[Foundation-l] Interwiki map criteria and nofollow

[David Gerard]

There's been considerable discussion on wikien-l of rel=nofollow on
external links, and how and why those don't apply to the interwiki
map.

(This is not wikien-l asserting dominion over meta and the interwiki
map :-) It's because en:wp is most of the reason wikipedia.org has a
stupidly high Google page rank, and so the SEO spammers whine that
it's our job to make the spammers look good to Google, and never mind
us or our editors or readers. But anyway.)

It was suggested (and I concur) that if our page rank is so all-fired
powerful, that it be turned to the benefit of Free Content, like
ourselves. So Jonathan Stokely posted a suggested rewording
(http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2007-May/070344.html),
which I reworded a bit and placed here:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Interwiki_map#Inclusion_criteria_clarification.3F

Please go there and/or discuss it here.


Precis on the controversy:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/04/28/wikipedia-special-treatment-for-wikia-and-other-wikis/
(an idiotic TechCrunch story)
http://blog.valuewiki.com/2007/04/29/time-to-overhaul-or-abolish-the-interwiki-map/
(upset ValueWiki blog post)
http://blog.valuewiki.com/2007/04/30/quietly-stepping-down-from-my-high-horse/
(slightly embarrassed ValueWiki followup blog post)
http://davidgerard.co.uk/notes/2007/04/30/seo-spammers-and-googlemancers/
(my post)
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2007-April/ (nearer the end)
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2007-May/ (start)


- d.