On 15 Nov 2007 at 21:31, Christiano Moreschi moreschiwikiman@hotmail.co.uk wrote:
The other issue is this - so much of this mailing list is clogged up by incredibly tedious and repetitive arguments over the same bloody topic: attack sites. Could we perhaps declare a moratorium? Create a separate mailing list? Please, before the sanity of those of us who don't care collapses?
As the one responsible for a good deal of that, I'd honestly love to be able to drop the subject myself and go on to something more productive. Unfortunately, like the monster in a bad horror movie, BADSITES in some form or other keeps coming back from the dead every time it seems to be completely defeated. Just now, some editors have been trying yet again to add language back into the NPA policy designed specifically to ban all links to certain sites under any circumstances, after everybody else thought that full agreement had been reached on a version that simply included the common-sense provision that links shouldn't be added for the purpose of attacking. As long as this silly idea refuses to die, neither can my fervent opposition to it.
Daniel R. Tobias wrote:
On 15 Nov 2007 at 21:31, Christiano Moreschi moreschiwikiman@hotmail.co.uk wrote:
The other issue is this - so much of this mailing list is clogged up by incredibly tedious and repetitive arguments over the same bloody topic: attack sites. Could we perhaps declare a moratorium? Create a separate mailing list? [...]
[...]As long as this silly idea refuses to die, neither can my fervent opposition to it.
I regret that I feel the same way. I don't care much about a few links here or there, but I believe the cultural change necessary for the damnatio memoriae approach to attack sites strikes at the heart of something key to Wikipedia's success.
If the discussion were its own topic-specific list, I'd be perfectly happy with that, though. I understand most people are sick to death of it; I am too, even though I care about the topic. However, ghettoizing the discussion entirely would be a problem, as any solution to the issue will require some sort of consensus, which by definition can't be achieved if nobody knows the discussion is happening.
Perhaps we could call it a working group on the topic? That would imply some responsibility to get somewhere and to report back occasionally. But it would keep the snowdrifts of discussion out of the main general-interest list.
William
William Pietri wrote:
Daniel R. Tobias wrote:
[...]As long as this silly idea refuses to die, neither can my fervent opposition to it.
I regret that I feel the same way.
And I share Dan's and William's chagrin.
Something I've been struck by: we need to learn or re-learn, for today's Wikipedia, how to form consensus. Back in the day I think we knew how to, but either we've forgotten, or the game has changed.
A tiny minority of influential people on one side of a contentious issue can apparently keep it alive *forever*. We have to figure out how to settle these issues, and move on.
I'm not a big player in any of these debates, but by way of example, I managed to do this in the case of spoiler warnings. I care almost as much about the spoiler warnings issue as the BADSITES issue. I could easily be one of the tedious cranks that Snowspinner was just complaining about. That spoiler warnings have been summarily eradicated is deeply wrong. But with apologies to Ken Arromdee, who I would have like to have supported in that fight, I decided I didn't care enough about the issue to keep arguing against the juggernaut that had somehow formed against it, so I turned my back and walked away.
I'm not saying the solution is to walk away from things you care about. But the BADSITES issue clearly will not die; we've got people on both sides who haven't budged an inch in their positions (myself included) and who are apparently willing to trot out the same arguments in endless repetetition until the cows come home. We've all got to get off that treadmill somehow.
Quoting Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com:
I'm not saying the solution is to walk away from things you care about. But the BADSITES issue clearly will not die; we've got people on both sides who haven't budged an inch in their positions (myself included) and who are apparently willing to trot out the same arguments in endless repetetition until the cows come home. We've all got to get off that treadmill somehow.
Well, I don't know about that. My view on BADSITES has changed at least. I started out very much in favor of some variant of BADSITES, but as I watched the arguments develop I became more and more convinced that BADSITES was a bad idea both ideological and pragmatically (there may have been some belief overkill on my part). What we really have is a much more serious problem- not that people won't change their views (it happens occasionally and frankly the vast majority of humans almost never change their views on almost anything), the real problem is that we've had in a variety of issues we've had groups of people who seem to be treating Wikipedia almost as a game of chess, and are willing to use their superior knowledge of the rules to impose something which clearly has no consensus. And then, after they get checkmate, they claim they have a consensus. This isn't productive. We need people to be more willing when there isn't a consensus to say "Hey, I've got a strong opinion this. There isn't a consensus, I'll wait until there is before making broad sweeping policy claims".
On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 21:56:28 -0500, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Well, I don't know about that. My view on BADSITES has changed at least. I started out very much in favor of some variant of BADSITES, but as I watched the arguments develop I became more and more convinced that BADSITES was a bad idea both ideological and pragmatically
Yes, same here. These days I think that external links should be removed in limited circumstances. Two that spring to mind:
* harassment * commentary by banned users seeking to influence content in defiance of their ban
There is one site I have a problem with now, which is the lockerbie blog; the fatuous SlimVirgin conspiracy was deliberately planted there, I think, in order to get it linked. I am not too happy about that. But the matter of links in articles is one for "sound editorial judgment", not absolutist positions of principle (which is where the remaining argufiers on BADSITES are at).
Where I think Dan goes wrong is that he mistakes agnostics for atheists. Most people I've talked to think that some links should go, some are not that big a deal. I don't agree with Dan's stated position that offsite harassment is no big deal.
They can argue for as long as they like, if someone links a WR thread that harasses an editor then I will remove it, because even Dan has said that is appropriate.
We do lack a mechanism for achieving closure on subjects where incompatible ideologies clash. We manage this better in content than we do in meat debate.
Guy (JzG)
On Fri, 16 Nov 2007 10:17:12 +0000, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
We do lack a mechanism for achieving closure on subjects where incompatible ideologies clash. We manage this better in content than we do in meat debate.
Note: proposed wording for WP:NPA is:
Linking to off-site harassment, attacks, or privacy violations against Wikipedians for the purpose of attacking another wikipedian, is a violation of this policy. Attacking, harassing, or violating the privacy of any Wikipedian through the posting of external links is not permitted. Harassment in this context includes but is not limited to: stalking, offsite personal attacks, privacy violations, and threats of physical violence. This is not to be confused with legitimate criticism. As with personal attacks, extreme cases of deliberate harassment by way of external links are grounds for being blocked from editing.
I don't have a problem with that, let's see how the debate unfolds.
Guy (JzG)
On Nov 15, 2007 9:43 PM, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
William Pietri wrote:
Daniel R. Tobias wrote:
[...]As long as this silly idea refuses to die, neither can my fervent opposition to it.
I regret that I feel the same way.
And I share Dan's and William's chagrin.
Something I've been struck by: we need to learn or re-learn, for today's Wikipedia, how to form consensus. Back in the day I think we knew how to, but either we've forgotten, or the game has changed.
A tiny minority of influential people on one side of a contentious issue can apparently keep it alive *forever*. We have to figure out how to settle these issues, and move on.
I'm not a big player in any of these debates, but by way of example, I managed to do this in the case of spoiler warnings. I care almost as much about the spoiler warnings issue as the BADSITES issue. I could easily be one of the tedious cranks that Snowspinner was just complaining about. That spoiler warnings have been summarily eradicated is deeply wrong. But with apologies to Ken Arromdee, who I would have like to have supported in that fight, I decided I didn't care enough about the issue to keep arguing against the juggernaut that had somehow formed against it, so I turned my back and walked away.
I'm not saying the solution is to walk away from things you care about. But the BADSITES issue clearly will not die; we've got people on both sides who haven't budged an inch in their positions (myself included) and who are apparently willing to trot out the same arguments in endless repetetition until the cows come home. We've all got to get off that treadmill somehow.
I don't think that's accurate. It is only people who are against BADSITES who continually trot it out so they can flail against it; it is the convenient strawman it always was, since it was first created as a strawman.The history of the proposed "alternative" to BADSITES, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Linking_to_external_harassment , is also fascinating. It turns out that the two main authors of the policy, BenB4 and Privatemusings, are banned sockpuppets. In fact, 58% of the edits to the page are by banned editors, mostly sockpuppets, another 18% are by an ip editor, and another 4% by the people who most often bring up the BADSITES strawman, Alecmconroy and Dtobias, for a total of 80%. Though the latter two didn't contribute much to the actual writing, they certainly dominated the Talk: page - Alec made 24 edits to the Talk: page and Dan made 162. So we have now reached the point where policies are essentially being written by banned editors, sockpuppets, IP editors, and people who oppose the policy they are writing. And even that "alternative" has apparently today been unilaterally rejected by a new IP editor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/86.148.219.194
BADSITES has proven to be an extremely convenient way of distracting attention from the real issues regarding offsite harassment and non-encyclopedic links; I suspect it has worked even better than its author ever dreamed it would.
On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 10:09:41 -0500, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
BADSITES has proven to be an extremely convenient way of distracting attention from the real issues regarding offsite harassment and non-encyclopedic links; I suspect it has worked even better than its author ever dreamed it would.
Yes, I think you are right. We had an IP turn up out of the blue yesterday and mark some current proposals as "rejected" due to BADSITES, including one that was specifically motivated by the rejection of BADSITES and seeks to do what the last ArbCom suggested, namely write a workable policy.
Of course, it is incredibly important to WR that they retain the ability to add links. Not because they want to, but because it keeps the site in the public mind. Without the constant harping it would have been forgotten by now as just another festival of stupid.
Guy (JzG)
On 11/21/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 10:09:41 -0500, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
BADSITES has proven to be an extremely convenient way of distracting attention from the real issues regarding offsite harassment and non-encyclopedic links; I suspect it has worked even better than its author ever dreamed it would.
Yes, I think you are right. We had an IP turn up out of the blue yesterday and mark some current proposals as "rejected" due to BADSITES, including one that was specifically motivated by the rejection of BADSITES and seeks to do what the last ArbCom suggested, namely write a workable policy.
Of course, it is incredibly important to WR that they retain the ability to add links. Not because they want to, but because it keeps the site in the public mind. Without the constant harping it would have been forgotten by now as just another festival of stupid.
Guy (JzG)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Linking_to_external_harassment essentially eliminates the ability to link to Wikipedia Review, which fails at least four of the five "Should I link to it?" criteria in "LINKLOVE". If people stopped pushing BADSITES and looked at something more like LINKLOVE they'd win over those of us who don't give a fuck about linking to the Wikipedia Review but are unprepared to delink slashdot.org from [[slashdot]] or newyorker.com from [[The New Yorker]]. It's probably worth considering.
Cheers WilyD
On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 11:04:49 -0500, "Wily D" wilydoppelganger@gmail.com wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Linking_to_external_harassment essentially eliminates the ability to link to Wikipedia Review, which fails at least four of the five "Should I link to it?" criteria in "LINKLOVE". If people stopped pushing BADSITES and looked at something more like LINKLOVE they'd win over those of us who don't give a fuck about linking to the Wikipedia Review but are unprepared to delink slashdot.org from [[slashdot]] or newyorker.com from [[The New Yorker]]. It's probably worth considering.
Well yes, but at least one IP has recently marked that as rejected based on the assertion that it is BADSITES in all but name. Some people seem unwilling to move beyond absolutist positions.
Guy (JzG)
On 11/21/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 11:04:49 -0500, "Wily D" wilydoppelganger@gmail.com wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Linking_to_external_harassment essentially eliminates the ability to link to Wikipedia Review, which fails at least four of the five "Should I link to it?" criteria in "LINKLOVE". If people stopped pushing BADSITES and looked at something more like LINKLOVE they'd win over those of us who don't give a fuck about linking to the Wikipedia Review but are unprepared to delink slashdot.org from [[slashdot]] or newyorker.com from [[The New Yorker]]. It's probably worth considering.
Well yes, but at least one IP has recently marked that as rejected based on the assertion that it is BADSITES in all but name. Some people seem unwilling to move beyond absolutist positions.
Guy (JzG)
Perhaps, but "one IP" is hardly the voice of the community. LINKLOVE looks good to me, and I'd endorse making it a guideline at the very least. I say this as someone strongly opposed to BADSITES.
Cheers WilyD
On 21/11/2007, Wily D wilydoppelganger@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/21/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
Well yes, but at least one IP has recently marked that as rejected based on the assertion that it is BADSITES in all but name. Some people seem unwilling to move beyond absolutist positions.
Perhaps, but "one IP" is hardly the voice of the community. LINKLOVE looks good to me, and I'd endorse making it a guideline at the very least. I say this as someone strongly opposed to BADSITES.
And the one IP has been blocked for 24 hours for dickishness. (I was about to block, but couldn't because someone else had already.)
- d.
On Nov 21, 2007 11:56 AM, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 11:04:49 -0500, "Wily D" wilydoppelganger@gmail.com wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Linking_to_external_harassment essentially eliminates the ability to link to Wikipedia Review, which fails at least four of the five "Should I link to it?" criteria in "LINKLOVE". If people stopped pushing BADSITES and looked at something more like LINKLOVE they'd win over those of us who don't give a fuck about linking to the Wikipedia Review but are unprepared to delink slashdot.org from [[slashdot]] or newyorker.com from [[The New Yorker]]. It's probably worth considering.
Well yes, but at least one IP has recently marked that as rejected based on the assertion that it is BADSITES in all but name. Some people seem unwilling to move beyond absolutist positions.
Of course not. BADSITES was absolutist for a reason. Screaming BADSITES whenever someone deletes garbage links serves the same purpose.
On Nov 21, 2007 11:04 AM, Wily D wilydoppelganger@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/21/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 10:09:41 -0500, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
BADSITES has proven to be an extremely convenient way of distracting attention from the real issues regarding offsite harassment and non-encyclopedic links; I suspect it has worked even better than its author ever dreamed it would.
Yes, I think you are right. We had an IP turn up out of the blue yesterday and mark some current proposals as "rejected" due to BADSITES, including one that was specifically motivated by the rejection of BADSITES and seeks to do what the last ArbCom suggested, namely write a workable policy.
Of course, it is incredibly important to WR that they retain the ability to add links. Not because they want to, but because it keeps the site in the public mind. Without the constant harping it would have been forgotten by now as just another festival of stupid.
Guy (JzG)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Linking_to_external_harassment essentially eliminates the ability to link to Wikipedia Review, which fails at least four of the five "Should I link to it?" criteria in "LINKLOVE". If people stopped pushing BADSITES
Who is "pushing BADSITES"? Please name them, and show where they are doing so. I've only seen people using it as a strawman, but I might have missed a supporter somewhere.
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 11:04 AM, Wily D wilydoppelganger@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/21/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 10:09:41 -0500, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
BADSITES has proven to be an extremely convenient way of distracting attention from the real issues regarding offsite harassment and non-encyclopedic links; I suspect it has worked even better than its author ever dreamed it would.
Yes, I think you are right. We had an IP turn up out of the blue yesterday and mark some current proposals as "rejected" due to BADSITES, including one that was specifically motivated by the rejection of BADSITES and seeks to do what the last ArbCom suggested, namely write a workable policy.
Of course, it is incredibly important to WR that they retain the ability to add links. Not because they want to, but because it keeps the site in the public mind. Without the constant harping it would have been forgotten by now as just another festival of stupid.
Guy (JzG)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Linking_to_external_harassment essentially eliminates the ability to link to Wikipedia Review, which fails at least four of the five "Should I link to it?" criteria in "LINKLOVE". If people stopped pushing BADSITES
Who is "pushing BADSITES"? Please name them, and show where they are doing so. I've only seen people using it as a strawman, but I might have missed a supporter somewhere.
We've been over this. Tony, Mongo and Thuranx were all pushing for it. After BADSITES failed Mongo and Thuranx then tried to get nearly identical language in NPA. I don't think anyone is trying to do that right now, but the attempt on NPA only ended about a week ago.
On Nov 21, 2007 2:01 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 11:04 AM, Wily D wilydoppelganger@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/21/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 10:09:41 -0500, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
BADSITES has proven to be an extremely convenient way of distracting attention from the real issues regarding offsite harassment and non-encyclopedic links; I suspect it has worked even better than its author ever dreamed it would.
Yes, I think you are right. We had an IP turn up out of the blue yesterday and mark some current proposals as "rejected" due to BADSITES, including one that was specifically motivated by the rejection of BADSITES and seeks to do what the last ArbCom suggested, namely write a workable policy.
Of course, it is incredibly important to WR that they retain the ability to add links. Not because they want to, but because it keeps the site in the public mind. Without the constant harping it would have been forgotten by now as just another festival of stupid.
Guy (JzG)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Linking_to_external_harassment essentially eliminates the ability to link to Wikipedia Review, which fails at least four of the five "Should I link to it?" criteria in "LINKLOVE". If people stopped pushing BADSITES
Who is "pushing BADSITES"? Please name them, and show where they are doing so. I've only seen people using it as a strawman, but I might have missed a supporter somewhere.
We've been over this. Tony, Mongo and Thuranx were all pushing for it.
Yes, three whole editors. I don't believe any of them are admins.
After BADSITES failed Mongo and Thuranx then tried to get nearly identical language in NPA.
So it was down to two non-admins then. Did they think the language was "nearly identical", or did they think it was along the lines of LINKLOVE?
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 2:01 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 11:04 AM, Wily D wilydoppelganger@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/21/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 10:09:41 -0500, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
BADSITES has proven to be an extremely convenient way of distracting attention from the real issues regarding offsite harassment and non-encyclopedic links; I suspect it has worked even better than its author ever dreamed it would.
Yes, I think you are right. We had an IP turn up out of the blue yesterday and mark some current proposals as "rejected" due to BADSITES, including one that was specifically motivated by the rejection of BADSITES and seeks to do what the last ArbCom suggested, namely write a workable policy.
Of course, it is incredibly important to WR that they retain the ability to add links. Not because they want to, but because it keeps the site in the public mind. Without the constant harping it would have been forgotten by now as just another festival of stupid.
Guy (JzG)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Linking_to_external_harassment essentially eliminates the ability to link to Wikipedia Review, which fails at least four of the five "Should I link to it?" criteria in "LINKLOVE". If people stopped pushing BADSITES
Who is "pushing BADSITES"? Please name them, and show where they are doing so. I've only seen people using it as a strawman, but I might have missed a supporter somewhere.
