[WikiEN-l] SEOs on doing stupid Wikipedia tricks (for the bored)

[Gregory Maxwell]

On 8/19/07, Anthony <wikimail at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 8/19/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 8/19/07, Anthony <wikimail at inbox.org> wrote:
> > > Remember, Google's job is not to be fair or to reduce work for
> > > Wikipedia admins.  If a ranking strategy on average gives better
> > > results, it doesn't matter if there are a few cases where it fails.
> > >
> > > If people start abusing this, Wikipedia can always turn on nofollow
> > > for internal links.
> >
> > I don't think free SEO is a problem per se.
> >
> No, not per se, but if people start adding inappropriate links and/or
> inappropriate articles (more than before), that would be the problem.
>
> Might be a big problem, might be a little one.  I have no idea.

Right.

It's a problem in another way: It degrades AGF. It's harder to assume
good faith when there are so many effective ways to abuse the site for
personal profit.  Did someone add that link because they are being
paid to promote it, or because it's actually useful?

We can never shut down all the ways Wikipedia can be abused. But when
there are holes we can easily close we should do so, if for no other
reason than to improve trust in our community.