Talk:Certified reference materials

Supplier list - too commercial or simply informative?

Noted GraemeLeggett's appropriately bold removal of list of commercial suppliers from the page. Broadly supportive of the noncommercial motive (and as an employee of one such supplier not in any safe position to object anyway). However, wikipedia elsewhere does list suppliers (eg network kit), some of those organisations on the Ref materials page already have wikipedia pages, and the article did make reference to 'commercial suppliers' in the text, so it was not entirely irrelevant material. It also looks as if the various suppliers had been pretty even-handed in adding their urls on this page, so the presence of a fairly complete list here went some way to balancing out the fact that only a few of those listed are described in existing wikipedia pages. So the result of removing the list is itself biasing wikipedia slightly against the smaler suppliers. So as a discussion point, does the value of including a fairly comprehensive list for reader information outweigh the obvious commercial interests of the individual suppliers? In other words, should there be a certified rm supplier list here (or somewhere else on wikipedia) or not? SLR Ellison (talk) 11:13, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

As the "instigator", I should give my reasoning for my edit. WP:External Links has content guideline on the subject:

• should be included "3. Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that is relevant to an encyclopedic understanding of the subject and cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to [list of reasons removed]"
• might be "3. A well-chosen link to a directory of websites or organizations"
• normally avoided "5. Individual web pages that primarily exist to sell products or services"

By my reckoning the individual providers didn't contain material on the subject in general. And the purpose of Wikipedia is to give content on the subject, not provide a resource list WP:NOTLINK. Presence of supplier links on other articles may just mean that the other article has not been edited in compliance with the guidelines, or that there is an alternative consensus that has not yet reached the guideline (doubt that, but it's a possibility) GraemeLeggett (talk) 11:40, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer. I think 14 on the 'links to be avoided' list is actually a clincher here: "Lists of links to manufacturers, suppliers or customers." Hard to misinterpret! TVM for the chat. SLR Ellison (talk) 13:11, 11 June 2014 (UTC)