User talk:Bblanchard

I appologize if anyone took my additions as spam, they were not intended to be.

1) Real estate appraisal contains a section for common software used. This section has valid links to competing software producers. It even contains one definition for a software provider. I tried to respectfully follow suite with this convention.

2) Appraisal Management and Appraisal process are both topics that have no consistent defintion from region to region and even copany to company. I would like to have the wiki readers assist in defining these more consistently.

Under each of these scenarios, I have followed the guidelines set forth by wikipedia and have no intention of using this system for spam. However, if the standard is to include examples of providers, I would expect to be included. To continue with the existing links and not allowed the addition of my own would not be spam blocking but discrimination of who is or is not promoted within wikipedia.

Bblanchard 21:08, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi - firstly removing warnings from your user page can be considered vandalism so you should probably bear that in mind although I do realise it may well have been unintentional.  I have also posted details of your links to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam for the opinion of others with experience in this field.  I will not revert the links (although I still view them as spam) until we have a further opinion.  The other links I will look at as soon as I have time.  -- Nigel  (Talk) 11:31, 17 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Essentially what I'm going to say is that Wikipedia doesn't need more links.
 * It's frowned upon to add links to your own site or information about things with which you are involved. (This is reflected in Autobiography and External links.) This is because editorial standards require that the encyclopedia contain neutrally-selected information, and it's simply not possible for someone with a vested interest in a site to make a neutral decision on behalf of Wikipedia and all its readers.
 * More importantly, Wikipedia isn't for promotion. Often an article will include examples of what the article is discussing, but this is intended to help illustrate, not promote. If you've mistaken example listings as promotion, then it's likely that some of those have been spammed in the past without being caught and should be removed, not that more should be added. Nine of ten times that a link could be added to Wikipedia it doesn't actually need it. The community opinion is that Wikipedia benefits from more prose—having links in an article beyond a few key high-quality and high-relevance ones actually degrades the quality of an article because it obscures the most relevant and valuable information. Case in point: the link you've added is only one of many hundreds or even thousands of companies, and it is of regional interest. Our British readers (for instance) don't benefit by having the link in a general article on a subject that is not US-specific. &mdash; Saxifrage ✎ 20:17, 17 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Saxifrage and NigelR,

Thank you for your feedback. I appologize if my link is considered spam by wiki readers. Please remove this link as well as the other "Common Software" links. Each of these is a similar spam. I have added Real estate appraisal, Appraisal Management, and Appraisal process to my watchlist. If i notice links on these pages, how do I go about reporting spam?

Bblanchard 14:28, 21 August 2006 (UTC)


 * No problem - & no need to report them - just delete them (if you don't someone else is likely to catch them but you probably will know better than some of us) - all the best --Nigel (Talk) 14:40, 21 August 2006 (UTC)


 * In addition to NigelR's comments above, feel free to report instances of spam which you need help or guidance on to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam (as you did when discussing this matter). One of us will be happy to help. If you run across articles with a lot of spam that you don't feel comfortable removing yourself, you can also add the tag cleanup-spam to the appropriate section to flag the article for further review. Cheers! --AbsolutDan (talk) 15:45, 26 August 2006 (UTC)