User talk:Cumbrowski/Archive 1

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1 Ideas for Improving Wikipedia
2 Discussions and Comments

Ideas for Improving Wikipedia

Change to Wikipedia Engine to remove Page Rank value from External Links = No more Link spam

If the Wikipedia Engine would be modified to add to every External Link the "rel=nofollow" attribute which tells the Google Spider to Ignore the Link as a "vote" for the Target Site and thus not has any impact on the Page rank of the Site whatsoever. The whole benefit Link Spamers seek and try to gain by adding useless external links to articles would be gone.

If it will be done and publicized, the Value of External Links for SEO purposes at Wikipedia will be almost reduced to nothing. And if it’s of no value for the spammer, he won't do it anymore.

How are recommendations made in Wikipedia to recommend a change to the Wiki Engine? I am a Newbie who tries to help but don't know how everything works here yet (I am learning though). --Roy-SAC 09:18, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Additional Ideas and comments:

Page Rank is still the main factor for Googles Ranking of Sites in it's Index, but the determination of how strong a "vote" of a link is that is placed on Page A to Page B got improved. Google considers now a lot of Information about Page A and B and their surroundings to determine the "value" of the link. Wikipedia is considered by Google a "trusted" Source and a Link from Wikipedia to a another Site is a strong (pro) "vote". This is the reason why some advertisers try so hard to add their links everywhere.

Wikipedia must reference and refer to outside sources like any quality "authority" regardless of the topic. Wikipedia can not just reference to itself all the time and risk to make false information "true" that way. All you need is to reference to it all the time and it becomes true because people start believing it. Very dangerous. The need for external references , either to prove a fact or refer an interested user to quality resources to learn more about the topic will always be important. This is cause of the whole debacle. How to reference where needed and/or appropriate and where not. Not every editor is always an expert about every topic to be able to make an educated decission if the referenced resource Is valuable or not. It's very similar to the Issue DMOZ faced some years back. Google considered a link in the directory to your site a highly related link placed there by a trusted authority (Human Editor). Your Page rank could jump a whole point because of a single link in an popular DMOZ Category. You can imagine what happened and what the ODP volunteers had to deal with on a daily basis. When Google eventually diminished the value of DMOZ and links from it, the whole problem was going away. It's still not a bad thing to have a link in DMOZ, but it is not as important as it used to be. SEO's get the same and better results via other efforts that are much easier to accomplish and in a much shorter time.

Reducing the value or benefit gained by an external link at wikipedia willalso have the affect that its simply not worth the effort to get a link added at Wikipedia where you need it . If the gain is to little compared to its cost, people won't do it. Simple as that. --Roy-SAC 03:52, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Comments copy/backup from Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam

User:Cumbrowski 2 Solutions for Link Spam Problem. Open Discussion. I have an Idea how to reduce link spam significantly if not almost completely. I am pretty new at Wikipedia and don't know any better place to go to make this recommendation so please forgive me, if it is the wrong one. I started a section in my user discussion page with ideas on how to improve Wikipedia and solve or reduce existing problems. One Idea is about an effective way to fight link spam.

... (url to this page)`

This idea is open for discussion. Any comment is appreciated. --Roy-SAC 09:42, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

... it follows the post from above

After all the back and forth, adding, removing, adding, changing, removing of external links (but also doubleing the content of the article itself) it seems to be the perfect candidate for the public testing and demonstration of de-linked external links in the public article itself. --Roy-SAC 04:45, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Have a look for yourself at Affiliate marketing

At the Affiliate marketing page I have suggested that the solution is having a link to a directory. I have now added this link. It is the same idea as used above in Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam#What_to_do_with_linkfarms. It avoids the need for any fancy solutions such as those proposed here by Roy-SAC. -- Barrylb 10:56, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

As I said at talk:Affiliate marketing, page-rank is not the problem. The sites that are being linked to are. --JiFish(^Talk/_Contrib) 14:56, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I followed Barry's suggestion and moved the Pilot here that you can see for yourself. De-Linked External Links Test The proposed Idea is attempted to reduce the temptation for Webmasters to place external links at Wikipedia for SEO purposes. I prefer the Idea of the minor code change and add the "No Follow" Tag to External Links better than the de-linking.

Today are a lot very usefull and good and required external links removed from articles by editors and admins that have no clue about the topic the article is about to make an educated decicion if the linked to site is a) related , b) important (in context) and c) supplement the Wikipedia Article.

