[WikiEN-l] Another conflict regarding linking to"attack sites"

[John Lee]

On 4/29/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
>
> On Sat, 28 Apr 2007 15:31:33 +0800, "John Lee" <johnleemk at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >It's *basic common sense* not to
> >link to /webpages/ which contain personal attacks or any of the sort,
> unless
> >absolutely necessary (e.g. evidence in ArbCom). Similarly, it's basic
> common
> >sense to link to webpages which contain helpful information (but not
> >personal attacks), even if these pages are hosted on sites which also
> host
> >personal attacks.
>
> No it's not.  Let's say (to take an unambiguous article) you have a
> white supremacist article, and you choose not to link to articles on
> that site in respect of their opinion on prominent black people.


If the article is about a white supremacist organisation, it seems pretty
dumb not to link to their website. [[WP:NPOV]] should take precedence,
because we aren't supposed to endorse any particular point of view. Of
course, [[WP:IAR]] may apply (IIRC we don't make proper links to very NSFW
sites like Goatse or the Al-Qaeda beheading videos, but provide the URLs for
people to copy and paste if they really want to see them), but it's all on a
case-by-case basis. Slapping a one-size-fits-all policy on this to cover all
cases is retarded.

Would
> you then link to their recipes pages just because they are good
> recipes?  Or would you look for an alternative and less contentious
> source for the same content?


If they are the only source for a notable recipe, why on earth would you not
want to link to them?

  Or perhaps think to yourself that, after
> all, it's not that big a deal, so maybe best not to link to them and
> let people buy a recipe book?


Again, case-by-case. Some recipes are particularly notable.

There are some editors who have been so viciously attacked that any
> link to these sites, however innocuous the individual page, feels like
> a mortal insult.  What's on these sites that justifies that pain?


If they are necessary for sourcing a particular article, if they are
necessary to provide context for, I don't know, a debate on the merits of
linking to attack sites, shall we say, why the hell would it be not
justified to link to these sites? You are arguing that it can never be
necessary to link to an attack site, even pages without attacks. If you
actually think about it for five seconds, you might manage to see the major
flaw in this reasoning.

Another way of looking at it: some trolls also contribute occasional
> good edits.  In the end, if they continue trolling, they get blocked.
> Pragmatically, the costs outweigh the benefits.


When trolls edit, we don't get to pick and choose what edits they make. When
we link to websites, we get to choose what pages we link to. Flawed analogy.


The option to stop trolling is always open.  The option not to violate
> the privacy of our editors is always open.  The rules are not hard to
> grasp, and people who wilfully ignore them, really, are no loss.


How is it violating the privacy of our editors to link to a page which
contains no personal information, but does contain necessary information to
provide context for a particular article or discussion?

Maybe someone can offer an example of a link to one of these sites
> which is so self-evidently important that the article would be
> incomplete without *that link* (rather than that content cited to a
> print source, say).


That mindless revert war on the Signpost comes to mind.

Johnleemk