On 10/20/07, Durova <nadezhda.durova(a)gmail.com> wrote: 1. What hard evidence is there that this defuses criticism and/or harassment of us and our editors? 2. Are you seriously arguing that excluding our readers from certain points of view hosted off-site, by refusing to link to notable and/or reliable (by our own guidelines) websites, is a lesser harm to NPOV than losing a handful of editors who can easily be replaced? (Sad, I know, but true - I have never met a single Wikipedian who was irreplaceable.) 3. And is there any hard evidence that harassed Wikipedians will quit if, for good purposes (e.g. evidence in arbcom case, discussion in ANI, a source for a controversial POV) we link to a reliable/notable website which harasses them, or are we just taking their word at face value? AGF and all that, but economists have shown that what people say and what people do are not always congruent; what I think I will do and what I actually do are not necessarily the same. Johnleemk

Durova wrote: The reason we don't link shock sites is not because *we* find them offensive. It's because we believe the vast majority of our readers would find them so immediately and pungently offensive that we want them to be sure they don't accidentally get an eyeful. I don't see antisocialmedia.net in the same category: we personally may find parts of it odious, but it will not cause most readers mental scarring. [1] The question I keep asking myself about these proposals is: Who does it serve? Delinking shock sites serves our readers. Delinking sites that we don't like because of how they treat us most obviously serves ourselves at the expense of our readers. Your argument that it also has a subtle, long-term effect on our ability to serve readers is interesting, but unproven, and could just as well have the opposite effect. William [1] For those wondering about the effects without wanting to experience them, see the Flickr set "firstgoatse". It contains no shock images; it's just pictures of people reacting to seeing the most famous internet shock site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/firstgoatse/interesting/ -- William Pietri <william(a)scissor.com> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_Pietri

On 10/20/07, Durova <nadezhda.durova(a)gmail.com> wrote: I consider arguments based on site popularity/traffic/etc to be patently flawed. Whatever moral responsibility we wish to assume, whatever standards of decency we choose to hold ourselves to, should be based on firm principles, not an ephemeral site rank. That is, whether we are in the top ten or the bottom ten, actual practice should not differ. I know I've said this before. That's my theoretical view on this. Practical view: While it has become increasingly obvious that the content and behavior of other sites can and does affect (for better or worse, usually worse) the way we operate, the effect of our content and behavior has on other sites is, how do I say... grossly over-estimated. Nobody's going to change on account of us. Their goal is, of course, to denigrate Wikipedia and its key people based on what they know, or what they think they know, regardless of where the traffic comes from, and whether or not anyone stops to read it. They have, unlike us, no credibility to lose. They don't have to worry about us warning their readers to take their words with a heap of salt because they are in fact sociopaths, stalkers, crackpots, or lying sacks of shit. In the extreme cases, they don't have to worry about us allowing each other to mention them. You might say they've got it easy. But it's not because "we're above attacking them back", or because "we're a top ten site", or "we don't want to help their traffic", or "we don't want to discuss any of their accusations lest they appear on the first page of Google instead of the last". It's simpler than that. It's because it affects us personally, it's because we have feelings and assume others do too. It's because, in the end, emotions always seem to trump principle. —C.W.