phoebe ayers wrote:
You know, while I despise spammers as much as the next person, it's worth remembering that the "power of Wikipedia links" can be used for good, as well. For instance, there was recently a project by librarians at the [[University of Washington]] libraries to add relevant links to their online special collections -- like collections of WWII photographs -- to the appropriate Wikipedia articles. Surprise, surprise, their traffic skyrocketed -- always a good thing for libraries looking for funding, and a bonus for us as we get good, curated, non-profit links to collections people might not find otherwise. Of course *we* know this but people at institutions might not; libraries and museums and the like should always be encouraged to add relevant links to their collections if they can.
And, of course, the nofollow tags screw these institutions, as well. Even though they're getting the traffic through us, they aren't seeing the results in their Google hits, even though they might have great material we (bone-headedly) can't use.
It's too bad we can't have a meta-list regarding what should and should not have nofollow on it, similar to the spam blacklist. Not that the list wouldn't be abused the same way the spam blacklist is now, but it would at least work the best of both worlds.
-Jeff