Will Johnson says:
The reason I'd argue against pre-emptive blanking and/or pre-emptive
No_Index'ing is that we essentially take
what I consider the arrogant and condensending position that we know
better than the target what would or wouldn't
be embarrassing to that target.? I've never felt that it's our mandate to
be the guardians of other people's privacy.?
If so-and-so blp feels that we shouldn't mention that they were arrested
for drunk driving they can come forward with
their request.? Some people don't care.
The same goes for our own editors.? Do we put ourselves in the position of
deciding what to oversight *without
any request* from the target party?? If someone did that ostensibly in my
favor, I would be offended by that
action personally.? I certainly wouldn't thank them, or find their actions
productive, helpful or even polite.
Our project should not be attempting to pre-emptively solve all issues,
because we cannot.? We have mechanisms
in place to handle each issue that's been mentioned already.? We don't
need more creeping.
I think this is, in general, the wrong way round. Rather than saying we should be waiting for people who have been harmed to come forward, we should be trying to avoid harm. By not indexing by default, we avoid harm. I think it's rather presumptuous to say "people need to come forward to us"... when we're the ones doing harm. I think it's rather short sighted and perhaps even mean spirited to say "only those who complain should be offered relief"...
But then my view of what is arrogant and condescending may differ somwhat from Will's
Larry Pieniazek Hobby mail: Lar at Miltontrainworks dot com
Larry Pieniazek wrote:
I think this is, in general, the wrong way round. Rather than saying we should be waiting for people who have been harmed to come forward, we should be trying to avoid harm. By not indexing by default, we avoid harm. I think it's rather presumptuous to say "people need to come forward to us"... when we're the ones doing harm. I think it's rather short sighted and perhaps even mean spirited to say "only those who complain should be offered relief"...
I agree completely, and just now had this thread brought to my attention. I would strongly support an effort to remove a lot of non-mainspace stuff from the search engines.
I also support a very vigorous insistence on policies of courtesy, kindness, and human dignity, towards each other and also - equally - towards others.
I support the development of easier and easier mechanisms to delete offensive vandalism not just from the pages, but from the article history as well. There is simply no good reason for us to have extensive archives of hate.
We are here to do something positive and loving for the world, and it makes us proud to be a part of it. As Larry says, rather than waiting for people who have been harmed to come forward, we should be trying to avoid harm.
--Jimbo
While I agree that pre-emptive action to avoid harm is a good thing, I would like everyone to think again about the implications of removing policyspace or projectspace from indexing. I've had to shepherd a few newbies around, and each and every one of them has relied on Google searches of projectspace to orient themselves. People have developed an instinctive understanding of how Google organises information that is crucial for them when faced with our bewildering morass of internal policies. Without that, we get confused newbies or lost editors, neither of which is something we can afford.
Once again, I believe an addition to BLP indicating that courtesy blanking is recommended is the most reasonable, highest-gain approach here. It preserves useful discussion, but removes it from searches; but is not a blunt instrument, but one open to community oversight.
RR
On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 8:27 PM, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Larry Pieniazek wrote:
I think this is, in general, the wrong way round. Rather than saying we should be waiting for people who have been harmed to come forward, we
should
be trying to avoid harm. By not indexing by default, we avoid harm. I
think
it's rather presumptuous to say "people need to come forward to us"...
when
we're the ones doing harm. I think it's rather short sighted and perhaps even mean spirited to say "only those who complain should be offered relief"...
I agree completely, and just now had this thread brought to my attention. I would strongly support an effort to remove a lot of non-mainspace stuff from the search engines.
I also support a very vigorous insistence on policies of courtesy, kindness, and human dignity, towards each other and also - equally - towards others.
I support the development of easier and easier mechanisms to delete offensive vandalism not just from the pages, but from the article history as well. There is simply no good reason for us to have extensive archives of hate.
We are here to do something positive and loving for the world, and it makes us proud to be a part of it. As Larry says, rather than waiting for people who have been harmed to come forward, we should be trying to avoid harm.
--Jimbo
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