Barriodude

Your email

Hi, Brady. I'm no one to score points with, just someone who writes articles =) I wrote TKaM, however, and I do my best to update it and keep the quality pretty high. Featured Article standards are extraordinarily high. There are only a dozen or so FA class Novels here on Wikipedia. I understand that quite a few pages of analysis are included at shmoop. I read through a few pages to make sure it wasn't a wiki, accessible, etc. I suppose the deciding factor is the answer to the question: is the content of shmoop higher quality than the citations of the Wikipedia article? I judged that as a no, since I searched as far as I could for as many sources as possible on this book, and eventually included in the article the fact that there are surprisingly few references about the book when you take into account how popular it is. I'm pretty laid back, usually, and I actually don't care that much about external links, so I'll do some searching to find out where there's a guideline not to link to sparknotes and other review sites.

In the meantime, are you interested in writing for LGBT topics? We are always in need of writers and helpers. You can answer here. I'll watch your page. --Moni3 (talk) 04:04, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Romeo and Juliet

Thanks for your message. I've moved this conversation to the article's talk page (here), where a wider group of people will comment. Be warned that the article is going through a featured article candidacy as we speak (see here for all the gory details), so expect to have to fight for any change you want to make, right now! Best, AndyJones (talk) 08:19, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Pride and Prejudice

Barriodude added one of these shmoop links to Pride and Prejudice, and I was pretty suspicious of it, but before hitting the "rollback" button I spent some time there and it really does seem to be a useful resource. The analysis may not be earth-shattering, but the presentation is fresh, and that's useful too. Someone's sure to come along and say "he's adding all these links to the one site, it must be spam". So I say have a look for yourself; if it's useful and doesn't duplicate what the existing links have to offer, what's wrong with having lots of links to it? So long as each link is on a page where it actually belongs, it seems appropriate. -- Zsero (talk) 05:09, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

No, spam is spam. Read Wikipedia's external links policy. This is classic Spam and a conflict of interest. -- Mwanner | Talk 12:40, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Spam is indeed spam, and this ain't it. Spam is characterised by its nature, not by the motive of the person adding it. As for COI, I have none, and I concur that the Shmoop links belong. If you delete them I will re-add them. -- Zsero (talk) 15:57, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Nice! Announcing an intention to edit war? Just great! -- Mwanner | Talk 16:05, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

It's not edit-warring if your only valid objection to the edit is the person who made it. If the same link is invalid when Barriodude makes it but valid when I do, then why shouldn't I reinstate it if I think it should be made? -- Zsero (talk) 18:15, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Add one more to the it's spam ranks. See below. - Dudesleeper / Talk 01:26, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

November 2008

Welcome to Wikipedia. One or more of the external links you added in this edit to Mending Wall do not comply with our guidelines for external links and have been removed. Wikipedia is not a collection of links; nor should it be used for advertising or promotion. You may wish to read the introduction to editing. Thank you. RainbowOfLight ^Talk 06:01, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Second and final warning. - Dudesleeper / Talk 11:04, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi Dudesleeper, I saw that you have reverted a number of my posts and would like to invite a polite discussion on this matter. As you can see from other discussions on my Talk page, Szero (who is in no way associated with Shmoop) would argue that the Shmoop links abide by the guidelines for external links. A number of other silent editors likely agree, as most of my article edits remained in tact. I would appreciate your feedback on how I could do a better job of adhering to the External Links guidelines if you think that I haven't done so. Shmoop is a passion project of people (mostly Stanford and Berekely Ph.D. and Masters stduents) who care deeply about these subjects. We believe we're bringing something new to the table on these topics - something deeper and more accessible to today's students.

I've already asked for another editor's input on the matter. Shmoop clearly violates some points in the policy you link to (advertising and conflicts of interest for one). I'm not sure which ones you think the project abides by. Besides that, if the project is aimed at Stanford and Berekely stduents (sic on both counts), why are they being shared to the wider world on Wikipedia? Surely the respective college servers should be the target? - Dudesleeper / Talk 23:08, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

So if I propose the link on a talk page, or convince another editor to un-revert, I would avoid a COI objection. To clarify - Shmoop is aimed at students (of all ages) worldwide. It's produced primarily by Ph.D. and Masters from Stanford and Berkeley. Thanks for your feedback. Barriodude (talk) 23:19, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I find it real hard to believe that "Ph.D. and Masters from Stanford and Berkeley" with a passionate interest in a scholarly approach to literature could possibly have produced the crappy entry on Mending Wall that is on Shmoop-- see Talk:Mending_Wall#Shmoop link. -- Mwanner | Talk 01:48, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Re. Shmoop Links

I have posted re. this issue here Lithoderm 20:46, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Conflict of interest & spam

Looks like this this site is being called spam, but if we were to assume there are any legitimate reasons to be adding it to Wikipedia somewhere, please note that our policy explicitly prohibits you, as someone working for the site, to add them. Similarly, adding info about the CEO of your company to articles is also prohibited. This is because of our policy on conflict of interest.

Based upon your edit history and looking at the content of the pages I'd have to say it's blatant spam. I know most people think of spamming as something other people do, but I can't think of anything that would be more clear cut example. You went through and adding a link to your own site to lots of articles despite the links not fitting into our policies, and you have not done any editing other than to promote this company. That's what spam is. DreamGuy (talk) 23:34, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

And you know what's especially odd? I see you put a message on another editor's talk page before I wrote the above that claims you avoid COI/spam issues and that "fans" added the links. Besides seeing in your edit history that you yourself added the links, the part that astounds me is that you are aware of the COI policy already but either think it somehow doesn't apply to you or are misleading the editor whose page you left a message on. Either way is very disturbing. DreamGuy (talk) 23:47, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

See discussion here for the current batch of links (which were added by people not affiliated with our company). The links in my history were COI, they were removed, I discussed with a number of editors in the proper channels and agreed to stop posting.

Barriodude (talk) 02:18, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

alternative view

I commented at some length on this at [1], and in fact, asked an experienced faculty specialist on Austen of my acquaintance who teaches this subject at the undergraduate level to comment on this particular P&P article at their site. In brief, my expert found the article at the site to have an unbelievably deplorable style, but with very accurate & informative content, and judges it much more comprehensive than the WP coverage--and to besuitable for students as long as they had better sense than to try to copy the language. (actually, my own view is that everyone in the world, including the potential users, will indeed have better sense--except for the publishers and their consultants.

I'm not going to go on a crusade about it, but on the basis of my own judgement as an academic librarian and frequent reviewer of academic works, I am inclined to revert any attempted blacklisting. DGG (talk) 04:09, 22 December 2008 (UTC)