A very good example is the Affiliate marketing Article. It's Linking now to the "Yellow Pages" of Affiliate Marketing. But good for me, I have a site listed in one of the subcategories (very old one with 301 redirect to new one). This category at DMOZ is hopelessly outdated. Shawn Collings (AfiliateTip.com, AffiliateSummit.com, Affilipedia.com) has no time to clean it up).

Links to Affilipedia.com, ABestWeb.com and ReturnOnAffiliate.com were removed in favor of this DMOZ Category Link. I wrote extensively about the Sites in the Discussion Page of Talk:Affiliate_marketing . At least did Rhobite and me improve the content a little which I plan to continue when I find the time (busy with in discussion pages right now Talk:Online_marketing) --Roy-SAC 19:29, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Enrich Content about Internet Marketing at Wikipedia by adding Affilipedia Content

The poor content of Wikipedia about Internet Marketing and especially Affiliate Marketing let to the creation of it's own Wiki Affilipedia.com The Affiliate Marketing Wiki. It's operated by Shawn Collins from Affiliate Tip. He should be contacted, if he is willing to merge his Wiki's content into Wikipedia. It's using the same software which makes it easier to merge the two. Just an idea, but who knows, probably worth a try, right?. --Roy-SAC 08:07, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't assume that's why he made a spin-off wiki. Shawn's a clever guy and has affiliate links throughout his wiki. Can't blame him - that's the nature of the game. There are several other spin-off wiki's which have commercial value to the owners. I think we can add to the content here just as well and it's getting better all the time. Peterkoning 05:38, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

References must be cleaned up anyway. Affiliate links should be removed from the articles during cleanup and integration of course. Some work, but less work than writing up the content from scratch. And to be honest, "you" treat most knowledgeable people that are knowledgeable about internet marketing not very well when they start editing articles (beyond adding external links). A marketer will always be a marketer and its nature if he is very good at it. Articles written by marketing people will read different than dry history or political ones. I think a compromise should be made. As it stands today are most people that could and would contribute to Wikipedia about this topic too scared to do anything because they are looked down on and marked without doing anything as self promoting and profit hungry monsters (which fits the description of some though). The result of this are well written articles (linguistically) but week in content, because the person writing it does not know too much about it because he was never part of it and also lags current information because he is not interested in this topic too much either. Asking Shawn if he is willing to hand over the content and kick it around in the sanbox for a bit if he does to clean it up does not hurt anybody. I am no expert, but I believe is Wiki Content is not public domain. Could well written articles at Affilipedia be ported to Wikipedia or would it violate copyrights. I noticed the reference to the authors of the Article in some pages. Does that mean that they did not give up their copyright? I will find that out by simply asking him. What is the best way to get new articles added here at Wikipedia where a decent to very good article exists at Affilipedia? Questions, Questions, Questions. --Roy-SAC 09:01, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Affiliate marketing

Roy-SAC, your 'delink test' should not be placed on the article page. This type of thing belong in discussion pages. Please move it there. Barrylb 10:03, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Good Point. Here it is. Thanks. --Roy-SAC 19:04, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

De-linked external links (Test Pilot)

The external links in this article were de-linked on purpose. Please do not add a non-de-linked external URL to this Article.

To visit the external resource copy and paste the URL into the Address field of your Browser

    
ABestWeb.com - Affiliate Marketing Forum    
URL -> http://www.abestweb.com/    
    
Affilipedia - Affiliate Marketing Wiki    
URL -> http://www.affilipedia.com    
   
AssociatePrograms.com - Affiliate forum    
URL -> http://www.associateprograms.com/discus/index.php    
    
Return On Affiliate Community - The Affiliate Marketing Meeting Space (Free Online Community which is open to anybody)    
URL -> http://www.returnonaffiliate.com/    
   
Revenue Magazine - The Performance Marketing Standard Magazine    
URL -> http://www.revenuetoday.com/    
   
RevenueSource.com - Forums for industry news, program press releases, and affiliate program announcements    
URL -> http://www.revenuesource.com/

Affiliate marketing continued

Thank you for removing the external links in Affiliate marketing. I have been fighting this one solo for two weeks now. Monkeyman^(talk) 14:01, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

This isn't a War Monkeyman. It's called debate or discussion, the only democratic means available here. "Vote" and "majority rule" on the other hand do not. Live with the fact that people that have interest in Wikipedia and are willing to sacrifice their spare time to contribute in areas of their expertise will not always agree with your view on things and will question your actions and point of view.

