Wikipedia talk:Wikibombing (SEO)/Archive 1

Archive 1

Village pump discussion

Note VP discussion here. --JN466 23:52, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#New essay: WP:BOMB is the link to the section (currently). You should probably link to the section in the archive, after it's actually been archived.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 04:46, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Top spot?

Re [1], is there anyone for whom the article does not usually, or always, take the top spot in a Google search for "santorum"? For me, it currently actually takes the two top spots; Santorum Google problem (the old title) is in first place, and Campaign for "santorum" neologism (current title) comes in second place. (Rick Santorum comes third, followed by spreadingsantorum.com in fourth.) Cheers, --JN466 06:23, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Those two Wikipedia articles are 2nd and 3rd for me, with the "spreading" website first. Fourth is a collapsed set of news stories, 5th is the Urban Dictionary definition of the neologism, 6th is the Mother Jones article about the neologism, 7th and 8th are news stories about the neologism. Aside from the collapsed news stories, the first link that isn't about the neologism is ninth.

The issue with the edit you specify is that it asserts a change in ranking due to the editing. My recollection, as I told you before, is that the Wikipedia article had been at the top for some time prior to the recent expansion of the article. Metz implies that it rose to the top since its creation, but doesn't specify that it reached the top only recently. I'm not aware of any way of proving that one way or another, so it's better left out of the essay. It's not really relevant anyway. This essay, according to the nutshell, has to do with avoiding the perception of advocacy.   Will Beback  talk  07:10, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Last sentence

I removed this: "It is best ... to seek broad input on talk pages, at noticeboards or from WikiProjects before going ahead."

This implies that the appearance of consultation means it's okay to go ahead and do what the essay describes. In fact, no one should be using Wikipedia in this way, so I've removed the sentence. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 07:37, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Good point. I'm also concerned about that sentence's apparent endorsement of failing to assume good faith. "Assuming good faith is a fundamental principle on Wikipedia." The Wikipedia:Conflict of interest guideline makes no such assertion. I don't think an essay should be saying, in effect, that editor don't need to assume good faith if they think someone is engaged in advocacy. It'd probably be better just to say something like, "Such actions, undertaken unilaterally, may give the appearance of using Wikipedia for advocacy."   Will Beback  talk  07:57, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

It makes the point that AGF can't apply forever, especially not in the face of what might look like attempts to misuse the project. Indeed, it shouldn't apply if that's happening. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 08:07, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but that becomes a self-fulfilling judgment - "I can't assume you're acting in good faith because I've decided to assume you're trying to use Wikipedia for advocacy because you added too many links to an article." If this were the standard way of proceeding then a warning like this would appear in almost every guideline and policy. We don't say that editors can assume bad faith even when dealing with explicit conflicts of interest. I don't think we should say that here either.   Will Beback  talk  08:37, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Rewrite of second section

I rewrote the last section some to try to better isolate what made the recent Savage case unique. I'm reluctant to include any language that would have a potentially chilling effect on content development generally, which seems to me often naturally done in clusters; DYK submissions then naturally reflect these patterns. The case of DYK strikes me as particularly important because of its role in filtering and improving new content, and the good that DYK does in upgrading this content (to me) outweighs the dangers of giving a few thousand extra clickthroughs to Selena, Stanford University alumni, the Paralympics, or the CPJ International Press Freedom Awards (to name four recent "clusters" that would have financial interests related to their promotion).

So, I've also downplayed the commercial angle (which seems to me well covered in other Wiki policies) while emphasizing the SEO/Google Bomb angle, which strikes me as the real issue here. (One recurring theme in the recent Savage-DYK discussion, oddly, was a sense that he might be profiting by DYK exposure--so much so that some proposed he might have Wikipedia editors on his payroll for this purpose!--but a man who has hundreds of thousands of newspaper readers and regularly reaches millions via television is going to profit little by the 2,000 clickthroughs of a DYK hook). If other examples indicate that commercial interests are manipulating WP in this way, though, I'm up for putting it back in.

Lastly, I tried to emphasize the assumption of good faith per Will Beback above while still providing some concrete criteria and policies. For example, I've tried to give a more concrete example of "especially detailed coverage", to avoid discouraging editors from making detailed articles on controversies at all. Let me know if you think this strikes a fair balance between acknowledging that good-faith editors can stray into this while also detailing what must be avoided and what should be corrected if encountered. Khazar (talk) 12:37, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Having just been reverted on most of the 2 of the 3 above points by SlimVirgin, again without discussion or explanation, I guess I'm bowing out of this one for a bit; no point in edit-warring over a non-binding guideline recommendation. I'd invite others to take a look at these issues, though. Khazar (talk) 17:04, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

You weren't reverted on most of your points. I left quite a lot of your edit in place, but restored some of the things you had removed. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 17:07, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, you reintroduced the prohibition on multiple DYK noms on all topics, which was paragraph 1 there. And you re-introduced the commercial angle, which was paragraph 2 there. So I've corrected my percentages above for accuracy. Frankly, I don't think this piece is worth the hassle of having to repeatedly ask you to respond to my posts instead of silently reverting, and I think it's better I just move on and let my frustration cool rather than invest the energy. I know we've been locking horns the last few weeks, but it's also clear to me that you're a skilled and dedicated editor that Wikipedia is lucky to have. Good luck to you and Jayen with this one, and no hard feelings. Khazar (talk) 17:19, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Cirt