We've been over this. Tony, Mongo and Thuranx were all pushing for it.
Yes, three whole editors. I don't believe any of them are admins.
Yes, three editors two of whom are prominent and are former admins with many political ties (and let's not pretend that doesn't matter), and again they were only the most prominent. You can't claim that just because none of them are admins that somehow makes it a strawman. (Incidentally, this seems to be something I'm seeing more and more often on Wikipedia and it is disturbing. People don't take policy proposals seriously from non-admins. This goes against the entire philosophy of what admins are supposed to be, janitors not senators).
After BADSITES failed Mongo and Thuranx then tried to get nearly identical language in NPA.
So it was down to two non-admins then. Did they think the language was "nearly identical", or did they think it was along the lines of LINKLOVE?
You can read the talk pages. From the description their it seemed to me that they thought it was identical to BADSITES. It entailed the banning of websites that contain anything that could be construed as harassment (After 3 weeks of arguing Mongo recently proposed something more toned down closer to LINKLOVE but still stricter than LINKLOVE and still open to the possibility of altering article space)
On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 14:21:13 -0500, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
We've been over this. Tony, Mongo and Thuranx were all pushing for it.
Yes, three whole editors. I don't believe any of them are admins.
And MONGO isn't pushing it now (hasn't for a while, as far as I can tell), and I don't recall Tony doing so recently either.
Guy (JzG)
Quoting Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net:
On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 10:09:41 -0500, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
BADSITES has proven to be an extremely convenient way of distracting attention from the real issues regarding offsite harassment and non-encyclopedic links; I suspect it has worked even better than its author ever dreamed it would.
Yes, I think you are right. We had an IP turn up out of the blue yesterday and mark some current proposals as "rejected" due to BADSITES, including one that was specifically motivated by the rejection of BADSITES and seeks to do what the last ArbCom suggested, namely write a workable policy.
Of course, it is incredibly important to WR that they retain the ability to add links. Not because they want to, but because it keeps the site in the public mind. Without the constant harping it would have been forgotten by now as just another festival of stupid.
As far as I can tell, removing WR links has generally created more drama than allowing them to stay. Removing of harassment is fine, but banning all WR links is not a good idea. It simply gives them more attention.
On Nov 21, 2007 11:54 AM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net:
On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 10:09:41 -0500, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
BADSITES has proven to be an extremely convenient way of distracting attention from the real issues regarding offsite harassment and non-encyclopedic links; I suspect it has worked even better than its author ever dreamed it would.
Yes, I think you are right. We had an IP turn up out of the blue yesterday and mark some current proposals as "rejected" due to BADSITES, including one that was specifically motivated by the rejection of BADSITES and seeks to do what the last ArbCom suggested, namely write a workable policy.
Of course, it is incredibly important to WR that they retain the ability to add links. Not because they want to, but because it keeps the site in the public mind. Without the constant harping it would have been forgotten by now as just another festival of stupid.
As far as I can tell, removing WR links has generally created more drama than allowing them to stay.
That's a pretty circular argument. I could as easily (and, in fact more accurately) say that it is the loud restoration of such links that intentionally creates the drama. The Robert Black case is a perfect example. A sockpuppet deletes the link, then another sockpuppet *conveniently shows up almost immediately* to revert, crying "REVERT BLATANT CENSORSHIP!!!!!" A respected and established admin quietly removes the link, then even more sockpuppets show up to start edit-warring with admins over it. Finally, an actual established editor and leader in the anti-BADSITES movement notices the hubbub, and shows up to edit-war over the link. Then other editors say "OMG, look at all the drama, it must be caused by that BADSITES proposal again, I can't believe all those people were proponents of it, it's such a bad idea!" Mission accomplished.
Drama plays into the hands of the anti-BADSITES proponents, just as the whole strawman policy did in the first place. That's why they insist on drama.
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 11:54 AM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net:
On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 10:09:41 -0500, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
BADSITES has proven to be an extremely convenient way of distracting attention from the real issues regarding offsite harassment and non-encyclopedic links; I suspect it has worked even better than its author ever dreamed it would.
Yes, I think you are right. We had an IP turn up out of the blue yesterday and mark some current proposals as "rejected" due to BADSITES, including one that was specifically motivated by the rejection of BADSITES and seeks to do what the last ArbCom suggested, namely write a workable policy.
Of course, it is incredibly important to WR that they retain the ability to add links. Not because they want to, but because it keeps the site in the public mind. Without the constant harping it would have been forgotten by now as just another festival of stupid.
As far as I can tell, removing WR links has generally created more drama than allowing them to stay.
That's a pretty circular argument. I could as easily (and, in fact more accurately) say that it is the loud restoration of such links that intentionally creates the drama. The Robert Black case is a perfect example. A sockpuppet deletes the link, then another sockpuppet *conveniently shows up almost immediately* to revert, crying "REVERT BLATANT CENSORSHIP!!!!!" A respected and established admin quietly removes the link, then even more sockpuppets show up to start edit-warring with admins over it. Finally, an actual established editor and leader in the anti-BADSITES movement notices the hubbub, and shows up to edit-war over the link. Then other editors say "OMG, look at all the drama, it must be caused by that BADSITES proposal again, I can't believe all those people were proponents of it, it's such a bad idea!" Mission accomplished.
Drama plays into the hands of the anti-BADSITES proponents, just as the whole strawman policy did in the first place. That's why they insist on drama.
I'm confused, after drama was ongoing how did a "A respected and established admin" quietly remove the link? That was just as much part of the edit-warring and drama as another comment.
Furthermore, this isn't the only example. I'd love to see for example an explanation of how the Making Lights fiasco was somehow a result of the "anti-BADSITES proponents". (Incidentally, as someone who was and remains strongly opposed to BADSITES I object to your characterization of such editors as part of an amorphous "they" who desire "drama").
On Nov 21, 2007 1:12 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 11:54 AM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net:
On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 10:09:41 -0500, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
BADSITES has proven to be an extremely convenient way of distracting attention from the real issues regarding offsite harassment and non-encyclopedic links; I suspect it has worked even better than its author ever dreamed it would.
Yes, I think you are right. We had an IP turn up out of the blue yesterday and mark some current proposals as "rejected" due to BADSITES, including one that was specifically motivated by the rejection of BADSITES and seeks to do what the last ArbCom suggested, namely write a workable policy.
Of course, it is incredibly important to WR that they retain the ability to add links. Not because they want to, but because it keeps the site in the public mind. Without the constant harping it would have been forgotten by now as just another festival of stupid.
As far as I can tell, removing WR links has generally created more drama than allowing them to stay.
That's a pretty circular argument. I could as easily (and, in fact more accurately) say that it is the loud restoration of such links that intentionally creates the drama. The Robert Black case is a perfect example. A sockpuppet deletes the link, then another sockpuppet *conveniently shows up almost immediately* to revert, crying "REVERT BLATANT CENSORSHIP!!!!!" A respected and established admin quietly removes the link, then even more sockpuppets show up to start edit-warring with admins over it. Finally, an actual established editor and leader in the anti-BADSITES movement notices the hubbub, and shows up to edit-war over the link. Then other editors say "OMG, look at all the drama, it must be caused by that BADSITES proposal again, I can't believe all those people were proponents of it, it's such a bad idea!" Mission accomplished.
Drama plays into the hands of the anti-BADSITES proponents, just as the whole strawman policy did in the first place. That's why they insist on drama.
I'm confused, after drama was ongoing how did a "A respected and established admin" quietly remove the link? That was just as much part of the edit-warring and drama as another comment.
When sockpuppets edit war for the purpose of drawing and creating attention it's one thing. When an admin steps in and takes action to revert the actions of a banned editor, it's another. By your definition any admin who takes action against a banned editor could also be accused of creating drama.
Furthermore, this isn't the only example. I'd love to see for example an explanation of how the Making Lights fiasco was somehow a result of the "anti-BADSITES proponents".
I'm not sure I understand this point.
(Incidentally, as someone who was and remains strongly opposed to BADSITES I object to your characterization of such editors as part of an amorphous "they" who desire "drama").
"BADSITES" itself is the rallying cry. So far we seem to have a whole bunch of people who have been going around for months now VERY LOUDLY "opposing" something that was proposed as a strawman, and apparently supported as policy by one editor.
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 1:12 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 11:54 AM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net:
On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 10:09:41 -0500, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
BADSITES has proven to be an extremely convenient way of distracting attention from the real issues regarding offsite harassment and non-encyclopedic links; I suspect it has worked even better than its author ever dreamed it would.
Yes, I think you are right. We had an IP turn up out of the blue yesterday and mark some current proposals as "rejected" due to BADSITES, including one that was specifically motivated by the rejection of BADSITES and seeks to do what the last ArbCom suggested, namely write a workable policy.
Of course, it is incredibly important to WR that they retain the ability to add links. Not because they want to, but because it keeps the site in the public mind. Without the constant harping it would have been forgotten by now as just another festival of stupid.
As far as I can tell, removing WR links has generally created more drama than allowing them to stay.
That's a pretty circular argument. I could as easily (and, in fact more accurately) say that it is the loud restoration of such links that intentionally creates the drama. The Robert Black case is a perfect example. A sockpuppet deletes the link, then another sockpuppet *conveniently shows up almost immediately* to revert, crying "REVERT BLATANT CENSORSHIP!!!!!" A respected and established admin quietly removes the link, then even more sockpuppets show up to start edit-warring with admins over it. Finally, an actual established editor and leader in the anti-BADSITES movement notices the hubbub, and shows up to edit-war over the link. Then other editors say "OMG, look at all the drama, it must be caused by that BADSITES proposal again, I can't believe all those people were proponents of it, it's such a bad idea!" Mission accomplished.
Drama plays into the hands of the anti-BADSITES proponents, just as the whole strawman policy did in the first place. That's why they insist on drama.
I'm confused, after drama was ongoing how did a "A respected and established admin" quietly remove the link? That was just as much part of the edit-warring and drama as another comment.
When sockpuppets edit war for the purpose of drawing and creating attention it's one thing. When an admin steps in and takes action to revert the actions of a banned editor, it's another. By your definition any admin who takes action against a banned editor could also be accused of creating drama.
That wasn't the claim made earlier. You didn't say that it was removal due to it being by a banned editor. In fact the edit summaries don't say anything of the sort. That's a distinct argument from claiming that the admin wasn't part of the same edit warring (and regardless I see nothing that was somehow "quiet" about those edits).
Furthermore, this isn't the only example. I'd love to see for example an explanation of how the Making Lights fiasco was somehow a result of the "anti-BADSITES proponents".
I'm not sure I understand this point.
It is relevant to the original point at the start of this subthread. If you recall, the assertion was made that often the act of removing links creates more drama than it helps with two examples, Black's blog and Making Lights. You asserted that wasn't the case and that the drama in such situations was the fault of the "anti-BADSITES proponents". I'm attempting to understand how the Making Lights problem was caused by the "anti-BADSITES proponents".
(Incidentally, as someone who was and remains strongly opposed to BADSITES I object to your characterization of such editors as part of an amorphous "they" who desire "drama").
"BADSITES" itself is the rallying cry. So far we seem to have a whole bunch of people who have been going around for months now VERY LOUDLY "opposing" something that was proposed as a strawman, and apparently supported as policy by one editor.
We have quite a few more editors than a single one. The fact is that many people are understandably worried that something like BADSITES is going to continue either as policy or as de facto behavior. I do wish that people wouldn't focus so much on BADSITES and indeed most reasonable editors aren't doing so. But as long as the specter remains people are going to be understandably upset. As soon as we get LINKLOVE approved (that name does sound very Orwellian, can we get a better shortcut?) this will die out.
On Nov 21, 2007 1:57 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 1:12 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 11:54 AM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net:
On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 10:09:41 -0500, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
> BADSITES has proven to be an extremely convenient way of distracting > attention from the real issues regarding offsite harassment and > non-encyclopedic links; I suspect it has worked even better than its > author ever dreamed it would.
Yes, I think you are right. We had an IP turn up out of the blue yesterday and mark some current proposals as "rejected" due to BADSITES, including one that was specifically motivated by the rejection of BADSITES and seeks to do what the last ArbCom suggested, namely write a workable policy.
Of course, it is incredibly important to WR that they retain the ability to add links. Not because they want to, but because it keeps the site in the public mind. Without the constant harping it would have been forgotten by now as just another festival of stupid.
As far as I can tell, removing WR links has generally created more drama than allowing them to stay.
That's a pretty circular argument. I could as easily (and, in fact more accurately) say that it is the loud restoration of such links that intentionally creates the drama. The Robert Black case is a perfect example. A sockpuppet deletes the link, then another sockpuppet *conveniently shows up almost immediately* to revert, crying "REVERT BLATANT CENSORSHIP!!!!!" A respected and established admin quietly removes the link, then even more sockpuppets show up to start edit-warring with admins over it. Finally, an actual established editor and leader in the anti-BADSITES movement notices the hubbub, and shows up to edit-war over the link. Then other editors say "OMG, look at all the drama, it must be caused by that BADSITES proposal again, I can't believe all those people were proponents of it, it's such a bad idea!" Mission accomplished.
Drama plays into the hands of the anti-BADSITES proponents, just as the whole strawman policy did in the first place. That's why they insist on drama.
I'm confused, after drama was ongoing how did a "A respected and established admin" quietly remove the link? That was just as much part of the edit-warring and drama as another comment.
When sockpuppets edit war for the purpose of drawing and creating attention it's one thing. When an admin steps in and takes action to revert the actions of a banned editor, it's another. By your definition any admin who takes action against a banned editor could also be accused of creating drama.
That wasn't the claim made earlier. You didn't say that it was removal due to it being by a banned editor. In fact the edit summaries don't say anything of the sort.
I beg to differ:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robert_Black_%28professor%29&d...
"Rm edits from banned user." were the first words of the edit summary. That was the first admin action taken on the issue.
That's a distinct argument from claiming that the admin wasn't part of the same edit warring (and regardless I see nothing that was somehow "quiet" about those edits).
When an admin steps in to remove the edits of a banned editor, or indeed takes action where two SPA sockpuppets are edit-warring, it's not creating drama.
Furthermore, this isn't the only example. I'd love to see for example an explanation of how the Making Lights fiasco was somehow a result of the "anti-BADSITES proponents".
I'm not sure I understand this point.
It is relevant to the original point at the start of this subthread. If you recall, the assertion was made that often the act of removing links creates more drama than it helps with two examples, Black's blog and Making Lights. You asserted that wasn't the case and that the drama in such situations was the fault of the "anti-BADSITES proponents". I'm attempting to understand how the Making Lights problem was caused by the "anti-BADSITES proponents".
Well, the original action wasn't, of course, but the constant flag-waving by the "anti-BADSITES proponents" of an error made long ago and quickly rectified and apologized for, is, of course, designed for heat not light. People make mistakes, even when applying actual policies - for example, people are regularly blocked for 3RR when they haven't actually violated 3RR. We don't then repeatedly bring up those mistakes as "proof" that the policies are bad.
(Incidentally, as someone who was and remains strongly opposed to BADSITES I object to your characterization of such editors as part of an amorphous "they" who desire "drama").
"BADSITES" itself is the rallying cry. So far we seem to have a whole bunch of people who have been going around for months now VERY LOUDLY "opposing" something that was proposed as a strawman, and apparently supported as policy by one editor.
We have quite a few more editors than a single one. The fact is that many people are understandably worried that something like BADSITES is going to continue either as policy or as de facto behavior. I do wish that people wouldn't focus so much on BADSITES and indeed most reasonable editors aren't doing so.
Then why does it keep being mentioned again and again and again?
But as long as the specter remains people are going to be understandably upset.
No, not understandably. It was a strawman, plain and simple, that was never policy. It's been used quite effectively for months now, but only as a strawman (or a rallying cry).
As soon as we get LINKLOVE approved (that name does sound very Orwellian, can we get a better shortcut?) this will die out.
Right, the policy created by banned sockpuppets and IP editors. That's how effective that BADSITES strawman was, actual policy editors can't even go near any policy pages attempting to deal with outside harassment any more.
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 1:57 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 1:12 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 11:54 AM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net:
> On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 10:09:41 -0500, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote: > >> BADSITES has proven to be an extremely convenient way of
distracting
>> attention from the real issues regarding offsite harassment and >> non-encyclopedic links; I suspect it has worked even better
than its
>> author ever dreamed it would. > > Yes, I think you are right. We had an IP turn up out of the blue > yesterday and mark some current proposals as "rejected" due to > BADSITES, including one that was specifically motivated by the > rejection of BADSITES and seeks to do what the last ArbCom > suggested, namely write a workable policy. > > Of course, it is incredibly important to WR that they retain the > ability to add links. Not because they want to, but because it > keeps the site in the public mind. Without the constant harping it > would have been forgotten by now as just another festival of stupid.
As far as I can tell, removing WR links has generally created more drama than allowing them to stay.
That's a pretty circular argument. I could as easily (and, in fact more accurately) say that it is the loud restoration of such links that intentionally creates the drama. The Robert Black case is a perfect example. A sockpuppet deletes the link, then another sockpuppet *conveniently shows up almost immediately* to revert, crying "REVERT BLATANT CENSORSHIP!!!!!" A respected and established admin quietly removes the link, then even more sockpuppets show up to start edit-warring with admins over it. Finally, an actual established editor and leader in the anti-BADSITES movement notices the hubbub, and shows up to edit-war over the link. Then other editors say "OMG, look at all the drama, it must be caused by that BADSITES proposal again, I can't believe all those people were proponents of it, it's such a bad idea!" Mission accomplished.
Drama plays into the hands of the anti-BADSITES proponents, just as the whole strawman policy did in the first place. That's why they insist on drama.
I'm confused, after drama was ongoing how did a "A respected and
established
admin" quietly remove the link? That was just as much part of the edit-warring and drama as another comment.
