User talk:MyWikiBiz

Past discussions are archived here:

• Archive 1 (Oct 2006 - Mar 2007)
• Archive 2 (Mar 2007 - May 2007)
• Archive 3 (June 2007 - June 2008)

Leave a message table

I think Gregory it's the "div class". Just remove the div class capsule, the front and rear tags. That seemed to fix it for me. Wjhonson 22:39, 6 July 2008 (PDT)

Just wondering

Out of curiosity - why is the article I made, Music For Tourists, here? Not that I'm against it being copied over, just wondering why that particular article is here out of all the articles I've written (and all the articles on Wikipedia). Naerii 13:57, 25 July 2008 (PDT)

I don't know why that one, from among many others. Probably just caught a user's eye as being a good one for drawing traffic. Since it's a legal entity or trademarked product, I should probably move it to Directory space. Your authorship attribution is actually captured in the Edit history. Let me know if I can help some other way. According to MyWikiBiz "rules" the content is up for grabs until Chris Garneau or one of his authorized agents elects to take "ownership" of the page. -- MyWikiBiz 09:05, 27 July 2008 (PDT)

ha, thanks

Thanks for the welcome. :) Remi 14:07, 22 August 2008 (PDT)

Thanks

...for the welcome. Yes, and block and unblock would be appreciated..particularly if we can have several years of impassioned arguments in between. -Pete

Revenue

sharing! :) Emeseee 14:26, 28 September 2008 (PDT)

Blogapro

Hi Greg,

Hopefully, you remember me? I wrote a post about mywikibiz on my blog: http://www.blogapro.com/2008/09/09/mywikibiz-author-your-own-legacy/

I was just wanting to thank you for your tips by the way.

I'm most impressed with the wiki, so much so, that I've taken the time this weekend to completely redo my own wiki page as can be seen in the following link. http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Gavin_Smith

Regards,

Gavin

Gavin, I'm glad that you're impressed. I hope you'll tell others, because the only way we're going to really take off is if we build a viral wave of some sort. Sites like Wikia and AboutUs are going to leave MyWikiBiz in the dust, unless folks start to realize the two advantages here -- semantic web notation that helps search engine results, and self-paying advertising in protected space. Otherwise, we're just "another wiki". -- MyWikiBiz 20:30, 28 September 2008 (PDT)

Gmail

Hey Greg - Just wondering if gmail has been down for you today. --OmniMediaGroup 11:14, 30 September 2008 (PDT)

No observable problems on my end. -- MyWikiBiz 12:23, 30 September 2008 (PDT)

Hi

You are Thekohser +/- any affiliates of his, right? Anyway, good job. I was only wanting to comment on your idea for a new improved Wikipedia Review. I don't know if you will pay attention to what I said at all. I do think that WR wasn't ideal, but I do not think that multiplaying (sock puppeting, whatever you want to call it) was an issue. Rather, I think that they allowed too many people in, people whose sole aim was to destroy the site - Wikipedia administrators and other people that think that there is nothing whatsoever wrong with Wikipedia. IMO such people should never have been allowed in. The Poetlister incident proved that we should listen to ED more as they are at times a good resource, and that we were for the most part right the whole way along, that Poetlister was a good, helpful user who was roleplaying online, like most everyone does. We don't need a solution by people using real names, as that can create more problems than it solves. I think that that would be dangerous. Rather, you need to keep with WR's ideas to allow people the choice. Choice is important. There is no need, however, to allow people in who are only aiming to destroy the site. Let them do that on Wikipedia sites or the like. Most importantly, however, get rid of the power struggle element. I don't care if Igor Alexander was satan himself - he founded the site and he should be able to keep going to his own site. Founding members shouldn't be able to be banned, period. It is just wrong on so many levels to do that, to steal a site, and those bans against good people are a big part of what went wrong with the site.

With that being said, WR was and still is a resounding success. It has created a big warning label, it has achieved overall in spite of the problems. It has made a difference to how people view Wikipedia, which was the aim.

I am concerned that a new site may either move too far away from WR's original aims and hence make a bad site, or that they may fail to deal with WR's problems.

As for MyWikiBiz, you know, per my user page, that I originally objected to it, and even encouraged for them to be banned from Wikipedia, before Jimbo banned them. My reason, of course, was because I was concerned about truth changing. I think that truth changing is a big deal and is the biggest problem with Wikipedia. Paying someone to edit articles, in my opinion, represented truth changing.

