On 5/30/07, Sheldon Rampton sheldon@prwatch.org wrote:

Jayjg wrote:

...

But Sheldon, Wikipedia has all sorts of rules about what kinds of websites it allows links to, both in the actual articles themselves, and even in the External links sections. The rationale behind these rules is that linking to these sorts of websites does not assist the purpose of Wikipedia (which is to create an encyclopedia), and arguably detracts from it or damages it.

As several people here have previously pointed out, the rules you're describing above restrict people from linking to those sorts of websites in the article space, not on talk pages or things like Signpost.

And that's an important difference because...

And none of those other rules are written as a backdoor way of banning links to a single specific site. As a general rule, it's a bad idea to write an across-the-board policy just to deal with a single situation.

Well, if you insist on proposing policies again and again, I suppose I'll have to humor you. As I see it, the proponents of such a policy would want it to apply to a class of sites, not a single specific site, though obviously with the hope that the number of sites affected would remain small (and please don't respond to this with a slippery slope argument - I understand those logical fallacies quite well, thank you). As for general rules, they generally apply, but, of course, not always.

...

I haven't heard you complaining about those rules, yet, oddly, you seem to have become incensed over even the suggestion that WR is also the kind of site that could not assist Wikipedia in achieving its goals, and, in fact, would arguably detract from Wikipedia or damage it. This apparent double standard is troubling.

I guess this passage is some sort of lame attempt to insinuate that I'm trying to carry water for WR.

I'm almost certain I just told you in my last e-mail to you that I was not appointing you as my spokesman. Please rest assured that this is still most emphatically the case, and please extend that to include "and not my interpreter either".

I don't give a fig about WR. I've only visited it a couple of times (always in response to the fuss that people keep making about it here), and I don't find it particularly interesting or worth reading.

That's a reasonable assessment.

I get the general idea that it's a haven for grumbling Wikipedia-haters and that Daniel Brandt ought to take a chill pill,

True enough, though perhaps understated.

but I haven't seen anything there reach the level of malignancy that some people here keep insisting is its very essence.

Perhaps the issue is that it is not your ox that has been gored.

I'd ask you to give me a specific example, but you seem to have a policy against that. Instead, you've offered elaborate but vague hypothetical situations: "suppose someone calls you a pedophile on their website and then never actually links to the page where they call you a pedophile but instead slyly links to other pages while standing on their head and whistling Dixie...."

I think you've mistaken me for someone else.

Since your hypothetical situations don't resemble anything I've ever actually seen on WR, I can't imagine how your hypothetical scenarios apply to this discussion.

Well, as you admit, you've only been there a couple of times. It's quite a large cesspool, and you've only gotten your ankles dirty. Not that I'm suggesting you dive in.

I'd ask you to give a specific example rather than give hypotheticals, but that would require you to link to WR, and you can't under your own rules.

Whoops, there goes that strawman thing again. I haven't made any rules.

That's one of the problems with censorship. It even hurts the censor.

Hysterical rhetoric does the same.