Recently, [[User:DennyColt]] has created an essay article, [[WP:BADSITES]], that advocates banning all links to sites that are considered to be "attack sites". Although this is an essay, and explicitly says that it is not a policy, he then proceeded to invoke his own essay in pursuing a draconian campaign to suppress all links to Wikpedia Review, an anti-Wikipedia web forum. In doing so, he did things that are normally considered to be against Wikipedia policy, such as altering other people's comments on talk and project pages, and editing archive pages and closed AfDs.
While I am on the record as strongly critical of the tone and atmosphere of the WR site, I am also strongly against the imposition of a flat ban on linking to it, even on user, talk, and project pages. This is part of a consistent position I have of opposing all flat bans on linking to particular sites other than blatant spam sites of the "Buy Herbal Viagra Now" variety (and even *those* might have rare cases where links to them are appropriate, such as when methods used by spammers are being discussed and criticized).
When one is engaged in a discussion about those sites themselves, and the people on them, and the things they're saying, we are tying our own hands if we can't cite specific things there in the course of the discussion. For instance, there's a very interesting thread that discusses this very "anti-attack-site" campaign:
http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=7988
I don't know about the merits of the legal claims that guy is making (does fair use for the purpose of commentary require citing and linking to the source?) but some of his points about how absurd various talk-page comments became once "redacted" by Denny are right on target. But how would I be able to comment on this if I weren't allowed to link to the thread involved?
We should "know thine enemy"; we shouldn't act like a mind-control cult trying to stop its members from finding out about critics and what they have to say, but we should encourage our editors to read such criticism -- and refute it on the many occasions where it's wrongheaded. But occasionally the critics say something right, too. Anyway, when they're threatening to sue Wikipedia and its editors, shouldn't we make ourselves aware of this? Banning all links to the site would prevent that too.
Daniel R. Tobias just had to cough out the following stream of bytes from the specified email client, on 4/7/2007 1:22 PM:
Recently, [[User:DennyColt]] has created an essay article, [[WP:BADSITES]], that advocates banning all links to sites that are considered to be "attack sites". Although this is an essay, and explicitly says that it is not a policy, he then proceeded to invoke his own essay in pursuing a draconian campaign to suppress all links to Wikpedia Review, an anti-Wikipedia web forum. In doing so, he did things that are normally considered to be against Wikipedia policy, such as altering other people's comments on talk and project pages, and editing archive pages and closed AfDs.
While I am on the record as strongly critical of the tone and atmosphere of the WR site, I am also strongly against the imposition of a flat ban on linking to it, even on user, talk, and project pages. This is part of a consistent position I have of opposing all flat bans on linking to particular sites other than blatant spam sites of the "Buy Herbal Viagra Now" variety (and even *those* might have rare cases where links to them are appropriate, such as when methods used by spammers are being discussed and criticized).
When one is engaged in a discussion about those sites themselves, and the people on them, and the things they're saying, we are tying our own hands if we can't cite specific things there in the course of the discussion. For instance, there's a very interesting thread that discusses this very "anti-attack-site" campaign:
http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=7988
I don't know about the merits of the legal claims that guy is making (does fair use for the purpose of commentary require citing and linking to the source?) but some of his points about how absurd various talk-page comments became once "redacted" by Denny are right on target. But how would I be able to comment on this if I weren't allowed to link to the thread involved?
We should "know thine enemy"; we shouldn't act like a mind-control cult trying to stop its members from finding out about critics and what they have to say, but we should encourage our editors to read such criticism -- and refute it on the many occasions where it's wrongheaded. But occasionally the critics say something right, too. Anyway, when they're threatening to sue Wikipedia and its editors, shouldn't we make ourselves aware of this? Banning all links to the site would prevent that too.
I would agree 100% on banning linking to this site. I don't know about editing each other's comments, but probably putting the link in an HTML comment, and then say, in small text, that "this is a link to an attack site" or something like this. But an initiative should be made so that nobody links to that site.
Steve Summit just had to cough out the following stream of bytes from the specified email client, on 4/7/2007 1:46 PM
Why?
As the original poster has said:
We should "know thine enemy"; we shouldn't act like a mind-control cult trying to stop its members from finding out about critics and what they have to say, but we should encourage our editors to read such criticism -- and refute it on the many occasions where it's wrongheaded. But occasionally the critics say something right, too. Anyway, when they're threatening to sue Wikipedia and its editors, shouldn't we make ourselves aware of this? Banning all links to the site would prevent that too.
Obviously the site has violated NPA, and even on the NPA policy page, it says that :
Posting a link to an external source that fits the commonly accepted threshold for a personal attack, in a manner that incorporates the substance of that attack into Wikipedia discussion, including the suggestion that such a link applies to another editor, or that another editor needs to visit the external source containing the substance of the attack.
