--- David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
One problem with commercial links is fairness: do we list those of the producers who have articles on WP, those who we think major in some other manner, all the ones we can find, or all the ones who insert themselves? I don't have the answer to this--I'm asking in the hope of some rational basis for deciding. (I've been trying to maintain the e-book pages and related pages, and there is a continual barrage of links to both companies who are new to the field and not yet notable, and to those who are not really in the same ballpark at all.)
It seems that applying notability makes a great first step - ideally with a strong sampling of reputable/reliable sources versus fan forums and blogs. Policy pretty much takes care of all the questions. We can't use other Wikipedia articles as references, so definitely don't base it on whether or not an article already exists. It could be deleted tomorrow or there may not have been one added yet for a deserving company.
NPOV undue weight takes care of the rest that are, as you put it, still in the same ballpark. The problem to keep in mind and the subject is that Wikipedia has an enormous impact on search results, regardless of where the link is placed and even if the link is nothing more than the address as the associated text. A site that deserves that impact should at the very least meet all the minimum policy requirements for any other content.
~~Pro-Lick http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Halliburton_Shill http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pro-Lick http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pro-Lick http://www.wikiality.com/User:Pro-Lick (Wikia supported site since 2006)
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