http://www.cheezhead.com/2007/06/01/troy-smith-wikipedia/
Do we have editors getting vicious on these by default?
- d.
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David Gerard's mail client expels the following stream of bytes on 6/3/2007 8:13 PM:
http://www.cheezhead.com/2007/06/01/troy-smith-wikipedia/
Do we have editors getting vicious on these by default?
That's rather intriguing.
- -- Charli (vishwin60/zelzany) Computer games don't affect kids, I mean if Pac Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive music. ~Marcus Brigstocke
--- David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
http://www.cheezhead.com/2007/06/01/troy-smith-wikipedia/
Do we have editors getting vicious on these by default?
Shouldn't the question be why didn't the editors/admins catch the PR/spam/bomb before it drove 21% of traffic to a site that had 40,000 hits? Or are you in charge of Wikipedia advertiser -SEO spin control?
~~Pro-Lick http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Halliburton_Shill http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pro-Lick http://www.wikiality.com/User:Pro-Lick (Wikia supported site since 2006)
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On 6/6/07, Cheney Shill halliburton_shill@yahoo.com wrote:
Shouldn't the question be why didn't the editors/admins catch the PR/spam/bomb before it drove 21% of traffic to a site that had 40,000 hits?
Maybe because it didn't affect Wikipedia in the least.
Maybe, because we've got more urgent things to worry about, like users who post vandalism, or libel, or copyright violations, or dozens of more serious types of sabotage. The kind that actually affects the credibility of our content.
—C.W.
--- Charlotte Webb charlottethewebb@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/6/07, Cheney Shill halliburton_shill@yahoo.com wrote:
Shouldn't the question be why didn't the editors/admins catch the PR/spam/bomb before it drove 21% of traffic
to a
site that had 40,000 hits?
more serious types of sabotage. The kind that actually affects the credibility of our content.
Yeah, just because Wikipedia gets used to promote a product doesn't mean we can't trust what it says. Yep, advertisements and catalogs are, like, so totally creditable that I always click on the ad links first because you know you're getting a verified NPOV straight from the sellers.
~~Pro-Lick http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Halliburton_Shill http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pro-Lick http://www.wikiality.com/User:Pro-Lick (Wikia supported site since 2006)
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On 6/6/07, Cheney Shill halliburton_shill@yahoo.com wrote:
Yeah, just because Wikipedia gets used to promote a product doesn't mean we can't trust what it says. Yep, advertisements and catalogs are, like, so totally creditable that I always click on the ad links first because you know you're getting a verified NPOV straight from the sellers.
Believe it or not, you have bacteria on your skin whose survival depends upon you. Some of them are harmful, some helpful, and some serve no purpose at all. If you want to burn them all off with a blow torch, go right ahead.
—C.W.
--- Charlotte Webb charlottethewebb@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/6/07, Cheney Shill halliburton_shill@yahoo.com wrote:
Yeah, just because Wikipedia gets used to promote a
product
doesn't mean we can't trust what it says. Yep, advertisements and catalogs are, like, so totally creditable that I always click on the ad links first because you know you're getting a verified NPOV straight from the sellers.
Believe it or not, you have bacteria on your skin whose survival depends upon you. Some of them are harmful, some helpful, and some serve no purpose at all. If you want to burn them all off with a blow torch, go right ahead.
So, patrolling for obvious and insignificant vandalism inserted into articles like "Charlotte is bonkers!!!" or "Bill Gates sucks!!!" is, like, way more important? That doesn't even qualify as serving no purpose?
Or are you admitting that Wikipedia or at least you personally not only disregard embedded advertisments and shilling but find it helpful? Or just less worthwhile than spending large amounts of time on immeasurables like morale and patrolling search-engine-ignored user pages for external links?
~~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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Cheney Shill wrote:
--- Charlotte Webb charlottethewebb@gmail.com wrote:
Believe it or not, you have bacteria on your skin whose survival depends upon you. Some of them are harmful, some helpful, and some serve no purpose at all. If you want to burn them all off with a blow torch, go right ahead.
