User talk:Vanhorn

Daylight saving time
Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to make constructive contributions to Wikipedia, at least one of your recent edits did not appear to be constructive and has been reverted or removed. Please use the sandbox for any test edits you would like to make, and take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Eubulides 04:32, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Please see Talk:Daylight saving time. Eubulides 17:10, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

May 2009
Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute constructively 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 for advertising or promotion. Since 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 before reinserting it. Please take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. RashersTierney (talk) 09:43, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Please stop adding advertising or inappropriate external links to Wikipedia. It is considered spamming, and Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advertising. Thanks.  Will Beback   talk    10:55, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

qotd.org
I came here after you added a quote of the day link to Amelia Earhart. I was wondering if you had been adding such links to other articles, and I see that yes, you have. The qotd.org page is assembled from unverified bits including sources such as book reviews on Amazon.com and other places where user input is unverified. This means that qotd.org can get the quote wrong. If instead we apply the template Wikiquote, we get a collection of quotes that can be checked for accuracy and deleted or modified if they don't measure up. I see no place where qotd.org is an appropriate link except at its article page. Binksternet (talk) 23:11, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

While it is almost certainly true that there are quotes in the QOTD.org database that are in error, a diligent ongoing effort is made to eliminate them. Although I don't claim that the standards are as high as Bartlett's, the fact that I have three editions of that work on the shelf, along with another hundred others, is indicative of the care being taken. In addition to my own efforts, a set of quotes is mailed every day to about 12,000 readers, including such luminaries in the world of quotes as Mardy Grothe, Bob Kelly, and Anu Garg. As a result, incorrect attributions are quickly spotted. Any items credibly challenged on a Wikiquote page as misattributions are immediately removed. In short, QOTD is a valuable and credible resource, and improving.

I don't remember any Amazon reviews getting into the database, and there is no unverified user entry.

There are currently 7,741 authors listed in the QOTD database, but only 100 that have been elevated to the level of Notable Quotable and thus appearing on the www.qotd.org/authors.html page. Those are the ones that have received careful attention, and only those entries would ever be considered as a resource suitable to be an External Link on a Wikipedia page. Note that every one of these pages includes a link to the most suitable Wikipedia page, generally as one of two biographical sources.

I feel that as long as sites such as Find A Grave or IMDB are allowed that QOTD is relevant and worthy of inclusion.Vanhorn (talk) 00:30, 30 August 2009 (UTC)


 * The presence of Wikiquote kind of puts another twist on it, though. There is no WikiGrave or WikiFilm (so far), so what you have to offer is redundant. I will poll the usual crowd of interested editors to see if any particular qotd.org link is what they want, versus Wikiquote. Binksternet (talk) 01:41, 30 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Does Wikipedia intend to be the only information source online, or to deny that any others exist? Many of the external links on various pages are to biographical information. The existence of a biography on Wikipedia, which is what the Amelia Earhart or Ted Kennedy pages are, does not mean that every other biography is redundant. When preparing the short profiles that I run I always read every word of the Wikipedia page for that person, but I never stop there.


 * FYI, I am taking one of your comments to heart. Specifically, I am going to add a "report problem" link on at least a couple of the master pages of QOTD in hopes of accelerating discovery of bad entries. Believe me, as much as I want this resource to be available to Wikipedia users, I want it to be worthy of them.Vanhorn (talk) 02:23, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Amelia Earhart
I am reverting your recent additions to the article as inappropriate. The site in question is a commercial site that is not allowed as an external link in Wikipedia. Even though the quotes that are presented appear to be accurate and of value to the researcher, the very fact that they link to commercial sites makes them WP:SPAM. Please refer to the article talk page to discuss this issue of usage further. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 02:34, 30 August 2009 (UTC).

ArbCom elections are now open!
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