On 5/28/07, Sheldon Rampton sheldon@prwatch.org wrote:
Fred Bauder wrote:
This sort of thing, banning links to external sites, if done at all, needs to be limited to sites that extend their activities beyond criticism of Wikipedia to actions that hurt individual Wikipedia users. The blog seems to focus on publicizing Will Beback's real name which she got from ED. She is offended at his interactions with her when she edits.
Actually, banning links to external sites should not be done AT ALL. I don't care if the external site in question is run by someone who has a personal dungeon where they flay Wikipedia users with flaming razors. Banning links to their site is just bad policy, no matter what they are doing. If they are doing something ILLEGAL that "hurts individual Wikipedia users," they can be prosecuted for it in an actual court of law, but banning links to their site just turns otherwise sensible Wikipedians into stupid bureaucrats and makes things worse. It also invites the question, "What makes Wikipedia so damn special?" As the essay that was recently posted here points out, Wikipedia has no problem linking to Nazi websites and a host of other sites that promote violence, hurt people and break the law. It's ridiculous and embarrassing to have a policy that says "we don't care who else you hurt as long as you don't hurt Wikipedians." Finally, the question of what it means to "hurt" someone is impossible to define adequately for the purpose of making this policy practical -- especially since some people can be very thin-skinned about criticism.
This is the sort of situation where I think it would be good if Jimbo stepped in and played God to put an end to this nonsense.
Exactly. Context is key - and furthermore, banning things on a site-by-site basis is ridiculous. If the entire site is devoted to, say, outing an anonymous individual's identity, then hell yes, kill links to it with fire (unless, say, it becomes notable, in which case, link to it where absolutely necessary). But if there's a site run by a famous chef who also has a vendetta against, say, me, should we ban links to his site because one page of it is devoted to libel against me, while there are dozens of helpful pages that could be used as sources for articles about cuisine-related articles?
The absolutist thinking of those who say "all BADSITES must go" is well-meant but causing a lot of grief and, I would suggest, will harm the encyclopaedia if it has not already.
I think the Arbcom should clarify their decision to say that "attack sites" refers to sites composed of nothing but attacks - Brandt's Hive Mind site is probably a good example - and not just sites which contain attacks but also contain other content.
Johnleemk