So, patrolling for obvious and insignificant vandalism inserted into articles like "Charlotte is bonkers!!!" or "Bill Gates sucks!!!" is, like, way more important? That doesn't even qualify as serving no purpose?
I'm not exactly sure what you mean here, but if you're saying that the removal of a commercial link from the "external links" section of an article related to that product is always more important than the removal of "obvious vandalism" like the examples you present I'd have to dispute that. When J. Random Reader visits an article with obvious vandalism, he snorts and thinks "man, Wikipedia sucks." When he visits an article with a spam link, he will likely not even notice it. So IMO it's more important to get rid of the obvious vandalism first. Fortunately the very obviousness that makes it important also makes it easier to deal with.
Or are you admitting that Wikipedia or at least you personally not only disregard embedded advertisments and shilling but find it helpful? Or just less worthwhile than spending large amounts of time on immeasurables like morale and patrolling search-engine-ignored user pages for external links?
In some cases a link to a commercial website _can_ be helpful, IMO. A number of years back I recall using a commercial chemical supply business' website as references for a bunch of articles on chemicals they sold, since they had a collection of MSDS pages online giving various properties of the chemicals in question.
I think the point that Charlotte is trying to make is not that this one particular link is necessarily a good thing (I haven't looked at it myself so I don't have an opinion on it myself) but rather that an unmoderated reaction of "OMG commercial link on Wikipedia die die die!" is going to throw out some pieces of the baby along with the bathwater.
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.)
DGG
On 6/7/07, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
Cheney Shill wrote:
--- Charlotte Webb charlottethewebb@gmail.com wrote:
Believe it or not, you have bacteria on your skin whose survival depends upon you. Some of them are harmful, some helpful, and some serve no purpose at all. If you want to burn them all off with a blow torch, go right ahead.
So, patrolling for obvious and insignificant vandalism inserted into articles like "Charlotte is bonkers!!!" or "Bill Gates sucks!!!" is, like, way more important? That doesn't even qualify as serving no purpose?
I'm not exactly sure what you mean here, but if you're saying that the removal of a commercial link from the "external links" section of an article related to that product is always more important than the removal of "obvious vandalism" like the examples you present I'd have to dispute that. When J. Random Reader visits an article with obvious vandalism, he snorts and thinks "man, Wikipedia sucks." When he visits an article with a spam link, he will likely not even notice it. So IMO it's more important to get rid of the obvious vandalism first. Fortunately the very obviousness that makes it important also makes it easier to deal with.
Or are you admitting that Wikipedia or at least you personally not only disregard embedded advertisments and shilling but find it helpful? Or just less worthwhile than spending large amounts of time on immeasurables like morale and patrolling search-engine-ignored user pages for external links?
In some cases a link to a commercial website _can_ be helpful, IMO. A number of years back I recall using a commercial chemical supply business' website as references for a bunch of articles on chemicals they sold, since they had a collection of MSDS pages online giving various properties of the chemicals in question.
I think the point that Charlotte is trying to make is not that this one particular link is necessarily a good thing (I haven't looked at it myself so I don't have an opinion on it myself) but rather that an unmoderated reaction of "OMG commercial link on Wikipedia die die die!" is going to throw out some pieces of the baby along with the bathwater.
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--- 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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G'day David,
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.)
Fairness is not an issue. Everything on Wikipedia is (or should be) intended to increase the quality of our articles, including the external links. The only metric --- the *only* metric --- to worry about is, "Is this article better now that it has this link in it?"
If the answer is yes, then no worries. If the answer is no, get rid of it. If the site owner then says, "That's not fair", then turn the air blue with cussing.
It's that simple.
