User talk:24.185.210.16

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You have new messages (last change).

Please do not add commercial links (or links to your own private websites) to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advertising or a mere collection of external links. You are, however, encouraged to add content instead of links to the encyclopaedia. If you feel the link should be added to the article please discuss it on the article's talk page rather than re-adding it. See the welcome page to learn more about Wikipedia. Thanks. Mwanner | Talk 18:49, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] thecelebritycafe.com

Greetings! Please understand per Wikipedia's policy against spamming that links to non-notable reviews on advertising-laden websites cannot be included in the encyclopdia (such as your edit to Dave Chappelle). Some other links to this website are thus far allowed, but only if they link to orginal interviews with the personalities. Thanks for understanding. RadioKirk (u|t|c) 17:42, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Please stop adding commercial links to Wikipedia. It is considered spamming, and Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advertising. Thanks. Wmahan. 04:27, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: TheCelebrityCafe.com

Original interviews were not deleted because, per WP:EL, they provide a "unique resource". Anything not notable, however (movie reviews from people who return at or near 0 hits on Google, for example), has been deleted as those pages give the appearance of existing primarily to profit from the advertisements. Thanks for writing. :) RadioKirk (u|t|c) 14:53, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Although I would add, in response to the email I received, that Wikipedia is not a vehicle for promotion, and you are not allowed to promote your own site by adding links to Wikipedia; please see Wikipedia:External links. You say that your competitors also have interviews linked; but they are not allowed to use Wikipedia for promotion either, and in any case that is hardly a good excuse to promote your own site on Wikipedia.
You say that members of your staff added the links; please convey this message to them as well (User:TheCelebrityCafe, User:24.149.133.7, and any others). Wmahan. 15:33, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
P.S. To clarify, I am not suggesting that all links to your site will be removed. In general, Wikipedia does not retaliate for linkspam in that way because it may or may not have originated with someone associated with the site. However, any links added by anonymous users or accounts with no significant edit history, and that appear to be an attempt to promote a site, will likely be removed. Wmahan. 15:45, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

In response it is of concern that you removed all links from anybody who made them who is not a member. Our competitors have not suffered such a liability. It is also of concern that our adding an interview link is considered promotion while our competitors doing so is acceptable. Why is it a resource for some, but "self promotion" for others? How do our interviews differ from our competitors interviews? Lastly, as for advertisements, our site actually has less advertisements than our competitors.

  1. If you can point to any accounts who have added many links to promote one of your competitors' sites, I would be glad to remove those links. But again, saying "but other people do it!" is frankly a weak excuse.
  2. Commercialism is not the primary issue, promotion is. The consensus on Wikipedia is that adding links to one's own site, as well as attempting to promote any site, are not permitted. You are welcome to suggest adding a link on the appropriate talk pages of articles, and if an established, neutral editor adds it, there will be no objection. Wmahan. 18:19, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Agreed on both accounts, and we're glad to learn it now. I also assume since you've only removed links that we created you'll put back the links others added. i.e. Anybody on my staff would be the same IP. For some reason you removed links from other IPs. Clearly IPs across the country have nothing to do with our office. Thanks for adding back the other links in advance.

Also we've taken up your suggestion on adding to the Talk page and are doing that now.

Thank you for your constructive approach. As far as accounts, I only intended to remove the links added by this account, TheCelebrityCafe (talk • contribs), 24.149.133.7 (talk • contribs), and any other accounts that primarily or exclusively added links to your site. I did not intend to remove any links added by users in good faith, anonymous or not. If you know of any links I removed that were added in good faith, let me know and I will consider re-adding them. Wmahan. 18:55, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I wish I knew how to track which links you've removed that we added or , but from our stats there used to be over 200 added. I know we didn't add more than 15. The total links to us has dropped from over 200 to 12. It seems that RadioKirk changed quite a few of our links to other sources. He cites us being "ad-ladden" but some of the sources actually have more adverts than us. Of course the combination of having other people's links to us removed, and our links switched out a bit concerning.

If I may: the point of removing those links is not whether they are any more or less "advert-laden" than other sites but, one, whether they provide a "unique resource" as demanded by WP:EL and, two, whether we have seen the competitors' links yet. Sometimes you're caught fast, sometimes it takes a while; eventually, we catch them, and we often depend on editors like you to point us to those other links that should be deleted as well. That sword, presuming a level playing field, has two edges—the theirs-should-stay-so-ours-should-stay edge, and the if-ours-must-go-theirs-must-go edge. Indeed, that I didn't delete the original interviews (a "unique resource" in these cases) should demonstrate that I am not targeting this site while leaving competitors' sites intact. RadioKirk (u|t|c) 22:51, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate the response from both RadioKirk and Wmahan but I'm still confused. If we're not being targeted why were over 100+ interviews that other users uploaded now removed. I understand Wmahan's criteria of WHO uploaded them is his issue and that's he removed those. While we feel that an interview isn't any less of a resource based on who uploaded htem, I'm sure you can see our concern that 200+ links dropped to 12.

I cannot answer for anyone else, but I removed only "reviews" by non-notable reviewers that—and this is key—seemed designed to increase your link visibility and advertising revenue. I did not remove interviews as they provided a unique resource. Your concern that your link presence was drastically cut seems to suggest that I'm on the mark. I would prefer to assume good faith and believe that you don't mean to intenionally violate point #4 here. RadioKirk (u|t|c) 00:10, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

You keep referencing promoting. Again we put 12 of the 200+ the other 190 were from various people before we even heard of wikipedia. I simply was referring to the issue of how the links were cut.

