That looks like a long essay about BADSITES, a strawman policy.

On 5/30/07, William Pietri <william(a)scissor.com> wrote: I'm having a discussion here, not backing a policy change. There is no policy on the table.

Somebody asserted that it could be beneficial to Wikipedia to link to sites like WR. I challenged that person to provide concrete examples of how. Soon afterwards hysterical rhetoric ensued[...]

You'll have to leave that to the people defending to the death your civil rights, [...]

I was more marveling at it than trying to decrease it. But if you'd like to try to decrease it, feel free.

Why would you think I wasn't enjoying it? The personal attacks, insults, and hysterical rhetoric that suddenly appeared in the discussion took me a bit by surprise, but they provide an amusement of sorts.

Look, you didn't step in when the rhetoric and insults started flying, so I'm having a difficult time taking it seriously when you suddenly want me to stop *my* responses. Deal with Joe and Sheldon, then come to me when you've calmed them down.

As for Sheldon? I would imagine his interests lie with SourceWatch.

On 5/31/07, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote: > On 01/06/07, jayjg <jayjg99(a)gmail.com> wrote:

> > As for Sheldon? I would imagine his interests lie with SourceWatch.

> Sheldon's been in and around Wikimedia since it was Wikipedia.com.

Yes, David, but he works for prwatch, which runs SourceWatch.

Joe was a multiple sockpuppeteer who was indefinitely banned long ago by the Arbcom for linking to attack sites. I happened to be one of the Arbcom members involved in that decision. I'm sure his current level of vitriol has nothing whatsoever to do with those facts, and everything to do with his love for Wikipedia. As for Sheldon? I would imagine his interests lie with SourceWatch.

That looks like a long essay about BADSITES, a strawman policy. I'm not sure how it relates to my questions, though.

The purpose of BADSITES was, in general, to ensure that any policy like BADSITES would never be passed, and in particular to insure that links to WR would not be removed from Wikipedia. In this it succeeded admirably; now when people get the idea in their heads that something even remotely like BADSITES might possibly be proposed, or discussed, or even mentioned, they man the battlestations, full steam ahead, with the banner of "No censorship" flying from the main-mast, and cries of "if someone says something bad about you, you must have done something to deserve it" on their lips.

Now, regarding this new policy you are talking about, can you direct me to the proposal page, so I can see who is proposing it, and what exactly they are proposing? Thanks in advance.

Actually, a number of arguments have been put forward supporting this claim.

You specifically talked about a "policy they support", which was not BADSITES, but was very similar to it. Please explain where I can find that policy.

I just called you bluff, that's all. You were hoping we would all just agree the discussion is about a new policy, which is the way you (and a few others) are trying to frame this. I reject your framing.

On 5/31/07, Blu Aardvark <jeffrey.latham(a)gmail.com> wrote: No, I'm just rejecting all attempts to frame this as something it isn't. It's been a veritable straw man army today, but I will not let even one pass. The second someone even starts to question what possible benefits accrue to Wikipedia from WR links, the BADSITES boogeyman is trotted out to scare everyone into quiet submission, as it was intended. A lot of mileage has been gotten from that straw man. Oh, and don't bother with the "but that's just a recent convenient argument" ploy either. Been there, done that, and I have the e-mails. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

No, I'm just rejecting all attempts to frame this as something it isn't. It's been a veritable straw man army today, but I will not let even one pass.

No, they're mostly based on other tells, including over-familiarity with a number of aspects of Wikipedia.

I'm not talking about any new policy, or proposed policy. I'm referring solely to the general attitude regarding alleged "attack sites", which has been reiterated by you, SlimVirgin, and several others on this list, on the recent RFA hijack attempt, and other locations on Wikipedia. Or are you trying to tell me that you don't support an absolutist ban on alleged "attack sites"?

On 5/30/07, jayjg <jayjg99(a)gmail.com> wrote: It seems to me that this argument has only been recently put forward and yet the whole controversy about the proposal is much older than this. I'm having trouble reconciling the two. -Matt _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

On 5/31/07, Risker <risker.wp(a)gmail.com> wrote: was to imagining them well in I did to begin with. My first thought was that he was a strawman sockpuppet and I e-mailed someone to that effect. I stayed away from the [[Wikipedia:Attack sites]] proposal to begin with for that very reason. He created it on April 6 and asked me for advice about it on April 7; http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ASlimVirgin&diff=1… and I didn't respond because I was suspicious. Then I told myself I was being silly and he was probably legit, so I made a few edits to the page for one day on April 10-11. A few days later I found out the shortcut was BADSITES, a provocative title that reeks of censorship and omits the crucial word "attack." And that's when I began to wonder again about the creator. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

On 5/31/07, Matthew Brown <morven(a)gmail.com> wrote: The first version of BADSITES was started on April 6th. Within a week I had already privately e-mailed people regarding my suspicions that it was a strawman. On April 27 there were several public statements to that effect on this maillist, including one by me. That was over a month ago. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

On 5/31/07, Risker <risker.wp(a)gmail.com> wrote: language becoming being him. Risker, the situation was that a bunch of admins had been removing links to attack sites for about 18 months. Not in any kind of systematic way (i.e. not hunting them down so far as I know), but just removing them if they noticed one. That was the de facto policy. That's how policy develops, by admins doing things. It just wasn't written down anywhere. It also wasn't an organized group of admins, just self-selecting individuals who had different criteria. Some removed links that I wouldn't have removed, for example. There was no communication between us about it (that I know of), no planning, no intention of creating a written policy. Then DennyColt turned up with the proposal. It was worded a little hysterically, but it basically described what the de facto policy was. But then a bunch of people who post to these sites (WR and Encyclopedia Dramatica) turned up -- led by Squeakbox and Mangoe, judging by the top posters on talk http://vs.aka-online.de/cgi-bin/wppagehiststat.pl -- who didn't want it to be written policy, and they started kicking up a fuss. Well, at that point, you're in a quandry. You don't particularly want it to be written policy, because there's no need and the fuss about it is tiresome. But you also don't want anyone to be able to claim it was rejected, because then what? Would that mean links could no longer be removed? So for that reason people felt they had to defend it -- even though I don't think anyone particularly wanted it! If he was a strawman sock, he was very clever. Rigorously enforce and spell out a practise you want to get rid of in order to make it look extremist; give it a shortcut that makes sure everyone's first thought about it is "censorship!"; get people who don't really want it to feel they have to defend it just to make sure the idea of it doesn't fail entirely; then bugger off and leave them holding the baby. On top of all that, factor in the unforeseen blog situation, where the definition of "attack site" is extended beyond what anyone ever intended (and why not? we're talking BADSITES after all, not "attack sites"), and hey presto -- chaos, and otherwise sensible people falling out with each other all over the place. We'll probably never know whether he was a strawman sock or just so clueless politically that he ended up looking smart and Machiavellian. Sarah _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

Then DennyColt turned up with the proposal. It was worded a little hysterically, but it basically described what the de facto policy was. But then a bunch of people who post to these sites (WR and Encyclopedia Dramatica) turned up -- led by Squeakbox and Mangoe, judging by the top posters on talk http://vs.aka-online.de/cgi-bin/wppagehiststat.pl -- who didn't want it to be written policy, and they started kicking up a fuss.

We'll probably never know whether he was a strawman sock or just so clueless politically that he ended up looking smart and Machiavellian.

I don't think they are definitive, but neither are they worthless. RC patrol has given me a lot of familiarity with what they typical newbie looks like.

On 5/30/07, Daniel R. Tobias <dan(a)tobias.name> wrote: > On 30 May 2007 at 12:30:18 -0400, jayjg <jayjg99(a)gmail.com> wrote:

> > Actually, I can't think of any occasion where such a link would be > > beneficial to the project. What exactly did you have in mind?

> Then you're not thinking hard enough. Plenty of reasons have been > discussed here, in other places where this debate has proceeded, and > in my essay on the subject: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dtobias/Why_BADSITES_is_bad_policy

That looks like a long essay about BADSITES, a strawman policy. I'm not sure how it relates to my questions, though.