Villagehiker

Villagehiker (talk) 20:08, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

November 2010

Welcome to Wikipedia. Everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia. However, please do not add promotional material to articles or other Wikipedia pages, as you did to USS Montpelier (CL-57). Advertising and using Wikipedia as a "soapbox" are against Wikipedia policy and not permitted. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about Wikipedia. Thank you. It is wholly inappropriate to add external links to your own website on wikipedia. -MBK₀₀₄ 07:51, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

This is serious, and if you continue, your editing privileges could be revoked. -MBK₀₀₄ 07:52, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree with your analysis. My links were totally in line with the guidelines. Totally. By posting the links to the war diary and cruise book, I was neither advertising nor soapboxing. Yes, it could be viewed as a conflict of interest, but it's not. Where is the conflict? Where is the interest? I am providing free access to historically important documents. These documents are cool and accurate, from original sources. Period. I am a professional journalist, doing historically important work, traveling widely to vet my sources. There is nothing on those pages advertising my services. Your reading of these issues is way too ridged and deprives readers of important historical information, namely the cruise book and the war diary. There are sites selling the cruise book, but I find that obnoxious. Anyone who wishes to grab the cruise book from Village Hiker is welcome. The images are actually fairly high resolution to be useful for others seeking information. The pages of the website are copyrighted, but anyone can download the cruise book for fair-use purposes. The same goes for the war diary. While I did the research, I publish this information in honor of the several thousand men who served on CL-57 from 9/42 through 1/47, including my dad who died from mesothelioma, possibly related to his work running the Ford Instruments Rangekeeper deep in the hull of the Might Monty. While the project is personal, I am maintaining a high level of professionalism. Other than promoting my services as a writer and editor, villagehiker.com is not a commercial site. Some of my pages do contain google ads, but they are minimalist. I use the ads to check how Google classifies my content, not to make money on clicks. Anyone who has visited a so-called affiliate publishing sites can see Village Hiker is not primarily commercial. It's not. Do I splat you with ads? No! Examine the way I am using the ads. I receive no income from Google. I don't care about Google ad clicks. Other than referrals for my writing and publishing services, which are not advertised on the war diary and cruise book pages (there was one promotion and I removed it) I don't make money off of Village Hiker. If you want to remove the links, I don't really care, but doing this only hides historically important content because of your overly zealous, misguided reading of the rules. That is serious. I am not republishing the links, but I am professional editor. I am not a spammer. If you want to nail someone, go after the listings for all of the small software companies advertising in Wikipedia, for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt-N_Technologies. (I pick on Alt-N because I know the company.) The content I have posted concerning the USS Montpelier is free and historically important. It's not promoting Village Hiker. Do what you want, but use your authority with professionalism. Guidelines are guidelines, not rules. Selective rigidity is one of the reasons Wikipedia lacks professionalism. The site is very inconsistent. If you are going edit, do it thoughtfully and professionally, not rigidly. --Villagehiker (talk) 23:35, 22 December 2010 (UTC)