User talk:Ktsparkman

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. Khoikhoi 06:35, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

January 2011
Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute to the encyclopedia, one or more of the external links you added to the page Cave diving do not comply with our guidelines for external links and have been removed. Wikipedia is not a collection of links; nor should it be used as a platform for advertising or promotion, and doing so is contrary to the goals of this project. Because Wikipedia uses nofollow tags, external links do not alter search engine rankings. If you feel the link should be added to the article, please discuss it on the article's talk page before reinserting it. Please take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you. RexxS (talk) 05:38, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

This is your last warning; the next time you insert a spam link, you may be blocked from editing without further notice. Persistent spammers may have their websites blacklisted, preventing anyone from linking to them from all Wikimedia sites as well as potentially being penalized by search engines. ''As all of your many edits are simply adding a single external link (in other words, spamming) and you've been doing it since 2009, I am going to just automatically upgrade this to a level four. Please quit and focus your editing to more productive endeavors.'' 132 20:08, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

As a note though, if you work for the DEP or one of the state parks, you might want to refrain from adding the links, as a Conflict of Interest may arise. Your username suggests a connection with parks, and it's generally frowned upon to add links to an organization with which you are affiliated. The single-purpose nature of your edits combined with your username was probably what attracted the other editor's notice, as such combinations are often used by spammers.  Horologium  (talk) 15:12, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I have dropped a note on thirteen squared's user talk about this issue. Going through and systematically adding links to related articles is often the hallmark of a spammer, but in this case the links are appropriate links to an appropriate governmental source (in this case, it's operated by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, so there is no violation and there should be no repercussions to adding the link as appropriate.

Guidance
As all of your contributions to date have involved either adding or modifying external links to articles, I'd suggest you thoroughly examine our guidance at WP:External links, in particular the following: Hopefully, you can see that our intention is for a Wikipedia article to be written as self-contained as far as possible. If you feel that an external site contains material that belongs in our article, then please expand the article in your own words and use the external site as a reference. If the external site has material such as images or videos that cannot be incorporated into our article, then an external link may be appropriate, but it should be annotated as above to indicate its purpose. Hope that helps. --RexxS (talk) 17:37, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
 * "Some external links are welcome ... but it is not Wikipedia's purpose to include a lengthy or comprehensive list of external links related to each topic. No page should be linked from a Wikipedia article unless its inclusion is justifiable according to this guideline and common sense. The burden of providing this justification is on the person who wants to include an external link."
 * "External links should not normally be used in the body of an article."
 * "Links in the External links section should be kept to a minimum."
 * "What should be linked: Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that is relevant to an encyclopedic understanding of the subject and cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to copyright issues, amount of detail (such as professional athlete statistics, movie or television credits, interview transcripts, or online textbooks), or other reasons."
 * "Links normally to be avoided: Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a featured article."
 * "External links should identify the link and briefly summarize the website's contents and why the website is relevant to the article."

October 2011
Please stop adding inappropriate external links to Wikipedia, as you did to urban sprawl. It is considered spamming and Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advertising or promotion. Because Wikipedia uses nofollow tags, additions of links to Wikipedia will not alter search engine rankings. If you continue spamming, you may be blocked from editing Wikipedia. -- Orange Mike &#x007C;  Talk  16:14, 18 October 2011 (UTC)