User talk:Matthew of cambridge
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. OhNoitsJamie Talk 16:50, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
@"Ohnoitsjamie": I've done my best to understand what you're referring to (have just read most of the relevant sections of articles on SPAM, COI, "Warning Spammers", "External Links", "Identifying Reliable Sources"...) - and I still don't understand where you're coming from:
- I'm clearly a relative novice, yet besides "warning" me via a TEMPLATE on my talk page, you've apparently chosen to use the more terse and less "welcoming" warning template. Surely an editor of your experience should know there's another option? This is contrary to Wikipedia's instructions, as pointed out to you previously by another person already (see your own Talk page). My recent edits include explanations of why I made those edits, but you still appear to be communicating on the presumption that my edits have been done in bad faith!
- The articles I linked to are highly original and encyclopaedic; and where there is anything on linked articles that might be considered "opinion", it's thoroughly backed up with irrefutable data, clear and technically detailed explanations or reasonably solid mathematical equations. There is no advertising whatsoever on the websites I linked to (let alone linked pages). There are no conflicts of interest whatsoever (I'm not promoting any of my own products at all, and it's COSTING ME money to provide this additional resource to Wikipedia). I have probably 10x more links pointing TO Wikipedia than I had from Wikipedia to my own sites, and none of my links citing Wikipedia are "nofollow" links (all my links are the sort that DO boost Wikipedia in search engines.) I have never expected any personal benefits from my Wikipedia edits, whatsoever: they have all been done 100% purely for the benefit of the wider community.
- You appear to have removed ALL of my links en-masse, without individual consideration to the merits of any of them! At least, if you did consider them on their merits, you have provided me with no evidence of having done this (I've looked on the discussion pages of the articles in question, in addition to your Talk page and mine - do correct me if I'm wrong, as I'm relatively new around here and might have missed something). This mass removal of links has been done despite the fact that I'd only put a very small number (three or four) of carefully considered links on Wikipedia where the presence of each one, in my opinion, clearly improved each article it was appended to, by providing a valuable supplementary resource for your readers, worth the extra "clutter" from another link. (It appears your opinion differs to mine, but still, you have provided me with no explanation of your rationale, or whether you applied any discretion to individual links!)
If you'd cared to check before spamming my Talk page with a template and vandalising all my links (and I'm sure you have means of checking, since you're an expert); you would have seen that all of my edits have been very conservatively done (after reading all the official guidelines I could get my hands on before doing it). Granted, I'm linking to a few sites that I control, but after very careful consideration, and only in cases where the content justifies it, and does not clearly violate any of Wikipedia's editorial standards.
I'd be very happy to be proven wrong - or, to receive any sort of explanation as to why you've done this. I notice that explanations have been forthcoming to precious FEW of your previous victims. Until I receive such an explanation; I'll continue to find your approach totally obnoxious and unacceptable - very unlikely to motivate me to continue making positive clarifying edits on Wikipedia articles; in fact, far more likely to try reporting you to someone who can do something about YOUR behaviour on here which is obviously turning away many good "customers". But I'm willing to give you another chance first. Care to explain yourself?
Matthew of cambridge (talk) 22:06, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
- See WP:EL and WP:COI. Wikipedia is not a vehicle to promote your blog, period. OhNoitsJamie Talk 23:40, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
I've already reviewed WP:COI! Where's the "Conflict of Interest" when I'm not using any of the linked pages for personal benefit at all? I've already read WP:EL in some detail.
According to WP:EL (which you cite regularly, judging by your talk page):
- "What to link" : my links meet ALL of the criteria listed in this section, which states, "Each link should be considered on its merits, using the following guidelines"...
- "Links to be considered", Item 2: "Very large pages, such as pages containing rich media files, should be considered on a case-by-case basis." Some of my work (such as that on Reaganomics) can be considered too large for inclusion in Wikipedia, and too inclusive of rich media files. Other works such as this: Angle between surfaces of a pyramid - pyramid angle calculator - include server-side scripting (for a specialised scientific/engineering calculator) that cannot be implemented by editors in Wikipedia, in any case (show me how?). Hence why I've produced it on an external page and LINKED to it from Wikipedia (for the public benefit only).
- "Links to be considered", Item 4: "Sites that fail to meet criteria for reliable sources yet still contain information about the subject of the article from knowledgeable sources." OK, so I'm presently the only person controlling my "blog" and my non-"blog" websites, and my work is not peer-reviewed in the formal sense (though it is peer-reviewed informally and shown my mathematics to people well-qualified in mathematics who have endorsed it prior to publication/linking, and I invite anyone to challenge me or my methods); but my linked articles contained almost nothing except "information about the subject of the [Wikipedia] article[s] from knowledgeable sources" (such as, for example, tax statistics from taxpolicycenter.org).
