-----Original Message----- From: Andrew Gray [mailto:shimgray@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 05:00 PM To: 'English Wikipedia' Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Is Slate an attack site?
On 11/10/2007, fredbaud@waterwiki.info fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
Right, and that is where "the idiot" should have to look for it. It is inappropriate to trash our own users on our own site.
This is not seriously in dispute, as far as I can tell.
That is exactly what is in dispute.
No, what is in dispute as what can be *defined* as "trashing our users on our own site". No-one seriously discussing this supports making vicious personal attacks against people, and it is both dishonest and insulting to imply they do.
What people are trying to decide is
a) how we can best react when other people do it, or when other people talk about people doing it, or when other people find themselves inextricably linked with people doing it... and,
b) how far we stretch the definition of what it means to *make* such an attack; whether alluding to or linking to one made by a third party is considered making it oneself.
These are actually in dispute, and you don't get to redefine the terms of the debate so anyone who disagrees, or has the temerity to argue with a diktat, is trolling.
[Incidentally, Fred, your quoting seems to have broken.]
On 12/10/2007, fredbaud@waterwiki.info fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
Those who are engaging in this discussion in good faith are concerned with those questions. But those who advanced "Bad Sites" were certainly not. They were trying to confuse the issue.
Was not the whole point of WP:BADSITES simply to codify in /de jure/ policy the /de facto/ policy that is already implemented, for certain value of badsite at least?
On 10/11/07, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
[Incidentally, Fred, your quoting seems to have broken.]
On 12/10/2007, fredbaud@waterwiki.info fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
Those who are engaging in this discussion in good faith are concerned with those questions. But those who advanced "Bad Sites" were certainly not. They were trying to confuse the issue.
Was not the whole point of WP:BADSITES simply to codify in /de jure/ policy the /de facto/ policy that is already implemented, for certain value of badsite at least?
Except that there is not anything approaching consensus on what to do about links to external sites.
There's a small area of black, a large white pool, and a whole end of the pool in grey in which long-time admins are willing to go to war over something.
This is a legitimate serious policy and values issue - if it was not, even skilled troublemakers would never have been able to create as much drama inside the Wikipedia community. We have to be very careful about who we define as an enemy, in the context of this discussion...
On 12/10/2007, fredbaud@waterwiki.info fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
-----Original Message----- From: Andrew Gray [mailto:shimgray@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 05:00 PM To: 'English Wikipedia' Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Is Slate an attack site?
On 11/10/2007, fredbaud@waterwiki.info fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
Right, and that is where "the idiot" should have to look for it. It is inappropriate to trash our own users on our own site.
This is not seriously in dispute, as far as I can tell.
That is exactly what is in dispute.
No, what is in dispute as what can be *defined* as "trashing our users on our own site". No-one seriously discussing this supports making vicious personal attacks against people, and it is both dishonest and insulting to imply they do.
What people are trying to decide is
a) how we can best react when other people do it, or when other people talk about people doing it, or when other people find themselves inextricably linked with people doing it... and,
b) how far we stretch the definition of what it means to *make* such an attack; whether alluding to or linking to one made by a third party is considered making it oneself.
These are actually in dispute, and you don't get to redefine the terms of the debate so anyone who disagrees, or has the temerity to argue with a diktat, is trolling.
Those who are engaging in this discussion in good faith are concerned with those questions. But those who advanced "Bad Sites" were certainly not. They were trying to confuse the issue.
But the people you are arguing with *right now* aren't those who "advanced" this proposal. So why go for them, why imply that they're arguing in favour of personal attacks?
(As for BADSITES, it was a proposal which, I confess, I find utterly indistinguishable from the "real" attack-sites proposal... but then, us observers shouldn't worry our pretty little heads over such high-flown concepts. I know that one of them is a vile counterrevolutionary slander and the other one is True and Honest, but damned if I can tell the difference)
Every one of these slippery vague insinuatory messages you send is pissing off people who fundamentally agree with your basic principles, you know, and just serves to make productive discussion on the subject immeasurably harder. You're just making the situation worse in the long run with this sort of behaviour, and the project is not going to be the better for it.