On 30 May 2007 at 12:59:56 -0400, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
WR doesn't qualify for citation under [[WP:V]] or [[WP:RS]].
That straw man has resurfaced so many times that I'm tempted to coin a new term, "[[Bobblehead doll]] argument", for one which keeps bouncing back up every time it's knocked down.
As others have said, it's not as a source in an article that anybody has been or intends on using that site (except perhaps for a future article on the site itself, if it should become sufficiently notable, or maybe on [[Criticisms of Wikipedia]] -- the sole thing that it would ever be a source for would be about itself and the views espoused by its participants). The places it might turn up include discussion and project pages, which are not subject to WP:V, WP:RS, or even WP:NPOV.
On 5/30/07, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
As others have said, it's not as a source in an article that anybody has been or intends on using that site (except perhaps for a future article on the site itself, if it should become sufficiently notable, or maybe on [[Criticisms of Wikipedia]] -- the sole thing that it would ever be a source for would be about itself and the views espoused by its participants).
Dan, would you be okay with this scenario? I today create a website that outs you, says where you live, and accuses you of being a pedophile, with some alleged examples. I then start a discussion about it on various project pages, and every time I mention it, I link to it. I'm careful not to link to the actual page that gives your details, so I'm not linking to a personal attack. I'm just linking to the main page, and I link here and I link there, I link everywhere, in an attempt to increase my readership.
Would you be okay with that?
Let's take it a bit further. Let's suppose I'm a reporter and I write an article about my experiment for a reliable source, and let's also suppose it's a very notable newspaper, but not a good one, and it lets me name the website in the article. I don't name you, but I also don't admit that I made up the pedophile allegation. I just present the creation of the website as an experiment; veracity of contents to be left to the reader.
Should someone then be able to create a Wikipedia article about my site, and link to it in that article so that it ends up in a prominent place in Google?
See, I'm pretty sure if that happened, you'd be howling, and rightly so.
Then try to imagine how you'd vote in an RfA for someone who called my website a "mixed bag," and who didn't want a ban on linking to it.
Slim Virgin wrote:
On 5/30/07, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
As others have said, it's not as a source in an article that anybody has been or intends on using that site (except perhaps for a future article on the site itself, if it should become sufficiently notable, or maybe on [[Criticisms of Wikipedia]] -- the sole thing that it would ever be a source for would be about itself and the views espoused by its participants).
Dan, would you be okay with this scenario? I today create a website that outs you, says where you live, and accuses you of being a pedophile, with some alleged examples. I then start a discussion about it on various project pages, and every time I mention it, I link to it. I'm careful not to link to the actual page that gives your details, so I'm not linking to a personal attack. I'm just linking to the main page, and I link here and I link there, I link everywhere, in an attempt to increase my readership.
Would you be okay with that?
Let's take it a bit further. Let's suppose I'm a reporter and I write an article about my experiment for a reliable source, and let's also suppose it's a very notable newspaper, but not a good one, and it lets me name the website in the article. I don't name you, but I also don't admit that I made up the pedophile allegation. I just present the creation of the website as an experiment; veracity of contents to be left to the reader.
Should someone then be able to create a Wikipedia article about my site, and link to it in that article so that it ends up in a prominent place in Google?
See, I'm pretty sure if that happened, you'd be howling, and rightly so.
Then try to imagine how you'd vote in an RfA for someone who called my website a "mixed bag," and who didn't want a ban on linking to it.
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You can do that with me, if you'd like. If someone libels me, it's -my- responsibility to sue them and require them to change that, not everyone else in the world's responsibility to avoid reporting on the incident. Now, of course, if a website is unreliable, it's unreliable. Web forums are unreliable, but we still might link to them in an article on the forum itself. If the forum itself is notable, we do that. Even if it's a nasty, vicious forum, if it's been reported in other reliable sources, we report on it. That's what you signed up for.
