William Pietri wrote:
Frankly, having written them once and having equal access to the archives, I'm a little frustrated at the request. However, here they are in summary form:
Sorry for asking you to summarize your questions. This is a long thread and it takes a lot of time away from Wikipedia to read and reply to emails. Sinec we all use the same subject lines, it's doubly hard to find anything.
To restate my proposal: "Self-published sites that are actively harassing Wikipedia editors should not be considered reliable sources or suitable external links for articles. " There are also some very different new proposals now on the table that I also think are interesting, but these replies are based only on my original proposal.
* In terms of persons affected or behaviors changed, what specific benefits do you believe your proposed policy provides? And how does it achieve that? (E.g., "It will reduce harassment because..." or "It will make a harassed editor feel supported because...
Harassment of Wikipedia editors should not be advertised or promoted. A link to a harassing website is likely to make the harassed editor more aware of the harassment, meaning that it will have more effect on the editor and make the harassment more likely to succeed in driving him away from Wikipedia or at least avoiding the topic.
* How do you reconcile your suggested POV-driven content changes with the "absolute and non-negotiable" NPOV
This isn't a POV-driven content change. It's a determination that the writers of self-puiblished websites that engage in harassment of encyclopedia editors are not suitable sources for an encyclopedia. They are trying to inappropriately affect Wikipedia through harassment, so we can presume that they are also interested in affecting Wikipedia content. NPOV does not require that we include fringe ideas in articles, in fact it discourages them. Concepts or facts that can only be sourced to self-published websites actively engaged in harassing Wikipedia editors are going to be those that are only held by a tiny minority.
* Why do editors alone benefit from your proposal? If we're protecting people, shouldn't we protect everybody?
Everyone benefits from having articles that aren't based on poor sources. I assume you mean why shouldn't we give the same treatment to self-published websties that actively harass others? I'd hope we don't link to those very often. But there is an important difference. The websites are trying to affect the encyclopedia inappropriately, so we need to preempt that effort.
* Doesn't your proposed policy benefit editors while harming readers, thereby privileging one over the other? And can that really be squared with our mission?
Again, the policy is intended to benefit everybody, by giving us better content and happier editors. I don't believe that readers would be harmed in any way.
* How does somebody not liking Wikipedia reduce their value as a source in their area of expertise?
We've been over this one several times. "Not liking" or "criticizing" Wikipedia is fine. I'm sure we've all criticized Wikipedia for one reason or another. Harassment is not fine. Why would an expert choose to engage in harassment of an encyclopedia editor? The best reason I can think of is that they aren't thinking straight. t is very likely that whatever dispute led to the harassment will be connected to the field of expertise so, as I wrote above, the "expert" is putting himself into conflict with Wikipedia. His integrity and neutrality can't be taken for granted any longer.
* Even if your proposal isn't just a punitive measure against people who attack us, why wouldn't outsiders, including the persons whose sites we are de-linking, see it that way?
It is not punitive because linking to a site is not a reward, nor is removing a link a punishment. If someone is actively engaged in harassing a Wikipedia editor, are we really concerned with his opinion of Wikipedia policies? As for the rest of the world, we remove hundreds of links from articles every day and the outsiders don't seem to be too upset.
I look forward to your replies.
William
Thanks for the opportunity to answer your questions. Will