Wikipedia: LinkingToExternalImages

Difference (from prior major revision) (no other diffs)

Changed: 1,17c1

It is possible to link to images simply by typing in the URL of the image. This was done, for example, on the FidDle page. But the image exists somewhere outside of Wikipedia. Is this wrong? Is a "link back" to the image source adequate compensation, or not? What do you think?

Interesting question. I linked an article (a pretty long one) in HelL, without which my couple of paragraphs would be basically meaningless. Obviously, if the original author has placed it on the web, he intends for it to be widely viewed and circulated - but what if he changes domains or drops off the web altogether? Then what of my link? The substance of my paragraphs will be as naught with the loss of that material. If I had my druthers, I'd include the whole article in the body of my notes, with a link-back. However, I am leery of violating standards of fair use under copyright law, and so I don't. Who has a definitive answer on this?

I'd say just go get permission. But then the article itself, since it doesn't concern HelL per se but is a very particular take on a particular question about HelL, should be saved under its own special (aptly-named) page. That's my view, anyway.

What's the proper syntax for a non-image external link? I tried one on the Wargaming page, but it doesn't look right. The pipe shows up.
''[[http://www.hyw.com/Books/WargamesHandbook/Contents.htm |The Complete Wargames Handbook]]''

produces

[[|The Complete Wargames Handbook]]

Without the space before the pipe it tries to include it and 'The' in the url:

[[Complete Wargames Handbook]]

Is it even okay to link to things like this? -- Atlas_2091

External links use a different syntax - the pipe is ignored (and so being considered part of the name or URL) and only one set of brackets is needed. I'll fix it on said page, so you can look there....There's probably some other page this lives on.

There is a potential copyright problem with inline (and in-frame) linking. Linking to external websites in a way that requires the user to click on the link is considered (what, me provide a reference for this statement?) ok if the new web page is displayed the way its creator/publisher wanted. This is what Wikipedia does if I just write an URL (such as http://www.svenskaakademien.se/), but if I write an image URL (such as http://www.svenskaakademien.se/HTML/bilder/krans.gif), then the image will appear as a part of this Wikipedia-generated webpage, and that is not what the image publisher intended.

Generally, we strongly discourage linking to external images, unless you control the server--and even then it's not such a great idea. See Wikipedia policy.