On 7/2/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
The NYT case is excessive; but it only sticks out because IAR steps in and says that nobody can take erasing all links to the NYT seriously. It's OK to erase links to any crticial site because people can say these sites are bad and get away with it. In the case of TNH the story that her blog was an attack site couldn't be seriously sustained-- but it didn't stop someone from trying.
The person who did that got upset because he was outed, and he reacted badly, which he later admitted. It was a very human response, and it's unfair to keep on using it as a weapon.
What we're talking about is very simple. We have a bunch of people who volunteer their time because Wikipedia's a cause they believe in. That's not a bad thing to do. Therefore, don't make their time here an abject misery. Criticize them by all means. But recognize the line between fair comment and hurtful attacks that humiliate them. And don't do anything on Wikipedia that could put them in harm's way in real life.
For me, it's a no brainer that that includes not linking to websites that *make a habit* of humiliating their targets. It's very sad that a simple attempt to be decent triggered so much baiting and an unkind breaching experiment.