User talk:Midas touch

Hi Midas touch, welcome to Wikipedia!

Here are a few helpful links to start you off: Avoiding common mistakes, How to edit a page, How to write a great article, Naming conventions, Manual of Style, Policies and guidelines, Help, Merging pages.

If you need help or are curious about something, feel free to ask on my talk page or the village pump. You can sign your name and a date stamp on comments using four tildes (~~~~). If you have any further questions, feel free to ask, and I hope you enjoy being a Wikipedian! Andre (talk) 13:37, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Top Synergy links

This message is regarding the page Brad Pitt. Please do not add commercial links — or links to your own private websites — to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advertising or a mere collection of external links. Note that Wikipedia may see print or DVD publication, so we want more content, not more web links. See the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia. Thanks. --Yamla 16:11, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Please stop. If you continue to use Wikipedia for advertising, you will be blocked from editing. Please do not add additional links to X in relationships. Thanks, --Hansnesse 03:50, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I did note the edit on Yamla's talk page. In general a link should be highly specific and informational about the article. A page which rates your relationship potential to the stars is not really that. Feel free to write me a note on my talk page if you have any questions. The relevant policy is at WP:SPAM. Thanks, --Hansnesse 04:00, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your note about the links. It looks to me that Top Synergy is a website which matches people based on their astrological signs. While I think you are correct, some people may be interested in the material, my feeling is that it does not belong in an encyclopedia article about the subject. In some sense, if we were to link to every website which a person might be interested in viewing, the encyclopedia would become nothing more than a collection of links (or a poorly indexed google). So the criteria for inclusion, to my mind at least, have to be pretty strict: carefully determining the relevance of each link, especially when there are potenially hundreds or thousands of links "about" a person. Even among links which discuss the biography of a person (which are the usual fare of biographical articles), care must be exercised in determine which are included. Almost never (with the exception of a few databases, like IMDB) is the same resource linked to from multiple articles.

Perhaps one of the reasons that the messages, such as my first message or Yamla's message sound as harsh as they do is that external links are difficult to manage. They were both semi-automated messages (called templates) to save time, since there are so many people adding links which are not usually appropriate for an article (often people quite naturally wanting to promote their small business, personal website, ect.). Since it is such a problem, the messages take a pretty harsh tone (perhaps too harsh, since they are even more dire-sounding to me than the vandalism templates).

But that is all background on what is at hand. My view, for the reasons above, is that the links should not be added to the articles. However if you disagree (I'm a user just like you, with no special authority on such matters), we can certainly discuss why. If we can not reach a conclusion, there are several routes by which we may seek additional opinions, such as Wikipedia:Third opinion. If all else fails, we can take a look at requesting comments from other users through the Wikipedia:Requests for comment (which to my reading tends to me a bit more rancourous).

So, with all that said, what do you think (I'll watch this page, so feel free to reply below this message)? Thanks, --Hansnesse 01:30, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the note! I would feel a bit guilty going through a formal process like Request for Comment without perhaps at least suggesting a few compromises. How would you feel about posting the link to the astrology page, for instance (they have an astrology tools section). I can't speak for the people who work on that page, however, I certainly think it is a good place for the link. Another idea is an informal place to gather thoughts of other users like Wikipedia:Village pump (assistance). I feel the Request for Comments is a bit more for situations where we are at an impasse, having tried various alternatives etc. Let me know what you think of either of these ideas. (And thanks for putting up with the hoops and such, I think we're both after the same goal of a better encyclopedia, and I very much apperciate your patience.) --Hansnesse 08:07, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Many thanks for the good discussion and thoughtful reply. I have gone ahead and posted a note at Village Pump and hope comments from other users may perhaps provide a good solution. Of course, I tend to agree that the information should not be included or excluded based only on a single person's beliefs, so in that sense, I think we are in agreement. Feel free to add your own comments, of course, and hopefully we can resolve this to everyone's satisifaction. Thanks, (I'll post this on your page as well). --Hansnesse 01:54, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I agree the village pump has not had the desired discussion. I put a note at Wikipedia alerts to ask for more comments. If it does not get a few more people in the next couple of days, we may have to go ahead with a formal request for comment. The reason I tend to dislike them is the formality is geared toward diputes of some higher level of rancor. But there is no reason the process can not be used. Thanks again for putting up with all the hoop jumping, I appreciate your patience. --Hansnesse 21:35, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Top Synergy's friendly approach

Dear Hansnesse,

What's your opinion about not posting links on an article by myself but rather introduce Top Synergy and the proposed link to a suitable editor for said article? He or she will decide whether or not the relationships topic enriches their article.

If you see this proposal positively, please help me to define who would be the most suitable editor for an article. Let's take Brad Bitt again as an example.

As usual, I appreciate your time and helpfull training in Wiki editing.

Midas touch 14:11, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, I see nothing wrong with proposing adding the link on an article's talk page (click the discussion tab at the top of an article). You may want to start with a few articles (and be sure to add them to your watch pages, so see when people add discussion). If you can discuss why this is a benefit to the article per Wikipedia:External links, you may get further. Great idea! --Hansnesse 19:52, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Tommy Lee and Top Synergy

Please see Talk: Tommy Lee. Thanks, Joe 05:45, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Astrology is Pseudoscience

And therefore not considered reliable and therefore innapropriate as a source. Please stop link spamming the talk pages with links to your astrology website. And just because you ask in a polite tone to link spam the article while you link spam the talk page does not make it acceptable. Mr Christopher 23:01, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

November 2007

Please do not add inappropriate external links to Wikipedia, as you did to Britney Spears. Wikipedia is not a collection of links, nor should it be used for advertising or promotion. Inappropriate links include (but are not limited to) links to personal web sites, links to web sites with which you are affiliated, and links that attract visitors to a web site or promote a product. See the external links guideline and spam policy for further explanations. 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 article's talk page rather than re-adding it. Thank you. Tabercil 05:50, 7 November 2007 (UTC)