William Pietri wrote:
Frankly, having written them once and having equal
access to the
archives, I'm a little frustrated at the request. However, here they are
in summary form:
Sorry for asking you to summarize your questions. This is a long thread
and it takes a lot of time away from Wikipedia to read and reply to
emails. Sinec we all use the same subject lines, it's doubly hard to
find anything.
To restate my proposal: "Self-published sites that are actively
harassing Wikipedia editors should not be considered reliable sources or
suitable external links for articles. " There are also some very
different new proposals now on the table that I also think are
interesting, but these replies are based only on my original proposal.
* In terms of persons affected or behaviors
changed, what specific
benefits do you believe your proposed policy provides? And how
does it achieve that? (E.g., "It will reduce harassment
because..." or "It will make a harassed editor feel supported
because...
Harassment of Wikipedia editors should not be advertised or promoted. A
link to a harassing website is likely to make the harassed editor more
aware of the harassment, meaning that it will have more effect on the
editor and make the harassment more likely to succeed in driving him
away from Wikipedia or at least avoiding the topic.
* How do you reconcile your suggested POV-driven
content changes
with the "absolute and non-negotiable" NPOV
This isn't a POV-driven content change. It's a determination that the
writers of self-puiblished websites that engage in harassment of
encyclopedia editors are not suitable sources for an encyclopedia. They
are trying to inappropriately affect Wikipedia through harassment, so we
can presume that they are also interested in affecting Wikipedia
content. NPOV does not require that we include fringe ideas in articles,
in fact it discourages them. Concepts or facts that can only be sourced
to self-published websites actively engaged in harassing Wikipedia
editors are going to be those that are only held by a tiny minority.
* Why do editors alone benefit from your proposal?
If we're
protecting people, shouldn't we protect everybody?
Everyone benefits from having articles that aren't based on poor
sources. I assume you mean why shouldn't we give the same treatment to
self-published websties that actively harass others? I'd hope we don't
link to those very often. But there is an important difference. The
websites are trying to affect the encyclopedia inappropriately, so we
need to preempt that effort.
* Doesn't your proposed policy benefit editors
while harming
readers, thereby privileging one over the other? And can that
really be squared with our mission?
Again, the policy is intended to benefit everybody, by giving us better
content and happier editors. I don't believe that readers would be
harmed in any way.
* How does somebody not liking Wikipedia reduce
their value as a
source in their area of expertise?
We've been over this one several times. "Not liking" or
"criticizing"
Wikipedia is fine. I'm sure we've all criticized Wikipedia for one
reason or another. Harassment is not fine. Why would an expert choose to
engage in harassment of an encyclopedia editor? The best reason I can
think of is that they aren't thinking straight. t is very likely that
whatever dispute led to the harassment will be connected to the field of
expertise so, as I wrote above, the "expert" is putting himself into
conflict with Wikipedia. His integrity and neutrality can't be taken
for granted any longer.
* Even if your proposal isn't just a punitive
measure against people
who attack us, why wouldn't outsiders, including the persons whose
sites we are de-linking, see it that way?
It is not punitive because linking to a site is not a reward, nor is
removing a link a punishment. If someone is actively engaged in
harassing a Wikipedia editor, are we really concerned with his opinion
of Wikipedia policies? As for the rest of the world, we remove hundreds
of links from articles every day and the outsiders don't seem to be too
upset.
I look forward to your replies.
William
Thanks for the opportunity to answer your questions.
Will