Forum:Enomac -- "WoW Levelling Builds"

While editing Mage talents I noticed that User:Emomac on 09 Dec 2009 created a link to an external site WoW Levelling Builds at the bottom of each class page, talents page and guide-to-starting-a-class pages, as can be seen at Special:Contributions/Emomac. The behaviour strikes me as odd, because this person has not made any other contribution to this wiki, other than to (it appears) advertise an external site. Are these links valid, or do they violate the external link policy? --Ddcorkum (talk) 23:51, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
 * It would concern me if the website were not kept up to date, but it obviously has been. As I haven't played in forever, I can't assess the quality, but I'm sure someone can. Yes, I think it does fit the definition of spam, but if it's quality spam&hellip;? (I'll note that I somewhat recently got yelled at when I blocked and reverted YouTube spam, so it appears that there are some who would lean one way on that question.) --Sky (talk) 04:59, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Beware if you stumble into the eternal battle between exclusionists and inclusionists... --[[Image:gengar orange 22x22.png]] Fandyllic (talk &middot; contribs) 10:16 PM PST 12 Nov 2010
 * It's spam and garbage imo. Those specs make my head hurt.Kiala (talk) 06:03, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't know if the website it points to is providing quality content or not -- I never looked, to be honest -- but I do have a problem with someone making a whole bunch of links to advertise his site without any effort to contribute to the articles or to discuss with the community about the merrits of having so many pages link to the site. I would not have started this forum thread if he made contributions besides his advertising, or if the links clearly added something specific to the page (ie, perhaps the link is acceptable on Mage Talents but is inappropriate on Starting a Mage.  If it comes down to a vote, I vote to remove the references from any pages where the link does not directly relate to the subject and to leave a message on his talk page pointing him to this forum.  I don't think a ban is appropriate though.  No reason he shouldn't be welcome to contribute further in the future, and it isn't blatant vandalism. Ddcorkum (talk) 15:47, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Looks like spam to me, but all i can find related is "abuse of this free advertising will not be taken lightly by the admin staff." on Wowpedia:External_links_policy which i read as, its ok unless you upset an admin :) but yeah, if it comes down to a vote, you have mine. 16:16, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
 * It is out of date. Its using old links to wowhead talent calcs, which due to patch changes on beta/ptr cause incorrect (or just plain poor) specs which don't even place all the talent points. I think these links could be deleted simply for providing out of date content. Ressy (talk) 16:21, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
 * If they suck, remove them. I'm generally an inclusionist, but if links don't provide quality info to users, they must go. --[[Image:gengar orange 22x22.png]] Fandyllic (talk &middot; contribs) 10:06 AM PST 13 Nov 2010
 * My general opinion is that you can remove those links as spam -- the sites we choose to have external links to must provide some original content of value to the visitor.
 * This particular site offers nothing but a collection of links to talent calculators showing specific builds -- there's no commentary, no description of which order to pick the talents in, and no indication of why those particular specs are interesting. In this case, we'd be better off linking to talent calculators directly. &mdash; foxlit (talk) 19:17, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I have removed the links from pages that discussed "Starting a (class)", as these pages are only intended to cover the first few levels of a character's progression. A link to talent builds is thus irrelevant.  I have not yet removed the link from pages discussing talents or builds (ie, Mage Talents and Mage builds). D.D. Corkum (T / C) 16:51, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I will take a look at removing the rest of the links. It's not that big a deal. Thanks for the work. --[[Image:gengar orange 22x22.png]] Fandyllic (talk &middot; contribs) 11:14 AM PST 14 Nov 2010