I won't reinsert it a third time, of course, but I did want to restore once a bit of what Slim just removed and specifically make a case for it. The history section here appears to strongly imply that Cirt's actions were seen as inappropriate by the Wikipedia community, which I think is only half true; it appeared to me that as many editors appeared stepped forward to defend this editing pattern as condemn it. For the same reason, I'm reluctant at the phrasing "many editors expressed concern that the article had become part of the Google bomb attack" unless we're to add the balancing phrase "while still more editors disagreed and the article was ultimately kept." ("Some including Jimbo Wales" was my compromise attempt to show that this view was a minority, but a weighty and respectable one.) This isn't to disparage the viewpoint itself, but if we're to sum up the history here for guidance in future controversies, I want to make sure we give a balanced picture. Having said my piece on that, though, I'm glad to bow out.Khazar (talk) 15:51, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

I've removed the part of the commentary about some people arguing this was "standard practice for a prolific contributor." I've been editing for over six years, and I've never seen anyone do those things all at once. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 15:55, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, if you'll look back over the RfAR, you'll see that several people made essentially that case. (One memorable entry cited Cirt's work with bacon templates as a counterexample.) I'd welcome your attempts to rewrite the particular phrasing if you feel it's inaccurate, of course. The important point to me is to make it clear that Cirt's editing has attracted as much support as condemnation. If we're going to explain your and Jimbo's interpretation of Cirt's actions in the next sentence of this history, wouldn't it be useful to include the opposing view as well (sum it up how you will)? I'm on the fence about some of Cirt's actions myself, but if we're going to cite this as an example for future controversies, I'm uncomfortable with your deleting references to support of Cirt's actions and leaving in only the critique (at least until that critique is investigated and validated in an RfC/U, ArbCom, or the like). Rather than presenting "just the facts," as you noted in your edit summary, it seems rather pointedly describing the viewpoint of only one side of the conflict. I'm happy to leave it to a third party to take a look, though. Khazar (talk) 16:34, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

It has become pretty clear, to me anyway and as noted I'm not alone, that Cirt is the victim of a concentrated multi-faceted attack by an organized group of detractors who will do anything they can to minimize or even terminate his work on Wikipedia. Jusdafax 19:34, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Rebuttal

I added a rebuttal here: [2] A few dozen "improper links" do not rival the Streisand effect that the other side has created. And the grand total of all inbound links from other Wikipedia pages is far less than the effect of repeatedly moving the article and breaking up the inbound links into different redirects. I should further say that Cirt was just sitting in ArbCom's cross-hairs and they let him go, so I do believe "innocent when proven not guilty" applies here. I see no boundary between opposing the "advocacy" of others in writing and expanding articles, and imposing advocacy by censoring content. Wnt (talk) 17:56, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

I've removed the text and placed it here, for discussion:

It should be noted, however, that Google indexes 480 inbound links (actual count) to Santorum (sexual neologism)^[3] and an additional 459 to Santorum (neologism),^[4] of which only a fraction are from Wikipedia. Of those, many are from noticeboards, Wikiprojects, or mirror sites copying them; also a canvassing attempt;^[5] thus the Streisand effect is active. The larger number of off-site inbound links should tell us that the article would have a high rank no matter what. Frequent page moves and even a proposal to deliberately break inbound links may be seen as SEO by the opposing side.

Presently, the fraction of Wikipedia links is actually quite substantial in this (not counting mirrors like newikipedia.org that link to wikipedia). Even without the mirrors, it's more than 200 for Santorum (neologism), i.e. close to half. There would have been well over 100 more originally, prior to the deletion of the Political neologisms template, and about another 100 more before the term was removed from the other templates (most of the links from the articles that have these templates have decayed by now and no longer show up in Google). --JN466 01:58, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Do we have any evidence that those links have effected search engines?   Will Beback  talk  03:06, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

That Google search seems to be catching many pages that aren't in mainspace, or don't actually link to that page. If we exclude redirect I count 18 links for other articles.[6]   Will Beback  talk  03:15, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Check page 19 - articles like Mama-san and Gay for pay are still listed as linking to this one. So the change didn't remove them. But the move did cause Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Internet articles by quality log to generate an entry for the name change, which now appears among the Google hits. Likewise WikiProject Sociology and Wikiproject Conservatism have mentions of them due to changes in rating, since so many eyes were on them. And most problematic of all for some, things like this cached version of a WikiProject Deletion sorting page [7] are now listed because this case is now well known and people are using it as an analogy all over Wikipedia. I stand by my statement: the Streisand Effect is in full swing here. Wnt (talk) 05:25, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

And yes, this article is one of the pages on the list. [8] Applied Daoism can be scary at times, even for supporters. B) Wnt (talk) 05:28, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I checked for links from the 100 sexual slang articles. Most of them no longer come up in the search; there's only half a dozen or so left. [9] The 100+ political neologisms links seem to have disappeared altogether. As for your Streisand analogy, it misses the mark. Not because the discussions haven't created extra links—they have—but because Santorum isn't my interest here; I would have done the same for a Democrat, a Communist, the Star Wars kid, or indeed a gay activist, if the shoe had been on the other foot. Cheers, --JN466 11:21, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

How is this article "Wikipedia Breathes New Life Into Seminal Scientology Expose" related? I don't see any "bombing" terms or mention of SEO.   Will Beback  talk  03:06, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

The essay discusses main page appearances in the context of promotionalism. The article demonstrates that main page appearances can have a powerful effect. It's important to be aware of that, because with power comes responsibility. --JN466 11:28, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

