I was being "unnecessarily inflammatory" according to Steve Bennett for saying that some people have a problem with people linking to sites they don't like. A couple of others have already referred to the big WP:BADSITES debate, including the edit warring, threats, accusations of WP:POINT, and so on that attended the addition and removal of links to sites used to illustrate why sometimes linking to such sites makes sense. Now, yet another conflict has broken out along those lines.
This week, Wikipedia Signpost has an article about the latest developments in the Daniel Brandt flap: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2007-04- 23/Brandt_unblock
The original version, by Michael Snow, included a link to Brandt's Wikipedia Watch site, which was relevant to the article because it was in fact being discussed there.
Michaelas10 then removed the link, using "Attack site" as his edit summary.
Then, SqueakBox reinstated it, saying that [[WP:BADSITES]] is not policy.
Musical Linguist then reverted that, and there was one more round of edit warring by these last two users, before it settled to its current state of not having the link.
Musical Linguist also left a warning message threatening to block SqueakBox, which he deleted from his talk page.
Some of the commentary referred to "enforcing the MONGO ArbCom decision", and it's a perfect example of why I consider that decision, at least the part of it that imposed a ban on linking to "attack sites", was a bad idea.
On 4/25/07, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
I was being "unnecessarily inflammatory" according to Steve Bennett for saying that some people have a problem with people linking to sites they don't like. A couple of others have already referred to the big WP:BADSITES debate, including the edit warring, threats, accusations of WP:POINT, and so on that attended the addition and removal of links to sites used to illustrate why sometimes linking to such sites makes sense. Now, yet another conflict has broken out along those lines.
This week, Wikipedia Signpost has an article about the latest developments in the Daniel Brandt flap: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2007-04- 23/Brandt_unblock
The original version, by Michael Snow, included a link to Brandt's Wikipedia Watch site, which was relevant to the article because it was in fact being discussed there.
Michaelas10 then removed the link, using "Attack site" as his edit summary.
Then, SqueakBox reinstated it, saying that [[WP:BADSITES]] is not policy.
Musical Linguist then reverted that, and there was one more round of edit warring by these last two users, before it settled to its current state of not having the link.
Musical Linguist also left a warning message threatening to block SqueakBox, which he deleted from his talk page.
Some of the commentary referred to "enforcing the MONGO ArbCom decision", and it's a perfect example of why I consider that decision, at least the part of it that imposed a ban on linking to "attack sites", was a bad idea.
I am honestly speechless. Since when was it permissible to enforce a proposed policy? In any other day and age, those responsible would have been ticked off appropriately. It seems that the Mongo judgment may be being stretched a little here; perhaps it would be appropriate for the Arbcom to clarify their judgment?
Johnleemk
On 4/24/07, John Lee johnleemk@gmail.com wrote:
I am honestly speechless. Since when was it permissible to enforce a proposed policy? In any other day and age, those responsible would have been ticked off appropriately. It seems that the Mongo judgment may be being stretched a little here; perhaps it would be appropriate for the Arbcom to clarify their judgment?
(speaking as a single Arbitrator and not for the committee as a whole ...)
The Arbcom judgment was specifically about Encyclopedia Dramatica and did not explicitly state that it should be extended to other attack sites, so it is inappropriate to say that removing links to another site is 'enforcing the MONGO decision' since we didn't say anything about removing links to any other site.
It's appropriate to cite our decision as supporting an interpretation of policy that generally allows for the removal of links to attack sites, however. It's important to remember, however, that Arbcom generally does not make policy itself - we do decide on the interpretation of policy, but generally NEW policy is set by the community.
Thus, it is appropriate to see our decision as support for the idea of removing links to attack sites in the general case, but not as the actual policy that allows it.
It's also worth noting that very little on ED has any value for Wikipedia, as far as I can see, while WR, although generally a trolls' nest as well, has content for which there is a much better argument of relevance.
-Matt
On 4/25/07, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/24/07, John Lee johnleemk@gmail.com wrote:
I am honestly speechless. Since when was it permissible to enforce a proposed policy? In any other day and age, those responsible would have been ticked off appropriately. It seems that the Mongo judgment may be being stretched a little here; perhaps it would be appropriate for the Arbcom to clarify their judgment?
