On 26 Aug 2007 at 17:00:07 +0100, <charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com>
wrote:
[long line rewrapped in accordance with RFC 2822]
> "Daniel R. Tobias" wrote
>
> > * Anti-pedophile site Perverted Justice set up a redirect based on
> > HTTP referrers so that anybody following links to any page in their
> > site from Wikipedia get redirected to a criticism page that blasts
> > Wikipedia for not cracking down on pedophile editors. This made the
> > whole thing an "attack site" according to some who seem to think that
> > anything that has anything critical to say about Wikipedia is an
> > "attack" that must not be linked to.
>
> Question: What connection would there be between compiling an
> encyclopedia, and linking to any site which took the step of
> redirecting incoming links to somewhere not intended?
I mentioned what was ultimately done in response to the redirection,
the changing of links to unlinked URLs in places where they're needed
as references. Such a forced redirection should be treated like any
other case where a link is made less usable, like a "404 Not Found"
dead link, a page retreating behind a registration-required login
wall, a site redesign leading to it being inaccessible in some
browser versions or full of annoying, intrusive ads... in all of
these cases, the use of the link needs to be reconsidered, possibly
changed to a "nowiki" URL or to an archived copy somewhere else or to
an alternate site with similar content, and possibly the site owner
should be informed of the unusability of their link in an
encyclopedia and encouraged to fix it. But in none of these cases is
there the "moral panic" of saying "They're an eeeeeeeeeeeevil Attack
Site and all references to it need to be DESTROYED!!!!!!!"
--
== Dan ==
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On 26 Aug 2007 at 17:59:17 +0100, "David Gerard" <dgerard(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
> Only a *Nazi* would try to stop them publishing whatever they think
> they can get away with.
Does Mr. Godwin read this list?
--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
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On 26 Aug 2007 at 14:56:56 +0100, "David Gerard" <dgerard(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
> It must be noted that Making Light isn't helping matters itself,
> running an extended attack piece on SWATjester after he dared stop one
> SF writer's attempt to use Wikipedia for self-publicity. The Nielsen
> Haydens proceeded to encourage this. That they did so after the last
> BADSITES kerfuffle beggars belief ...
Other sites shouldn't be allowed to criticize Wikipedia or
Wikipedians? They should be expected to do everything by Wikipedia's
rules and standards and not their own?
--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
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> > To be honest, I don't think there are any excessive backlogs. I think
> > we have enough admins as it is. I think admin numbers are increasing
> > roughly linearly, while everything else is increasing roughly
> > exponentially, so we may run into problems eventually, but at the
> > moment, things are working.
>
> Actually things are no longer increasing exponentially. At least,
> number of articles isn't, and hasn't been since about September 2006.
I'm a nice person. How often have any of you ever seen be unpleasant? Much
less curse. Probably never.
What the fuck are you thinking?
WP:COIN had a chronic backlog of about a hundred cases before the
Wikiscanner got published. Obviously the site's volunteers weren't spotting
nearly enough problems, much less solving them.
I spent my first months as an administrator frantically trying to keep
WP:RFI from collapsing under the weight of unanswered requests. A few very
hardworking volunteers weren't enough to keep up with the inflow. Rather
than attempt to save it the community just shut it down. So for 2007 I
resolved to admin coach more people. I send them to COIN and SSP whenever I
can. I'd like to revive RFI if we ever get enough volunteers to run it,
because the real problems that used to surface there didn't go away - they
go underground.
Wikipedia has a very serious credibility problem because we're not nearly
addressing deliberate exploitation effectively enough. That credibility
problem is all over the news this week. And now, at this juncture, seasoned
Wikipedians are actually claiming we don't need more sysops?
I used to be in the Navy. Occasionally a little Navy language is called
for. You may mean well, but your head is so far up your ass you think the
sky is brown.
-Durova
"Daniel R. Tobias" wrote
> * Anti-pedophile site Perverted Justice set up a redirect based on
> HTTP referrers so that anybody following links to any page in their
> site from Wikipedia get redirected to a criticism page that blasts
> Wikipedia for not cracking down on pedophile editors. This made the
> whole thing an "attack site" according to some who seem to think that
> anything that has anything critical to say about Wikipedia is an
> "attack" that must not be linked to.
