000's claims to the contrary, the site is not illegal. It has been raided by Swedish police and could have been taken down but it wasn't. All that has happened is that the courts have decided that the domain name should be seized because it "facilitates" copyright violations. The courts seem happy to allow the site to continue operation on another domain so there is no evidence that the site is illegal. The founders, who are no longer involved with the site are not proof that the site is illegal so this aspect of this discussion should not be an issue. The issue is how we list the urls in the infobox. --AussieLegend (✉) 11:01, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
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Rather than having the same argument in a different place, why not just start an RfC?- MrX 12:19, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
- Because it’s pointless. Court after court has ruled against TPB. They were recently shut down by the Swedish Gov’t. AussieLegend even stooped to a Hitler metaphor yesterday. An RfC will not stop people from claiming that TPB is legal and bullying editors off the TPB article that aren't wholehearted supports. Objective3000 (talk) 13:02, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
- An RfC is a pretty effective tool for determining consensus and its effect is fairly binding. I don't see how that would be pointless. Are you asserting that WP:ELNEVER applies ("Linking to a page that illegally distributes someone else's work casts a bad light on Wikipedia and its editors.")?- MrX 16:36, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
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- Yes. There is more to it though. TPB is constantly changing its domains as it keeps losing them. Wikipedia editors change them based on reports from TorrentFreak, an activist blog that uses anonymous sources that the editors of this article insist is an RS. Of course there are other sources – but they all trace back to TorrentFreak. In the case of domain names, the anonymous operators of TPB feed them to TorrentFreak, and WP editors take it from there. So, basically, WP is getting its information from the operators of the subject of the article, vetting the safety of the links, and adding them to the article, making it easier/safer for pirates to violate copyright. Further, information gathered in this manner has proved highly unreliable. For example, claims that TPB had moved its servers to an offshore oil platform, hovering drones, North Korea, their own country, the Swedish Parliament building, and other outlandish fabrications. Despite the fact that this anti-copyright blog has provided such poor information in the past, a search of the source of the article shows TorrentFreak 129 times. Now, the editors claim that TPB is rotating among five domains, based on the same source. Frankly, this is unlikely, unnecessary, and I can see no evidence of it from examining the site. (Yes, that’s WP:OR. But, why would anyone believe it?) Objective3000 (talk) 22:18, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
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- An RfC is a pretty effective tool for determining consensus and its effect is fairly binding. I don't see how that would be pointless. Are you asserting that WP:ELNEVER applies ("Linking to a page that illegally distributes someone else's work casts a bad light on Wikipedia and its editors.")?- MrX 16:36, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
As Barek mentioned in the very beginning of this section, everyone is free to contact legal@wikimedia.org. Trying to interpret US law regarding linking to a website where the founders was found to be assisting in copyright infringement is an interesting question, but one which should be given to the lawyers who has the education and verifiability to actually make a definitive statement on the issue. Assistance to assistance is a legal topic often discussed on forums, but I have yet to find anyone using precedence or facts to actually point to a specific conclusion.
If we were then to look at the specifics in this particular legal case, translating it to US law is riddled with problems. The law which the founder broke in Sweden likely do not exist in the US, as it is based on the idea that a person running a service can't primarily provide that service to people who commit crimes. The documented thought process behind the law, which in civil law count as if it was part of the law text itself, the politicians wanted prosecutors to have the ability to go after biker bars when a MC-gang uses it as an operation base. In the case of TPB, they then looked at top 100 torrented files page, concluded that it showed a majority of unauthorized copyrighted material that was made available to the public. Making copyrighted material available to the public was explicitly written into Swedish copyright law reform in the late 1990s (in the BBS law), and thus the judges concluded that the founder was found assisting in copyright infringement. (all this can be read in the judgment file published by the court, including why a "why google would likely not be found guilty under same law" section).
What does that mean for the US law that uses case law? I am not a lawyer, so I would leave that to the lawyers of Wikipedia to decide. Its their job to consider what legal issues might or might not be relevant for the project, and I trust that they are good at it. Belorn (talk) 10:09, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
- Likewise. Any issues about the legality of linking to the TPB website are for legal@wikimedia.org. The site's availability in the USA means that there is no clear cut answer to this question. Also, TPB is not the only site offering magnet links.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 10:20, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
- WP:ELNEVER applies whether or not it is legal to link to a site. Objective3000 (talk) 10:34, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
- Rather than argue about this, it would be better to ask legal@wikimedia.org anyway.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 10:55, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
- Who's arguing about legality of linking to TPB? Legality is not relevant to WP:ELNEVER.
