[WikiEN-l] No-indexing of project-space pages

[Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia)]

On 7/23/08, WJhonson at aol.com <WJhonson at aol.com> wrote:
>
>
> In a message dated 7/23/2008 8:16:12 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
> szilagyi at gmail.com writes:
>
> What is  the benefit to allowing Google to index DRV, talk pages, and
> user/user talk  pages?>>
>
> ----------------------------------------
> Transparency.  There is no benefit and a great drawback to not  indexing.
> Not indexing makes it appear we are hiding something.  That  belief is
> already
> very prevalent among our critics, we don't want to feed them a  ton of raw
> steak.
>
> Will Johnson



As was previously noted, pages such as AfD, RfA, and RfAr were apparently
excluded from being indexed some time ago.  (I apologize again for having
missed this in my initial post, and am curious when it was done.)  I have
never heard of a single complaint regarding this change in procedure.

Wikipedia's critics have a broad range of views, and no one can anticipate
every criticism that could (rightly or wrongly) be made.  However, as noted,
there have been relatively few objections raised to no-indexing most of the
types of pages at issue other than purely logistical ones.

By contrast, several of Wikipedia's best-known critics have repeatedly
and vociferously objected to the fact that negative comments about both
contributors or article subjects -- including types of comments that would
not be allowed in the encyclopedia itself -- are preserved forever on
Wikipedia pages, and thus inevitably become high-ranking and
permanent search engine results for these individuals.  They are right to
object, and Wikipedia should continue to address this well-known,
longstanding, and readily fixable problem.

My concern with this issue is not an idiosyncratic one.  I have seen others
raise concerns surrounding this issue on-wiki, on this mailing list, on
Bugzilla, had them expressed to me by a personal acquaintance who has
encountered this issue, and also seen frequent references to the problem on
a site in which many of "our critics," as well as many Wikipedians (who may
of course also be critics), participate.  Sometimes we may think that
criticism of Wikipedia is misguided, but other times it has merit, and when
it has merit we should act on it.  In any event, the possibility that our
critics would be affronted by our no-indexing these pages is purely
speculative, while the fact that our critics (and many others) have raised
entirely justified objections to our current practice is very real.

Newyorkbrad