[WikiEN-l] Reasons never to remove nofollow

[Daniel P. B. Smith]

> From: "David Gerard" <dgerard at gmail.com>
>
> http://www.osworld.biz/816/wikipedia-a-source-of-traffic/

I am shocked, _shocked_ that it would ever occur to anybody that  
Wikipedia could be used as a vehicle for self-promotion...

By the way, did anyone else follow the course of the Universism  
article? A gentleman going by the name of Ford Vox played Wikipedia  
like a violin on that one. Universism is a "new religion" which  
claimed, I think, seven or eight thousand "members"--counting as an  
member anyone who signed up on their website.  It had a very  
impressive-looking website. In meatspace, there seemed to be a few  
chapters of about twenty or so in a few university towns; the one in  
Birmingham, where the movement began, was sufficiently small that it  
met in a coffee shop. (But of course that was irrelevant in the brave  
new Internet world).

Ford Vox, by dint of pitbull-tenacious self-promotion, taking every  
AfD to DRV, etc., and by carefully and methodically and cleverly  
understanding Wikipedia policies and making the very best case  
possible within them, finally got the article to stick.

Then, some months later, there arose some complicated schism within  
the Universist ranks and Ford Vox fell out with the group (fell, or  
was pushed.)

So... he now wanted the article deleted. So, this time he argued with  
pitbull tenacity, carefully and methodically and with a clever  
understanding of Wikipedia policies, making the very best possible  
case for deletion... and got it deleted.