User talk:Thekohser/2011

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Come gather ’round people wherever you roam And admit that the Kool Aid around you has phoamed — Preceding unsigned comment added by Come gather around (talk • contribs) 11:26, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Examiner.com


You have stated that you wanted to interview me about examiner.com, both via proxy on a post on my talkpage, and via wikipedia email (from en.wikibooks.org). Some quick points regarding the email and the post, which strikes me as odd in this (and I am sorry, I do not like the suggestions that I read from that), and I do think that should be read up to before you proceed:


 * Reliability of the site is not the prime issue with the site, the issues are different, and very well documented on-wiki, I would like you to read into that in full (they have been mentioned often in de-listing requests) before you ask any further questions or make suggestions. Your remarks clearly show that you did not take the effort to go to the bottom of this first.
 * Sites can contain reliable information (and I believe that information published on examiner.com is correct), but that does not automatically make them a reliable source. Please review the reliable sources guideline and the verifiability policy.

Looking forward to see more questions - but I'd like to mention that I would like to keep my part of this discussion transparent, and on this Wikipedia (as this issue is mainly on this wiki). I know you are banned here, and that you request my input via a proxy says enough, but I want to be allowed to re-post your questions here, and have the right just not to answer questions, and in my own time (although I think that my thoughts are very well documented, and I agree what others have posted about this on the spam blacklist / spam whitelist). --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:40, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

(2)

I am sorry for the tone of the earlier response - however, I interpreted your email and comments as, unintentional, insinuating that my responses regarding examiner.com, and the responses of others regarding examiner.com, and maybe even our reason for blacklisting, was purely based on the unreliability of the information on the site (whether or not true). Although it is sometimes a factor in blacklisting, it is hardly ever a single reason for blacklisting a site. It reads as a assumption of bad faith that the people who are active on the blacklists would use, for some strange reason (to manipulate information, or for personal pleasure?) the blacklist to do that. I must say, we may be hasty sometimes in blacklisting a site, and we do make mistakes, but AFAIK there is hardly ever the intention to abuse the spam-blacklist in such a way - and maybe it is me, and it is certainly not your fault, but I am getting annoyed by such insinuations, even when such insinuations are in a good faith. I know it was not your intention, and again I am sorry that I interpreted it as such, but before saying such things, I hope that editors do get a full idea of what was going on, or just plainly ask without showing a first conclusion (just as a question: did you consider the possibility that it was blacklisted because it was plainly spammed?)

It does not matter whether a site is a reliable site for certain information, or if a site is useful, if the spamming is uncontrollable it may result in blacklisting. Note that some sites which are systematically abused do have a proper place on Wikipedia, think of notable porn-sites - they should have a link on the page here on Wikipedia, should they not? However, some of the well known porn-sites have been used to replace the homepage of unrelated companies, school websites, etc. etc. We then have a choice 'this is a porn website which has a proper place on Wikipedia, it should be linked "here", however, we keep on reverting and reverting (and even a bot can't keep up reverting this - note that the external link reverting bot is pretty soft, so it would not keep mainspace clean - unless it is set to such strong forcing settings for the website, that it practically has the same effect as the spam-blacklist) other pages - this site is disrupting the use of Wikipedia almost constantly' .. do we then not have to blacklist and stop the disruption, or keep reverting and reverting (and reverting)? It is a grey area ... for every site.

Sure, if a site is generally (deemed) unreliable (or just not generally useful) then that certainly does not really help in keeping it away from the blacklist when it is spammed, but let me assure you, if one of the large news companies of the world would tell their people to create many accounts and use as many IPs as possible (they have people all around the world anyway) to push their links onto Wikipedia, then also those sites might manage to have their links blacklisted in the end. And we have had (and probably still have) sites of respectable companies blacklisted because of such uncontrollable abuse - it is the intention that makes the spam, not only the information that is linked to. We do not link because a company thinks that their sites should be linked, we do not link to all possible places about a subject - that is outside the goal of Wikipedia. And note, that there are many, many porn websites out there, which have never been added to Wikipedia (or it has not been detected yet), and which are hence not blacklisted. Blacklisting does still need a reason - spam or abuse.

Now examiner.com. As you mention, the blacklisting was performed in 2009. Basically, at that time the policy of the site was significantly different from now (and the original documents are .. gone - however, there is enough out there where this policy was discussed). Their policy was similar to Associated Content, Suite101 etc. But the blacklisting was mainly imposed since there were people, who submitted documents to the examiner (and hence, made money with those documents when they were read) who were adding the links to their own articles (and there are cases (some in later de-listing or whitelisting requests) that those were added solely for the reason to tunnel people to their articles so they were earning money with it - there is one specific case where an editor requests whitelisting because of '... trying to generate traffic, wouldn't you...' ). As I said, at that time, examiner.com was very open in accepting accounts, and that there was hardly any editorial oversight. I could make an account, and if I would have no criminal background, I would be able to post documents there (and it does not matter whether they are really true or correct ..), and when I then would make sure that they are linked from where ever on the web (and why not start with a popular website like Wikipedia?) then for every person that would follow the link I would get money (see the whitelisting request above). Also, examiner.com at that time did have a poor reputation of fact checking (and I do not know if that changed). Note that there were also accounts which seemed like they belonged to editors of the examiner personel themselves who were spamming the links (not mentioned in the first reports).

