1

I wondered if anyone else has the same concerns regarding our policy on nfd|adv.  I find articles that link directly to a commercial organisation that I’ve never heard of sometimes difficult to determine. I am sure we are good at spotting the obvious spam articles.  On the basis that we all come from various places around the planet we may not all be familiar with a website in for instance Norway that is very well known and popular but outside of that country no one has heard of it before. 

I am aware there is a website called Quantcast that will provide information about a websites popularity which is clearly helpful, however, I would like to hear the views of other users regarding our NFD|ADV policies and whether they should be changed when a site/service is considered a popular household name and the user pays for its services andthe type of website that is popular like FB that you don’t pay to use it.

Do we nominate nfd|adv unknown websites that you pay for its services/products?

Do we keep articles linking directly to popular websites that you don’t pay for a service/product? 

Do we keep articles linking directly to popular websites that you pay for a service/product?

2

I feel that if those sites are paid, then their references could be minimized or avoided.There are plenty of other free websites that could be referred in our free website.

3

All good questions. This has always been a tricky thing to figure out and the standards have shifted quite a bit over time! Here are some general guidelines though:

  • Look at who is publishing the article and how. If they seem like they are trying to advertise the product/service, regardless of whether it’s known or unknown, paid or free, we can keep the article but just avoid promoting it. That way if someone in our community can vouch for that product/service, the article can be promoted later.
  • Signs of advertising behavior include publishing articles here only on topics that revolve around the product/service, not engaging with any other topics or tools on wikiHow, and being very persistent about getting their article fully published with the product/service name and/or link.
  • Rule of thumb: If in doubt, just keep it and demote it. If it’s legit, and it might be helpful to someone out there, it can get the attention it needs in due course:slight_smile:
4

I’ve seen that some really are good at making their advertising some find sneaky ways to promote their products and sometimes even write about a topic but the information given does not work. For any regular reader it looks credible but if someone of thethat trade really don’t provide enough info to achieve the task. The is lots of those weasel words “for free”, “without a broker,” and some others that raise a red flag. The problem is that it is targeted to those with little knowledge and those who don’t fall for it…won’t even spend the time to patrol for accuracy.

5

@Krystle , thanks for the advice, I am sure a lot of other readers on this thread will have found it very useful.