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Wikipedia Adds No Follow to Links
netbuzz writes "In an attempt to thwart spammers and search-engine optimization mischief, Wikipedia has begun tagging all external links on its site "nofollow", which renders those links invisible to search engines. Whether this is a good thing, a bad thing, or simply unavoidable has become a matter of much debate." This topic has come up before and the community voted to remove nofollow back in 2005. This new round of nofollow comes as a directive from Wikia President, Jimbo Wales.
"nofollow" only exists because Larry Page and Sergey Brin had a (at the time) brillant idea of ranking webpages according to how many sites linked back to it... and now that method of determining relevance is broken. Prior to this innovation, most search engines relied upon META tags... which also eventually broke. Google is where it is today because they recognized that the web had evolved past META tags (and other techniques of self-describing content).
My point is that the Internet as a whole souldn't be tripping over ourselves because Google's invention too is now obsolete. The "nofollow" attribute is just an ugly hack created to accommodate the frequently-gamed PageRank algorithm. We should instead find new ways to determine relevance. Hey, if your idea is good enough, you might even find yourself a billionaire someday too. Who knows, maybe the next wave will also wash away all those god-forsaken AdSense landing pages and domain squatters (oh please, oh please, oh please...).
Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
RTFA - This only affects external links.
Your method of searching wikipedia through google is safe.
Yep, I never spell check.
More incorrect spellings can be found he
I think the article noted that the last time this came up for vote by the community, the community voted it down. I think it also notes that this is something that Jimbo Wales dictated, and not something that went through the normal community approval process.
Why?
Why would Wales simply dictate this change be made?
Because Wikipedia is a source of high-quality links. Editors have increasingly been making sure to put high-quality references in articles, mainly as links to other web sites. A single Wikipedia article can often contain links to the best websites related to that subject.
So ask yourself why would Wales want to make those links private, and no longer harvested by Google.
Is it that hard to figure out?
If you still don't know, then ask yourself what business Wales has announced that he wants to pursue with his new for profit company, Wikia?
Search Engines.
In the words of Paul Harvey, now you know the REST of the story.
Most of the complaints that 'Wikipedia isn't reliable' appear to be complaints that we haven't saved them the trouble of thinking. I have to say: too bad. It's useful or it wouldn't be a top 10 site. But it's just written by people. Keep your wits about you as you would reading any website. We work to keep it useful, but if you see something that strikes you as odd, check the references and check the history and check the talk page.
Wikipedia does not save the reader from having to think.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
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In general, any obvious objection to the idea of a wiki encyclopedia already happens and is already dealt with day to day. We have a ridiculous array of spambots and vandalbots already attacking Wikipedia and trying to turn it to their use, never mind our work trying to write an encyclopedia. So we have an EQUALLY ridiculous array of antivandalbots to deal with these things as needed. Our immune system is quite frightening to contemplate at timesYou will be utterly unsurprised to know this happens already
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Why don't you read the original essay? The tragedy of the commons happened when a common ground was abused because no effective method of management was in place to ensure the integrity of the common land. That method of management could be a single stakeholder, or a communal system of management. The original essay was very clear in regards to the fact that there is more than one way to effectively manage a resource.
Now, we could argue all day as to whether the system of management wikipedia has in place is effective or not, but we cannot argue that it has such a system. Imagine, would there be a tragedy of the commons if everyone felt free to simply kill all the cos of the offenders? If there weas, it would certainly be a different tragedy. That is akin to the management system of wikipedia. No overgrazing because any one person can nuke every single cow on the planet, and any other person can resurect every dead cow on the planet.
An experts only publication would not be a bad idea. Why don't you start one up and tell me when you get say 1/1,000 the number of articles wikipedia has, or 1/10,000 the readers. But don't do it to wikipedia, start your own. Wikipedia already has a system that works well enough. Sorry if you don't like it, but in this free market of ideas, enough people find it useful, as is, to make it one of the most popular sites on the Internet.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
False premise. Wikipedia is not a "semantic mediator between alien but related nodes". Wikipedia is just a free encyclopedia.
The only reason why an external link should be placed in Wikipedia is because that external link is already significant in some way. Wikipedia does not exist to make those external links any more significant than they already are. It seems to me that is the essential point of the Wikipedia policy, Wikipedia is not a soapbox.
So, since there is no such "tragedy of the commons", Wikipedia is free to tag their links "nofollow" if they want to. If it raises Wikipedia's search results over the external links in Google, good for them. That's the way it should be. These bloggers who nitpick about Google PageRanks 24/7 strike me as a bunch of whiners, frankly.
I'm sick and tired of this particular beef with wikipedia. Just because you can't quote wikipedia in your thesis for your doctorate doesn't mean its useless. If you want reliable source material look elsewhere, if you want an exorbitant quantity of information, Wikipedia has that. It's the quick and dirty resource for people who might just need to know a few things about a subject without having to fact check and such. That's what it should be treated as. The fact that non-experts are allowed to edit entries is what made it grow to be the resource it is today.
If some of the information is inaccurate, so what? It's not like heart surgeons are looking up how to conduct an operation on Wikipedia. People need to stop beating on its potential for inaccuracy and instead see it as what it is, a great resource for learning about topics or at least a starting point given no other resources. The Internet as a whole tends to have a large amount of inaccurate information, but that doesn't make the Internet useless. The quantity of information largely and fully outweighs the risk of inaccuracy. Everything has inaccuracies anyway, and Wikipedia's usefulness makes any mistakes it has well worth the benefit of having it versus not having it. It's a mighty powerful resource, and I'm tired of hearing it bashed just because some random vandal could and sometimes does screw up a few entries (even though they are usually fixed in a pretty timely manner). It's an online resource, take it for what it is and quit bitching about how one entry out of 10,000 is inaccurate, and just be thankful you have the 10,000 entries. Or better yet, just don't use it if you find it offensive.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.