[WikiEN-l] Nofollow and sister projects

[David Gerard]

2009/6/26 Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com>:

> Fine. So "assume good faith" is not the de facto standard on the
> Internet.  "Assume convoluted conspiracy" is closer to being the de
> facto standard on some forums, to put it bluntly. The reason AGF is a
> good idea for WP is that we have work to do; we can usefully leave it to
> others, less concerned with free content, to type endlessly about things
> about which they are at best half-informed. The "nofollow policy" was
> standard on wikipedias other than the English for a long time without
> anyone kicking up a fuss. Eventually enWP was getting so much spam that
> the spam patrol started lobbying for enWP to get in line with the rest.
> Jimmy Wales certainly promoted the change, but in the end we have to let
> the devs handle the issue when it is this technical (and they are not
> accountable to me, or you). (My recollection, this is.) This is also a
> good idea because we have work to do.


Indeed. Those concerned with the "nofollow issue" are nothing to do
with Wikipedia or our readers; they are largely a third party (SEOs)
wanting to get in good with a fourth party (Google), or they're
conspiracy-theorising nutters (Wikipedia Review). In either case,
paying attention does very little to write an encyclopedia.


- d.