-----Original Message----- From: John Lee [mailto:johnleemk@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2007 01:17 AM To: 'English Wikipedia' Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Harassment sites
On 10/17/07, Will Beback will.beback.1@gmail.com wrote:
Moore is notable as a filmmaker. He is not notable as a blogger. His blog is not encyclopedic. We are only providing a link as a convenience, and a very minor convenience because it it the first link that comes up on Google. So we are saving our readers about .5 seconds out of their lives. We aren't preserving NPOV, we aren't taking a stand against censorship, we're merely saving some readers a tiny bit of time. I don't begrudge anyone even half a second. But if the tradeoff we're looking at is linking to harassment of Wikipedia editors versus the slightest inconvenience (hopefully temporary) of our readers, then I don't think we should have a question. For completenes inthe article we can say the guy has a blog (who doesn't), but unless the blog is notable I don't see the overriding need to promote "convenience" above "no personal attacks".
It's an official website, not merely a blog. And even then, I'm pretty sure we frequently link to the official blogs of prominent people. The question is, why are we making an exception for Michael Moore? Is it motivated because of some editorial reason (i.e. including the link reduces the usefulness and value of the article), or because we're Wikipedia and we don't like how Moore treated one of our editors? If the latter, it's a pretty clearcut NPOV violation.
Johnleemk _______________________________________________
That's the real dilemma. We don't much like that editor ourselves and we do like Michael Moore, enough of us anyway to over-ride our policy regarding harassment of users. Neutral point of view has nothing to do with it. NPOV has to do with the content of the article, not a link to a site which was harassing a Wikipedia user by inviting vandalism of his talk page.
Take a real good look at this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/29/Arbcom.jpg
Is Michael Moore so wonderful, that such behavior is excusable? What harm is done by removing the link to his website for so long as that is its content?
Fred
Q
That's the real dilemma. We don't much like that editor ourselves and we do like Michael Moore, enough of us anyway to over-ride our policy regarding harassment of users. Neutral point of view has nothing to do with it. NPOV has to do with the content of the article, not a link to a site which was harassing a Wikipedia user by inviting vandalism of his talk page.
Fred, I do wish you'd stop saying this. I at least can't stand Michael Moore and think he's is an idiot, a liar and does sloppy research. That isn't changing my opinion on whether he should be linked to or not. The notion that this is being done out of some sympathy for Moore or his politics is simply not true.
On 10/17/07, fredbaud@waterwiki.info fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
-----Original Message----- From: John Lee [mailto:johnleemk@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2007 01:17 AM To: 'English Wikipedia' Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Harassment sites
On 10/17/07, Will Beback will.beback.1@gmail.com wrote:
Moore is notable as a filmmaker. He is not notable as a blogger. His blog is not encyclopedic. We are only providing a link as a convenience, and a very minor convenience because it it the first link that comes up on Google. So we are saving our readers about .5 seconds out of their lives. We aren't preserving NPOV, we aren't taking a stand against censorship, we're merely saving some readers a tiny bit of time. I don't begrudge anyone even half a second. But if the tradeoff we're looking at is linking to harassment of Wikipedia editors versus the slightest inconvenience (hopefully temporary) of our readers, then I don't think we should have a question. For completenes inthe article we can say the guy has a blog (who doesn't), but unless the blog is notable I don't see the overriding need to promote "convenience" above "no personal
attacks".
It's an official website, not merely a blog. And even then, I'm pretty sure we frequently link to the official blogs of prominent people. The question is, why are we making an exception for Michael Moore? Is it motivated because of some editorial reason (i.e. including the link reduces the usefulness and value of the article), or because we're Wikipedia and we don't like how Moore treated one of our editors? If the latter, it's a pretty clearcut NPOV violation.
Johnleemk _______________________________________________
That's the real dilemma. We don't much like that editor ourselves and we do like Michael Moore, enough of us anyway to over-ride our policy regarding harassment of users. Neutral point of view has nothing to do with it. NPOV has to do with the content of the article, not a link to a site which was harassing a Wikipedia user by inviting vandalism of his talk page.
Take a real good look at this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/29/Arbcom.jpg
Is Michael Moore so wonderful, that such behavior is excusable? What harm is done by removing the link to his website for so long as that is its content?
I don't know who that editor is, and I don't care much for Moore either. The fact that the content of our articles differs based on whether the subject has harassed one of our editors in the past, however, clearly indicates that we are not keeping in line with, at a bare minimum, the spirit of neutral point of view.
You are arguing external links do not constitute content. But they do. An article would not be considered comprehensive if it did not have a link to the subject's official website(s) - I defy anyone to try to get such an article past FA/GA. (I'd rant about the ridiculous nature of GA standards, and its deviation from its original purpose, but that's for another time.)
If you want to argue that external links are not content, I suggest you try to effect that policy change first. You're putting the cart before the horse at the moment.
