I am disappointed with SELs’ stance on this considering some of their coverage on Content delivery and cloaking. They cover both sides of that issue (including when the editorial staff were at SEW) always maintaining an open mind to both sides of the story. That they are doing G’s work for them on this is very disappointing. SEL has the influence within the community to keep the dialogue open… then… this isn’t written in stone, however, as long as SEL covers it like they did in this post then it’s a closed subject in many peoples minds.

SEL, could have done this much differently. The post could have been an educational exercise continuing the dialogue within the community with examples of when and how the attribute should be implemented. Instead we’re told that all wikis should use nofollow by default which it is unfathomable to me how anyone came to that conclusion based on the guidelines. They aren’t paid links and they aren’t blog comments so… how is nofollow even a consideration since this is not covered in the guidelines as far as I know anyway. To deter spam… but that’s not in the guideline, if so, that’s an extremely broad interpretation of it. Just because Wikipedia chose/had to do it (no doubt due to some extent because of Rands’ post on what seemed like gaming wikipedia) doesn’t mean it should be a default for all Wikis with a spam problem, it’s one of many options, not THE option.

@Desperate: I don’t know, personally.

In the end, we will all get up tomorrow, go to work, make bank, kiss our kids or SO goodnight, and life will go on.

Now where is my guitar. Time for some Kumbaya!

The first I read about this controversy was Danny’s public apology page to Wired and the SEO community that included links at the end of his apology. Of the links, the first I’ve is your page here. I doubt I will read the other links but will indeed the original article in order to better understand what triggered the communications back and forth.

I appreciate that you did include Danny’s thanks to you above. After almost 8 years of doing SEO, I’ve found Danny to be someone who does apologize and does prefer not to contribute to anything like what transpired after he approved his original article. Lots of lessons here for all of us, I’m sure.

I do appreciate your perspective as well and have lost further respect for SEOGuy for the kinds of personal attacks he made about you. Totally unprofessional.

Regarding SEO and SEM newsletters and blogs, I take what’s positive and practical from many channels. I do think you had legitimate grounds for being insulted and as a SEO/SEM community member, I’m sorry about that. My respect for Danny Sullivan does stand strong because of the way that he has ultimately handled concerns about this issues - especially in publishing links to your concerns within his apology.

It’s not important that you publish my note I your blog as this in more a personal thank you to you for hanging in there with the process long enough to also publish Danny Sullivan’s thanks to you here.

Thanks,
Carla

@Carla: Thanks for the kind comments. I’m a researcher at heart, and to me it’s all a living experiment (the web, Internet business, and even this blog). So if I stay true to my core beliefs and act accordingly, I’m not afraid of any outcome. I, too was glad to see Danny Sullivan find his way through the mess, but honestly I expected that (I would not have called his headline “stupid” had I thought he would be hurt by it). The other one… well, that’s an enigma to this day.