Now, of course, if little or no source material exists besides the forum itself, it's inappropriate to have an article on it. That's true whether it's a forum that discusses cute fluffy bunnies or real-life identities and attacks on people. But if many reliable sources exist, it -is- appropriate to have an article on it. That's true whether it's a forum that discusses cute fluffy bunnies or real-life identities and attacks on people.
NPOV means -no exceptions-. And that includes if we DONTLIKEIT.
On 5/30/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
Slim Virgin wrote:
On 5/30/07, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote: Dan, would you be okay with this scenario? I today create a website that outs you, says where you live, and accuses you of being a pedophile, with some alleged examples. I then start a discussion about it on various project pages, and every time I mention it, I link to it. I'm careful not to link to the actual page that gives your details, so I'm not linking to a personal attack. I'm just linking to the main page, and I link here and I link there, I link everywhere, in an attempt to increase my readership.
Would you be okay with that?
Let's take it a bit further. Let's suppose I'm a reporter and I write an article about my experiment for a reliable source, and let's also suppose it's a very notable newspaper, but not a good one, and it lets me name the website in the article. I don't name you, but I also don't admit that I made up the pedophile allegation. I just present the creation of the website as an experiment; veracity of contents to be left to the reader.
Should someone then be able to create a Wikipedia article about my site, and link to it in that article so that it ends up in a prominent place in Google?
See, I'm pretty sure if that happened, you'd be howling, and rightly so.
Then try to imagine how you'd vote in an RfA for someone who called my website a "mixed bag," and who didn't want a ban on linking to it.
You can do that with me, if you'd like. If someone libels me, it's -my- responsibility to sue them and require them to change that, not everyone else in the world's responsibility to avoid reporting on the incident. Now, of course, if a website is unreliable, it's unreliable. Web forums are unreliable, but we still might link to them in an article on the forum itself.
Okay Todd, but you're not addressing the first part of the thought experiment. What if there was no article, no reliable source, but I just kept raising the issue in Wikipedia project space whenever I could, and every time I raised it, I linked to the site which named you, gave your location, and called you a pedophile. You'd be okay with that?
On Wed, 30 May 2007, Slim Virgin wrote:
Okay Todd, but you're not addressing the first part of the thought experiment. What if there was no article, no reliable source, but I just kept raising the issue in Wikipedia project space whenever I could, and every time I raised it, I linked to the site which named you, gave your location, and called you a pedophile. You'd be okay with that?
If that is the thought experiment, it is not analogous to the situations where people want to include links to "attack sites". These links are not being added by people just to raise them, but because they believe the links are useful.
On 5/31/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/30/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
Slim Virgin wrote:
On 5/30/07, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote: Dan, would you be okay with this scenario? I today create a website that outs you, says where you live, and accuses you of being a pedophile, with some alleged examples. I then start a discussion about it on various project pages, and every time I mention it, I link to it. I'm careful not to link to the actual page that gives your details, so I'm not linking to a personal attack. I'm just linking to the main page, and I link here and I link there, I link everywhere, in an attempt to increase my readership.
Would you be okay with that?
Let's take it a bit further. Let's suppose I'm a reporter and I write an article about my experiment for a reliable source, and let's also suppose it's a very notable newspaper, but not a good one, and it lets me name the website in the article. I don't name you, but I also don't admit that I made up the pedophile allegation. I just present the creation of the website as an experiment; veracity of contents to be left to the reader.
Should someone then be able to create a Wikipedia article about my site, and link to it in that article so that it ends up in a prominent place in Google?
See, I'm pretty sure if that happened, you'd be howling, and rightly
so.
Then try to imagine how you'd vote in an RfA for someone who called my website a "mixed bag," and who didn't want a ban on linking to it.
You can do that with me, if you'd like. If someone libels me, it's -my- responsibility to sue them and require them to change that, not everyone else in the world's responsibility to avoid reporting on the incident. Now, of course, if a website is unreliable, it's unreliable. Web forums are unreliable, but we still might link to them in an article on the forum itself.
Okay Todd, but you're not addressing the first part of the thought experiment. What if there was no article, no reliable source, but I just kept raising the issue in Wikipedia project space whenever I could, and every time I raised it, I linked to the site which named you, gave your location, and called you a pedophile. You'd be okay with that?
