On Mon, 2 Jul 2007 13:52:19 +0100, "Tony
Sidaway"
<tonysidaway(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Given that the pro-link-ban side has been
known to use their cliquish
> power to torpedo people's election (in RfAs) using political litmus
> tests, why is it so absurd to do the same on the other side?
Well it makes *you* look as petty and nasty as the
other side (if
that's what they're doing).
Tony, surely you must know: /we/ are consensus, /you/ are a clique,
/they/ are a cabal.
Fact is, WR was never a reliable source. Just look at the ravings of
Jonathan Barber (JB196, editing WR as Looch) and you'll see that in an
instant. The reason we should not link to it is not the attacks or
the outing, it's because no collection of banned trolls and frustrated
vanity spammers will ever have anything like a neutral commentary on
anything, and also because it's a forum not a wiki, so crap either
stays or is deleted, it's not subject to any process of editing or
refinement. It simply fails any rational sourcing guideline.
That is precisely the issue with [[Essjay controversy]]: WR may not be a RS about anything
else in the world - but is it a reliable source about what happens on WR? More generally,
is any site with user-generated content a RS about what happens on that selfsame site?
Obviously some people don't think the answer is yes.
--
gwern
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