(speaking as a single Arbitrator and not for the committee as a whole ...)
The Arbcom judgment was specifically about Encyclopedia Dramatica and did not explicitly state that it should be extended to other attack sites, so it is inappropriate to say that removing links to another site is 'enforcing the MONGO decision' since we didn't say anything about removing links to any other site.
Matt, the Mongo decision said:
*"Links to attack sites may be removed by any user; such removals are exempt from 3RR. Deliberately linking to an attack site may be grounds for blocking," and
*"A website that engages in the practice of publishing private information concerning the identities of Wikipedia participants will be regarded as an attack site whose pages should not be linked to from Wikipedia pages under any circumstances." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/MONGO#Outing...
Two of the arbitrators involved in that decision (Fred and Jay) confirmed during a recent request for clarification that the rulings applied to any attack site, not just to ED.
Sarah
Well, naturally Jay would agree with you *rolls eyes*.
That aside, there is a good deal of consensus for removing links to pages that are designed to attack or out Wikipedia contributors, but the problem here is those seeking to stretch this consensus to flat-out bans on linking to entire websites, even when the link is a) relevant and b) not designed or intended to attack or out anyone. Just because a website contains some areas or content qualifying under the attack criterion doesn't necessarily mean that the entire website is thus invalid, and it certainly shouldn't justify threatening users with blocks or bans.
Slim Virgin wrote:
Matt, the Mongo decision said:
*"Links to attack sites may be removed by any user; such removals are exempt from 3RR. Deliberately linking to an attack site may be grounds for blocking," and
*"A website that engages in the practice of publishing private information concerning the identities of Wikipedia participants will be regarded as an attack site whose pages should not be linked to from Wikipedia pages under any circumstances." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/MONGO#Outing...
Two of the arbitrators involved in that decision (Fred and Jay) confirmed during a recent request for clarification that the rulings applied to any attack site, not just to ED.
Sarah
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On 4/26/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
Matt, the Mongo decision said:
*"Links to attack sites may be removed by any user; such removals are exempt from 3RR. Deliberately linking to an attack site may be grounds for blocking," and
*"A website that engages in the practice of publishing private information concerning the identities of Wikipedia participants will be regarded as an attack site whose pages should not be linked to from Wikipedia pages under any circumstances." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/MONGO#Outing...
Two of the arbitrators involved in that decision (Fred and Jay) confirmed during a recent request for clarification that the rulings applied to any attack site, not just to ED.
What Fred initially said was:
"The decision in MONGO is intended to apply to harassment of individuals on sites which are not making a good faith effort to engage in legitimate criticism of Wikipedia or those associated with it, simply smearing Wikipedia and its users. Sites which make some attempt to engage in legitimate criticism such as Wikipedia Review present a different situation and should probably be addressed, not by a blanket prohibition, but on what is being linked to."
But then people didn't understand this, so he said:
"Obviously any ambiguity is seen as an invitation to excuse personal attacks. Linking to any site which attacks any Wikipedia user in an aggressive way is inappropriate. Which is not to say that WP:BADSITES is not a BADIDEA, nor that criticism is not welcomed."
I agree with Fred.
I have seen noone disagree to the proposition that linking to personal attacks in order to promulgate those personal attacks is just as bad as making those personal attacks personally. Similarly, noone disagrees that linking to pages disclosing personal information in order to propagate that personal information is just as bad as disclosing the personal information personally.
There are just some people concerned that this is being approached with such an unnecessarily heavy hand that, for example, a Signpost article is affected.
On 4/25/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
Two of the arbitrators involved in that decision (Fred and Jay) confirmed during a recent request for clarification that the rulings applied to any attack site, not just to ED.
I note that I did not contribute to that request for clarification.
In my personal view, things in the 'Principles' or 'Findings of fact' sections in an arbitration case are not remedies. I am uncomfortable with people taking things said in that section as commands from the arbitration committee to do anything. If we wanted to explicitly rule that something should be done, it would be in 'Remedies' or 'Enforcement'.
