Comments

What you added as links is indeed relevant. However, the fact that you posted them yourself could be seen as a way to attract more users to your site, thus increasing ad revenues.

I am not saying you did that. I am sure you did it out of good faith and with the intent to contribute something in a positive way.

But the result could have been expected. It's the same when you add links to your own site on digg.com for example.

By  Anonymous, at Monday, May 29, 2006 9:47:00 PM 

Thank you for stopping by and commenting this post!

I understand your point but I would rise two oppositions:

1) I submitted my own links as anonymous, so reviewers had no way to do the suggested association of ideas: "self-referencing + advertising = spamming".

[BTW: I posted them anonimously not because I wanted to dissimulate spamming but simply because registering with a fake indentity and logging with it is pretty identical to posting anonimously.

I feel registering for posting is pretty useless, unless you want to be recognized as the real person you are (and I was not interested in add further advertising about myself)]


2) Let's accept for a moment that the association "self-referencing + advertising = spamming" is true in this case: in such scenario it's impossible for a honest blogger (or writer or anything you like to call) submitting valuable contents to community and living by them, isn't it?

It is possible I have to give up advertising revenue to feed something I consider, correctly or wrongly, good for Wikipedia or Digg (or any other community aggregator)?

Should I still call such system "free"?

A last one: If you are studying virtualization and you believe my contents are valuable and useful for your studies, would you care WHO submitted them?

By  alessandro, at Tuesday, May 30, 2006 4:43:00 PM 

I think the reality of the situation is much simplier than you perhaps expect it to be. Wikipedia has had some serious problems recently with spam/link farming. The later is actually a bit harder to deal with as it's somewhat of an aesthic issue.

Basically, a lot of articles were ending up having a dozen or so only partially related links in the external link section. Sometimes this was because of abuse but often it wasn't.

Wikipedia has a page on what external links should be. You can read it here.

One thing you'll notice is that blogs are not suggested to be linked to (and that you aren't supposed to link to your own site).

It's very hard to do this sort of cleaning up. I've had to do it for a number of the virtualization articles (in the most recent case, it was very clearly spam from a virtualization company I won't name here...).

By  Anthony Liguori, at Tuesday, May 30, 2006 5:28:00 PM 

Anthony,
thank you for stopping by and provide my another point of view.

While I perfectly understand spamming clean up is a complex thing, mostly in a wide world like Wikipedia, I still have to understand criteria I tried to investigate in this post.

As reviewer can you explain why, for example, someone decided to remove MY link to "What is Virtualization" and mantain the one from ZDNet?
Both aimed to offer same content and have same, identical name. It really depends on the fact ZDNet published its content on the "Whiteboard" section of its site instead of the "Blog" section?
I won't rely on a site having such a weak contents analysis system...

They both were available at the same moment, I know this for sure.

So here my temptative answer:
reviewers just based their action on popularity.
ZDNet is a known source while virtualization.info is not.
Real value of content is secondary, like the amount of advertising on the landing page.

I'd be happy to be refuted.

By  alessandro, at Tuesday, May 30, 2006 6:12:00 PM 

I removed your links because, to me, it violated these guidelines, which say to avoid, among other things:

*Links that are added to promote a site.

*Pages with advertising unless the page is the official home page of the organization, person, or other entity that is the subject of the Wikipedia article on which the external link exists.

*A website that you own or maintain (unless it is the official site of the subject of the article).

You say that you submitted the link anonymously so that we couldn't associate the edit with you, the owner of the site. To me, and probably other Wikipedia editors, this makes the change look much more like self-promotion, not less. It wasn't difficult to make an educated guess that you might have a vested interest in this site, since you added the link to many articles without contributing anything else.

I'm not sure why you chose to post this blog entry accusing me of censorship, while not replying to my comments on your talk page. I have tried to assume good faith on your part and stay open to opposing arguments, and will continue to do so.

By  Wmahan, at Tuesday, May 30, 2006 9:52:00 PM 

(the following answer is posted here and on the user talk page, so I cannot also be imputed of escaping from discussion)

Wmahan,
in 1 week of this I wrote 2 times on the my user talk page (identified by IP address), 1 times on the Discospinster user page, 2 times on this post.

After all of this both you and the other reviewer still continue to submit me Wikipedia guideline which are, as I said so many times, debatable if applicable in this specific case.

But, after all of this, you still failed to explain WHY 2 identical External Links had 2 different destinies.
That is the real point of discussion.

It's clear I'm loosing time with someone which doesn't seriously want to explain reasons of such inequity.

So: take your reasons (and censorship) for Wikipedia. I think at least readers of this blog have now a clearer idea of how the whole thing works.

I last thing: more than one External Link you decided to save from censorship, regularly bounces news posted in this site, evidently considering it a reliable source.
It's pretty strange I'm not mentioned while someone quoting me on daily basis is, isn't it?

By  alessandro, at Wednesday, May 31, 2006 1:48:00 AM 

Alessandro,

I love your blog, I subscribe to it and read it regularly and I'm a big virtualization enthusiast. But I have to say, I'm with the Wikipedia editors on this one. virtualization.info just does not belong in Wikipedia.

By  om, at Wednesday, May 31, 2006 1:49:00 AM 

Om,
thank you for stoppying by and give me such a great feedback on virtualization.info

I respect your opinion and I'm happy you wanted to share it here.

Since you agree with the Wikipedia editors, do you mind trying to explain me following things:

1) Why virtualization.info mentioned External Links have been removed, while identical links, with identical names, identical aimed contents, and identical advertising on the landing page are still there?

2) Why several External Links which usually mention virtualization.info news (considering it reliable then) are still there and the source itself (my site) has been removed?

3) Why virtualization.info has been considered pertinent for the topic "virtual machine" but not for the topic "virtualization" or "virtualization technology"?

...I could continue for some time, but would be more than happy to receive a crystal answer on these 3.

(sorry if this seemed a bit rough: I have absolutely nothing against you)

By  alessandro, at Wednesday, May 31, 2006 2:00:00 AM 

To answer your questions:

1) As far as I know, the other links were not added by the site owners. You added your own site, in which you apparently have a financial interest. That is strongly discouraged. Furthermore, you apparently attempted to hide your interest in the site by using an anonymous account.

To use your example: the ZDNet link was presumably not added by Mr. ZDNet (as if such a person existed), or anyone with an vested interest in the site. It was added by a neutral contributor to the article who found it useful.

2) I didn't endorse the other links, and it's possible they don't belong either. But your site was added by its owner (you), and as far as I know, the others weren't.

3) I personally don't think your site is appropriate for any article until an established, neutral editor decides to add it. Of course, I don't claim to speak for Wikipedia or anyone but myself.

I hope this answers your questions, but if not, please reply rather than repeatedly calling "censorship". Thank you.

By  Wmahan, at Wednesday, May 31, 2006 2:47:00 AM 

Wmahan,
since you finally clarified the WHOLE issue is depending on self-promotion, I'll avoid to further comment (I already did it on the second comment of this post) and will just ask you one simple question:

Since I used an anonymous account every time I posted (included the very first one), how you could ever decide the site owner (me) was adding his own External Links, and proceed to remove them as self-promotion?

By  alessandro, at Wednesday, May 31, 2006 3:02:00 AM 

Alessandro,

I understand that you are unhappy with what the editors did. But I think you are steaming just a little too much. This on going ranting and asking you subscribers to explain why is a little silly. Even the editors tried to explain, but you would rather see a conspiracy. Please stop stomping your feet.

Signed,

A disappointed fan of virtualization info

By  Anonymous, at Wednesday, May 31, 2006 3:56:00 AM 

Alessandro,

You're right that I have no way to prove that you, the site owner, made the edits. As I said above, it was just an informed guess based on your contribution history of only adding links to this site. In general, I try to assume good faith for every user, but it's easier to trust users who have an established history of making positive contributions.

My decision was also based on looking at your site, and deciding that while it looks like you put a lot of work into it, it is still a personal ad-driven site.

So it was just a subjective decision on my part, but I think it was accurate in this case. Of course, I'm not an authority in charge of Wikipedia any more than any other editor.

By  Wmahan, at Wednesday, May 31, 2006 4:02:00 AM 

Ok, time to close this thread now.

Everybody has now enough material to draw his own conclusions.

I would like to thank all virtualization.info readers contributing here, included Wmahan, which has been kind enough to come and discuss here.

Let's go back working on virtualization, with or without Wikipedia.

By  alessandro, at Wednesday, May 31, 2006 11:37:00 AM 

Oh mine, what a long discussion.
Well, let's add some other thoughts.

I agree with Alessandro in 2 different points (but in the end the admins are simply right: the post violated wikipedia's policy, that's it).

1) Wikipedia makes extensive use of Auctoritates. Just like in the middle ages, in ages of great chaos or with just too much information (like ours) auctoritates are the easy way to obtain realiable informations.
ZDNet is much more an auctoritas than virtualization.info for the average joe, EVEN if virt.info has got a greater focus on virtualization.

2) ZDNet page is really not as informative as it should, and in my opinion it should be removed.

Now, some of my personal thoughts.
I don't think neither of the pages answer the question "What is virtualization".
Both just illustrates modern virtualization techniques. C'mon, zdnet's hosting an interview with a VMware guy!
Kernelthread's page is by far more complete!
Remember that Virtualization is NOT VmWare (nor connectix nor whateversoftware) NOR it's a way to minimize downtime or reduce hardware costs.
It should NOT be that one the answer to the question "What is virtualization?". Maybe to "Why should I buy virtualization?" or "How can I use virtualization?"...

Mmmm maybe I should go and modify wikipedia's page too.

By  Claudio Criscione, at Friday, June 02, 2006 2:57:00 PM 

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