-----Original Message----- From: William Pietri [mailto:william@scissor.com] Sent: Friday, July 6, 2007 12:53 PM To: 'English Wikipedia' Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] FredBauder"clarifies"onattackkkkkkkkkkk site link policy
Fred Bauder wrote:
I'll never accept linking to personal attacks on Wikipedians. I don't care how futile it is considered to be or how bad such "censorship" is. And it a site makes a regular business of attacking Wikipedians, not criticizing, but attacking, I will oppose linking to the site at all. I can see only good coming out of supporting other editors and only harm coming out of tolerating their humiliation.
I agree with the principle -- we should treasure and support our editors -- but I don't think the rest follows in all cases.
For example, I once linked to what could easily be read as an off-wiki personal attack on me. That was very helpful, as it made the situation clearer to fellow editors, and resulted in me getting the assistance I needed. A blanket ban would have made my life as an editor worse, not better.
Rather than making the judgment based on the thing linked to, I think our judgment should be based on the way we are linking. Linking to a personal attack can be done as a personal attack, of course, and that should be treated like any other personal attack. But it also can be a way to defang the personal attack. It can be a way to show what kooks the attackers are. It can shine a light on things that fester in the dark.
Stepping back, links to contentious material can certainly be helpful in discussing and building consensus around whatever the new do-not-link policy ends up as. After some random clicking around on the sites whose names should not be spoken, I still haven't seen anything particularly horrific. I'm not saying it isn't there, of course. I'm just saying that if some people can see a problem and others can't, they are unlikely to ever come to consensus on the severity of the problem, let alone the solution.
William
The remedy was applied after a personal attack on MONGO was featured on the Main Page.
Fred
Fred Bauder wrote:
The remedy was applied after a personal attack on MONGO was featured on the Main Page.
Fred
I would honestly hope that this wasn't the sole reason. Because a third-party satirical website which Wikipedia has no control over posted a piece on its main page making fun of an editor, we're gonna have a tissy and ban all references to it? Even going so far as to change all links (/most/ of which were used appropriately) from encyclopediadramatica (the actual site) to encyclopediadamatica (a domain squatter filled with typical spam), thus destroying the point of links in the first place?
Encyclopedia Dramatica is a satirical wiki designed to document internet memes, drama, culture, and people, often done in an offensive manner. Common sense dictates that, for this reason, there wouldn't normally be a reason to link to it from Wikipedia. It isn't a critical site, and by its nature isn't a reliable source. References in talk and userspace should generally be avoided due to its offensive nature. However, the are occasions where even a link to ED would benefit a discussion (and indeed, prior to the ban on such linking, most every link would qualify as productive), and Encyclopedia Dramatica, despite the warped consensus to the contrary, is a notable website; if an article on it was ever allowed to be created again, a link would be wholly appropriate in that context.
But we're going to utterly refuse to link to it under any circumstances, for any reason, because it made fun of MONGO in an article on him (that didn't contain any personally identifiable information, mind you) that was front paged. That strikes me as an attempt to use a cannon to kill a fly.
As i don't read that site generally, I hadn't known it; but I just now googled MONGO and e.d., and found the article; such is the frequent result of attempts at suppression: they are counter-productive. More WPedians know about e.d. from the effort to ban it than they otherwise would.
On 7/6/07, Fred Bauder fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
-----Original Message----- From: William Pietri [mailto:william@scissor.com] Sent: Friday, July 6, 2007 12:53 PM To: 'English Wikipedia' Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] FredBauder"clarifies"onattackkkkkkkkkkk site link policy
Fred Bauder wrote:
I'll never accept linking to personal attacks on Wikipedians. I don't care how futile it is considered to be or how bad such "censorship" is. And it a site makes a regular business of attacking Wikipedians, not criticizing, but attacking, I will oppose linking to the site at all. I can see only good coming out of supporting other editors and only harm coming out of tolerating their humiliation.
I agree with the principle -- we should treasure and support our editors -- but I don't think the rest follows in all cases.
For example, I once linked to what could easily be read as an off-wiki personal attack on me. That was very helpful, as it made the situation clearer to fellow editors, and resulted in me getting the assistance I needed. A blanket ban would have made my life as an editor worse, not better.
Rather than making the judgment based on the thing linked to, I think our judgment should be based on the way we are linking. Linking to a personal attack can be done as a personal attack, of course, and that should be treated like any other personal attack. But it also can be a way to defang the personal attack. It can be a way to show what kooks the attackers are. It can shine a light on things that fester in the dark.
Stepping back, links to contentious material can certainly be helpful in discussing and building consensus around whatever the new do-not-link policy ends up as. After some random clicking around on the sites whose names should not be spoken, I still haven't seen anything particularly horrific. I'm not saying it isn't there, of course. I'm just saying that if some people can see a problem and others can't, they are unlikely to ever come to consensus on the severity of the problem, let alone the solution.
William
The remedy was applied after a personal attack on MONGO was featured on the Main Page.
Fred
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Hi, Fred. I understand what you said, but I'm not getting the broader point I presume you were making.
Fred Bauder wrote:
Fred Bauder wrote:
I'll never accept linking to personal attacks on Wikipedians. I don't care how futile it is considered to be or how bad such "censorship" is. And it a site makes a regular business of attacking Wikipedians, not criticizing, but attacking, I will oppose linking to the site at all. I can see only good coming out of supporting other editors and only harm coming out of tolerating their humiliation.
I agree with the principle -- we should treasure and support our editors -- but I don't think the rest follows in all cases.
For example, I once linked to what could easily be read as an off-wiki personal attack on me. That was very helpful, as it made the situation clearer to fellow editors, and resulted in me getting the assistance I needed. A blanket ban would have made my life as an editor worse, not better.
Rather than making the judgment based on the thing linked to, I think our judgment should be based on the way we are linking. [...]
The remedy was applied after a personal attack on MONGO was featured on the Main Page.
Sure. And if people are linking from Wikipedia to a personal attack in a way that's itself a personal attack, I agree that's bad.
However, I'm saying that my linking to a personal attack on myself helped me. And further, that there are other legitimate reasons one would link to a personal attack, ways that either don't further the attack, or actively diminish its power.
I'm just saying that one proposed version of the rule, "Never link to attack sites," can sometimes harm attacked editors rather than helping them.
William