In a sense, what we are saying there is that we believe that existing policy, precedent and/or common sense already contain those things. In this case, six Arbitrators considered not linking to attack sites as already covered by de facto policy.
The arbcom is a bad way to make new policy, since there are only a small number of us. We attempt to interpret existing policy for circumstances not explicitly considered by those policies, however.
My concern (which is a general one, not just specifically for this case) is about the danger of taking things stated in a short sentence as a principle in a specific arbitration case as being a complete and full interpretation of the entirety of Wikipedia policy on that issue, disallowing any nuance or complexity of interpretation.
Assuming that Principles stated in a case are the immutable law of Wikipedia is also a dangerous assumption to make. We do not consider ourselves bound by precedent, for one thing; the Arbcom reserves the right to change its mind in future cases, although sensibly we try not to do that too much. However, we are certainly not bound to keeping precedent if current arbitrators find the precedent an incorrect one.
Although applying a governmental model to Wikipedia is in itself a dangerous over-simplification, in most cases it's correct to see the arbitration committee as a judicial arm of government, not a legislative or executive one. We try to come down on the side of interpreting policy, not making policy, though the line is a blurry one.
-Matt
On 26/04/07, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
My concern (which is a general one, not just specifically for this case) is about the danger of taking things stated in a short sentence as a principle in a specific arbitration case as being a complete and full interpretation of the entirety of Wikipedia policy on that issue, disallowing any nuance or complexity of interpretation.
The word for this is "excuse." It's quite difficult in ArbCom rulings not to accidentally craft a handy stick for the foolish to wield.
- d.
On Fri, 27 Apr 2007, David Gerard wrote:
My concern (which is a general one, not just specifically for this case) is about the danger of taking things stated in a short sentence as a principle in a specific arbitration case as being a complete and full interpretation of the entirety of Wikipedia policy on that issue, disallowing any nuance or complexity of interpretation.
The word for this is "excuse." It's quite difficult in ArbCom rulings not to accidentally craft a handy stick for the foolish to wield.
It's being done. How do we stop it?
It's now moved to [[Wikipedia:No_personal_attacks]]. There's quite a lot of bizarreness there; for instance, the current policy quotes the problematic ArbCom decision even though ArbCom can't make policy--and the opposite ArbCom decision saying that the remove personal attacks guideline is controversial has been described as if it only refers to on-wiki attacks, with the implication that removing links to on-wiki attacks is still controversial but removing links to attack sites is not.
Worse yet, this version of the page has been protected.
What can be done? We seem to have a case where a couple of users, including at least one admin, are insisting that there is consensus for removing links to attack sites unconditionally and regardless of any other circumstances. The lack of nuance or complexity of interpretation is exactly the problem here, and these people are so persistent that it is impossible to stop them without edit warring.
On 4/26/07, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/25/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
Two of the arbitrators involved in that decision (Fred and Jay) confirmed during a recent request for clarification that the rulings applied to any attack site, not just to ED ...
In my personal view, things in the 'Principles' or 'Findings of fact' sections in an arbitration case are not remedies. I am uncomfortable with people taking things said in that section as commands from the arbitration committee to do anything. If we wanted to explicitly rule that something should be done, it would be in 'Remedies' or 'Enforcement'.
In a sense, what we are saying there is that we believe that existing policy, precedent and/or common sense already contain those things. In this case, six Arbitrators considered not linking to attack sites as already covered by de facto policy.
The arbcom is a bad way to make new policy, since there are only a small number of us. We attempt to interpret existing policy for circumstances not explicitly considered by those policies, however.
I agree, but in this case, as you say, the removal of links to attack sites was seen by the ArbCom, and by many if not most administrators, as de facto policy, so I see no harm in creating a policy page to reflect that. Policy is supposed to reflect best practise.
Having said that, the BADSITES proposal was probably unnecessary, and it attracted the attention of editors who want to be able to link to those sites because they post on them, which led to a lot of pointless fighting. I think it's a better idea to have a sentence or two about attack sites in NPA or the blocking policy.
Sarah
There's not really any reason for that, either. Common sense dictates that if a user posts a link to a site attempting to "out" editors (and that user is clearly doing so in order to troll or engage in harassment), then that edit can be reverted and the user blocked, and current policy agrees.
