On 5/28/07, John Lee <johnleemk(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Exactly. Context is key - and furthermore,
banning things on a
site-by-site
basis is ridiculous. If the entire site is
devoted to, say, outing an
anonymous individual's identity, then hell yes, kill links to it with
fire
(unless, say, it becomes notable, in which case,
link to it where
absolutely
necessary). But if there's a site run by a
famous chef who also has a
vendetta against, say, me, should we ban links to his site because one
page
of it is devoted to libel against me ...
John, I don't think anyone is arguing that extreme position. It's a
strawman. The whole BADSITES policy proposal was a strawman started by
a sockpocket. All that's being argued is that sites *devoted* to
outing and defamation -- the purpose-built attackers, where it's all
or most of what they do -- shouldn't be linked to.
Then that's eminently reasonable (with the caveat, of course, if that such a
site ever makes the headlines worldwide, our article shouldn't be excused
from linking to it just because it attacks Wikipedians). The problem is,
many people I've seen enforcing this idea - Will Beback just being the most
recent example - don't take such a reasonable stance. It's not even based on
the rejected BADSITES proposal; I've seen people basing their ridiculous
claims solely on the arbcom decision's wording.
Johnleemk