The solution obviously is to ban links to vicious sites, but not extend bans, at least in policy conversations to sites which have significant legitimate critical content. Asking critical sites to ban posting by those who have been banned from Wikipedia for good reason is not a practical solution. Asking them not to engage in repeated harassment of our users might be.
It is important to support our productive and responsible users and to do what we can to protect them from harassment both on Wikipedia and on external sites.
Fred
-----Original Message----- From: Blu Aardvark [mailto:jeffrey.latham@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, July 2, 2007 11:35 PM To: 'English Wikipedia' Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] FredBauder"clarifies"onattackkkkkkk site link policy
Ironically, so would I, and many of the other users who reject policies such as BADSITES and its numerous incarnations.
Removing such links isn't controversial; it's basic common sense. No policy is necessary, it just is done, and the only ones who whine are the trolls, generally those who posted the link in the first place.
Blanket bans, however, don't fall under this same common sense concept. That's what the community has soundly rejected, yet this same proposal keeps rearing its ugly head at every turn.
Fred Bauder wrote:
I'll certainly stand by this:
"Links to aggressive attacks on Wikipedia users may be removed. No oneneeds permission, no one needs to spend time making a policy about it,or arguing about it."
Fred
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On Thursday 05 July 2007 03:53, Fred Bauder wrote:
The solution obviously is to ban links to vicious sites, but not extend bans, at least in policy conversations to sites which have significant legitimate critical content. Asking critical sites to ban posting by those who have been banned from Wikipedia for good reason is not a practical solution. Asking them not to engage in repeated harassment of our users might be.
No, the solution is to ban links to content that attacks Wikipedia users, regardless of the site, and to leave links to other content alone, *regardless of the site*.
On Thu, 5 Jul 2007 08:38:18 -0500, Kurt Maxwell Weber kmw@armory.com wrote:
No, the solution is to ban links to content that attacks Wikipedia users, regardless of the site, and to leave links to other content alone, *regardless of the site*.
You think. Whereas other of us think that liking to a web forum that is comprised largely of harassment, attacks and outing is pretty much never appropriate. No WR link is "safe" because WR threads can be added to at any time.
Guy (JzG)
On 7/12/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Thu, 5 Jul 2007 08:38:18 -0500, Kurt Maxwell Weber kmw@armory.com wrote:
No, the solution is to ban links to content that attacks Wikipedia users, regardless of the site, and to leave links to other content alone, *regardless of the site*.
You think. Whereas other of us think that liking to a web forum that is comprised largely of harassment, attacks and outing is pretty much never appropriate. No WR link is "safe" because WR threads can be added to at any time.
Then shouldn't it be "forum" as opposed to site?
Johnleemk
On 7/12/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
No WR link is "safe" because WR threads can be added to at any time.
The same could be said for all those Wikia wikis we drop the nofollow atribute for
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Thu, 5 Jul 2007 08:38:18 -0500, Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote:
No, the solution is to ban links to content that attacks Wikipedia users, regardless of the site, and to leave links to other content alone, *regardless of the site*.
You think. Whereas other of us think that liking to a web forum that is comprised largely of harassment, attacks and outing is pretty much never appropriate. No WR link is "safe" because WR threads can be added to at any time.
Just like any web site! Bad sites can have good pages; good sites can have bad pages. Yawn!
Ec
On Thu, 12 Jul 2007 10:14:34 -0700, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Just like any web site! Bad sites can have good pages; good sites can have bad pages. Yawn!
But WR has only threads, which are all vulnerable to hijack by trolls, however well-intentioned we might in a moment of extreme Mary Poppins optimism believe the site's owners to be.
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Thu, 12 Jul 2007 10:14:34 -0700, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Just like any web site! Bad sites can have good pages; good sites can have bad pages. Yawn!
But WR has only threads, which are all vulnerable to hijack by trolls, however well-intentioned we might in a moment of extreme Mary Poppins optimism believe the site's owners to be.
Guy (JzG)
Wait, so our argument is pretty much a slippery-slope,"even if a given page isn't inappropriate, it could be made inappropriate at any given moment"? Wikipedia pages are also all vulnerable to hijack. At any given moment, there is a significant risk that any given page will suddenly have a picture of human genitalia at the top of it. Yet nobody is arguing that linking to Wikipedia, knowing this risk, is the same as linking to pornographic material (at least, I hope nobody is...)
True, Wikipedia does have a track record of quickly cleaning up inappropriate content, at least when editors are made aware of a problem. The track record of Wikipedia Review isn't quite so clear, especially because everyone has a different idea of what type of content is acceptable. It does appear that the current board administration is more than willing to work with users who raise legitimate complaints, however.
Look, I'm not arguing for including links to Wikipedia Review, unless there is a damn good reason for doing so. What I am arguing is that, on occasion, there can be good-faith rational to adding such links. Screaming "ATTACK SITE" and reverting. threatening, "warning", and even blocking good-faith users under this banner only inflames disputes, and makes the sites in question even more prominent.
On 7/12/07, Blu Aardvark jeffrey.latham@gmail.com wrote:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Thu, 12 Jul 2007 10:14:34 -0700, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Just like any web site! Bad sites can have good pages; good sites can have bad pages. Yawn!
But WR has only threads, which are all vulnerable to hijack by trolls, however well-intentioned we might in a moment of extreme Mary Poppins optimism believe the site's owners to be.
Guy (JzG)
Wait, so our argument is pretty much a slippery-slope,"even if a given page isn't inappropriate, it could be made inappropriate at any given moment"?
Not just that they "could be", but that they actually have an incredibly consistent history of exactly that.
True, Wikipedia does have a track record of quickly cleaning up inappropriate content, at least when editors are made aware of a problem.
That is just one crucial difference.
The track record of Wikipedia Review isn't quite so clear, especially because everyone has a different idea of what type of content is acceptable. It does appear that the current board administration is more than willing to work with users who raise legitimate complaints, however.
From the little I've seen, very little is actually done beyond a nod
and a wink. Problems that have been complained about months ago, and more than once, get a pseudo-legalistic run-around from the admins "first you have to prove you're the person in question", "we would have taken it down, but we can't now because you've threatened us" etc.
On 7/12/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Thu, 5 Jul 2007 08:38:18 -0500, Kurt Maxwell Weber kmw@armory.com wrote:
No, the solution is to ban links to content that attacks Wikipedia users, regardless of the site, and to leave links to other content alone, *regardless of the site*.
You think. Whereas other of us think that liking to a web forum that is comprised largely of harassment, attacks and outing is pretty much never appropriate. No WR link is "safe" because WR threads can be added to at any time.
Guy (JzG)
Great. So then it's OK to link to a static guaranteed-not-changing archived copy of a WR thread, like the archived copies WebCite or the Internet Archive provides? Would that finally be acceptable?
-- gwern
On Thu, 12 Jul 2007 15:59:15 -0400, "Gwern Branwen" gwern0@gmail.com wrote:
Great. So then it's OK to link to a static guaranteed-not-changing archived copy of a WR thread, like the archived copies WebCite or the Internet Archive provides? Would that finally be acceptable?
Provided it contained no attacks, outing or harassment, I would think so.
Guy (JzG)