On 6/7/07, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen(a)shaw.ca> wrote:
When J. Random Reader visits an article with obvious
vandalism, he
snorts and thinks "man, Wikipedia sucks." When he visits an article
with a spam link, he will likely not even notice it. So IMO it's more
important to get rid of the obvious vandalism first.
Exactly.
I think the point that Charlotte is trying to make is
not that this one
particular link is necessarily a good thing (I haven't looked at it
myself so I don't have an opinion on it myself) but rather that an
unmoderated reaction of "OMG commercial link on Wikipedia die die die!"
is going to throw out some pieces of the baby along with the bathwater.
Actually my point is... if you thoroughly inspect an article... and
you conclude that one external link is getting more traffic than it
deserves... and if that was the most serious concern that you could
find... the page is probably ready to be nominated for Featured
Article status.
—C.W.