That's clearly a thinly veiled personal attack, and I see no reason why it should be allowed. Saying "we should allow links to attack sites sometimes" is a whole lot different from "we should allow all links to attack sites"; you are insinuating the former is the latter, when the two are different.
Johnleemk
On 5/30/07, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
On 30 May 2007 at 12:59:56 -0400, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
WR doesn't qualify for citation under [[WP:V]] or [[WP:RS]].
That straw man has resurfaced so many times that I'm tempted to coin a new term, "[[Bobblehead doll]] argument", for one which keeps bouncing back up every time it's knocked down.
Maybe because you aren't really knocking it down; that's only part of the issue.
As others have said, it's not as a source in an article that anybody has been or intends on using that site (except perhaps for a future article on the site itself, if it should become sufficiently notable, or maybe on [[Criticisms of Wikipedia]] -- the sole thing that it would ever be a source for would be about itself and the views espoused by its participants). The places it might turn up include discussion and project pages, which are not subject to WP:V, WP:RS, or even WP:NPOV.
Yes, but no-one has explained what value they provide their either; given that the content of the site couldn't be used in an article anyway, there's no need to link to it on discussion and Talk: pages. The purpose of those pages is to discuss article content; in case people have forgotten, the purpose of Wikipedia is to create encyclopedia articles.
What this debate boils down to is what kind of atmosphere we want on Wikipedia. Some people are arguing that we don't want an atmosphere of censorship, and that's a valid point of course. My argument is that we shouldn't want an atmosphere in which some people are being outed, attacked, ridiculed, and having their families and their friend's families contacted by lunatics. And when it does happen, Wikipedians should stick together, no matter their editing differences, and should make clear that it's totally unacceptable behavior.
There have been a couple of comments in this thread from people who are coming very close to saying some people deserve to be outed and attacked. It's a sad day to see that from anyone posting to this list.
Common sense and basic empathy need to guide us here, just as they do over other BLP issues. This *is* a BLP issue, unless we're assuming we're not really flesh and blood behind these keyboards.
On 5/30/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
What this debate boils down to is what kind of atmosphere we want on Wikipedia. Some people are arguing that we don't want an atmosphere of censorship, and that's a valid point of course. My argument is that we shouldn't want an atmosphere in which some people are being outed, attacked, ridiculed, and having their families and their friend's families contacted by lunatics. And when it does happen, Wikipedians should stick together, no matter their editing differences, and should make clear that it's totally unacceptable behavior.
There have been a couple of comments in this thread from people who are coming very close to saying some people deserve to be outed and attacked. It's a sad day to see that from anyone posting to this list.
Common sense and basic empathy need to guide us here, just as they do over other BLP issues. This *is* a BLP issue, unless we're assuming we're not really flesh and blood behind these keyboards.
I would prefer one where we're open to issues people have with us to one where we squelch all criticism.
We, ourselves, are built on principles of openness. Just because some articles on Wikiepdia are bad, doesn't mean that you don't use the whole website. Likewise, just because WR has done some bad things, doesn't mean you don't link there if they have an insightful idea or comment. ~~~~
On 5/30/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
What this debate boils down to is what kind of atmosphere we want on Wikipedia. Some people are arguing that we don't want an atmosphere of censorship, and that's a valid point of course. My argument is that we shouldn't want an atmosphere in which some people are being outed, attacked, ridiculed, and having their families and their friend's families contacted by lunatics.
I have posted out on the internet under my real name for two decades, and I've participated in a lot of discussions that were more virulent than anything I've ever seen on Wikipedia. And I've never seen any real life threats come out of it, though I have been roundly vilified on occaision. The atmosphere on Wikipedia is better than this, but only better; it is the same atmosphere, only not as bad. Well, except for one thing: the need to stand over one's work and protect it from idiots.