When sockpuppets edit war for the purpose of drawing and creating attention it's one thing. When an admin steps in and takes action to revert the actions of a banned editor, it's another. By your definition any admin who takes action against a banned editor could also be accused of creating drama.
That wasn't the claim made earlier. You didn't say that it was removal due to it being by a banned editor. In fact the edit summaries don't say anything of the sort.
I beg to differ:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robert_Black_%28professor%29&d...
"Rm edits from banned user." were the first words of the edit summary. That was the first admin action taken on the issue.
I stand corrected. In any event the point- removal of an edit by a banned user is distinct from the original claim and in any event is not "quiet".
That's a distinct argument from claiming that the admin wasn't part of the same edit warring (and regardless I see nothing that was somehow "quiet" about those edits).
When an admin steps in to remove the edits of a banned editor, or indeed takes action where two SPA sockpuppets are edit-warring, it's not creating drama.
It can be when not done with appropriate foresight (and the fact that Will Beback then argued for the blog's removal after it was again inserted didn't exactly reduce the drama levels).
Furthermore, this isn't the only example. I'd love to see for example an explanation of how the Making Lights fiasco was somehow a result of the "anti-BADSITES proponents".
I'm not sure I understand this point.
It is relevant to the original point at the start of this subthread. If you recall, the assertion was made that often the act of removing links creates more drama than it helps with two examples, Black's blog and Making Lights. You asserted that wasn't the case and that the drama in such situations was the fault of the "anti-BADSITES proponents". I'm attempting to understand how the Making Lights problem was caused by the "anti-BADSITES proponents".
Well, the original action wasn't, of course, but the constant flag-waving by the "anti-BADSITES proponents" of an error made long ago and quickly rectified and apologized for, is, of course, designed for heat not light. People make mistakes, even when applying actual policies - for example, people are regularly blocked for 3RR when they haven't actually violated 3RR. We don't then repeatedly bring up those mistakes as "proof" that the policies are bad.
See David's reponse to this. The fact hat Will seemed to maintain well after the fact that this was still a problem and the fact that Tony, Mongo and Thuranx continued to push for some form of BADSITES means that it wasn't nearly as much a strawman or as dead as it should have been.
(Incidentally, as someone who was and remains strongly opposed to BADSITES I object to your characterization of such editors as part of an amorphous "they" who desire "drama").
"BADSITES" itself is the rallying cry. So far we seem to have a whole bunch of people who have been going around for months now VERY LOUDLY "opposing" something that was proposed as a strawman, and apparently supported as policy by one editor.
We have quite a few more editors than a single one. The fact is that many people are understandably worried that something like BADSITES is going to continue either as policy or as de facto behavior. I do wish that people wouldn't focus so much on BADSITES and indeed most reasonable editors aren't doing so.
Then why does it keep being mentioned again and again and again?
Again, because people are worried. Look at the history and talk page of NPA where we've had repeated attempts now to insert language very similar to the original BADSITES language. It is getting mentioned because to some extent people have been (at least until a few days ago) pushing for it.
But as long as the specter remains people are going to be understandably upset.
No, not understandably. It was a strawman, plain and simple, that was never policy. It's been used quite effectively for months now, but only as a strawman (or a rallying cry).
Um, what? It is hardly a strawman when two former admins are strongly supporting it.
As soon as we get LINKLOVE approved (that name does sound very Orwellian, can we get a better shortcut?) this will die out.
Right, the policy created by banned sockpuppets and IP editors. That's how effective that BADSITES strawman was, actual policy editors can't even go near any policy pages attempting to deal with outside harassment any more.
What do you mean? David Gerard and others have had no problem discussing this. And frankly, who made a policy has nothing to do with whether or not it is a good idea. Daniel Brandt could say "1+1=2" and the fact that it came from Brandt would have nothing to do with whether or not the statement is true.
On Nov 21, 2007 2:31 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
That's a distinct argument from claiming that the admin wasn't part of the same edit warring (and regardless I see nothing that was somehow "quiet" about those edits).
When an admin steps in to remove the edits of a banned editor, or indeed takes action where two SPA sockpuppets are edit-warring, it's not creating drama.
It can be when not done with appropriate foresight (and the fact that Will Beback then argued for the blog's removal after it was again inserted didn't exactly reduce the drama levels).
The Making Lights blog? Look, I don't think either of us can accurately present Will's views or actions on this, and I think at this point it's just flogging a dead (albeit useful in a strawman way) horse.
Furthermore, this isn't the only example. I'd love to see for example an explanation of how the Making Lights fiasco was somehow a result of the "anti-BADSITES proponents".
I'm not sure I understand this point.
It is relevant to the original point at the start of this subthread. If you recall, the assertion was made that often the act of removing links creates more drama than it helps with two examples, Black's blog and Making Lights. You asserted that wasn't the case and that the drama in such situations was the fault of the "anti-BADSITES proponents". I'm attempting to understand how the Making Lights problem was caused by the "anti-BADSITES proponents".
Well, the original action wasn't, of course, but the constant flag-waving by the "anti-BADSITES proponents" of an error made long ago and quickly rectified and apologized for, is, of course, designed for heat not light. People make mistakes, even when applying actual policies - for example, people are regularly blocked for 3RR when they haven't actually violated 3RR. We don't then repeatedly bring up those mistakes as "proof" that the policies are bad.
See David's reponse to this. The fact hat Will seemed to maintain well after the fact that this was still a problem and the fact that Tony, Mongo and Thuranx continued to push for some form of BADSITES means that it wasn't nearly as much a strawman or as dead as it should have been.
See above. Dead horse, three non-admins.
Yes, three editors two of whom are prominent and are former admins with many political ties (and let's not pretend that doesn't matter), and again they were only the most prominent.
Insisting that editors are "prominent" and have "many political ties" feeds into the conspiratorial worldview promulgated by banned users on less than savory websites. Please don't try to build these people up into some frightening powerful force; they're just 3 editors, no less, but certainly no more.
You can't claim that just because none of them are admins that somehow makes it a strawman. (Incidentally, this seems to be something I'm seeing more and more often on Wikipedia and it is disturbing. People don't take policy proposals seriously from non-admins. This goes against the entire philosophy of what admins are supposed to be, janitors not senators).
Admins are trusted, longtime editors. You can't on the one hand insist that some editors are "former admins with political ties" and on the other insist that adminship is no big deal and everyone is equal.
(Incidentally, as someone who was and remains strongly opposed to BADSITES I object to your characterization of such editors as part of an amorphous "they" who desire "drama").
"BADSITES" itself is the rallying cry. So far we seem to have a whole bunch of people who have been going around for months now VERY LOUDLY "opposing" something that was proposed as a strawman, and apparently supported as policy by one editor.
We have quite a few more editors than a single one. The fact is that many people are understandably worried that something like BADSITES is going to continue either as policy or as de facto behavior. I do wish that people wouldn't focus so much on BADSITES and indeed most reasonable editors aren't doing so.
Then why does it keep being mentioned again and again and again?
Again, because people are worried.
If they were just worried, they'd simply make rational arguments. Constant cries of BADSITES and of "remember the Making Light incident!" are ways of short-circuiting rational thought.
Look at the history and talk page of NPA where we've had repeated attempts now to insert language very similar to the original BADSITES language. It is getting mentioned because to some extent people have been (at least until a few days ago) pushing for it.
In your view I'm sure that it's "very similar to the BADSITES language". How do the proponents view it, though? How do outside observers view it? Is it close to BADSITES, or close to LOVELINKS, or somewhere in between? There's no question that Wikipedia needs to find an effective way of dealing with harassment of its volunteers; as long as Wikipedia is a top 10 website, and remains "The encyclopedia anybody can edit", this will remain a problem.
After BADSITES failed Mongo and Thuranx then tried to get nearly identical language in NPA.
So it was down to two non-admins then. Did they think the language was "nearly identical", or did they think it was along the lines of LINKLOVE?
You can read the talk pages. From the description their it seemed to me that they thought it was identical to BADSITES.
I'd rather let them speak for themselves, rather than have their opponents speak for them.
It entailed the banning of websites that contain anything that could be construed as harassment (After 3 weeks of arguing Mongo recently proposed something more toned down closer to LINKLOVE but still stricter than LINKLOVE and still open to the possibility of altering article space)
Ah, the dreaded MONGO. Well, I can see why you're concerned, after all, what if he does decide to try to alter policy again? He's so scary with the BADSITES stuff, I think we should have an Arbcom case about it.
Oh, wait...
But as long as the specter remains people are going to be understandably upset.
No, not understandably. It was a strawman, plain and simple, that was never policy. It's been used quite effectively for months now, but only as a strawman (or a rallying cry).
Um, what? It is hardly a strawman when two former admins are strongly supporting it.
Did you read what you said? "Two former admins are strongly supporting it". There are over 1,000 admins on Wikipedia, and you've come up with two former admins, who aren't even supporting BADSITES, but rather something you've labelled as BADSITES.
As soon as we get LINKLOVE approved (that name does sound very Orwellian, can we get a better shortcut?) this will die out.
Right, the policy created by banned sockpuppets and IP editors. That's how effective that BADSITES strawman was, actual policy editors can't even go near any policy pages attempting to deal with outside harassment any more.
What do you mean? David Gerard and others have had no problem discussing this.
Because no-one is going to accusing David of being a Communist, err, BADSITES supporter.
And frankly, who made a policy has nothing to do with whether or not it is a good idea. Daniel Brandt could say "1+1=2" and the fact that it came from Brandt would have nothing to do with whether or not the statement is true.
It's a bad idea to have sockpuppets of banned editors writing our policies; that should be common sense, I would think.
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 2:31 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
That's a distinct argument from claiming that the admin wasn't part of the same edit warring (and regardless I see nothing that was
somehow "quiet"
about those edits).
When an admin steps in to remove the edits of a banned editor, or indeed takes action where two SPA sockpuppets are edit-warring, it's not creating drama.
It can be when not done with appropriate foresight (and the fact that Will Beback then argued for the blog's removal after it was again inserted didn't exactly reduce the drama levels).
The Making Lights blog? Look, I don't think either of us can accurately present Will's views or actions on this, and I think at this point it's just flogging a dead (albeit useful in a strawman way) horse.
It isn't much of a dead horse as I'd like it to be. See the archived emails where Will discussed this most recently and see the interaction with David.
Furthermore, this isn't the only example. I'd love to see for
example an
explanation of how the Making Lights fiasco was somehow a
result of the
"anti-BADSITES proponents".
I'm not sure I understand this point.
It is relevant to the original point at the start of this
subthread. If you
recall, the assertion was made that often the act of removing
links creates
more drama than it helps with two examples, Black's blog and Making Lights. You asserted that wasn't the case and that the drama in such
situations was the
fault of the "anti-BADSITES proponents". I'm attempting to understand how the Making Lights problem was caused by the "anti-BADSITES proponents".
Well, the original action wasn't, of course, but the constant flag-waving by the "anti-BADSITES proponents" of an error made long ago and quickly rectified and apologized for, is, of course, designed for heat not light. People make mistakes, even when applying actual policies - for example, people are regularly blocked for 3RR when they haven't actually violated 3RR. We don't then repeatedly bring up those mistakes as "proof" that the policies are bad.
See David's reponse to this. The fact hat Will seemed to maintain well after the fact that this was still a problem and the fact that Tony, Mongo and Thuranx continued to push for some form of BADSITES means that it wasn't nearly as much a strawman or as dead as it should have been.
See above. Dead horse, three non-admins.
Yes, three editors two of whom are prominent and are former admins with many political ties (and let's not pretend that doesn't matter), and again they were only the most prominent.
Insisting that editors are "prominent" and have "many political ties" feeds into the conspiratorial worldview promulgated by banned users on less than savory websites. Please don't try to build these people up into some frightening powerful force; they're just 3 editors, no less, but certainly no more.
It doesn't require conspiracy mongering to see that some editors are more influential than others and that some have more political ties than others (I should know. I'm an influential editor with a variety of political ties).
You can't claim that just because none of them are admins that somehow makes it a strawman. (Incidentally, this seems to be something I'm seeing more and more often on Wikipedia and it is disturbing. People don't take policy proposals seriously from non-admins. This goes against the entire philosophy of what admins are supposed to be, janitors not senators).
Admins are trusted, longtime editors. You can't on the one hand insist that some editors are "former admins with political ties" and on the other insist that adminship is no big deal and everyone is equal.
Hey, it isn't my fault life is complicated. Non-admins should be taken seriously, that doesn't mean that a policy advocated by admins or former admins isn't going to have a much better chance of getting accepted.
(Incidentally, as someone who was and remains strongly opposed to BADSITES I object to your characterization of such editors as part of an amorphous "they" who desire "drama").
"BADSITES" itself is the rallying cry. So far we seem to have a whole bunch of people who have been going around for months now VERY LOUDLY "opposing" something that was proposed as a strawman, and apparently supported as policy by one editor.
We have quite a few more editors than a single one. The fact is that many people are understandably worried that something like BADSITES is going
to continue
either as policy or as de facto behavior. I do wish that people wouldn't focus so much on BADSITES and indeed most reasonable editors aren't doing so.
Then why does it keep being mentioned again and again and again?
Again, because people are worried.
If they were just worried, they'd simply make rational arguments. Constant cries of BADSITES and of "remember the Making Light incident!" are ways of short-circuiting rational thought.
No, they are a way of saying "Hey look. We had this really bad example that got us bad press and made a number of our natural supporters such as Cory Doctorow really unhappy with us. And it harmed our uncyclopedia content. Let's be careful that new policies don't have the same problem."
Look at the history and talk page of NPA where we've had repeated attempts now to insert language very similar to the original BADSITES language. It is getting mentioned because to some extent people have been (at least until a few days ago) pushing for it.
In your view I'm sure that it's "very similar to the BADSITES language". How do the proponents view it, though? How do outside observers view it? Is it close to BADSITES, or close to LOVELINKS, or somewhere in between? There's no question that Wikipedia needs to find an effective way of dealing with harassment of its volunteers; as long as Wikipedia is a top 10 website, and remains "The encyclopedia anybody can edit", this will remain a problem.
I have an idea. Why don't you look at what Mongo et al. said on the talk page and then see if you can point to any way that anyone would think it was at all different.
After BADSITES failed Mongo and Thuranx then tried to get nearly identical language in NPA.
So it was down to two non-admins then. Did they think the language was "nearly identical", or did they think it was along the lines of LINKLOVE?
You can read the talk pages. From the description their it seemed to me that they thought it was identical to BADSITES.
I'd rather let them speak for themselves, rather than have their opponents speak for them.
Ok, so why not ask them?
It entailed the banning of websites that contain anything that could be construed as harassment (After 3 weeks of arguing Mongo recently proposed something more toned down closer to LINKLOVE but still stricter than LINKLOVE and still open to the possibility of altering article space)
Ah, the dreaded MONGO. Well, I can see why you're concerned, after all, what if he does decide to try to alter policy again? He's so scary with the BADSITES stuff, I think we should have an Arbcom case about it.
Oh, wait...
The sarcasm is less than helpful. I didn't say Mongo was scary. If it had been Tony or anyone else I'd have an almost identical reaction.
But as long as the specter remains people are going to be understandably upset.
No, not understandably. It was a strawman, plain and simple, that was never policy. It's been used quite effectively for months now, but only as a strawman (or a rallying cry).
Um, what? It is hardly a strawman when two former admins are strongly supporting it.
Did you read what you said? "Two former admins are strongly supporting it". There are over 1,000 admins on Wikipedia, and you've come up with two former admins, who aren't even supporting BADSITES, but rather something you've labelled as BADSITES.
Gah. Both supported BADSITES. Read above and look at their talk page comments. When BADSITES failed Mongo supported something which was functionally identical to BADSITES. And considering of 1000 admins what fraction are active on most policy pages (50 at most?) 2 isn't a non-trivial amount. Keep in mind that I'm not arguing that there was a majority for it, merely that there were people who were established editors who didn't see it as a strawman.
As soon as we get LINKLOVE approved (that name does sound very Orwellian, can we get a better shortcut?) this will die out.
Right, the policy created by banned sockpuppets and IP editors. That's how effective that BADSITES strawman was, actual policy editors can't even go near any policy pages attempting to deal with outside harassment any more.
What do you mean? David Gerard and others have had no problem discussing this.
Because no-one is going to accusing David of being a Communist, err, BADSITES supporter.
Um, what? Is this some sort of claim that BADSITES proponents are being Mcarthied? Forgive me if I don't see much evidence for that claim.
And frankly, who made a policy has nothing to do with whether or not it is a good idea. Daniel Brandt could say "1+1=2" and the fact that it came from Brandt would have nothing to do with whether or not the statement is true.
It's a bad idea to have sockpuppets of banned editors writing our policies; that should be common sense, I would think.
Yes, but if a user is banned happens to propose a kerner of a good idea there's no need to reject it based on the who it came from. (And point of fact PM is not a sockpuppet of a banned user so...)
On Nov 21, 2007 6:10 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
> Furthermore, this isn't the only example. I'd love to see for
example an
> explanation of how the Making Lights fiasco was somehow a
result of the
> "anti-BADSITES proponents".
I'm not sure I understand this point.
It is relevant to the original point at the start of this
subthread. If you
recall, the assertion was made that often the act of removing
links creates
more drama than it helps with two examples, Black's blog and Making Lights. You asserted that wasn't the case and that the drama in such
situations was the
fault of the "anti-BADSITES proponents". I'm attempting to understand how the Making Lights problem was caused by the "anti-BADSITES proponents".
Well, the original action wasn't, of course, but the constant flag-waving by the "anti-BADSITES proponents" of an error made long ago and quickly rectified and apologized for, is, of course, designed for heat not light. People make mistakes, even when applying actual policies - for example, people are regularly blocked for 3RR when they haven't actually violated 3RR. We don't then repeatedly bring up those mistakes as "proof" that the policies are bad.
See David's reponse to this. The fact hat Will seemed to maintain well after the fact that this was still a problem and the fact that Tony, Mongo and Thuranx continued to push for some form of BADSITES means that it wasn't nearly as much a strawman or as dead as it should have been.