With that being said, the whole reason that Wikipedia is able to encourage truth changing is with regards to 2 rules: WP:NPOV and WP:OWN: both theoretically impossible to enforce and in practice cause a lot of problems. They are also wrong! Bias is a good thing, and furthermore articles should be controlled by experts on the topic. As I now understand it, this is what MyWikiBiz is all about: allowing people to write articles about themselves, or their companies. This is a good thing. If Wikipedia did this, then truth changing wouldn't be an issue. If people write things about themselves, of course they are biased and they may even be false in some ways, but at least then you can account for the biases, and get to the truth of the issue. That is the issue with Wikipedia - we don't know who has inserted the lies.

You can tell with the Port Arthur massacre article on Wikipedia that what is written is blatantly false, but you don't know who is responsible. It took me ages to work it out, and ultimately it was controlled by Robert Merkel since 2002, with help from various others including Tannin, and then ultimately taken over by Thebainer, who added disinformation. But you wouldn't know that from looking at the history. It takes hours to piece it all together as to how it happened. Even once put together, the article that explains the truth changing in that one individual article is enormous. Yet that is one of the most obvious and devastating examples of truth changing that is out there, and on an issue that I am personally an expert on. What hope do others have in finding out about truth changing on other topics?

Look, WR needs redoing. If a new site was created that then became more popular, then that would be a good thing. I hope that you invite me along, but that is your choice. I won't insist on it. I tried to make a new one, but of course I have no way to talk to people to get it going, so I can't. I just hope that it adds to the good things of WR, not detracts from them. Blissyu2 23:54, 11 October 2008 (PDT)

Thanks for your input, Blissyu2. What was the alternate site that you tried to launch? -- MyWikiBiz 05:38, 12 October 2008 (PDT)

I wanted www.wikipediacritics.com, but after I told Somey that I wanted the freedom to launch that and to advertise it on WR as our compromise, Somey turned around and registered that domain name and made it redirect to Wikipedia Review, just to be nasty. I set up a ProBoards site, but it is not the same, since I can't advertise it. I really want to have Wikipedia Review run like it was in the beginning, before all of the power trips. I don't think that it needs any change, it just needs to go back to what it was like to start with. Well, perhaps a few changes. For one thing, I wouldn't allow any anti-critics people in at all. Obviously some of the current staff at WR would not be made staff if it was run properly, but some of them would stay staff too, depending on how they got to be staff really. But when something is stolen, it is really gone, and there isn't much I can do but to try to advertise the truth of it. Much like how WR couldn't change Wikipedia, all it could do was to warn people about its dangers. It is all a bit depressing really, since that's the 2nd site I ran which got stolen from me at the peak of its popularity, and then run into the ground. Blissyu2 06:44, 12 October 2008 (PDT)

Just for the record, Selina grabbed wikipediacritics.com and redirected it, not me. She also grabbed several other domains, as Daniel Brandt has revealed here, and whether or not she did it "just to be nasty" is anyone's guess. (It's anyone's guess as to how long that link will work, btw.) The only domains I'm currently squatting on are critizendium.org and knolreview.com, neither of which redirect to anything. I'll probably let them both expire after their year is out, in case anyone wants them. Somey 01:05, 30 October 2008 (PDT)

More stuff

I added this, which is of your hand but not on MWB, I think. Ockham 09:13, 13 October 2008 (PDT)

Added to this: Worst of Wikipedia tho' not sure if that was what was intended. Otherwise Unencyclopedic articles (Wikipedia) could be another place. This is all part of a longer project to support a media campaign. I have a couple of invitations to write something, but it all needs to be carefully document, I hope this is an acceptable place. Ockham 09:51, 14 October 2008 (PDT)

Thanks

Thanks for the welcome, Greg. In case it isn't obvious, I am Mndrew of the Wikipedia Review. AndrewM 23:23, 23 October 2008 (PDT)

your message

Thanks for your message, Greg. I've responded on my user talk page.Proabivouac 19:05, 26 October 2008 (PDT)

So fast!

Did y'all get a server upgrade? I can actually click around at near wikipedia speeds! I think I might be back. My lack of patience and school/work/social was keeping me away but If you have any bring projects to under take my winter break starts in a few weeks. Maybe finish Karl's vision of a php content creation bot or at least get google to like us again. For some reason centiare had way better SEO than MWB.

