User talk:Countryst

Welcome!

Hello,, 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 Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place  on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! Please do not add inappropriate external links to Wikipedia. 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. --Rockero 20:20, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
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Please do not add inappropriate external links to Wikipedia. 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. Mwanner | Talk 15:17, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Please stop adding inappropriate external links to Wikipedia. It is considered spamming, and Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advertising. Thanks. Mwanner | Talk 15:19, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Your email message
You wrote: "I got a message from you and wasn't sure what it was about exactly. I added some news information about Charlie Robison, Carrie Rodriguez and Little Big Town and a few others this week. I like to think that the info is helpful to Wikipedia readers along with an occasional link to external sights that are directly related to the page or cleaning up some of the grammatical errors already posted at Wikipedia to make it more user friendly to readers."


 * You have added links to countrystandardtime.com to more than a dozen articles today, and several dozen more since September. This is WP:Spamming, and will not be tolerated.  We do value your additions to the contents of these articles. -- Mwanner | Talk 16:46, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

You wrote: "I'm a bit unclear though about the policy. For example, on Billy Currington's listing, a link was added to Country Standard Time which contains a CD review or concert review. Yet there is also a link from the guy's record label right above that. I'm not quite sure why that's permissible. Or maybe it's not and no one from Wikipedia has seen it. I notice there are links to All Music Guide all over Wikipedia - isn't that selling people to the All Music Guide in the hopes that they'd buy it?"
 * Yes, there are plenty of commercial sites in our External links sections. And yes, many of them are there simply because no one has noticed the link yet.  And yes, it is confusing-- for starters, there is a major distinction between sites that actually sell things, and those that simply carry advertising.  But even that isn't all that clearcut, because the New York Times is generally accepted, yet it offers prints of its photos for sale.
 * However, intent also matters-- see WP:EL. In your case, its pretty clear from your edit history that you have an interest in promoting countrystandardtime.com.
 * It's also appears to me that some of your site's material is a pretty good fit to what an external link ought to be. So here's my suggestion-- don't add your site to an article without first making a serious effort to improve our article, even to the point where adding your link no longer makes sense.  But for those articles where your site has the kind of detail that doesn't really fit an encyclopedia article, go ahead-- add your link.
 * I should warn you though-- there's always a chance you'll trip someone's spam radar as you did mine, and they'll go back and yank all your links again. I think, though, that if you have made a sincere effort to do at least as much good for our articles as for your site, you'll be OK.  I guarantee, though, that if you go back to adding a string of links in a row with little or no work on the articles, someone will come along and undo it all
 * So I would suggest that you read our policies, and then decide whether you want to put in the kind of work it would take to be making a good-faith effort to comply.  Hope you decide to stick around-- we do need good editors.  Cheers! -- Mwanner | Talk 19:43, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

One other suggestion-- you'd be better off linking directly to the Featured Article page than to the directory page that starts the article. This is because if an editor looking at your stuff is working quickly, their first impression of your link is that it's nothing worth linking to-- if you miss the continuation arrow, it looks like a little fluff piece. Besides, doing so will strengthen your case that your not just in it for the exposure. (And you could make sure that the Featured pages all have a link back to the home page.) Just a thought. -- Mwanner | Talk 19:57, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Invitation
Do you like Rascal Flatts is so you have been invited to my Rascal Flatts contest. ''To enter my contest and to see official rules click here. Why did you email me about Rascal Flatts?