On 16/10/2007, George Herbert <george.herbert(a)gmail.com> wrote: "If you want to take Vienna, take Vienna". If you want to block linking to Wikipedia Review, then block linking *to Wikipedia Review*. There are many people violently against the "attack sites removal" concept who would tolerate "site A and B are irredeemably and inherently useless for reasons X Y and Z, don't link there". I still haven't seen a good reason we can't have an (Arbcom-named?) blacklist, kept as small and undisputable as possible... -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk

On Tue, 16 Oct 2007, Delirium wrote: "Rarely", though, isn't "never". What happens when one of those rare cases shows up?

Ken Arromdee wrote: It's better to make a policy to cover what happens most of the time. We can handle the exceptions on a case by case basis. W.

On Wed, 17 Oct 2007, Will Beback wrote: So BADSITES should be subject to IAR?

Quoting Andrew Gray <shimgray(a)gmail.com>om>: I for one would be worried about the ArbCom then making what amount to content decisions, but I think that leaving that in the hands of the ArbCom would solve many of the problems associated with BADSITES. The other side to this is that we are already giving the ArbCom more and more authority and we've had at least two recent threads here about how the ArbCom is overworked. That doesn't go well together. But yes, leaving it in the hands of the ArbCom would solve many of the problems.

Dan Tobias wrote: Three or four people said this in rapid succession, so let me just say: fifthed. Will Beback wrote: No one is saying off-site harassment doesn't exist. But since it's off-site, there is by definition nothing we can do about it directly, at least not within the confines of our Wikipedia sites. I may be very stupid, but I'm still not seeing why we need more policy here. We've already got WP:NPA, which says that that a link which serves as an attack (my means of pointed reference to an off-site attack) is tantamount to an on-wiki personal attack, and is prohibited. We've already got WP:RS, which works hard to define what a reliable source is, and which says that blogs generally aren't. So what more do we need? Which elements of the policy formerly known as BADSITES do we need to preserve, and why? What is the cost (in false positives, unexpected consequences, or general inconvenience) of those elements? What is the cost (in terms of potential editor harassment, or other imagined travails) if we don't adopt those elements? I'm aware of three such elements, are there others? 1. WP:NPA only talks about links which serve as attacks. But we need to ban *all* links to attack sites, even when the links aren't meant to attack, even when they're to pages on the attack sites which aren't attacks. 2. WP:RS only talks about links in article space. But we need to ban links to attack sites from anywhere, including talk and project pages. 3. Removal of any links covered by the policy formerly known as BADSITES should not be subject to the three-revert rule. (Me, I disagree pretty vehemently with at least the first two of these elements, but the arguments against them have been posted ad nauseam, so I'll not rehearse them here.)

joshua.zelinsky(a)yale.edu wrote: What form of dealing with it do you recommend? W.

On 16/10/2007, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote: And, to a lesser extent, trash non-article space. (Purging of a single link can get fairly comprehensive, and a link not appropriate for article space, as an unreliable source, may still be useful in a meta-discussion) The most obvious single step for curbing the stupid uses would be to ensure that whatever method is implemented for dealing with it, it can't be kicked off by one user or group of users screaming "attack site!" without sanity-checking from an external group. -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk

On 10/16/07, Will Beback <will.beback.1(a)gmail.com> wrote: I don't think we have a good solution identified yet. I don't know that either the Foundation or "Community" *can* solve the problem... acknowledging it's real and being in a position to actually change things are two very different things. People expect the Foundation and/or Community to be things it isn't. The link bans... might have helped. But I think it's worthwhile revisiting the underlying problem and review whether they really did any good at all. I think it's clear that they were largely ineffective at slowing down or stifling the off-wiki abuse, which is where most of the problem seems to be. It may have reduced the harrassment on-wiki, but I don't know to what degree over and above blocking abusers just for being abusive does. -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

joshua.zelinsky(a)yale.edu wrote: It's even worse if folks are saying that it does exist but that we shouldn't do anything about it. Again, I think that having a clear policy with bright lines will help us reduce the disruption caused by people who are trying to cause disruption by engaging in inappropriate harassment. The "other forms" of dealing with the solution include private diplomacy, an ArbCom-maintained blacklist, and similar non-transparent procedures. Personally, I think a clear policy is better, but if we can't form one then then we'll have to continue to handle these issues on an ad hoc basis, even though those tends to be the most disruptive. W

William Pietri wrote: Could you restate the points you'd like addressed? This is a long thread and I'm not sure which points have or haven't been covered already. W.

William Pietri wrote: 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Thanks for the opportunity to answer your questions. Will

James Farrar wrote: [[Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published sources (online and paper)]] (AKA WP:SPS) prohibits most uses of self-published sources. It allows two exceptions: we may use the self-published material from previously-published individual who are recognized experts in the field (a contrversial addition) and we may use self-published sources in articles about the subjects themselves provided a number of criteria are met. My proposal would add another limitation to the existing exceptions. W.