Regarding my remark '"offers web space to editors to publish anything, without any form of control on who is writing and/or editorial overview over what is written"?' - this is/was based on the old discussions regarding this site. I have re-done the research, and my opinion regarding this has changed. However, there are still remaining questions. I think that examiner.com would continue to improve, that a de-blacklisting, in the 'near' future, would likely be accepted. It would however still require discussions at the noticeboards and other forums here on Wikipedia to actually get there (e.g. the editorial oversight policy has been changed I see .. but does that also include the old stuff that was already there, and is it a form of editorial oversight that would pass our tests for that?). Note 'offers web space' -> I mean that as, that some sites make webspace available to anyone who wants to use webspace, and publish there (like a free web-host), not that they actually come to you and say 'here, webspace, now publish!'. I do believe that the risk that the site gets abused has seriously diminished.

By the way, it is your own choice that you will not answer here. You have the full possibility to answer here, your talkpage access has not been revoked. It is just that for the sake of transparency, I prefer to have this discussion here and in the open (as I do think that this might change our view of sites like examiner.com). I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:37, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

(3)

Thank you for your comments and friendly words.

Regarding your block - here is nothing that shows that you can't edit this page, that is what I based it on. Apparently it is locked on a higher level ..

Regarding your question. No, you misunderstand. There is a distinct difference. If you have a wikia.com wiki, and you link that here from Wikipedia, then you don't earn money directly (well, it is still a conflict of interest .. and you still should not do it, but well). However, the people of wikia.com earn money from it. If it were the owners of wikia.com that were placing the links, and those links were added inappropriately and/or for the wrong reasons, then yes, wikia.com would run the risk of being blacklisted. If wikia.com owners would strongly suggest the people who have the wikis (and those people do not get paid for it) to link from Wikipedia, then that might also become a reason to blacklist.

Note that wikia.com is removed pretty much, there is generally not much use for external wikis (Wikipedia is not a reliable piece of information .. smaller wikis are likely less reliable, so as a reference it is generally a nono anyway; and as external links they are also discouraged; but there are some exceptions). Spamming a single wikia-wiki, by the way will, and has, resulted in blacklisting of those specific wikia-wikis (there are quite some on our list).

Don't get me wrong, there is always someone that earns money with the external site (or at least, someone will get better from it when that site is linked and/or visited). The problem is not that we link to a commercial outside entity, it is the people who link, the reasons they link for, and what they link (see the whitelist-discussion I linked above - the target of that editor was certainly to earn money with linking to his document). If the owners of a site, or the people that have a financially benefit from linking a specific link, or the people do it because an external cause get better from it (and not necessarily the information on Wikipedia gets better from it) then that may be a problem. And then it does not matter whether it is a porn-site, a news network, a content farm ..

So from that, no, I do not think that all those links are spammed. However, there are wikia-wikis that were spammed (and those which were caught ended up on the blacklist). Now another difference is, that people involved with a wikia-wiki do not have the same incentive to spam .. they do not earn money with it. And that still remains one of the big problems with people that spam - they do earn money with it .. people hire companies to spam for them so they make money .. and spammers go far to get their links here so they can make money (see again the whitelisting request .. people request whitelisting just to be able to make money .. !).

It in the end gets into 'which shade of grey is it': how many documents get spammed on a site (or is it the main domain; on examiner.com a (persistent) spammer can make a new document .. virtually endless; on wikia you might get your main domain blacklisted .. you can make a new main-domain, but that is not going to be your preffered name .. not so nice as just renaming a document!), how useful/useless is it generally (in the past .. much of examiner.com was plainly not reliable, hardly any use - easy to solve that with specific whitelisting - for external wikis often the same applies, but other solutions still seem pretty viable), is it stoppable otherwise (do we get spammer2 to continue if we stop spammer1; which is likely true for wikia and examiner), can we keep a broad or a narrow rule (for wikia, we can narrow it down to specific wikis, for examiner.com .. difficult to catch specific documents, except if you create a huge list of blacklisted documents). It is never black or white (as I said earlier, a porn-site seems a pretty clear case of 'black' if it gets spammed .. but if the site is notable .. then it might warrant a link).

I hope this helps you further. --Dirk Beetstra T C 16:24, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

(4)

You're welcome. I hope it all helps. Last question, Greg? Thought there would be more to come (I was certainly anticipating some things).

Regarding interwikis. Those are a nightmare for those who fight spam to external wikis. Once one has their wiki on the interwiki list, one can spam it and hardly anyone notices. Sometimes we do see it, and then we request removal from the interwiki list, but still. Having it nofollow does not really sound right either (I did not know). Maybe worth a bug-report and an change in the software ....