- Rather than argue about this, it would be better to ask legal@wikimedia.org anyway.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 10:55, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
- WP:ELNEVER applies whether or not it is legal to link to a site. Objective3000 (talk) 10:34, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
- So I asked them. Reply awaited.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 11:10, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
- An inquiry to WMF legal has no bearing on this content dispute, unless and until they come back and say that we can't link to Pirate Bay, which is doubtful. If they do say it's OK, WP:ELNEVER may still apply. Personally, I'm starting to lean in favor of not listing any links based on the arguments that I've read so far.- MrX 12:22, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
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- Got a reply, which is a private e-mail so I won't quote it directly. It says that it is a community decision rather than a Foundation issue. As predicted, there was no outright ban on linking to the site.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 06:20, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
- I don’t know the question asked or the answer. The question could have been “Is it legal to link to a torrent site?” (Of course it can be given no other information.) Or, it could have been “Should we update links on a continuing basis, month after month, based on anonymous sources, that has been declared illegal and whose pronouncements have proved unreliable, has to constantly move from country-to-country due to legal rulings, has to constantly change domains due to country-after-country rulings, whose founders were all jailed, and whose current site (which may or may not include involvement from some founders) was recently shut down by the Swedish Gov’t., based on anonymous sources that appear to be from the current operators of the site and have often proved to be fabrications, to ease the violation of copyright in contradiction to Wikipedia policies?”
- Got a reply, which is a private e-mail so I won't quote it directly. It says that it is a community decision rather than a Foundation issue. As predicted, there was no outright ban on linking to the site.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 06:20, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
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- Or, something in-between those two. So, the answer: “Up to the community” sounds quite reasonable.
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- I assume good faith on your part, and thank you for the effort. But, I really don’t see the point of getting a complex legal ruling on the full explanation of the situation. I believe that WP:ELNEVER exists to protect the reputation of Wikipedia. WP is an encyclopedia. It documents. It shouldn’t get involved with the politics of any situation. It should be fearless in reporting – but not go out of its way to aide any side.
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- BTW, a sysop removed the links that we are discussing awaiting a resolution. They have been restored despite the fact that the discussion continues. Regards, Objective3000 (talk)
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- My opinion: Link to one (any of them), with a footnote about the situation. Linking to all five seems redundant and would generally just cause clutter, since as I understand it they all point to the same place. A footnote to clarify that there are actually five URLs with none being authoritative avoids it being inaccurate or WP:OR to use one in particular for our link. --Aquillion (talk) 02:51, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
imdbtitle external links in articles
Wil Wheaton had 18 links (recently removed) like the following embedded in the article:
''[[imdbtitle:0082672|A Long Way Home]]''
→ A Long Way Home
This permalink shows how the links were used. They were added in January 2015 and are being discussed at WP:VPP. Use of imdbtitle is illustrated at interwiki help. Searching the April 2015 dump shows 1500 links like that in over 300 articles. {{imdbtitle}} is also used. An example is here and some EL abuse is here.
Has there been a discussion about the use of imdbtitle external links embedded in articles? How about its use as an interwiki link? Johnuniq (talk) 01:37, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
- Embedded links, other than those to Wikipedia pages, are inappropriate.
- Imdb, per WP:ELPEREN, is generally not appropriate as a source, but appropriate as an external link in the "External links" section at the bottom of the page of an article with exactly the same subject. --Ronz (talk) 16:09, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
Promotional External link on UDI and GHS
The external links from loftware.com at UDI Unique Device Identification and GHS Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals pages are promotionals and need to be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.212.25.174 (talk) 10:24, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
- Agree and Removed - a topic expert would be great, to look for additional problems in the further reading and link sections of those 2 articles. Thanks for pointing those out (PS: I converted the references in your post into "regular" Wiki-links for articles). GermanJoe (talk) 13:36, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
ELs in Dealey Plaza
The EL section in Dealey Plaza has been tagged for excessive or inappropriate links for over five years. Looking for second opinions on the following ELs that are listed there: