Talk:IntelliTXT/Archives/2012

The benefits?
How about the fact that it allows publishers to keep their content free? People do need to make a living, or at the very least break even (hosting costs, etc). Vibrant is a reputable company that has won many awards (http://vibrantmedia.com/about_vibrant/awards.asp)

I think any discussion/article about IntelliTXT should make mention of the controversial nature of the technology. An example is Forbes, which used the system and then removed it due to objections about editorial integrity. Most of the controversy comes from forum sites, where the IntelliTXT script converts user-generated content into advertising. This article also glosses over the negative impact IntelliTXT has on site usability.

Blocking info
I have no problem with including information on how to block the ads in principle, but it doesn't seem very encyclopedic to me. I think adding links to sites that explain how to block the ads to the external links section would be better. Nightwatch／respond 16:04, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Jamesino 22:47, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

How to block
add this to hosts:

127.0.0.1 itxt.vibrantmedia.com

or maybe 0.0.0.0

0.0.0.0 itxt.vibrantmedia.com 0.0.0.0 www.vibrantmedia.com 0.0.0.0 vibrantmedia.com 0.0.0.0 intellitxt.com —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Family Guy Guy (talk • contribs).

Another way to block
Block these URLs on a proxy server:

intellitxt.com/intellitxt kona.kontera.com/javascript/lib spa.snap.com —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sendmoreinfo (talk • contribs) 17:44, 8 December 2006 (UTC).

Ryan Block article
Hello. I just added a reference to Ryan Block's article regarding IntelliTXT.

Hope this is okay. If not, just delete it, or move it to a more appropriate location. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.167.158.92 (talk) 03:19, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Unless you can demonstrate that Ryan Block is an expert in the field of advertising its his personal blog and personal opinion. Please see WP:V for the narrow allowance that is made for the use of blogs as citations WP:V.--Crossmr 15:12, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. I've no interest in getting in the way of the wikitocracy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.167.158.92 (talk) 19:40, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * He runs one of the biggest blogs, Engadget, which makes tons of money from blog advertising. That qualifies him as an expert.  You deleted it just to push your own personal agenda.  You were even told this before and ignored it.  -Nathan J. Yoder 08:03, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
 * That doesn't make him an expert in online advertising. Perhaps you should read WP:V again. You need to provide evidence that he's an expert. being in charge of a website doesn't make him an expert in everything to do with that. can you provide evidence that he's given lectures on online advertising? that he's held a job for a considerable time as someone in charge of online advertising, that he's worked for a large online advertising firm in a considerable role or that he's consulted for other companies in the field of online advertising? If you can't, that you have no evidence that he's an expert in the field of online advertising.--Crossmr 15:29, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Find a requirement that he be an expert in advertising, because none exists. Failing to do so, I'll just put it back, since 100% of your arguments are you claiming that it's part of some policy (and failing to back it up).  Here's a hint: try to argue on the particular merits for once instead of wikilawyering.  He's the chief editor of one of the biggest blogs, which certainly makes his opinion here notable.  Feel free to get the opinions of others if you feel otherwise.  If you engage in argumentum ad nauseam in this page, I'll ignore it, so get others invovled and DON'T violate 3RR again--but we all know you freely throw out policies when they don't suit you. -Nathan J. Yoder 05:40, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh and out of curiosity: did you bother to check who he was before you did all of this? I bet you didn't check and will refuse to admit your error (you don't remove sourced information from a person without knowing who that perosn is). -Nathan J. Yoder 05:42, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

lets go over this: The liability of this feature is that it makes pages more difficult to read; scrolling down the page may inadvertently cause delays while random ads flash on and pause before disappearing. This is unsourced opinion, drawing this conclusion without a source is original research. Please go read it WP:OR.

This Also, many publishers have a short expiration date on the cookies, so they keep coming back after a couple of weeks or less Is unsourced opinion on how many publishers do this. Its drawing a conclusion about the number of publishers which put short expiration dates on cookies.

This is also unsourced opinion and likely there will never be a source found for it Many users use ad filtering software such as AdBlock to block IntelliTXT ads. If you want to include that statement find a source. The burden of evidence is on you per WP:V.--Crossmr 15:51, 3 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Right, an unsourced opinion, making it an unsourced opinion, not OR. That means a citation is needed, not that it is OR and you aren't qualified to draw that conclusion since you didn't bother making any honest attempt at checking, because we know you're not interested in finding anything that might contradict you.  Again, you don't remove, you tag it, that is de facto standard practice.  I wasn't the person who originally added all of that, by the way.  -Nathan J. Yoder 05:40, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Not but you're the person who wants to add OR restore. I've given you policy which states we don't tag and leave it. Please stop editing in the face of policy. They've used their own observation to draw a conclusion about how many companies, users, etc do x. Thats original research. Even if you want to call it an unsourced fact, its unsourced and there is no requirement that its left in the article.--Crossmr 12:40, 4 September 2007 (UTC)


 * No, you're acting in bad faith again. You took 'may be removed' to mean 'must be removed.'  If you look, there are numerous articles where people leave them in tagged for a period to allow people to find sources.  Please stop claiming things are policy when you can't back it up.  Go read OR--it doesn't apply to statements that are simply unsourced, otherwise all unsourced statements would be OR.  I appreciate that you didn't find a requirement for for ryan block to be an expert in advertising, btw.  I like this new policy you created that highly notable people can't have commentary on a subject concerning what they're notable for. -Nathan J. Yoder 03:49, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
 * A blog is a self-published source. WP:V requires that the author of a self-published source be a recognized expert in the field. This article is about a company whose field is online advertising. Therefore ryan block has to be identified as an expert in the field of online advertising.--Crossmr 03:59, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll stop entertaining this absurd intepretation and get into why it should be included directly. Why don't you actually consider the reason WP:V and WP:RS exist and consider the spirit of the rules?  What does verifiability have to do with it?  We know for a fact that this is the opinion of a notable blogger.  They exist to prevent random Joe Blow's view from getting in,b ut this isn't Joe Blow.  This is a notable guy who chooses what advertisements get included in one of the biggest blogs and he's commenting on how he would operate said notable blog--at the least he's an expert on how own job, which would at least make this quotable in the Engadget article.  He is one of the closest things you'll get to an expert in blogging advertisement methodology and the success of Engadget certainly speaks to his skills.  So given all of this, why wouldn't his opinion be notable and worthy of inclusion?  Don't simply say "it's against the rules," I want specific reasoning--argue its merits and don't engage in straw man arguments, if you revert to "but we dont' want joe blow's opinion in this" I'll ignore it.  -Nathan J. Yoder 04:35, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll add that he's also primarily arguing ethics, not what the most succesful adveritisng methods are. AFAIK, there is no such thing as an expert in blogging advertisement ethics and again, the best you could do is take the top people in blogging advertisements for that.  -Nathan J. Yoder 04:37, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
 * notability doesn't give him verifiability or make his pov a non-trivial viewpoint. You demanded policy previously, its provided and yet you continue to edit in the face of it. There is no point in making an argument because you've demonstrated you've got no desire to listen to it. The specific reasoning is quite clear. He is not an expert in the field of online advertising. Either provide evidence that he is, or he doesn't meet the criteria to be considered a reliable source in this article. It doesn't matter what he's debating. This article is about a subject whose field is online-advertising. Unless he's an expert in that he's not usable on this article. Closest doesn't cut it. He's not an expert therefore he fails WP:V.--Crossmr 04:40, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I did, you didn't listen. You never address what I say, you just repet yourself.  Notability BY DEFINITION makes it non-trivial.  What the heck do you think non-trivial means? I've provided evidence that he is.  If you're splitting hairs between "closest" and "precisely an expert," you're ignoring the spirit of the policy.  Someone who is close to being an expert when no true experts exist in the area would be good enough.  You are making not attempt to understand why the policy even exist.  This is an obvious exception, even if you were right that he wasn't an expert.  If people close to being experts aren't an exception, then what is? Why doesn't it cut it? And as I said, this is primarily about the ethics of it, which you ignored.  -Nathan J. Yoder 04:46, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I addressed it. you raised no valid points. Hugh heffner is notable. His opinion in a blog about microsoft's latest operating system is meaningless. Do you see how it works yet? A single individuals opinion, notable or not doesn't make it verifiable or non-trivial. Its not an obvious exception. And edit warring doesn't make it anymore obvious. The subject of this article isn't ethics, its online advertising, even if it were you admit he's an expert in neither.--Crossmr 04:48, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
 * No you didn't, you just repeated 'it's policy it's policy, and never bothered explaining why it wasn't in the spirit of it, nor why it shouldn't be an exception. He was talking about the ethics of ussing this form of advertisement, meaning it's relevant to this article.  What a horrible analogy.  Hugh Hefner isn't involved in the software business at all, but Ryan Block's job directly includes managing blog advertisements. Explain how your analogy works.  How can something be notable and trivial?  How are you defining 'non-trivia'?  Is this another situation where you refuse to clarify what you're saying?  --Nathan J. Yoder 04:52, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
 * a janitor might clean up feces, that doesn't make him a verifiable source in an article on waste treatment plants. Just because he might be exposed to something in the course of his job doesn't make him an expert.--Crossmr 04:57, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
 * A janitor doesn't run a waste treatment plan. Ryan block runs the advertisements on a major blog.  Another broken analogy.  Additional failure to address the spirit of policies, exceptions and why they exist.  Strike 2, one more and you're out.  BTW, are you conceding that your previous analogy was bad?  Are you willing to admit when you've erred? -Nathan J. Yoder  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Njyoder (talk • contribs) 05:08, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
 * No, Ryan Block accepts money to slap some code on his website and allow someone else to put ads on his site. That is a far cry from being an expert in the field of online advertising.--Crossmr 05:15, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Even if that were an accurate assessment, your analogy is still false. I'm presenting multiple arguments here--both ones arguing that he is an expert and ones that even if he is an expert, he can still be included under policy/guidelines. Read negation theory--in order to refute your argument, I need to present one or more arguments refuting it and it's irrelevant as to whether or not they contradict eachother because a hole in your argument still remains a hole in your argument.


 * Some of the advertisements are unique to Engadget, so it's not just as if he was only using third-party advertisement services. Choosing what types of advertisements to use, how to format them and integrate them into the pages isn't an easy matter any more than choosing an appealing format for your pages in general  (ideal for attracting customers and profit).  Marketing in general, in case you weren't aware, is a large area of research because there's a lot of psychology and financial matters involved in creating better marketing strategies.  Even if blog marketing were an easy matter, then you'd still be wrong for the following reason: 1) Blog marketing is easy (you conceded this); 2) Things which are easy to master are east to become an expert in. Therefore, because he has mastered this easy skill, he is an expert.


 * About tags. Tags also add the page to a category such as "articles with unsourced statmeents," making them easy for people to find so they can correct them--in other words, the tags are designed to promote people to correct them.  In addition to the arguments already made regarding tags (in your response include assessment of those), it is clear that adding a tag and deleting it right away defeats the purpose because no one will see it on the page and it won't be included in the category.  If you just want to delete it, then simply put in the edit summary what you think about it, tagging and deleting makes no sense at all.  If you disagree, I can get people from the template pages to debate this matter, but I will only put this effort into this if you make an honest statement that you will actively participate in the debate, defending your position and not just repeating your position.  Again, because of the arbitration case, I: may not comment on these for a while.  This will be my last comment (I forgot to address this before I said that before).  -Nathan J. Yoder 05:55, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Unless he's recognized by his peers as an expert in the field of online advertising he's not an expert. Unless you can provide any reliable sources which establish him as such outside your interpretation of what you think he does during the course of his job you've failed to meet the burden of proof to establish him as an expert. You are violating multiple parts of WP:V by failing to meet the burden of evidence and by failing to provide a proper source for this statement. His notability is immaterial, because its still one man's view. The only allowance we allow for self-published sources to be used as citation regardless of notability is if they are an expert in the field. You've been shown the policy, its very clear. You wish to restore the material and are failing to meet the policy by providing proper citation. Please stop violating policy when you edit articles.--Crossmr 12:57, 5 September 2007 (UTC)


 * "One man's view" has never been a means to exclude anything--"it's one experts view, it's one journalists view, etc." You are confusing verifiablity with reliability.  Verifiability is the question as to whether or not this is, in fact, the opinion of Ryan Block and not someone pretending to be him.  There's no question that it's really him.  Reliability deals with whether or not it's reliable enough to be included.  CBD, whom you claim you're listening to, even cited various news sources which themselves rely on the opinions of editors as well--if they qualify as reliable, certainly Block's should.  Go read WP:BURO, it is very important.  There isn't a hard requirement that he be an expert and if you can find a consensus demonstrating a hard requirement, without exception, for the purpose of reliable sources that are self-published, then do it.  All I see is you attemptintin to wikilawyer regarding a part of RS that was copied to the V page--you're trying to use what would at best be a technicality to make this policy instead of guideline, when really that part you're citing is from RS, a guideline.  Doing that's a violation of both WP:BURO and WP:CONSENSUS, especially considering changes like that have crept in without a true consensus. -Nathan J. Yoder 05:16, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * And as usual you're ignoring a third editor who has stepped in and again attempted to clarify it for you. CDB clearly stated that he didn't feel Block's opinion warranted attention in this article. WP:V is policy and it requires he be an expert. Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. A blog is a self-published medium, and this is a policy, which is consensus requiring he be identified as an expert.--Crossmr 05:22, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * WP:V and WP:RS are tied, WP:V directly references RS, and everything you add has to conform with WP:V. Its a policy and you don't get to skip it just because you want to drive and drive an unreliable source in.--Crossmr 05:27, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Crossmr, since when does replying to an editor (CBD in this case) and providing my counter-argument to what he said constitute ignoring it? You're being dishonest again.  You didn't address my counter-argument, you just repeated yourself again.  I already stated that you're confusing the two and explained.  Just because the policies are tied doesn't make them the same--all Wikipedia policies are tied, it doesn't mean I can treat all guidelines as policies, doing so is a blatant violaton of WP:BURO  (Did you honestly read it?  I read everything you link to as an act of good faith, will you act in good faith for me, please?).  Demonstrate consensus and you might have a point, ignoring consensus (or lack thereof), especially concerning policy matters, is against Wikipedia policy.  P.S.  Your arbitration case against me will get thrown out, nice try at abusing process though, it made me laugh at your reaction which is characteristic of histrionic behavior (not accusing you of being histrionic, just this behavior) ;). -Nathan J. Yoder 05:36, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * because there is no valid counter argument. You have two separate editors telling you this source is not usable in this article. Yet you continue to edit war instead of finishing the discussion. Policy is consensus the part about experts is in WP:V which is a policy, you cannot ignore that when editing, yet you continue to do so by introducing a source from an individual who is not identified as an expert in the field. You asked for where consensus stated they had to be an expert and WP:V does just that. Continue to add that material is ignoring both the compromise from an outside editor and editing in violation of policy.--Crossmr 05:41, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * If you'd like to have some other policies to look at while editing, you should also consider just above that: Every user is expected to interact with others civilly, calmly, and in a spirit of cooperation. There is to be no spirit of cooperation when 2 editors disagree with you and you continue to edit war and blatantly ignore policy. WP:3RR you don't have to revert 4 times in a 24 hour period to edit war and be in violation of the policy. You asked for where consensus was that the writer of a self-published source be an expert and it was provided for you. Its policy and all edits to article space must abide by policy. All policies are consensus its the only way they become policy.--Crossmr 05:48, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Wait, so if there is no valid counter-argument to my arguments, aren't you then acknowledging that your argument is invalid? That's a concession of comitting logical fallacies.  If you consider my arguments invalid, then it should be easy to provide a counter-argument--100% of invalid arguments have counter-arguments that can prove them wrong.  Why would you refuse to argue in the spirit of policies?  As per policy, you are required to treat policy as descriptive, not prescriptive (read WP:BURO and Wikilawyering).  You're definitely not acting in a spirit of cooperation--you are refusing to actually debate the points, you just repeat your original propositions.  You say things regarding 3RR and refuse to cite anything specific supporting that, you just say that it's on the policy page somewhere and I've read it and it's nowhere there.  Go ahead, defend your point.  You definitely are not calm, you even tried escalating this to arbitration and when you realized that was failing, you pointed to a user disagreeing with me as "dispute resolution."  You have had two editors disagree with you and just because one is anonymous, doesn't discount their opinion.  They left because they realized that you were being uncooperative.  Talk about the pot calling the kettle black, you're edit warring too.


 * You're still confusing RS and V, you can def. Please tell me if you have or have not read WP:BURO and the links from it. Sorry, but a policy existing doesn't prove any sort of representative consensus and this is widely acknowledged by those familiar with the process to change policies/guidelines.  It is actually a common issue brought up that things get added to policy and guideline pages without getting a true consensus and is even being brought up on several talk pages right now (e.g. BLP).  There are normally a large number of people involved for the initial inclusion of a policy/guideline, but very often there is only a few people providing consensus to modify the pages long after it was created.  In fact, I've seen instances of things like this happening on pages like WP:NPOV, only to have someone looking through edits catching months later that a new change only had a 'consensus' via maybe a dozen or less editors.  Consensus for significant changes to policies and guidelines requires as close to a representative sample as we can get--doing it based on a few is not a representative consensus. -Nathan J. Yoder 06:14, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Crossmr just asked me to take a look at this dispute. I concur that Crossmr's interpretation of WP:V and WP:RS is absolutely correct. I'll also note that ArbCom has agreed with my interpretation of those policies on at least one previous occasion; see User:Ericsaindon2 for what happened next.
 * To get a sense of how notable Ryan Block is, I just ran a search on him on Thomson Gale's Infotrac database, which contains over 94 million articles going back to 1980 drawn from newspapers, magazines, journals, and even television and radio transcripts from throughout the English-speaking world. After eliminating wrong Ryan Blocks, it looks like there were about only 10 references to Ryan Block of Engadget---ever.  In contrast, well-known technology journalists like John C. Dvorak and Declan McCullagh get 700 and 500 hits, respectively.  Ryan Block has a LONG way to go before he can be treated as a reliable or authoritative source.--Coolcaesar 06:18, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * So? We're not comparing him to top journalists, as he's not a journalist and a journalist isn't the type of person with experience in this area.  And since when is popularity a good method of determining who is authoritative about something (see appeal to popularity)?  Did you also search that database for 'IntelliTXT'?  I'll bet you it has virtually no hits, especially compared to say, Google Adsense and by that logic the article should be removed in its entirety. See my User_talk:Njyoder talk page, specifically the last two comments left.  The sources,  and  are being discussed.  Primarily, the criticisms in those "reliable" sources are from relatively unknown journalists and editors.  So those are reliable, but the chief editor of one of the biggest blogs isn't? -Nathan J. Yoder 06:47, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I found an Information Week magazine article (newspaper blog posts are explicitly allowed) both about IntelliTXT and Ryan Blocks complaints about it . I think this establishes that his opinion carries special weight and good reason not to rely just on InfoTrac, especially for computing publications.  EDIT: Here are some more articles on various IntelliTXT criticism (they cover similar subject matter to some extent, but also quote different sources):, ,  and . -Nathan J. Yoder 07:10, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * The fact that the criticism may be notable and reliable doesn't mean Ryan Block is a reliable source for that criticism.--Crossmr 13:06, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * You've been given other sources which can be used to include this criticism in the article, and had 3 different editors explain to you that that particular citation you've chosen is not appropriate in this case. If you don't respond, I'll make the change.--Crossmr 12:56, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Well whether you believe the policy is a consensus or not, you're required to follow it in all your edits. You've failed to do so. WP:NOT doesn't get you a free pass from ignoring all other policies and guidelines because they don't agree with what you want. --Crossmr 06:26, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, I'm not, because without consensus it is fundamentally invalid. I'm not the one here ignoring policies because it doesn't suit them, instead I'm addressing the spirit of the policies.  You, however, seem to ignore WP:BURO because it doesn't suit your--you're not even arguing the merits of these sources, instead you're just say "I'm right because I think it's policy," and are trying to wikilawyer in an attempt to make reliable source guidelines into policy--the copied material into WP:V was clearly not an attempt to make WP:RS policy, otherwise they would have gathered a full consensus to change WP:RS into policy. Do you honestly think material copied from WP:RS into WP:V was meant to make reliable source criteria into policy, instead of just trying to add it for the sake of reading both on the same page?  -Nathan J. Yoder 06:47, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes you are as you're clearly violating WP:V as you have not established Ryan Block as an expert in the field. There is no other way to interpret the spirit of that statement, its very specific and requires the individual to be a published expert in the field.--Crossmr 13:06, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Guys, you both really need to stop arguing and going after each other. There is virtually no reason for argument on this point, yet you've got paragraphs and paragraphs of it on at least three different pages. There has to be some way to reach compromise here.
 * The source cited doesn't have any sort of independent fact checkers or peer review before publication and thus only meets our reliable sources policy for information about his own opinions or uncontroversial facts about himself, which should only be included if they are highly notable to the topic at hand. Unfortunately, he is neither unquestionably notable to the subject nor unquestionably not. He is more notable than the average blogger, but not so much so that he has his own Wikipedia page. He isn't directly connected to IntelliTXT in any way other than having stated an opinion about it. My opinion from this: maybe he could be cited, but overall it seems a stretch.
 * But... why argue about it at all? There are several citations of the same criticisms from clearly reliable sources. There is even one source citing Ryan Block himself. That's not a regular printed column, but rather what newspapers/magazines call an in-house blog... essentially an opinion piece written by a staff journalist and only published on the web. Again, a possibly debatable point, but in this case I'd think it falls on the 'usable' side of the line. Put in other, very solid, sources and there ought to be a way to construct a reasonable passage. What about something like;

Information Week quotes Ryan Block of Engadget as urging website operators not to use this form of advertising, mentioning IntelliTXT by name, which he describes as, "polluting your content, confusing your audience, and tricking them into clicking on ads that just won't go away". The New York Times and the Poynter Institute cite similar concerns from several other sources.


 * The wording could certainly use rewriting, but you get the general idea. There are clearly reliable sources supporting the existence of this criticism. An argument could be made against the above that 'Block is being given undue weight', but he was apparently one of the flashpoints for this wave of criticism (see the Digg statistics cited by Information Week) and... it just can't be that important. I'd agree that Block's opinion is not inherently notable, but the attention paid to it by Information Week and Digg users make it so for these particular criticisms. --CBD 13:39, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Digg users themselves aren't reliable. If a RS writes an article saying because of Digg users this has happened that is one thing, even then the RS should be used, not the digg story, but a digg story is no different than people jumping on a thread in a forum and adding lots of replies. There have been numerous stories on digg itself about people gaming the system, buying diggs, and stories just snowballing to popularity from that point. Not to mention there is no editorial oversight of comments or the diggs themselves.
 * As to blogs in newspapers those have come up before for discussion, and as long as they are affording the same editorial oversight as a regular column the talk I saw indicated they were perfectly acceptable. However this text at the bottom of the page gives me concern in that regard This is a public forum. CMP Media and its affiliates are not responsible for and do not control what is posted herein. CMP Media makes no warranties or guarantees concerning any advice dispensed by its staff members or readers.. The other sources however are fine as they're regular columns in a newspaper.
 * I wholly support the criticism being included using proper reliable sources. Which at a minimum is the NYtimes source. The poynter link is a weblog however there is no statement made disavowing responsibility for the content which makes it better than the informationweek link.--Crossmr 14:40, 7 September 2007 (UTC)


 * "had 3 different editors explain to you that that particular citation you've chosen is not appropriate in this case." Actually, the Information Week source I found is a new one and CBD commented to say that it qualifies as a reliable source, as Information week magazine is known for fact checking and peer review.  There's no reason to believe this journalist's article would have been poorly fact-checked--if you can point to factual inaccuracies, then do it.  Why is this particular source unreliable?  Can you please explain why, in a general sense, you think it's unreliable instead of saying that you think it's against the reliability guideline?  Also, the statement at the end by CMP media is in regard to the comments section (it's a standard notice because anyone can post whatever they want there, staff or readers.  It got 850 diggs, which is fairly high.  Forums aren't designed as voting systems, while Digg allows people to vote for and against it and it provides an objective statistic regarding how many people like it.  When determining due weight, a statistic on support of something is one of the best criterion you can use.  Why would there be editorial oversight of votes?  That doesn't make much sense.  It's not the job of Wikipedians to determine how accurate a source is, it's simply their job to determine how accurate the population thinks a source is--to do otherwise is to violate NPOV by passing your own judgment instead of weighing things according to how the population views them.


 * "There is no other way to interpret the spirit of that statement, its very specific and requires the individual to be a published expert in the field." You're completely missing the point of prescriptive vs. descriptive.  There is no other way to interpret that particular statement by itself if you interpret it literally as a hard, prescriptive requirement, but policies are descriptive, not prescriptive (that's what 'spirit' means).  The major issue here is that you're reinterpreting WP:RS to become a policy--do you believe that there is a Wikipedia wide consensus for WP:RS being a policy, especially considering it got labeled as a guideline?  The section of WP:V you're quoting...isn't it defining what a reliable source is....which actually falls under the WP:RS guideline?  The purpose (and spirit) of that section of WP:V is simply to give an editor a good idea of what qualifies as a reliable source without the user having to visit the WP:RS page.  Otherwise, what's the purpose of WP:RS?


 * What difference does it make if the Poynter article doesn't have a legal disclaimer? How does that change reliability? -Nathan J. Yoder 19:09, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm referring to the ryan block link which you have been continually reverting in to the article. 3 editors have now explained to you why its unusable. The information week magazine may be, but with the disclaimer at the bottom and no other assertion on the page otherwise that that blog has met the same standard of fact checking and peer review doesn't give it the same weight. Diggs are immaterial. I can point to dozens of stories on diggs about people buying votes. Its not moderated, the diggs aren't verified, and 800 diggs compared to the millions of people on the internet really makes it trivial attention. That's your opinion on how high you think that is or how representative you think that is of the over-all population. That's you passing judgment on its accuracy, which you just said shouldn't be done.
 * If you want to debate why the text from RS is in V (its just as easy to look at it and say the text from V is in RS) do so on the relevant pages because as it stands, the text is in policy and it has to be followed for editing the article. Spirit or otherwise the majority is against your using it as a citation, and a compromise was offered with appropriate citations to keep the criticism itself in the article, but from another source.--Crossmr 19:23, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
 * If you want to talk spirit, re-read WP:V and what is says about online self-published sources (which a blog is, regardless of who publishes it). Its making a requirement that peers identify this individual as an expert, that he be published as such in relation to the subject and also indicating that even if the individual meets that criteria, other sources are preferred. The "spirit" of this section is quite clear in putting high standards on using these as sources and really only in the absence of other sources. In this case other sources are available.--Crossmr 19:26, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
 * One of those editors changed their viewpoint when I found the Information Week link. Combined with me and the (two?) anonymous user(s), that's 3 people too.  So you don't actually have a reason to believe that this journalist didn't do good fact checking on their post?  Are you are conceding that you can't find any factual errors?  I would appreciate it if you directly answered my questions.  There's no reason to believe these diggs were "bought."


 * Compared to all the pages on the entire internet, IntelliTXT is used and mentioned on less than 1% and an even tinier fraction of internet users have heard of it, does that mean we should delete this article? I suggest that you read up on scientific research methodology.  If we followed that logic, then a scientific opinion poll about opinions of Americans that polled "only" 1,000 people would be invalid because there are 300 million Americans.  The issue is whether or not it's representative and over 800 votes on a digg article is a good sample size, even though it's not a scientific opinion poll.  Why do you think those 850 are non-representative?  There are millions of Digg users, wouldn't it at least be representative of them?


 * "That's you passing judgment on its accuracy, which you just said shouldn't be done." I'm not judging the accuracy of the content of the Digg post, just how accurate it is as a representation of how many people support the content. That is different from assessing the accuracy of some content in terms of whether or not it's a reliable source.


 * "If you want to debate why the text from RS is in V (its just as easy to look at it and say the text from V is in RS) do so on the relevant pages because as it stands, the text is in policy and it has to be followed for editing the article."  Edited to add: do you consider WP:RS policy or not? Can you please answer this: are the rules prescriptive or descriptive?  And this:  should we follow the spirit or the letter of the policy? Yes, and that's based on the reasoning that rules a prescriptive and that you are to follow them to the letter as they are.  That's against WP:BURO.  Argumentum ad nauseam isn't a compelling argument, you need to argue the merits of your view instead of just asserting that it's true.


 * "Spirit or otherwise the majority is against your using it as a citation, and a compromise was offered with appropriate citations to keep the criticism itself in the article, but from another source." First of all, read Consensus; consensus is not a vote--it's an actual discussion that goes back and forth, not random people who drop a single comment in and don't respond back.  A simple majority is usually considered no consensus.  Second of all, CBD has supported the Ryan Block thing as per Info Week and the anonymous user(s) have supported Ryan Block's view being included too.  Including me, that's at least 3 people.


 * "If you want to talk spirit, re-read WP:V and what is says about online self-published sources (which a blog is, regardless of who publishes it)" Why is a blog inherently self-published? There's no inherent reason why blogs can't have fact checking, multiple writers and editorial oversight. In fact, some blogs have all of those.  A blog is just a method of publication in the sense that a bound book is a form of publication--there are no hard line requirements regarding reliability and acknowledging the spirit of a rule means evaluating a blog (As an example) based on whether it meets the general standards of reliability, not whether or not it fits on a short, black and white list of 'dos and don'ts.'  Arguing the to the letter of the policy (i.e. "letter of the law") is the opposite of going with the spirit  What do you think using spirit, as opposed to not using it, entails?  Please read WP:BURO and the places it links to to better understand what spirit means.   We accept journalists published in newspapers almost wholesale, even though they are certainly not experts, nor are their fact checkers (which are usually low level employees).


 * "The "spirit" of this section is quite clear in putting high standards on using these as sources and really only in the absence of other sources. In this case other sources are available" So the spirit is the exact wording of the section? I do really recommend reading the pages on this as you don't seem to understand what 'spirit' means--if that term is confusing, use 'descriptive interpretation' instead.  Spirit has NEVER meant to refer to specific details regarding an interpretation of a policy.   -Nathan J. Yoder 20:26, 9 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Addendum: I took a wiki-break to think it over. I will refrain from personal attacks as an act of good faith and be civil and will hope that you will do the same (I still think that you have been acting in bad faith and have been dishonest about me).  Please do try to directly address my arguments instead of making Ad nauseam arguments.  Simply asserting your viewpoint doesn't make your viewpoint correct, you need to support it, hence why saying things like "it's correct because it fits with my interpretation of policy" (and likewise parroting that policy) are counter-productive.  -Nathan J. Yoder 20:36, 9 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Actually he said Unfortunately, he is neither unquestionably notable to the subject nor unquestionably not. He is more notable than the average blogger, but not so much so that he has his own Wikipedia page. He isn't directly connected to IntelliTXT in any way other than having stated an opinion about it. My opinion from this: maybe he could be cited, but overall it seems a stretch. At best thats a 50/50 split on his opinion, but it really sounds like he's not supporting it as a citation. His proposed wording is then given as not including that blog as a citation, while it mentions him by name. Its a stretch to call the IP that added it support, because he didn't oppose its removal. ''Hello. I just added a reference to Ryan Block's article regarding IntelliTXT.
 * Hope this is okay. If not, just delete it, or move it to a more appropriate location.'' The only person actually supporting its inclusion is you. While, since we're counting IPs, an IP removed it,, Coolcaesar agreed with my interpretation of polices and guidelines in relation to it, and obviously I'm against it.
 * Do you have any scientific studies that use digg users as a representative population of the internet? You can't just call something like a representative sample where there is already evidence of diggs being bought and people using the "digg" button simply to bookmark something for later reading (especially if the site is down).
 * I'm not judging the accuracy of the content of the Digg post, just how accurate it is as a representation of how many people support the content. you're still judging accuracy. In fact you've said it twice now.
 * not random people who drop a single comment in and don't respond back. When you make requests for comments and third opinions this is what you will get most of the time on wikipedia.
 * Why is a blog inherently self-published? its a blog... that's ryan blocks personal site. Unless you can give evidence that there is a behind the scenes company who actually owns and publishes that content and edits and fact checks it, its self-published.
 * You continually say that my argument is repetitive but it seems you're able to do little else to defend your position but continually claim over and over that we should ignore the exact wording of the policy and go with our feeling how it really should be. You continually want to site WP:NOT over and over again but also continue to want to ignore several other sections of it. You also want to talk about spirit, yet ignore the spirit of WP:NOT, along with several other policies, as a whole. Request for comment is just that, request for a comment, not a debate. Yet you dismiss anyone who responded to it for not engaging in a debate but simply leaving their comment. You cling to WP:BURO like its a life preserver, yet I don't really the feel the spirit of that was to give anyone the license to ignore what policies say just because they don't really feel thats what they really mean. Lets talk about the spirit of WP:BATTLE, the spirit is to get along while editing, yet you clearly are ignoring offered compromises in favour of reverting articles. You also continue to make bad faith statements like this where you make assumptions about how others are giving their opinion with no evidence to support it. Just because they've disagreed with you doesn't mean they haven't read the talk page. This is also against the spirit of WP:BATTLE. So why don't you give some evidence that the ryan block blog should be cited in addition to or in place of the nytimes citation?--Crossmr 21:00, 9 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Why are you counting votes? You should know that's not what consensus (which is a back-and-forth discussion) is about.  I only bring this up because you continually assert that you're right because you've essentially had X number of votes.  You're moving the goal posts.  First you were opposed to including Block's opinion entirely, now it seems you're arguing that it can be included, just not with a link to the primary source.  CBD clearly isn't supporting you in excluding his opinion entirely.  " At best thats a 50/50 split on his opinion, but it really sounds like he's not supporting it as a citation."  He clearly said that he considers it on the usable side: "in this case I'd think it falls on the 'usable' side of the line. " and "but the attention paid to it by Information Week and Digg users make it so [notable] for these particular criticisms"  In terms of the citation, you're nit picking at best, because people checking the sources will likely want to read his post, which is linked from Information Week anyway, so excluding it just inconveniences the reader.


 * "Do you have any scientific studies that use digg users as a representative population of the internet?" Assessing weight given to a source has never required scientific studies. If it did, almost all of the content on Wikipedia would have to be deleted.  We have to rely on what information is available to assess how much weight a given population gives to a certain view and most often studies aren't available for this.  Furthermore, you ignored my point that if we applied your logic, IntelliTXT would have to be deleted.  After all, where's the study showing that more than a miniscule fraction of users have heard of IntelliTXT exist?


 * "You can't just call something like a representative sample where there is already evidence of diggs being bought and people using the "digg" button simply to bookmark something for later readin" This is just repeating yourself.  What reason would you have to believe that they were brought in this case?  Who the heck would pay for votes in a case like this?  Bookmarking implies interest in reading it.  What reason do you have to believe that such a large number of those votes are from people who just bookmarked it and actually consider it bad?  Digg wouldn't be so popular if the system was so horribly unrepresentative.


 * "you're still judging accuracy." So? I never said I was opposed to judging accuracy in general, just in the specified contexts. "When you make requests for comments and third opinions this is what you will get most of the time on wikipedia."  That doesn't mean it's a good thing.  " its a blog... that's ryan blocks personal site" You didn't answer my question.  I asked why _a_ blog is _inherently_ self-published in response to you saying "which a blog is, regardless of who publishes it."  You answered regarding Block's specific blog, not blogs in general, as per my question.  Block's specific blog is self-published, but blogs in general are not necessarily so.


 * "You continually say that my argument is repetitive but it seems you're able to do little else to defend your position but continually claim over and over that we should ignore the exact wording of the policy and go with our feeling how it really should be." That's a disingenuous reply; I've extensively defended my points on their specific merits as well as making an entire essay (on a different page) to defend my general point.  I argued why various sources should be considered reliable/notable/etc.  You've done very little in regards to supporting your argument on its merits.  Please do not engage in such blatant straw man arguments.  I said that we should go with a descriptive, not prescriptive approach (i.e. go based on the spirit of the rules).  I never said that we should go by anyone's feeling of "how it really should be," but rather, should be by how consensus was formed around the descriptive meaning of it.  I supported my stance of why my interpretation of the spirit was correct and asked you to clarify your own, but you didn't.


 * "You also want to talk about spirit, yet ignore the spirit of WP:NOT, along with several other policies, as a whole. " Please provide evidence to support this assertion and don't make naked accusations.  When I asked you about spirit, your reponse was to suggest that the spirit is the precise wording of the rules, which is the antithesis of the concept.  I've supported my views on what I consider the spirit of the various rules to be and clarified them, can you specify what you think spirit means beyond a to-the-letter interpretation of rules?


 * "Request for comment is just that, request for a comment, not a debate. Yet you dismiss anyone who responded to it for not engaging in a debate but simply leaving their comment." Are you seriously suggesting that it's a good thing that they engaged in the discussion as little as possible?  Is this an attempt to try to circumvent the need for a real consensus (a back and forth discussion)? I dismissed people who just dropped in to do nothing more than state their view (this is not a vote), especially if they didn't defend it and/or didn't read much the talk page.  Which do you think is better in garnering consensus: a debate between various different people or a few comments randomly dropped in with little or no defense of their viewpoint?


 * "yet I don't really the feel the spirit of that was to give anyone the license to ignore what policies say just because they don't really feel thats what they really mean." Then what was the spirit of it?  It definitely isn't "go by the precise wording of the rules and nothing else."  "Lets talk about the spirit of WP:BATTLE, the spirit is to get along while editing, yet you clearly are ignoring offered compromises"  This is the pot calling the kettle black.  Which compromises?  The "don't include the source at all" compromise?  In the PayPal article, you originally considered it a compromise to include a single sentence simply acknowledging that criticism existed and you repeatedly deleted a sentence instead of just rephrasing it--not exactly the best sign of someone ready to compromise.


 * "You also continue to make bad faith statements like this [13] where you make assumptions about how others are giving their opinion with no evidence to support it." You linked to the wrong thing.  Now you're violating WP:AGF.  It's not an assumption of bad faith to suggest that people haven't read much of the talk page. "Just because they've disagreed with you doesn't mean they haven't read the talk page. "  I never said disagreeing with me meant that they haven't read the talk page.  It was clear that the people responding from the RFC had read little, if any, of the talk page, especially considering the issue expanded beyond just a single website and their comments seemed hastily typed out.  Coolcaesar responded to the wrong section on one talk page and even said he had just come across it, meaning it's not likely he read through much of it, especially considering how much talk there was.


 * "So why don't you give some evidence that the ryan block blog should be cited in addition to or in place of the nytimes citation?" I already did, you just didn't like it.  Please present your reasoning supporting your assertion that the Info Week article would be inaccurate (i.e. counter-factual).  Are you denying that this establishes enough notability for his opinion as well (notability in terms of giving it due weight)? -Nathan J. Yoder 22:09, 9 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Whew, that was long. I think I'll drop all the portions of that not directly related to this article in here so I don't keep typing long replies like that.  Tomorrow or the day after I'll go over the articles and write out an addition to the page.  the NY Times article in particular includes a lot of information, not just the criticism.  I'll look through the articles for commentary on people filtering it too, to clarify the adblock sentence (adblock is very popular, but isn't mentioned by name so it will probably be removed).  -Nathan J. Yoder 22:22, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Why are you counting votes? You counted votes to demonstrate that the majority wasn't on my side. I was simply correcting your count and giving you the full count since you felt the need to do it. The "usable" thing he's referring to is the information week citation. Not the citation of the ryan block blog post. Do you understand the difference? I was only opposed to the use of ryan block's blog as a citation because there was no evidence given that he met the critera for inclusion as such. His opinion can be mentioned as cited by a proper source.
 * Its original research for you to draw a conclusion on the popularity of something based on some digg votes. There is no moderation of those votes and you have no idea if they're representative of anything. These aren't independently reviewed, verified and certified. Nor has there been any scientific research done in to how representitive the votes are in regards to popular opinion and notability within the general public. Digg wouldn't be so popular if the system was so horribly unrepresentative that's your opinion.
 *  Block's specific blog is self-published, but blogs in general are not necessarily so. so you admit the source is a self-published source yet refuse to provide evidence to demonstrate he meets the criteria for inclusion. If you'd like to discuss blogs in general and why they're inherently self-published, feel free to visit WP:RS and WP:V this is the talk page for the intellitxt article. Not a place for a general discussion of the place of blogs in wikipedia.
 * Please provide evidence to support this assertion and don't make naked accusations. I did, keep reading. It follows that statement. Are you seriously suggesting that it's a good thing that they engaged in the discussion as little as possible?  No, but the opinion is given. Whether they want to sit around and debate it until the cows come home, they've made their position clear and said what they've had to say. Its not your place to deem their opinion worthless because you don't agree with it. Nor is it your place to make judgments about what you think people have read and not read. Again you've repeated the bad faith assumption that people aren't reading the talk page to which you have no evidence to support that.
 *  I already did, you just didn't like it.  No you haven't. You've simply clung to WP:BURO to say that because we're not interpreting policy exactly he's not exactly disqualified. Notability doesn't make him reliable. Notability for one thing doesn't make him notable in relation to another subject. Reliability on one subject doesn't make someone reliable on another subject. The only policy and consensus you've cited to support yourself is WP:BURO which is extremely tenuous in building a case for inclusion.--Crossmr 22:41, 9 September 2007 (UTC)


 * "I was simply correcting your count and giving you the full count since you felt the need to do it." No you weren't. I only mentioned it after you brought up how many 'votes' you had.  You brought up the whole thing to begin with in an attempt to suggest that consensus is on your side, not me.


 * "Do you understand the difference?" WP:NPA, WP:CIVIL. "I was only opposed to the use of ryan block's blog as a citation because there was no evidence given that he met the critera for inclusion as such."  Then why did you include that explanation regarding the CMP legal disclaimer, suggestnig that it wasn't "perfectly acceptable" (due to preceived lack of editorial control)?


 * "Its original research for you to draw a conclusion on the popularity of something based on some digg votes." To quote you: "that's your opinion."  We've gone over this before--scientific opinion polls aren't required to assess things in relation to Wikipedia policies.  After all, where's the scientific opinion poll establishing notability of IntelliTXT itself?  How do you expect to assess notability or due weight without using your own judgment?


 * "you admit the source is a self-published source yet refuse to provide evidence to demonstrate he meets the criteria for inclusion." I have.  You disagreed with it.  Did you mean: "why don't you agree with my interpretation of the criteria"?  The criteria necessary is a matter of contention here.


 * "Not a place for a general discussion of the place of blogs in wikipedia." Then don't make generalized statements about blogs yourself.  It seems that generalizations are ok to discuss on article talk pages as long as it's you doing it. "I did, keep reading. It follows that statement."  You mean the bad link?  The link wasn't an edit history or diff link.


 * "Its not your place to deem their opinion worthless because you don't agree with it." I never said they were worthless, I said they don't constitute a consensus (nor dispute resolution) due to lack of discussion.  "Again you've repeated the bad faith assumption that people aren't reading the talk page to which you have no evidence to support that."  WP:AGF.  I can, in good faith, assesss that certain people haven't read most of the talk page, especially considering how long they are.  Their replies are the evidence.  People give indications of what they've read (i.e. "listenned to") based on how they respond.  Do you honestly have no view whatsoever to the extent which they've read the talk pages?


 * "No you haven't." That's a bad faith accusation.  What do you call the Information Week article that I found?  My original argument concering him being the chief editor of a major blog was also evidence.  Just because you disagree with the evidence, doesn't mean I didn't provide it.  "Notability doesn't make him reliable."  If an opinion is notable then it doesn't matter whether or not it's reliable, unless you want to argue that notable opinions should be excluded from Wikipedia.  Is the U.S. Constitution a reliable source?  Should we refuse to link to text versions of it?  As primary source material for something noted in Information Week, it can be included.  I also presented another argument concerning how it was in the spirit of RS to be included. "he only policy and consensus you've cited to support yourself is WP:BURO which is extremely tenuous in building a case for inclusion."  I gave extensive reasoning, but you cherry picked it and ignored the parts that your argument couldn't defend against.  Is WP:RS a policy or guideline?  I've asked you this several times and you didn't answer.  If it isn't policy, then reliable source criteria being included in WP:V as if it were policy represents a contradiction (it doesn't contradict if interpreted in the spirit of just clarifying by including a portion of a guideline as a guideline).  If it is policy, then it contradicts the community decided to label it a guideline as per consensus.  I'll drop this random personal stuff after this posting. -Nathan J. Yoder 23:50, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't have enough time and energy for this and the PayPal article, at least not for a while and since we've found some good sources for at least this one, it should be fine. the NYTimes and the adver-whatever site seem to have the most comprehensive articles. Remember they include more than just the criticism to add to the article. -Nathan J. Yoder 05:00, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Hey, Ryan Block here -- removed the mention of "What's Your View." I do not run it nor am I in any way shape or form affiliated with that site. I visited it and found no mention of IntelliTXT, which makes it look a whole lot like link spam. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ryanblock (talk • contribs) 01:12, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Hosts file advice doesn't actually work
Well, yes you can block a site from being seen by your browser using the hosts file.

However, it appears that each site that's infested with intellitxt gets its javascript files from a separate subdomain of intellitxt, such as Unix.us.intellitxt.com, and in the hosts files these have to be listed separately. Hosts file, at least on Windows, does not accept wildcards which might have addressed this.

There are folks supplying regularly updated hosts files to get around this... but all in all it's just a royal pain. Gwideman (talk) 12:50, 3 December 2009 (UTC)