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 Consulting Programmer Web site - http://sethf.com/ Infothought blog - http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/