Question: What connection would there be between compiling an encyclopedia, and linking to any site which took the step of redirecting incoming links to somewhere not intended?
Charles
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The last few days have seen a profusion of invocations of the alleged
policy against linking to so-called "attack sites", with a variety of
targets. If this were being done by trolls trying to discredit the
policy by making it look silly (as has often been alleged by its
supporters when some ridiculous case or other comes up in that
regard), they'd be doing a very good job in their trolling, but it
seems like everybody involved in these recent cases is actually
totally serious. There's no need for trolling to make the policy
look silly... the supporters of the policy do a perfectly fine job of
it themselves.
Recent cases:
* Anti-pedophile site Perverted Justice set up a redirect based on
HTTP referrers so that anybody following links to any page in their
site from Wikipedia get redirected to a criticism page that blasts
Wikipedia for not cracking down on pedophile editors. This made the
whole thing an "attack site" according to some who seem to think that
anything that has anything critical to say about Wikipedia is an
"attack" that must not be linked to. The ultimate consensus was to
make references to pages in that site non-live as links as a
practical means of dealing with the forced redirect, but not to
suppress all reference to the site itself (which has an article on
Wikipedia due to notability). Jimbo Wales even chimed in himself in
the AN/I debate on this, saying "[WP:BADSITES]] is a rejected policy,
as it should be. There is of course a noble concept behind it, and it
is my belief that a more carefully formulated restricted version of
the policy could in fact pass muster." He went on to call for being
thoughtful about what one links to, and mindful of the hurt it might
cause, but that we also need to be mindful of debatable criticisms of
Wikipedia even if we feel them to be invalid.
* On the heels of this, with Jimbo's notes still present on AN/I, a
thread opened up to discuss alleged sockpuppetry by SlimVirgin. The
actual actions were fairly minor and a couple of years old, so this
was perhaps "no big deal" as her supporters said... but, as with many
scandals, the things that were done later to cover it up (such as
oversighting many of the edits in question) were of greater concern
than the original act. Anyway, since a reasonably respected admin
opened the thread, it didn't get immediately suppressed as "trolling"
as attempts to criticize such well-connected editors as Slim usually
are; but her clique *did* invoke the anti-attack-sites policy to try
to suppress a link to crucial evidence in this case, because it was
in a site run by a banned attacker. The ultimate compromise was for
somebody else to copy the evidence in question to another site that
we *could* link to... and that site in turn included a link to the
other "attack" site where it credited the source of the information,
so it was just one more click away, but that seemed to placate the
"no links to attack sites ever" crowd anyway.
* While this was still in full swing, the next big BADSITES flap was
already under way. Controversial filmmaker Michael Moore decided he
didn't like how a Wikipedia editor, who also was a notable right-wing
commentator out in the "real world", was editing pages related to
Moore and his films. That Wikipedian, who until recently edited
under his real name and openly disclosed his occupation,
affiliations, and outside publications, suddenly decided not long ago
that he wanted to be retroactively anonymous, so he changed his
username and insisted that all the various policies protecting
editors against "outing" apply now. Moore, not being a Wikipedian,
didn't feel these rules had any application to him off-wiki, so he
put on the front page of his official Web site a piece mentioning the
guy by name and calling attention to his Wikipedia activity. This
led to frantic activity whereby some editors were insisting that
michaelmoore.com is now an Attack Site and must be delinked
everywhere (including on the [[Michael Moore]] article itself), and
others opposing this as just plain silly. Somebody involved in the
debate claimed to be friends with a producer of The Colbert Report
and to have talked with them about mentioning this flap, so it just
might turn up on that show (which likes to make fun of both Wikipedia
and Michael Moore, so might not resist a story involving both).
* And, finally (for now), a renewed attempt is being made to get
Teresa Nielsen Hayden's blog, Making Light, declared to be an attack
site (something that was tried, and failed the laugh test, a few
months ago). This time, it's alleged that the blog published
antisemitic remarks against a Wikipedia editor, though I haven't been
able to find a trace of this myself when I look at it.
>From all of this, it's obvious that the policy (currently embedded in
[[WP:NPA]] after the attempt at a separate BADSITES policy failed) is
highly flawed, and causes much more trouble than good, and also
clearly doesn't agree with consensus given that none of the above
attempts actually succeeded in suppressing the information they were
trying to do, and all of them met with strong opposition including
from admins.
