On 7/23/08, WJhonson@aol.com WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
In a message dated 7/23/2008 8:16:12 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, szilagyi@gmail.com writes:
What is the benefit to allowing Google to index DRV, talk pages, and user/user talk pages?>>
Transparency. There is no benefit and a great drawback to not indexing. Not indexing makes it appear we are hiding something. That belief is already very prevalent among our critics, we don't want to feed them a ton of raw steak.
Will Johnson
As was previously noted, pages such as AfD, RfA, and RfAr were apparently excluded from being indexed some time ago. (I apologize again for having missed this in my initial post, and am curious when it was done.) I have never heard of a single complaint regarding this change in procedure.
Wikipedia's critics have a broad range of views, and no one can anticipate every criticism that could (rightly or wrongly) be made. However, as noted, there have been relatively few objections raised to no-indexing most of the types of pages at issue other than purely logistical ones.
By contrast, several of Wikipedia's best-known critics have repeatedly and vociferously objected to the fact that negative comments about both contributors or article subjects -- including types of comments that would not be allowed in the encyclopedia itself -- are preserved forever on Wikipedia pages, and thus inevitably become high-ranking and permanent search engine results for these individuals. They are right to object, and Wikipedia should continue to address this well-known, longstanding, and readily fixable problem.
My concern with this issue is not an idiosyncratic one. I have seen others raise concerns surrounding this issue on-wiki, on this mailing list, on Bugzilla, had them expressed to me by a personal acquaintance who has encountered this issue, and also seen frequent references to the problem on a site in which many of "our critics," as well as many Wikipedians (who may of course also be critics), participate. Sometimes we may think that criticism of Wikipedia is misguided, but other times it has merit, and when it has merit we should act on it. In any event, the possibility that our critics would be affronted by our no-indexing these pages is purely speculative, while the fact that our critics (and many others) have raised entirely justified objections to our current practice is very real.
Newyorkbrad