On the other hand, there *are* times where it is appropriate to link to such sites, and people should recognize this. For example, suppose an editor who had posted to WR was up for RFA. It would seem appropriate if a user linked to one of their posts on the forum to question them regarding it. Or, as another example, look at my ArbCom <s>case</s> lynching. Some of my posts to Wikipedia Review were entered as "evidence", and I doubt anyone would consider this to have been inappropriate.
The problem with adding new policies or amending existent policies to address the issue of users posting such links is that it is essentially the same as telling them not to stuff beans up their nose. Most good-faith editors wouldn't link to such sites, except for in a select few circumstances where it might be appropriate to do so. But trolls and other bad-faith users, upon seeing such a policy, will actually *look* for the problematic websites.
Stirring up drama over this issue actually draws more attention to the websites you are trying to limit the effect of. Probably not a good idea.
Slim Virgin wrote:
I think it's a better idea to have a sentence or two about attack sites in NPA or the blocking policy.
Sarah
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On 4/27/07, Blu Aardvark jeffrey.latham@gmail.com wrote:
But trolls and other bad-faith users, upon seeing such a policy, will actually *look* for the problematic websites.
Consider the source.
Stirring up drama over this issue actually draws more attention to the websites you are trying to limit the effect of.
Like the mysterious "Denny Colt" did with his new policy? Like prolific WR contributor Mangoe/Papaya is doing at [[WP:NPA]]? Like you're doing right now?
If we're going to start playing the personal attack game, go fellate yourself.
If any reasonably neutral user where to look over the facts of my case, they would clearly see that I was initially a good-faith editor, but turned sour after enduring horrendous personal attacks from you, your friend "Sarah", and others. I was accused of being an anti-Semite, a neo-Nazi, a neo-Nazi sympathizer, and other unpleasantries. I had to deal with massive assumptions of bad faith until I eventually fired back. What was my crime to begin with? I was an administrator on an unpopular webforum and refused to bend to the whims of certain Wikipedia contributors in the way I ran it. Thus, I was targeted, smeared, and eventually banned as a "disruptive troll".
And to those ignorant of how I ran the webforum, I took great pains to ensure that problematic content would stay out of search engines. First, I created a members-only subforum for users who wanted to vent personal attacks, and later, after the incident with Katefan0, I modified the board settings so that the "editors" forum would also stay out of search engines. Now, I'll admit that these steps were not entirely sufficient, but I can also say, and honestly, that I have done more than Wikipedia has done to protect people's privacy and their right not to have libel about them spread around the internet.
You cannot take any moral high ground, Jay.
jayjg wrote:
Consider the source.
On 4/27/07, Blu Aardvark jeffrey.latham@gmail.com wrote:
If we're going to start playing the personal attack game, go fellate yourself.
Umm, that's kind of a personal attack. It's also kind of odd coming from the person who yesterday said on the list "Well, naturally Jay would agree with you *rolls eyes*."
If any reasonably neutral user where to look over the facts of my case, they would clearly see that I was initially a good-faith editor, but turned sour after enduring horrendous personal attacks from you, your friend "Sarah", and others. I was accused of being an anti-Semite, a neo-Nazi, a neo-Nazi sympathizer, and other unpleasantries.
Wow, someone said you were an antisemite and neo-Nazi? Where?
No wonder you cracked down so hard on those people who were calling Wikipedia editors "Mossad agents", "CIA agents", AIPAC agents", "sluts", "whores", etc.
Oh wait. You didn't.
I had to deal with massive assumptions of bad faith until I eventually fired back. What was my crime to begin with? I was an administrator on an unpopular webforum and refused to bend to the whims of certain Wikipedia contributors in the way I ran it. Thus, I was targeted, smeared, and eventually banned as a "disruptive troll".
I could have sworn it had something to do with the creation of all sorts of vandal sockpuppets - maybe you thought that was within policy, though?