I have no clue about Biology and would not touch any Article there and delete stuff. I don't have the ability to argue with Biology experts, PhD’s, professors about good or bad content, because I don't know anything about it. I don't know which sites are good and important and why and which are not. I can not just make a decision based on "gut feeling" and if I like the colors of a site or not.

I will stick around. Live with it. I am always willing to discuss things on a professional level (we outgrew kindergarten). And because we are adults, it should be possible for us to solve our problems like adults. You know where to fine me. You are always welcome there. --Roy-SAC 19:58, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think you understand my purpose here at Wikipedia. It is primarly removing external links which were included with the intention of generating revenue or advertising a product or service. If you'll notice, I did not prompt User:Barrylb to remove those external links on the Affiliate marketing article. He found them and identified them as spam by himself.

Monkeyman^(talk) 20:09, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

No, I did not know that, but explains a lot :). I am new here and not familar with all the details of the inner-working of Wikipedia. I asked already a few specific questions about where, who and how without getting answers or a link to a system page or article that answers it. I look for those things on User Pages :) and hope to find them myself eventually.

What do you think about the few links I still would like to see in the Affiliate marketing article? I provided plenty of background information to get some ideas what they offer and why I recommend them. I know that User:Barrylb's expertise in the subject "Affiliate Marketing" is very "limited" (to put it mildly). Best proof is his contribution to the external link section (the addition, not the removal) which I had to comment at: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam#User:Cumbrowski_2_Solutions_for_Link_Spam_Problem._Open_Discussion.. You probably figured out already that I am NOT affiliated in any way with any of the Sites I recommended. I hope you do not question my motives (anymore). I perfectly understood the initial suspicion.

♠:::If you noticed my other message in the Spam Project Page and Talk:Online_marketing you noticed that I want to help to a) Improve the content about Internet Marketing b) (most importantly) help you with reducing link spam. Anything idea which is reducing spam by only 1% or more should be jumped on. Any Idea reducing it by a 2 digit percentage should be hailed. I think the "no follow" tag will have the affect. Reduced spaming will hopefully also have the affect that honestly added links that have the purpose intended by Wikipedia and the reason why external links are possible and needed in the first place: to Increase the Value of the article and are a benefit for the user that reads it and NOT the author

I hope that the whole thing will be settled soon, because I do not want to "live" in the Affiliate marketing article and rather add new ones, update existing and figure out how this whole category re-structuring process works by spending some time with Wikipedia:Merge. I have to draw User:Rhobite's attention to what I add that he can improve the writing. It worked great with the Affiliate Marketing Article. He has very good Language skills which I do not possess. I am more technical ("I eat code raw" :)) and social skilled (I know when to buy sombebody a beer and when not :) ).

I am currently in contact with Shawn Collins (Affilipedia.com) to find out the license/copyright for his site. Turns out he is not sure but told me what he thinks would be right. I explained what it is today, why his idea will not work for a Wiki and recommended to apply the "GNU Free Documentation License" to it as it does for Wikipedia. Let's see what he does. I would like to transfer some good content to Wikipedia (cleaned up and real spam removed).

I also have to find time to contribute to my other interest where I see shortage of content in Wikipedia which is BBS (Bulletin Board System) and ASCII/ANSI Text Art. I extended Superior Art Creations as a start because it was a no brainer as founder and leader for the first years. Highest on my list is the PCBoard Article which is a shame. There is soooo much to say about PCBoard and also Clark Development. The Good thing is, that I have no Idea where to link to with an external link. Only Websites with tons of Tools written for PCBoard specifically (PPE's) would make sense. I don't know any (yet).

Now you know what my plans are for the future and also a bit more about me which should make things easier between us, if you see me kicking around the content of some other articles. --Roy-SAC 04:27, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Er... what exactly about my contribution to the external links constitutes "proof" that I have very "limited" expertise in the subject? It doesn't really matter anyway because I edit lots of different articles without being an "expert" in the field, as do (probably) most wikipedia contributors. I do not have to be an expert to recognize unsuitable links. We have had a few people agree that a directory link is a good idea. What will it take for you to be convinced that this is how it should be? Barrylb 07:56, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Barrylb the "proof" is your determination that the current Dmoz link is more beneficial for users that read the article then the 6 links it did replace. "I do not have to be an expert to recognize unsuitable links." If that would be right, Google, Yahoo!, MSN or Ask you pay you Millions of Dollars to work for them and work your magic on their Indexes.