- "Links normally to be avoided": Item 11 is the only item that arguably applies; and the one you appear to be referencing. Only, in the wider context of all the other inclusion/exclusion criteria detailed on WP:EL, I think it can only be a grey area, if there is not a clear case for inclusion. It's certainly not a black-and-white case of me spamming Wikipedia (as you appear to have suggested at the outset). IT's purely a technicality that I'm calling parts of my website a "blog". The linked content is actually somewhat more like an "online textbook" than a "blog" as such; and all the links I placed were deep links to specific information directly related to the subject of the Wikipedia article where the link was placed, not mere links to (for example) the front page of my personal blog. The linked articles are NOT about me, and cannot be construed to be so; rather, they are about scientific or pragmatic subjects, and strictly based on independently sourced data and mathematical equations which carry an authority of their own.
While our interpretations of editorial policy appear to differ (and remember, I picked EL to pieces before including any links); I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Let's say for the sake of argument, NO links to blogs are appropriate, unless edited in to Wikipedia by someone other than the external author (since it might be considered self-promotion - notwithstanding the guidelines under "Links to be considered"). Authors should suggest inclusion on the "Discussion/ Talk" page, if at all (something I've only learned about in the last 24 hours, so go easy on me). Then I'm still waiting for an explanation on why you removed the link to the pyramid dimensioning calculator, or, why you haven't attempted starting a civil discussion about this on the Talk pages (or sent me the more civilised "warning" template) PRIOR to vandalising all my work. I don't understand why you are taking such a belligerent approach, when this could be a much easier discussion, if only for a little courtesy!
I can't imagine many external links that would qualify for inclusion, under your narrow interpretation of Wikipedia's editorial policy (if any would qualify at all). Is that the way it's meant to be? If so, how would you recommend for me to change my tack? To start adding snippets of carefully chosen detail to your articles, with reference/citation links in the footer of the article? What do you think about this? Or, are you expecting me to take the very best of my copyright materials, fold them into Wikipedia, promote Wikipedia to all and sundry as the only valid source of information to mankind; and include no links to external articles from Wikipedia at all? Or, should I start using the discussion pages (just found out how to do that); and letting other people edit my links into the article if they see fit??? What do you suggest here? Can you help me out?
- There are many ways to contribute to Wikipedia without adding links to a site you publish or are strongly affiliated with. That's what 99.9% of editors do around here. Adding neutral content using links that fall under the reliable sources policy should not raise any flags. Systematically adding content always pointing back to the same link (and link that doesn't meet WP:RS and violates WP:EL) will inevitably raise flags. OhNoitsJamie Talk 13:43, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
I appreciate the more conciliatory tone, and I've reviewed the articles you cite in some detail. I think you might be right in terms of the "letter of the law" if interpreted in a very narrow and perhaps strained manner (at least, if one only pays attention to certain notes about excluded sources, and ignores notes about potentially useful sources or other notes relating to exceptions to normally excluded sources.) But I still think this is a grey area, and I still think you've been a bit ham-handed deleting ALL of my links including the one with that tool enabling engineers to do calculations directly related to the Wikipedia article about pyramids, and furthermore, deleting all my stuff without discussing it with me first. You appear to be officiously avoiding discussing any of your edits in detail (which is most disappointing, considering Wikipedia's stated policy of considering each link on its merits: no doubt the true intention of the policy is to have people consider the SPIRIT OF THE LAW as well as the letter of it). I'm not happy with what you've done so far (since you're clearly ignoring the bulk of my previous explanations - pretending for example that solid mathematical equations and publicly available & clearly impartial data are not "reliable sources"), but I'm not going to reverse your edits myself. I might just put this through to a dispute resolution and see what others think about my links, or, whether they can give me a second opinion on my editorial balance. Better still, would you mind submitting this to dispute resolution on my behalf? Please?
- I apologize for not giving you detailed explanations, but to be frank, if I did that for every use who disputed my link removals, I wouldn't have time for much else. You're welcome to take it to Wikipedia:External_links/Noticeboard, but I can tell you you're going to hear the same thing there as you are hearing here. OhNoitsJamie Talk 14:55, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
Please consider taking a break from the discussion[edit]
This is getting rather disruptive. I think it would help if you took a break. Afterward, if you want to continue the discussion, it would help if you reviewed WP:DR. --Ronz (talk) 06:02, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
- Agreed—I'll restrict myself to affirmative short sentence (one-sentence-paragraph) answers, until I've reviewed WP:DR in more detail.Matthew Slyman (talk) 09:24, 15 December 2011 (UTC)