jayjg wrote:
On 7/2/07, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
jayjg wrote:
and no-one is going to insist on a banning if there is some incredibly important reason why one must be linked to under some bizarre and unforeseen turn of events.
But those turns of events are not, in fact, so bizarre or unforeseen.
Yeah, they pretty much are. Rare events, and generally involving wiki-drama, not actually building an encyclopedia.
I'm not talking about wiki-drama, I'm talking about hypertext. Wikipedia is a website. Websites link to each other. It turns out it's an incredibly powerful and useful concept. If whenever we're talking about something said on site X -- whether this is in an RFC or Arbitration case, or a topicality debate in project space, or wherever -- and if site X happens to be on a secret list of Sites One Must Not Link To, such that instead we're supposed to use circumlocutions like describing the site in words, or emailing a URL, instead of just making a hyperlink like Time Berners-Lee intended -- if we insist on going through this cutting-off-our-nose-to-spite-our-face exercise, just so we can feel good about not "endorsing" a site that has (perhaps egregiously) wronged one of our editors, that's just an incredibly frustrating and pointless waste of time.
You claim that the blanket ban is acceptable because reasonable people can decide to make exceptions if necessary. But why go that route? Why not say that links -- to any site, anywhere -- which serve as attacks, are attacks, and are banned under NPA? Why not let reasonable people realize that this is a sufficient policy, that will disallow all the troublesome links just as effectively as the blanket ban would? What additional protective power is gained by proactively applying the blanket ban?
Well, let's say one links to the front page of an attack site, which doesn't actually contain any attacks, but just links to all sorts of other pages that do.
So what?
I wish you'd answer the question. Why do we need a blanket ban? How does it prevent Personal Attacks (in ways that WP:NPA can't)? How does it help us build an encyclopedia?
Is it worth its cost?
What cost? I've seen none so far.
An illogical, censorious policy exacts a significant (albeit intangible) cost in that observers are left with the impression that our policies are driven by emotion, not logic. One begins to trust and respect our policymaking process less. Furthermore, one illogical policy can easily beget another, and another.