Cannonconsult

April 2007

Welcome to Wikipedia. We invite everyone to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia. However, the external links you added to the page Jabuticaba do not comply with our guidelines for external links. Wikipedia is not a mere directory of links; nor should it be used for advertising or promotion. Since Wikipedia uses nofollow tags, external links do not alter search engine rankings. If you feel the link should be added to the article, then please discuss it on the article's talk page before reinserting it. Please take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you. — Indon (reply) — 20:21, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Jabuticaba link

I disagree with your removal of the link I added to the article.

First - The article the link points to does not sell or promote anything. There is no link on the page pointed to that sells any product or service. Second - The article is written by one of the most respected tropical fruit experts in North America. Third - The article corrects (or at least makes readers aware) the Latin name current for the fruit is in dispute.

Perhaps you did not like the article? I'll admit it’s short and written for collectors in marginal areas. Perhaps you did not like the fact that the article suggests that the Latin name used in the main article may be out of date. Perhaps you did not like that the article uses the accepted American spelling (Jaboticaba).

I have spent over 3 decades of my life involved with rare and tropical fruits and after this introduction to Wikipedia feel that I can not recommend them to anyone as an unbiased source of information.

Bob Cannon

Response to request for editor assistance

Bob, two editors have responded to your request for assistance. I am moving our responses to your talk page. Thanks for your request, and please let me know if you need any more help. TheronJ 21:54, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Request

Hi,

I recently made some minor edits to several tropical fruit articles only to have them removed by another editor (with in minutes). I cannot fogure out how to reach them directly. I added some links to a page that has articles on the specific fruit (some from a S Eastern US angle. On earticle corrected a latin name and in another case a link added by another person the was also removed. I have spent over 3 decades in tropical fruit and the articles linked were cvalid and of interest to any researching the fruit. The pages linked to do not sell anything and were ewstablished to be educational. If this is the welcome I get on my first day here I may have misunderstood the purpose of wikipedia - is it not to provide information? Bob Cannon 20:51, 6 April 2007

Responses

Bob, I've taken a look at your edits, and have a bunch of suggestions. Let me know if this is helpful, and if you have more questions.

1. I apologize if your first day of editing was discouraging. If you stick with it, there are lots of people who would like to help you learn the Wikipedia way. For better, or worse, though, one aspect of that Wikipedia way is that when we submit material to Wikipedia, we surrender ownership of that text, and realize that it might be "edited mercilessly" by future contributors.
2. If I understand correctly, you added edited several tropical fruit articles to add external links. All of the links were to quisqualis.com, a website that you maintain, and some of the links were to articles that you have written. (Diffs here:[1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], and [13]). Indon removed most or all of those links, and the two of you have begun a discussion on your talk page. Is that right? Assuming so, here are some Wikipedia policies and guidelines that may apply, and some suggestions as to how you can resolve the dispute.
3. As to the substance of your dispute, my guess is that Indon is right. Wikipedia discourages linking to sites you own or maintain. See External Links: Advertising and conflicts of interest. If you like, I can explain Wikipedia's dispute resolution process to you, but my guess is that the outcome of any dispute resolution will be that Indon was right to remove the links.
4. I should stress, however, that this absolutely does not mean that we don't want your edits, or that we don't want the articles to be fully encyclopedic.
   • The best option for you, IMHO, is to use your expertise to review the text of the tropical fruit articles. If there is encyclopedic information that you think is being left out, and if you can find reliable sources to support that information, then by all means edit the articles themselves to make them better -- just don't link to your own website.
   • The second best option, IMHO, is that if you think that the articles absolutely need links to your website or your articles, suggest those links on the talk pages of the articles in question. (Start with the article where your link would offer the greatest improvement.) If enough uninvolved editors agree, they will enter the links. If not, then my advise would be to live without the links for now.
5. Also, one minor suggestion. When adding notes on talk pages or Wikipedia pages (but not in article text), the Wikipedia norm is to sign your notes with four tildes, i.e. ~~~~ Wikipedia will substitute a signature and the time and date of your edit.

If you would like more help or advice accomplishing any of the above, feel free to post a note on my talk page. Thanks, and good luck! TheronJ 21:48, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Just jumping in here - the problem may be with this part of our external link guidelines, someone correct me if I'm wrong. To be fair, it's a bit much to expect you to know about the minutiae of our linking policies on your first day. At any rate, {{welcome}}! Moreschi ^{Request a recording?} 21:41, 6 April 2007 (UTC)