User talk:Thomherfs

Do not linkspam Cigar again, please. Zanaq 21:46, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I did not linkspam Cigar. I added external links that have value and are well established cigar sites.

Linkspam is done to benefit small sites or sites that don't update regularly and that need a boost in the search engines. A couple of the sites that you have repeatedly included fit the linkspam definition perfectly. Each of the sites you keep removing already ranks high in Google and other search engines. That's not linkspam. It is augmenting the information in the article and providing valuable resources.

You ask on your page that a specific case be pointed out where links you removed added value. I will point out several. I will also point out why the links you choose to include are at best of lesser value, and in a couple of cases are outright linkspam.

You include links to a very small blog, a small forum, the main cigar pass site, a semi-defunct information site that hasn't updated in months, and to two of the three U.S. cigar magazines. This is "sites that add value?"

You exlude Cigar Cyclopedia, one of the major industry resources for price and brand information and one of the most valuable and legitimate resources on the net for cigar information. Most of the places you list links to cite Rich Perelman and include his information on their sites. Why is he excluded?

You exclude the About.com Cigar site owned by the New York Times that maintains very high journalism standards. Instead, you include a site that hasn't posted an updated article since February 27, 2006 nor a cigar review since March 5, 2004 and has an rss feed that is just industry press releases. How did you make that decision and where is the value there?

You exclude the Internet Cigar Group--one of the largest and oldest cigar forums on the net, yet you include the small forum Cigarzilla (97 registered members, 673 total posts--nothing wrong with Cigarzilla, mind you, just not the single forum that most people would select as the only forum to link to). You also exclude the usenet Cigar discussion group, which antedates everything else listed here and is still going strong. Why none of the major cigar forums?

You exclude Smoke Magazine, the oldest cigar-related U.S. magazine, but you include Cigar Aficionado and JR Cigar's Smoke. Why that omission, and why include any of the cigar magazines at all if your resource section is going to be so limited?

You exclude all blogs except for one single blog that has only been around since May 13, 2006(!) and has a total of only 10 articles published to date. Why is that blog included? Why are all other blogs removed by you?

Why are you removing all of these resources that are much older, highly respected and authoritative, and listed just about everywhere on English-language cigar sites that include lists of cigar resource pages, and only including a small handful of much less authoritative sites? What basis are you using to make your decisions on what adds "value" to the cigar article?

What you are doing looks, to a long-time cigar smoker who has visited most of the cigar sites for the last several years to be blatant and rather militant linkspam in favor of a couple of small sites, one site that should be disappearing from the search engines since it doesn't update, and a couple of commercial magazines. I'm sure that is not your intention.

What criteria are you using to decide which links you allow to remain on the cigar article page? Thomherfs 01:32, 25 May 2006 (UTC)