User:Singularity42/External links in Canadian law articles

In order to provide some context for any reviewers, as well as having to only write this down in one place for now, I have decided to provide some context, etc. for the current (November 2013) issue related to external links / red links in Canadian law cases. (Apologies for the lack of diffs at the moment - I will try to add some when I have more time).

Background

Canadian law articles

Wikipedia articles related to Canadian law topics are in various states of quality - with some articles on important topics outright not existing. There are a number of factors for this:

• Canadian common law tends not to rely too much on secondary sources, and instead focuses on the primary sources (i.e. the cases). Rarely are secondary sources cited by Canadian lawyers or courts. Of the well-known secondary sources, a large number of them tend to be digests that summarize individual cases. This makes it difficult to create high quality tertiary articles, such as Wikipedia articles.
• Canadian jurisprudence - especially on some of the common constitutional issues - changes on a fairly regularly basis. This makes it difficult to alway keep up. It also means theres'a fine line between providing a good quality, up-to-date Wikipedia article, versus having an overwhelming amount of unnecessary detail.
• Volunteers to edit in these areas tend to be few. I believe this is because a lot of people who edit in this area - including myself - tend to have a lot of responsiblities outside of Wikipedia. For example, I am familiar with the subject area because I am a practising lawyer. But that means that as a practising lawyer, I don't always have the time I would like to really work on these articles. As an example of the low number of volunteers, see the somewhat defunct nature of Wikipedia:WikiProject Canadian law.

A useful example of the problem is the article (or lack thereof) on R. v. Morin, a very important and well-known case on certain Canadian constitutional issues (see Section Eleven of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms). It is almost unforgivable that we do not have an artice on this case, yet that is the current state (at least at the time of me writing this).

Jrjm's websites

Jrjm is connected with a number of blog-style websites which analyze important Canadian legal decisions. The main website is this one, which I will refer to for the remainder.

The website's stated purpose can be found here. It has a stated minor POV and purpose.

The qualifications of the contributor to the website can be found here. The website's contributer is not a lawyer or a scholar. He has a bachelor degree in political science, and works as an admin and research support person for a small law firm.

The website is described as a "personal academic project".

Actions leading up to the dispute

• In the months leading up to the end of October 2013, Jrjm (as an IP editor) made a number of contributions to Canadian law articles, primarily on constitutional law. In almost all cases, he linked to the websites described above.
• Most of these articles are on my watchlist. I noticed the contributions, but did not initally really analyze them. I may or may not have removed references to the webiste initially, but I can't find any diffs one way or the other.
• Near the end of October, I noticed the IP made a large number of additional contributions, and decided to look at them in more detail. In doing so I discovered that that the IP had linked to the website in the main body of the article. In some of those cases, a Wikipedia article existed on the subject. In other cases, a Wikipedia article did not exist on the subject, but should. And finally, there were cases where I didn't think there was a need for a Wikipedia aricle (such as a reference to a lower court decision).
• I began converting the external links to wikilinks, redlinks, or references as the case may be, and advised the IP on his talk page. Initially, I only removed one or two instances of specific content when I thought it was unnecessary detail - and said so in my edit summaries.

Note: when changing to references, I removed the link to the website's content, and instead used the well-used template {{cite CanLII}}, which links directly to the case at the well-known Canadian website, CanLII.org (the leading free, online repository for Canadian caselaw).

• I then decided to go through the history of the IP's contributions, and I noticed the problem in almost every article the IP worked on. I also became concerned with WP:OR/WP:SYNTH issues. For example, the IP would given an opinion, and cite cases as examples supporting that opinion. The opinion may be correct, but still OR/SYNTH. And his webiste was not a reliable source for this purpose. I changed the external links, to redlinks, etc. with edit summaries, and removed the OR content, again with edit summaries.
• Around this time, the IP posted on my talk page, explaining that he disagreed with my interpretation of the guidelines and policies - primarily on the external link versus redlink issue. I quoted the various guidelines and policies (and so have other users).
• Jrjm still disagrees, quoting WP:EL which states that some external links may be appropriate. However, Jrjm is quoting out of context - WP:EL has to do with external links in the external links secion. It makes it clear that external links should not be in the main body of the article.

Issues

• When Wikipedia does not have an article on an important topic that is referred to in the main body of an article, should an external link be used instead of a red link?

My position is no, due to clear guidelines and policies regarding external links and red links.

• Does this website (and the related websites linked to at its bottom) meet WP:ELYES or WP:ELMAYBE re an external links section and/or WP:Reliable sources for references?

My position is no to both. This is a self-published, blog-style website with one lay-person's analysis, and therefore meets WP:ELNO. There are no criteria in WP:ELYES or WP:ELMAYBE this website meets. In addition, as a self-published sources, it is not a WP:Reliable source for reference purposes.

JRJM's Response (November 6, 2013)

Just so you know, the "About the Author" page at CharterCases.com has been updated, as it was woefully out of date. I have absolutely no desire to brag or make this about me, although given your statements about my qualifications it may be relevant to note that I have been actively involved in litigation before the BC Supreme Court, BC Court of Appeal, Federal Court of Canada, Federal Court of Appeal, Alberta Court of Queen's Bench, Saskatchewan Court of Queen's Bench, Saskatchewan Court of Appeal, Ontario Court of Appeal, and Supreme Court of Canada.

If anyone thinks that the external links in question are somehow inadequate, I invite them to replace them with better links. If I add relevant links to Wikipedia which are (in your words) "often correct" and other people replace those links with better links, Wikipedia will be much improved as a result.

Simply out of respect for Wikipedia's mediation team and their valuable time, I suggest that we don't make this about each individual link and whether it is the best link in the circumstances. If I place a link which is not relevant or appropriate, individual editors can and should replace it with a better link. I respect such editorial decisions and realize that Wikipedia is continually changing, hopefully for the better. The only thing I take issue with is the indiscriminate removal of relevant links, and their replacement with either dead-end red links or direct links to the raw text of cases which may not be accessible to the lay reader.