On Mon, 09 Jul 2007 21:03:13 +1000, Mark Gallagher m.g.gallagher@student.canberra.edu.au wrote:
We shouldn't ban WR simply because we can't think of a good reason not to. That's not how things work on Wikipedia or, indeed, in most of the free world. "Everything that is not expressly condoned is forbidden"? Okay, so you can't think of a time when it would be a reliable source. Neither can I. That ain't a reason to blanket ban links to it.
No it isn't. But the fact that it is full of attacks, privacy violations, harassment and stalking *is* a good reason.
However, in the end, I'm afraid I think the major reason for people being so very keen to include links to WR is that they despise Essjay and want to put the boot in as hard as possible. An unworthy thought, but it fits much of what I've observed on the article's talk page.
We must be alert to the possibility that we kicked people off Wikipedia incorrectly. We must be alert to the possibility that people we kicked off correctly still have something to contribute[0].
This debate is going on at Wikiabuse right now. Jonathan Barber, banned vanity spammer JB196, is coming through my block logs and posting a lot as "unsubstantiated blocks." Before I lost patience I was spending 15-20 minutes reviewing each one to remind myself of the reason for the blocks. In almost every case it was blatant attacks on living individuals, spamming, POV-pushing or some other plainly good reason. I was happy to go back and review them during the Badlydrawnjeff arbtration, and content to do so again for a while. Not a problem. What is a problem is people insisting that a block is bad simply because they can't see the deleted contributions that supported it, or even because they can't be bothered to look. Which is an aside.
The point is, I have nothing against thoughtful criticism. But WR does not provide this. It does not provide rational discourse and thoughtful challenges, it provides grandstanding by people who were in the main entirely rightly banned, and it provides attacks and privacy violations as well.
It provides Jonathan Barber screaming that Wikipedia admins are abusive because one or two of his four hundred or so proven and suspected sockpuppet vandals /weren't him/ - which may be true, but if he was not a prolific ban-evading vandal, the problem would not exist in the first place. Wikiabuse has the potential to be better, because the crap may get edited out. Signs are bad right now.
Actually, of course, one of the leading sources of thoughtful critique is this mailing list, where numerous banned editors have been known to contribute.
Guy (JzG)