See above. Dead horse, three non-admins.
Yes, three editors two of whom are prominent and are former admins with many political ties (and let's not pretend that doesn't matter), and again they were only the most prominent.
Insisting that editors are "prominent" and have "many political ties" feeds into the conspiratorial worldview promulgated by banned users on less than savory websites. Please don't try to build these people up into some frightening powerful force; they're just 3 editors, no less, but certainly no more.
It doesn't require conspiracy mongering to see that some editors are more influential than others and that some have more political ties than others (I should know. I'm an influential editor with a variety of political ties).
Um, o.k. It still seems to pretty much boil down to MONGO the scary.
> (Incidentally, as someone who was and remains > strongly opposed to BADSITES I object to your characterization of > such editors > as part of an amorphous "they" who desire "drama").
"BADSITES" itself is the rallying cry. So far we seem to have a whole bunch of people who have been going around for months now VERY LOUDLY "opposing" something that was proposed as a strawman, and apparently supported as policy by one editor.
We have quite a few more editors than a single one. The fact is that many people are understandably worried that something like BADSITES is going
to continue
either as policy or as de facto behavior. I do wish that people wouldn't focus so much on BADSITES and indeed most reasonable editors aren't doing so.
Then why does it keep being mentioned again and again and again?
Again, because people are worried.
If they were just worried, they'd simply make rational arguments. Constant cries of BADSITES and of "remember the Making Light incident!" are ways of short-circuiting rational thought.
No, they are a way of saying "Hey look. We had this really bad example that got us bad press and made a number of our natural supporters such as Cory Doctorow really unhappy with us. And it harmed our uncyclopedia content. Let's be careful that new policies don't have the same problem."
Bad press? New York Times, that sort of thing? It looked like a tempest in a teapot to me. It's true, we are a top 10 website, but I think it tends to make us think our little wikidramas are far more public than they really are. Believe me, the press (and certainly academia) aren't going to start thinking our articles are well-written or trustworthy based on whether or not we link to some conspiracy theorist's blog. Really.
Look at the history and talk page of NPA where we've had repeated attempts now to insert language very similar to the original BADSITES language. It is getting mentioned because to some extent people have been (at least until a few days ago) pushing for it.
In your view I'm sure that it's "very similar to the BADSITES language". How do the proponents view it, though? How do outside observers view it? Is it close to BADSITES, or close to LOVELINKS, or somewhere in between? There's no question that Wikipedia needs to find an effective way of dealing with harassment of its volunteers; as long as Wikipedia is a top 10 website, and remains "The encyclopedia anybody can edit", this will remain a problem.
I have an idea. Why don't you look at what Mongo et al. said on the talk page and then see if you can point to any way that anyone would think it was at all different.
MONGO again. Lesse, he posts to the talk page, and within five hours Dtobias shows up crying BADSITES! That pretty much shuts down rational discussion. Oh, and Dan provides yet another link to his essay "Why BADSITES is bad policy". Some more back and forth, and then WR regular Viridae opens an ArbCom case about MONGO in an attempt to shut down dissent, err, sorry, I mean discuss perceived behavioral issues.
After BADSITES failed Mongo and Thuranx then tried to get nearly identical language in NPA.
So it was down to two non-admins then. Did they think the language was "nearly identical", or did they think it was along the lines of LINKLOVE?
You can read the talk pages. From the description their it seemed to me that they thought it was identical to BADSITES.
I'd rather let them speak for themselves, rather than have their opponents speak for them.
Ok, so why not ask them?
I don't regularly correspond with either, and I'm not tempted to speak on their behalf. I was suggesting that others not attempt this either.
But as long as the specter remains people are going to be understandably upset.
No, not understandably. It was a strawman, plain and simple, that was never policy. It's been used quite effectively for months now, but only as a strawman (or a rallying cry).
Um, what? It is hardly a strawman when two former admins are strongly supporting it.
Did you read what you said? "Two former admins are strongly supporting it". There are over 1,000 admins on Wikipedia, and you've come up with two former admins, who aren't even supporting BADSITES, but rather something you've labelled as BADSITES.
Gah. Both supported BADSITES. Read above and look at their talk page comments. When BADSITES failed Mongo supported something which was functionally identical to BADSITES.
From your anti-BADSITES perspective.
And considering of 1000 admins what fraction are active on most policy pages (50 at most?) 2 isn't a non-trivial amount.
2 *non*-admins. Out of many thousands of editors.
Keep in mind that I'm not arguing that there was a majority for it, merely that there were people who were established editors who didn't see it as a strawman.
Yes, it fooled a number of people. It seems to me it fooled far more people on the anti-BADSITES side than on the pro; the former have certainly gotten vastly more mileage out of it.
As soon as we get LINKLOVE approved (that name does sound very Orwellian, can we get a better shortcut?) this will die out.
Right, the policy created by banned sockpuppets and IP editors. That's how effective that BADSITES strawman was, actual policy editors can't even go near any policy pages attempting to deal with outside harassment any more.
What do you mean? David Gerard and others have had no problem discussing this.
Because no-one is going to accusing David of being a Communist, err, BADSITES supporter.
Um, what? Is this some sort of claim that BADSITES proponents are being Mcarthied? Forgive me if I don't see much evidence for that claim.
I don't think you would be particularly sensitive to it, given your own feelings on the matter.
And frankly, who made a policy has nothing to do with whether or not it is a good idea. Daniel Brandt could say "1+1=2" and the fact that it came from Brandt would have nothing to do with whether or not the statement is true.
It's a bad idea to have sockpuppets of banned editors writing our policies; that should be common sense, I would think.
Yes, but if a user is banned happens to propose a kerner of a good idea there's no need to reject it based on the who it came from.
But it wasn't proposing a kernel of a good idea, it was dozens of edits to create a policy.
(And point of fact PM is not a sockpuppet of a banned user so...)
User:BenB4 was, and he created the page, and was by far the single largest contributor to the page, so...
As for PM, that's only a technicality; he was a sockpuppet, and only unbanned so he could participate in an ArbCom case about his banning.
jayjg wrote:
On Nov 21, 2007 6:10 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 2:31 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 1:57 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com: > On Nov 21, 2007 1:12 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote: >> Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com: >>> On Nov 21, 2007 11:54 AM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote: >>>>> ...
In seriousness, I think the moderators should consider putting jayjg and Joshua on moderation for 36 hours or so, so that they -- and the rest of us -- can enjoy the holiday in peace, without feeling compelled to respond to every minute twist in this tendentious and unstoppable argument with ever-more-tedious ripostes...
On 22/11/2007, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
In seriousness, I think the moderators should consider putting jayjg and Joshua on moderation for 36 hours or so, so that they -- and the rest of us -- can enjoy the holiday in peace, without feeling compelled to respond to every minute twist in this tendentious and unstoppable argument with ever-more-tedious ripostes...
I would ask them to both at least trim when replying ...
- d.
On Nov 21, 2007 7:28 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 22/11/2007, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
In seriousness, I think the moderators should consider putting jayjg and Joshua on moderation for 36 hours or so, so that they -- and the rest of us -- can enjoy the holiday in peace, without feeling compelled to respond to every minute twist in this tendentious and unstoppable argument with ever-more-tedious ripostes...
I would ask them to both at least trim when replying ...
I've been doing my best, I'll trim even more.
On Nov 21, 2007 7:19 PM, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
jayjg wrote:
On Nov 21, 2007 6:10 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 2:31 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 1:57 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote: > Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com: >> On Nov 21, 2007 1:12 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote: >>> Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com: >>>> On Nov 21, 2007 11:54 AM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote: >>>>>> ...
In seriousness, I think the moderators should consider putting jayjg and Joshua on moderation for 36 hours or so, so that they -- and the rest of us -- can enjoy the holiday in peace, without feeling compelled to respond to every minute twist in this tendentious and unstoppable argument with ever-more-tedious ripostes...
Seconded. And if the mods are serious about cracking down on list abuse, they might consider the threadjacking and querulous bickering that has taken place here and think about a longer term than 36 hours in the moderation pen.
On Nov 21, 2007 7:29 PM, Michael Noda michael.noda@gmail.com wrote:
On Nov 21, 2007 7:19 PM, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
jayjg wrote:
On Nov 21, 2007 6:10 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 2:31 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com: > On Nov 21, 2007 1:57 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote: >> Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com: >>> On Nov 21, 2007 1:12 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote: >>>> Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com: >>>>> On Nov 21, 2007 11:54 AM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote: >>>>>>> ...
In seriousness, I think the moderators should consider putting jayjg and Joshua on moderation for 36 hours or so, so that they -- and the rest of us -- can enjoy the holiday in peace, without feeling compelled to respond to every minute twist in this tendentious and unstoppable argument with ever-more-tedious ripostes...
Seconded. And if the mods are serious about cracking down on list abuse, they might consider the threadjacking and querulous bickering that has taken place here and think about a longer term than 36 hours in the moderation pen.
Here's an even better idea; rather than attempting to quash the viewpoints of people with whom we disagree, let's instead have a moratorium on any mention of BADSITES or Making Lights etc. on the list at all. As I said before, those horses are thoroughly beaten and long dead. Let's give them an honorable burial, and promise never to mention them again.
On 22/11/2007, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
Here's an even better idea; rather than attempting to quash the viewpoints of people with whom we disagree, let's instead have a moratorium on any mention of BADSITES or Making Lights etc. on the list at all. As I said before, those horses are thoroughly beaten and long dead. Let's give them an honorable burial, and promise never to mention them again.
This is probably not likely to happen.
But! As clearly concerned parties, you should all swing by WP:LINKLOVE! And talk on the talk page and so on! We might even get something tolerable out of it ...
- d.
I'm all for banning mentioning of BADSITES on and off-wiki. To those not embroiled in the long-dead debate, it's getting quite old.
Remember CyclePat and his incessant nagging to have AMA restored after everyone had shot it down? Yeah, it's starting to look like that.
Chad H.
On Nov 21, 2007 7:50 PM, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On Nov 21, 2007 7:29 PM, Michael Noda michael.noda@gmail.com wrote:
On Nov 21, 2007 7:19 PM, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
jayjg wrote:
On Nov 21, 2007 6:10 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 2:31 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote: > Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com: >> On Nov 21, 2007 1:57 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote: >>> Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com: >>>> On Nov 21, 2007 1:12 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote: >>>>> Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com: >>>>>> On Nov 21, 2007 11:54 AM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote: >>>>>>>> ...
In seriousness, I think the moderators should consider putting jayjg and Joshua on moderation for 36 hours or so, so that they -- and the rest of us -- can enjoy the holiday in peace, without feeling compelled to respond to every minute twist in this tendentious and unstoppable argument with ever-more-tedious ripostes...
Seconded. And if the mods are serious about cracking down on list abuse, they might consider the threadjacking and querulous bickering that has taken place here and think about a longer term than 36 hours in the moderation pen.
Here's an even better idea; rather than attempting to quash the viewpoints of people with whom we disagree, let's instead have a moratorium on any mention of BADSITES or Making Lights etc. on the list at all. As I said before, those horses are thoroughly beaten and long dead. Let's give them an honorable burial, and promise never to mention them again.
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Hi there Chad -
If it is of any consolation to you, those of us who have been in the trenches on this issue for over six months are pretty tired of it too - heck, even I was ticked off to see this thread overrun by BADSITES babbling, especially from someone who hasn't participated in on-wiki discussion for over 3 months. Pretty sad to see a policy being disrupted by nonconsensual editors, including many of good standing on both sides of the issue, for over half a year. At this point, the inability to come to a reasonable conclusion here appears to be symptomatic of a larger problem. It's just a question of exactly what that larger problem is.
Risker
On Nov 21, 2007 11:30 PM, Chad innocentkiller@gmail.com wrote:
I'm all for banning mentioning of BADSITES on and off-wiki. To those not embroiled in the long-dead debate, it's getting quite old.
Remember CyclePat and his incessant nagging to have AMA restored after everyone had shot it down? Yeah, it's starting to look like that.
Chad H.
On Nov 21, 2007 7:50 PM, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On Nov 21, 2007 7:29 PM, Michael Noda michael.noda@gmail.com wrote:
On Nov 21, 2007 7:19 PM, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
jayjg wrote:
On Nov 21, 2007 6:10 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com: > On Nov 21, 2007 2:31 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote: >> Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com: >>> On Nov 21, 2007 1:57 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote: >>>> Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com: >>>>> On Nov 21, 2007 1:12 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote: >>>>>> Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com: >>>>>>> On Nov 21, 2007 11:54 AM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote: >>>>>>>>> ...
In seriousness, I think the moderators should consider putting jayjg and Joshua on moderation for 36 hours or so, so that they -- and the rest of us -- can enjoy the holiday in peace, without feeling compelled to respond to every minute twist in this tendentious and unstoppable argument with ever-more-tedious ripostes...
Seconded. And if the mods are serious about cracking down on list abuse, they might consider the threadjacking and querulous bickering that has taken place here and think about a longer term than 36 hours in the moderation pen.
Here's an even better idea; rather than attempting to quash the viewpoints of people with whom we disagree, let's instead have a moratorium on any mention of BADSITES or Making Lights etc. on the list at all. As I said before, those horses are thoroughly beaten and long dead. Let's give them an honorable burial, and promise never to mention them again.
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Then why can't it be dropped? If everyone's so sick of it, why do they keep beating the horse? It's dead, mutilated, and starting to rot...
Chad H.
On Nov 22, 2007 12:17 AM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
Hi there Chad -
If it is of any consolation to you, those of us who have been in the trenches on this issue for over six months are pretty tired of it too
- heck, even I was ticked off to see this thread overrun by BADSITES
babbling, especially from someone who hasn't participated in on-wiki discussion for over 3 months. Pretty sad to see a policy being disrupted by nonconsensual editors, including many of good standing on both sides of the issue, for over half a year. At this point, the inability to come to a reasonable conclusion here appears to be symptomatic of a larger problem. It's just a question of exactly what that larger problem is.
Risker
On Nov 21, 2007 11:30 PM, Chad innocentkiller@gmail.com wrote:
I'm all for banning mentioning of BADSITES on and off-wiki. To those not embroiled in the long-dead debate, it's getting quite old.
Remember CyclePat and his incessant nagging to have AMA restored after everyone had shot it down? Yeah, it's starting to look like that.
Chad H.
On Nov 21, 2007 7:50 PM, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On Nov 21, 2007 7:29 PM, Michael Noda michael.noda@gmail.com wrote:
On Nov 21, 2007 7:19 PM, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
jayjg wrote:
On Nov 21, 2007 6:10 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote: > Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com: >> On Nov 21, 2007 2:31 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote: >>> Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com: >>>> On Nov 21, 2007 1:57 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote: >>>>> Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com: >>>>>> On Nov 21, 2007 1:12 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote: >>>>>>> Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com: >>>>>>>> On Nov 21, 2007 11:54 AM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote: >>>>>>>>>> ...
In seriousness, I think the moderators should consider putting jayjg and Joshua on moderation for 36 hours or so, so that they -- and the rest of us -- can enjoy the holiday in peace, without feeling compelled to respond to every minute twist in this tendentious and unstoppable argument with ever-more-tedious ripostes...
Seconded. And if the mods are serious about cracking down on list abuse, they might consider the threadjacking and querulous bickering that has taken place here and think about a longer term than 36 hours in the moderation pen.
Here's an even better idea; rather than attempting to quash the viewpoints of people with whom we disagree, let's instead have a moratorium on any mention of BADSITES or Making Lights etc. on the list at all. As I said before, those horses are thoroughly beaten and long dead. Let's give them an honorable burial, and promise never to mention them again.
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On Nov 22, 2007 12:17 AM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
Hi there Chad -
If it is of any consolation to you, those of us who have been in the trenches on this issue for over six months are pretty tired of it too
- heck, even I was ticked off to see this thread overrun by BADSITES
babbling,
How odd, then, that you said nothing about it when Dan Tobias first brought it up in this thread on the 15th, nor when Steve Summit responded at length on the same subject, nor when Josh Zelinsky also responded at length.
Because no one is ever willing to be the first to speak up when they're tired of the bitching.
I tend to be a bit honest and speak my mind.
Chad H.
On Nov 22, 2007 10:24 AM, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On Nov 22, 2007 12:17 AM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
Hi there Chad -
If it is of any consolation to you, those of us who have been in the trenches on this issue for over six months are pretty tired of it too
- heck, even I was ticked off to see this thread overrun by BADSITES
babbling,
How odd, then, that you said nothing about it when Dan Tobias first brought it up in this thread on the 15th, nor when Steve Summit responded at length on the same subject, nor when Josh Zelinsky also responded at length.
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On 22/11/2007, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
If it is of any consolation to you, those of us who have been in the trenches on this issue for over six months are pretty tired of it too
- heck, even I was ticked off to see this thread overrun by BADSITES
babbling,
How odd, then, that you said nothing about it when Dan Tobias first brought it up in this thread on the 15th, nor when Steve Summit responded at length on the same subject, nor when Josh Zelinsky also responded at length.
I can't imagine how any reasonable person could ever possibly manage to distinguish between:
a) six posts a week ago, by five different people, in a thread which promptly died an amicable and quiet death;
b) the twenty-seven emails sent by you, fifteen by Joshua, nine by David, seven by Guy, six by James, &c &c - in less than twenty-four hours to one thread alone!
One is a reasonable discussion. The other, well, "babbling" seems a fair characterisation. Please, people, if you must spar like that, take it to IRC...
On Thu, 22 Nov 2007 18:15:22 +0000, "Andrew Gray" shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
One is a reasonable discussion. The other, well, "babbling" seems a fair characterisation. Please, people, if you must spar like that, take it to IRC...
I don't see much sparring, but there is work in progress on a workable compromise to hopefully end the fight for ever. I thought that was worth trying for.
