Andrew Gray (This has caused much elaborate conspiracy theory in the past revolving around nofollow and "favoured" Wikia links, etc)
Well, in defense of critics, I think it's important to acknowledge that there are many aspects of the situation which certainly *look* suspicious. And the tendency of *some* (not all, but *some*) Wikipedia people to react by making name-calling personal attacks, along with longstanding antagonism against SEO's, doesn't help. It pretty much makes a mockery of the idea of "civility".
I've investigated the "nofollow" issue, and come to the conclusion that there's less there than meets the eye. But I certainly do understand where the harsh criticism of Wikipedia comes from. For example, speaking as a journalist, I've never been able to get a straight answer as to who was ultimately responsible for changing the "nofollow" policy. There are conflicting public accounts from the people involved. Moreover, the most obvious interpretation of that discrepancy is very negative. Now, I'm not saying I believe that very negative interpretation; for several reasons I think it's incorrect. HOWEVER, I wouldn't say someone who did take a cynical view was being irrational.
Pre-emptive rebuttal: At this point, someone usually rushes to explain to me that the nofollow exemption applies to all wikis on the interwiki map. I know that. But then they argue that aspect refutes any implication of favoritism from Wikipedia to Wikia, Inc. I don't agree with that. There's a kind of favoritism which come not from outright discrimination in the application of rules, but needing to know the right people and make the right requests in order to get a benefit. When you have the co-founder of a venture capital funded commercial start-up being highly involved with policy changes on a top-ten website that affect all such start-ups, it's really quite reasonable to examine the situation very carefully.
Pre-emptive rebuttal: It's legal. I know. That's not the point.
Seth Finkelstein wrote:
Andrew Gray (This has caused much elaborate conspiracy theory in the past revolving around nofollow and "favoured" Wikia links, etc)
Well, in defense of critics, I think it's important to acknowledge that there are many aspects of the situation which certainly *look* suspicious. And the tendency of *some* (not all, but *some*) Wikipedia people to react by making name-calling personal attacks, along with longstanding antagonism against SEO's, doesn't help. It pretty much makes a mockery of the idea of "civility".
OK. we still believe pretty much in "assuming good faith", which results in a deprecation of systematic suspicion of the motives of people who are trying to develop the site.
I've investigated the "nofollow" issue, and come to the conclusion that there's less there than meets the eye.
Fine.
But I certainly do understand where the harsh criticism of Wikipedia comes from. For example, speaking as a journalist, I've never been able to get a straight answer as to who was ultimately responsible for changing the "nofollow" policy. There are conflicting public accounts from the people involved. Moreover, the most obvious interpretation of that discrepancy is very negative. Now, I'm not saying I believe that very negative interpretation; for several reasons I think it's incorrect. HOWEVER, I wouldn't say someone who did take a cynical view was being irrational.
Fine. So "assume good faith" is not the de facto standard on the Internet. "Assume convoluted conspiracy" is closer to being the de facto standard on some forums, to put it bluntly. The reason AGF is a good idea for WP is that we have work to do; we can usefully leave it to others, less concerned with free content, to type endlessly about things about which they are at best half-informed. The "nofollow policy" was standard on wikipedias other than the English for a long time without anyone kicking up a fuss. Eventually enWP was getting so much spam that the spam patrol started lobbying for enWP to get in line with the rest. Jimmy Wales certainly promoted the change, but in the end we have to let the devs handle the issue when it is this technical (and they are not accountable to me, or you). (My recollection, this is.) This is also a good idea because we have work to do.
Charles
2009/6/26 Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com:
Fine. So "assume good faith" is not the de facto standard on the Internet. "Assume convoluted conspiracy" is closer to being the de facto standard on some forums, to put it bluntly. The reason AGF is a good idea for WP is that we have work to do; we can usefully leave it to others, less concerned with free content, to type endlessly about things about which they are at best half-informed. The "nofollow policy" was standard on wikipedias other than the English for a long time without anyone kicking up a fuss. Eventually enWP was getting so much spam that the spam patrol started lobbying for enWP to get in line with the rest. Jimmy Wales certainly promoted the change, but in the end we have to let the devs handle the issue when it is this technical (and they are not accountable to me, or you). (My recollection, this is.) This is also a good idea because we have work to do.
Indeed. Those concerned with the "nofollow issue" are nothing to do with Wikipedia or our readers; they are largely a third party (SEOs) wanting to get in good with a fourth party (Google), or they're conspiracy-theorising nutters (Wikipedia Review). In either case, paying attention does very little to write an encyclopedia.
- d.
2009/6/26 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
Indeed. Those concerned with the "nofollow issue" are nothing to do with Wikipedia or our readers; they are largely a third party (SEOs) wanting to get in good with a fourth party (Google), or they're conspiracy-theorising nutters (Wikipedia Review). In either case, paying attention does very little to write an encyclopedia.
Questionable. Nofollow issues probably do have an impact on our readers. At the very least the fact or internal links are not nofollow (and no one is suggesting they should be) is probably a factor in such a wide range of articles doing well in search result pages.
In addition since there are various browser plugins that react to nofollow tags readers who use them will get a different experience depending on our actions.
finally not nofollowing a class of external links says we trust some sites more than others. That the selection of sites is really silly (I mean do we really trust J random wiki more than the BBC and noaa.gov?) is a legitimate cause for concern.