User talk:Ontopic

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. -- Rhobite 21:36, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Rhobite -- I am sorry for any confusion, I am not adding commerical links or links to my own private websites. I *have* been adding links to topic relevant dictionaries.

Ontopic 21:42, 19 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry, but going around adding links to the same site to multiple articles is almost always considered spamming. In addition, there is already a Wikipedia sister project building a dictionary: Wiktionary. --GraemeL (talk) 21:48, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm confused, the website in question appears to be using sub-domains to host unique topic websites. The closest analogy that comes to mind is About.com. I would appreciate better clarification since I am new to Wikipedia if thats ok? I should not include any dictionary links because they compete with the new wikitionary? Please help .. confused! Ontopic 21:52, 19 January 2006 (UTC)


 * You can imagine what it looks like when a new user begins adding hundreds of links to the same site from different Wikipedia articles. Wikipedia isn't a link directory - it's not appropriate to go around adding links to the same site in a wide range of articles. You also have a good point about Wiktionary. Wikimedia already has its own dictionary, and it is preferable to link to Wiktionary from articles instead of external dictionary sites. Rhobite 21:57, 19 January 2006 (UTC)


 * (Edit conflict with Rhobite) Not necessarily because they would compete with Wiktionary, it's just that mass addition of links is considered spamming. The policy can be seen here: External links. Oh, I meant to give you more links about our project to look at too. If you read through the standard template below, it should help you get started...

I've re-read the advertising, and I think GraemeL was refering to the section 5(3) Adding many links to (or mentions of) the same site or product. So please advise if I am correct in this assessment, because I am a new user (a user though, not an anonymous ip) and I added 16 links to what was percieved as a single website that my edits looked like Spam and got reverted? While I am a new user, I was adding only what I thought we're value add new websites. In the Art article I removed an External Link that was clearly Spam, does that link get re-added when my links were removed? Ontopic 22:09, 19 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Don't worry about it. You started adding links that were considered spam. You were warned about it. You stopped doing it when asked to. It's not going to get in the way of you making useful contributions in the future. A lot of new users make mistakes at first. --GraemeL (talk) 22:13, 19 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Oops, missed your second question. If Rhobite used admin rollback, then yes it would have been added back in. Nothing is stopping you from going back and removing the link again if you think it's not appropriate for an encyclopedia entry. --GraemeL (talk) 22:16, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I'll go check on that spam link then, last question is if after reviewing the documentation I feel that those links aren't spam should I simply limit myself in volume so no one confuses them with spam or is ita lost cause already so I should move on to new edits? Thanks for all the patience GraemeL and Rhobite while this is new to me, I'm sure you guys get the same issues over and over again. Ontopic 22:19, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
 * To be honest, I don't think that the site you're linking to is very useful. I clicked around for a while. Some of the dictionaries, such as the digital rights management dictionary, are broken. The baseball dictionary entries are pretty basic, and it doesn't look like it has much info that isn't already in Wikipedia/Wiktionary. There is also the issue that the dictionary site makes money from ad revenues. Even if it's not YOUR site, it would clearly make the owner some money if it was linked from hundreds of highly-visible Wikipedia pages. We try not to link to ad-supported pages if there is a comparable free resource. You mentioned about.com - that is another site that we don't usually link to. It is covered in ads and much of the info is redundant with Wikipedia. Rhobite 22:32, 19 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Believe me it's much easier when you stop and talk about it. The ones that keep on going until I block them and then email me are frustrating.


 * Moving on to new edits is probably the best option in the short term. Go through articles on subjects that interest you and check for errors or spelling mistakes. If all you are doing is adding external links, then you are probably going to get accused of spamming again. Best to wait until you get a better feel for the way things work and then decide if you still think the links are useful. I'll keep your page here on my watchlist for a day or so in case you have more questions, but don't hesitate to ask on my own talk page if you think of anything you want answered. --GraemeL (talk) 22:34, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for all the help guys. I think I have a better idea of what I should be trying to do then when I started. Thanks for your patience and time. Ontopic 22:45, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

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