[WikiEN-l] BADSITES ArbCom case in progress

[fredbaud at waterwiki.info]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Todd Allen [mailto:toddmallen at gmail.com]
>Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2007 12:59 AM
>To: 'English Wikipedia'
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] BADSITES ArbCom case in progress
>
>fredbaud at waterwiki.info wrote:
>> Links to a site, and references to a site, are the oxygen of the internet. We just don't help.
>>
>> Fred

>I agree with you. At the same time, we should ensure we're not cutting
>off more oxygen to us than them. For many attack sites, there's no real
>reason to link to them at all anyway. Great, no big deal, let's avoid
>it. But when we're talking about a site like michaelmoore.com, and
>people are proposing in any form of seriousness to ban links to it,
>we've got a problem. There are tons of potentially valid reasons to link
>to that site, not least in [[Michael Moore]] itself, an unquestionably
>notable figure.

In the case of MichaelMoore.com I think it was righteous to remove our link to them WHILE they had on their main page a link to edit a Wikipedia user's page. However, the most productive response was to contact them and educate them regarding the inappropriateness of the link. Designating the site permanently as an attack site was inappropriate (although they certainly function in that way with respect to our conservative brethren).

Fred