With power also comes the attempt by some people to take it all for themselves, or deny it to those they see as undeserving. I don't think Wikipedia is ever going to stop advertising the latest piece of crap video game with a Featured Article every week. The question is, do the individual users, not associated with business interests, have the right to feature things they are interested in, when they have done the work to write them up? Why is it right to run commercial ads all the time, but wrong to allow editors to let people know about partisan political pranks? I think this power belongs in the hands of the individual editor, not some group of overseers passing judgment on people who they think have too much interest in a topic they don't approve of. Let everyone edit and leave the power to those who do the work. Wnt (talk) 16:53, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

The Mediabistro article covers a single FA appearance on the main page. It's not at all surprising that the article became a top Google result for that topic (it's third now). The same effect probably happens for most FAs that appear on the main page. Are we trying to tell editors not to write FAs or put them on the main page because that could alter page rankings? If so that's absurd. Everything we do, even writing on this page, could affect Google's rankings.   Will Beback  talk  19:08, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm going to remove it unless there's a clear connection to Wikibombing, which obviously does not mean promoting an article to FA and getting it on the main page.   Will Beback  talk  00:20, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Scientology link

I removed a link to yet another Cirt-related topic and it's been restored. Ignoring for a minute that the next step after a revert should be a discussion rather than a revert, I do feel that the link makes this into even more of an attack on Cirt. I can see the point of the essay itself, but I'm very much opposed to having it be an attack on any editor. Thoughts? Hobit (talk) 13:43, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I approached this in good faith, but at this point I'd second the concern that this appears to just be an exercise in attacking another user. So far as I can see, all attempts that other editors have made to introduce balance are being systematically removed in order to build an extremely one-sided history. (And I share Hobit's frustration that Slim and Jayen refuse to address issues and comments from dissenting users on this talk page instead of just reverting to the original anti-Cirt version). To give some examples:

1. Qualifying claims about the importance of internal links in SEO rankings
2. Giving context to the blog (ie., unreliable source) about Cirt's supposed scientology impact such as in-article explanation or attempt at balance (such as indicating the average readership for a DYK hook (1-2K), about the impact of a small-town or suburban newspaper; the Time magazine piece in question was quite possibly elevated by just a few hundred hits). I would suggest that this blog's claims about DYK's massive impact fly against both my own experience with DYK (in 52 DYKs, I've only once cracked 2K, I think) and common sense. (Has anybody actually looked up how many hits that DYK got? Given the number of times this example has been cited lately, it's worth checking into. This should be easy enough to do through the notification on Cirt's talk page for the given day, and would provide a real number, instead of speculation by a single, non-notable blogger.)
3. Indicating that a number (and often a majority) of editors have supported Cirt's actions at every step--at DYK, in the template discussions, in AfDs of Santorum (neologism), and at the RfC at Santorum (neologism). In its current form, the article summarizes only the anti-Cirt position, and all balancing references to support of Cirt are being deleted as soon as they appear.
4. Indicating that Cirt's actions have never been judged cause for community disciplinary action.

Jayen and Slim, if Cirt's actions are so clearly foul, why don't you just open an RfC/U against him and so that we can seek community consensus on this? And if you don't feel you can get that consensus that his actions are wrong, why is it that you're comfortable summarizing them so one-sidedly and acontextually here? Khazar (talk) 15:57, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

• Based on this discussion (and specifically on a lack of explanation as to why we need this link) I've removed the link again. Hobit (talk) 00:23, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
  • And... It's back without any discussion. Could anyone explain why we need this link? It does discuss the importance of the main page, but everyone who has discussed this page (other than the two who have been putting it there) seem to think it is inappropriate. Hobit (talk) 21:07, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Thought experiment

[moved out of the section above]

I think I asked you this before, Khazar, but I don't believe I got an answer. Please consider this example, and whether you would support it.

An animal rights group launches a campaign to turn the name of a well-known scientist and animal researcher into something vile. They do this because she said something about experimenting on animals that they strongly disagreed with. They create a website devoted to their definition of her (unusual) name, and encourage bloggers to link to it, so that it becomes a top Google entry for her. Some newspapers write about the campaign, which means it becomes notable enough for a Wikipedia article. Shortly after the scientist announces that she's running for public office, a Wikipedian expands the article to 5,000 words, creates three new templates to house a link to it, creates several new articles related to the animal rights group, and nominates seven DYKs about the group in the space of a week, as well as writing about the issue on Wikinews, Wikiquote, and elsewhere.

Would you support this? Would you assume good faith? SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 17:39, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

It would be the exact same problem. I don't think one has to assume or reject good faith, particularly if this essay gains wide acceptance. This essay says don't do it. If people go ahead and do it anyway people can point here and say that the community has decided it's not appropriate. Kind of like the WP:BRD. If someone routinely violates BRD we don't have to ask whether they're acting in good faith or not, we just say they're editing in an unproductive way. Anyway, if we want to find other examples it would be useful to find something somebody other than cirt did. - Wikidemon (talk) 18:14, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

