Handjobs and Other Unnamed Editorial Fouls...

It is fairly hard to argue that there is not a human element to the search relevancy process. Todd asks if keeping editorial examples private works to hurt search relevancy:

Wouldn’t it make sense to make this information publically available? Wouldn’t it aid search engine marketers to make sites that are more quality oriented? Perhaps more examples of what constitutes “quality value add”, as well as more extensive examples of sites that would fall into the “penalized/ not-penalized” categories in ambiguous areas may be of benefit. I think there has been too much emphasis placed on fighting spam vs. encouraging quality. As with most things, encouragement is a more positive long term approach in my humble opinion.

Some companies that would normally be great examples of great content sites may end up eventually doing really stupid things. A few recent examples:

• Financial Times selling hidden links
• Dixons autogen spam
• Wordpress mesothelioma content spam
• a content rating site hiding links to adult content on their site

Other than people taking advantage of their known whitelisted status what would the search engines have to lose in opening up their editorial policies a bit more?

Should the search engines publish more examples of what to look for instead of fear mongering the don't spam angle? Or are the examples that they want us to follow already on the first page of the search results?