Cheers,
Comes to the same thing; adding links to no producers of something is admittedly not useful; adding links to a few pushy one is certainly not much more useful and arguably less because it makes us look like an advertising medium; adding links to all is usually not practical; adding links to all those over a certain threshold--that is what is most useful. And that's what I mean by fair. The problems are where to set the bar & how to gather the information. ~~~~
On 6/11/07, Mark Gallagher m.g.gallagher@student.canberra.edu.au wrote:
G'day David,
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.)
Fairness is not an issue. Everything on Wikipedia is (or should be) intended to increase the quality of our articles, including the external links. The only metric --- the *only* metric --- to worry about is, "Is this article better now that it has this link in it?"
If the answer is yes, then no worries. If the answer is no, get rid of it. If the site owner then says, "That's not fair", then turn the air blue with cussing.
It's that simple.
Cheers,
-- Mark Gallagher "'Yes, sir,' said Jeeves in a low, cold voice, as if he had been bitten in the leg by a personal friend."
- P G Wodehouse, /Carry On, Jeeves/
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On 6/7/07, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
When J. Random Reader visits an article with obvious vandalism, he snorts and thinks "man, Wikipedia sucks." When he visits an article with a spam link, he will likely not even notice it. So IMO it's more important to get rid of the obvious vandalism first.
Exactly.
I think the point that Charlotte is trying to make is not that this one particular link is necessarily a good thing (I haven't looked at it myself so I don't have an opinion on it myself) but rather that an unmoderated reaction of "OMG commercial link on Wikipedia die die die!" is going to throw out some pieces of the baby along with the bathwater.
Actually my point is... if you thoroughly inspect an article... and you conclude that one external link is getting more traffic than it deserves... and if that was the most serious concern that you could find... the page is probably ready to be nominated for Featured Article status.
—C.W.
Charlotte Webb wrote:
On 6/7/07, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
I think the point that Charlotte is trying to make is not that this one particular link is necessarily a good thing (I haven't looked at it myself so I don't have an opinion on it myself) but rather that an unmoderated reaction of "OMG commercial link on Wikipedia die die die!" is going to throw out some pieces of the baby along with the bathwater.
Actually my point is... if you thoroughly inspect an article... and you conclude that one external link is getting more traffic than it deserves... and if that was the most serious concern that you could find... the page is probably ready to be nominated for Featured Article status.
Well, they're both good points anyway. :)
--- Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
Cheney Shill wrote:
So, patrolling for obvious and insignificant vandalism inserted into articles like "Charlotte is bonkers!!!"
or
"Bill Gates sucks!!!" is, like, way more important?
saying that the removal of a commercial link from the "external links" section of an article related to that product is always more important than the removal of "obvious vandalism" like the examples you
I am. NPOV doesn't mention vandalism. It does mention links, commercialism, and advertising.
dispute that. When J. Random Reader visits an article with obvious vandalism, he snorts and thinks "man, Wikipedia sucks."
He does? I think I have to dispute that. According to previous discussions here, leaving in obvious, insignificant errors (e.g., speeling) is often intentional, improves participation, and hooks R. Anonymous Reader into contributing regularly. Why don't these intentional errors also convince J. Random that Wikipedia sucks? Or are you suggesting that intentional errors left by admins are a form of vandalism?
When he visits an article with a spam link, he will likely not even notice it.
Another dispute. When R. Anonymous visits, she notices immediately and reasons that the article is yet another taken over by shills and that Wikipedia is yet anohter ad site that can't be trusted.
Fortunately the very obviousness that makes it important also makes it easier to deal with.
Yeah, that's what I thought. Do it 'cuz it be easy. That's precisely why it should be left to the novice editors, just like spellung and grammar error. For the experienced and admins, it should be at the bottom of their to-do list.
~~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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On 06/06/07, Cheney Shill halliburton_shill@yahoo.com wrote:
--- David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
http://www.cheezhead.com/2007/06/01/troy-smith-wikipedia/
Do we have editors getting vicious on these by default?
