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I'm proposing to blacklist w3schools.com on Stack Overflow. Answers linking to it are usually bad and often even link-only. Such answers also attract w3fools-related comments which would be fine with an explanation why the w3schools reference is bad in the given case, but lots of people just post a comment linking to w3fools without that comment.

Preferably that blacklist entry would not cause the default message to be shown but a more helpful one mentioning that the site is not an acceptable resource due to it teaching insecure programming habits (such as sql injection).

Somewhat related discussion: Discouraging w3schools as a resource

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    I link sometimes for simple things like a syntax questions. What is wrong with that? – rekire Nov 26 '12 at 13:39
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    the thing is that there is no other resource that is as easy to link to and access as that damn site. Sure, all the info is available elsewhere, too, but... someone should do to w3schools what SO did to Experts Exchange. – Pekka Nov 26 '12 at 13:41
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    There is MDN... – ThiefMaster Nov 26 '12 at 13:48
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    MDN is great in theory, but for simple stuff I find it about 5x harder to find simple things. Even finding the list of applicable attributes for a tag is a pain on MDN. w3schools is generally close enough for simple stuff (on HTML anyway) and 100x easier to find, hence the current situation – Ben Brocka Nov 26 '12 at 15:00
  • I totally agree with Pekka: the interwebs are in dire need of an alternative. w3fools links to webplatform.org, which might end up being that alternative, but their current state is ... not link-worthy, to be honest. And missing content is just one of their problems. Writing simple tutorials for basic stuff and still being technically correct is quite hard to do (you either end up getting too technical/hard and will be ignored or you glance over things that you should really not glance over). – Joachim Sauer Nov 26 '12 at 15:33
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    I agree with this in principle, because I think w3schools is bad. Unfortunately, I don't know if a blanket ban on a single website really makes sense; surely there would be (many) others we could (should) ban; where would it end? – Andrew Barber Nov 26 '12 at 18:51
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I disagree: links and their content should be judged on a base-by-base case. If the linked-to information is good and the answer containing the link is valid/useful, then why discourage it?

If the answer is bad or if the linked-to content is bad, then the answer deserves all the downvotes it will get.

Selecting a single bad source of information on the internet as a target for banning feels like imposing too much of "our" choice onto our users.

Disclaimer: I dislike w3schools a lot and I agree with most of what w3fools says about them.
Also, ban roseindia.net.

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    +1 for "ban roseindia.net". – BalusC Nov 26 '12 at 13:52

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