On 10/14/07, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen(a)shaw.ca> wrote:
Steve Summit wrote:
Fred Bauder wrote:
Obviously we need to make an exception for
prominent people whose
viewpoint we support. And by the way, I am not joking.
Oh, my. I really thought you were. How, then, is this remotely
compatible with NPOV?
We're already breaking NPOV simply by trying to suppress article-space
links that specifically attack Wikipedia users, IMO. It puts Wikipedia
users in a privileged position with regards to article contents.
Would BADSITES have lasted even five seconds if it had been about
suppressing links to websites that were critical of Republicans, or
Democrats, or whatever other group one cares to substitute? You'd have
been able to see the crater left by the NPOV Hammer from wiki-orbit.
The difference is, of course, is that the sets of Democrats or Republicans
are not even close to completely congruent with the set of Wikipedia
editors.
We can and should protect our editors from harassment and the like, but not
at the cost of the encyclopaedia. BADSITES, and policies which resemble it,
harm the encyclopaedia. Fred may be right in that we eventually avoid
ludicrous outcomes (e.g.
michaelmoore.com was eventually restored to
[[Michael Moore]]), but not at the cost of immense wikidrama which we could
do without. If the policy needs so frequent debate about what exceptions it
needs, there's a good clue that the policy is broken and needs
restructuring.
Johnleemk