On 4/30/07, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:
If you read this thread, you'd have seen the link
to the bug and you'd
have the answer.
I know your role is to be the UK public relations person, but you don't need
to be snippy and curt because someone is being critical of the great and
mighty WMF. Yes, I saw the link to bugzilla. No, we don't have an answer:
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8753
Bainer: "There is the wgNoFollowLinks setting to add rel="nofollow" to all
external links, but no option to do the same for interwiki links. I have a
patch to implement this which will shortly be forthcoming."
Brion Vibber: "Untrusted sites should not be in the interwiki table,
probably, hmm?"
Rob Church: "It makes no sense to do this."
As has been said, however, this is *NOT* a technical issue. It's a question
of "Why are some sites allowed around the nofollow restriction, creating
possible conflict of interest?" In other words, why is Wikipedia's stature
and resources being allowed to convey financial benefit to Wikia (and
others)? If they are allowed, why not all? That's the problem. The nofollow
should be for ethical reasons all-or-nothing. I have no problem with either
scenario, but theres no reason to not go all the way if you're going to do
it.
--
Regards,
Joe
http://www.joeszilagyi.com