User talk:Plbman

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Welcome!

Hello, Plbman, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome!  -- Mermaid from the Baltic Sea 23:16, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Editing concerns

While the web site you are promoting may indeed be a useful resource, adding large numbers of links to it makes you appear to be a spammer. You should read Wikipedia:Spam for guidelines on using external links in Wikipedia. Thanks, and welcome to Wiki. -FisherQueen (Talk) 19:18, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Please do not add inappropriate external links to Wikipedia, as you did in Klamath River. Wikipedia is not a mere directory of links nor should it be used for advertising or promotion. Inappropriate links include (but are not limited to) links to personal web sites, links to web sites with which you are affiliated, and links that exist to attract visitors to a web site or promote a product. See the external links guideline and spam policies for further explanations of links that are considered appropriate. If you feel the link should be added to the article, then please discuss it on the article's talk page rather than re-adding it. See the welcome page to learn more about Wikipedia. Thank you. -FisherQueen (Talk) 19:27, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Please stop adding inappropriate external links to Wikipedia, as you did in California halibut. It is considered spamming, and Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advertising. Thanks. -FisherQueen (Talk) 19:29, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Please stop. If you continue spamming, as you did in Northern bluefin tuna, you will be blocked from editing. -FisherQueen (Talk) 19:30, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reply to your request

I double-checked with an administrator and confirmed that adding this many links to one site constitutes spam, whether you are promoting a useful site or an advertising site. This is confirmation that you should not add any further links on Wiki... persistent spammers have their sites blacklisted, and no links from Wiki to a blacklisted site will work. -FisherQueen (Talk) 20:12, 4 January 2007 (UTC)


This is the only warning you will receive. Your recent insertion of spam, commercial content, and/or links is prohibited under policy. Any further spamming may result in your account and/or your ip address being blocked from editing Wikipedia. see Spam policy & External links policy --Hu12 22:55, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Hello, There's a confusion on the Wikipedia end. I was linking from various Wikipedia articles to individual online books each with their own individual URL. Look at the dialogue on this on FisherQueen page. It's all there; I'm trying to explain it and someone repeatedly is speed-reading, not really investigating it, just isn't getting it. These online books are on various topics on the fish and fisheries of California, and are located within a common domain name. I was not linking to one URL from multiple articles, which is indeed spamming. Before discussion could conclude, maybe sink in with someone in authority, the authority person deletes it all. Doesn't speak well for the Wikipedia communication process but oh well, I'm sure s/he meant well. Anyway I see other online books linked from Wikipedia articles so I don't understand the issue here. If a collection of online books is at one domain, there's a limit on linking to individual online books from that domain?? Seems screwy and confounds making authoritative online information more widely available. Please advise. Thanks, Peter = plbman—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Plbman (talk • contribs) 00:15, 5 January 2007.


Hello. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment. You may also click on the signature button Image:Wikisigbutton.png located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your name and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. Thank you!--Hu12 00:31, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


Thanks for the communication advice; I didn't know. Could you please advise me on what I asked? Thank you--Plbman 00:35, 5 January 2007 (UTC), Peter

Please review the guidelines here WP:COI and WP:SPAM. 81 + links in less than a day is Spam, serious spam. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a link farm.
Book citations typically include: the name of the author, the title of the book, ISBN, and the date of publication. The name of the publisher and its city is optional. For example:

--Hu12 00:47, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


Yes, I had read those. I don't see that what I was doing was a conflict of interest nor was I promoting a website or a product. I was linking articles to relevant individual online books published by the State of California Dept of Fish and Game and converted to digital format by us and hosted ion a University of California electronic repository for publications. While I could go forward and cite them as books as you suggest, there is still the issue that a body of people see this as conflict of interest or spamming. So if I do them all over again as book citations instead of external links, they will still be deleted on your end by a seemingly erroneous viewpoint underway. I also don't see what's wrong with someone linking to 81+ online authoritatively authored books in one day. What's the harm to the public good? Why am I being seen as a problem? Slow down and actually look at what I did and not rush to snap decisions. ....Peter --132.239.112.110 00:59, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

" I'm the library director here at Scripps Inst Oceanography" re read WP:COI specifically Advertising and conflicts of interest. Wikipedia's guide on How not to be a spammer --Hu12 01:12, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


Yes, that's true and I said that to clue you that I work for the public good and that I'm not in this to promote a product or sell something. By citing me in that respect, you are making my point, namely that you think I was promoting repeatedly a single website. I wasn't. I was citing individual publications published by the State of California Dept of Fish and Game that now live in digital format on a university server, each with their own URL. Does that invalidate the authority of the publications somehow? With respect (because I know you're coming from a good place on this), have you actually looked at what I was citing? If a State of California employee from one branch adds a link to a State of California government publicationf brom another branch that was published for public information and the public good, and paid for by taxpayer's funds, that's a conflict of interest? We simply converted their print publications to digital format for the public good using federal and state taxpayer funds. Where's the conflict of interest? Please cite the specific section of text in your COI because I don't see what fits your interpretation. Thank you for your patience. ...Peter --Plbman 01:39, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't matter -- "working for the public good" (etc.) doesn't confer a license to spam Wikipedia. I suggest that if you have actual content to contribute, contribute that. --Hu12 02:18, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


