On 10/17/07, Thatcher131 Wikipedia <thatcher131(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 10/17/07, John Lee <johnleemk(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hyperlinking a personal attack is tantamount to a personal attack now? I
guess we should lock up everyone who gathers evidence of personal
attacks
for evidence pages, since they've been
linking to these by the shitload.
Johnleemk
I know Halloween is right around the corner, but we really don't need
any straw men is this discussion. Let's stick to discussion of links
to external sites that harass, expose and intimidate editors.
But if we avoid self-references and try to maintain a neutral point of view,
it really shouldn't matter whether a link is external or internal; a
personal attack is a personal attack. If we ignore the context and purpose
of a hyperlink for external links, why do we give leeway for internal links?
(Although you might be interested to know that the user page policy
does now prohibt "Material that can be construed
as attacking other
editors, including the recording of perceived flaws. An exception is
made for evidence compiled within a reasonable time frame to prepare
for a dispute resolution process." In other words, evidence is ok as
long as you actually intend to file a case, but nursing grudges is
verboten, because it can indeed constitute harassment of other
editors.)
Nursing grudges obviously ought to be verboten. The problem is that several
statements on policy at the moment treat *all* sorts of hyperlinks,
regardless of context or purpose, as having exactly the same verboten
context and purpose. Fred's insistence that hyperlinking a personal attack,
regardless of purpose or context, constitutes republishing that attack is a
perfect example of this.
Johnleemk