Johnleemk
John Lee wrote:
I don't know who that editor is, and I don't care much for Moore either. The fact that the content of our articles differs based on whether the subject has harassed one of our editors in the past, however, clearly indicates that we are not keeping in line with, at a bare minimum, the spirit of neutral point of view.
You are arguing external links do not constitute content. But they do. An article would not be considered comprehensive if it did not have a link to the subject's official website(s) - I defy anyone to try to get such an article past FA/GA. (I'd rant about the ridiculous nature of GA standards, and its deviation from its original purpose, but that's for another time.)
If you want to argue that external links are not content, I suggest you try to effect that policy change first. You're putting the cart before the horse at the moment.
Johnleemk ____________________
We routinely judge the reliability and value of websites based on their contents.
[[WP:EL]] is not a policy, and no written policy that I'm aware of mandates the use of any links. I'f I'm wrong please show me where it says differently.
Will
Quoting Will Beback will.beback.1@gmail.com:
[[WP:EL]] is not a policy, and no written policy that I'm aware of mandates the use of any links. I'f I'm wrong please show me where it says differently.
This appears to be part of a general problem that I've seen more and more frequently since I joined Wikipedia, an attitude of "if it isn't written down it doesn't exist". I invite you to look at any article about a corporation or living individual and see what fraction of those link to their websites. Moreoever, I would be surprised if many of the ones that didn't link did so for any reason other than the individuals not having websites. There's a clear consensus that these links should be there, simply based on what the community does. Moreover, a reasonable individual would see such links as part of what they would expect in an article about the person. Claiming that since it isn't written down we can ignore these basic facts comes across as wikilawyerish and unproductive.
fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
[...] a site which was harassing a Wikipedia user by inviting vandalism of his talk page.
Take a real good look at this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/29/Arbcom.jpg
Is Michael Moore so wonderful, that such behavior is excusable? What harm is done by removing the link to his website for so long as that is its content?
You're asking what harm is done when we change encyclopedic content to serve our personal desires?
The harm is that we would violate the trust placed in us by our readers. We would violate the spirit that brought so many contributors to us. And we would violate the "absolute and non-negotiable" principle of NPOV.
In other words, we would violate the core of our mission.
Yes, it's a pretty small violation. But pins only make small holes in balloons, too.
William
On 10/17/07, fredbaud@waterwiki.info fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
That's the real dilemma. We don't much like that editor ourselves and we do like Michael Moore, enough of us anyway to over-ride our policy regarding harassment of users. Neutral point of view has nothing to do with it. NPOV has to do with the content of the article, not a link to a site which was harassing a Wikipedia user by inviting vandalism of his talk page.
Take a real good look at this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/29/Arbcom.jpg
Is Michael Moore so wonderful, that such behavior is excusable? What harm is done by removing the link to his website for so long as that is its content?
Fred
Fred, I understand the importance of not harassing our volunteer editors, and that while one day it might be a mostly-liked public figure and a mostly disliked editor (Michael Moore and THF), another day it might be a mostly disliked public figure and a well-liked editor (such as Jeff Bagely and SlimVirgin). But I think it is important to separate article space from other spaces. Among other things, we risk being manipulated--supposed Stephen Colbert decided to play around with this concept?
But it also seems to me that there are many other alternatives and the binary we must link/we must not link is a false dichotomy. In the case of Moore we could link to http://michaelmoore.com/books-films/index.php, which advances the purpose of the link even more than linking to the main page of his site. In the case of Bagley do we really want to compromise article content by writing, "Overstock.com is linked to a supposedly independent web site that published highly critical information about people" without even naming the site?
The problem in the case was edit warring and other bad behavior by editors who should have known better, and who should have found other ways to resolve the issue; the link policy should have been secondary.
On 10/17/07, Thatcher131 Wikipedia thatcher131@gmail.com wrote:
Fred, I understand the importance of not harassing our volunteer editors, and that while one day it might be a mostly-liked public figure and a mostly disliked editor (Michael Moore and THF), another day it might be a mostly disliked public figure and a well-liked editor (such as Jeff Bagely and SlimVirgin).
I think to create an unambiguous contrast in perspective, the scenario would have to be "Carrot Top vs. Can't sleep, clown will eat me".
But I think it is important to separate article space from other spaces. Among other things, we risk being manipulated--supposed Stephen Colbert decided to play around with this concept?
Hopefully we would recognize it as obvious satire?
But it also seems to me that there are many other alternatives and the binary we must link/we must not link is a false dichotomy. In the case of Moore we could link to http://michaelmoore.com/books-films/index.php, which advances the purpose of the link even more than linking to the main page of his site. In the case of Bagley do we really want to compromise article content by writing, "Overstock.com is linked to a supposedly independent web site that published highly critical information about people" without even naming the site?
I've always wondered why anybody's knee-jerk response to outrageously asshole-ish behavior by article subjects would be to... do them the favor of suppressing it?
—C.W.