I used Biology as example to illustrate my very "limited" expertise about that subject. Flora (plants) has one external link only to http://www.efloras.org/index.aspx. If I would replace it with this DMOZ Link http://dmoz.org/Shopping/Flowers/Florists/North_America/United_States/ , people who know a lot about "Flora" would probably question my choice. Okay, this example is obvious to anybody, but I use it to make a point.

A "directory link", correction a "DMOZ link" (otherwise this link http://www.consumermatch.com/wlist/cid/36/ws/Internet-Marketing.html would be okay for Internet marketing) might be suitable in a lot of cases but is not the generall right choice for all 1+ Million Articles at Wikipedia. I mentioned the existence and purpose of external links in Wikipedia a few paragraphs above (bolded). That sentence should be extended by another purpose than adding value, adding reference. Not all sources in the internet age have an ISBN Number some only exists in the world of cyberspace, especially if the subject itself is part of it too (such as affiliate marketing which does not exist outside the internet), the ISBN Number or unique reference is the URL to it.

I also believe, that a link to DMOZ is okay if you need to add an external link (that is not always necessary, depending on the Artilcle) until more suitable links are available. I know, that this is the basic issue, to determine what is suitable and what not. There is no definite answer to that (it's in its nature). You can improve the process though to get pretty decent results.

Btw. I am going to add a Link to Affilipedia.com to the Article. I stated in my discussion page (and other discussions), that I want to port content from it to Wikipedia. I am currently in communication with the owner because of it's copyrights. Until then is it not possible for anybody to extend Wikipedia with the often more complete content of that Wiki. The only way this content can be made accessible to Wikipedia Users today is via a Link to it. This can certainly change in the future, but change is normal and good. --Roy-SAC 13:32, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Barrylb I also found a possible way to increase the value of your link. We increase the Value of the Page you link to. I happen to know the editor of that page at Dmoz and will add the Links intented for Wikipedia there and ask him to approve it. The Editor there happens to be a general accepted authority (or expert) for this subject (and a very busy one as well). I'll let you know --Roy-SAC 13:46, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

1. I removed those external links because I believe they are linkspam. I replaced with a link to a directory because there is no other suitable option.

2. I am not suggesting that we should use a directory link on every article, but we should use one for this article. There are no other suitable links. Just so you understand, DMOZ is an example of a directory. Your "correction" is not valid. When I suggested a directory link, I said - twice - that it should be a neutral directory, not just any directory.

3. Regarding your link to Affilipedia, I have looked at the site and there appears to be virtually no content, and that makes it unsuitable as a link. If you want to port whatever content is there to Wikipedia then go ahead but the link should not be there.

4. If you want to improve Dmoz then go for it. That's what it is for. Barrylb 14:29, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Further on Affilipedia: it exists primarily to support the affiliate marketing business, and that makes a link to affilipedia linkspam also. Barrylb 14:39, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

1. I disagree, but we know that already and nothing needs to be added to this at the moment (at least from my part)

2. I see your point but do not agree to all of it. Note: If the number of links from Wikipedia to Dmoz increase dramatically over the next weeks and months, Dmoz diminishedRank and Value will be revived (it was steadily declining over the last years, as ranking of directories in general) This will be interesting to see how it develops. Their Backlog will certainly increase a lot.

3. Yep, already on the to-do list

4. not particularly, but only reasonable option to get "off" this recursive issue soon via a dirty cheat to get time de-allocated for working on productive stuff and re-visit the issue at a later time again

The only sites that do not support the affiliate marketing business but are related to affiliate marketing (business) are "I hate affiliate marketing business sites". Not a useful alternative. --Roy-SAC 15:07, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Discussions and Comments

Blog Article Link

External Links for entry Blog

http://www.consumermatch.com/blog/2006/02/blog-atom-rss-xml-and.html Anchor: Blog, Atom, RSS, XML and Syndication/Aggregation ! ? Blogs, ATOM, RSS explained (Essay)

Copy from Anonymous User Talk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:71.195.125.110 2/19/2006 2:50 PST

Hi Carsten (71.195.125.110). We would love to have you as an editor with Wikipedia but we unfortunately cannot accept commercial and advertiser's links. Wikipedia articles are under constant barrage from advertisers and it's nearly impossible to keep the articles clean. Please consider using your expertise to improve the content of the article, we are sorely in need of specialists like yourself. Thanks! Monkeyman 21:34, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi Carsten. Please do not add links like this to articles. They are considered spam.