SV: What Crit did may or may not be wrong. But it sounds like you are agreeing that the purpose of this page is to go after him? Could you clarify? Hobit (talk) 19:12, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Actually, all you asked me before was if I would support multiple DYKs on the same animal rights activist, and I answered yes. But in any case, in refusing to answer my own questions above, you still haven't really addressed the main point here. It's not whether I approve of Cirt's actions, but whether I support an dishonestly acontextual attack on them in the project space. Would I consider an RfC/U on the responsible editor in your new hypothetical situation? Maybe; I agree it's borderline behavior, and I've repeatedly agreed with you and Jayen that aspects of Cirt's behavior are troubling (as recently as yesterday, on this page, I think). But would I assume bad faith to the extent that I'd launch a passive-aggressive attack on that editor through an essay in the project space, rather than addressing my concerns through normal Wikipedia channels? No. Would I systematically revert all attempts at balance or context to that essay without addressing concerns or questions other editors were raising on the talk page, and seeking a consensus view? No. (I actually wouldn't do that on any page).
Again, if you feel the consensus is that case against him is so clear cut, I'd suggest making your case through Wikipedia discipline. If you don't have that consensus--and everything I've looked at seems to suggest you don't--I'd recommend your history reflect that (or at least that you and Jayen stop reverting the attempts of others to add it), indicating that the views you espouse here were a minority, but an important one that you still want to cite for future reference. A third (and perhaps the simplest) option might be to move this out of project space and into user space. But right now this essay seems to me much more concerned with rewriting recent history than setting future guidance. Khazar (talk) 19:21, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

...and an additional post to apologize for my frustration of my post a minute ago. I do still feel this page is inappropriate in its current form, and I'm not a fan of the discussionless, systematic reverting being practiced to maintain it. But my frustration isn't helping anybody, and I apologize for it and will box it up and ship it elsewhere. Best wishes to all the continued revision. Cheers, Khazar (talk) 19:57, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Khazar, I didn't ask whether you'd support multiple DYKs from an animal rights activist. I asked specifically whether you'd assume good faith in this situation:

An animal rights group launches a campaign to turn the name of a well-known scientist and animal researcher into something vile. They do this because she said something about experimenting on animals that they strongly disagreed with. They create a website devoted to their definition of her (unusual) name, and encourage bloggers to link to it, so that it becomes a top Google entry for her. Some newspapers write about the campaign, which means it becomes notable enough for a Wikipedia article. Shortly after the scientist announces that she's running for public office, a Wikipedian expands the article to 5,000 words, creates three new templates to house a link to it, creates several new articles related to the animal rights group, and nominates seven DYKs about the group in the space of a week, as well as writing about the issue on Wikinews, Wikiquote, and elsewhere.

My purpose in asking this is to move us away from the particular issue of Cirt to the underlying principles.

It seems self-evident that Wikipedians would not support this from an animal rights advocate. We would also not support it from racist editors trying to blacken the name of a black politician, or anti-Semites blackening the name of a Jew. But what has happened in this case is that, because many Wikipedians dislike Republicans and support gay rights, it has blinded us to the principles. That's what I'm asking you to focus on, because I believe if you do that, you would not support what has happened here. I believe none of us would. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 14:35, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

"It seems self-evident" that every editor who disagrees with you has forgotten Wikipedia's principles? Slim, given the number of editors who have opposed you at every step on this, you have a funny definition of "self-evident".
In any case, I don't think that "because I'm confident that the editorial majority that disagrees with me is wrong, its views can be safely deleted without discussion" is a useful way to go about your Wikipedia editing. Look at the number of people who have objected that this appears to be a thinly-disguised attack page on this talk page, and at the linked discussion at the Village Pump; maybe it'd be better if we found a more consensus or balanced approach instead of silent reverting?
To repeat the above, the issue isn't whether I support Cirt's behavior but whether I support a one-sided attack page on it in the project space; I think you're continuing to confuse the latter issue with the former. If you feel the consensus is that case against him is so clear cut that you're justified in this, I'd suggest making your case through Wikipedia discipline. If you don't have that consensus--and everything I've looked at suggests that you don't--I'd recommend your history reflect that (or at least that you and Jayen stop reverting the attempts of others to add it), indicating that the views you espouse here were a minority, but an important one that you still want to cite for future reference. A third (and perhaps the simplest) option might be to move this out of project space and into user space. A fourth option would be to simply delete the Cirt example from this essay entirely and go straight into giving generic guidance. I'm trying hard to find some way to compromise with you on this, but "everyone who opposes me is self-evidently mistaken and/or a hypocrite and can be disregarded" doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room. Perhaps some of the other editors who posted at the Village Pump on this issue will chime in. Cheers, Khazar (talk) 17:37, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Instead of ad hominems, could you address the argument? Would you support these actions had the situation involved white supremacists creating a racist neologism out of a black politician's name? SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 17:46, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi Slim, this thread (at least before it was separated) began with me asking you and Jayen why you wouldn't balance your history in this article for basic accuracy. You declined to answer these questions and then posed me a hypothetical question instead. When I responded to it, repeated my original questions, and attempted to propose compromise solutions to the original dilemma, you again refused to respond to either my questions or compromise proposals, or Hobit's question, noted that the majority of editors who've disagreed with you were "self-evidently" wrong and hypocritical, and insisted on my answering a further set of hypotheticals first. That may be admirable Socratic method, but for me, that's a conversation stopper; there's no reason your questions should be that burningly more important than those of anyone else on the talk page (at least, that's not how my momma taught me conversation works). Perhaps some other editors will weigh in to help find middle ground in this stalemate. In any case, I've got a wife down with vestibular neuritis this week--nasty stuff, that--and it's foolish for me to sink any more time into this with an editor so openly opposed to compromise. Good luck with the finishing touches on WP:F***CIRT. -- Khazar (talk) 18:31, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

If this is a serious problem then there will be more examples. If this neologism is the only time it has happened then it doesn't merit a project-space essay.   Will Beback  talk  20:53, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Khazar, I didn't have a problem with your version of the background history, as per this version of yours, or this version, nor do I object to having the sentence "Some editors argued that these actions represented tendentious editing and advocacy, while others argued that they were standard practice for a prolific contributor." in the essay. Cheers, --JN466 10:18, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. FWIW, I do think we're better off with the current form (no background section on a specific case) anyway; the guidelines and definition section seem to cover the phenomenon sufficiently for future Wikipedians to look at this for guidance. Khazar (talk) 13:14, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Scope of essay

A few questions and concerns. Even if the Santorum article(s) inspired the essay and the news story, I'm wondering if this is part of a larger phenomenon where some editors may over-link an article, subject, issue, etc., that they care about, either as an intentional attempt to increase its search engine prominence or in a way that unintentionally achieves that result. If so, even though commercial and political interests are two obvious places where this would happen there may be others. A person may be particularly interested in a historical figure, town, philosophical principle, musical instrument, whatever. We've had mass article creation sprees in fields like geography. Have we had mass templating and linking efforts too? Second, in terms of paid editing and conflicts of interest, what is the boundary between wikibombing and other types of promotional article spam? - Wikidemon (talk) 18:09, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Good question. I'm looking now at the contributions of a now-vanished user who created, by his own account, 25 DYKs, 11 GAs, 18 FAs, one featured portal, and also a template which appears on 261 articles. Most of that effort was focused on a single topic. How do we decide whether that effort was excellent editing or a huge Wikibomb project?   Will Beback  talk  21:15, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Template size

I was thinking further about the template SEO allegations. If creating a lot of inbound links is seen as promotion, then it seems to me that the fair way to control the issue is not by picking and choosing which points of view are appropriate to promote, but rather, by limiting the number of inbound links to some level by setting some maximum overall number of pages that should be handled by a template, rather than by a category. For example, I think that if templates were limited to 20 entries, there would be no serious claim that SEO would be much affected by them. This also relates to a perhaps unwise exception to policy that the templates can be stacked up and concealed with a hide/seek button, whereas most other content (including controversial images...) should never be hidden on a page. An impartial, numerical limit on the entries per template - perhaps together with a bit more inventive usage of categories - might allow people to settle this issue without any room for ideological debates. Wnt (talk) 01:35, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

FWIW, collapsing has no effect on search engines. There are some important, large templates that would be hard to reproduce with only 20 links.

Templates, categories, internal links, and other navigational hypertext connections are part of what makes Wikipedia so great. I think that any plan to reduce the visibility and accessibility of encyclopedic material is a mistake. Non-encyclopedic should just be deleted, not hidden.   Will Beback  talk  07:20, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree. That's why it's important not to misuse them, and to clamp down on misuse when we see it. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 14:51, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

It amazes me that people here are so vicious about cutting out external links (Jimbo Wales was just in a brouhaha about this at Rob Todd because he wanted to have four of this person's official sites listed) yet there is no limit to this template "linkcruft". I understand that collapsing the template doesn't affect the search engine; the point is, if you saw two or three giant templates at the bottom of the article uncollapsed, you'd think more about it not being a few little things in curly brackets but a huge directory of peripherally related topics sent out with each page view. We have a category system for listing all things Beatles in a hierarchical structure, though people don't want to use it so much because it unfortunately hasn't been lavished with the same kind of cute stylistic formatting.

What I can't accept at all is that after giving over-the-top examples like those, which allow Beatles fans or New Yorkers to pump up their favorite obscure songs and places with hundreds of incoming links, that you can turn around and tell me that Cirt did something wrong by linking santorum with other sexual slang terms. The only "abuse" he committed was being interested in the "wrong" thing! Wnt (talk) 16:47, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

My 2 cents is that SEO isn't our main concern: it's making a good and userful article. We already have crazy-bad policies for external links (largely due to fighting spam) that hurt our articles. We don't want to limit navigation methods too. Google's problems are Google's problems. Let's try to make things as useful for our readers as possible and only worry about other issues when they start to interfere with that goal. Hobit (talk) 20:14, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Big navigation templates can help readers find their way around big, complicated topics. Categories alone can be hard to navigate. Above, SlimnVirgin says that templates shouldn't be misused. Fair enough - nothing should be misused. But what does that mean? Are the people who wrote the templates above guilty of Wikibombing? How do we define misuse? How many links to an article is too many? If we assume bad faith then any links are too many. It seems like the distinction is whether we are assuming good faith or not, not the number of links.   Will Beback  talk  20:42, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

One rule of thumb with templates is to only add them to articles that are listed on the template. I'm not sure if that's written down anywhere, but it's common sense, and would avoid the use of templates to add links to articles that aren't closely related.   Will Beback  talk  23:47, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I did a count on the characters of the Beatles template above in the source. It adds 78,260 characters to the HTML source code of this page. This is the reason why we normally don't allow hidden content in Wikipedia pages - because the reader has to take the time to download it, the stuff downloaded should be usable. We shouldn't hide the text so people don't notice that there are three pages of directory material in the template which could go in a list of Beatles-related topics or a category. Wnt (talk) 22:38, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Yikes. That's gotta hurt loading time, which makes all of the articles that host the template less accessible to readers, especially those with slow connections. But that's not "wikibombing": it's just the enthusiasm of multiple editors. The problem is telling the difference between enthusiasm and wikibombing.   Will Beback  talk  10:24, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Continued problems.