This site is an external source of personal attacks. Even planning to sue us and our fellow Wiki*edians is a personal attack.
----- Original Message ----- From: Charli Li chengli1@verizon.net
Obviously the site has violated NPA, and even on the NPA policy page, it says that :
Posting a link to an external source that fits the commonly accepted threshold for a personal attack, in a manner that incorporates the substance of that attack into Wikipedia discussion, including the suggestion that such a link applies to another editor, or that
another> editor needs to visit the external source containing the substance of
the attack.
This site is an external source of personal attacks. Even planning to sue us and our fellow Wiki*edians is a personal attack.
This "violation" is highly dependant on the context in which it's made. You can't just find one instance where a link to a web site is used as a personal attack and then declare _all_ links to anything on the entire site, used _anywhere_ in Wikipedia, to be a personal attack. I could probably get major news sites like The Register banned under this interpretation.
The hard banning of external sites should be sparingly used and only in cases where it's absolutely clear that it's appropriate for all concievable situations. We have human editors with human editorial judgement for a reason.
-----Original Message----- From: wikien-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Bryan Derksen Sent: Saturday, April 07, 2007 1:13 PM To: English Wikipedia Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Suppression of links to 'attack sites'?
This "violation" is highly dependant on the context in which it's made. You
can't just find one instance where a link to a web site is
used as a personal attack and then declare _all_ links to anything on the
entire site, used _anywhere_ in Wikipedia, to be a personal
attack. I could probably get major news sites like The Register banned
under this interpretation.
The hard banning of external sites should be sparingly used and only in
cases where it's absolutely clear that it's appropriate for all
concievable situations. We have human editors with human editorial
judgement for a reason.
The difference is that WR encourages and promotes the investigation and publication of personal information regarding Wikipedia editors. For that reasoon, if for no other, is why linking should be banned...
Brian
_______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
----- Original Message ----- From: Brian Haws brian@bhaws.com
The difference is that WR encourages and promotes the investigation and publication of personal information regarding Wikipedia editors. For that reasoon, if for no other, is why linking should be banned...
I know they do that, but it doesn't follow that they should be banned because of it. Sometimes Wikipedia Review might wind up being a source for other information that's used in a Wikipedia article. Banning them as a source simply because we don't _like_ them is ridiculous. Should we ban whitehouse.gov as a source because we may disagree vehemently with the behavior of the administration there?
NPOV is a foundation policy. There are no exemptions for issues that affect Wikipedia directly.
On Apr 7, 2007, at 7:08 PM, Ken Arromdee wrote:
On Sat, 7 Apr 2007, Bryan Derksen wrote:
NPOV is a foundation policy. There are no exemptions for issues that affect Wikipedia directly.
Cool. Mind if I edit WP:IAR to take this into account?
Don't do this. Part of what IAR is a warranty against is if a policy page gets written to stop complying with the useful intent. An exemption for NPOV would leave us no defense if a bunch of policy wanks decided to do to it what has been done to so many other pages (DRV, RFA, RS, NOR...)
-Phil
On Sat, 7 Apr 2007, Phil Sandifer wrote:
On Apr 7, 2007, at 7:08 PM, Ken Arromdee wrote:
On Sat, 7 Apr 2007, Bryan Derksen wrote:
NPOV is a foundation policy. There are no exemptions for issues that affect Wikipedia directly.
Cool. Mind if I edit WP:IAR to take this into account?
Don't do this. Part of what IAR is a warranty against is if a policy page gets written to stop complying with the useful intent. An exemption for NPOV would leave us no defense if a bunch of policy wanks decided to do to it what has been done to so many other pages (DRV, RFA, RS, NOR...)
Well, I didn't really want to edit IAR for that, my point was more that this is currently a contradiction in the rules. NPOV says it may not be superseded by other policies or consensus, IAR says that it can supersede anything. I know it says that the *principles* may not be superseded, not the rule, so it isn't technically a contradiction, but it's about as close as you can get to a contradiction without bering one.
And I agree completely about NOR and RS.
Charli Li wrote:
As the original poster has said:
We should "know thine enemy"; we shouldn't act like a mind-control cult trying to stop its members from finding out about critics...
Um, you are aware that while you are advocating banning links to Wikipedia Review, Dan Tobias is advocating *allowing* them.
Obviously the site has violated NPA,
Obviously that site is a hideous, hideous site. But it's not obvious that banning links to it will change that in any way.
and even on the NPA policy page, it says that :
Posting a link to an external source that fits the commonly accepted threshold for a personal attack, in a manner that incorporates the substance of that attack into Wikipedia discussion, including the suggestion that such a link applies to another editor, or that another editor needs to visit the external source containing the substance of the attack.
This site is an external source of personal attacks.
