User talk:SteveJonesMO

May 2012
Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute to the encyclopedia, one or more of the external links you added 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 constructively to this encyclopedia. Thank you. Syrthiss (talk) 15:41, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Please do not add inappropriate external links to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a collection 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 attract visitors to a web site or promote a product. See the external links guideline and spam guideline for further explanations. Because Wikipedia uses the nofollow attribute value, its external links are disregarded by most search engines. If you feel the link should be added to the article, please discuss it on the article's talk page rather than re-adding it. Thank you. Syrthiss (talk) 15:52, 23 May 2012 (UTC)


 * What are you talking about? OnTimeZone.com is not spam.  It has great time zone detail, unavailable anywhere else I am aware of.  It is fully and anonymously available to all.  OTZ is simply the most accurate and detailed source of time zone data for North America.  I have spent hundreds of hours on it and make it available for free.  People who come to Wiki pages about a specific north american time zone are very likely to benefit from my research.  I cannot conceive of how this is an inappropriate link, and don't care about search engines or 'nofollow'.  Again, ontimezone.com is not commercial.  It is just a sorely needed resource for accurate and detailed data about time zones in north america.  Did you even look at the page before you deleted the link???SteveJonesMO (talk) 16:02, 23 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Did you read the links above? Whether the site is commerical or not, wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of external links.  When we see someone doing what you did, which is only editing the encyclopedia to add a link, we tend to put them into the 'spammer' box rather than the 'this person is adding valuable information to our encyclopedia articles'.  If you felt that I was comparing you to some buygoldnow.com kind of spammer than my apologies.  All that said, if you do feel that your link is a valuable resource that should be included on all / any of the wiki articles on time zones then perhaps you could post at Talk:Central Time Zone (North America) and say exactly what you said above ("It has great time zone detail, unavailable anywhere else I am aware of.  It is fully and anonymously available to all.  OTZ is simply the most accurate and detailed source of time zone data for North America.  I have spent hundreds of hours on it and make it available for free.  People who come to Wiki pages about a specific north american time zone are very likely to benefit from my research.") and request that it be added.  If the editors there agree that it is acceptable, then likely it would be acceptable to all the time zone pages.  Regards, Syrthiss (talk) 16:18, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Sure, I can go that route. Make the guy trying to offer his work for free jump through hoops for the privilege.  But my site is not just a unrelated or loosely related resource that could be logically lumped in with an "indiscriminate collection of external links".  I read the linking requirements and see nothing there that would lead me to believe my addition of OnTimeZone.com to the links was anything other than totally appropriate.  If I am mistaken on that point, I will be happy to follow the process you mention without complaint (or just forget about the whole thing and deprive the community of the benefit of my work).  What's really insulting about this is I am left with the strong impression that your action was taken without taking the time to see the resource before deleting my update.  Wikipedia benefits from good moderation, but when it becomes arbitrary that benefit is threatened.SteveJonesMO (talk) 17:11, 23 May 2012 (UTC)


 * You might want to review WP:AGF while you are at it. I made the assumption that you were trying to improve the encylopedia and just were ignorant of our policies on links.  I removed your links, and left you a notice that informs you of the policies, and advised you on how to seek approval for your edits.  You are making the assumption that I am not also seeking to improve the encyclopedia, and that I did not pursue due diligence.  I do not often follow links that are being spammed into the encyclopedia, and I am not asking you to 'jump through hoops'. I am suggesting that editors on specific articles may have more insight into the value of your site and can locally override the general proscription of external links.  Make no mistake, I am not some final word in whether your links can be included.  You can go re-add them to any of the articles that I removed them from, and I will not remove them.  I just ask that if another editor does remove them that you consider the above approach and do not edit war to include them.  At the end, I had and have no intention of insulting you whether you choose to believe that or not.  I will not be responding here further. Syrthiss (talk) 17:56, 23 May 2012 (UTC)