Riapress

Hidden advertising

Please don’t add a link to your e-book on the Jerome page. It contains advertising and is therefore in violation of Wikipedia policy. Thanks, Ron g 20:21, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi Ron, thank you for the head's up. I apologize if this is a violation. Can you point me to the relevant policy statement and I will comply with it? Just so you have the background: I do this as a hobby; it's not a business and I don't make a dime from my site, not even advertising. So, I appreciate the issue and don't want to clutter wikipedia if this isn't appropriate, but I'm not sure that's the case. In fact, four people have recently emailed me who found my site through wikipedia and thanked me for producing these printable pdf's. If it's something about the way I describe my site in the link (as opposed the site itself) I can also change that. Or, should I propose my links in a talk session first? Thanks again Ron. Either way, can you confirm that you got this message - I wasn't sure if I replied to you correctly. Will from Riapress.Riapress 11:25, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi,

You can find this policy in Wikipedia:External links. The two most relevant paragraphs are under Links normally to be avoided:

3.A website that you own or maintain, even if the guidelines above imply that it should be linked to. This is because of neutrality and point-of-view concerns; neutrality is an important objective at Wikipedia, and a difficult one. If it is relevant and informative, mention it on the talk page and let other — neutral — Wikipedia editors decide whether to add the link.

4. Links that are added to promote a site, that primarily exist to sell products or services, with objectionable amounts of advertising, or that that require payment to view the relevant content.

I don’t think the pdf book by itself is a great problem, but the fact that it contains advertising is. Thanks, Ron g 12:28, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Please do not add inappropriate external links to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a mere directory of links nor should it be used for advertising or promotion. Inappropriate links include (but are not limited to) links to personal web sites, links to web sites that you are affiliated with, and links that exist to attract visitors to a web site or promote a product. See the external links guideline and spam policies for further explanations of links that are considered appropriate. If you feel the link should be added to the article, then please discuss it on the article's talk page rather than re-adding it. See the welcome page to learn more about Wikipedia. Thank you. Mwanner | Talk 01:29, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Final Warning

If you add any more external links to your site on Wikipedia your account will be blocked. Please stop. Your site may also get blacklisted if it keeps popping up as spam. --BozMo talk 15:25, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Excellent material

I disagree with the above sentiments. I think Riapress' books are very good and should be allowed and encouraged on Wikipedia. Rispress is creating original free content, which is in the spirit of Wikipedia and the free culture ideals. There is no advertising or money involved that I can see. Gutenberg does not produce PDF's (ever try to print a text file and read it?). I would like to see a broader discussion before deleting the PDFs or blocking Riapress. Thank you. -- Stbalbach 19:28, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

WP:COI

Regards of the value of the links WP:COI is very clear. You should not add links to a site to which you are affiliated directly to articles. You should add them to the talk pages and wait for enthusiasts like the one above to pick them up. I am not in a position to discuss the links: as mentioned on Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam#Special:Contributions.2FRiapress_adds_links_to_riapress.com some of them were added inappropriately and as yet very few have been added by anyone else. Thanks --BozMo talk 20:30, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Riapress

Hi Will, I would like to create a Wikipedia article Riapress so that Template:Ria does not have a red-link. Would you be willing to provide some information about your site so I can write a short article about it? -- Stbalbach 17:17, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi there, thank you very much for the support and for the time you took to look at my site. I also tried to read through the other comments. No question, if folks don't want to have these ebooks accessed from the articles, they should be removed.

Here's a short blurb from my site's home page: We are lovers of classic books, and our goal is to find great books and make them available to you easily and for free. You will see that most of our books are nautical, but we are slowly adding other categories. Our main thing is to create free ebooks that are optimized for printing at home, because we think most people still want to read things on paper.

So, to clarify: I have no advertising, I don't make a dime from this, and I don't require logins, emails or any personal info to access these books. I'm just doing this because I think it's valuable. I won't post any more links and if folks think it makes sense I'm happy to go back through and take them down and/or move them to this new article. Wikipedia's policies are a little confusing - I actually thought I was complying because I asked permission in the article talk page before I added my last link. Thank you very much for your guidance and support. -Will Riapress 06:06, 8 February 2007 (UTC)