[WikiEN-l] Another "BADSITES" controversy

[Daniel R. Tobias]

On 28 May 2007 at 11:54:57 -0500, "Slim Virgin" 
<slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:

> John, I don't think anyone is arguing that extreme position. It's a
> strawman. The whole BADSITES policy proposal was a strawman started by
> a sockpocket. All that's being argued is that sites *devoted* to
> outing and defamation  -- the purpose-built attackers, where it's all
> or most of what they do -- shouldn't be linked to.

And referring to sites like that is itself pretty close to being a 
straw man, given that very few sites actually exist that strictly fit 
that description.  Daniel Brandt's Hive Mind, perhaps, but even that 
was only part of his site (and has subsequently been taken down). The 
other sites that generally come up in these debates are definitely 
*not* devoted solely to outing and defamation; they have critical 
commentary, much of it crude and obnoxious, but "outing" individual 
editors is far from their primary focus.  And other sites the policy 
has also been applied to, like the science fiction editor's site 
that's the subject of the latest controversy, has such activity only 
as a very minor sidelight to its major activities which have resulted 
in many pages that are considered reliable sources for a variety of 
Wikipedia articles.


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