On Mon, 09 Jul 2007 21:03:13 +1000, Mark Gallagher
<m.g.gallagher(a)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)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG