Okay, this has gone far enough. It is remarkable that people have built all these theories on hypotheses as to what happened with Fleshlight, without actually knowing the facts. It is just ludicrous to think that I succumbed to pressure from a company. To begin with Mark Gallagher's ad hominem suggestions on that point, I have dealt with Walmart, Coca Cola, and GM (among other firms) on the phone. I have spoken with Congressmen and Senators. I have spoken to their lawyers. I have spoken to their PR people. I have spoken to their VPs in charge of advertising. I did not give in to their cajoling, their threats, or their attempts at bribes. To suggest that I did so with Fleshlight is simply ridiculous and does not merit any serious attention. Instead I invite you to spend a day in the office, or if that is too difficult, ask people who have been to the office and have heard me on the phone how I deal with those kinds of people. The fact is, we are dealing with a problem here. We have companies galore trying to spam us. OTRS is just a small indicator of this. We have adverting executives calling to see if what they can do to move their company to a higher position on a list, or how much it costs to get them on the front page. We are prime advertising. We will soon be the tenth largest website in the world, and "anyone can edit." It is not only top notch internet advertising, but it is free too. You see, these people dont see the difference between us and MySpace. They know that we will push up their Google rankings. They know that everyone will look them up on Google and find the Wikipedia article. And I repeat, it is free. For the Americans among you, it is like getting a free commercial slot in the last two minutes of the Superbowl. And I repeat, it is free. And for this prime slot, they want to make sure they look as good as they can. This is not hypothesis. We are dealing with it every day, from people who threaten to sue us for violating their First Amendment rights to post about their company to clueless people who think that if we put up a banner to their online poker site we will all make money. We get it from the big Fortune 500 companies and we get it from the local car rental shop, from the sister of a guy who is opening up a new real estate business in Durham North Carolina (I am not kidding) to reps of Coca Cola ("The article is biased"). We get it from Washington thinktanks led by former cabinet members to Flickr-like rip off sites (they offered us $35 for every photographer we send to them). As a site where advertising is anathema, we have to make a choice. Do we allow this? Personally, I am opposed to paid advertising on Wikipedia, but I am even more opposed to free advertising which we cannot monetize. As editors, we end up having to make choices. With our goals in sight, How do we continue being an encyclopedia, and not some advertising forum or MySpace? What is the difference between an article about Budweiser (which I believe we should have even though their beer is foul) and articles on every micro-brewery in the state of Wisconsin? Fleshlight is just an example of one such minor product. Yes, it was mentioned in the Village Voice. Big deal. My mother was mentioned in the Toronto Star in the 1970s, but that does not mean we need an article about her. Six other products were mentioned in the article (which was a survey of male sex toys, not a piece about Fleshlight per se), but that doesn't mean we have articles about them (see my earlier email for a survey of the article). One hit on Google News does not make something noteworthy, especially if it is not even an article about the topic per se, but rather just a few lines in an overview article (if you actually read the article online before citing it, you will see what I mean). For all those expressing indignation, I invite you to think about what should be included in an encyclopedia, even one the size of Wikipedia. Once you define that, consider what the definition excludes. Which brings us back to Fleshlight. It was the subject of a subtle edit war between the company that manufactures it, and a similar company which wanted to have an external link on the Fleshlight page. Fleshlight wrote "We are happy to let others view our product, but would like to limit editing privileges. This product is seen as taboo to many, so they would just assume destroy our displayed page. Is there anyway I could be placed as moderator for that single page, just Fleshlight, so changes can still be made when necessary and not having the company product slandered." By slandered they mean, showing a rival company. Their rival wrote, "I am quite upset. While I understand that everyone can edit pages as they want, I find it quite outrageous that I add and edit information about the Fleshlight at _http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleshlight_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleshlight) I am an affiliate of Fleshlight and got the word about rules at WIKI that you can't link via affiliate links, but provide USEFUL links using your own domains regarding an WIKI entry." He wanted to add "my updates regarding facts, like unavailable colors of the Fleshlight." That was the slander. Add to this mix a guy who runs a Fleshlight fansite, which is essentially a porn site, who wanted sole control over links as well (i.e., link to his site only). Considering all this, I asked if Fleshlight really needs an article of its own. I consulted with people too. The overwhelming response was that this is spam and should be nuked. At first I thought it could redirect, but then I asked myself the following question--do we really want redirects from every possible product out there to generic articles? Ask yourself the same question. Better yet, go into a dollar store, look at the display of products and ask if we want redirects for all the rip-off brands in Wikipedia. And I nuked. Once again, I hope that this whole incident helps to clarify what the criteria for inclusion in Wikipedia are. At least let it launch that discussion. But to do that, we have to avoid all the rhetoric and be willing to make real decisions based on the underlying principles behind what Wikipedia is all about. Danny .