On 9/21/07, K P kpbotany@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/20/07, Wily D wilydoppelganger@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/20/07, K P kpbotany@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/19/07, charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Sheldon Rampton wrote
LOL. I didn't realize that the idea of "attack sites" could be extended to refer to anyone who attacks ANYONE.
"Attack site" is a really useless piece of terminology (up there with "wheel war"). It shortcircuits thought. What this is about is trash biography, baiting and bullying. I hope the case at least clarifies thoughts on this.
Charles
Usefule comment, Charles. I ahave a hard time seeing that these trash sites could or should be linked on Wikipedia at all. I delete3 links to other much better sites thatt aren't classified as attack sites all of the time. Unless it's an article about a famous trash biography site, what is it doing on Wikipedia as a link in the first place? Or war we diswcussing userpage links or something else? LP
KP
For the most part these sites shouldn't be linked, you're right. For that, we don't need ArbCom to say "No linking to Encyclopaedia Dramatica" - we all already know that, and anyone who doesn't can be educated, and anyone who still doesn't get it can be educated with extreme prejudice. ;)
But MichaelMoore.com? Slashdot? Conservapedia? There are legitimate encyclopaedic reasons to link to these (specifically, [[Michael Moore]], [[Slashdot]] and [[Conservapedia]]. And given the way the quality of "attack sites" is rising, it may not be long before we're talking about purging links to GlobeandMail.com or Princeton.edu
The "Oh, it's just WilyDisagoatfucker.blogspot.com, there'll never be any encyclopaedic reason for wanting to link to it" been proven false three times that I know of. People worried about the unclear language in what's going on are not overreacting.
Cheers, WilyD
But why link to these sites? MichaelMoore.com would be linked in his article, and, where relevant, and when relevant, the site would be linked in other articles possibly when another source is discussing Michael Moore.
But it sounds like there are tons of links to these sites all over Wikipedia. Of the three, Michael Moore is not the best example, because he genuinely generates controversy that is related to many other people, and I can see him having many links.
I don't know what slashdot is. I think I know what Conservapedia is, but it was about as boring as Wikipedia Review, with less diversity of material. Although if you're scraping scum off the bottom of the barrel, having a greater variety of bottom feeders eating and producing that scum, may not be that worthwhile.
I'm afraid that I don't see the controversy in this whole thing. I do know, however, that there is no one on Wikipedia who could explain it in a couple of paragraphs, with a couple of links, so that an outsider not deeply enmeshed in the sourrounding intrigue might understand.
KP
To the best of my knowledge, each of these contraversies was associated with the most obvious articles - the MONGO ruling was used to justify delinking MichaelMoore.com from [[Michael Moore]], delinking slashdot.org from [[Slashdot]], delinking conservapedia.com from [[Conservapedia]]. Thes particular sites don't really have much need to be linked outside of their own articles, or perhaps a few others (realistically, MichaelMoore.com might have some page that'd be a good external link for [[Sicko]] or something).
Cheers, WilyD