the site now. I have added the page to my watchlist and will keep my eye on it to see what

happens.

By that interpretation, the first policy would mean you couldn’t link

to *any* external sites, because including any site is basically promoting it. My

interpretation is that you can’t add sites that are selling something, so by linking to the

site you are basically advertising that product.

As for the third policy, my site was

listed on Wikipedia for ages and someone took it off – all I’m trying to do is put it

back.

In addition, the Spanish language page has dozens of external links, whereas

French only has a few, so these policies are not being applied consistently.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:External_links and look under “Links to normally avoid,”

you will find that your linking to the About.com site violates 3 policies: (1) “Links that are

added to promote a site” — Whether you intend to or not, you have to admit that the link does

promote your site. (2) “Pages with advertising unless the page is the official home page of the

organization, person, or other entity that is the subject of the Wikipedia article on which the

external link exists” — french.about.com is not the subject of the article, and there are ads

on your site. (3) “A website that you own or maintain (unless it is the official site of the

subject of the article). If it is relevant and informative, mention it as a possible link on

the talk page and wait for someone else to include it, or include the information directly in

the article.” — You maintain it, you added it, and french.about.com is not the subject of the

site.
So in the end, your site cannot be an external link under the current guidelines.

This is unfortunate because your site is, in my opinion and in the opinions of many others, one

of the very best French language learning sites on the internet (I use it a lot and subscribe

to your newsletter). I’m really sorry that you can’t add it as an external link, mais c’est

la vie:)