And to those ignorant of how I ran the webforum, I took great pains to ensure that problematic content would stay out of search engines. First, I created a members-only subforum for users who wanted to vent personal attacks, and later, after the incident with Katefan0, I modified the board settings so that the "editors" forum would also stay out of search engines. Now, I'll admit that these steps were not entirely sufficient, but I can also say, and honestly, that I have done more than Wikipedia has done to protect people's privacy and their right not to have libel about them spread around the internet.
Err, yes, when the libel was being spread high and thick, and the personal attacks were flying furiously, you definitely suggested they keep it to the private area of the forum, though, of course, you didn't actually enforce that. And that pretty much put an end to it, I'm sure.
You cannot take any moral high ground, Jay.
LOL!
jayjg wrote:
Umm, that's kind of a personal attack. It's also kind of odd coming from the person who yesterday said on the list "Well, naturally Jay would agree with you *rolls eyes*."
Nice strawman there. Too bad that has nothing to do with any of this.
And yes, when you are in agreement with SlimVirgin, I don't take that entirely seriously, because there is an active conflict-of-interest there. You are dedicated to protecting your friend, which isn't entirely a bad thing, but you are certainly not neutral.
Wow, someone said you were an antisemite and neo-Nazi? Where?
I don't have the time or desire to go fishing through year-old drama on Wikipedia right now.
No wonder you cracked down so hard on those people who were calling Wikipedia editors "Mossad agents", "CIA agents", AIPAC agents", "sluts", "whores", etc.
Oh wait. You didn't.
Well, naturally. I moved or deleted the worst of the personal attacks, and did try to clean up some of the other allegations, but I wasn't entirely successful. Realize that there were multiple admins, and Selina was root. There were times when I did move or delete posts, and then I was reversed without explanation. You wouldn't be aware of all this, naturally.
I could have sworn it had something to do with the creation of all sorts of vandal sockpuppets - maybe you thought that was within policy, though?
The vandals sockpuppets came later. You and I and pretty much everyone knows this.
And to those ignorant of how I ran the webforum, I took great pains to ensure that problematic content would stay out of search engines. First, I created a members-only subforum for users who wanted to vent personal attacks, and later, after the incident with Katefan0, I modified the board settings so that the "editors" forum would also stay out of search engines. Now, I'll admit that these steps were not entirely sufficient, but I can also say, and honestly, that I have done more than Wikipedia has done to protect people's privacy and their right not to have libel about them spread around the internet.
Err, yes, when the libel was being spread high and thick, and the personal attacks were flying furiously, you definitely suggested they keep it to the private area of the forum, though, of course, you didn't actually enforce that. And that pretty much put an end to it, I'm sure.
I did enforce it, when I could, but I wasn't always able to do that as effectively as I wanted to, for reasons I've already described.
You cannot take any moral high ground, Jay.
LOL!
This doesn't even deserve a response.
Returning to the previous discussion and comments by SlimVirgin and Fred Bauder, I too had the sense that there was an agenda behind all of this. Given that SlimVirgin and I have widely divergent viewpoints on the value of BADSITES, it boggles my mind to think exactly what agenda was being served.
And for the record, I'd never dream of joining up with WR, and only found out about its existence because of BADSITES - which in turn I found out about because DennyColt's userpage was on my watchlist, as we had been editing a few of the same articles.
On 4/27/07, Blu Aardvark jeffrey.latham@gmail.com wrote:
jayjg wrote:
Umm, that's kind of a personal attack. It's also kind of odd coming from the person who yesterday said on the list "Well, naturally Jay would agree with you *rolls eyes*."
Nice strawman there. Too bad that has nothing to do with any of this.
And yes, when you are in agreement with SlimVirgin, I don't take that entirely seriously, because there is an active conflict-of-interest there. You are dedicated to protecting your friend, which isn't entirely a bad thing, but you are certainly not neutral.
Wow, someone said you were an antisemite and neo-Nazi? Where?
I don't have the time or desire to go fishing through year-old drama on Wikipedia right now.
No wonder you cracked down so hard on those people who were calling Wikipedia editors "Mossad agents", "CIA agents", AIPAC agents", "sluts", "whores", etc.
Oh wait. You didn't.
