Eurovision Wiki:External links/Noticeboard

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Links to official pages for Norwegian companies will expire

This is an example of a Wikipedia page about a Norwegian company: https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equinor

In the fact box to the right, there is a direct link to that company's page at The Brønnøysund Register Centre (public state agency) in Norway, where all companies and organisations are registered and are given a 9 digit ID.

The link in this case is: https://w2.brreg.no/enhet/sok/detalj.jsp?orgnr=923609016

From now on that link should be replaced with a link to the new web page: https://virksomhet.brreg.no/nb/oppslag/enheter/923609016

More generally, links containing this string: https://w2.brreg.no/enhet/sok/detalj.jsp?orgnr= ...should be globally replaced with this string: https://virksomhet.brreg.no/nb/oppslag/enheter/ ...if possible.

Otherwise all such links will most likely return "404 not found" in the future.

I hope this is possible.

• With apologies for terrible formatting due to mobile; I think a request here would help - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Link_rot/URL_change_requests

Questionable from a copyright perspective?

This blog used to host the content of a source for Lake Tauca but was removed because it was on the spam blacklist. Now the source is reliable but I am not sure whether it is OK from a copyright perspective - while anonymous and pseudonymous works from 1976 apparently end up PD next year, this work isn't anonymous/pseudonymous. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 15:45, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

Just reference the book directly as a publication, but not the blog. The blog was only providing a convenience link and should never have been linked to. The source is not anonymous, it clearly has an author. It's a published book, just reference the book and ignore the blog. Obviously a link to the book copy on the blog/wayback is a WP:COPYLINK violation. Canterbury Tail talk 16:26, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

Bibliographies

WP:EL states that "With rare exceptions, external links should not be used in the body of an article." Many articles about authors have bibliographies with links to Google Books, Amazon, or Internet Archive. Viktor Frankl is an example. Should these links be removed, or is this not considered part of the "article body"? I think the Google Books links are useless, but maybe Internet Archive is different. Prezbo (talk) 14:05, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

@Prezbo, the usual approach is that bibliographic content is supposed to be formatted the same throughout the article, so if these sorts of convenience links are used in the ==References== section, then they can be used in the ==Books== section (or any other Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists of works section).

Also, as a general rule: when this kind of question comes up, think about what's nicest for the reader of that article, instead of what's most compliant with a written rule. For example, even if you generally don't think these links are helpful, if a book is particularly hard to find, then you might use your judgement to keep a link for that one. Of course, if you think these are almost always helpful, then you'd want to keep all or almost all of them. We really are trusting you to consider all the specific facts and circumstances for that article and make a reasonable choice. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:05, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. Prezbo (talk) 10:55, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

PreserveTube

Is PreserveTube (https://preservetube.com/) permitted as an archival service for YouTube videos? While it is effective at archiving YouTube videos, it is not listed at Wikipedia:List of web archives on Wikipedia. It appears to be relatively transparent, being open source. Are there any potential issues regarding this website which could in any way prevent its use on Wikipedia? ―Howard • 🌽³³ 16:39, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

Looks like a copyright violating site to me. No evidence they have permission for the videos, and the fact they've had DCMA takedowns supports that. As a result WP:COPYLINK. Canterbury Tail talk 17:31, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

I don't think this matters when we're talking about web archiving. sapphaline (talk) 17:47, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

By the way, this might be owned by the same person who owns archive.today. sapphaline (talk) 17:53, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

If this is true, it should also be blacklisted, but please provide your evidence for this assertion. ―Howard • 🌽³³ 17:54, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

Same domain registrar (this is literally the second site I know of with a domain registered on Tucows, first being archive.today) and the description on the main page is a word-by-word copy from archive.today's main page. Not much, I know. sapphaline (talk) 18:03, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

In that case, I am going to open a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Archive.today guidance so that it may be considered whether links to preservetube.com should also be blacklisted. ―Howard • 🌽³³ 18:08, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

I will say that using Tucows is not at all evidence that these sites are owned by the same person. It is just a good domain registrar for this kind of thing, I've used it myself. PARAKANYAA (talk) 03:58, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

Yup, Tucows is one of the original internet registrars and one of the biggest names from the early days of the internet. Those of us who were in university in the 90s know the name well. Being registered with Tucows indicates nothing. It's like saying they're bad because they use Shopify or Squarespace. Canterbury Tail talk 13:59, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

@Canterbury Tail: we've permitted Ghost Archive which does the same thing and said so openly about its capacity to archive videos at Wikipedia:List_of_web_archives_on_Wikipedia#Ghost_Archive. ―Howard • 🌽³³ 17:54, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

Yes and I think that is a gross mistake, but I'm not a lawyer. Canterbury Tail talk 20:48, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

What is the difference between archiving a copyrighted webpage and archiving a copyrighted video? ―Howard • 🌽³³ 20:57, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

Nothing. I don't think we should be linking to archived copies of copyrighted webpages either without the copyright holders permission. Canterbury Tail talk 21:16, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

We would have to do away with like 99% of all archives on our citations then. ―Howard • 🌽³³ 03:19, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

Yup. Canterbury Tail talk 13:36, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

CVE template usage

The Template:CVE, which creates an external link to the National Vulnerability Database is commonly used in the body of articles which seems to me as a violation of NOELBODY. The article I personally first came across this use is XZ Utils backdoor and it seems this use is done on most pages that this template is transcluded. Is this one of the exceptions to the guideline? -- Chaos Amber 19:34, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

@ChaosAmber, thanks for the clear example. I haven't seen that template before.

