*Guy Chapman aka JzG* guy.chapman at spamcop.net <wikien-l%40lists.wikimedia.org?Subject=%5BWikiEN-l%5D%20Fwd%3A%20For%20the%20WikiEN-l%20list&In-Reply-To=38a7bf7c0705141400l4dac6aebya2543edcf49b8006%40mail.gmail.com> *Mon May 14 21:57:48 UTC 2007* ------------------------------

On Mon, 14 May 2007 14:00:47 -0700, "George Herbert" <george.herbert at gmail.com http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l> wrote:

*Centiare's hurdle (despite about 900 page views per day) has been

*>*getting more users to register and write articles about themselves, *>*their companies, their home town, the book they're writing, the album *>*they're recording, etc. * Precisely. Because it lacks Wikipedia's unique combination of attractions: large numbers of articles, on subjects people actually give a shit about, with a massive presence on the web, and with policies that prevent it being just a verbatim regurgitation of the company's PR.

I mean, if I want to read a company's PR guff, I can find their website. What I actually want is an objective overview of that company, which Centiare is specifically designed *not* to give.

All of which sums up why Gregory Kohs was doomed to frustration on Wikipedia.

Guy (JzG)

+++ +++ +++ +++

Let me try to cut through the venom and vitriol that you seem to harbor, Guy, and let me try to educate you about the advantages Centiare can provide to the entrepreneur. (Stop trying to attack the site from the perspective of the "PR guff searcher" that you're trying to envision.)

Suppose you live in Littleton, Colorado, and you're planning a conference event. You want to design and mail out some cool invitations to a list of your prospective attendees. So, you want some local help with designing these invitations. What might you do? Perhaps you'd go to Google and type in "Littleton graphics stationery" and see what comes up.

Well, guess what happens when I typed in the three words, Littleton graphics stationery, into a Google search?

This handy little site that happens to currently lack a large number of articles and is full of "PR guff" managed to return one of its User's Directory pages as the NUMBER ONE site out of nearly 20,000 results.

So, Guy, if you owned Lion Graphics and you were looking for business prospects, you wouldn't be happy with that? You'd rather keep pounding away, trying to get your non-notable company into Wikipedia, against "the rules"? I just don't understand your angry opposition to Centiare, Guy. Are you happier fighting small entrepreneurs on Wikipedia, or wouldn't you rather direct them to another site that can help them accomplish their online publicity objectives?

Greg