Thanks for your consideration. You moved discussion back to spam after I had pointed out that these were individual online books and individual URLs at a domain, not one website (which would be spam), and that I had linked to individual separate books from the individual articles with which they were relevant. I understand how these Web technical nuances are not clear to many people. If, as you say, it is spam in Wikipedia's view to work on a succession of articles and online book links in one day, perhaps your spam guidelines should say that there is a limit to what will be accepted in one day. It would also be useful if your guidelines also said that state government employees cannot cite or link to publications from their state government, and that federal government employees cannot cite or link to publications from the federal government. You are being positive in suggesting I contribute content and I appreciate that. It appears it would be more productive to silo content I author on a university site where it is within my sphere of influence. I did not feel this issue was fairly considered and people did not actually look at what I was linking. They acting quickly without a spirit of collaboration and collegial discussion, and jumped to the wrong conclusion. I have nothing to lose and was trying to help out, be the good guy to make online books more useful to the public. Silly me. --Plbman 02:56, 5 January 2007 (UTC).......Peter

Sorry to hear you have had a bad experience editing on Wikipedia. Due to the large amount of link spam that is added to the encyclopedia, editors have to act quickly and decisively in all cases where a user might be spamming. Your intetions were clearly admirable - what is frequently referred to as "good faith" editing. As you have learned (swiftly, and probably a little harshly), these edits violated some guidelines. Adding a series of links to a single url matches a pattern of spamming - so it brought out the anti-spam response. Since you seem to feel like the links didn't get a fair look, I've taken some time to check a few out and here's my take. 1) It's clearly a great website and a wonderful resource. However, in many instances the pages you linked are basically similar in content to the articles you linked from. It is best to avoid linking to content that just repeats content in the article (the major exception being, of course, in the case where the other website is used as a reference - there are separate linking formats for references for this kind of thing.) In that sense, they probably aren't appropriate for external links. 2) There are other options for linking good resources like the one you have provided. Maybe a single link to the entire collection on a higher level page - like fish or North American fish (don't actually know what article would be best.) Since you are associated with the site, the best course of action is to propose the link on the article talk page. Give the details of the site and why you think it should be included. Then the other editors can discuss and decide if it should be included. Also, why not submit it to DMOZ? At any rate, I hope this experience hasn't soured you to contributing. It seems like you are a knowledgeable and reasonable person. Thanks for being willing to engage in discussion about it. Nposs 04:31, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Okay, clearly I didn't look at enough links to make a good judgement. There's a lot more than fish going on here. Linking to articles (even if they are freely available) isn't really helpful for articles unless they are used as a reference in the text. Great resource though. (Of course, since wikipedia is not a linkrepository (WP:NOT#REPOSITORY) a lot of great sites will go unlinked. That's what DMOZ is for. Nposs 04:41, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Grunion

I'll give you my take on things, from the view of a general Wikipedia editor and not as a spam-hunter.

A good external link for the Grunion article would be something that gave a better overview, or had some better photos. What the external links are for is to provide further information that would be of use and interest to the general reader.

The link that you added to the Grunion article, however, was a good scientific reference, but not really a good external link, in my opinion. It's even a needed reference for the article since the article does not have many references.

What's needed, if you want to use the reference in the article, is a brief explanation. For example, something like:

The basics of grunion spawning have been known from the early 20th century (Thompson (1919) and Clark (1925)). In a more detailed study by Boyd Walker (1949), he found....

Once that has been added to the article, then the PhD dissertation can be cited as a proper reference, rather than an external link. I know that is much more work, but we end up with a better encyclopedia, plus a better reason for the article to be linked to.

Another way that you could do it would be for you to look for information in the existing article that matches the discoveries by Boyd Walker, and then use his dissertation as a reference.

Although there is plenty of information in the Grunion article, it is not very well-referenced. The article needs to properly reference the information in it to become a better encyclopedia article (as well as meeting the Wikipedia standards for either a good article or featured article). BlankVerse 04:57, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree that these links would be best used as citations in the text. And it is a lot more work. But it would be even more helpful. Since that is so much more work, if you aren't up to it, I think it would be great if the links were added to the articles' talk pages instead, such as Talk:Grunion, where other editors can then peruse them and decide exactly how to fit them in as citations. You've already done a lot of work, Plbman, so I don't want to unload all these extra requirements on you and make you bring a {{shrubbery}}. There's some further discussion going on at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Hundreds of links... to a good site, so you're invited to comment there. — coelacan talk — 20:04, 5 January 2007 (UTC)