Wikipedia Adds No Follow to Links 264
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.
Wikipedia and Internet-Topology (Score:4, Insightful)
From TFA:
The situation is a classic tragedy of the commons [wikipedia.org]: does the interest of malificent spammers outweigh Wikipedia's rôle as a semantic mediator between alien but related nodes?
Should Wikipedia transition to leaf from cut-point, it may have significant and unforeseen effects on internet-topology.
Neither good nor bad. It's immaterial. (Score:5, Insightful)
"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...).
Jimbo...who are the founders? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yesterday, after reading and noting glaring inconsistencies in the Wikipedia articles and talk pages for Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], Larry Sanger [wikipedia.org], and Jimbo Wales [wikipedia.org], as well as Jimbo Wales' user page [wikipedia.org], I have lost a bit of respect for Wikipedia and a lot more for one of its cofounders. I can't believe he's trying to manipulate his encyclopedia project this way!
Re:Neither good nor bad. It's immaterial. (Score:5, Insightful)
More like meta tags never worked. Much better to judge the content of a page by...looking at the content. Only a fraction of pages included meta tags, anyway.
pointless (Score:5, Insightful)
The way to fix this is with stable versions -- you don't let search engines see unstable versions at all. But having looked at the craptastic mediawiki codebase, I can sympathize with them not wanting to bother with adding such a major feature.
Better for Google, not Wikipedia (Score:4, Insightful)
This won't solve the problem, since humans may still follow the links, so it's still worthwhile for spammers to have links in Wikipedia. Even if it doesn't up their pagerank, Wikipedia can still serve them as a spam delivery system.
However, it helps Google by not uping spammer's page rank. And less noise in the search results is good for the users of Google.
Re:Wikipedia and Internet-Topology (Score:5, Insightful)
I bring up the point about the Tragedy of the Commons because the parable has been used as an excuse to privatize communally managed resources, when such resources do not fall prey to the Tragedy. Reasoning such as yours could be used to justify the 'privatization' of wikipedia, turning it into an experts-only publication where the public has no input. This would be as bad a misapplication of the lessons of the Tragedy parable as it is when governments and industry collude to privatize such things as water cooperatives, which are public but managed resources and not vulnerable to the Tragedy at all.
Can Wikipedia withstand the weight of spam? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Wikipedia and Internet-Topology (Score:5, Insightful)
In my experience as a forum webmaster, there is simply no other choice. Any place where the unverified public can put up links, spammers will put up links to their crap, which do more than just use your resources for their ends. If Google notices that your site seems to have become a spammer link-farm, you're entire site will very likely be removed from Google, with all of the bad mojo that entails. So, any page where the unverified public can put up links, those links must be "nofollow", or else...
Personally, I'm astonished that Wikipedia hasn't done this from the beginning.
Ross
Re:Wikipedia and Internet-Topology (Score:2, Insightful)
That applies just as much to Wikipedia as well. No editor or group of editors has a stake in the integrity of Wikipedia when anyone connected to the Internet can undo, vandalize or otherwise screw up what they have written. Still less do they have a stake in the maintenance of encyclopedia standards since very few take any notice of them, and those that do are rapidly undone by those that don't. The resources are NOT communally managed at all.
Add to that a monolithic bureaucracy and you have a perfect example of the Tragedy of the Commons.
Reasoning such as yours could be used to justify the 'privatization' of wikipedia, turning it into an experts-only publication where the public has no input.
Oh the horror. Just imagine if Wikipedia was written only by people who knew what they were talking about. Terrors like that keep me up at night.
Let the search engines do this themselves (Score:4, Insightful)
Overlooking the reason for this change (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Wikia is not Wikipedia - please correct story! (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
I really don't think it's a problem. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Wikipedia and Internet-Topology (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Wikipedia and Internet-Topology (Score:5, Insightful)
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 [wikipedia.org].
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.
Re:Wikipedia and Internet-Topology (Score:2, Insightful)
The pagerank just leaks out from other places. MediaWiki's main site is a good example.
Also the other language wikis dont have nofollow so they will get a massive boost.
I'd really hate to be at google at the moment. Search results will be doing really funny things in the next month or so.
