Weblinks Are Not Examples

This is basically a general watching thread for cleaning up articles that are relying way too much on using external links to explain their examples. After all, external links may go dead or break, we can't use them as a substitute for a good citation.

Two such pages I stumbled across recently:

• Angel Moxie
• Zinnia Jones

edited 26th Jun '13 11:47:07 AM by Stratadrake

This type of thing has always been a blight on the webcomic pages, IMO. Can we finally get rid of this type of thing now?

Oglaf is probably another example. I haven't checked it thoroughly, but it looks like there's about two weblinks for every example with an actual explanation. (I can volunteer to fix it if needed; I'm not familiar enough with the other works.)

I really don't think this a problem. Rather, it's an advantage of webcomics; we can use links to help illustrate the examples.

Now, if it's nothing but the link, then yeah, that's just a different breed of X Just X and needs more detail. But most of the ones I see are more like this:

• Bare Your Midriff: Riley's ultimate power costume.

than this:

• Bare Your Midriff: This.

The latter is wrong (and is a hypothetical example; the page uses the former) and should be expanded, but the former is perfectly fine. It's clear enough without the link, but with the link its even better.

OK, thanks for the clarification.

When I've used outside links (like with webcomics) I've always included enough information to get the point across in the text itself, in addition to the link.

Discar's got it right. External links can be used to compliment the explanation of a trope — they just can't be used as the explanation. The purpose here is for performing cleanup on examples that rely exclusively on their external links.

edited 22nd Dec '11 6:42:42 PM by Stratadrake

I'd also say that Oglaf should have all its links but the one up top blanked. That site is very NSFW, even if the specific comic is.

Wonderella is a major offender... and I'm guilty of a couple.

So what if I fixed that up?

Awkward Zombie also seems to be a major offender. Anyone got the time?

.

edited 23rd Jul '17 2:42:34 PM by Jicragg

Not Always Right. Every example, I think.

The links on Boobs Ahoy seem to have all broken. They need to be either fixed or removed.

On Not Always Right and Zinnia Jones, the names of the episodes usually explain what the episode is about, thus not being that much of a problem. But yeah, some fleshing out may be in order.

The Non-Adventures of Wonderella is rich in weblinks and poor in no-weblinks explanations.

Troll Fic has a bunch of examples consisting of a link with little or no explanatory text. (Also some which probably violate our new content guidelines, but that's another matter.)

Deboss@7: Oglaf has a warning/screener page, so you can't see anything NSFW unless you already have the cookie. Previous discussions have suggested that's acceptable.

Unsurprisingly, Vapor Wear has a few issues with this.

Sinfest like most webcomics has a huge problem with this.

I added context to about half the bad examples on the Wonderella page. But there's a database error right now on that site, so the rest will have to wait.

^^ Thanks for reminding me, I had made plans to work on Freefall to fix that, but it slipped my mind. It'll have to wait until tomorrow, though. Stupid Real Life, making me have to actually work to pay my bills.

Thank you very much!

Finished fixing the Wonderella page.

Songs To Wear Pants To has every example simply linked to the website.

The amount of dead links in the meme section of My Little Pony:Friendshipis Magic is outright embarrasing.

Courtesy link: Memes.My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic.

I think you can just comment out the offending memes, or put them on to the discussion page.