Shouldn't the question be why didn't the editors/admins catch the PR/spam/bomb before it drove 21% of traffic to a site that had 40,000 hits? Or are you in charge of Wikipedia advertiser -SEO spin control?
I know, it's shocking. We didn't spot an astroturfing link added to one of one point eight million pages until after the fact? Clearly this is utterly unacceptable, a grave dereliction of duty, and entirely well below the high standards we are entitled to expect. Anyone who tries to present it in any other way should be flogged, and there is nothing we can remotely discuss about this subject except how many lashes to give them.
----
More practically, it looks pretty innocuous in context - "fans set up a website [link] urging..." - not the usual house style, but it looks legitimate. If it had been dropped in as an extlink, it'd probably have vanished faster.
If there's no obvious context to believe it's spam, it's rather unlikely we ought to have expected someone to remove it out of hand to begin with.
--- Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 06/06/07, Cheney Shill halliburton_shill@yahoo.com wrote:
--- David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
http://www.cheezhead.com/2007/06/01/troy-smith-wikipedia/
Do we have editors getting vicious on these by
default?
Shouldn't the question be why didn't the editors/admins catch the PR/spam/bomb before it drove 21% of traffic
to a
site that had 40,000 hits? Or are you in charge of Wikipedia advertiser -SEO spin control?
I know, it's shocking. We didn't spot an astroturfing link added to one of one point eight million pages until after the fact? Clearly this is utterly unacceptable, a grave dereliction of duty, and entirely well below the high standards we are entitled to expect. ... More practically, it looks pretty innocuous in context - "fans set up a website [link] urging..." - not the usual house style, but it looks legitimate. If it had been dropped in as an extlink, it'd probably have vanished faster.
If there's no obvious context to believe it's spam, it's rather unlikely we ought to have expected someone to remove it out of hand to begin with.
This is a better response. Deal with the potential extremism and practical issues rather than try to claim it as a non-issue when WP claims to be free of advertising, which, whether intended or not, suggests that WP is not serving as a promotional tool of any kind. That and [[conflict of interest]].
As to extremism, we can't have everyone running around trying to spot every external link that pops up in 1.8 million pages, even though there seem to be a fair number of admins dedicated to just that on user pages. User pages (I'll leave the counting to you) have 0 bombing impact, though they may contribute to [[astroturfing]] with or without external links, which, as a reminder, is the subject. So, maybe we can if we can convince the admins derelict'n "duty" on the user page external links to check external links on main pages, regardless of whether they are explicit (in the external section) or planted elsewhere in the article.
Not that any PR agent would ever be deceptive enough to plant an external link outside the area explicitly set for them. They is ethical folk.
"The real goal was to use the site as a marketing experiment." Despite the admission, from Feb 24 until today, that link is still there: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Troy_Smith&diff=110632488&...
The practical: What could work is a bot that identifies external links inside main articles (but outside the citation/external space) and auto-removes them, or at least lists them so admins can easily identify and check. I don't know why a policy abolishing external links within the content of the article hasn't already been set. Outside of making it a little less user friendly in a few instances, it would mostly eliminate a lot of tedious labor and get rid of "fan" bombing. How do you know the "fans" are not shills working for an athlete's contract agent? Honesty of the PR folk and lawyers, of course! In this case, where they attend or are alumni of the same university they are a "fan" of, they by definition have a [[conflict of interest]] and shouldn't be contributing [[WP:OR]], whether in the form of external links or otherwise.
~~Pro-Lick http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Halliburton_Shill http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pro-Lick http://www.wikiality.com/User:Pro-Lick (Wikia supported site since 2006)
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Cheney Shill wrote:
This is a better response. Deal with the potential
extremism and practical issues rather than try to claim it as a non-issue when WP claims to be free of advertising, which, whether intended or not, suggests that WP is not serving as a promotional tool of any kind. That and [[conflict of interest]].
I get the impression from this thread that there is a lot of confusion about what constitutes advertising. I certainly do not consider that a single link to a company's website in an article about the company should be treated as advertising.
