[WikiEN-l] "How the Professor Who Fooled Wikipedia Got Caught by Reddit", _The Atlantic_

[Durova]

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> Thank you for the clarification.
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> Charles
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> He raises an interesting possibility.  What would really be a better test
of the idea would be to edit unlogged from a wi-fi hotspot and add around 2
dozen external links each to several articles as he describes along with a
general improvement and expansion.  If no difficulties arise after 10 or
more articles then providing a good context for links might really be an
ideal solution.

Recent changes patrol tends to be fast moving and because of that it
incorporates a trust factor: the basic things to check for is whether a
link is relevant, informative, and useful.  Most patrollers frown on
deliberate efforts to exploit external links and send traffic to particular
websites; also in the view of some patrollers the external links section
doesn't exist to replicate the top results of major search engines.

That last point might be debatable, yet most of us appreciate it when
someone who knows a subject provides a referral to a useful but
non-optimized site.  Carcharoth has basically explained usefulness for the
new page patroller.  That makes the patroller's task easier.  The question
is whether that explanation alone makes a difference: Carcharoth is a model
wikicitizen so a patroller could conclude that his choices are trustworthy
for any number of other reasons.