Those words, "in a manner that incorporates the substance of that attack into Wikipedia discussion" are significant.
If I say, "Dan Tobias is an idiot", that's a personal attack. If I say, "Dan Tobias is an idiot, and look, Wikipedia Review agrees with me: http://wikipediareview.com/dan-tobias-idiocy.html", that's a personal attack which incorporates the substance of an external personal attack.
But if I say, "Wikipedia Review is planning to sue us", that's obviously no personal attack; it's a simple statement. And if I say, "Wikipedia Review is planning to sue us -- see http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=7045", that's a simple statement backed up by a citation, and we *like* those.
On 4/7/07, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
chengli1 wrote:
I would agree 100% on banning linking to this site... an initiative should be made so that nobody links to that site.
Why?
Because it contains actionable libel, because it tries to out editors, because it publishes photographs without the copyright holders' permission, because it discusses the sex lives of women editors, because it calls some of us c**ts and whores.
Sarah
On Saturday 07 April 2007 17:37, Slim Virgin wrote:
On 4/7/07, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
chengli1 wrote:
I would agree 100% on banning linking to this site... an initiative should be made so that nobody links to that site.
Why?
Because it contains actionable libel, because it tries to out editors, because it publishes photographs without the copyright holders' permission, because it discusses the sex lives of women editors, because it calls some of us c**ts and whores.
Sarah
And that has relevance to its potential usefulness as a source in some cases because...?
Seriously, grow up.
And you wonder why people call you a "cunt" and a "whore"...
Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote:
And you wonder why people call you a "cunt" and a "whore"...
I wouldn't want to take away from Sarah's pleasure in punching you in the face a hundred times, but I'd sure like to help hold you down so she gets a better shot.
Hopefully list moderators will make sure we never ever have to hear any of your worthless spew again.
Stan
Stan Shebs wrote:
I wouldn't want to take away from Sarah's pleasure in punching you in the face a hundred times, but I'd sure like to help hold you down so she gets a better shot.
Nicely put, but...
That doesn't mean we should enact a _prima facie_ ban on all links to either Kurt's or Wikipedia Review's website.
Slim Virgin wrote:
On 4/7/07, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
chengli1 wrote:
I would agree 100% on banning linking to this site... an initiative should be made so that nobody links to that site.
Why?
Because it contains actionable libel, because it tries to out editors, because it publishes photographs without the copyright holders' permission, because it discusses the sex lives of women editors, because it calls some of us c**ts and whores.
If the site contains so much actionable libel then the libelled persons should take action.
I appreciate that you have been on the receiving end for their vitriol, but if they have such a liking for gutter fights it does not justify our descending into gutter tactics.
Ec
On 4/7/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
I appreciate that you have been on the receiving end for their vitriol, but if they have such a liking for gutter fights it does not justify our descending into gutter tactics.
Banning links equates to gutter tactics?
Preferably, we'd not have to ban links to them because everyone would ignore them and not bother posting links to their site.
-Matt
On 4/7/07, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
Recently, [[User:DennyColt]] has created an essay article, [[WP:BADSITES]], that advocates banning all links to sites that are considered to be "attack sites". <snip>
Whatever microscopic benefit can be (argued by some) to be gained by linking to a hate site like Wikipedia Review is immediately outweighed by the harm that place and similar pages create. They openly hunt for peoples' identaties. They have active Jayjg and slimvirgin hunting threads, and for others.
Do you support that? How about harassment of others like mongo, and katefan, and phaedriel, and so on...?
I have asked multiple people, can you think of a single GOOD reason to link to that site in particular, and got not one good answer, only strawmen arguments about censorship and mccarthyism.
If you support inclusion of links to WR, shall we link to hivemind as well, and the encyclopedia dramatica wiki?
Linking to Wikipedia Review is obviously relevant in an article on Daniel Brandt (does it still exist) or Wikipedia criticism. Much more use can't exist for the article space, but if we're going to discuss Wikipedia review for example to counter attacks on people, we should be able to link to it.
Anyway, wikipediareview is a very specific case and if we were to ban it, I don't think we need new policy that could be abused and lead to the bans of other sites. What constitutes an attack site is subjective depending on who you ask.
Mgm
On 4/7/07, Denny Colt wikidenny@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/7/07, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
Recently, [[User:DennyColt]] has created an essay article, [[WP:BADSITES]], that advocates banning all links to sites that are considered to be "attack sites". <snip>
Whatever microscopic benefit can be (argued by some) to be gained by linking to a hate site like Wikipedia Review is immediately outweighed by the harm that place and similar pages create. They openly hunt for peoples' identaties. They have active Jayjg and slimvirgin hunting threads, and for others.
Do you support that? How about harassment of others like mongo, and katefan, and phaedriel, and so on...?