[edit] Final warning

This is your last warning. If you and others affiliated with your site continue to add spam links, I will request that your site be added to the blacklist for all Wikimedia sites.

This goes for you, TheCelebrityCafe (talk • contribs), 24.149.133.7 (talk • contribs), [removed], and any other new account adding many links to your site.

I am disappointed, because I thought RadioKirk and I had made Wikipedia's policies clear, and I thought you had agreed to only request links on talk pages. Wmahan. 03:27, 26 August 2006 (UTC)


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[removed] wrote for us once about a year ago! I am completely baffled at this point. What am I supposed to do to prevent anybody from linking to us. I don't know why she made a link to us but now we're getting blacklisted because somebody just decides to add a link to us. I had no idea why she even joined or why she linked to us!

--- Further to this I've called [removed] and also emailed everybody on our newsletter including those who once worked for us or just read us imploring them to avoid linking from Wikipedia because it could be construed negatively. I really wish I knew what else to do. I can't predict who will join and attempt to link to us, but i've emailed as many people as we could.

Assuming that's true, there will not be a problem. It appears she now understands Wikipedia's policies on promotion. She left a message on my talk page without being asked, and the logical conclusion is that she got my name from you. Please correct me if that assumption was wrong.
I will continue to give you the benefit of the doubt. But at some point, it begins to stretch the limits of credulity when new or anonymous accounts add links to one site but claim to know nothing of each other.
It was not my intention to cause any undue trouble for you or [removed]. Assuming this was an honest misundersanding, there's nothing to worry about. Wmahan. 04:01, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I understand. There was a misundestanding, and now any new links to us get removed, we get put on a spam list, and we get a final warning.

Yes, it seems it was a misunderstanding, and I hope you do not blame [removed] because I was quick to assume you were spamming again. But the fact remains that you were dishonest about adding links in the past: you claimed "we didn't add more than 15" when this account alone added more than that. Am I supposed to believe you have no relationship at all with an account called TheCelebrityCafe?
I admit that I was wrong in blaming you this time. But it is difficult to assume good faith with someone who has clearly not been honest. I am leaving the site on the spam watchlist. Wmahan. 04:43, 26 August 2006 (UTC)


There is NOTHING I lied about. TheCelebrityCafe.com was an inten who thought she was helping. I had no idea about it. I was hoping to the account for it removed. As for "this account" it's a public account for Cablevision for the area where our office is. Any of the writers we've hired over 10 years would be local and fall under it. But either way for whatever reason now you're just deleting any links to us bordering on some sort of mission. [removed] adds dozens of links but you only delete ours. Now you have the nerve to accuse me of dishonesty. I cannot track what a pool of over a few 100 people do. One created TheCelebrityCafe.com and we're accused. Another person uses a public IP and we're accused. This is REALLY out of hand.

I've alerted everybody whose ever been associated with the magazine. I've alerted the newsletter.

Here's where things stand: I've gone out of my way to assume good faith on your part, to see your point of view, and to explain Wikipedia's policies on external links here and by email.
However, you ask me to believe things that push the limits of my ability to assume good faith. For example,
  • You claim complete ignorance of the other accounts ("we put 12 of the 200+ the other 190 were from various people before we even heard of wikipedia"), then change your story and claim that User:TheCelebrityCafe.com was an intern.
  • You now claim that this is a shared IP address used by "a few 100 people". But interestingly, this IP has only been used to add links, with no positive contributions to Wikipedia. You also claim that everyone you've hired over 10 years uses the same IP address, but you have no knowledge of or responsibilty for their actions.
  • Someone describing herself as a former writer for your site leaves an unsolicited report of self-promotion on my talk page, similar to previous messages by this IP, and begins adding more links to your site. Nowhere on Wikipedia is there a link to my talk page saying, "report promotion to this guy", so my best guess is that she got my name from you. But when I ask, she claims not to have been in contact with you for a year, and she is evasive about how she got my name.
  • Apparently you and the former employee happen to be on Wikipedia within minutes of one another, and apparently it is your policy to make phone calls after midnight regarding links to your website--even to people you haven't spoken to in a year.
There is a simpler explanation that would be tempting, if I weren't committed to assuming good faith. Namely, that you have nothing to lose by attempting to promote your site on Wikipedia, and you are trying to play games to get around the rules against self-promotion.
Once again, I will trust that everything you say is true. Even now, I am assuming that the remaining links to original interviews on your site were added in good faith. I sincerely hope that this is the end of this discussion, because I do not have any vendetta against you or your site. Honestly, I could hardly care less how popular your site becomes on Wikipedia or anywhere else.
However--and I'm speaking only for myself because no one person has final authority on Wikipedia--my willingness to trust you wears thin. We assume good itentions by all new users, but the next time someone is clearly attempting to promote your site, excuses about interns, shared IPs, former employees, etc. will not be sufficient. Wmahan. 15:27, 26 August 2006 (UTC)


I give up, you're right. this was all an elaborate scam to add links. See the benefit of 10 links from Wikipedia certainly were worth hours of argueing. No, it has nothing to do with the fact that a simple explanation was that people added links and somebody's on at the same time because I call. And nothing to do with the fact that surprisingly people might add links to a site without my knowing. You've caught on. The Business Plan is to spend hours fighting to get 10 links on wikipedia. That is the simplest answer and makes the most sense.

[edit] Thanks

I just removed 25 links to the site you pointed out; the remaining 2 look legit. If you choose you can remove spam like that yourself. As long as you make it clear what you're doing (mention spam in the edit summary), I doubt anyone will object.

Also, thanks for continuing to abide by Wikipedia's linking policies. Wmahan. 07:43, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

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