Monkeyman 21:50, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi Carsten. I apologize for describing your site as a SEO site--I read too quickly. I understood your article as being about how to maximize search engine hits, but in fact it's about how to maximize sales. So I was wrong about SEO but right about the commercial nature of it, and Wikipedia is not about helping people increase their revenue. I'm sure your edit was in good faith and I hope you can find other ways to contribute, but please don't add commercial links. (The Ric Romero deletion was completely unrelated to yours, by the way--sorry if that was confusing.) rodii 21:58, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi Monkeyman It's Carsten. I should have logged in :) I am referring to Anonymous User Talk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:71.195.125.110 (2/19/2006 2:50 pm PST) The Article is as much commercial as the Article at Wikipedia. Did you actually read it or was the fact that its posted on ConsumerMatch.com a Shopping Site? Or is it the Adsense Ad?

Please elaborate "commercial links", because I don't get it. The trigger of the Article was certainly the Syndication of RSS Feeds and the creation of our Weblog. If one of our partners can't make sense out of this new Technology then there must be a lot of our Visitors that have the same problem. The Article is not about maximizing sales at all? Not even as "hidden" message. (English is my second language but I did not know that it's that bad. I should have written it in german I guess). It's about Blogs and RSS and how they work and what to do with them. My Partner still visits dozens of News Websites directly because he does not know about RSS and Feed Aggregation etc. This Article is meant to be an eye opener and refers to things normal people (non-Geeks) can relate to. Should I add the Post to my Private Weblog which is not related to the whole thing at all and add that link to Wikipedia? http://www.roysac.com/blog/ Oops, I link to a Commercial Site and also have an Adsense Ad on the Page. Should I do what Shopping.com, Priceline.com, Froogle or ShopWIki, Nextag and PriceGrabber did and add a whole new Article about ConsumerMatch.com to Wikipeda and point out there that we have a blog that also contains Useful Post to non-Shopping related things like explanations of new Technologies and buzzwords that seem spanish to joe everybody's? Let me know. Thanks Cumbrowski Carsten

I'm not sure what your question is. You posted a link to your site on the Blog article in order to drive up traffic and collect revenue on your advertising links. You have an "Advertise on this site" link where people can pay you to place ads. And you are selling things on http://www.consumermatch.com/. Are you asking me if it's ok to advertise your site on wikipedia? The answer is 'no, it is not ok to advertise your site on wikipedia', we have enough trouble keeping ads out of the articles. Also, Wikipedia already has articles on Blogs, Blogging, XML, ATOM, RSS ... why would the Blog article need your link. I'm sorry to sound so harsh here but you can imagine what articles would look like if we allowed anyone to post any link to any article.

Monkeyman 23:37, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Aha. It's about the Google Ad. You know what... it bugged me anyway. I removed it for good. I guess it will be okay now to link to the Article or is the fact that the Article is located on a commercial domain already an issue? If so, does that mean, that I could provide the greatest free content without any sales pitch or any other "trick" to divert traffic and Wiki would not be able to link to it and thus not provide information hungry people with what they seek? Are you serious? I still don't think that you read the article and I also think that it would be a useful addition to the article at Wiki because it contains information and explainations that are mission in Wikis Article .... and THAT was the reason why I thought about adding it and then also did. This stupid paranoia that everybody with a comercial Website tries to sell shit to people no matter what and trying to just SPAM Wiki to lure unaware people to their Commerce Hell-Trap is complete rubbis and you know what, you could find out fairly easy by checking from where and to what the link goes. But on the other hand are most Free Everything guys that despite everything that is related to money and commercial easy to deceive by companies and their websites that are the definition of commerce and profit. --Roy-SAC 00:26, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

guess we're talking about this here. OK, then. I think the thing to do at this point is to post what you just wrote on the talk pages at Talk:Blog and Talk:RSS and let the community take a look at your article to see if it makes a contribution worth linking to. My personal opinion is that it does not, but I'm happy to bow to the consensus of the editors. Regardless of your feeling that Monkeyman's point is "rubbis," the fact is that spam is a huge and growing problem here and we have to be vigilant about it, and your site doesn't inspire confidence on first inspection. I would be happy to be proved wrong, but until I am I have to be against using your link, sorry. rodii 01:22, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I did not know that I can do that. See, I am not familar with the complete Wikimedia set of tools. The good thing is, that I might get some usefull responses out of it and maybe recommendations what to change, re-phrase, remove or add. Lets see how it goes. Thanks for the Tip. I will finish V0.9 of my Personal Page first (helps me to get better used to the Wiki Editor and its inner workings :) ).

