The mammoth power of Wikipedia
I've just had my first awe-inspiring encounter with Wikipedia this morning. I had read elsewhere that you had to be really careful when linking to your own Wiki from Wikipedia because they will clamp down on anything trying to promote things, or trying to compete with Wikipedia etc. I wasn't trying to be difficult, I just found that there was no philatelic glossary on Wikipedia, although there was a category called philatelic terms, and I thought I would experiment with linking from some of the philatelic terms pages to our new philatelic glossary on the BPMA Wiki. Sadly, within 15 minutes I'd say, I got a very polite message from a Wikipedian informing me that my link that I had added on a particular page didn't comply with their linking policy and therefore he had removed that link. Within seconds all the other links I'd just posted had been removed too.
It's a shame. I really wasn't trying to compete with them. I just wanted to harness some of the willingness of that massive community, particularly the ones who might have philatelic knowledge, and use it for our little Wiki. The notion that I might be trying to compete with them is completely ludicrous as we never could! Anyway, duly chastened, I will have to find another way to promote the Philatelic Glossary!
It's a shame. I really wasn't trying to compete with them. I just wanted to harness some of the willingness of that massive community, particularly the ones who might have philatelic knowledge, and use it for our little Wiki. The notion that I might be trying to compete with them is completely ludicrous as we never could! Anyway, duly chastened, I will have to find another way to promote the Philatelic Glossary!
Labels: Wikipedia
posted by Rhiannon Looseley at
09:59
2 Comments:
I would say that I sympathise - but I can kind of see their point. Loads of people try to put links in to Wikipedia in order to try and promote their website, so they have to be pretty careful.
Wikipedia's policies suggest that you should never insert a link to a website that you run, or represent, and that you shouldn't link to other wikis 'except those with a substantial history of stability and a substantial number of editors'.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:External_links
A better approach might be to leave a comment and a link on the relevant talk pages, and both invite people to contribute to your wiki, and suggest that people might wish to copy some text from your wiki into Wikipedia.
I know, I know it was bad and wrong and I'll hang my head in shame and hope the Wikipedians forgive me! :-) I suppose I should have just read the rules on external linking first. Hopefully they won't take against me too much!
The talk pages are a good idea, i had thought of that, maybe I'll give it a try.
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