Guy (JzG)
jayjg wrote:
Here's an even better idea; rather than attempting to quash the viewpoints of people with whom we disagree, let's instead have a moratorium on any mention of BADSITES or Making Lights etc. on the list at all. As I said before, those horses are thoroughly beaten and long dead. Let's give them an honorable burial, and promise never to mention them again.
It might be easier if the software just filters out messages with the "BA..." word. ;-)
Ec
On 11/22/07, Michael Noda michael.noda@gmail.com wrote:
Seconded. And if the mods are serious about cracking down on list abuse, they might consider the threadjacking and querulous bickering that has taken place here and think about a longer term than 36 hours in the moderation pen.
Anyone can make a "please stop this behaviour" post. The more different voices, the better. Actual moderation will happen if that doesn't work.
Steve
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 6:10 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
>> Furthermore, this isn't the only example. I'd love to see for
example an
>> explanation of how the Making Lights fiasco was somehow a
result of the
>> "anti-BADSITES proponents". > > I'm not sure I understand this point.
It is relevant to the original point at the start of this
subthread. If you
recall, the assertion was made that often the act of removing
links creates
more drama than it helps with two examples, Black's blog and Making Lights. You asserted that wasn't the case and that the drama in such
situations was the
fault of the "anti-BADSITES proponents". I'm attempting to understand how the Making Lights problem was caused by the "anti-BADSITES proponents".
Well, the original action wasn't, of course, but the constant flag-waving by the "anti-BADSITES proponents" of an error made long ago and quickly rectified and apologized for, is, of course, designed for heat not light. People make mistakes, even when applying actual policies - for example, people are regularly blocked for 3RR when they haven't actually violated 3RR. We don't then repeatedly bring up those mistakes as "proof" that the policies are bad.
See David's reponse to this. The fact hat Will seemed to maintain well after the fact that this was still a problem and the fact that Tony, Mongo
and Thuranx
continued to push for some form of BADSITES means that it wasn't nearly as much a strawman or as dead as it should have been.
See above. Dead horse, three non-admins.
Yes, three editors two of whom are prominent and are former
admins with many
political ties (and let's not pretend that doesn't matter), and again they were only the most prominent.
Insisting that editors are "prominent" and have "many political ties" feeds into the conspiratorial worldview promulgated by banned users on less than savory websites. Please don't try to build these people up into some frightening powerful force; they're just 3 editors, no less, but certainly no more.
It doesn't require conspiracy mongering to see that some editors are more influential than others and that some have more political ties than others (I should know. I'm an influential editor with a variety of political ties).
Um, o.k. It still seems to pretty much boil down to MONGO the scary.
>> (Incidentally, as someone who was and remains >> strongly opposed to BADSITES I object to your characterization of >> such editors >> as part of an amorphous "they" who desire "drama"). > > "BADSITES" itself is the rallying cry. So far we seem to
have a whole
> bunch of people who have been going around for months now
VERY LOUDLY
> "opposing" something that was proposed as a strawman, and apparently > supported as policy by one editor.
We have quite a few more editors than a single one. The fact is that many people are understandably worried that something like BADSITES is going
to continue
either as policy or as de facto behavior. I do wish that people wouldn't focus so much on BADSITES and indeed most reasonable editors aren't
doing so.
Then why does it keep being mentioned again and again and again?
Again, because people are worried.
If they were just worried, they'd simply make rational arguments. Constant cries of BADSITES and of "remember the Making Light incident!" are ways of short-circuiting rational thought.
No, they are a way of saying "Hey look. We had this really bad example that got us bad press and made a number of our natural supporters such as Cory Doctorow really unhappy with us. And it harmed our uncyclopedia content. Let's be careful that new policies don't have the same problem."
Bad press? New York Times, that sort of thing? It looked like a tempest in a teapot to me. It's true, we are a top 10 website, but I think it tends to make us think our little wikidramas are far more public than they really are. Believe me, the press (and certainly academia) aren't going to start thinking our articles are well-written or trustworthy based on whether or not we link to some conspiracy theorist's blog. Really.
Look at the history and talk page of NPA where we've had repeated attempts now to insert language very
similar to the
original BADSITES language. It is getting mentioned because to
some extent
people have been (at least until a few days ago) pushing for it.
In your view I'm sure that it's "very similar to the BADSITES language". How do the proponents view it, though? How do outside observers view it? Is it close to BADSITES, or close to LOVELINKS, or somewhere in between? There's no question that Wikipedia needs to find an effective way of dealing with harassment of its volunteers; as long as Wikipedia is a top 10 website, and remains "The encyclopedia anybody can edit", this will remain a problem.
I have an idea. Why don't you look at what Mongo et al. said on the talk page and then see if you can point to any way that anyone would think it was at all different.
MONGO again. Lesse, he posts to the talk page, and within five hours Dtobias shows up crying BADSITES! That pretty much shuts down rational discussion. Oh, and Dan provides yet another link to his essay "Why BADSITES is bad policy". Some more back and forth, and then WR regular Viridae opens an ArbCom case about MONGO in an attempt to shut down dissent, err, sorry, I mean discuss perceived behavioral issues.
After BADSITES failed Mongo and Thuranx then tried to get nearly identical language in NPA.
So it was down to two non-admins then. Did they think the language was "nearly identical", or did they think it was along the lines of LINKLOVE?
You can read the talk pages. From the description their it seemed
to me that
they thought it was identical to BADSITES.
I'd rather let them speak for themselves, rather than have their opponents speak for them.
Ok, so why not ask them?
I don't regularly correspond with either, and I'm not tempted to speak on their behalf. I was suggesting that others not attempt this either.
But as long as the specter remains people are going to be
understandably upset.
No, not understandably. It was a strawman, plain and simple, that was never policy. It's been used quite effectively for months now, but only as a strawman (or a rallying cry).
Um, what? It is hardly a strawman when two former admins are strongly supporting it.
Did you read what you said? "Two former admins are strongly supporting it". There are over 1,000 admins on Wikipedia, and you've come up with two former admins, who aren't even supporting BADSITES, but rather something you've labelled as BADSITES.
Gah. Both supported BADSITES. Read above and look at their talk page comments. When BADSITES failed Mongo supported something which was functionally identical to BADSITES.
From your anti-BADSITES perspective.
And considering of 1000 admins what fraction are active on most policy pages (50 at most?) 2 isn't a non-trivial amount.
2 *non*-admins. Out of many thousands of editors.
Keep in mind that I'm not arguing that there was a majority for it, merely that there were people who were established editors who didn't see it as a strawman.
Yes, it fooled a number of people. It seems to me it fooled far more people on the anti-BADSITES side than on the pro; the former have certainly gotten vastly more mileage out of it.
Ok, this is my last comment about something: it is very hard to call something a strawman when it supported by long-term editors. Indeed if anything that should be a cause for concern that something that some people think (and maybe even was) intended as a strawman got support. At least it wasn't titled "A moder proposal about links"
As soon as we get LINKLOVE approved (that name does sound very Orwellian, can we get a better shortcut?) this will die out.
Right, the policy created by banned sockpuppets and IP editors. That's how effective that BADSITES strawman was, actual policy editors can't even go near any policy pages attempting to deal with outside harassment any more.
What do you mean? David Gerard and others have had no problem discussing this.
Because no-one is going to accusing David of being a Communist, err, BADSITES supporter.
Um, what? Is this some sort of claim that BADSITES proponents are being Mcarthied? Forgive me if I don't see much evidence for that claim.
I don't think you would be particularly sensitive to it, given your own feelings on the matter.
This amounts to an ad hominem attack. If there is evidence that this has occurred then show it. Otherwise...
And frankly, who made a policy has nothing to do with whether or
not it is a
good idea. Daniel Brandt could say "1+1=2" and the fact that it came from Brandt would have nothing to do with whether or not the statement
is true.
It's a bad idea to have sockpuppets of banned editors writing our policies; that should be common sense, I would think.
Yes, but if a user is banned happens to propose a kerner of a good idea there's no need to reject it based on the who it came from.
But it wasn't proposing a kernel of a good idea, it was dozens of edits to create a policy.
(And point of fact PM is not a sockpuppet of a banned user so...)
User:BenB4 was, and he created the page, and was by far the single largest contributor to the page, so...
As for PM, that's only a technicality; he was a sockpuppet, and only unbanned so he could participate in an ArbCom case about his banning.
Again, if it is a good idea so what?
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 15, 2007 9:43 PM, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
William Pietri wrote:
Daniel R. Tobias wrote:
[...]As long as this silly idea refuses to die, neither can my fervent opposition to it.
I regret that I feel the same way.
And I share Dan's and William's chagrin.
Something I've been struck by: we need to learn or re-learn, for today's Wikipedia, how to form consensus. Back in the day I think we knew how to, but either we've forgotten, or the game has changed.
A tiny minority of influential people on one side of a contentious issue can apparently keep it alive *forever*. We have to figure out how to settle these issues, and move on.
I'm not a big player in any of these debates, but by way of example, I managed to do this in the case of spoiler warnings. I care almost as much about the spoiler warnings issue as the BADSITES issue. I could easily be one of the tedious cranks that Snowspinner was just complaining about. That spoiler warnings have been summarily eradicated is deeply wrong. But with apologies to Ken Arromdee, who I would have like to have supported in that fight, I decided I didn't care enough about the issue to keep arguing against the juggernaut that had somehow formed against it, so I turned my back and walked away.
I'm not saying the solution is to walk away from things you care about. But the BADSITES issue clearly will not die; we've got people on both sides who haven't budged an inch in their positions (myself included) and who are apparently willing to trot out the same arguments in endless repetetition until the cows come home. We've all got to get off that treadmill somehow.
I don't think that's accurate. It is only people who are against BADSITES who continually trot it out so they can flail against it; it is the convenient strawman it always was, since it was first created as a strawman.The history of the proposed "alternative" to BADSITES, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Linking_to_external_harassment , is also fascinating. It turns out that the two main authors of the policy, BenB4 and Privatemusings, are banned sockpuppets. In fact, 58% of the edits to the page are by banned editors, mostly sockpuppets, another 18% are by an ip editor, and another 4% by the people who most often bring up the BADSITES strawman, Alecmconroy and Dtobias, for a total of 80%. Though the latter two didn't contribute much to the actual writing, they certainly dominated the Talk: page - Alec made 24 edits to the Talk: page and Dan made 162. So we have now reached the point where policies are essentially being written by banned editors, sockpuppets, IP editors, and people who oppose the policy they are writing. And even that "alternative" has apparently today been unilaterally rejected by a new IP editor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/86.148.219.194
BADSITES has proven to be an extremely convenient way of distracting attention from the real issues regarding offsite harassment and non-encyclopedic links; I suspect it has worked even better than its author ever dreamed it would.
Jayjg this would be a nice story except for a few problems: 1) A number of editors favored BADSITES 2) The removal of many of the problematic links we've seen in the last few months (such as Making Lights and Robert Black's blog) we're precisely what BADSITES was calling for.
On 21/11/2007, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
?
BADSITES has proven to be an extremely convenient way of distracting attention from the real issues regarding offsite harassment and non-encyclopedic links; I suspect it has worked even better than its author ever dreamed it would.
Jayjg this would be a nice story except for a few problems: 1) A number of editors favored BADSITES 2) The removal of many of the problematic links we've seen in the last few months (such as Making Lights and Robert Black's blog) we're precisely what BADSITES was calling for.
Indeed. It seemed to me that BADSITES was an attempt to codify then-current practice [*] in order to demonstrate how silly it was. That the community rejected it tells its own story.
[*] I hope it's not current practice any more -- but only time will tell on this.
On Nov 21, 2007 12:19 PM, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
On 21/11/2007, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
?
BADSITES has proven to be an extremely convenient way of distracting attention from the real issues regarding offsite harassment and non-encyclopedic links; I suspect it has worked even better than its author ever dreamed it would.
Jayjg this would be a nice story except for a few problems: 1) A number of editors favored BADSITES 2) The removal of many of the problematic links we've seen in the last few months (such as Making Lights and Robert Black's blog) we're precisely what BADSITES was calling for.
Indeed.
Indeed what?
It seemed to me that BADSITES was an attempt to codify then-current practice
Then-current practice according to whom?
[*] in order to demonstrate how silly it was. That the community rejected it tells its own story.
Yes, that the community was suckered by a strawman proposal. It worked perfectly.
[*] I hope it's not current practice any more -- but only time will tell on this.
How could something that was never "current practice" still be "current practice"?
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On Nov 21, 2007 11:52 AM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 15, 2007 9:43 PM, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
William Pietri wrote:
Daniel R. Tobias wrote:
[...]As long as this silly idea refuses to die, neither can my fervent opposition to it.
I regret that I feel the same way.
And I share Dan's and William's chagrin.
Something I've been struck by: we need to learn or re-learn, for today's Wikipedia, how to form consensus. Back in the day I think we knew how to, but either we've forgotten, or the game has changed.
A tiny minority of influential people on one side of a contentious issue can apparently keep it alive *forever*. We have to figure out how to settle these issues, and move on.
I'm not a big player in any of these debates, but by way of example, I managed to do this in the case of spoiler warnings. I care almost as much about the spoiler warnings issue as the BADSITES issue. I could easily be one of the tedious cranks that Snowspinner was just complaining about. That spoiler warnings have been summarily eradicated is deeply wrong. But with apologies to Ken Arromdee, who I would have like to have supported in that fight, I decided I didn't care enough about the issue to keep arguing against the juggernaut that had somehow formed against it, so I turned my back and walked away.
I'm not saying the solution is to walk away from things you care about. But the BADSITES issue clearly will not die; we've got people on both sides who haven't budged an inch in their positions (myself included) and who are apparently willing to trot out the same arguments in endless repetetition until the cows come home. We've all got to get off that treadmill somehow.
I don't think that's accurate. It is only people who are against BADSITES who continually trot it out so they can flail against it; it is the convenient strawman it always was, since it was first created as a strawman.The history of the proposed "alternative" to BADSITES, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Linking_to_external_harassment , is also fascinating. It turns out that the two main authors of the policy, BenB4 and Privatemusings, are banned sockpuppets. In fact, 58% of the edits to the page are by banned editors, mostly sockpuppets, another 18% are by an ip editor, and another 4% by the people who most often bring up the BADSITES strawman, Alecmconroy and Dtobias, for a total of 80%. Though the latter two didn't contribute much to the actual writing, they certainly dominated the Talk: page - Alec made 24 edits to the Talk: page and Dan made 162. So we have now reached the point where policies are essentially being written by banned editors, sockpuppets, IP editors, and people who oppose the policy they are writing. And even that "alternative" has apparently today been unilaterally rejected by a new IP editor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/86.148.219.194
BADSITES has proven to be an extremely convenient way of distracting attention from the real issues regarding offsite harassment and non-encyclopedic links; I suspect it has worked even better than its author ever dreamed it would.
Jayjg this would be a nice story except for a few problems: 1) A number of editors favored BADSITES
Really? Which ones?
- The removal of many of the problematic links we've
seen in the last few months (such as Making Lights and Robert Black's blog) we're precisely what BADSITES was calling for.
Just because the outcome is the same doesn't mean the reasoning for doing so was the same. Crappy links are deleted for all sorts of reasons, mostly because they're crappy, even if they would also have been deleted under that strawman BADSITES policy.
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 11:52 AM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 15, 2007 9:43 PM, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
William Pietri wrote:
Daniel R. Tobias wrote:
[...]As long as this silly idea refuses to die, neither can my fervent opposition to it.
I regret that I feel the same way.
And I share Dan's and William's chagrin.
Something I've been struck by: we need to learn or re-learn, for today's Wikipedia, how to form consensus. Back in the day I think we knew how to, but either we've forgotten, or the game has changed.
A tiny minority of influential people on one side of a contentious issue can apparently keep it alive *forever*. We have to figure out how to settle these issues, and move on.
I'm not a big player in any of these debates, but by way of example, I managed to do this in the case of spoiler warnings. I care almost as much about the spoiler warnings issue as the BADSITES issue. I could easily be one of the tedious cranks that Snowspinner was just complaining about. That spoiler warnings have been summarily eradicated is deeply wrong. But with apologies to Ken Arromdee, who I would have like to have supported in that fight, I decided I didn't care enough about the issue to keep arguing against the juggernaut that had somehow formed against it, so I turned my back and walked away.
I'm not saying the solution is to walk away from things you care about. But the BADSITES issue clearly will not die; we've got people on both sides who haven't budged an inch in their positions (myself included) and who are apparently willing to trot out the same arguments in endless repetetition until the cows come home. We've all got to get off that treadmill somehow.
I don't think that's accurate. It is only people who are against BADSITES who continually trot it out so they can flail against it; it is the convenient strawman it always was, since it was first created as a strawman.The history of the proposed "alternative" to BADSITES, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Linking_to_external_harassment , is also fascinating. It turns out that the two main authors of the policy, BenB4 and Privatemusings, are banned sockpuppets. In fact, 58% of the edits to the page are by banned editors, mostly sockpuppets, another 18% are by an ip editor, and another 4% by the people who most often bring up the BADSITES strawman, Alecmconroy and Dtobias, for a total of 80%. Though the latter two didn't contribute much to the actual writing, they certainly dominated the Talk: page - Alec made 24 edits to the Talk: page and Dan made 162. So we have now reached the point where policies are essentially being written by banned editors, sockpuppets, IP editors, and people who oppose the policy they are writing. And even that "alternative" has apparently today been unilaterally rejected by a new IP editor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/86.148.219.194
BADSITES has proven to be an extremely convenient way of distracting attention from the real issues regarding offsite harassment and non-encyclopedic links; I suspect it has worked even better than its author ever dreamed it would.
Jayjg this would be a nice story except for a few problems: 1) A number of editors favored BADSITES
Really? Which ones?
Tony Sidaway supported it strongly. See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AAttack_sites&diff=...
Well, Mongo appeared to support it. (See his comments on the talk page as well as http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Attack_sites&diff=pr... http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AAttack_sites&diff=... ). Mongo then went to [[WP:NPA]] and attempted to get nearly identical language in there where he was supported by Thuranx.
