User talk:Kelvin Adams

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[edit] Hampton Wick website

Sorry if I appear to be spamming, are there rules as to number or content of links? Am trying to provide up to date info to supplement Wikipedia. user Kelvin Adams ..... added to (under a different title) User talk:Hoary at 16:00, 17 November 2006 by 212.85.7.14 (talk, contributions)

See External links, and particularly:

Links normally to be avoided
Except for a link to a page that is the subject of the article or is an official page of the subject of the article, one should avoid:
 1. Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain once it becomes a Wikipedia:Featured article.
 3. Links that are added to promote a site, that primarily exist to sell products or services, that have objectionable amounts of advertising, or that require payment to view the relevant content, colloquially known as external link spamming.....
10. Sites that are only indirectly related to the article's subject.....

As User:212.85.7.14 you were repeatedly warned not to add links yet ignored these warnings (see talk). Your activities seemed to be exclusively for the promotion of a single website.

Let's look at this month's edits. First, as User:212.85.7.14:

The last of these edits is the most interesting. I think you're too modest here. I've readded this one link, and cut the others.

You say you are trying to provide up to date info to supplement Wikipedia. It's remarkable that this up to date info is all on a single website, your own. But wherever it is, there's normally no need to link to it. If it's not essential to the article, skip it; if it is, summarize the content and add it to the article.

I hope that this is clear. -- Hoary 06:18, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Dear Mr Hoary I am dissapointed to see that links to my website have been blocked. In my view, my pages enhance the Wikipedia content by supplying photos and new information. I may not include this content directly in an existing Wikipedia page because:- I have limited access via a public terminal - my main editing has to be done offline via floppy disk. The material is mainly photographic and I may not have permission to include persons or things. My information may be subject to update or removal. My pages may contain links to commercial sites offering free information in context. Providing a link gives the reader choice as to whether to view or not. In particular, I would have liked to retain links to my Brooklands page and my Thames Path page, and in doing so am not trying to promote my website, rather I am supplying information, much of it visual, so possibly unsuited for inclusion in a Wikipedia page. I note that you permit other users to promote themselves. Surely Michael Pead's links are an example of multiple links to a commercial site? He signs himself michaelpead.co.uk and has several links from Wikipedia. Apologies for edits above, page would not save without altering the word to ***kelvin.

Thank you for writing. I'm unfamiliar with the name Michael Pead and with his site; I have done nothing to allow him to link to it, and although I certainly had a major responsibility for stifling your repeated efforts to link your site, blocking links to it was not a one-man job: others considered this, agreed to it and implemented it.
I'm puzzled by what you say. Some people are unable to use a computer, for example because they are immobilized in a hospital or similar. But your photography suggests that you are far from being immobilized. (Of course, there are other possibilities, e.g. that you did the legwork when well and subsequently became very ill.) I believe that it's not particularly difficult to find a computer to use in the Hampton Wick area, although of course it may be hard to find one at one's preferred time of day, or to use it for a long time.
I've looked again at your Thames Path page. With one browser (Firefox), there's a bar of advertising that is rather irritating. Using another (Konqueror) that bar is a lot more irritating. Aside from the advertising, the page strikes me as worthwhile. As you say, it could be usefully linked from an the Thames Path. This does not mean it should be linked from any and every suburb or town along its way: these should link to the Thames Path article. Likewise for your main page on Hampton Wick and Hampton Wick: the latter might link to the former, but Kingston, etc., would merely link to Hampton Wick. Et cetera.
That's what I think. What do you think? -- Hoary 12:58, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. I did not say that I was immobilised, merely that I have limited time online. I do not at present feel confident to start my own Wikipedia pages. My point was that a number of people accessed my Brooklands photos. I hoped the same would happen with the Thames Path, but there was little interest in it. I cannot help advertising bars because it is implicit in using a free server. On your River Thames page you have a link: "Michael Pead :: Photos of the River Thames", leading to a commercial site. Michael Pead has at least one other link to that site from Wikipedia pages. Why should non-commercial sites not have more than one link? In my view your viewers are missing information due to blocks on non-commercial users and consequent limiting of choice to commercial interests. I don't see why you should object to experimental links because you can easily remove them. The sensible thing would be to put up a message after, say, two or three links, or automatically limit the numbers. I could not have known there was a limit because I was not a member. I assumed you wanted as many links as you could get, in order to provide information as widely as possible.