I think that content would be better suited for inclusion in {{Infobox bug}}, don't you? If it's worth mentioning in the text of the article, then the template could perhaps be used inside ref tags, but I'm not sure that the number itself is worth mentioning in the text.

I'm not sure I'm explaining this clearly, so here's an example:

• Current: "The issue has been given the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures number CVE-2024-3094 and has been assigned a CVSS score of 10.0, the highest possible score."
• My suggestion: "Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures assigned a CVSS score of 10.0, the highest possible score." (and the id# is in the infobox)

WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:15, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

The suggested version does seem better, but my question was more focused on the use of the template in article bodies in general, not in that article in particular. I am not an editor of the article I linked. -- Chaos Amber 20:29, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

So... I've not heard of this one before, so it's probably not one of the most common/traditional exceptions (e.g., IETF RFCs or Bible verses).

IMO it's not entirely unreasonable (if you're going to have the id number in the text of the article in the first place, it might as well do something useful for the reader, and there is an argument to be made that it is useful to verify that nobody's changed the ID number), but I would recommend following WP:NOELBODY instead. Following NOELBODY probably means one of these three approaches:

• Remove the number and template from the text and put it in the infobox (if the article is about a bug)
• Remove the number and template from the text and put it inside ref tags (if there is other content, e.g., the CVSS score)
• Move it to the ==External links== section (if the bug is particularly relevant to the topic, e.g., not in Microsoft Windows)

WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:44, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

networkdvd.net

This is something I’ll work on tomorrow when I’m on a computer rather than my phone, but since there are ~40 links to it that I can see with an insource: search, I thought I’d draw further attention to this news story about the hijacking of this domain. • a frantic turtle 🐢 21:54, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

@A Frantic Turtle, please copy this message to Wikipedia:Link rot/URL change requests. @GreenC may be able to have a bot deal with all of these for you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:01, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

Done, with thanks. • a frantic turtle 🐢 22:09, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

I've been through and manually changed most of them to url-status=usurped, adding an archive link. The rest were either links to the front page or to searches on the old website, so I've just removed those entirely. (A couple were naked adverts, so they're gone too now). A lot of the references were in rubbish formats that I don't think a bot could get to grips with, which is fairly typical for our articles on TV shows, alas.

The hijacked site has taken a copy of the last working version of the real site, so people may not realise it's actually now a scam and add new links to it in future. I don't think there's a way of preventing this? I'd assume that vigilance will have to suffice. (I'll cc this to Link rot too). • a frantic turtle 🐢 11:48, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

Spammy pages are often eligible for inclusion in the Wikipedia:Spam blacklist. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:21, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, but the existing links (including the archive links because of how the regex works) would have to be removed entirely before the url string could be added to WP:BED. If they aren't, any time someone edits the page, they'd have to remove the url anyway before they could save it – and the real but now sadly dead site has a lot of accurate and unique information on it... something that our TV show articles desperately need. Damned if we do, damned if we don't! • a frantic turtle 🐢 20:04, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

Talk:Hot Fuzz

On my watchlist this edit by Laeredis [1] where he removed bot posts from 2017, I saw this weird meta on the page, something about blacklist content links. Was there some links to be removed? Because it was confusing me. Govvy (talk) 16:15, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

The sections I deleted on the talk page were to do with a bot automatically adding Internet Archive links for two sites that no longer exist, after checking the citations were still in the article and supported the text, so I'm a bit confused by this as well.

To remove both sections at once I edited the whole talk page, is it possible the blacklist warning pertains to something further up that I wasn't actually altering? Otherwise, is it possible the blacklist stuff was a result of the removed links being usurped for a while by a spam domain or similar in the past? I confess I didn't see any warnings myself, but if I've overlooked something it'd be great to have it pointed out. Laeredis (talk) 16:49, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

I use twinkle, and have meta reader for hidden tags, which most editors don't see. Govvy (talk) 18:40, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

@Laeredis: If you're interested, if you try an undo on your edit on the talk page. You might see you can't add the bot posts back. Govvy (talk) 18:43, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

I think the answer to your question is at Wikipedia:Archive.today guidance. Note that archive.org is not the same as archive.today.

Also, removing those messages after checking to see whether the bot's edit was correct is a good thing to do. Thanks for doing that, Laeredis. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:03, 15 March 2026 (UTC)