Garrett 10:19, 23 November 2008 (PST)

Garrett, my sister also seemed to notice improvements recently on the server. Our host may have been working on it, because the site went down for a couple of hours, but returned in improved condition. I'm finding that Google loves us for some things -- and I think a big part of what you may be saying about "Centiare having better SEO" is actually that when you were working on Centiare, your content was fresh and updated recently. Now, after 2 years, it hasn't changed one bit, and so Google demotes it. Try making a few changes over the course of 2 weeks on a few of your pages, and see if it affects (positively) the Google juice. -- MyWikiBiz 18:07, 23 November 2008 (PST)

The google juice seem back and better than ever even without changes. I looked at the rankings for one of my old clients. check it out. Garrett 16:05, 24 November 2008 (PST)

I'm seeing it, too, Garrett. And I've been letting people know. Search this page for the word "congratulations", then check out the edit diffs on those. Pretty awesome. -- MyWikiBiz 20:04, 24 November 2008 (PST)

Hi, Greg!

Thanks for the welcome. I was puttering around with a few minor changes to the re-posting of my Six Rotten Pillars of Wikipedia essay, originally posted at Wikipedia Review. We miss you there! It's taking awhile to get used to using wiki markup again, but I think am getting there. --Eddie

Cedric 11:53, 29 November 2008 (PST)

Directory:Proabivouac/Wikipedia Arbitration Committee clerks

Hello Greg. I'm wondering what your thoughts are on the page linked above? I'm not sure what Proabivouac is trying to achieve with all this, but it strikes me as something that you'd rather not have on your wiki. He's publishing all sorts of nonsens on there, and I'd appreciate it if would consider removing the really personal information. Regards, Ryan Postlethwaite 03:40, 19 December 2008 (PST)

Hello, Ryan. What's happening? I have reviewed the page linked above, and while I don't see any "nonsens(e)" there, I do see that there is some personally identifying information about people who help facilitate the highest system of editorial review and behavioral censorship on Wikipedia. If these people have identified themselves to the larger Internet community at one time or another, I'm having difficulty seeing the problem in simply re-aggregating that self-published information here.

That being said, I can see how one might draw a line at e-mail addresses and phone numbers, if and only if the person whose e-mail and phone is re-aggregated has a problem with it. Thus far, I have not had any specific take-down requests from any of the people so affected. Therefore, I don't believe it is either your or my place to censor Proabivouac regarding re-aggregated information that doesn't yet seem to inconvenience the subject.

Meanwhile, don't you participate on a web reference site that re-aggregates factual information, often to the objection of the subjects of that information, who are often ignored or overruled by "the community"? Not only that, the site you participate in is often the bearer of false information, which even though objected to by the affected parties, is not removed. Example, it was said about me, "he's a fool, or he's lying", all based on an erroneous assumption of the speaker, for which he never apologized, but would merely "take it into consideration". The falsehoods (which get ignored when complaint is received) continue to this day. Are you expending any energy to assist with removing this sort of false information on a much more widely-read website? -- MyWikiBiz 06:35, 19 December 2008 (PST)

Could you look over my pitch?

I spent a few hours revamping my business and personal page because I got this "quick fix" idea. All of these new accounts get registered and all of their pages look terrible so I decided I would start page creations back up again and post a boiler plate message on new users talk pages about a simple 40 dollar service to format their page properly if they haven't figured it out. If 50 people register a week and 30 have no idea what to do I might get 1 or 2 clients but hey 40-80 dollars to a starving college student isn't bad. Anyways - could you take a look at my boiler plate message to make sure it doesn't sound spammy or technosnobby. And is 40 bucks about right? Template:Quick Fix Help

Thanks

Garrett 12:01, 26 December 2008 (PST)

I tweaked it a bit. Your problem is going to be "catching" these visitors who simply register, make a page in 3 minutes, then leave MyWikiBiz (presumably forever). So, it's doubtful they'll even see your message. If I were you, I would start at a ridiculously low amount, like $10, and see if you get any takers. If so, keep adding $5 to the price until you sense that your take-rate is suffering due to price. Good luck! (Note, I reserve the right to nip this in the bud if it produces a backlash of "MyWikiBiz is loaded with spammers.") But, good luck! -- MyWikiBiz 18:48, 26 December 2008 (PST)

