Talk:Alexa Internet/Archives/2018

Coordinate error
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The following coordinate fixes are needed for

—119.160.97.53 (talk) 11:53, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I've tweaked the coordinates slightly, but they seem to have been basically correct (37 Graham Street in San Francisco). If you think that there is an error, you'll need to provide a clear explanation of what it is. Deor (talk) 15:01, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Confusion in Lead Section.
quoting, emphasis added at confusing vagueness: ..."As of 2015, its website has been visited by over 6.5 million people monthly.[3] As of November 2017, the number 1 Alexa Rank belongs to Google.com, its average daily time on the website being 8 minutes, 2 seconds and the average daily pageviews per person being 8.94.[5]"

..."average daily pageviews per person".... of what? It seems like an article about Alexa could be inexplicably talking about $Google LLC. Needs deletion or clarity.

The reason I asked; I thought, Who the hell spends 8 Min,/day on Google? That would be me. I notice this browser window has seven sites open, —most as placeholders, for over a day, two each from "CPU quiet" google & Wiki. One search + one results = 2 pageviews, I do 30?/day. Yuk. --2602:306:CFCE:1EE0:783A:9E33:6CC1:4410 (talk) 20:58, 9 May 2018 (UTC)Doug Bashford

No longer valid?
Quoting Lede Section, emphasis added: "This is the basis for the company's web traffic reporting. According to its website, Alexa provides web traffic data, global rankings, and other information on 30 million websites.[4]"

That ref is several years old. I dunno, but one would never gather that was still their emphasis by looking at their Homepage. ...seems their homepage emphasis/goals should be mentioned in the lede. --2602:306:CFCE:1EE0:783A:9E33:6CC1:4410 (talk) 22:18, 9 May 2018 (UTC)Doug Bashford

Reverted 3 of 3 Times!
I made three improvements to the article and then rudely was reverted without comment three times by two drive-by editors in two edits, within minutes! How thoughtful was that? I intend to revert them back. Hopefully we can avoid a further lack of manners & common decency via conversation and reasoning. I don't believe I violated any rules, so these reverts look like kneejerkisms to me. Here's that history; my three changes plus the two reverts, —then later, the reasoning for my edits, (I'm "Doug Bashford" below):

(cur | prev) 22:25, 9 May 2018‎ Joel.Miles925 (talk | contribs)‎. . (17,318 bytes) (-5)‎. . (Reverted 1 good faith edit by 2602:306:CFCE:1EE0:783A:9E33:6CC1:4410 using STiki) (undo) (Tags: STiki, Undo)   (cur | prev) 22:07, 9 May 2018‎ 2602:306:cfce:1ee0:783a:9e33:6cc1:4410 (talk)‎. . (17,323 bytes) (+5)‎. . (Improve vagueness with replacement: "has been owned by" in Lede. Doug Bashford) (undo)   (cur | prev) 21:59, 9 May 2018‎ Ohnoitsjamie (talk | contribs)‎ m. . (17,318 bytes) (-90)‎. . (Reverted edits by 2602:306:CFCE:1EE0:783A:9E33:6CC1:4410 (talk) to last version by MB) (undo) (Tag: Rollback)   (cur | prev) 21:55, 9 May 2018‎ 2602:306:cfce:1ee0:783a:9e33:6cc1:4410 (talk)‎. . (17,408 bytes) (+154)‎. . (Added their explicit marketing slogan-goal & link to vague, jargony, buzzwordy Lead paragraph: "Our software helps your business get better marketing results.". Doug Bashford) (undo)    (cur | prev) 21:22, 9 May 2018‎ 2602:306:cfce:1ee0:783a:9e33:6cc1:4410 (talk)‎. . (17,254 bytes) (-64)‎. . (→‎Privacy and malware assessments: Removed meaningless weasel obfuscation: "though any user may contact the company via its support webpage." Doug Bashford) (undo) (cur | prev) 23:50, 7 May 2018‎ MB (talk | contribs)‎ m.

Ok, my reasoning:

==============+++======================= (cur | prev) 22:07, 9 May 2018‎ 2602:306:cfce:1ee0:783a:9e33:6cc1:4410 (talk)‎. . (17,323 bytes) (+5)‎. . (Improve vagueness with replacement: "has been owned by" in Lede. Doug Bashford) (undo)

Original vague wording was: "Founded as an independent company in 1996, Alexa was acquired by the company Amazon in 1999."

Reading that, I wondered So Who owns it now? I looked it up. So I changed to: Founded as an independent company in 1996, Alexa has been owned by the company Amazon since 1999. That horrible sin was deftly slain by Joel.Miles925 riding swift and high on his silver tailed "smart" STiki anti vandalism steed. ==============+++======================= (cur | prev) 21:55, 9 May 2018‎ 2602:306:cfce:1ee0:783a:9e33:6cc1:4410 (talk)‎. . (17,408 bytes) (+154)‎. . (Added their explicit marketing slogan-goal & link to vague, jargony, buzzwordy Lead paragraph: "Our software helps your business get better marketing results.". Doug Bashford) (undo)

The entire original vague, possibly outdated lede paragraph was: Alexa Internet, Inc.' is an American company based in California that provides commercial web traffic data and analytics. It is a subsidiary of Amazon.

But not according to their Homepage. So I added this to it: A major goal according to their Homepage on May 9, 2018 is; "Our software helps your business get better marketing results." (Bold emphasis mine.) That meaty, up to date slogan was reverted by Ohnoitsjamie. No clues why. (See also Talk, above where being outdated is raised.)

Later on, in Section "Privacy and malware assessments" was this apparent ad-man inspired weaselness: "As of 2014, though it is possible to delete a paid subscription within an Alexa account, it is not possible to delete an account that is created at Alexa through any web interface, though any user may contact the company via its support webpage." (cur | prev) 21:22, 9 May 2018‎ 2602:306:cfce:1ee0:783a:9e33:6cc1:4410 (talk)‎. . (17,254 bytes) (-64)‎. . (→‎Privacy and malware assessments: Removed meaningless weasel obfuscation: " though any user may contact the company via its support webpage. " Doug Bashford) (undo)

To me, that's a common ploy to soften unpleasant facts by mixing them with irrelevancies. If nothing else grammatically, it's a run-on sentence. (I did toy with the idea of breaking it into two sentences: "However, any user may contact the company via its support webpage." but that only emphasized that clause's duh, so-what meaninglessness. Like mush in the mouth while mumbling.) That was re-added by Ohnoitsjamie in his same mighty drive-by editing spree, SWOOP!

Sorry this post was so long, I found the circumstance bewildering and confusing, 3 reverts by two drive-bys, and I could not think of another way to explain it. I hope after all that, it is decipherable.

I believe that I originally left enough clues in my revision comments that any thoughtful editor would have at least explained why the hell he was ruining my hard work with the push of a button. To me it looks like elitist thinking Wiki Club Members bullying dirty non members, bang bang shoot shoot what fun. Again. ...As if this is Newsgroup alt.fan.rush-limbaugh or something.

I don't want this to happen again, so I am interested in what mistakes I made. Besides not joining The Club (as a verb) I mean. Cheers! --2602:306:CFCE:1EE0:783A:9E33:6CC1:4410 (talk) 03:29, 10 May 2018 (UTC)Doug Bashford

Alexa rank definition
Alexa rank is a redirect page to this page. Its even in the Template:Dotcom company. But its not actually unambiguously defined and significance discussed on this page. It could be argued it is obvious what it is. It is discussed in the Traffic section. Whilst the lede mainly discusses that Google has the number I Alexa rank. I am minded Alexa rank should preferably have it's own section, but I would like others thoughts. (Not that I exactly have a clue currently what the content should be). #thoughts/contributions welcome. This is rated as a high importance computer article,Djm-leighpark (talk) 17:19, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I have now added an Alexa Traffic Rank section and have begun with a description, albeit a primary reference. I'd probably like to see the section expanded about why it is such a recognised metric and how peoples use it but it is somewhat prudent to find quality neutral uncontroversial sources for that.  I'd also like to see quick description of the metric in the lede whilst removal of specific Alexa rankings from it.  But slowly slowly.Djm-leighpark (talk) 08:33, 10 May 2018 (UTC)  I've now attempted a definition in the lede with replaced content moved to body.Djm-leighpark (talk) 06:47, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Page Rank arrows in templates
Can we reach some kind of broad consensus on the direction and color of the arrows for templates about websites vis. a site with an improving/declining traffic trend? ISTR that we should treat it as Alexa does on their own site, and how the vast majority of people consider doing "better" in ranked competitions": That improving in rank (gains of higher position(s) due to increases in traffic) is a green upwards arrow (even as the position number is decreasing, say, from "3rd place" to "2nd place") and decreasing in rank (losing places because of decreased traffic) is a downwards red one. It makes no sense and causes cries of bias and editwarring to have, say, Breitbart News with red up arrows and Huffpost with green ones, both increasing in rank position, and both as semi-protected/fully-protected/locked articles and/or undergoing an edit war and/or having been protected because of 3RR and NPOV and other rules.

I know we're supposed to "be bold" but stepping on that landmine might be somewhat less "bold" than "a recipe for a colossal headache". And it's something someone *should* do, regardless of the fact that there are no Martians with an internet connection, a Wikipedia username and "no skin in earthly politics". Bob the Cannibal (talk) 23:05, 18 October 2018 (UTC)