I'm seeing changes to this page continue to be one-side "attack a user" issues. The Scientology link was one thing, but large sections of this are now solely about one case written by people who really disagree with that one case and seem to be assuming pretty nasty motives on the part of that one editor. A number of folks above seem to agree with my reading. Can we _please_ make this essay about wikibombing with only a small bit on the Dan Savage incident? If not, could someone explain why? The current state of the article makes it attack page IMO and probably should be deleted as such. Hobit (talk) 20:23, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Wikibombing vs. Santorum (neologism)

This essay is about Wikibombing, not the single Santorum (neologism) article. The expansion of that article alone is not Wikibombing, by any reckoning, the linking to it, etc. Therefor mentions of controversies about that article that don't concern the Wikibombing aspect, like the retirement of an editor, are not relevant to this essay. (Further, editor retirements are notoriously temporary, so listing that as a significant outcome of a Wikibombing effort is probably unwarranted.)   Will Beback  talk  22:52, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Craziness

It's frankly unbelievable that someone should list the following under "Typical Wikibombing activities":

• Creating articles
• Adding sourced content to existing articles
• Adding images to articles
• Putting new articles in the "Did You Know" queue for the main page
• Adding events to "Selected anniversaries" queue for the main page
• Adding links back to articles
• Creating templates and portals
• Improving articles to Featured Article status
• Nominating articles to the "Today's Featured Article" queue for the main page

Wikibombing? Those are completely standard editing activities. Is there a single editor on Wikipedia who hasn't done at least one of those? Are we all "Wikibombers" now? Prioryman (talk) 00:48, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

These are all activities that are included in the alleged Wikibombing activity. The difference between good editing and Wikibombing appears to be motivation.   Will Beback  talk  00:57, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

This looks like a bad faith attempt to comprimise the integrity of Wikipedia. I have removed the vandalism. I strongly support the block of any editor who restores the vandalism. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:58, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I'm occasionally mistaken for a vandal. But it's always a mistake.   Will Beback  talk  10:49, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Really? It looks like vandalism to me. You are free to restore the vandalism and find out what happens. But, hey, it may work out in your favor. After all, ArbCom effectively ruled that it's OK for admins to block other admins to catch their attention (no need to find a good reason) even if they're involved in the dispute. But I'm not an admin. I only represent (in my limited fashion) a single voice in what the community might want. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 02:53, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Hazardously comical

Make sure you take a deep breath before Googling santorum today...

Yes, that's right, thanks to the great Wiki Wide Debate we are now two and three... Wnt (talk) 17:23, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Quote box

Where did we get the quotation from? [10]   Will Beback  talk  03:07, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

I believe it came from Wikipedia Review. Why didn't you discuss it first before revert warring? This is an essay, not an article. Cla68 (talk) 08:00, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Why didn't you discuss it before you added it? On which foot is the shoe?

If there is a source for the quotation then please provide it.   Will Beback  talk  08:31, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

We should under no circumstances quote stolen private correspondence (it's one of the leaked Arbcom emails) in a piece like this. That's completely unethical. Prioryman (talk) 08:41, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps we should ask the arb concerned if he minds being quoted in this essay. --JN466 09:26, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

excessively detailed coverage

• excessively detailed coverage of a topic, particularly a commercial or political one (such as citing and linking dozens of trivial references, rather than a representative sample of major coverage)

Is there any reason to believe that a 3000-word article gets a higher search engine page rank than a 1000-word article?   Will Beback  talk  03:16, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

According to our Search engine optimization page, Google ranking is influenced by hyperlinking, keyword frequency, meta tags, headings and site structure. The only one of those to which length would seem applicable is keyword frequency. Maybe that is what this bullet point is trying to get at? I can't see how "trivial references" could be a factor at all, particularly if they were offline. Prioryman (talk) 08:52, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Creation of POV forks, depth of coverage in these forks and page rank are all aspects of Wikibombing. If I have a 5,000-word article on "Negative aspects of X" come up as the first Google result for "X", or "Things of type X", and that 5,000-word article has been taken to that volume by quoting every last newspaper article, crossword puzzle book and geek website that has ever commented, then that's Wikibombing – especially if the parent article on "X" is, like, 500 words.

So depth of coverage can be part of it, but does not in itself affect the page rank. --JN466 09:51, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Then the issue is more about the creation of POV forks, already forbidden, rather than length. Is that right? Do we have any good sources for this, or are we just guessing?   Will Beback  talk  10:02, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

There does seem to be a lot of guesswork and unverified assumptions here. I am not at all comfortable with that. Prioryman (talk) 10:27, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

I do mean what I wrote. It's both length, and forking. If the standalone article on Dan Savage's santorum campaign is practically the same length as our biography of Rick Santorum himself, and outranks it in Google, then all of that -- the existence of the fork, its length, its level of detail, and its search engine ranking -- contributes to the problem. --JN466 10:54, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Will and Prioryman, if you disagree with this essay, please write your own as a rebuttal. Cla68 (talk) 10:58, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Better to get this one right.   Will Beback  talk  11:00, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree. My concern is that many of the assertions and assumptions being made in this essay are unverified and speculative. We don't even know for sure that there is such a thing as "Wikibombing". Googlebombing by contrast is well-documented; people understand how it works and there have been numerous cases of it. That's not the case with "Wikibombing". There are numerous unanswered questions here:

• What effect does adding an article to a template have on that article's search ranking?
• Does the length of an article affect search ranking?
• Do the number of references in an article have any effect on search ranking?
• Is it possible to artificially increase an article's search ranking through the use of keywords and page structure?

