At 03:24 PM 3/28/2010, Fred Bauder wrote:
>That is why I despise the war on external links and further reading some
>editors seem to think is appropriate.
I don't think that some editors realize the extent to which the
blacklist, originally intended to control spam, is used to control
content. A web site that is inappropriate as a reference can
sometimes be the most important site for an external link. Yet if a
lot of people have linked to that site, and especially if a handful
of editors, interested in the topic -- or even they are COI -- have
added a lot of links, the site is nominated for blacklisting. In the
nomination and in decisions to blacklist by administrators, a
supporting reason, besides reports on numbers of links existing, is
often "Site is not RS." Sometimes, even, this is a controversial
statement, but if it's not clearly RS, the argument can prevail.
The specific appropriateness of the links in the articles where
placed *is not considered*, and, indeed, that consideration would be
impractical.
Sometimes sites are blacklisted without massive spam, but only a
little, and I have found, on occasion, that all the links that
resulted in blacklisting were actually legitimate, and that was
sustained by later stable replacement. Editors who were adding links
in good faith, links that were actual improvements, have been blocked
and banned for "spamming." Even when they stopped when warned.
I appreciate the need for spam control, but it can go too far.
ArbComm decided that content control ("not RS") was not a legitimate
reason for blacklisting, but it's complicated by the need to balance
true spam control with damage to editorial freedom, so we can't say
that content arguments are utterly irrelevant, either. If there is
gross spamming, but a site is RS, we would properly be more reluctant
to blacklist. If a site is utterly and unremediably usable, it might
be blacklisted easily if there is spamming. Most blacklistings do
fall into this category.
What I've seen, though, in raising the argument that a site would
make a good external link, is the "Wikipedia is not a repository of
links" argument, which is making a decision, like the not-RS
argument, in the wrong place, blacklist administrators should have no
special authority, as admins, over article content. It should be
realized that this is truly a small number of admins, as little as
two or three, that regularly make decisions, and, as is typical, they
are overworked.
But, then, there is still the possibility of whitelisting individual
links. I had thought that I'd come to some agreement with Beetstra
over this, and I started to try to assist by reviewing whitelisting
requests. These had been sitting for, some of them, for over two
months without response. Whitelisting is only a practical alternative
if it is quick, in general, and there is no anti-spam reason to deny
a reasonable whitelisting request, it would be impossible to spam
through whitelist requests if support is routinely required from at
least one registered editor, not associated with the site or an SPA
around the issue, looks at it and decides it's a reasonable request.
That still does not make the decision at the article for actual use.
But this is one of the charges made against me in the lastest
Arbitration Enforcement action, that I somehow was violating my ban
by reviewing unanswered whitelist requests and giving an opinion, an
opinion that really shouldn't have been contentious, and there was no
dispute on that page.
I also commented on one request on the blacklist page, where a
request for blacklist had been made, there was a neutral comment from
Beetstra, and I then contradicted information in the blacklist
request, because I concluded that the site was, in fact, RS. Just my
opinion! But evidenced. So, as far as dispute on that page was
concerned, I was originating the dispute, which was supposedly
allowed. It did not spin out and become a massive discussion, I was
careful to be brief. I wasn't intervening in a dispute between
editors. It could be said that there was a dispute between an IP
editor and an anti-spam volunteer who had warned him or her, on the
IP talk page, but I did not intervene in that. I was commenting on
the blacklisting proposal, not on the possible editorial dispute
(which apparently didn't continue, but I don't know. To my knowledge,
the IP was not blocked, which would certainly have occurred if
"spamming" had continued.)
Based on Beetstra's later comments, I sadly concluded that help with
whitelisting was seen as an outside interference, it was not welcome,
even when done carefully in such a way as to thoroughly respect the
legitimate needs of blacklisting. So the ArbComm decision on the
blacklist is basically a dead letter, for lack of anyone
knowledgeable to make it happen.
Links will be provided on request. This is not an attempt to canvass
support for some position on any web site.