However, John, including this link on our mailing list, or linking to it from within Wikipedia is quite mischievous. Do you believe that pile of crap? Or feel drawing attention to it somehow aids Wikipedia?
Fred
-----Original Message----- From: fredbaud@waterwiki.info [mailto:fredbaud@waterwiki.info] Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2007 08:46 PM To: 'English Wikipedia' Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Is Slate an attack site?
No
Fred
-----Original Message----- From: John Lee [mailto:johnleemk@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2007 08:38 PM To: 'English Wikipedia' Subject: [WikiEN-l] Is Slate an attack site?
I just thought this interesting because I've used Slate as a reference for a number of articles - but following the rigid definition of an attack site which seems to be in vogue amongst a significant few, linking to Slate is now verboten.
http://www.slate.com/id/2175651/
"Brandt also has an interesting take on how Google props up Wikipedia as a premier information source, since more than 50 percent of Wikipedia's traffic comes from Google searches. If you wish to enter further into Brandt's matrix, read about how he uncovered a likely MI-5 agent operating on Wikipedia under the alias Slimvirgin. The winding road starts here [link to Wikipedia Review post by Brandt]."
I know this sounds like beating a dead horse, but correct me if I'm mistaken - we have never been given an assurance by proponents of this rigid definition that "reliable sources" like Slate cannot be given blanket treatment as attack sites and suddenly have all external links to them suppressed.
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On 11/10/2007, fredbaud@waterwiki.info fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
However, John, including this link on our mailing list, or linking to it from within Wikipedia is quite mischievous. Do you believe that pile of crap? Or feel drawing attention to it somehow aids Wikipedia?
Surely it brings to the attention of those who delete attack site links that they have another one to look out for?
On 10/10/07, fredbaud@waterwiki.info fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
However, John, including this link on our mailing list, or linking to it from within Wikipedia is quite mischievous. Do you believe that pile of crap? Or feel drawing attention to it somehow aids Wikipedia?
Does it not depend entirely on the context and purpose of the link?
Johnleemk
The position I have tried to argue on this issue is that going to SlimVirgin's talk page or some other talk or project page to post, "See, even Slate thinks you are a spy" would be actionable harassment that should be removed, but that this should have no effect on the use of Slate as a reference in any article where it is appropriate.
However, I disagree with Fred that the "remove every mention of a site that contains an attack even from articles" is a strawman. I believe that argument has been made in connection with several sites, on the basis of, "as a top ten site we should not reward bad people with links." Perhaps it was made in bad faith by provacateurs, but I believe it has been made.
Thatcher
On 10/11/07, John Lee johnleemk@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/10/07, fredbaud@waterwiki.info fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
However, John, including this link on our mailing list, or linking to it from within Wikipedia is quite mischievous. Do you believe that pile of crap? Or feel drawing attention to it somehow aids Wikipedia?
Does it not depend entirely on the context and purpose of the link?
Johnleemk _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Fred Bauder wrote:
However, John, including this link on our mailing list, or linking to it from within Wikipedia is quite mischievous.
On the one hand, yes, he's beating a dead horse. [1] But on the other hand, he's making a perfectly valid point, so if you want to call him mischievous for doing so, I guess I have to call you, I don't know, churlish for doing so.
Do you believe that pile of crap? Or feel drawing attention to it somehow aids Wikipedia?
Fred, you're a smart guy, so I can't understand why you keep beating your same dead horse and willfully missing the point. The point is not that it is or isn't a steaming pile of crap. The point is not that mentioning it "draws attention" to it. The point *is* that the steaming piles of crap are out there and that they don't go away if we ignore them. The point is that protecting our editors from harm is impossible (or is self-defeating if we insist on trying) if we hold that editors are harmed by mere mentions of steaming piles of crap that (a) are out there and (b) everybody else knows about. The point is that the knee-jerk "attack sites bad, bans on attack sites good" argument is not nearly so clear-cut as its proponents would like to make it.