The idiots are out there, all over Wikipedia, and this proposal has handed them another tool. I don't think the threat of erasure is protecting anyone from being outed, but it is clear that the threat of erasure is useful for harassing people or even just stirring up trouble. And you can say that we don't to worry about that, but it is not so. We shouldn't write policies which invite idiots to commit idiocy and the malicious to act with malice, and that is the history of this proposal's application.
I don't think the proposal is really protecting anyone. Someone who is that intent on doing real life harassment can get past the erased links with ease.
Slim Virgin wrote:
What this debate boils down to is what kind of atmosphere we want on Wikipedia. Some people are arguing that we don't want an atmosphere of censorship, and that's a valid point of course. My argument is that we shouldn't want an atmosphere in which some people are being outed, attacked, ridiculed, and having their families and their friend's families contacted by lunatics. And when it does happen, Wikipedians should stick together, no matter their editing differences, and should make clear that it's totally unacceptable behavior.
I'm with you on the atmosphere. I have been involved in on-line community stuff for an embarrassingly long time, and I think keeping a healthy, supportive, sympathetic, and welcoming culture is vital to an effort like Wikipedia. I'm also with you on drawing clear lines on what's acceptable and taking those lines very seriously.
But where I'm not yet convinced is the extent to which we can effectively punish off-Wikipedia activity on Wikipedia. I see the appeal, but to the extent that I understand what's being proposed, I am not yet seeing the benefits outweigh the costs.
For example, in your hypothetical case of a person maliciously posting links to a site with libel elsewhere on it, I'm not seeing as banning talk-page links to the whole site as particularly effective. Instead, I'd rather we got together as a community and set up a legal fund for a libel suit. I feel like banning links to some kook's site is just rewarding their desire to cause trouble, and doesn't hurt them in any way that matters. A well-funded lawsuit, on the other hand is plain scary. Speaking of which, I'm in for $500 if somebody makes your hypothetical case real.
There have been a couple of comments in this thread from people who are coming very close to saying some people deserve to be outed and attacked. It's a sad day to see that from anyone posting to this list.
If anybody is doing that, shame on them. I don't think anybody deserves that.
On the other hand, I think there's a legitimate point that could be mistaken for that.
As the people running one of the world's top information sources, even if we don't think we deserve trouble, I think we should expect it. We should also expect people to pry at our pseudonyms in the same way they pry at corporate and governmental veils of secrecy. We're important, and they want to know who we are and what we're up to. Luckily, much of the heat is focused on Jimmy Wales, and I appreciate the amount of trouble and abuse he takes on our behalf. But it will only get worse.
I think we should be relentless about policing abuse on Wikipedia both because it's right and because it will be the death of the project if we don't. But I don't think we can fix the rest of the Internet or the rest of humanity, and barring legally actionable issues, I don't think we should try. Their lack of psych meds is not a problem we can solve, and I think taking the high road will get us a lot further.
Common sense and basic empathy need to guide us here, just as they do over other BLP issues. This *is* a BLP issue, unless we're assuming we're not really flesh and blood behind these keyboards.
I regret to say that I disagree with you here except that I see compassion as a common motive.
William
On 5/31/07, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
Slim Virgin wrote:
There have been a couple of comments in this thread from people who are coming very close to saying some people deserve to be outed and attacked. It's a sad day to see that from anyone posting to this list.
If anybody is doing that, shame on them. I don't think anybody deserves that.
*If* they're doing that? Read through the threads again.
On 31/05/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
What this debate boils down to is what kind of atmosphere we want on Wikipedia.
Indeed. And I don't want an atmosphere like that you fostered on Gracenotes' RFA.
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
On 31/05/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
What this debate boils down to is what kind of atmosphere we want on Wikipedia.
Indeed. And I don't want an atmosphere like that you fostered on Gracenotes' RFA.
In a cooking episode that recently appeared on TV the host proposed putting tough meat on a rack above a substrate of vinegar, covering the pot and using a low heat to allow the acidic fumes to tenderize the meat. Quick boiling may be effective for tenderizing the outer layers but will still leave a tough inner core.
Ec