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Kevin (McDole),
To some of the points in your message.
I am acting as an editor for this site, and using editorial judgement. The sites (commercial or not) that are linked from this site are there because I believe they are of interest to Skymaster Owners and Pilots. I either find the sites myself, or they are suggested by others who visit our site. For example, Gmas has suggested a link to TCM, and I have it on my list to add it. But in the end, with as much input as I can get for everyone who visits the site, I will decide what goes in and what does not. This paragraph consitutes our current policy on adding links. I am very open to suggested alterations to this policy.
With regard to Adam Aircraft, I am afraid a personal bias entered the picture for me when I received the email. I object to commercial organizations "taking" from the web for free without giving back. I don't object at all to commercial web sites, please don't misunderstand. But the email I received from Adam was obviously part of a PR effort, and written by a PR person whose job it is to get as much free advertising for Adam as possible. OK, I'm fine with that too.
I asked her for the reciprocal link because it is very common practice when you are asking for a link on someone's site to offer a reciprocal link on the "links" page of your own site. It is so common that I consider it poor net manners to refuse. One line, somewhere on your site. The advantatge to our site is that search engines and editors score the site on how many other sites link to it, so the more links, the higher we appear on Yahoo, Google, etc.
I must admit, when she refused to provide a link in return, it pissed me off. Adam apparently wants the free exposure, but is not willing to have even one links page on their site to give back to the web.
I could have just deleted her email, but I do my best to do the right thing for all you folks that visit the site. The Adam is only tangentially related to Skymasters, and prior to this point my editorial judgement has been to leave it off the site. But I decided the best thing to do was ask all of you what you thought.
Frankly, I don't want to put the link up. I am in Bob's camp, I think Adam has plenty of exposure elsewhere for those who are interested, and the only thing that might make it appropriate for this site is that it is a center-line thrust aircraft. That is not enough of a relationship for me.
But I asked for all of your opinions, I am greatful for them, and I am inclined to abide by the poll results. If they are close to 50/50, I will probably add my own vote and leave the link out. If the results are more clear, I expect that I will abide by them.
Like I said, thanks for your opinions and suggestions, and please keep them coming.
Kevin (webmaster)
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