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January 27, 2008
Kill The Wiki?
By QBlog in Blog News
Should the Quixtar Wiki be killed? As much as I'd love to see this collaborative website flourish I recognize that without regular attention and management, it's become a link-spam magnet and a bit of an embarrassment.
A quick glance at the recent changes reveals lots of activity but virtually all of it related to spammers and link bots.
So, my inclination is to kill the thing because I don't have the time to manage the site and nobody else is knocking down the door volunteering to manage it for me. However, if you think I should keep the site up please let me know why and maybe provide some solutions for the current spam problems.
I have thought of some tougher wiki software that does a better job of blocking out the spammers but the site is still left needing someone to populate it with content and frankly, that's a lot of work. But if there's someone who really wants to take this on then speak up and we'll work something out. There's certainly a need for a robust, data-driven independently run website out there about Quixtar, Amway and MLMs because it looks like Scott Larsen is still managing his unweildy AmQuix site with basic HTML and lots of free time.
Comments
kill it!
I found that Quixtarwiki was relinquished to those that had the most time to put their point across. When critics posted links and information the anti-critics deleted it and posted their own links to their own sites. Anti-critics made up "rules" as they went along to delete critical links. Anti-critics would not even tolerate links to critic's websites when they tried to explain their side of a story.
Amwaywiki will be no different and even worse since Insider is the "manager".
I do not spend that much time on my site anymore. I write one or two quick pages a week.
I think people will remember Quixtar for many years to come, Spinsider. If you own it, I guess you could finally get that expert status you crave, huh?
After all it took less than a decade to get a poor reputation after it took Amway like 3 times as long.
The name will still be pertinent. Don't kid yourself.
That said, it's pretty much hooped anyways.
I'd vote for killing it. I can not put time into it and I didn't, just little in the beginning.
It requires a neutral, unbiased moderator. I have a student relative willing to do it @ 100 bucks a month. But does it generates any ad revenue?
If the Quixtar Wiki did generate some kind of ad revenue, it would probably be from scammers and spammers like Ty Tribble advertising their own businesses. Many people have advertised on Wikipedia and so it is hard to get any kind of a clear picture on a particular topic since you have "gurus" like Tribble going on there looking for disgruntled IBO's to sign up in his MLM.
Did you really mean kill the wookie?
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=1263580
Hehhaha, good picture, Scott.
That's too cruel!!! Go Star Wars. They do have a Wookipedia, love the wordplay.
Quixtar Wiki is no laughing matter though. Kinda sad, really. One thinks they are getting objective "clean" information and they are just getting a whole bunch of garbage, just like a lot of sites out there like Network Marketing Blog.
I've actually been trying to keep up QuixtarWiki in recent months, but have found it difficult to keep ahead of the spammers, especially after most all other contributors stopped checking in. Pages that I update or remove spam from are loaded with spam again, usually within several hours. Overall, I feel the information I've found on the wiki could be helpful to a new prospect; in fact, I wish it was around when I was getting started. However, a site filled with spam only reinforces what is said at a board plan - that the Internet is nothing more than a virtual bathroom wall. As a result, I've begun contributing to AmwayWiki to preserve information and keep it readily available without having to constantly check-in and remove spam.
As far as neutrality, I have strived to make articles to which I've contributed as factual as possible, while also editing for bias. An example of this is articles for former Diamonds that are currently qualified Emerald or lower - users that don't want the "negative" of falling out of qualification for a pin remove the 'former' from the article, while I feel it is important that people new to the business understand that it is indeed possible to fall out of qualification for a pin and that it does happen. On the other hand, I also don't agree with individuals who wish to spread rumor using the wiki. If there's a source cited, fine. If not, the information gets pulled. Further, I've limited my contributions to articles related to WWDB, as I have limited knowledge of the other organizations, while only editing articles related to other organizations for grammar, spelling, etc.
In the end, since the US operation is still called Quixtar, I feel it is important to keep the QuixtarWiki running until the name change is official. At that time, I feel it will lose it's relevance and the site should be directed to AmwayWiki, all for the sake of staying consistent with what the Corporation is doing name-wise.
There should be a simple mediawiki upgrade that will take care of the latest batch of spam. It is trivial to install, if Eric still has the login info it isn't difficult to do.
As far as the info, I stopped moderating it when people just kept reverting crap I tried to keep NPOV.
I recommend that the settings are changed to allow only registered users to sign up. Just change the php settings and place a note on the main page saying "Email here with your username and we will set you up one with a blank password. Don't forget to change your p/word. Spam accounts will be blocked with no further correspondance. " etc.
A lot of the data has already been transferred to amwaywiki.com. If you'd care to hand over the keys so I can download the database before it's killed or completely eaten alive by the spammers it would be good. Given the name "quixtar" has only about 6 months left there's not much point keeping it going.
Posted by: ibofightback | January 27, 2008 9:14 PM