As to extremism, we can't have everyone running around trying to spot every external link that pops up in 1.8 million pages, even though there seem to be a fair number of admins dedicated to just that on user pages. User pages (I'll leave the counting to you) have 0 bombing impact, though they may contribute to [[astroturfing]] with or without external links, which, as a reminder, is the subject. So, maybe we can if we can convince the admins derelict'n "duty" on the user page external links to check external links on main pages, regardless of whether they are explicit (in the external section) or planted elsewhere in the article.
If a user wants to put external links on his user page, that's entirely his own business.
The practical: What could work is a bot that identifies external links inside main articles (but outside the citation/external space) and auto-removes them, or at least lists them so admins can easily identify and check. I don't know why a policy abolishing external links within the content of the article hasn't already been set.
That's easy Because there's no rational basis for such a policy.
Outside of making it a little less user friendly in a few instances, it would mostly eliminate a lot of tedious labor and get rid of "fan" bombing. How do you know the "fans" are not shills working for an athlete's contract agent?
How do you know that they are? The good faith assumption is that they aren't.
In this case, where they attend or are alumni of the same university they are a "fan" of, they by definition have a [[conflict of interest]] and shouldn't be contributing [[WP:OR]], whether in the form of external links or otherwise.
A preposterous proposal. For that to be effective you would need to make it mandatory for everyone to state where they attended university or where they have worked. Your definition of Conflict of Interest goes well beyond anything that might be expected in the real world.
Ec
--- Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
I certainly do not consider that a single link to a company's website in an article about the company should be treated as advertising.
Nor do I. This has nothing to do with the subject at hand. To alleviate possible confusion, this was not a link to a company's (or person's) Web site from an article about said company or person. Nor was the link for a citation.
The practical: What could work is a bot that identifies external links inside main articles (but outside the citation/external space) and auto-removes them, or at
least
lists them so admins can easily identify and check. I don't know why a policy abolishing external links within the content of the article hasn't already been set.
That's easy Because there's no rational basis for such a policy.
The policy already exists; it's purely a matter of application. Is stopping promotional links and SEO bombing for fan sites related to an article and serving no referential or citational purpose irrational? If the link shifts the NPOV weight of the article by pointing to a "fan" site or fake blog promoting the company, including advertisements for products, is it irrational to remove that? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wp:npov#Undue_weight "This applies not only to article text, but to images, external links, categories, and all other material as well."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wp:npov#Bias "Commercial advertisting...."
Outside of making it a little less user friendly in a
few
instances, it would mostly eliminate a lot of tedious
labor
and get rid of "fan" bombing. How do you know the
"fans"
are not shills working for an athlete's contract agent?
How do you know that they are? The good faith assumption is that they aren't.
And the "rational basis" for assuming "good faith" is? FYI, the same way you "know" something else is spam or an ad or a bomb. The point is not to let any link to be added for any reason simply because you want to feel good. As noted above with regard to NPOV, it needs evaluation just like any other addition or change. Do we assume that everything is NPOV based on "good faith"? How do we know it isn't NPOV?
In this case, where they attend or are alumni of the same university they are a "fan" of, they by definition have
a
[[conflict of interest]] and shouldn't be contributing [[WP:OR]], whether in the form of external links or
otherwise.
A preposterous proposal. For that to be effective you would need to make it mandatory for everyone to state where they attended university or where they have worked.
No, just if they continue to be a stakeholder in the organization where they worked, such as a retiree or stockholder. By definition, alumni remain stakeholders in their university. The reputation of the university affects the value of the degree. Besides, there are sites for inside, anonymous [[WP:OR]], of which Wikipedia is not one.
~~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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David Gerard wrote:
"For me, the utopianism of Wikipedia comes from its status as a truly democratic people's encyclopedia [...]"
Someone needs to direct him to [[WP:NOT#DEMOCRACY]].