Re:Overlooking the reason for this change (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Wikia is not Wikipedia - please correct story! (Score:3, Insightful)
The "official" announcement... (Score:3, Insightful)
... is here [wikimedia.org]; they seem to be concerned about a "search engine optimization world championship".
Personally I think we can all do our bit and stop linking to Wikipedia so much, because Google is starting to give the impression that Wikipedia is the fount of all knowledge - to the detriment of pages which contain better information but which don't happen to have WP's massive net presence.
Overkill (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wikipedia and Internet-Topology (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
uncommonly tragic? (Score:3, Insightful)
The notion that the Internet is going to organically solve such problems smacks of the magic "free-market" economics that are supposed to make the world a paradise, but end up tilting the field in favor of the most powerful. There is no magic that's going to keep the Internet free. If it's going to stay viable it's only going to do so with careful management by some wise and generous souls. I count the Wikifolk as wise and generous, until they do something to warrant a reevaluation.
And I second the emotion that spun has been just such a wise and generous voice here at Slashdot
Re:Wikipedia and Internet-Topology (Score:2, Insightful)
Very true, and that's true of any democracy - that is, one where each individual within it has exactly the same amount of power. The only variable is the amount of time it takes to break, and the reason is not some inherent flaw in the system of government (or the abstract idea of individual freedom that it provides) - it's simply due to the fact that there are always a bunch of scummy assholes out there who will be intent on using the freedom to hurt others, thereby destroying the system.
Re:uncommonly tragic? (Score:3, Insightful)
Spam and whatnot may be a problem, but this is not the solution. This is just dumb.
Here's an idea:
If any site has "no-follow" links on it, that means that not only are they not verifying the quality of the links I might click on should I choose to go to the site, they have a general assumption that those links will be bad links. That being the fact of the matter, I already don't want them to show up in my search results at all.
Re:uncommonly tragic? (Score:1, Insightful)
Today it is easier and more effective to pay for links, either directly or by bribing key members of the blogosphere, than to gain a public profile through merit and word of mouth. Wikipedia is one of the few places where otherwise low profile high quality websites get lasting exposure without having to resort to flashy content, ads or bribes. The current solution is a bit like marking all emails "spam". Sure, you no longer see the crap, but you also block the good mails.
Re:Wikipedia and Internet-Topology (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:uncommonly tragic? (Score:4, Insightful)
Which is why Wikipedia is a pretty good way to add value to the vast information of the Internet, using the collective judgment (and a little bit of enlightened meritocracy thrown in for good measure).
Re:Wikipedia and Internet-Topology (Score:5, Insightful)
A encyclopedia will, even if written by experts, rarely be either authoritative or reliable. It will be at best a rough, selective summary, and usually one which misses much of what is current. An encyclopedia is, at best, a good starting point.
Only if misused. The average library is full of half-truths and errors, and yet no (sane person) says libraries are dangerous. If you are using information you cannot directly evaluate from Wikipedia for any important use, you should be checking the sources cited (and discarding the information if it isn't cited), and evaluating the credibility of those sources and consulting them more fully.
No, its not. It's only "propaganda" if its all written to advance the interests of the same faction. Otherwise, it might contain propaganda (and Wikipedia no doubt in some cases does.) But as a whole it is not a work of propaganda.
A free tertiary reference source is neither a surgeon nor a college textbook. Applying the standards applicable to either of those is inappropriate. Also, its not a ham-and-cheese sandwich, so you shouldn't eat it and expect it to taste like one. It's not inappropriate "special pleading" to suggest that things which are unalike in kind from other things should not be evaluated by the standards applicable to the other, unlike, things.
Wikipedia is, in practice, useful to me for things I care about (even though I have found, and corrected, errors.) I therefore think it has value, in many cases unique value for which no comparable resource of would offer a suitable, reasonable substitute.
Is it perfect? No. Are there other tools which are better for some uses? Certainly. Is it as inappropriate as any encyclopedia as an ultimate source? Certainly.
Is it valuable, and in some cases uniquely so? Yes, I'd say so.
Re:Could they not do it smarter? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Wikipedia and Internet-Topology (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wikipedia and Internet-Topology (Score:4, Insightful)