Regarding nofollow. It helps a bit, it does not get ones sites higher up in search engines (that read nofollow ..), but that is about it. It still pays to have ones page here, with a link outside. The page gets indexed by Google (so if someone looks for 'company X', they will find your wiki page high up in Google) and then having the links prominently there still makes people follow it. And same goes for all of that, having links here may not help the Google ranking, it does help getting people into the website. And it does not matter if they sell porn, or if they are the webmaster of a non-profit museum, or someone who wrote some crap on a content-mill (not implying examiner.com here), or they want to help the poor kids in Far Far Away after Shrek accidentally crushed all their parents - they get their traffic by having the links here, and they either earn money, or they can show their boss that they are doing their work well (and need a raise or a better/newer webserver), or earn money, or get money for their good cause (respectively). And unfortunately we see all these cases coming by - and the website of a construction company is not a good external link on Wood, the link of the boulder in your museum is not a good link on Stone, the content-mill story on Albert Einstein is not adding anything to Relativity (theory), and the good-cause website is not a good link on Shrek (though all four might have their good places .. but if the editor is here to help Wikipedia, they would only place the link there!).

Now, we know that for every link someone makes money (already said that last time) - but it comes down to the intention ánd the benefit of Wikipedia (a grey area which is sometimes colliding massively!).

Regarding your question. Requesting that is pretty simple - you make your request on the spam whitelist page, requesting the specific link you'd like to use, and why you think that this document is needed (why do you consider it suitable, not replaceable by others, etc. - note that even with editorial oversight, I would certainly prefer a 'Journal of Grass', where specialists about grass have reviewed the article that proofs that grass is actually green, over an article on examiner.com, where some specialist (and is that specialist on examiner.com really the specialist that we think it is .. I do have an account on examiner.com - not on the same name I use here!) wrote just that same info, which was reviewed by another one who may be knowledgeable in plants, but not necessarily on grass ..), where it is needed, etc. And you don't even have to be thát established, if you are making a serious request stating the use, that it is not-replaceable etc. may very well get your link whitelisted, even if it is only your 2nd edit. De-listings are generally harder, for that you do need to be quite established - it is always striking that you find links that are there for 5 years, no-one ever bothered to request de-listing, and then a new account with absolutely no edits pops up and requests de-listing .. it may be a case of 'assuming bad faith', but that is likely someone who would benefit by a) not having it on the blacklist, or b) who would like to spam it .. if you are indeed 'new' and want a site delisted, then it is better to first find some editors who are interested in using your site, and see if they will help you get it de-listed (for en.wikipedia, e.g. via a WikiProject). If you want more success, than that is the way to go. It is always better to have a discussion with other specialists first (the editors on the whitelist are not the specialists on the subject you want to use the link for ..), if you have that, your de-listing or whitelisting will be almost instantaneous (well .. there are not enough people working in the field .. you may still have to wait days/weeks before it gets processed).

Hope to hear more. Can you mail me a link to the article when it is published, I'd like to a) read it. --Dirk Beetstra T  C 08:31, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

(5)

Thank you for the friendly words, strange, I did not expect that you would find most Wikipedians not to be level-headed, objective and reasonable. I think most actually are ..

When you set your mind to it, you can get your account on Examiner. Wikipedia is easier, but SEO techniques there are also widely blogged outside Wikipedia (make an account, be a nice and brave Wikipedian for some time, edit positively, and then, slowly, start incorporating your own stuff to get your spam through, create an article for your company .. if you know the rules, things can be done).

Regarding other questions - no, should is maybe a bit strong .. though could maybe too soft. I expected e.g. something about whether sites (content-mills but also others) could prevent being completely blacklisted (but maybe you already got ideas about that). --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:19, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

(6)

Regarding the last mail - I think that it is a case of WP:EL/WP:BOLD/WP:IAR/WP:BRD/WP:BURDEN. We don't link because someone thinks that it is a good link - if something gets challenged, it first needs discussion and a formed consensus for inclusion. And that is what I say above: for certain domains, if blocking one editor or one IP is not solving the problem (as there are more users on thát specific IP or the 'spammer' can just change IP and continue), and if protecting one page is not solving the problem (which would disable every non-autoconfirmed and IP editor in the lowest protection level - it is easy to get an autoconfirmed account and still be able to 'spam'), then the spam blacklist is then automatically a last resort (in some cases the edit filter may be an intermediate, sometimes User:XLinkBot can help - but the former is limited, and the latter is sometimes simply not strong enough against persistence). Moreover, spam blacklisting is not by definition permanent (blacklisting can be used to enforce said discussions). I know that having a domain on the blacklist makes the domain look bad, while actually it should be the editors who abused the domain who should be ashamed... --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:14, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

(7)

No, that is not what I said (see also examples higher up in this section). No further comments on this specific situation via this forum. --Dirk Beetstra T C 14:12, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

(8)

Did not really want to discuss this item further, so only two very short answers: 'the latter option' and 'Hmm .. probably yes, might have tried one or two other things first, but not sure if that would have worked anyway (and all would have collateral damage, this may be the least of them)'. --Dirk Beetstra T C 07:57, 27 May 2011 (UTC)