Links
Posted By Kathleen David on March 17, 2004
I belong to various lists and newsgroups. One of these is a group of cloth doll makers. I have learned a lot from this group. Recently one of the members found that a free pattern she has on her site was linked to a site that she found slightly objectionable due to some of the content and links. She asked the owner to remove the link which the owner did in pretty short order. Which I find to be very good internet manners. This lead to a discussion about linking to sites and favorite links on a web site.
I find that the favorite links page of many web sites is a wonderful way of finding other web sites with your similar interests. I have found some really great sites through links. Some web sites encourage linking and have easy ways for you to do so. They may ask that you use specific sorts of links to their site for various reasons including bandwidth.
I do have a bit of a problem with someone linking their page to a free pattern or something that the person on the other site is allowing people to use without recompense. I have seen this a number of times. To me, it is almost like taking a bit of credit for another work. Now if you linked to the site so that it ws obvious that this was not your site nor did you have anything to do with the creation of it, I have much less of a problem with it.
I do think that web site owners do have the right to request not to be linked to a web site that has objectionable material to them. This is a matter of personal taste and your own social morays. In broad strokes (and this is an extreme example), I would object to a pedophile linking to my mac site since I have pictures of underage children on my site (my daughter) and I strongly object to what pedophiles believe is right. I have a friend who is a Christian and she asked that a pagan group not link to her site please because she was not comfortable with being associated with Pagans. This was her comfort (or lack of) zone. I am Irish Catholic and have no problem if pagans link to me but then again it has to do with my comfort zone.
Asking permission before you add any site seems like a good idea and nice manners, but it is not always practical. There are sites I like that haven
Although this has nothing to do directly with Kath’s post, it made me think of something I did once. I did a google search for my name and found this link:
http://www.scifan.com/writers/cc/ClarkEEarl.asp
It’s a book I once self-pulished about three years ago. I’ve since written two other sequels and started a third although I haven’t published them.
Interesting that you address the issue of “linking manners” since it’s an issue I was just discussing with someone. Personally, I agree that it’s only polite that if someone requests that you remove a link you should, provided that their request is not sinister like, say, McDonald’s wanted their link removed from a boycott site.
That said, there’s no legal obligation to remove a link as it’s considered a freedom of speech issue in most jurisdictions.