On 30/05/07, Gabe Johnson <gjzilla(a)gmail.com> wrote: Not to mention the claims opposers made about Gracenotes through the RFA. Perhaps it was all a plot against makinglight.com. - d.

On 30/05/07, jayjg <jayjg99(a)gmail.com> wrote: Er ... bollocks. Q4 from SlimVirgin: "Hi GN, I seem to recall your posting something that implied you felt it was okay to link to attack sites, but I may be misremembering. Can you outline your position on that issue, please?" Answer: reference to BADSITES. " A: Certainly. I suppose you mean attack sites as those in which personal attacks are made against Wikipedians, without the intent of improving Wikipedia. I came to view the proposed WP:BADSITES as an extension of our policy on No Personal Attacks, as several others did. Personal attacks are restricted on Wikipedia, but not on other websites, where nonconstructive criticism has no consequences. (This can be compared to Wikipedia, where action can be taken upon personal attacks.) If posting a link to an attack site is intended, in any way, to be a personal attack in itself, then Wikipedians may wish to rephrase or remove their comments. If the issue brought up by the attack site is valid, surely Wikipedians can discuss it on-wiki. In the discussion at WT:BADSITES, I thought it unhelpful for editors to either add or remove links merely to make a point; I was also frustrated by the enforcing of a proposed policy for cases without a clear personal attack. To delineate, and to address some of the concerns in your question, I oppose removing all links to all such sites in all contexts, especially if such removals interfere with the good faith development of Wikipedia (if rules make you nervous or depressed...) Granted, not all additions of links to attack sites happen in good faith. Both adding and removing links should be justified by logic, and not by enforcement merely for the sake of enforcement (something I see way too much in real life). Temperance, rather than prohibition, is the best route. (There has not been an amendment enforcing morality since the 18th, and for good reason.) To conclude, it is an interesting fact that (to my knowledge) MeatballWiki has no articles on dealing with external sites of criticism. Wikis are meant to be their own self-sufficient world, taking care of their own problems, not meant to be in the real world. However, Wikipedia no longer has that option: the recognition of this is helpful in dealing with such sites. Now, if these comments seem without focus, it is because the issue has many, many facets. Hopefully I've explained my views on the facets you're interested in. GracenotesT §" First in Oppose list from SlimVirgin: "Strong oppose. I have to oppose based on Gracenote's answer to my question about attack sites. I feel that websites that out and defame Wikipedians should never be linked to; I certainly can't think of a single encyclopedic reason they would ever have to be. SlimVirgin (talk) 06:00, 23 May 2007 (UTC)" That is: Gracenotes referred to BADSITES, and SlimVirgin opposed because he failed to oppose all links in any circumstances. - d. Oppose: refers to being unhappy with answer to Q4.

On 30/05/07, Slim Virgin <slimvirgin(a)gmail.com> wrote: Complete text of your oppose: "Strong oppose. I have to oppose based on Gracenote's answer to my question about attack sites. I feel that websites that out and defame Wikipedians should never be linked to; I certainly can't think of a single encyclopedic reason they would ever have to be. SlimVirgin (talk) 06:00, 23 May 2007 (UTC)" That looks, walks and quacks like BADSITES, and BADSITES was referenced by that name in Gracenotes' answer which you referred to in your oppose. That is: your question, his answer and your oppose, and all the oppose !votes saying "Per SlimVirgin", are where I get my strange misconception that this was all about BADSITES. I wonder how I could have come to that conclusion. I must have been reading what you wrote on the RFA. - d.

Slim Virgin wrote: Yes, you did raise other concerns besides the "attack link" baloney, some which appear to be valid. However, the "attack link" baloney certainly does look, walk and quack like BADSITES as mentioned, and it really isn't any wonder that the opposition picked up on it. The accusation that it was a strawman argument is, in and of itself, a strawman argument. Ironic, no?

On 5/29/07, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote: Agree. Slim, I appreciate your elaborated strong oppose section, and I appreciate that the opposes aren't knee-jerk. Many, by eyeball probably most of the opposes do seem to come down to "Gracenotes' position on this policy is something I can't support", though there are legitimate questions in other areas and questions about Gracenotes' support for other admins in general, regardless of what policy here says or doesn't say. It's not fair to Gracenote to make them the whipping boy for a failed but popular proposed policy. I stayed away from this until Cecropia froze it; on review now, I have to agree that most of the opposes are apparently advocating a policy which is similar to BADSITES. Perhaps not identical, but there is still much debate in the wider community on how far we should (as a whole community) go on shunning the nuts out there, and the positions advocated in oppose fall in the same bucket that BADSITES generally did. I still haven't made my mind up on the larger question; without trying to turn it into a policy, I'd say that an unreformed Wikipedia Review can stay linkbanned for all I care. We're hitting more problems where not having a policy is causing problems. If we have a policy and there's disagreement, at least we have something to point people to in terms of behavior expectations, while there are open debates about directional changes in it. Lacking those expectations, people will get bit by the forms that the debates take. Voting against someone based on a specific unsettled point of larger policy is fair if you think they're so biased that they can't go along if the policy is eventually settled in a way they disagree with, but less fair if it's just opposition to their position. I am far more worried that one of Merkey's anon detractors claims that they just got past RFA with another as-yet-unnamed account than worrying what Gracenote might do if he got adminned and we decide on a policy which is absolutely strict about attack sites. I see no sign that Gracenote would disrupt or refuse to go along with a settled policy which he opposes. -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

On 5/29/07, George Herbert <george.herbert(a)gmail.com> wrote: Quite a few groups are claiming to have succeeded in getting RfAs through, and in some cases more than one admin account per person, because the process has become almost completely formulaic. It's one of the reasons I don't like to see high article edit counts (with minor edits) and low talk-page interaction, because that's one of the ways they claim to get them through. (And that's not a comment on Gracenotes, before anyone interprets it that way.) I don't know what the solution is, because a large chunk of the community still argues that adminship's no big deal, which means there's no will to check who's being given it.

On 5/29/07, George Herbert <george.herbert(a)gmail.com> wrote: There's no time to check thoroughly, but there are ways of cutting down on the obviously easy routes. It's a trivial matter to use a semi-automated script to get you up to 3,000 vandalism reverts. That, combined with very few talk page edits, and with AfDs being the only project space contribs, is a known formula. It makes sense to check carefully when you see one of those approaching. But there's no will to do this, and the result is that we're a top--ten website with no idea how many admins we have. We know how many accounts, but not how many people, and we don't know whether they include banned users.

Slim Virgin wrote: Raul654 is my sockpuppet. Just throwing that out there. But seriously, does it even matter if they are banned users if they haven't given any legitimate cause for concern? An admin who is abusing his tools in either obvious or subtle ways will be quickly identified as problematic. The obvious abusers, granted, aren't much cause for concern - as has been displayed already, they can be removed expediently. Subtle abusers could cause more damage over time, potentially, but you no doubt are well aware of that.

On 5/30/07, Slim Virgin <slimvirgin(a)gmail.com> wrote: Actually until we get around to renaming that page there is a case to be made because accusing someone of spamming when they have not been doing so raises various issues. -- geni