On 10/17/07, Will Beback <will.beback.1(a)gmail.com> wrote: But we're not linking to it as a reference. KP

Delirium wrote: Folks often say that removing links violates NPOV. But a much larger effect on POV comes when editors are harassed off of Wikipedia because of content-related edits or decisions. When a coherent group (gang, religious sect, etc) succeeds in driving away all interested editors who disagree with them then the NPOV of the topic suffer tremendously, far more than from the mere absence of a single hot link. We say "comment on the edits, not the editors", which is always a good idea,, but of course it's editors who create and modify the content. If the editors on one side of an issue are harassed off the project unfairly then the project's content will become less neutral. It's gaming the system from the outside, just like tilting the pinball machine. Even though it's "outside" of Wikipedia, external harassment still affects the contents, potentially very profoundly. Is the project poorer without a hotlink to MichaelMoore.com, or without the contributions of THF? For all his faults, I'd say THF has contributed infinitely more content than an external link does and if it were a matter of THF vs the link then I'd go with THF anyday. We can always add the link back after THF leaves (as all editors eventually do) or the harassment ends. W.

On 10/18/07, Will Beback <will.beback.1(a)gmail.com> wrote: That's an over-simplification. Folks actually say that making content decisions based upon a subject's behavior toward the project, or upon any other internal politics, violates NPOV. In this case we'd be left with an article which is, so to speak, self-referential by omission. There are more circuit hops than you've acknowledged. More like harassment -> drama -> RFAR -> psuedo-policies -> unrevertable article edits (lest ye be banned) -> POV problems. Over-simplified again. Not all of these things always happen. Good lord. I hope you meant to say "and" rather than "or". —C.W.

On 10/18/07, joshua.zelinsky(a)yale.edu <joshua.zelinsky(a)yale.edu> wrote: Hmm, for a second I thought he was saying that it would be o.k. to link to the site if THF stopped editing (for this or any other reason), but the harassment of THF by Moore continued[1]. Surely, the harassment on the site is either too offensive to link to, or it isn't! Whether or not the "victim" of said harassment actively edits Wikipedia is a moot point, and I don't think it's appropriate to break the fifth wall in article space based on this distinction. —C.W. [1] This is hardly implausible, as people who harass others generally enjoy it so much that they don't stop when they get what they want (cf. Daniel Brandt).

Thanks for the more detailed replies. My answers follow. Will Beback wrote: Is there a particular reason to think that people will think linking to a website is advertising or promoting it? We link to the KKK and SLORC without people worrying about that. Second, it's not obvious to me that linking to the website would make all editors feel worse. I and others have discussed occasions where linking to malefactors made us feel better, not worse. Third, once the editor is aware of the harassment, would continued existence of a link really make them feel worse? Fourth, wouldn't this apply to entire topics, not just links? By your logic, it seems better to delete the entire Michael Moore article. Fifth, if a harassed editor opens the Michael Moore page and scrolls down to the EL section, would them not having a link to click on really prevent them from feeling bad? If you don't have reliable sources saying it's harassment, then it is your (or perhaps our collective) point of view that these people are engaged in harassment. And it is certainly your point of view that harassment of Wikipedians is the one bad act that merits this. Encarta is unlikely to adopt a "delete links to people who harass Wikipedia" policy. That's why I consider it a POV-driven content change. There is no way we can presume that. And if we did presume it, so what? For somebody who is trying to learn about Michael Moore, the value of his website is entirely unaffected by how he treats our editors. The only time I'd consider this of merit is if the article were on Wikipedia. If some scholarly source in our article on Wikipedia were to start prank-calling Jimmy Wales at night, I'd say maybe they aren't such a reliable source anymore. Deleting links is not preventing them from affecting encyclopedic content. It's actively altering articles in response to their behavior. The best way to prevent them from affecting encyclopedic content is to ignore them and treat them like any other web site in the world. Ok. I and a number of other people have tried to explain why articles would indeed be harmed. If you don't get our point, I'm willing to accept that. This would be true with any person who engages in harassment. And it wouldn't be true just for harassment, it would be true of any behavior that would indicate that someone isn't thinking straight. I'm sure I could name fifty, so just fill in the blanks here. To privilege not just encyclopedia editors, but only the editors of the encyclopedia you happen to work on strikes me as a pretty obvious bias. If you don't see that, well, ok, you don't see that. I understand you believe it is not punitive. However, it will appear punitive and petty to the general public. People accept our removing of links because they generally believe it serves them as readers. But if Michael Moore sees us de-linking his web site in reaction to what he could well see as the most minor of innocent errors, he will likely take it as retribution. And he will probably say so to a couple hundred thousand people, who will take it the same way. And then maybe it will appear in 50 blogs for a similar readership. So yes, we are concerned with everybody's opinion of Wikipedia, even people who are currently a little around the bend about us. Because how we treat them is an important criterion in how people judge us. William -- William Pietri <william(a)scissor.com> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_Pietri