I've just now taken a look at link to Pead's page. The page seems worthwhile, and although he invites donations, etc., there is no advertising. Here is the policy on external links. -- Hoary 06:57, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for continued interest. I heard about Wikipedia via BBC radio, where we were invited to edit freely. It is only recently that I have seen your rules and believe access to these could be simplified. I see that you have a rule about not pointing to our own sites, yet Lady Eleanor Holles school have their own page linking to their website. So far as I know, that school is a commercial venture. Presuming that no one is interested in an old geezer riding a rusty bike in a village no one ever heard of, I would have thought that if I was to retain one link, you could have made it my Brooklands page. As it is, the search engines point to that link, but it no longer exists. Those photos were not easy to get. I may wish to edit pages - say Celestion and Hanwell. My father worked for Celestion and I have photos of Hanwell, relating to Brunel and Al Bowlly. Is there a procedure for uploading thumnail photos? Evidently, I will not be permitted to link to my own site. Concerning multiple links, the idea was that citizens of Kingston and Teddington would be able to access my Thames Path page. I did not include Twickenham because there is no bridge there, so no access.

I think you have misread the rules. That school has its own article. Articles on schools are rather a grey area, and perhaps it shouldn't have its own article, but anyway it has one. A legitimate article about any institution can (indeed should) have a link to that institution's site, if a site exists.
If you click on what appears to be a thumbnail within a Wikipedia article, you will be taken to a page for that image file. The latter image file is usually, but not necessarily, bigger than the thumbnail. (Try it and see.) To have one of your photos display within Wikipedia, you have to release it under GFDL or waive all rights to it and put it in the public domain. You then upload the image file and link the article to it; the thumbnail version (if appropriate) is generated automatically.
As for links from articles on Kingston, etc., to your (or anyone else's) page on the Thames path: definitely not. Those articles can link to the Wikipedia article on the Thames path, which (in normal circumstances) can link to your page on the Thames path. -- Hoary 15:15, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Still don't understand, must be too old and stupid. You just came up on the search engine - I do not receive money from Google and did not write pages on Richmond Green - must have been someone else.

Then the single short sentence that I thought you wrote about Richmond Green wasn't by you, and an even higher percentage of your contributions than I'd realized were for linking to your website.
The mention of Google above leads to one of your pages on which there is a bar saying "ads by Google". Perhaps it's not you who gets the money for these.
Those little points aside, how do you find the policy on external links? -- Hoary 11:27, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Presumably my freeserver adds the Google bar. I think your links policy may favour commercial users. My links point to my website, in order to control content. I then point to others, for instance the excellent Thames Path to Sunbury Lock site, far better than mine. Back on line - I hope to edit the Celestion page - will provide photos of Ferry Works and maybe the Kingston works where my father started, if still there. Dad also worked at Devizes and Ipswich. No mention of Laurie Fincham on page or Celestion Website. On again - I notice you allow totallyrichmond.com, a commercial operator, to have multiple links to their site. 1/3/07 Added link to excellent Surrey Iron Railway site - chap knows far more than me on the subject.

It would be helpful if you signed your comments. You can do this by hitting the "~" key four times in a row.
The policy of Wikipedia is also to point elsewhere within itself where possible and to point outside otherwise when needed.
You're very welcome to edit the Celestion article.
Totallyrichmond.com seems sufficiently informative to be worth linking to, or anyway it seems so from the Richmond-on-Thames page. If you think it's linked inappropriately, you can explain this on the relative talk page(s) and remove the link(s). -- Hoary 08:34, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Mr Hoary - any chance of restoring my Hampton Wick village link? It's gone and I can't get the whitelist to work. Point is there are several things going on in the area during the summer and most weblinks to Hampton Wick are commercial. Funny thing, with two minutes to go on the pc, I rushed in a link to my remote control page. You removed it but I'm almost embarrassed to be getting ten hits a day. Can't understand how you did it - must have magical powers.

Mr Hoary: could you please check my "Royal Paddock Allotments" edit to make sure you don't think it is a personal attack - I am trying to be objective. Please note that "Paddock" should be "Paddocks". Thank you.