- The removal of many of the problematic links we've
seen in the last few months (such as Making Lights and Robert Black's blog) we're precisely what BADSITES was calling for.
Just because the outcome is the same doesn't mean the reasoning for doing so was the same. Crappy links are deleted for all sorts of reasons, mostly because they're crappy, even if they would also have been deleted under that strawman BADSITES policy.
Except none of these were crappy links. These were links that would have been included in article space but for the fact that they contained material we didn't like.
On Nov 21, 2007 1:02 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 11:52 AM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 15, 2007 9:43 PM, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
William Pietri wrote:
Daniel R. Tobias wrote: > [...]As long as this silly idea refuses to die, neither can my fervent > opposition to it. > I regret that I feel the same way.
And I share Dan's and William's chagrin.
Something I've been struck by: we need to learn or re-learn, for today's Wikipedia, how to form consensus. Back in the day I think we knew how to, but either we've forgotten, or the game has changed.
A tiny minority of influential people on one side of a contentious issue can apparently keep it alive *forever*. We have to figure out how to settle these issues, and move on.
I'm not a big player in any of these debates, but by way of example, I managed to do this in the case of spoiler warnings. I care almost as much about the spoiler warnings issue as the BADSITES issue. I could easily be one of the tedious cranks that Snowspinner was just complaining about. That spoiler warnings have been summarily eradicated is deeply wrong. But with apologies to Ken Arromdee, who I would have like to have supported in that fight, I decided I didn't care enough about the issue to keep arguing against the juggernaut that had somehow formed against it, so I turned my back and walked away.
I'm not saying the solution is to walk away from things you care about. But the BADSITES issue clearly will not die; we've got people on both sides who haven't budged an inch in their positions (myself included) and who are apparently willing to trot out the same arguments in endless repetetition until the cows come home. We've all got to get off that treadmill somehow.
I don't think that's accurate. It is only people who are against BADSITES who continually trot it out so they can flail against it; it is the convenient strawman it always was, since it was first created as a strawman.The history of the proposed "alternative" to BADSITES, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Linking_to_external_harassment , is also fascinating. It turns out that the two main authors of the policy, BenB4 and Privatemusings, are banned sockpuppets. In fact, 58% of the edits to the page are by banned editors, mostly sockpuppets, another 18% are by an ip editor, and another 4% by the people who most often bring up the BADSITES strawman, Alecmconroy and Dtobias, for a total of 80%. Though the latter two didn't contribute much to the actual writing, they certainly dominated the Talk: page - Alec made 24 edits to the Talk: page and Dan made 162. So we have now reached the point where policies are essentially being written by banned editors, sockpuppets, IP editors, and people who oppose the policy they are writing. And even that "alternative" has apparently today been unilaterally rejected by a new IP editor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/86.148.219.194
BADSITES has proven to be an extremely convenient way of distracting attention from the real issues regarding offsite harassment and non-encyclopedic links; I suspect it has worked even better than its author ever dreamed it would.
Jayjg this would be a nice story except for a few problems: 1) A number of editors favored BADSITES
Really? Which ones?
Tony Sidaway supported it strongly. See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AAttack_sites&diff=...
Well, Mongo appeared to support it. (See his comments on the talk page as well as http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Attack_sites&diff=pr... http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AAttack_sites&diff=... ). Mongo then went to [[WP:NPA]] and attempted to get nearly identical language in there where he was supported by Thuranx.
So Tony supported it, and Mongo insisted it was an essay or proposed policy. And?
- The removal of many of the problematic links we've
seen in the last few months (such as Making Lights and Robert Black's blog) we're precisely what BADSITES was calling for.
Just because the outcome is the same doesn't mean the reasoning for doing so was the same. Crappy links are deleted for all sorts of reasons, mostly because they're crappy, even if they would also have been deleted under that strawman BADSITES policy.
Except none of these were crappy links.
They looked like crappy links to me, but I could be wrong. Any specifics?
These were links that would have been included in article space but for the fact that they contained material we didn't like.
Err, "containing material we don't like" pretty much covers every link ever deleted from Wikipedia.
On 21/11/2007, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On Nov 21, 2007 1:02 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
doing so was the same. Crappy links are deleted for all sorts of reasons, mostly because they're crappy, even if they would also have been deleted under that strawman BADSITES policy.
Except none of these were crappy links.
They looked like crappy links to me, but I could be wrong. Any specifics?
The deletion of encyclopedic links to nielsenhayden.com by Will Beback.
(I'm assuming you're joining the current discussion in a state of having had the courtesy to read up on the ongoing discussions and being up to speed with everyone else, particularly those you're discussing it with.)
These were links that would have been included in article space but for the fact that they contained material we didn't like.
Err, "containing material we don't like" pretty much covers every link ever deleted from Wikipedia.
... for other than encyclopedic reasons.
- d.
On Nov 21, 2007 1:31 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 21/11/2007, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On Nov 21, 2007 1:02 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
doing so was the same. Crappy links are deleted for all sorts of reasons, mostly because they're crappy, even if they would also have been deleted under that strawman BADSITES policy.
Except none of these were crappy links.
They looked like crappy links to me, but I could be wrong. Any specifics?
The deletion of encyclopedic links to nielsenhayden.com by Will Beback.
That old chestnut? It's the other strawman used as the rallying cry. Will realized he made an error, and apologized profusely. The whole issue was over long ago, but anti-BADSITES people bring it up again and again and again, as that one incident has been extremely useful.
People misapply *real* policy every day, we don't then say OMG BAD POLICY, IT MUST GO!!!!!
These were links that would have been included in article space but for the fact that they contained material we didn't like.
Err, "containing material we don't like" pretty much covers every link ever deleted from Wikipedia.
... for other than encyclopedic reasons.
One man's encyclopedic reasons...
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 1:31 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 21/11/2007, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On Nov 21, 2007 1:02 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
doing so was the same. Crappy links are deleted for all sorts of reasons, mostly because they're crappy, even if they would also have been deleted under that strawman BADSITES policy.
Except none of these were crappy links.
They looked like crappy links to me, but I could be wrong. Any specifics?
The deletion of encyclopedic links to nielsenhayden.com by Will Beback.
That old chestnut? It's the other strawman used as the rallying cry. Will realized he made an error, and apologized profusely. The whole issue was over long ago, but anti-BADSITES people bring it up again and again and again, as that one incident has been extremely useful.
People misapply *real* policy every day, we don't then say OMG BAD POLICY, IT MUST GO!!!!!
These were links that would have been included in article space but for the fact that they contained
material we
didn't like.
Err, "containing material we don't like" pretty much covers every link ever deleted from Wikipedia.
... for other than encyclopedic reasons.
One man's encyclopedic reasons...
Jayjg, kindly make up your mind. Are you defending things like the removal of Making Light or not? At the top of this post you assert that such things were wrong, and at the bottom you seem to be arguing that removal of otherwise good external links is ok and moreover constitute an encyclopedic reason to remove the links which is hard to understand given the serious NPOV violations that it entails and the fact that these are links that but for the mention of Wikipedians we would have in the articles.
On Nov 21, 2007 2:03 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 1:31 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 21/11/2007, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On Nov 21, 2007 1:02 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
doing so was the same. Crappy links are deleted for all sorts of reasons, mostly because they're crappy, even if they would also have been deleted under that strawman BADSITES policy.
Except none of these were crappy links.
They looked like crappy links to me, but I could be wrong. Any specifics?
The deletion of encyclopedic links to nielsenhayden.com by Will Beback.
That old chestnut? It's the other strawman used as the rallying cry. Will realized he made an error, and apologized profusely. The whole issue was over long ago, but anti-BADSITES people bring it up again and again and again, as that one incident has been extremely useful.
People misapply *real* policy every day, we don't then say OMG BAD POLICY, IT MUST GO!!!!!
These were links that would have been included in article space but for the fact that they contained
material we
didn't like.
Err, "containing material we don't like" pretty much covers every link ever deleted from Wikipedia.
... for other than encyclopedic reasons.
One man's encyclopedic reasons...
Jayjg, kindly make up your mind. Are you defending things like the removal of Making Light or not?
Please don't make the Fallacy of many questions. I've never defended the removal of Making Light, as far as I can recall, so I don't know what I would have to "make up my mind" about.
At the top of this post you assert that such things were wrong, and at the bottom you seem to be arguing that removal of otherwise good external links is
"Otherwise good external links". Therein lies a whole universe of ambiguity.
ok and moreover constitute an encyclopedic reason to remove the links which is hard to understand given the serious NPOV violations that it entails
"Serious NPOV violations?" Hardly. That's an argument I've seen several times, and, frankly, it's specious. A link isn't a POV, much less a *significant* one.
and the fact that these are links that but for the mention of Wikipedians we would have in the articles.
Just because we would typically do something doesn't mean that we *must* do so, even *should* do so in every single case. That's not really an argument, and external links should be evaluated on their overall merits.
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 2:03 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 1:31 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 21/11/2007, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On Nov 21, 2007 1:02 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
> doing so was the same. Crappy links are deleted for all sorts of > reasons, mostly because they're crappy, even if they would
also have
> been deleted under that strawman BADSITES policy.
Except none of these were crappy links.
They looked like crappy links to me, but I could be wrong. Any
specifics?
The deletion of encyclopedic links to nielsenhayden.com by Will Beback.
That old chestnut? It's the other strawman used as the rallying cry. Will realized he made an error, and apologized profusely. The whole issue was over long ago, but anti-BADSITES people bring it up again and again and again, as that one incident has been extremely useful.
People misapply *real* policy every day, we don't then say OMG BAD POLICY, IT MUST GO!!!!!
These were links that would have been included in article space but for the fact that they contained
material we
didn't like.
Err, "containing material we don't like" pretty much covers every link ever deleted from Wikipedia.
... for other than encyclopedic reasons.
One man's encyclopedic reasons...
Jayjg, kindly make up your mind. Are you defending things like the removal of Making Light or not?
Please don't make the Fallacy of many questions. I've never defended the removal of Making Light, as far as I can recall, so I don't know what I would have to "make up my mind" about.
Well, you seem to be asserting that it is encyclopedic to remove links that mention information or speculation about Wikipedians. That's precisely what was at issue with Making Lights.
At the top of this post you assert that such things were wrong, and at the bottom you seem to be arguing that removal of otherwise good external links is
"Otherwise good external links". Therein lies a whole universe of ambiguity.
No it really doesn't. Links that we would contain but for the fact that they have information or speculation about Wikipedians. That's precisely what is at issue.
ok and moreover constitute an encyclopedic reason to remove the links which is hard to understand given the serious NPOV violations that it entails
"Serious NPOV violations?" Hardly. That's an argument I've seen several times, and, frankly, it's specious. A link isn't a POV, much less a *significant* one.
Of course links are POV or not. If we remove all links to a major critic or proponent of something that's the height not NPPOV. And yes, that is a serious breach of NPOV since many people use Wikipedia precisely to find out where else to look at things. And regardless, NPOV is not negotiable. A serious violation is unacceptable as is a minor one.
and the fact that these are links that but for the mention of Wikipedians we would have in the articles.
Just because we would typically do something doesn't mean that we *must* do so, even *should* do so in every single case. That's not really an argument, and external links should be evaluated on their overall merits.
No one is claiming that links shouldn't be evaluated on their merits. But our personal feelings cannot effect what we do or do not put in article space. And t to argue otherwise is exactly what has led to these repeated problems, whether it be Making Lights, or MichaelMoore.com or any.
On Nov 21, 2007 2:42 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 2:03 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 1:31 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 21/11/2007, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On Nov 21, 2007 1:02 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
> > doing so was the same. Crappy links are deleted for all sorts of > > reasons, mostly because they're crappy, even if they would
also have
> > been deleted under that strawman BADSITES policy.
> Except none of these were crappy links.
They looked like crappy links to me, but I could be wrong. Any
specifics?
The deletion of encyclopedic links to nielsenhayden.com by Will Beback.
That old chestnut? It's the other strawman used as the rallying cry. Will realized he made an error, and apologized profusely. The whole issue was over long ago, but anti-BADSITES people bring it up again and again and again, as that one incident has been extremely useful.
People misapply *real* policy every day, we don't then say OMG BAD POLICY, IT MUST GO!!!!!
> These were links that would have been > included in article space but for the fact that they contained
material we
> didn't like.
Err, "containing material we don't like" pretty much covers every link ever deleted from Wikipedia.
... for other than encyclopedic reasons.
One man's encyclopedic reasons...
Jayjg, kindly make up your mind. Are you defending things like the removal of Making Light or not?
Please don't make the Fallacy of many questions. I've never defended the removal of Making Light, as far as I can recall, so I don't know what I would have to "make up my mind" about.
Well, you seem to be asserting that it is encyclopedic to remove links that mention information or speculation about Wikipedians. That's precisely what was at issue with Making Lights.
I'm not making general cases or policied. When I edit I I add or remove links based on their individual merits. You're the one who wants to generalize, then point and shout BADSITES, BADSITES!!!
At the top of this post you assert that such things were wrong, and at the bottom you seem to be arguing that removal of otherwise good external links is
"Otherwise good external links". Therein lies a whole universe of ambiguity.
No it really doesn't. Links that we would contain but for the fact that they have information or speculation about Wikipedians. That's precisely what is at issue.
So, links that we might want to link to except if it happens that we don't want to link to them?
ok and moreover constitute an encyclopedic reason to remove the links which is hard to understand given the serious NPOV violations that it entails
"Serious NPOV violations?" Hardly. That's an argument I've seen several times, and, frankly, it's specious. A link isn't a POV, much less a *significant* one.
Of course links are POV or not. If we remove all links to a major critic or proponent of something that's the height not NPPOV. And yes, that is a serious breach of NPOV since many people use Wikipedia precisely to find out where else to look at things. And regardless, NPOV is not negotiable. A serious violation is unacceptable as is a minor one.
If there is an important or significant POV contained in a link then it should be in the article; *that* is where NPOV would be violated. And if there are no reliable sources for a POV, then it's not a significant POV. Let's get down to specifics; what important POV was "suppressed" by the removal of the link to Black's blog? Please list the exact *significant POV*, and the reliable sources that make that POV encyclopedic.
and the fact that these are links that but for the mention of Wikipedians we would have in the articles.
Just because we would typically do something doesn't mean that we *must* do so, even *should* do so in every single case. That's not really an argument, and external links should be evaluated on their overall merits.
No one is claiming that links shouldn't be evaluated on their merits. But our personal feelings cannot effect what we do or do not put in article space.
Let's not denigrate the motives of others, or pretend that our own actions are always purely rational, ok?
And t to argue otherwise is exactly what has led to these repeated problems, whether it be Making Lights, or MichaelMoore.com or any.
"Repeated problems"? Only if you mean "repeated" in the sense of "a couple of incidents repeated a thousand times by anti-BADSITES proponents".
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 2:42 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 2:03 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 1:31 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 21/11/2007, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote: > On Nov 21, 2007 1:02 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
> > > doing so was the same. Crappy links are deleted for all sorts of > > > reasons, mostly because they're crappy, even if they would
also have
> > > been deleted under that strawman BADSITES policy.
> > Except none of these were crappy links.
> They looked like crappy links to me, but I could be wrong. Any
specifics?
The deletion of encyclopedic links to nielsenhayden.com by
Will Beback.
That old chestnut? It's the other strawman used as the rallying cry. Will realized he made an error, and apologized profusely. The whole issue was over long ago, but anti-BADSITES people bring it up again and again and again, as that one incident has been extremely useful.
People misapply *real* policy every day, we don't then say OMG BAD POLICY, IT MUST GO!!!!!
> > These were links that would have been > > included in article space but for the fact that they contained material we > > didn't like.
> Err, "containing material we don't like" pretty much covers
every link
> ever deleted from Wikipedia.
... for other than encyclopedic reasons.
One man's encyclopedic reasons...
Jayjg, kindly make up your mind. Are you defending things like the removal of Making Light or not?
Please don't make the Fallacy of many questions. I've never defended the removal of Making Light, as far as I can recall, so I don't know what I would have to "make up my mind" about.
Well, you seem to be asserting that it is encyclopedic to remove links that mention information or speculation about Wikipedians. That's precisely what was at issue with Making Lights.
I'm not making general cases or policied. When I edit I I add or remove links based on their individual merits. You're the one who wants to generalize, then point and shout BADSITES, BADSITES!!!
At the top of this post you assert that such things were wrong, and at the bottom you seem to be arguing that removal of otherwise good external links is
"Otherwise good external links". Therein lies a whole universe of
ambiguity.
No it really doesn't. Links that we would contain but for the fact that they have information or speculation about Wikipedians. That's precisely what is at issue.
So, links that we might want to link to except if it happens that we don't want to link to them?
ok and moreover constitute an encyclopedic reason to remove the links which is hard to understand given the serious NPOV violations that it entails
"Serious NPOV violations?" Hardly. That's an argument I've seen several times, and, frankly, it's specious. A link isn't a POV, much less a *significant* one.
Of course links are POV or not. If we remove all links to a major critic or proponent of something that's the height not NPPOV. And yes, that is a serious breach of NPOV since many people use Wikipedia precisely to find out where else to look at things. And regardless, NPOV is not negotiable. A serious violation is unacceptable as is a minor one.
If there is an important or significant POV contained in a link then it should be in the article; *that* is where NPOV would be violated. And if there are no reliable sources for a POV, then it's not a significant POV. Let's get down to specifics; what important POV was "suppressed" by the removal of the link to Black's blog? Please list the exact *significant POV*, and the reliable sources that make that POV encyclopedic.
You are missing the point. Black's views are contained in his blog. The fact that he has a blog since he is a noteworthy person is noteworthy. That we will have the blog of one person who is notable but not another based on what POV the people have (i.e. their attitude towards Wikipedians) is not neutral.
and the fact that these are links that but for the mention of Wikipedians we would have in the articles.
Just because we would typically do something doesn't mean that we *must* do so, even *should* do so in every single case. That's not really an argument, and external links should be evaluated on their overall merits.