[1. John's beaten horse is not dead because it's wrong -- I for one agree with it wholeheartedly -- but rather because something functionally equivalent to BADSITES still has enough support among people who matter that it's going to be around, in some form, for the foreseeable future. I console myself with the knowledge that "the foreseeable future" on Wikipedia is not very long.]
fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
However, John, including this link on our mailing list, or linking to it from within Wikipedia is quite mischievous. Do you believe that pile of crap? Or feel drawing attention to it somehow aids Wikipedia?
Fred, your response here is exactly the reason I think we shouldn't have a BADSITES policy, even the unwritten one we seem to have ended up with.
John has raised a legitimate question, one also unanswered in my mind. You respond by impugning his character and/or his judgement -- in my view, without cause or benefit. However reasonable it is to try to suppress potentially harmful information on a small scale, your good intentions have led you into a reductio ad absurdum position where you are trying to suppress it on ever-larger scales.
Neither you nor Wikipedia has the power necessary to achieve your goal in this case. Any idiot with Google can find the information you are hoping to stamp out. Research and long experience prove that trying to suppress information both makes it more appealing and more persuasive, so your efforts aren't just in vain, they are counterproductive. The only reason I learned about it was all this drama, and I imagine that goes for a lot of people -- possibly including the Slate author.
Now Slashdot, a major tech news site, and Slate, a major general audience web publication owned by the Washington Post, have both mentioned this. It's time for all concerned to accept that the cat is not just out of the bag, but that the bag is in tatters and the cat has had a liter of healthy kittens that are now roving the alleys.
I think the real shame here is that this particular case has poisoned the well for your efforts to protect people, possibly for a long time.
No serious Wikipedia participant is interested in exposing anonymous editors for thrills, or supporting the barking loons that latch on to Wikipedia as the source of all their troubles. By trying ever harder to keep anybody anywhere from talking about SV, you and others have convinced a lot of people that no information-suppression policy could ever work. By overreaching so dramatically, I believe you have reduced your ability to protect other anonymous editors. And that's a shame.
William
William Pietri wriote:
...Neither you nor Wikipedia has the power necessary to achieve your goal in this case... Research and long experience prove that trying to suppress information both makes it more appealing and more persuasive, so your efforts aren't just in vain, they are counterproductive...
Now Slashdot, a major tech news site, and Slate, a major general audience web publication owned by the Washington Post, have both mentioned this. It's time for all concerned to accept that the cat is not just out of the bag, but that the bag is in tatters and the cat has had a liter of healthy kittens that are now roving the alleys.
[...and quite a bit more.]
Can someone print William's response out on real paper and post it on whatever passes for a Wikipedia water cooler bulletin board, for all to see, for posterity? That was the clearest exposition of the whole sorry mess that I have seen, and I think it ought to lay the discussion utterly to rest. Let's keep trying to protect our editors from harm, but remove "at all costs" and "via futile censorship attempts" from our arsenal. It's time to move on.
On 10/11/07, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
Fred, your response here is exactly the reason I think we shouldn't have a BADSITES policy, even the unwritten one we seem to have ended up with.
[snip]
No serious Wikipedia participant is interested in exposing anonymous editors for thrills, or supporting the barking loons that latch on to Wikipedia as the source of all their troubles. By trying ever harder to keep anybody anywhere from talking about SV, you and others have convinced a lot of people that no information-suppression policy could ever work. By overreaching so dramatically, I believe you have reduced your ability to protect other anonymous editors. And that's a shame.
Thank you for your post William, I think you were very clearly stated and a beacon of reason in these muddy waters.
Your concern was also very right: In the future when I see an effort to cover something up the current arbcom I'll be likely to distrust and investigate further because it's been demonstrated that the involved parties lack the good judgement to wield the power to suppress.
So far I've seen people attacked for attempting reasonable criticism or for even asking reasonable questions. Meanwhile the actual trolls are having more fun than ever because the actions of some of our leadership are giving people cause to reconsider their past dismissal of the claims that we're a bunch of cliquish manipulative censors.