[Alan Manson]

Discussion thread for Category:South Africa. If you would like to add a comment, click the Post Reply button.

A really useful site for birders in South Africa (and other Southern African countries) is "Southern African Birding" (http://www.sabirding.co.za/), a commercial South African site. The site advertises multimedia and bird sound products, but also offers free access to information on over 270 birding spots in southern Africa, contributed by many of southern Africa's birders. Should the South Africa page in Birdforum link to this site?

[njlarsen]

I think Andy answered a similar question a while ago, saying that if a link outside Birdforum is added, there should be some certainty that the site would stay on and contain the same content for a good long while.

The second part of the answer is that I do not think such a link, should be added to *this* page. If you want that link to be available, then it would be a good idea to have a regular (as opposed to a category) page for South Africa, in which the link then could occur in the External Links section. To see what I mean by a regular page, take a look at the following: http://www.birdforum.net/opus/Switzerland

Niels

[Alan Manson]

Thanks Niels, I will consider starting a regular article page for South Africa. Other than potential problems with broken links, are there any objections to links to commercial sites with useful free info? I was worried about giving free advertising to competitors of paying advertisers, or to potenial paying advertisers.

[njlarsen]

Andy might be better to answer that question than I am. I would personally have some reservations, but if you post the link as part of a paragraph which tell people exactly what to expect, similar to what you wrote above but possibly leaving out the name of the compagny just giving the link, then it might be OK -- still only my personal opinion.

Niels