Hey Brian, I am a new user of Wikipedia. While I am new here I have worked with wiki's previously (making wiki book) and I know the regulations here. I noticed you deleted several photo links which I provided for some pages just because they are at the personal website. But I think some of them are the best photo pages related to those categories (For example my photo link for Tobermory & Elora Gorge) which I believe they can help the readers a lot. If I were you, I would not delete SIX links in different pages just because of my personal judgment. I might delete one or two links but for the rests I would wait to see others ideas. As you surely know, Wiki works based on the group thought and judgment. If you believe that these photo links are not the best or they are not proper/related enough, some people may believe they are absolutely appropriate. I will be thankful if you wait to see other users ideas and then track me to delete my added links. However I believe you should revert your changes for Tobermory, Toronto Zoo and Elora Gorge pages while I am not sure about Kingston, Ottawa and CN tower. Hope you consider my request.

Thanks,

Hanif (hbayat)

Hey Hanif. I visited your site and I did like your photos. You did a good job on your site as well. I too am a photographer (published) and I can safely say I am impressed with your work. About linking to your personal page, this is frowned upon in WP even if there is a strong relationship between the article and your personal page. One of the reasons is that lots of people have pictures of places, and if everyone has a link to their personal page, an article will become burdened with a collection of links to personal websites. If one person starts, then everyone will start linking their personal page. Go to WP:EL (Links normally to be avoided, No. 11) and you will see that links to personal pages are something to avoid. Also links to personal pages have a personal promotion dimension, which is another reason why links to personal pages are frowned upon (go to WP:SPAM). I wasn't the only one to revert a link from an article to your page, BTW. One way to get around this (I have done this) is to post some really good pictures on the page, such as was done with Algonquin Provincial Park. I would recommend this because you do have some good shots that would add to the quality of an article. BC 04:13, 27 November 2006 (UTC)Reply
Hey Brian, Thank you very much for your comprehensive & quick answer. While I agree with you in some of the mentioned points I disagree on the others. I think for some of the articles, more than one or two photos are required and having one or two photo gallery links can be really useful. For example for Kingston or Ottawa you need at least 10-15 photos to show their main attractions. I agree with you that it should not be several photo websites links at the article page but always the approx. best ones can be found. If you replaced my photos links with other photo links (better ones) or if you remove a link because there is a better/more useful link there, it would be totally fine with me but when there is no other photo link there why we should not put a useful photo link. I am not trying to convince you but I just want to clarify my view point. Anyway thanks again for your consideration. I should be mention in end that I am kind of amazed by the number of contribution you have had just in a few months and how active you are in the Wikipedia.
Best Regards,
I see your viewpoint. Unfortunately, no matter how strongly we may feel about something, in WP, the rules may preclude something we want to do. You could try to leave the link (I won't touch it) but it will probably disappear within a week or two anyway. BTW, you should get a welcome message from an administrator with some wikilinks to important things you should know about Wikipedia. I have put some important quick links on my user page that could get you started. Welcome, by the way. BC 18:16, 27 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

Preview, Group, Summarize

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Thank you for your edits. Please consider 1) Using the Show Preview button (above the Save Page button), 2) Grouping edits together to avoid clogging the page's edit History which makes it hard for fellow editors to monitor the edits, 3) Describing each edit with the Edit Summary box (above the Save Page button). Hu 15:44, 28 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

Advieh

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Hi, can you help expand Advieh (and add the Persian spelling)? Thank you, Badagnani 00:22, 16 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

ArbCom elections are now open!

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Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:30, 23 November 2015 (UTC)Reply