On Thursday 13 January 2005 22:06, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote: Regarding my link in [[Homo floresiensis]] I have to say that: I included the link there believing that my report was containing more information. I believed that it would be beneficial for the reader to read my report, after having seen the Wikipedia article and the other external links in it. Of course there was a promotional interest in my action, but I am sure that it was not spamming (and so my email is not a confession to spamming - I strongly support my position that spamming and selflinking are very different things and should be treated differently). I wanted to help the reader learn more about Floresiensis, but also to help my site grow. My philosophy is to "help myself by helping others" but a spammer simply believes that he should help only himself and screw up all the other people. It's very different. I must admit that when I included my link there, I had no time to read in detail the Wikipedia article and all the external links in it. Now I had a check and found that, although my report is informational and beneficial to the reader who learns about Floresiensis for the first time, it contains very little information which is not already present in the Wikipedia article and the other external links. Actually, after reading them, I found that my report is a bit smallish and I must improve it. Additionally, after the suggestion of a user in the Talk: page, I had a very careful read of the "What Wikipedia Is Not" page. This important information, combined with my realisation above, made me to change my opinion on my link. I now believe that the readers of the Wikipedia article and its external links would not find any significant additional information in my current report, and I myself recommend that the link to my present report is not truly needed there; it would be redundant to include it since more information is already contained in the Wikipedia article and its external links which include sources like BBC, National Geographic, University of New England, and Nature. I thought deeply about this issue and found that Wikipedia, which tries to be an encyclopedia, would better avoid links with redundant information. Although I personally it is generally a good idea to have many links in a wiki, and I still maintain that the characterisation of my link as spam was not correct, I agree that in your vision of being an encyclopedia placing too many external links is not always a good idea. Having said all that, I would like to inform you that I will not place any more external links to my site in Wikipedia articles, without prior discussion in talk pages or this mailing list and the agreement of other Wikipedians or admins. An exception to this is when a Wikipedia article contains material from my site, such as [[zsync]] (contributed by me and relicensed from CC to GFDL for your use). -- NSK http://portal.wikinerds.org

NSK said: You don't need all this palaver. Just negotiate external links on an article-by-article basis. If you're the only person editing an article, ask another editor to look at the link in the context of the article and remove it if necessary. Be prepared to take no for an answer and don't get into arguments, and you shouldn't encounter any serious problems.

I think it unlikely that any editor would submit themselves to this incredibly bureaucratic procedure, or that any admins would bother administering it. Here's a simpler idea: don't post links to your own website. And if you really think your website is that great, post a link to it on the Talk: page, and suggest to any interested readers that they might want to post it in the article, if their estimation of the website matches your own. Jay.

First off, I'm in no way affiliated with NSK or wikinerds. In fact, I find it to be a very boring site that I wont waste my time on. Bug NSK:s very polite request and the answers, some of which was very rude that he got, got me thinking. What if NSK continues to do what he is currently doing? After all, everyone has a self-interest, some acknowledge it, others don't, NSK is atleast honest about it. Then when someone thinks that NSK has inappropriately inserted a link to his site and reverts it AND NSK disagrees with their judgement he contacts me. I will then, as an impartial observer, look at what the link links to and in which Wikipedia page it was inserted and determine if that link belongs or should be removed. Ofcourse I would not have the final say in such disagreements. It is just that then the disagreement would be between me, if I find the link fitting and someone else doesn't, instead of with NSK. I think that would be beneficial because I'm just a random Wikipedian who can gain nothing from link-spamming to wikinerds. Strange idea maybe, but totally serious. -- mvh Björn