And so on. These are all objectively verifiable questions, but as far as I can see nobody has done any work to assess whether "Wikibombing" is even possible - there seems to have just been a general assumption that it is. Perhaps what is needed is for some people to do some experimentation to find out the answer to these questions. As it is, what we've witnessed here is a lot of people making a lot of noise over an issue that nobody knows for sure is actually real. It would surely be more sensible to get a handle on the issue first, then write an essay about it afterwards. Prioryman (talk) 11:16, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, I suppose it needs to be said that Google is not the only search engine out there. And no search engine service will explain in detail exactly how they rank things, so we're chasing a dragon if we try to guess exactly how they work. I would be very surprised if some number of people at Google and Bing aren't already watching this discussion. If you google for "page rank" and "how does google search work" you find some interesting reading, but I think it is safe to assume that the more links out one of our pages has, the more likely the page is to rise in searches (due to the patterns of people looking around starting with WP), and the most links in to one of our page, the more likely the page is to rise in searches, and the more words we use on a page that are not directly related to the topic, the more likely the page is to rise in searches, due to keyword indexing. On a page with a controversial topic, I think we work against ourselves in this particular context as some of use try to justify the article with references and others try to mitigate the controversy by expanding the context. That being said, I think experimenting would be a good idea. But I think it would be a better idea for some higher ups to contact Google and ask them what they see happening. But keep in mind, Google and the others are constantly adjusting their algorithms as companies seek to outsmart the engines to achieve higher ranks, so it is a dynamic environment. --Nuujinn (talk) 11:41, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Here is some further reading on the effect of internal links on page rank; some of these specifically address Wikipedia:

• [11]
• [12] (Section 2, "2. MASSIVELY INCREASE HIGH QUALITY INTERNAL LINKS", Wikipedia)
• [13]
• [14]

General searches:

• [15]
• [16] --JN466 14:16, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Like I said at the MfD and added to the essay: so what if adding internal links increases page rank? It's encouraged by Wikipedia's own guidelines (as long as it's not overlinking). Are you suggesting that anyone who follows WP:MOSLINK is an SEO spammer? rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:25, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

No, I am not saying that. But I don't think what happened here can be accurately described as following WP:MOSLINK:

1. On 10 May, Cirt created Template:Dan Savage [17]
2. On 11 May, Cirt created Template:Political neologisms, with santorum included, and added it to about 120 articles [18] (that template has since been deleted, deletion discussion)
3. On 15 May, Cirt added the santorum article to Template:LGBT slang: [19], creating further in-bound links
4. On 15 May, Cirt created Template:Sexual slang [20], comprising about 120 general, LGBT and pornography slang terms, including santorum, and then added it to these 120 articles.

Now, most people agreed that "santorum", even if it were accepted as a valid neologism, is not a political neologism, like Euroscepticism. In addition, the community decided the template was ill-conceived to begin with (Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2011_May_25#Template:Political_neologisms), quite apart from the inappropriateness of adding santorum to it as a political neologism. It was deleted as a result. Template:Sexual slang has a considerable overlap with Template:LGBT slang. You really only need one or the other. There are simply several things here that in the opinion of many editors do not add up. One can in good faith disagree about that, but to many, the creation of these ill-conceived or redundant templates, combined with the expansion of the article, the poor sources that were included to add bulk to it, the timing of this focused effort, and the seven DYK nominations using hooks that linked to articles covering the controversy, arguably in violation of Wikipedia:DYK#Selection_criteria (section 4), did not simply reflect best practices. Each of these points, individually, might be borderline okay. But combined, they don't look good.

The thing to do is to look for ways to make links in nav templates and on project pages, outside article mainspace, nofollow. It will remove the contentiousness, and will let navigation templates stand and fall on their own merits as navigation aids. --JN466 17:46, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Can we please get away from your fixation on Cirt and focus on general principles? For (hopefully) the last time, this essay is not a place to indict an editor with whom you're in a dispute. That said, your suggestion for non-mainspace links sounds sensible; is there any downside to making them nofollow? Prioryman (talk) 18:25, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Even if we can't be certain that these links contribute to SE rankings, it seems likely that they do per Jayen's sources above. I agree that nofollow for non-mainspace seems like a good solution, and that the essay's current caution about "creating multiple navigation templates or portals that link to an article, and adding these to multiple unrelated articles" is a reasonably narrow one, unlikely to restrict legitimate linking/content growth per WP:MOSLINK. All the essay's guideline calls for, after all, is that editors be cautious when creating or noticing the creation of multiple templates pointing to a single article, particularly in cases of known SEO issues. I don't think it's something that comes up very often in the first place. Khazar (talk) 20:50, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

It sounds like the overall length or sourcing of an article don't effect SEO, just the number of internal links. If that's correct we should change the text to reflect that.   Will Beback  talk  02:38, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

I would disagree with that, per my earlier comments above, 09:51, 27 June 2011. --JN466 03:05, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Which comments? I see you saying that internal linking is what affects SEO. What is the proposed mechanism for a long article getting a better search result than a short article? What is the evidence of this? The neologism article outranked the bio even in February, before it had grown.   Will Beback  talk  03:27, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't buy this either, and we have objective evidence to show it. The screenshot linked above showed that the neologism article was already at the top of Google's search results at a time when it was much shorter. It stayed at the top of the search results when it was expanded and it is still at the top after being reduced again. In other words, the article's length seems to have had no effect on the ranking. Prioryman (talk) 07:45, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Last I heard there were something like 200 parameters that Google uses in their searching algorithms, and we're a preferred source for them. We should not focus on a particular article even if it played a role in the origin for this essay, but rather think in terms of how WP might be manipulated, inadvertently or otherwise, to raise a page in rank in popular search engines. --Nuujinn (talk) 11:37, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Certainly. I notice that the material on activities to avoid is introduced like this:

• The following actions may create the appearance of promotion, both within the Wikipedia community and elsewhere:

So we're not saying that these activities are part of SEO, we're saying Wikipedia editors might perceive these as promotion. Since promotion alone is covered by both Wikipedia policy (WP:SOAP) and by other essays, we should really be focused here on the SEO aspect. Maybe it'd be better to say something like: "The following actions may inflate page rankings:"   Will Beback  talk  18:58, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Will, depth of coverage is intimately related to SEO. In some cases it would be the entire point. There are many borderline-notable topics which, depending on the community's editorial judgment, could qualify for standalone subarticles if a Wikipedian authors a sufficiently detailed account of them. These may be Criticism_of_X-type articles, or articles on controversies, or articles on a notable achievement. If a 5,000-word subarticle giving a blow-by-blow account of criticism a person has received outranks the 300-word biography of that same person in search engines, then we may potentially have become a platform for activism. The subarticle may use 95% of all available sources on its topic, while the main article uses 1% of qualifying sources in the pool. This relates to WP:DUE, but not at the article level, but the topic level. That is something our policies don't address, because they are written with individual articles in mind. At some point, as this project grows, we may have to think about NPOV reviews at the topic area level, to check that we have our overall priorities right in a topic area. I don't think that will happen any time soon, but I think it will come. People may for example complain that we have high-ranking articles on every lawsuit they ever lost, and don't have a single article on any of the lawsuits they won. Lopsided depth of coverage combined with SEO measures has a potential for bringing the project into disrepute. --JN466 18:21, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Jayen466, that reply seems to mostly concern the number of articles instead of the length of the individual articles. I'll go ahead and change the text to reflect that the concern is with the number of articles and the number of links, rather than the length of the articles, and that these are a concern because of SEO rather than the perception of promotion.   Will Beback  talk  00:16, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, no, because the length is part of it too. If a highly visible article goes on and on about the same thing over and over again, the sheer amount of coverage can serve to inflate the topic's importance. Again, taking the criticism of X-type article as an example, if 100 journalists have commented, and I quote every one of them, it's not apparent to the reader that I have done that. The reader expects that we are providing summary coverage, rather than using every source out there; so if we quote 100, they'll assume there are 10,000. Using every newspaper comment out there may be legitimate if the resulting article is 400 words, but it is less so if it results in 10,000 words. --JN466 00:29, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

What makes a long article more visible than a short article?   Will Beback  talk  01:31, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

There are countless very long, very detailed articles on commercial products, including TV shows. Should we assume that these are examples of Wikibombing?   Will Beback  talk  01:37, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

"...the effects of their actions."

"Editors who behave as described above often have no intention of boosting search rankings and may be unaware of the effects of their actions."

This sentence makes an unwarranted leap in assuming that the effect of making certain templates, portals, and related articles is bad. It is good that the first sentence in the relevant paragraph enjoins editors to assume good faith; but no criteria are herein given for failing to assume good results. For any given topic or article, there will be some number of editors who feel that that topic is unduly promoting something. Nothing in this essay gives criteria for determining whether an article or an editor action constitutes participation in a "wikibomb," or simply constitutes good faith editing. In short, since editors will disagree as to whether the effects of these actions are beneficial (encyclopedic...) or not, without a clear policy statement this essay is either a polemic without teeth, or a wishy-washy injunction to please edit with care. In short short, nothing in here that's worth saying hasn't already been said more clearly elsewhere, as policy. This is not to say there can be nothing of value here; a clear policy statement would be welcome, regarding how WP is to cover events in which WP itself is or may be part of the story (this would be something for the entire community to discuss). But in its current form this essay is either superfluous or chillingly vague. ☯.ZenSwashbuckler.☠ 21:40, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Some good points. My feeling is that we should keep this as an essay for a while and not try to develop a policy for this issue, as I would rather just try to get folks to think about the potential effects of their behaviour than try to control it. IN regard to criteria for failing to assume good results? --Nuujinn (talk) 00:42, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

This essay is clearly a work in progress. But it is a starting point for such work, and that work is important. --JN466 18:25, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

As a starting point for something that I agree is important work, I am willing to retract my delete !vote in this discussion. To progress, then. Something along the lines of the following (wording could be improved, obviously) would assuage my concerns about this page being used as a vague bogeyman or a subtle lacing of WP:IDONTLIKEIT in the talk page soup:

Editors who behave as described above often have no intention of boosting search rankings and may be unaware that they are doing so. Since the goal of Wikipedia is to be a widely-used encyclopedic resource, high page rankings and SERP placement-boosting edits are not to be avoided per se. We would hardly be worth our readers' time if our pages couldn't be found easily, that is to say near the top of any relevant list of search results. It is when Wikipedia and/or its relevant article becomes a part of the very story being covered that more vigorous pruning may be warranted. Please refer to the applicable policies for details.

I worry that without such qualification, the legitimate concerns discussed in this essay could be inflated beyond their scope into an excuse to get rid of more content than necessary. ☯.ZenSwashbuckler.☠ 19:01, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

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