Write A Wikipedia.org Article About Us

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Draft written:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:HelioHost

 

hostingadvice.com is apparantly on a Wikipedia links blacklist for some reason. I can't be bothered looking into that at the moment, let alone requesting an exemption, so I removed the references that I originally had to that article.

 

If there's a logo available that would suit inclusion in the "infobox" at the side, it would be good if Krydos could provide me with a link and official permission to upload/use it there.

 

I tried to keep the references to HelioNet topics to a minimum to avoid making the page look too inward looking, but perhaps I'd get away with more than one.

 

This is my first Wikipedia article, so I may have got some things wrong. I also edited it in the ad breaks while watching the fourth Star Trek movie on TV, so if I start talking about Captain Kirk mid-way through, you know what happened.

 

Anyway, edit or suggest as desired, and with a bit of luck this Wikipedia page will live long and prosper.

[Krydos]

Wow, thanks a ton!

 

Here's the infobox image I used on my article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Krydos/sandbox#/media/File:HelioHost_logo.png

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Thanks Krydos, I've added the logo and some other info, including some more references to HelioHost pages for things that probably needed to be confirmed.

 

I don't want to add references to the HelioNet Wiki because it probably breaks some Wikipedia rule and also might look a bit suspicious to the Wikipedia editors (if I had Wiki access, I could be referencing myself).

 

I'll probably should get around to setting up a proper Wikipedia account at some point too...

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Well the article was rejected for not being notable enough - they're even more picky than I thought.

 

I'm giving up at this point, but if someone else wants to get that other reference link approved for inclusion, find more references, argue with Wikipedia editors, etc. they're welcome.

[Krydos]

Thanks for trying!

[Krydos]

They must not have liked the two news articles that have been written about us recently. The next time someone writes another news article we'll try again I suppose.

[Computer Nerd Kev]

They must not have liked the two news articles that have been written about us recently. The next time someone writes another news article we'll try again I suppose.

 

 I think the articles were too low key to meet their standards. Basically they might say "so they're a web host, and people write about them on websites about web hosts, big deal". I get the impression that HelioHost would have to get mentioned on some of the major news sites in articles which discuss it specifically. The likes of arstechnica.com and theregister.co.uk may be the bare minimum level of "mainstream" for an article there to be considered justification to add a page to Wikipedia (note that I don't agree that this is right, I think Wikipedia should be much more open to specific and slightly obscure pages, but I guess I'm always free to go set up my own user-contribution website...).

 

Nevertheless I thought that HelioHost's funding model was unique enough that it made HelioHost obviously notable, which is why I thought the article could be accepted regardless of the limited references. It looks like Wikipedia editors aren't that flexible, but I still think that HelioHost is notable, and that just has to be reflected in the press before it can make it to Wikipedia.

 

Perhaps HelioHost needs to take some hints from the tech start-up companies. I'm no PR expert, but it seems that things like the crypto-currency miner might have been a lost opportunity for making some noise in the direction of the major online tech news sites. Even the recent issue with Google pulling ads from the Heliohost pages, which I read buried in a recent forum thread, could have been (still is?) worthy of interesting articles in the press. "People's web host cut adrift by Google" or something like that.

 

The key thing here is that the journalists who write these articles are generally lazy. Press releases are put out by the start-up companies and largely ripped by the small sites with as few modifications as the journalist involved thinks they can get away with. Ideally though, the attention from that filters up the the more respectable sites. To this end, a "press" section of the HelioHost website with background info and recent press releases may be a good help. And of course those press releases would be Emailed to all the relevant news sites as they were published.

 

Anyway, that's just some of my thoughts. Of course getting on major news sites might itself be more helpful than having a Wikipedia page anyway. The reason I began this post was actually entirely different, I just wanted to point out that I've transcribed the Wikipedia page that I wrote into HTML and put it on my website so that at least it might get the occasional view by the wider world rather than just sit hidden in Wikpedia Drafts until someone eventually deletes it:

http://computernerdkev.heliohost.org/heliohostinfo.htm

[Krydos]

The key thing here is that the journalists who write these articles are generally lazy.

The people over at hostingadvice.com actually went to the effort of contacting us and asking for a phone interview. He called exactly when he scheduled it and we talked for 30-45 minutes, and wrote a pretty decent article. The second source, top10-webhosting.co.uk, basically just read the other article and copied it. They at least asked for a trial account so they could test things out first hand, but yeah. Pretty lazy.

 

After wikipedia deleted my first article I did actually contact a few "news" type sites pitching the non-profit web host angle, but I didn't get any replies. Anyone is more than welcome to try to find websites that want to write about us. Hostingadvice and top10-webhosting both happened organically though. They found us, and thought we were interesting enough to write about.