No one is claiming that links shouldn't be evaluated on their merits. But our personal feelings cannot effect what we do or do not put in article space.
Let's not denigrate the motives of others, or pretend that our own actions are always purely rational, ok?
I didn't assert otherwise. But it doesn't change the fact that the removal of links that contain harassment is to protect the feelings of the Wikipeians in question.
And t to argue otherwise is exactly what has led to these repeated problems, whether it be Making Lights, or MichaelMoore.com or any.
"Repeated problems"? Only if you mean "repeated" in the sense of "a couple of incidents repeated a thousand times by anti-BADSITES proponents".
Making Lights, Michael Moore, Robert Black. That's at least three right there. And both the Making Lights and the Michael Moore cases made us look really bad with the general public. And again, there's no such thing as a little violation of NPOV.
On Nov 21, 2007 7:18 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
ok and moreover constitute an encyclopedic reason to remove the links which is hard to understand given the serious NPOV violations that it entails
"Serious NPOV violations?" Hardly. That's an argument I've seen several times, and, frankly, it's specious. A link isn't a POV, much less a *significant* one.
Of course links are POV or not. If we remove all links to a major critic or proponent of something that's the height not NPPOV. And yes, that is a serious breach of NPOV since many people use Wikipedia precisely to find out where else to look at things. And regardless, NPOV is not negotiable. A serious violation is unacceptable as is a minor one.
If there is an important or significant POV contained in a link then it should be in the article; *that* is where NPOV would be violated. And if there are no reliable sources for a POV, then it's not a significant POV. Let's get down to specifics; what important POV was "suppressed" by the removal of the link to Black's blog? Please list the exact *significant POV*, and the reliable sources that make that POV encyclopedic.
You are missing the point. Black's views are contained in his blog. The fact that he has a blog since he is a noteworthy person is noteworthy. That we will have the blog of one person who is notable but not another based on what POV the people have (i.e. their attitude towards Wikipedians) is not neutral.
I'm not seeing any of that in the existing NPOV policy. If he has any *noteworthy* views they will have been printed in reliable sources. And does having a Wikipedia article suddenly make a blog noteworthy? I doubt an article on his blog would survive an AfD process.
and the fact that these are links that but for the mention of Wikipedians we would have in the articles.
Just because we would typically do something doesn't mean that we *must* do so, even *should* do so in every single case. That's not really an argument, and external links should be evaluated on their overall merits.
No one is claiming that links shouldn't be evaluated on their merits. But our personal feelings cannot effect what we do or do not put in article space.
Let's not denigrate the motives of others, or pretend that our own actions are always purely rational, ok?
I didn't assert otherwise. But it doesn't change the fact that the removal of links that contain harassment is to protect the feelings of the Wikipeians in question.
No, that's not what it's for.
And t to argue otherwise is exactly what has led to these repeated problems, whether it be Making Lights, or MichaelMoore.com or any.
"Repeated problems"? Only if you mean "repeated" in the sense of "a couple of incidents repeated a thousand times by anti-BADSITES proponents".
Making Lights, Michael Moore, Robert Black. That's at least three right there.
You still haven't described the encyclopedic content on the Black blog that you feel needs to be in Wikipedia. I asked you for specifics; is there something there that could actually be used in an encyclopedia article?
And both the Making Lights and the Michael Moore cases made us look really bad with the general public.
As I've said before, tempest in a teapot. One in a million of the "general public" is aware of the "Making Lights" and "Michael Moore" anti-BADSITES rallying cries.
And again, there's no such thing as a little violation of NPOV.
Perhaps, but there are plenty of things that have nothing to do with NPOV at all, and providing a link to a non-notable blog is one of them.
On 21/11/2007, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On Nov 21, 2007 1:31 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
The deletion of encyclopedic links to nielsenhayden.com by Will Beback.
That old chestnut? It's the other strawman used as the rallying cry. Will realized he made an error, and apologized profusely. The whole issue was over long ago, but anti-BADSITES people bring it up again and again and again, as that one incident has been extremely useful.
Except that when he came back here to push a policy apparently indistinguishable from BADSITES, he was notably unable and/or unwilling to explain what he thought he had done wrong in this case, or why his actions had upset people. That unfortunately removes some power from the apology.
People misapply *real* policy every day, we don't then say OMG BAD POLICY, IT MUST GO!!!!!
Well, actually, we do quite a bit in my experience ...
... for other than encyclopedic reasons.
One man's encyclopedic reasons...
I welcome your encyclopedic justification for the removal of the nielsenhayden.com links.
- d.
On Nov 21, 2007 2:05 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 21/11/2007, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On Nov 21, 2007 1:31 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
The deletion of encyclopedic links to nielsenhayden.com by Will Beback.
That old chestnut? It's the other strawman used as the rallying cry. Will realized he made an error, and apologized profusely. The whole issue was over long ago, but anti-BADSITES people bring it up again and again and again, as that one incident has been extremely useful.
Except that when he came back here to push a policy apparently indistinguishable from BADSITES, he was notably unable and/or unwilling to explain what he thought he had done wrong in this case, or why his actions had upset people. That unfortunately removes some power from the apology.
I think it would be better to let him explain his actions, and take his apology at face value.
People misapply *real* policy every day, we don't then say OMG BAD POLICY, IT MUST GO!!!!!
Well, actually, we do quite a bit in my experience ...
Hmm. Not to this extent, in my experience.
... for other than encyclopedic reasons.
One man's encyclopedic reasons...
I welcome your encyclopedic justification for the removal of the nielsenhayden.com links.
Why on earth would I try to justify an error that has been apologized for? Raising it again is more of the same, really, heat not light.
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 1:02 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 11:52 AM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 15, 2007 9:43 PM, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
William Pietri wrote: >Daniel R. Tobias wrote: >> [...]As long as this silly idea refuses to die, neither can
my fervent
>> opposition to it. >> > I regret that I feel the same way.
And I share Dan's and William's chagrin.
Something I've been struck by: we need to learn or re-learn, for today's Wikipedia, how to form consensus. Back in the day I think we knew how to, but either we've forgotten, or the game has changed.
A tiny minority of influential people on one side of a contentious issue can apparently keep it alive *forever*. We have to figure out how to settle these issues, and move on.
I'm not a big player in any of these debates, but by way of example, I managed to do this in the case of spoiler warnings. I care almost as much about the spoiler warnings issue as the BADSITES issue. I could easily be one of the tedious cranks that Snowspinner was just complaining about. That spoiler warnings have been summarily eradicated is deeply wrong. But with apologies to Ken Arromdee, who I would have like to have supported in that fight, I decided I didn't care enough about the issue to keep arguing against the juggernaut that had somehow formed against it, so I turned my back and walked away.
I'm not saying the solution is to walk away from things you care about. But the BADSITES issue clearly will not die; we've got people on both sides who haven't budged an inch in their positions (myself included) and who are apparently willing to trot out the same arguments in endless repetetition until the cows come home. We've all got to get off that treadmill somehow.
I don't think that's accurate. It is only people who are against BADSITES who continually trot it out so they can flail against it; it is the convenient strawman it always was, since it was first created as a strawman.The history of the proposed "alternative" to BADSITES, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Linking_to_external_harassment , is also fascinating. It turns out that the two main authors of the policy, BenB4 and Privatemusings, are banned sockpuppets. In fact, 58% of the edits to the page are by banned editors, mostly sockpuppets, another 18% are by an ip editor, and another 4% by the people who most often bring up the BADSITES strawman, Alecmconroy and Dtobias, for a total of 80%. Though the latter two didn't contribute much to the actual writing, they certainly dominated the Talk: page - Alec made 24 edits to the Talk: page and Dan made 162. So we have now reached the point where policies are essentially being written by banned editors, sockpuppets, IP editors, and people who oppose the policy they are writing. And even that "alternative" has apparently today been unilaterally rejected by a new IP editor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/86.148.219.194
BADSITES has proven to be an extremely convenient way of distracting attention from the real issues regarding offsite harassment and non-encyclopedic links; I suspect it has worked even better than its author ever dreamed it would.
Jayjg this would be a nice story except for a few problems: 1) A
number of
editors favored BADSITES
Really? Which ones?
Tony Sidaway supported it strongly. See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AAttack_sites&diff=...
Well, Mongo appeared to support it. (See his comments on the talk page as well as http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Attack_sites&diff=pr... http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AAttack_sites&diff=... ). Mongo then went to [[WP:NPA]] and attempted to get nearly identical language in there where he was supported by Thuranx.
So Tony supported it, and Mongo insisted it was an essay or proposed policy. And?
The difs I gave were of Mongo insisting that it stay as a proposed policy (and then an essay) rather than as rejected. And again, if you look at his behavior on the talk page and at NPA he supported it. So we have two prominent editors supporting it. I could give additional examples based on the talk page (I already pointed to Thuranx). I don't see why I need to go through and list every single editor. The bottom line is that actual non-sockpuppet prominent editors supported BADSITES. The notion that this was a strawman that no Wikipedia community member would ever support is simply false.
- The removal of many of the problematic links we've
seen in the last few months (such as Making Lights and Robert
Black's blog)
we're precisely what BADSITES was calling for.
Just because the outcome is the same doesn't mean the reasoning for doing so was the same. Crappy links are deleted for all sorts of reasons, mostly because they're crappy, even if they would also have been deleted under that strawman BADSITES policy.
Except none of these were crappy links.
They looked like crappy links to me, but I could be wrong. Any specifics?
Um, see above. The link to Black's blog was a standard external link as were the Making Lights links. If these are were somehow crappy I'd like to hear an explanation.
These were links that would have been included in article space but for the fact that they contained material we didn't like.
Err, "containing material we don't like" pretty much covers every link ever deleted from Wikipedia.
Jayjg, please do not' be disingenuous. You know what I mean. These would have been included but for the fact that that they contained specific information or speculation about Wikipedia editors.
I would just like to applaud the jayjg, who after having disappeared from the pages of Wikipedia and this mailing list for several months, returned with a vengeance. Welcome back, jayjg, I see you are still in your usual fighting form. However, this thread was supposed to be about how to improve the signal to noise ratio on wiki-en-l, and has now been hijacked into a debate on BADSITES - what is it, Round 27 now? How did this happen?
Risker
On Nov 21, 2007 1:52 PM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
I would just like to applaud the jayjg, who after having disappeared from the pages of Wikipedia and this mailing list for several months, returned with a vengeance. Welcome back, jayjg, I see you are still in your usual fighting form. However, this thread was supposed to be about how to improve the signal to noise ratio on wiki-en-l, and has now been hijacked into a debate on BADSITES - what is it, Round 27 now? How did this happen?
Thanks Risker.
As for BADSITES, I guess I just got tired of seeing that tired strawman waved around for the thousandth time. It would be really helpful if people stopped crying WITCH!; BADSITES has served its purpose well, and should be honorably retired.
On 21/11/2007, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
As for BADSITES, I guess I just got tired of seeing that tired strawman waved around for the thousandth time. It would be really helpful if people stopped crying WITCH!; BADSITES has served its purpose well, and should be honorably retired.
To get back to wikien-l as a work list ...
JzG just had a hack at making WP:LINKLOVE clear and usable in some practical sense, and I had a further hack at it. Jay, please do dive in.
- d.
On Nov 21, 2007 2:07 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 21/11/2007, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
As for BADSITES, I guess I just got tired of seeing that tired strawman waved around for the thousandth time. It would be really helpful if people stopped crying WITCH!; BADSITES has served its purpose well, and should be honorably retired.
To get back to wikien-l as a work list ...
JzG just had a hack at making WP:LINKLOVE clear and usable in some practical sense, and I had a further hack at it.
And you were both promptly reverted back to the banned sockpuppet version.
On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 16:31:08 -0500, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
And you were both promptly reverted back to the banned sockpuppet version.
Ah, yes. Sockpuppet versions are so much better :-)
Guy (JzG)
On 21/11/2007, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
And you were both promptly reverted back to the banned sockpuppet version.
Tch! I presume Alec McConroy was just not reading closely what was going on when he reverted. I've left a note asking him to please read and join in the discussion and so forth more practically.
- d.
Risker wrote:
I would just like to applaud the jayjg, who after having disappeared from the pages of Wikipedia and this mailing list for several months, returned with a vengeance... this thread was supposed to be about how to improve the signal to noise ratio on wiki-en-l, and has now been hijacked into a debate on BADSITES - what is it, Round 27 now?
Thanks much for pointing that out. I was about to knee-jerkily respond to 5 or 6 of jayjg's posts, which would have been pretty ironic given that I was the one who was just arguing against everyone's tendency to knee-jerkily make the same arguments over and over again...
(I'll think I'll strictly limit myself to *one* on-list post, and respond to all the rest of jayjg's fallacies privately.)
On Nov 21, 2007 1:39 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 1:02 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 11:52 AM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 15, 2007 9:43 PM, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote: > William Pietri wrote: > >Daniel R. Tobias wrote: > >> [...]As long as this silly idea refuses to die, neither can
my fervent
> >> opposition to it. > >> > > I regret that I feel the same way. > > And I share Dan's and William's chagrin. > > Something I've been struck by: we need to learn or re-learn, > for today's Wikipedia, how to form consensus. Back in the day > I think we knew how to, but either we've forgotten, or the game > has changed. > > A tiny minority of influential people on one side of a > contentious issue can apparently keep it alive *forever*. > We have to figure out how to settle these issues, and move on. > > I'm not a big player in any of these debates, but by way of > example, I managed to do this in the case of spoiler warnings. > I care almost as much about the spoiler warnings issue as the > BADSITES issue. I could easily be one of the tedious cranks > that Snowspinner was just complaining about. That spoiler > warnings have been summarily eradicated is deeply wrong. > But with apologies to Ken Arromdee, who I would have like to > have supported in that fight, I decided I didn't care enough > about the issue to keep arguing against the juggernaut that had > somehow formed against it, so I turned my back and walked away. > > I'm not saying the solution is to walk away from things you care > about. But the BADSITES issue clearly will not die; we've got > people on both sides who haven't budged an inch in their positions > (myself included) and who are apparently willing to trot out the > same arguments in endless repetetition until the cows come home. > We've all got to get off that treadmill somehow.
I don't think that's accurate. It is only people who are against BADSITES who continually trot it out so they can flail against it; it is the convenient strawman it always was, since it was first created as a strawman.The history of the proposed "alternative" to BADSITES, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Linking_to_external_harassment , is also fascinating. It turns out that the two main authors of the policy, BenB4 and Privatemusings, are banned sockpuppets. In fact, 58% of the edits to the page are by banned editors, mostly sockpuppets, another 18% are by an ip editor, and another 4% by the people who most often bring up the BADSITES strawman, Alecmconroy and Dtobias, for a total of 80%. Though the latter two didn't contribute much to the actual writing, they certainly dominated the Talk: page - Alec made 24 edits to the Talk: page and Dan made 162. So we have now reached the point where policies are essentially being written by banned editors, sockpuppets, IP editors, and people who oppose the policy they are writing. And even that "alternative" has apparently today been unilaterally rejected by a new IP editor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/86.148.219.194
BADSITES has proven to be an extremely convenient way of distracting attention from the real issues regarding offsite harassment and non-encyclopedic links; I suspect it has worked even better than its author ever dreamed it would.
Jayjg this would be a nice story except for a few problems: 1) A
number of
editors favored BADSITES
Really? Which ones?
Tony Sidaway supported it strongly. See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AAttack_sites&diff=...
Well, Mongo appeared to support it. (See his comments on the talk page as well as http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Attack_sites&diff=pr... http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AAttack_sites&diff=... ). Mongo then went to [[WP:NPA]] and attempted to get nearly identical language in there where he was supported by Thuranx.
So Tony supported it, and Mongo insisted it was an essay or proposed policy. And?
The difs I gave were of Mongo insisting that it stay as a proposed policy (and then an essay) rather than as rejected. And again, if you look at his behavior on the talk page and at NPA he supported it. So we have two prominent editors supporting it. I could give additional examples based on the talk page (I already pointed to Thuranx). I don't see why I need to go through and list every single editor. The bottom line is that actual non-sockpuppet prominent editors supported BADSITES. The notion that this was a strawman that no Wikipedia community member would ever support is simply false.
"Prominent editors" is a convenient shorthand, but we have essentially two editors here, one saying it was policy, another saying it was a proposed policy, or at least an essay (and *anything* can be an essay). I don't think either were admins, by the way. And I never claimed it was a "strawman that no Wikipedia community member would ever support"; rather, it was an extremely clever strawman that suckered in both proponents and opponents. Of course, it has proven extremely useful to opponents, particularly banned editors posting off Wikipedia.
- The removal of many of the problematic links we've
seen in the last few months (such as Making Lights and Robert
Black's blog)
we're precisely what BADSITES was calling for.
Just because the outcome is the same doesn't mean the reasoning for doing so was the same. Crappy links are deleted for all sorts of reasons, mostly because they're crappy, even if they would also have been deleted under that strawman BADSITES policy.
Except none of these were crappy links.
They looked like crappy links to me, but I could be wrong. Any specifics?
Um, see above. The link to Black's blog was a standard external link as were the Making Lights links. If these are were somehow crappy I'd like to hear an explanation.
It's pretty rare that blogs qualify as a *good* link in any meaningful sense of the term, except when they happen to be prominent blogs, and Black's blog was hardly prominent. Was there anything about Black's blog that was really valuable in your eyes? Any specific content you think was demonstrably valuable to Wikipedia? Please be specific about which content you think increased Wikipedia's stature as an encyclopia.
As for the "Making Lights" links, I think that incident is as useful as the BADSITES itself; that is to say, extremely useful for absolutist rhetoric, but not at all useful for making good decisions. Please see my earlier comments on this.
These were links that would have been included in article space but for the fact that they contained material we didn't like.
Err, "containing material we don't like" pretty much covers every link ever deleted from Wikipedia.
Jayjg, please do not' be disingenuous. You know what I mean. These would have been included but for the fact that that they contained specific information or speculation about Wikipedia editors.
