Seth Finkelstein wrote:
Andrew Gray (This has caused much elaborate conspiracy theory in the past revolving around nofollow and "favoured" Wikia links, etc)
Well, in defense of critics, I think it's important to acknowledge that there are many aspects of the situation which certainly *look* suspicious. And the tendency of *some* (not all, but *some*) Wikipedia people to react by making name-calling personal attacks, along with longstanding antagonism against SEO's, doesn't help. It pretty much makes a mockery of the idea of "civility".
OK. we still believe pretty much in "assuming good faith", which results in a deprecation of systematic suspicion of the motives of people who are trying to develop the site.
I've investigated the "nofollow" issue, and come to the conclusion that there's less there than meets the eye.
Fine.
But I certainly do understand where the harsh criticism of Wikipedia comes from. For example, speaking as a journalist, I've never been able to get a straight answer as to who was ultimately responsible for changing the "nofollow" policy. There are conflicting public accounts from the people involved. Moreover, the most obvious interpretation of that discrepancy is very negative. Now, I'm not saying I believe that very negative interpretation; for several reasons I think it's incorrect. HOWEVER, I wouldn't say someone who did take a cynical view was being irrational.
Fine. So "assume good faith" is not the de facto standard on the Internet. "Assume convoluted conspiracy" is closer to being the de facto standard on some forums, to put it bluntly. The reason AGF is a good idea for WP is that we have work to do; we can usefully leave it to others, less concerned with free content, to type endlessly about things about which they are at best half-informed. The "nofollow policy" was standard on wikipedias other than the English for a long time without anyone kicking up a fuss. Eventually enWP was getting so much spam that the spam patrol started lobbying for enWP to get in line with the rest. Jimmy Wales certainly promoted the change, but in the end we have to let the devs handle the issue when it is this technical (and they are not accountable to me, or you). (My recollection, this is.) This is also a good idea because we have work to do.
Charles