Dprkstudies

DPRK Studies http://www.dprkstudies.org/

A focus on the security, social, and political issues of North Korea; North Korean Studies.

Hi Dprkstudies,

Please note that it is against Wikipedia policy to rely on blogs as a reliable source, see Wikipedia:Reliable sources#Bulletin boards, wikis and posts to Usenet. Nor is adding blogs to the External links section generally accepted, see Wikipedia:Spam#External link spamming. Rwendland 23:37, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi Rwendland,

The links I added were not spam, but directly related to the page added on. If you're going to delete one link to a blog, perhaps you'd better delete all links to all blogs on the same page? Thanks. Dprkstudies

Yes, they were relevant to the topic, but in general blog extlinks are not accepted even if on-topic. I hope you can see the difficulty - there are so many blogs out there that if blog extlinks were accepted, many articles could have large numbers of relevant blog links; a wikipedia link is a good way of getting publicity. Generally we prefer links to something that is subject to some level of peer-review (academic journals, official statements, newspapers for current affairs etc). I did delete one or two other obvious blog extlinks at the same time, but I do agree some of those articles could do with a serious review and trimming of the external links section. (NB there is a very slow transition going on in wikipedia from favouring extlink sections to inline refs/footnotes.) Rwendland 12:44, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Please stop adding inappropriate external links to Wikipedia, as you did to North Korea. It is considered spamming and Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advertising or promotion. Since Wikipedia uses nofollow tags, additions of links to Wikipedia will not alter search engine rankings. If you continue spamming, you will be blocked from editing Wikipedia. Mthibault (talk) 06:27, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi, please read Wikipedia policy on external links, on original research and on POV. Your blog is certainly interesting, and I may personnaly even become a regular reader, but it is not appropriate to list it (or any blog) in articles. Mthibault (talk) 06:42, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Hello Mthibault. First, I did NOT list it "in" any article, I put my BLOG under the External Links section with the heading "WEBLOGS." Since it is a blog focused entirely on the DPRK, that is in fact the most appropriate place for it on Wikipedia. I should note if you're going to remove one, you need to remove all. But you're not. I'm putting it back. Dprkstudies

I just read the External Links policy you referred to, and there is nothing inappropriate with my listing a very relevant DPRK focused blog there, per the policy your ref. I am not blogging here, and I am not inserting my links into Wiki articles (although others have linked to some of my research from Wiki articles). If you're going to remove it, I would love to hear why that DPRK blog should be removed when the others are not. Dprkstudies

Hi Dprkstudies! Please read point 11 of Wikipedia policy on external links. You are right though to point out that the whole blogs links section should not be there, I'll remove it. Mthibault (talk) 16:28, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

As I thought, you missed the point entirely. People like you make Wikipedia less useful and give it a bad name. Dprkstudies (talk) 17:58, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Please comment on the content not on the contributor Wikipedia:No_personal_attacks, since this is the first time I'll ignore it. I'm sure our disagreement over external links can be fixed by mediation and I suggest we let a third party review this. I would like to thank you for your opinion on the proposed chages I made to the article at Talk:North_Korea#Removing_POV-check, can you help me rephrase the litigious sections so that we can remove the POV tag? Yours. Mthibault (talk) 09:57, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Item 11 of the policy does not state what you seem to think it does unless you omit a few key words. Full explanation and comments on the North Korea talk page. Dprkstudies (talk) 14:10, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Please avoid comments on the contributor rather than on the content as you did on the edit summary for this edit. This is the second time. Thank you. Mthibault (talk) 10:05, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

I found the NK weblogs dispute via the Third Opinion request. I'm still reading through the background material, but I noticed the wikipedia-related post on your blog. Aside from any comments I may make about the NK issue, I would like to make you aware of WP policy on advertising for allies in content disputes, namely:

It is considered highly inappropriate to advertise Wikipedia articles to your friends, family members, or communities of people who agree with you, so that they come to Wikipedia and support your side of a debate. If you feel that a debate is ignoring your voice, then the appropriate action is to avoid personal attacks, seek comments and involvement from other Wikipedians, or pursue dispute resolution.

See full section here.

Could I ask you to remove the blog post please, in the interests of peaceful resolution of the dispute. Thanks for your help. Eve Hall (talk) 10:34, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Hello Eve. Thank you for looking into this. I have edited the title and text of my blog post to remove any advocacy, but have not removed the post as there are now comments (including a comment from Mthibault) and incoming links. One question I asked of Mthibault a few times with no substantive response was why my blog was first singled out for deletion. It had been there along with all the others for about a couple of years, and I merely added it back after I noticed it had been deleted. Also, as stated above, I do not believe the External Links policy prohibits blogs at all. Dprkstudies (talk) 14:23, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for removing the advocacy bits from the blog post. Hopefully it will help to keep the discussion calmer. In terms of the deletion of just your blog when you tried to add it back, I find from my own editing that it's very easy to see a new link appear in the recent changes and delete it, without remembering (or having time) to check the existing links on the page to see if they are appropriate too. Given the huge number of spam links that get added and reverted every day, it's also easy to get into a mindset where you expect all new additions to be dodgy, I know I for one have removed links somewhat reflexively that perhaps should have warranted some thought. So maybe give Mthibault the benefit of the doubt on that one, eh? I think Mthibault acknowledged that there was no particular reason your blog was singled out, hence moving the discussion on to the weblogs section in general. Cheers, Eve Hall (talk) 14:26, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Hello Eve. While he has been exceedingly polite, he also refuses direct requests to discuss adding it back, even after it has been shown that his understanding of EL policy on blogs was not accurate (i.e., that blogs are prohibited by the policy when in fact they are not), and I have established some level of credentials as a North Korean specialist. If he made a reflexive mistake then, it's now becoming a different one, I think. Dprkstudies (talk) 22:16, 15 April 2008 (UTC)