User talk:Caydel

AfD Discussion

Please remain civil when responding to other users. Your recent comment concerning another user's contribution to the discussion in the AfD for Barry Schwartz (technologist) are not helpful to discussing the issue at hand. Thanks. ju66l3r 20:51, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Your blog and AfDs

Hi. I saw your blog entry:

Wikipedia Editors Attempt to Delete Articles About Major SEO Personalities

Hi. I see you're fairly new to Wikipedia. Canvassing to influence an AfD is viewed very negatively. It's against a guideline, the "Canvassing" part of the Spam Guideline. Like some other guidelines, the wording in the guideline tends to change back and forth with various debates -- sometimes it's very hard-line, sometimes it's wishy-washier. Nevertheless, at a practical level, "votestacking" tends to really bother a lot of editors and probably drives more comments against your point of view than for it.

Also, these things are not exactly votes -- the closing admin makes the final decision. Comments by new editors or by existing editors with very few edits are heavily discounted in the decision, especially if there's been any canvassing.

I thought you'd want to know this. --A. B. ^(talk) 13:09, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi A.B.

I would appreciate it in the future if you would not post parts of my copyrighted material without my written consent. Your note above has been edited to reflect this.

Additionally, I was not attempting to influence votes. Rather, I was asking the wider community to contribute popular press mentions concerning the persons mentioned within the post so that proper notability may be established according to Wikipedia's unofficial guidelines.

Thank you.

Caydel 23:09, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

First, I'm surprised about the copyright violation comment. It's not clear to me you've got a strong case there:

given the feeds you're making available
fair use doctrine

Be that as it may, my goal was to try to help you avoid a lot of hassles, not give you "shit" as you put it in your blog. The fact is that, rightly or wrongly, there are editors who would construe your blog post as votestacking. I'm not one of them.

Finally, I'm hardly your enemy as you'll note that I supported the retention of both the Schwartz and Cutts articles.

--A. B. ^(talk) 23:38, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The feeds are made available for a user to read, not to post across the internet. I will make sure to include the terms and conditions on my site in the future.

I am a bit put out that you would construe my writing as attempts at votestacking. I was merely attempting to bring the community in the provide proof of notability. I can not see why an editor would have a problem with that or not; if the proof doesn't exists, nothing I write will make it exist. On the flip side, if there is proof of notability which has not yet been found, is it not better for the community that it be brought forward?

As you say, right or wrong, that is the view of the editors. Doesn't that indicate a problem in the system? Caydel 14:11, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, my primary motivation was to head off trouble for you, Cutts and Schwartz. As I wrote above, "I'm not one of them." I just don't know how to make it any clearer than that. Go talk to Jdevalk if you have doubts about my motivations. Go look at my comments in these AfDs.

Second, I've seen enough AfDs about enough topics to see what happens when people perceive any whiff of votestacking. Reverse psychology kicks in and votes run in the other direction. The same thing happens when someone authors their own article -- it produces an innate bias. These things can be surmounted in most cases where there's an open and shut case to keep an article. But if it's a near-run thing, it's problematic.

Third, as to a problem in the system, well there are lots of problems in the system here -- it's the very nature of something like Wikipedia. Wikipedia is producing a comprehensive collection of human knowledge. It's gone from an obscure nothing 3-4 years ago to one of the most influential sources of information in the world. Every process here was worked out the hard way using what are effectively bulletin boards. It's amazing to me to see how well it all works, but I'm involved enough here to know all the flaws and limitations too.

In the case of SEO-related AfDs, there's a fuzziness in understanding which web-only media to include as reliable sources for establishing ntoability. It's much easier to do with paper-based media, partly because the financial hurdles involved in putting out a magazine force them to go through more hoops to gain readers and pay their bills. If Matt Cutts appears in the NY Times, it's easy. If he is featured in an SEO site, well it's hard to tell. So much of the SEO world is web-only that this creates some issues.

Notability is pretty important. Wikipedia does not have too much content but it likely has too many articles. More content in fewer articles would facilitate better monitoring of the articles that are out there and keep the quality up. There are about 1.6 million articles and many are not watched by more than one or two editors. See "John Seigenthaler Sr. Wikipedia biography controversy" for the ultimate Wikipedia nightmare.

Finally, I've seen a lot of stuff within the SEO world about conspiracies within Wikipedia against SEO people . As long as they don't spam Wikipedia, they're welcome.

You'd be surprised: there are some full-time SEO folks that are high volume editors here. There are even more editors that have spent a lot of time on white hat SEO work as part of their broader work as webmasters.

One rich irony -- you've now got Danny Sullivan, someone whose work I follow closely (and have paid for) -- all riled up in his blog about A. B. --A. B. ^(talk) 15:02, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers, --A. B. ^(talk) 14:49, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A.B. - I am not discounting your motivations or ethics. I just feel that you very much misunderstood my post, accused me of votestacking and campaigneing, although as we both know, it's not about votes. As far as my intentions go, it was to draw on the community in order to find the necessary references for notability.

I am willing to admit that maybe I reacted a little to harshly to your misunderstanding, and apologize for that, yet I still hold it was a misunderstanding on your part nonetheless.

The way I see it, you accused me on some charges that are blatently untrue. I am not accusing you of doing so intentionally, but I hope you can understand why I was a little upset over the issue. I am willing to accept that you made this recommendation to me under the best of intentions, and hold no further ill will towards you.

Why don't we leave it as water under the bridge - I know we both have better things to do than hold a grudge over this matter. If you are coming to SES Toronto this spring, perhaps I could buy you a beer to settle this issue?

-- Caydel 23:16, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]