User talk:Glassmaster

Please do not add commercial links &mdash; or links to your own private websites &mdash; to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advertising or a mere collection of external links. See the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia. Thanks.

With that said-

Welcome!

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--Heah talk 05:52, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

re:email
Hi glassmaster, thanks for the email. generally people respond on the talk page of the person they are responding too, but some people prefer to keep the conversation where it started- as a page you edit is automatically added to your watchlist, you will generally see a response if that's how it's done. So either way works, as does email, but with talk pages other people can join in the conversation if they so desire.

As for your site, i don't deny that there is certainly informative content on that site in addition to buying options. However, if you read WP:EL, the guideline for what external links on an article should be, your site doesn't cut it for the following reasons, from the what should not be linked to section:


 * In general, any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article here would have once it becomes an example of brilliant prose. Information on your site does have more extensive research than appears in the wikipedia article on topics such as what yerba mate is, how to use it, benefits from it and cautions of use; however, this is all information that should ideally be in the article itself.
 * Links that are added to promote a site, by the site operator or its affiliates. from your email it seems clear that even if this is not your primary reason for adding the links, it certainly is a reason.
 * Sites that primarily exist to sell products or services.
 * and most importantly, in this situation, trumping any debate of the above: A website that you own or maintain (unless it is the official site of the subject of the article). If it is relevant and informative, mention it as a possible link on the talk page and wait for someone else to include it, or include the information directly in the article.

If you read WP:EL and WP:SPAM you'll see that commercial sites are to be avoided at all costs; we don't seek to find a happy medium between commercial sites and academic/etc sites. people can use google for finding stores, they don't need wikipedia. We aren't here to provide that sort of information.

As to the removal of your sites and not the others, I can assure you that in no way were you being targeted. what often happens is that a site will be linked to for a long time and no editors have bothered to check it, assuming it's ok as it's been there so long. However, with an article on your watchlist, every edit comes up, so when new sites are added, they get checked out. Its actually a problem that has been discussed recently on various talk pages. I apologize for my oversight, and thank you for pointing out the commercial nature of the other links. They shouldn't be there either and i will remove them soon.

So, again, we are happy to have you aboard here at wikipedia, and i sincerely hope you stick around and make constructive edits. unfortunately there just isn't any place here for commercial links. Thanks for getting in touch and thanks for understanding.

happy editing! --Heah talk 04:14, 17 January 2006 (UTC)