Add Article written by me to Wiki Article: Blog - Open Discussion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Blog#Opinion_about_Article._Decision_to_add_it_to_the_Blog_Article_or_not

Discussion Page of Article Blog. Please express your opinion about the Article and provide comments.

Please Include the Vote for it: Yes, Add it to the Article or No, Don't add.

Thanks --Roy-SAC 02:05, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Opinion about Article. Decision to add it to the Blog Article or not

Copy of Discussion at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Blog#Opinion_about_Article._Decision_to_add_it_to_the_Blog_Article_or_not

The copy was made on 2/25/2006 10:30 am PST.

The reason for the copy is the probably move of the discussion to the Arcive since no more comments were made within almost a week.

--Roy-SAC 18:34, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Hello Everybody

I published today on our Websites Blog an Article that attempts to explain Blogs, RSS, XML, ATOM to normal people that are not very tech-savvy. It tries to point out the difference to older but similar technologies and what the benefits for the average internet users are if he starts using those new technologies without fearing it. The Article became pretty long and comprehensive that I though that it would be a valuable addition to the "Blog" and "RSS" Post here at Wikipedia.

I added the Link to the External Link Section in the Blog Article and "History and Context" Block in the RSS Article. Shortly after I added it was it removed by User:rodii and User:Monkeyman. Reason: SPAM

I assumed that they did not check the Article at all and just focused on the Domain (which is a Commercial Website), but they assured me that they also think that the Article is not worth to refer people to which try to find out about Blogs and RSS. rodii recommended to post the Link to the Article here and have other you, the community take a look at it and provide comments.

Do you think it's a good article and should be added? Do you think it's not? Why? What exactly do you not like? Something in the Article is Wrong? Incomplete? too Detailed? too Confusion?

Your Feedback is appreciated.

Here is the Article.

Blog, Atom, RSS, XML and Syndication/Aggregation ! ?

Blogs, Blogging, XML, ATOM, RSS explained in simple Words. Written for the regular people using the Internet and not for tech-savvy Geeks.

Article by Carsten Cumbrowski

http://www.consumermatch.com/blog/2006/02/blog-atom-rss-xml-and.html

--Roy-SAC 02:09, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Comment. I asked Carsten to post this here--constructive comments and thoughts about its suitability as an external link would be great, thanks. rodii 02:16, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I wish Carsten had edited and improved our articles on blogging and syndication instead of writing external content and adding it as a link. I don't think we should reward people for posting content on their personal, ad-supported sites instead of posting it to Wikipedia. With that said, I don't see much content in the ConsumerMatch blog which isn't already covered in Wikipedia's articles on blogs, XML, Atom, and RSS. It is clear that Carsten used Wikipedia as a main reference. I do not believe this external link adds value to Wikipedia. Rhobite 04:54, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I used Wikipedia for the Historic Facts which are used in the Article as supplemental information, but not as basis and core of it. I wrote most of it before I checked Wikipedia and other sources to enrich the article. I hope it was clear, that the goal of the article is different than the related Articles at Wikipedia which focus on historic facts primarely and not on the effects of the new Technologies and how to use/take advantage of them in everyday life. I just want to make sure that nobody thinks I knocked off a few Wikipedia Articles to piece together a new one. Regarding penalizing Articles posted outside of Wikipedia instead of adding it to it is standing on some shaky ground. Wikipedia would have to become the complete source of all Information in existance or will always be incomplete. It is a nice thought though, but its not going to happen. Why? Let me take my article as example. My Article is protected by Copyright. Somebody who wants to re-publish it has to ask me for permission first, I may allow it for free or maybe charge a fee for it (demanding royalties). That is not and can never be the case when I post at Wikipedia. It becomes automaically public domain. This fact alone makes it impossible to have all Information directly available here. The aquisition of News and Information cost money in most cases. Just the fact that people who do nothing else than writing articles have to get paid for their work, because also they need to pay their bills somehow, right? Thanks for the comment though and actually reading it. Carsten. --Roy-SAC 06:34, 20 February 2006 (UTC) (got logged off)