Well, naturally. I moved or deleted the worst of the personal attacks, and did try to clean up some of the other allegations, but I wasn't entirely successful. Realize that there were multiple admins, and Selina was root. There were times when I did move or delete posts, and then I was reversed without explanation. You wouldn't be aware of all this, naturally.
I could have sworn it had something to do with the creation of all sorts of vandal sockpuppets - maybe you thought that was within policy, though?
The vandals sockpuppets came later. You and I and pretty much everyone knows this.
And to those ignorant of how I ran the webforum, I took great pains to ensure that problematic content would stay out of search engines.
First,
I created a members-only subforum for users who wanted to vent personal attacks, and later, after the incident with Katefan0, I modified the board settings so that the "editors" forum would also stay out of
search
engines. Now, I'll admit that these steps were not entirely sufficient, but I can also say, and honestly, that I have done more than Wikipedia has done to protect people's privacy and their right not to have libel about them spread around the internet.
Err, yes, when the libel was being spread high and thick, and the personal attacks were flying furiously, you definitely suggested they keep it to the private area of the forum, though, of course, you didn't actually enforce that. And that pretty much put an end to it, I'm sure.
I did enforce it, when I could, but I wasn't always able to do that as effectively as I wanted to, for reasons I've already described.
You cannot take any moral high ground, Jay.
LOL!
This doesn't even deserve a response.
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On 27/04/07, Blu Aardvark jeffrey.latham@gmail.com wrote:
deal with massive assumptions of bad faith until I eventually fired back. What was my crime to begin with? I was an administrator on an unpopular webforum and refused to bend to the whims of certain Wikipedia contributors in the way I ran it. Thus, I was targeted, smeared, and eventually banned as a "disruptive troll".
Yes, they sat down at your computer and *made* you sockpuppet furiously.
- d.
That's not what I said at all, but thank you very much for yet another strawman.
My point is, prior to my becoming a "disruptive troll", I was attacked viciously and relentlessly by a variety of users, mainly due to my involvement with an external forum which was seen as unpopular.
I apologize for sending this discussion into an unfortunate side-tangent, but Jayjg's snide little remark in response to a valid point I was attempting to make was out-of-line.
David Gerard wrote:
Yes, they sat down at your computer and *made* you sockpuppet furiously.
On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 18:53:55 -0700, Blu Aardvark jeffrey.latham@gmail.com wrote:
I apologize for sending this discussion into an unfortunate side-tangent, but Jayjg's snide little remark in response to a valid point I was attempting to make was out-of-line.
I wasn't aware that inviting people to fellate themselves constitued a valid point. Or is that another straw man? Trouble is, with you, it's really hard to pick out the valid points from all the straw,
Assuming there are any valid points.
Guy (JzG)
On 4/27/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/26/07, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/25/07, Slim Virgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
Two of the arbitrators involved in that decision (Fred and Jay) confirmed during a recent request for clarification that the rulings applied to any attack site, not just to ED ...
In my personal view, things in the 'Principles' or 'Findings of fact' sections in an arbitration case are not remedies. I am uncomfortable with people taking things said in that section as commands from the arbitration committee to do anything. If we wanted to explicitly rule that something should be done, it would be in 'Remedies' or 'Enforcement'.
In a sense, what we are saying there is that we believe that existing policy, precedent and/or common sense already contain those things. In this case, six Arbitrators considered not linking to attack sites as already covered by de facto policy.
The arbcom is a bad way to make new policy, since there are only a small number of us. We attempt to interpret existing policy for circumstances not explicitly considered by those policies, however.
I agree, but in this case, as you say, the removal of links to attack sites was seen by the ArbCom, and by many if not most administrators, as de facto policy, so I see no harm in creating a policy page to reflect that. Policy is supposed to reflect best practise.
Having said that, the BADSITES proposal was probably unnecessary, and it attracted the attention of editors who want to be able to link to those sites because they post on them, which led to a lot of pointless fighting. I think it's a better idea to have a sentence or two about attack sites in NPA or the blocking policy.
Sarah
So, basically, you're saying that instead of the proposal being discussed out in the open, where people (possibly including trolls) can see and comment on it, you're going to sneak it in where no one will notice? This secretive behavior simply cannot be good.
I think the links should be removed only when they directly lead to pages attacking an editor. ~~~~
On Wed, 25 Apr 2007, Matthew Brown wrote:
It's appropriate to cite our decision as supporting an interpretation of policy that generally allows for the removal of links to attack sites, however.
Of course.
The problem is people citing the decision as supporting an interpretation that says "blindly remove all such links all the time regardless of any other circumstances". A policy of *generally* removing such links is fine; a policy of removing them literally every single time is what the decision is being taken to mean.
On 4/25/07, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
This week, Wikipedia Signpost has an article about the latest developments in the Daniel Brandt flap: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2007-04- 23/Brandt_unblock
The original version, by Michael Snow, included a link to Brandt's Wikipedia Watch site, which was relevant to the article because it was in fact being discussed there.
Michaelas10 then removed the link, using "Attack site" as his edit summary.
The problem with the proposal is that people want to impose strict liability.
If someone posts personal attacks off-wiki, and then links to them in order to make the personal attacks on-wiki, then that's just as bad as posting them on-wiki in the first place and should be treated similarly. I haven't seen anyone disagreeing with this.
But the proposal aims to make any link, to any part of any site that carries bad material somewhere on it, impossible. That's remarkably shortsighted.
On 4/24/07, Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/25/07, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
This week, Wikipedia Signpost has an article about the latest developments in the Daniel Brandt flap: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2007-04- 23/Brandt_unblock
The original version, by Michael Snow, included a link to Brandt's Wikipedia Watch site, which was relevant to the article because it was in fact being discussed there.
Michaelas10 then removed the link, using "Attack site" as his edit summary.
The problem with the proposal is that people want to impose strict liability.
If someone posts personal attacks off-wiki, and then links to them in order to make the personal attacks on-wiki, then that's just as bad as posting them on-wiki in the first place and should be treated similarly. I haven't seen anyone disagreeing with this.
But the proposal aims to make any link, to any part of any site that carries bad material somewhere on it, impossible. That's remarkably shortsighted.
-- Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com
I have no idea who Daniel Brandt is, but he sure knows how to get attention and keep it directed at him forever.
KP
ArbCom is a kangaroo court. Pretty much any policy or standard that comes through there is a massive joke. This is, naturally, no exception.
Daniel R. Tobias wrote:
Some of the commentary referred to "enforcing the MONGO ArbCom decision", and it's a perfect example of why I consider that decision, at least the part of it that imposed a ban on linking to "attack sites", was a bad idea.
On Tue, 24 Apr 2007 20:52:13 -0700, Blu Aardvark jeffrey.latham@gmail.com wrote:
ArbCom is a kangaroo court. Pretty much any policy or standard that comes through there is a massive joke. This is, naturally, no exception.
{{fact}}
Guy (JzG)
{{cite web|url=http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2007-April/069866.html%7Ctitle...] "Another conflict regarding linking to 'attack sites'|accessdate=2007-04-27}}
But seriously, my opinion is based on my experience. Take it or leave it.
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
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On 27/04/07, Blu Aardvark jeffrey.latham@gmail.com wrote:
But seriously, my opinion is based on my experience.
As a banned user.
Take it or leave it.
Absolutely.
- d.
Exactly. As I have been through the arbitration process, I can claim from experience that evidence is selectively (is "arbitrarily" a better word?) applied in order to justify a "remedy" that the arbitrators are already biased towards.
David Gerard wrote:
On 27/04/07, Blu Aardvark jeffrey.latham@gmail.com wrote:
But seriously, my opinion is based on my experience.
As a banned user.
On 4/25/07, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
Some of the commentary referred to "enforcing the MONGO ArbCom decision", and it's a perfect example of why I consider that decision, at least the part of it that imposed a ban on linking to "attack sites", was a bad idea.
I think that decision is being misunderstood, i really don't think it was meant in the context of something like a Signpost article (which is very neutral and has a journalistic purpose). I think it would be a good thing to ask the arbcom for a clarification in this matter, whether or not that policy applies to the signpost. I mean, they have a whole section for stuff like that on WP:RFAR.
--Oskar