I have asked multiple people, can you think of a single GOOD reason to link to that site in particular, and got not one good answer, only strawmen arguments about censorship and mccarthyism.
If you support inclusion of links to WR, shall we link to hivemind as well, and the encyclopedia dramatica wiki?
--
- Denny
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Denny Colt wrote:
Whatever microscopic benefit can be (argued by some) to be gained by linking to a hate site like Wikipedia Review is immediately outweighed by the harm that place and similar pages create.
But what benefit (however microscopic) is to be gained by banning links to the place?
Do you support that?
I don't support [[Hungarian notation]], [[female circumcision]], or the [[2003 Iraq war]]. But I'm not going to try to ban links to sites which discuss those topics.
I have asked multiple people, can you think of a single GOOD reason to link to that site in particular, and got not one good answer, only strawmen arguments about censorship and mccarthyism.
Sorry if you find my mention of Hungarian notation &c to be a strawman. Sorry if you disagree with me that blacklisting is an extremely dangerous weapon, quite akin to censorship, and to be employed only as an absolute last resort, under considerable duress, and when there's a clear case to be made that the blacklisting (or the censorship) does mitigate an active threat to the project.
Yes, Wikipedia Review is an active threat to the project. But banning links to it does not in any way mitigate that threat.
If you support inclusion of links to WR, shall we link to hivemind as well, and the encyclopedia dramatica wiki?
Speaking of strawmen. But: where relevant, yes, certainly. They won't go away if we stop linking to them, either.
Denny Colt wrote:
Whatever microscopic benefit can be (argued by some) to be gained by linking to a hate site like Wikipedia Review is immediately outweighed by the harm that place and similar pages create. They openly hunt for peoples' identaties. They have active Jayjg and slimvirgin hunting threads, and for others.
Do you support that? How about harassment of others like mongo, and katefan, and phaedriel, and so on...?
I have asked multiple people, can you think of a single GOOD reason to link to that site in particular, and got not one good answer, only strawmen arguments about censorship and mccarthyism.
This is a strangely self-centered argument, that seems likely to have only come up because it's about Wikipedia specifically, and we love constructing special cases when stuff has to do with us. We link to lots and lots of attack sites on Wikipedia, most of them much more offensive and potentially dangerous than Wikipedia Review. We even have an entire article on [[en:Stormfront (website)]], which obviously links to the site in question. The criterion for external links isn't that we *agree* with the link, but that it has some encyclopedic relevance to the article it's in. Wikipedia Review most likely does not have relevance to any article except maybe [[en:Daniel Brandt]]; whether it should be linked there or not is a content decision based on its notability. But a blanket ban on links to "attack sites" is silly, even if we could define what that meant.
-Mark
Heh. When I started reading "Whatever microscopic benefit can be (argued by some) to be gained..." I thought it was going to followed by an admonition that history shows us that greater harm invariably comes from the institutional suppression of free speech and dissent than from allowing the presence of "undesirable" speech.
Silly me.
On 4/7/07, Denny Colt wikidenny@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/7/07, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
Recently, [[User:DennyColt]] has created an essay article, [[WP:BADSITES]], that advocates banning all links to sites that are considered to be "attack sites". <snip>
Whatever microscopic benefit can be (argued by some) to be gained by linking to a hate site like Wikipedia Review is immediately outweighed by the harm that place and similar pages create. They openly hunt for peoples' identaties. They have active Jayjg and slimvirgin hunting threads, and for others.
Do you support that? How about harassment of others like mongo, and katefan, and phaedriel, and so on...?
I have asked multiple people, can you think of a single GOOD reason to link to that site in particular, and got not one good answer, only strawmen arguments about censorship and mccarthyism.
If you support inclusion of links to WR, shall we link to hivemind as well, and the encyclopedia dramatica wiki?
--
- Denny
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On Sat, 07 Apr 2007 13:22:03 -0400, "Daniel R. Tobias" dan@tobias.name wrote:
Recently, [[User:DennyColt]] has created an essay article, [[WP:BADSITES]], that advocates banning all links to sites that are considered to be "attack sites".
No idea why. We already have an ArbCom decision on that, plus the application of Clue. It's all we need.
Guy (JzG)
It seems to me like some of the people who favor a draconian policy against linking to "attack sites", regardless of context, are coming from a similar mindset to that which has produced "Zero Tolerance" rules all over the place these days, as documented here:
http://www.thisistrue.com/zt.html
That mindset dislikes letting the "authorities" have any discretion to use common sense in administering rules depending on the circumstances; they'd rather have an absoulute rule, enforced absolutely ([[Judge Dredd]] style). You see a lot of that both on Wikipedia and in the outside world these days; too many people want to simplify a complex world by being absolutist in their following of rules.