Nobody is forcing you to contribute to Wikipedia or support the cause of free content, but please don't expect to write external content and add it to Wikipedia as a link. Wikipedia has almost a million articles, which shows that many people do not mind contributing to free content projects. Your criticisms are similar to the ways that Microsoft and other commercial software vendors criticized open source software.. they said that no good developer would ever work for free. But the success of projects like Firefox and Apache -- and Wikipedia -- shows that the open source model has merit. I hope you'll consider sticking around and improving Wikipedia. Rhobite 07:24, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I am sticking around, don't worry. You got me wrong here anyway. I am completely for Open Source and Free Availability of Information and do not think like some others that this is related to kommunism (just thinking about Richard Stallman's comments in Revolution OS hehe). But I also believe that the world will not change , people will not change. My Argument was meant to show you how businesses and most other people will argue when they hear statements like people should be penalized for posting where they want and not at Wikipedia.

I forgive you for comparing me with Microsoft and the alikes because you don't know me. We might would b**ch and complain about Microsoft together while having a beer if we meet in real live. I was active for years in the BBS Scene (running a BBS) and Text Art Scene. I spent hours every day to keep the BBS running and created Art Work for others, for Free. The BBS actually cost me 40-60% of my monthly income to operate and maintain, but kept its use for Free. Some Users and Friend helped from time to time with a private donation (Money, Hardware, Time). I wrote tools for the System and included the source code in the release. The Tool were for free and I did not copyright protect my code that other Sysops could use it and modify it to fit their needs if they wanted to. Sounds like open source to me, but I didn't know much about the open source movement at that time. It just seemed the right thing to do.

I hope this will help you to get the right picture of me. You will believe what I am saying If you look around on the Internet a bit to find out a bit more about me.

Well, I will find out soon if my Partner finally gets it and understands what the difference is between a blog and our Website New Page and also gets around to install NewsGator for Outlook and subscribes for the RSS Feeds of all the SItes he visits today directly all the time. That was the goal, I was preparing the article for him and it almost ended up as a private email just to him which would have been quickly forgotton. When I realized that he is very likely not the only person looking at the new RSS/XML icons all over our site and trying to make sense out of it was the idea born to make it a public post in our new Blog (which is actually ironic). When I was finished did I feel the satisfaction and was surprised that it got much more than I originally intended. It was THEN when I realized by looking at the Articles here at Wikipedia that it would be a good addition to them.

Shortly after , was It deleted with references to some SEO Scam and dubious Person I don't even know. That is how the whole thing started. I was right, the Editors who removed the links got a) the purpose of our site completely wrong b) connected it with something it has nothing to do with c) forgot at the end to even read the article that was linked to, to determine if it would be a valuable addition to Wikipedia or not. I then got stamped as commercial and profit hungry trying to make a quick buck and was thinking to myself: If they think that about me and our site, then they must think that Google is the incarnation of the devil. They Generate hundreds of Millions of Dollors from Advertising on their Site which allows then to make the use of their service free for the general public. Well, we do the same and I wish I would have a few billion dollars on my savings account as a result of it. It makes it easier to follow a dream, if you don't have to worry about annoying issues like how to pay the bills and for the food on the table.

Well, now we managed completely to get off topic that I think nobody will care about the content of the actual article anymore, but about the discussion here (which is now almost as long as the article). Do what you want with the Link. I appreciate any comment and suggestion related to the content of the article. Getting in touch with me is easy. Either shot me an email or post in my Personal discussion board. Btw. Happy Presidents Day (excluding the current). Carsten --Roy-SAC 08:14, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Affiliate Marketing - Major Additions

I made major Additions to the Article. Feel free to discuss it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Affiliate_marketing#Massive_Content_Extension --Roy-SAC 05:53, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Own Article for Affiliate Networks

Affiliate Networks are currently a paragraph of the Article for "Affiliate". Recommend own Article. See Details here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Affiliate#Make_Affiliate_Networks_its_own_Article --Roy-SAC 05:55, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Recommendations Internet Marketing

Comment to Proposal to merger Internet Marketing into Online Marketing (should be the other way around) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Online_marketing

Added to the above comment also recommendations for the general Category Internet advertising and promotion which is a mess today. --Roy-SAC 07:23, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Simon Says

Roy, I'm not going to debate external link policy here with you. The place for that is at Wikipedia:External links. -- Barrylb 14:08, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Categories: User talk archives