Particularly troublesome is the part of the policy that claims that
the 3-revert rule doesn't apply to removing attack site links. This
is a destructive invitation to edit-warring, going against the very
reason 3RR was enacted in the first place: everybody who edit-wars
does it because they think they're right and the other guy is wrong.
In true, noncontroversial cases of gratuitous personal attacks,
harrassment, outing, and the like, this special exception is
unnecessary; if somebody vandalizes a user page to reveal the true
name and address of that user and invite people to stalk him/her,
there will undoubtably be a whole flock of editors and admins rushing
to revert the vandalism, oversight the personal info, and block the
user who inserted it; it's unlikely that anybody would need to revert
more than 3 times in this process, and even if somebody did, it
wouldn't be punished given the obviousness of the case (it's the sort
of thing that goes under WP:IAR). It's only in cases where there's a
real controversy over whether the policy applies to a particular
case, and whether it makes any sense to invoke it, that there would
be a perceived need to do multiple reverts, and those are the cases
where discussion rather than edit-warring would be productive.
Anyway, the policy is clearly not factually accurate, given that
somebody *did* get blocked for 3RR over removing one of the links
mentioned above.
If the policy is not to have a stake driven through its heart (my
preference), it at least needs a massive rewrite in accordance with
Jimbo's stated principles, so it calls for a thoughtful, reasoned
approach to potentially harmful links rather than an absolutist black-
and-white "we're good, those sites are evil" zero-tolerance rule.
--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/
The last part of my last message didn't make it to the online
archives, apparently due to the UNIX/Linux misfeature of treating the
word "From" at the beginning of a line as a message separator in
mailbox files, so I'm reposting it:
[F]rom all of this, it's obvious that the policy (currently embedded
in [[WP:NPA]] after the attempt at a separate BADSITES policy failed)
is highly flawed, and causes much more trouble than good, and also
clearly doesn't agree with consensus given that none of the above
attempts actually succeeded in suppressing the information they were
trying to do, and all of them met with strong opposition including
from admins.
Particularly troublesome is the part of the policy that claims that
the 3-revert rule doesn't apply to removing attack site links. This
is a destructive invitation to edit-warring, going against the very
reason 3RR was enacted in the first place: everybody who edit-wars
does it because they think they're right and the other guy is wrong.
In true, noncontroversial cases of gratuitous personal attacks,
harrassment, outing, and the like, this special exception is
unnecessary; if somebody vandalizes a user page to reveal the true
name and address of that user and invite people to stalk him/her,
there will undoubtably be a whole flock of editors and admins rushing
to revert the vandalism, oversight the personal info, and block the
user who inserted it; it's unlikely that anybody would need to revert
more than 3 times in this process, and even if somebody did, it
wouldn't be punished given the obviousness of the case (it's the sort
of thing that goes under WP:IAR). It's only in cases where there's a
real controversy over whether the policy applies to a particular
case, and whether it makes any sense to invoke it, that there would
be a perceived need to do multiple reverts, and those are the cases
where discussion rather than edit-warring would be productive.
Anyway, the policy is clearly not factually accurate, given that
somebody *did* get blocked for 3RR over removing one of the links
mentioned above.
If the policy is not to have a stake driven through its heart (my
preference), it at least needs a massive rewrite in accordance with
Jimbo's stated principles, so it calls for a thoughtful, reasoned
approach to potentially harmful links rather than an absolutist black-
and-white "we're good, those sites are evil" zero-tolerance rule.
--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/
The New York Times has a public editor, an ombudsman-like role,
currently filled by Clark Hoyt. He has just written an article where he
examines the same problem we face with BLPs of marginal figures:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/opinion/26pubed.html
It's exciting to see sources coming to grips with the problems we've
been dealing with for a while. Interesting that they only get one
complaint a day; I gather our numbers are higher.
William
--
William Pietri <william(a)scissor.com>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_Pietri
There's a meetup being organised for *somewhere* in the UK... input would be
appreciated if you're interested in meeting some of your fellow Wikipedians
:) See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/UK for info. Thanks.
--
Alex (Majorly)