On 10/12/07, Thatcher131 Wikipedia <thatcher131(a)gmail.com> wrote:
1. Wikipedia has an obligation to protect its editors
from harassment.
"Obligation" is too strong a word. But whenever it is possible to
protect somebody from harassment without causing greater disruption to
the remainder of the project and community, it's a very nice thing to
do.[1]
2. Interactions between editors are generally covered
by the NPA and
harassment policies.
If you mean interactions on Wikipedia, I'll agree. Interactions
elsewhere are not covered by en.wikipedia policy[2], instead falling
into the frontier jurisdiction of common sense, [[Judge Roy Bean]]
presiding.
3. Notwithstanding #1 and #2, article content is
generally covered by
a different set of policies (NPOV, reliable source, verify) and only
in extreme cases should policies designed to cover editor interactions
intrude into article space.
"Only in extreme cases" should mean "almost never", but in practice
every case involving one or more external links criticizing Wikipedia
users[3] is considered extreme.
With remedies like this:
1. Links added to project or talk pages with the intent or effect of
harassing or intimidating other editors may be removed under the
existing NPA and harassment policies, and repeat offenders may be
briefly blocked by an uninvolved admin.
Let's consider the slight practical differences between the following:
A. Writing a lengthy personal attack on somebody's talk page, and:
B. Writing a lengthy personal attack on your blog and pasting it on
somebody's talk page.
When the most noticeable factor is server load[4], you might as well
be splitting atoms.
Beyond that, option B does make it possible for one to tone down the
"attack" after the intended "target" has become quite offended, but
before anybody else sees it, which could easily degenerate into "he
said, she said", but it private communication would always be more
effective for that.
Also, option B creates a BADSITES situation which will immediately
make you the newest cause célèbre of two diametrically opposed
factions who have absolutely no idea what is actually going on between
you and the person you are apparently trying to attack.
Meanwhile, back on the mailing list, there will be a handful of
reasonable people who don't really care one way or the other about
this particular incident, and would prefer to meta-discuss it ad
nauseum rather than take action, eventually passing around a new draft
proposal because you've just proven that the last one wasn't good
enough.
Either way, "remove personal attacks"[5] seems to have been for better
or worse "rejected by the community", but people do it anyway (again,
a "common sense" thing, for "extreme cases"), making this distinction
more or less moot, as the second half of the suggestion merely
provides that "repeat offenders can be blocked", which is already (and
has always been) the case for personal attacks.
2. Links added to article pages should be considered
under article
content policies.
The key issue here should be whether the article contains (or could
contain, upon further expansion) information relevant to the topic and
obtainable through the link(s) in question. I doubt actual "content
policy" for external links enjoys this level of brevity, but this is
what makes sense to me.
3. Disputed links in article space to be discussed on
the talk page.
The normal dispute resolution processes (third opinion, RFC,
mediation) apply, and the link will be obfuscated or unlinked during
the discussion.
I suppose "obfuscated or unlinked" would be better than "referred to
so vaguely that nobody knows what the hell we're talking about".
4. The following editors are briefly blocked or
desysopped for edit
warring over link removals:
Blocks for edit-warring are common enough, but has anybody ever been
desysopped for it (i.e. for edit-warring on a non-protected page)?
That strikes me as an unusual "remedy".
—C.W.
[1]
http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?DefendEachOther
[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NPA#Off-wiki_personal_attacks
[3] (other than Essjay, that is)
[4]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:DWAP :p
[5]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:RPA