But the vast majority of blogs are, in fact, non-encyclopedic; that's why we don't include them as reliable sources. And, in fact, Black's log fails [[WP:EL]] #2, and would be immediately rejected as a link on over 3 million Wikipedia pages. The fact that it could *possibly* be included as a link on exactly 1 page in all of Wikipedia doesn't mean that it is encyclopedic, or that its inclusion is necessary, or even desirable.
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 1:39 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 1:02 PM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
On Nov 21, 2007 11:52 AM, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
> On Nov 15, 2007 9:43 PM, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote: >> William Pietri wrote: >> >Daniel R. Tobias wrote: >> >> [...]As long as this silly idea refuses to die, neither can
my fervent
>> >> opposition to it. >> >> >> > I regret that I feel the same way. >> >> And I share Dan's and William's chagrin. >> >> Something I've been struck by: we need to learn or re-learn, >> for today's Wikipedia, how to form consensus. Back in the day >> I think we knew how to, but either we've forgotten, or the game >> has changed. >> >> A tiny minority of influential people on one side of a >> contentious issue can apparently keep it alive *forever*. >> We have to figure out how to settle these issues, and move on. >> >> I'm not a big player in any of these debates, but by way of >> example, I managed to do this in the case of spoiler warnings. >> I care almost as much about the spoiler warnings issue as the >> BADSITES issue. I could easily be one of the tedious cranks >> that Snowspinner was just complaining about. That spoiler >> warnings have been summarily eradicated is deeply wrong. >> But with apologies to Ken Arromdee, who I would have like to >> have supported in that fight, I decided I didn't care enough >> about the issue to keep arguing against the juggernaut that had >> somehow formed against it, so I turned my back and walked away. >> >> I'm not saying the solution is to walk away from things you care >> about. But the BADSITES issue clearly will not die; we've got >> people on both sides who haven't budged an inch in their positions >> (myself included) and who are apparently willing to trot out the >> same arguments in endless repetetition until the cows come home. >> We've all got to get off that treadmill somehow. > > I don't think that's accurate. It is only people who are against > BADSITES who continually trot it out so they can flail
against it; it
> is the convenient strawman it always was, since it was first created > as a strawman.The history of the proposed "alternative" to BADSITES, >
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Linking_to_external_harassment
> , is also fascinating. It turns out that the two main authors > of the policy, BenB4 and Privatemusings, are banned sockpuppets. In > fact, 58% of the edits to the page are by banned editors, mostly > sockpuppets, another 18% are by an ip editor, and another 4% by the > people who most often bring up the BADSITES strawman,
Alecmconroy and
> Dtobias, for a total of 80%. Though the latter two didn't contribute > much to the actual writing, they certainly dominated the
Talk: page -
> Alec made 24 edits to the Talk: page and Dan made 162. So we
have now
> reached the point where policies are essentially being written by > banned editors, sockpuppets, IP editors, and people who oppose the > policy they are writing. And even that "alternative" has apparently > today been unilaterally rejected by a new IP editor: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/86.148.219.194 > > BADSITES has proven to be an extremely convenient way of distracting > attention from the real issues regarding offsite harassment and > non-encyclopedic links; I suspect it has worked even better than its > author ever dreamed it would.
Jayjg this would be a nice story except for a few problems: 1) A
number of
editors favored BADSITES
Really? Which ones?
Tony Sidaway supported it strongly. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AAttack_sites&diff=...
Well, Mongo appeared to support it. (See his comments on the talk page as well as
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Attack_sites&diff=pr...
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AAttack_sites&diff=...
). Mongo then went to [[WP:NPA]] and attempted to get nearly identical language in there where he was supported by Thuranx.
So Tony supported it, and Mongo insisted it was an essay or proposed policy. And?
The difs I gave were of Mongo insisting that it stay as a proposed policy (and then an essay) rather than as rejected. And again, if you look at his behavior on the talk page and at NPA he supported it. So we have two prominent editors supporting it. I could give additional examples based on the talk page (I already pointed to Thuranx). I don't see why I need to go through and list every single editor. The bottom line is that actual non-sockpuppet prominent editors supported BADSITES. The notion that this was a strawman that no Wikipedia community member would ever support is simply false.
"Prominent editors" is a convenient shorthand, but we have essentially two editors here, one saying it was policy, another saying it was a proposed policy, or at least an essay (and *anything* can be an essay). I don't think either were admins, by the way. And I never claimed it was a "strawman that no Wikipedia community member would ever support"; rather, it was an extremely clever strawman that suckered in both proponents and opponents. Of course, it has proven extremely useful to opponents, particularly banned editors posting off Wikipedia.
- The removal of many of the problematic links we've
seen in the last few months (such as Making Lights and Robert
Black's blog)
we're precisely what BADSITES was calling for.
Just because the outcome is the same doesn't mean the reasoning for doing so was the same. Crappy links are deleted for all sorts of reasons, mostly because they're crappy, even if they would also have been deleted under that strawman BADSITES policy.
Except none of these were crappy links.
They looked like crappy links to me, but I could be wrong. Any specifics?
Um, see above. The link to Black's blog was a standard external link as were the Making Lights links. If these are were somehow crappy I'd like to hear an explanation.
It's pretty rare that blogs qualify as a *good* link in any meaningful sense of the term, except when they happen to be prominent blogs, and Black's blog was hardly prominent. Was there anything about Black's blog that was really valuable in your eyes? Any specific content you think was demonstrably valuable to Wikipedia? Please be specific about which content you think increased Wikipedia's stature as an encyclopia.
As for the "Making Lights" links, I think that incident is as useful as the BADSITES itself; that is to say, extremely useful for absolutist rhetoric, but not at all useful for making good decisions. Please see my earlier comments on this.
But the vast majority of blogs are, in fact, non-encyclopedic; that's why we don't include them as reliable sources. And, in fact, Black's log fails [[WP:EL]] #2, and would be immediately rejected as a link on over 3 million Wikipedia pages. The fact that it could *possibly* be included as a link on exactly 1 page in all of Wikipedia doesn't mean that it is encyclopedic, or that its inclusion is necessary, or even desirable.
And this is precisely why people are worried about something like BADSITES. You are now arguing that Black's blog shouldn't be a link on the page about him. Do you see the absurdity in that claim? If it were not for the fact that he mentioned (and in fact pretty close to debunked in one post) speculation about a Wikipedian we wouldn't even think of removing the link. It would be akin to removing the blog of say Richard Dawkins from [[Richard Dawkins]], obviously absurd.
The reason people are engaging in this rhetoric is because a) they are worried that something like the Making Lights matter will occur again and b) the Black matter is only a difference of degree, not of kind. The same result occurs- the advocacy of removal of material that would be linked to but for the fact that it contains information about Wikipedians.
On 21/11/2007, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
The reason people are engaging in this rhetoric is because a) they are worried that something like the Making Lights matter will occur again and b) the Black matter is only a difference of degree, not of kind. The same result occurs- the advocacy of removal of material that would be linked to but for the fact that it contains information about Wikipedians.
Indeed. Not addressing the concerns, or claiming "it's all BADSITES and that's dead" or equivalent, does not make the concerns go away.
- d.
On 21/11/2007, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
Just because the outcome is the same doesn't mean the reasoning for doing so was the same. Crappy links are deleted for all sorts of reasons, mostly because they're crappy, even if they would also have been deleted under that strawman BADSITES policy.
Except none of these were crappy links. These were links that would have been included in article space but for the fact that they contained material we didn't like.
Or that they were links to pages on sites that had *some pages* that contained material that we didn't like.
On Nov 21, 2007 1:26 PM, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
On 21/11/2007, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
Just because the outcome is the same doesn't mean the reasoning for doing so was the same. Crappy links are deleted for all sorts of reasons, mostly because they're crappy, even if they would also have been deleted under that strawman BADSITES policy.
Except none of these were crappy links. These were links that would have been included in article space but for the fact that they contained material we didn't like.
Or that they were links to pages on sites that had *some pages* that contained material that we didn't like.
Which, again, would pretty much describe every single link that has ever been deleted from Wikipedia.
On 21/11/2007, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On Nov 21, 2007 1:26 PM, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
On 21/11/2007, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
Just because the outcome is the same doesn't mean the reasoning for doing so was the same. Crappy links are deleted for all sorts of reasons, mostly because they're crappy, even if they would also have been deleted under that strawman BADSITES policy.
Except none of these were crappy links. These were links that would have been included in article space but for the fact that they contained material we didn't like.
Or that they were links to pages on sites that had *some pages* that contained material that we didn't like.
Which, again, would pretty much describe every single link that has ever been deleted from Wikipedia.
Pathetic.
Links are, and should be, deleted from Wikipedia because they are unencyclopaedic.
Links should not be (but have been) deleted from Wikipedia if they have encyclopaedic value simply because of material "that we don't like" that happens to be hosted on the same website.
On Nov 21, 2007 5:46 PM, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
On 21/11/2007, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On Nov 21, 2007 1:26 PM, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
On 21/11/2007, joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Quoting jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com:
Just because the outcome is the same doesn't mean the reasoning for doing so was the same. Crappy links are deleted for all sorts of reasons, mostly because they're crappy, even if they would also have been deleted under that strawman BADSITES policy.
Except none of these were crappy links. These were links that would have been included in article space but for the fact that they contained material we didn't like.
Or that they were links to pages on sites that had *some pages* that contained material that we didn't like.
Which, again, would pretty much describe every single link that has ever been deleted from Wikipedia.
Pathetic.
That's a very uncivil comment, James.
Links are, and should be, deleted from Wikipedia because they are unencyclopaedic.
Right.
Links should not be (but have been) deleted from Wikipedia if they have encyclopaedic value simply because of material "that we don't like" that happens to be hosted on the same website.
Define "encyclopedic value". Now get 10 Wikipedians to agree on that definition.
On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 22:46:04 +0000, "James Farrar" james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
Links should not be (but have been) deleted from Wikipedia if they have encyclopaedic value simply because of material "that we don't like" that happens to be hosted on the same website.
Well, let's be honest, the number of links in that category is somewhere between three and ten. Ever. So it's not *that* big a problem, although it makes sense to try to help good-faith editors not to make the same mistake again.
Guy (JzG)
On 21/11/2007, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 22:46:04 +0000, "James Farrar" james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
Links should not be (but have been) deleted from Wikipedia if they have encyclopaedic value simply because of material "that we don't like" that happens to be hosted on the same website.
Well, let's be honest, the number of links in that category is somewhere between three and ten. Ever. So it's not *that* big a problem, although it makes sense to try to help good-faith editors not to make the same mistake again.
Ya got a point there.
[does the internet explode now?]
Please swing by WP:LINKLOVE and make it not suck. Think in terms of a practical help guideline for clueful editors of good faith, because clueless ones won't understand and editors of bad faith treat any rules as playground equipment anyway.
- d.
On 21/11/2007, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 22:46:04 +0000, "James Farrar" james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
Links should not be (but have been) deleted from Wikipedia if they have encyclopaedic value simply because of material "that we don't like" that happens to be hosted on the same website.
Well, let's be honest, the number of links in that category is somewhere between three and ten. Ever. So it's not *that* big a problem, although it makes sense to try to help good-faith editors not to make the same mistake again.
The problem is not so much that the links were removed, but that some people are still defending the removal as the right thing to have done.
And on that note, I'm also going to bow out of this round of the BADSITES debate. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you who will be celebrating it.
On Thu, 22 Nov 2007 00:39:46 +0000, "James Farrar" james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
Well, let's be honest, the number of links in that category is somewhere between three and ten. Ever. So it's not *that* big a problem, although it makes sense to try to help good-faith editors not to make the same mistake again.
The problem is not so much that the links were removed, but that some people are still defending the removal as the right thing to have done.
No, that's not a problem unless they do it again.
Guy (JzG)
On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 12:49:27 -0500, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
Just because the outcome is the same doesn't mean the reasoning for doing so was the same. Crappy links are deleted for all sorts of reasons, mostly because they're crappy, even if they would also have been deleted under that strawman BADSITES policy.
I can't help feeling this was the main aim of that whole strawman: to make it harder to remove crappy links *because they are crappy*. The main site active in this is, after all, spectacularly crappy.
Guy (JzG)
On 21/11/2007, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 12:49:27 -0500, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
Just because the outcome is the same doesn't mean the reasoning for doing so was the same. Crappy links are deleted for all sorts of reasons, mostly because they're crappy, even if they would also have been deleted under that strawman BADSITES policy.
I can't help feeling this was the main aim of that whole strawman: to make it harder to remove crappy links *because they are crappy*. The main site active in this is, after all, spectacularly crappy.
No, the aim of BADSITES was to demonstrate how pathetic and unwanted existing practice was. This was highly successful.
On Nov 21, 2007 6:00 PM, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
On 21/11/2007, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 12:49:27 -0500, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
Just because the outcome is the same doesn't mean the reasoning for doing so was the same. Crappy links are deleted for all sorts of reasons, mostly because they're crappy, even if they would also have been deleted under that strawman BADSITES policy.
I can't help feeling this was the main aim of that whole strawman: to make it harder to remove crappy links *because they are crappy*. The main site active in this is, after all, spectacularly crappy.
No, the aim of BADSITES was to demonstrate how pathetic and unwanted existing practice was. This was highly successful.
Highly unlikely, as there was no "existing practice" backing it up. BADSITES was a strawman policy, and an extremely successful one at that - a number of people on both sides got fooled. And, of course, it's still an excellent tool, being used daily to shut down any hope of rational discussion about offsite harassment of Wikipedia editors.
On 21/11/2007, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On Nov 21, 2007 6:00 PM, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
On 21/11/2007, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 12:49:27 -0500, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
Just because the outcome is the same doesn't mean the reasoning for doing so was the same. Crappy links are deleted for all sorts of reasons, mostly because they're crappy, even if they would also have been deleted under that strawman BADSITES policy.
I can't help feeling this was the main aim of that whole strawman: to make it harder to remove crappy links *because they are crappy*. The main site active in this is, after all, spectacularly crappy.
No, the aim of BADSITES was to demonstrate how pathetic and unwanted existing practice was. This was highly successful.
Highly unlikely, as there was no "existing practice" backing it up.
Nobody had ever removed a useful link because the website it was on also contained pages that were deemed to attack Wikipedians?
On Nov 21, 2007 6:19 PM, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
On 21/11/2007, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On Nov 21, 2007 6:00 PM, James Farrar james.farrar@gmail.com wrote:
On 21/11/2007, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 12:49:27 -0500, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
Just because the outcome is the same doesn't mean the reasoning for doing so was the same. Crappy links are deleted for all sorts of reasons, mostly because they're crappy, even if they would also have been deleted under that strawman BADSITES policy.
I can't help feeling this was the main aim of that whole strawman: to make it harder to remove crappy links *because they are crappy*. The main site active in this is, after all, spectacularly crappy.
No, the aim of BADSITES was to demonstrate how pathetic and unwanted existing practice was. This was highly successful.
Highly unlikely, as there was no "existing practice" backing it up.
Nobody had ever removed a useful link because the website it was on also contained pages that were deemed to attack Wikipedians?
That seems like an obvious logical fallacy. Someone may indeed have done so at some point, but that doesn't make it "existing practice".
Quoting Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net:
On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 12:49:27 -0500, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
Just because the outcome is the same doesn't mean the reasoning for doing so was the same. Crappy links are deleted for all sorts of reasons, mostly because they're crappy, even if they would also have been deleted under that strawman BADSITES policy.
I can't help feeling this was the main aim of that whole strawman: to make it harder to remove crappy links *because they are crappy*. The main site active in this is, after all, spectacularly crappy.
A big issue here is what do you mean by crappy? We have a tremendous problem with spam and other genuine crap. But by crappy do we mean links that otherwise meet WP:EL and would be included but for the fact that the people who write them are assholes who attack Wikipedians? Then we have a problem.
On Nov 21, 2007 10:09 AM, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On Nov 15, 2007 9:43 PM, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
William Pietri wrote:
Daniel R. Tobias wrote:
[...]As long as this silly idea refuses to die, neither can my fervent opposition to it.
I regret that I feel the same way.
And I share Dan's and William's chagrin.
Something I've been struck by: we need to learn or re-learn, for today's Wikipedia, how to form consensus. Back in the day I think we knew how to, but either we've forgotten, or the game has changed.
A tiny minority of influential people on one side of a contentious issue can apparently keep it alive *forever*. We have to figure out how to settle these issues, and move on.
I'm not a big player in any of these debates, but by way of example, I managed to do this in the case of spoiler warnings. I care almost as much about the spoiler warnings issue as the BADSITES issue. I could easily be one of the tedious cranks that Snowspinner was just complaining about. That spoiler warnings have been summarily eradicated is deeply wrong. But with apologies to Ken Arromdee, who I would have like to have supported in that fight, I decided I didn't care enough about the issue to keep arguing against the juggernaut that had somehow formed against it, so I turned my back and walked away.
I'm not saying the solution is to walk away from things you care about. But the BADSITES issue clearly will not die; we've got people on both sides who haven't budged an inch in their positions (myself included) and who are apparently willing to trot out the same arguments in endless repetetition until the cows come home. We've all got to get off that treadmill somehow.
I don't think that's accurate. It is only people who are against BADSITES who continually trot it out so they can flail against it; it is the convenient strawman it always was, since it was first created as a strawman.The history of the proposed "alternative" to BADSITES, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Linking_to_external_harassment , is also fascinating. It turns out that the two main authors of the policy, BenB4 and Privatemusings, are banned sockpuppets. In fact, 58% of the edits to the page are by banned editors, mostly sockpuppets, another 18% are by an ip editor, and another 4% by the people who most often bring up the BADSITES strawman, Alecmconroy and Dtobias, for a total of 80%. Though the latter two didn't contribute much to the actual writing, they certainly dominated the Talk: page - Alec made 24 edits to the Talk: page and Dan made 162.
Err, that should be reversed, Alec made 162 edits and Dan 24.