On 10/17/07, Thatcher131 Wikipedia thatcher131@gmail.com wrote:
Fred, I understand the importance of not harassing our volunteer editors, and that while one day it might be a mostly-liked public figure and a mostly disliked editor (Michael Moore and THF), another day it might be a mostly disliked public figure and a well-liked editor (such as Jeff Bagely and SlimVirgin).
I think to create an unambiguous contrast in perspective, the scenario would have to be "Carrot Top vs. Can't sleep, clown will eat me".
But I think it is important to separate article space from other spaces. Among other things, we risk being manipulated--supposed Stephen Colbert decided to play around with this concept?
Hopefully we would recognize it as obvious satire?
But it also seems to me that there are many other alternatives and the binary we must link/we must not link is a false dichotomy. In the case of Moore we could link to http://michaelmoore.com/books-films/index.php, which advances the purpose of the link even more than linking to the main page of his site. In the case of Bagley do we really want to compromise article content by writing, "Overstock.com is linked to a supposedly independent web site that published highly critical information about people" without even naming the site?
I've always wondered why anybody's knee-jerk response to outrageously asshole-ish behavior by article subjects would be to... do them the favor of suppressing it?
—C.W.