Thanks for the tweaks. Do you think the permission exists (thanks seth godin) to capture these elusive register then leave users through their emails. They need one to sign up so is there a check box to receive a monthly newsletter wherein a mention of page creations can be made. Garrett 08:55, 29 December 2008 (PST)

Wikipedia Vandalism

Sadly this was noticed long before the required 48h was up. But very funny, anyway. Ockham 09:06, 27 December 2008 (PST)

Bah, humbug! Maybe it would have worked if they had put "ArbCom" instead of "Wikipedia"! -- MyWikiBiz 12:10, 27 December 2008 (PST)

However courtesy of Tarantino I did locate Wikipedia_Vandalism/Tony_Eveready which is by far the most awful thing I have ever come across (vomit). Ockham 10:11, 28 December 2008 (PST)

Oh my word... "perennial negroid"? What a disaster. -- MyWikiBiz 10:21, 28 December 2008 (PST)

Quantcast

I think we could get some decent exposure by registering with quantcast.[1] You just have to embed a little bit of java on the main page for them to pick you up.

Garrett 15:42, 30 December 2008 (PST)

I actually had us registered with Quantcast long ago (maybe even Phase One of MyWikiBiz, pre-wiki-directory), but I think I removed the embedded code, because the traffic stats were so appallingly off-base on the low side. I've re-established the code in our footer, and I'll give it a few weeks to start tracking. If it makes us "look bad" (too low traffic rankings) then I'd prefer stick with Alexa and StatCounter to tout our measures. I sent you "view" access to the Quantcast tool, via Gmail. Thanks for looking out for stuff like this, Garrett. -- MyWikiBiz 13:47, 31 December 2008 (PST)

Happy New Year

Happy 2009, Greg Ockham 08:32, 1 January 2009 (PST)

Kenneth Freeman

I am new here (though I was here before as User:Bluevictim, I decided to create an account under my real name), how's this article, by MWB standards? Is any material inappropriate, and are there any improvements that might be helpful? Jonas Rand 16:51, 1 January 2009 (PST)

It was not that she forbade me from editing here, it was the school, and my birthdate. She does permit my editing here. And it cannot be libel, as the subject is dead, also there is quite a lot of evidence. All the claims made in the article can be verified, except that he wasn't convicted as a murderer. Do you allow POV here? It might need some toning down, though. Jonas Rand 16:54, 1 January 2009 (PST)

Of course POV is allowed here, but I wish that you would make valiant attempts to "third-party source" some of the claims made in your article about Freeman. I mean, is it so much for me to ask that a kid whose mom contacted me less than a year ago, to delete his account and User pages, to not jump into the damn Mumia Abu-Jamal case as his first freakin' "welcome back" article at my directory wiki that is primarily intended for businesses to promote their wares? ;-) Do your thing, and do good work. Just don't let your work become my liability, okay? I hope that's not too much to ask. Remove your age from your User page. There are too many predators out here in the world. -- MyWikiBiz 17:18, 1 January 2009 (PST)

I have removed the age on your request. What you misinterpreted, and what I see now on my talk page after closer inspection, is that my mother did not contact you, unless she did not tell me about it, and then personally lied to me about it, something which I highly doubt she did. I also cited two sources, a book which I personally read (though went to Google Books to find the page number of), and an article from CounterPunch, for the death claim, and for teh Cynthia White death faking, I cited the petition filed on 2002-03-08 regarding it. Can you please out other claims that should be cited, that are controversial? Happy New Year, by the way. Jonas Rand 18:57, 1 January 2009 (PST)

Is the article better now? Jonas Rand 08:59, 2 January 2009 (PST)

Of course it's better; but I still think that the sources you've chosen are not mainstream or necessarily vetted by independent authorities. I'm not going to bird-dog the article. My role here is not as "constitutional monarch" like Jimbo claims. It's more like "benevolent dictator". The content doesn't bother me personally, but if it leads to legal or other problems for me personally, out the window it goes. I wish you well. Do good things. Make a bit of money from AdSense, if you can. -- MyWikiBiz 09:07, 2 January 2009 (PST)

I cited an official court document, CounterPunch (which is quite a popular news source), and a book. I don't see what is not independent about anything other than the court document.

I'd like someone to transfer these articles to Wikipedia. I'm not so interested in the AdSense thing.

Also, is there something else that I should cite with independent sources? Jonas Rand 09:14, 2 January 2009 (PST)