[WikiEN-l] Gosh darn it, those spammers^Wmarketers will show us what for

[Ray Saintonge]

Steve Summit wrote:

>Mgm wrote:
>  
>
>>On 1/24/07, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>Links don't make Wikipedia great, the encyclopedic content within
>>>Wikipedia itself makes it great. Most of the time the stuff in the
>>>external links section could vanish without diminishing the value of the
>>>article in a significant way.
>>>      
>>>
>>I'm not talking about the content value of the links. I'm talking about how
>>the traffic from the sites who link us in return got us where we are.
>>    
>>
>Sure.  And I agree: it is not fair to allow one's pagerank to
>be increased by all the links to you which various people make,
>without also increasing the pagerank of all the various pages you
>link back out to.  But the spammers don't play fair, either, and
>we're in a war with them.  I bemoan the collateral damage of the
>non-followed, non-spammy external links as much as the next guy,
>and I hope that better, more selective spam-control mechanisms
>can be deployed in the long run, but in the short run, we'd be
>crazy to let linkspammers run roughshod over our external links
>sections, to allow them to hijack our high pagerank in promoting
>their grotty little sites.
>
Hmm! Sounds like a superpower rationalization for a net based war on 
terror or war on drugs. :-)

>But with that said, I have to agree with Bryan: Wikipedia is not
>great because it has high pagerank.  It is great because it has
>great content.  
>
Yes.

>Personally, I think Wikipedia's pagerank is too
>high: Wikipedia results tend to swamp the first page of many of
>the Google searches I do, to the detriment of the other sites
>I might also want to find.  If the "boycott" as any effect, it
>won't bother me, or hurt Wikipedia, at all.
>
This is actually a perceptive point.  Maximizing our page ranking is not 
a part of our mission, and being big is all the excuse that some people 
need for throwing stones.  Big players affect their environment.  
Restraint helps to build the impression that we are a positive form in 
that environment.

Ec