Links to a site, and references to a site, are the oxygen of the internet. We just don't help.
Fred
-----Original Message----- From: Steve Summit [mailto:scs@eskimo.com] Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2007 11:52 PM To: wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] BADSITES ArbCom case in progress
We should, yes, "guard our editors and protect them from harm", or however the saying goes. But at the same time, of course, we have to protect the *project* from harm. And a wrong decision here could really harm the project (not to mention that divisive debates like these are quite harmful, too).
Protecting editors from harm must surely acknowledge the existence of off-wiki attacks. WP:NPA should certainly disallow links which serve to attack, just as it prohibits other, on-wiki attacks.
However: we should not, cannot, must not attempt to enact blanket bans on all links to "attack sites", as the notorious BADSITES policy allegedly attempted to do. It's possible to justify such an attempted ban under the "protect them from harm" doctrine, but a ban goes too far. It harms the project, and does *not* help the injured editor.
I believe there are three underlying motivations for enacting absolute bans:
We must not condone the activities of the attack sites.
We must punish the attack sites.
We must shield injured editors from being reminded of the
existence of the attack sites.
It's a bitter pill to swallow, but numbers 1 and 2 hold no water. The simple, sad fact is that THERE IS NOTHING WE CAN DO TO MAKE AN ATTACK SITE GO AWAY. They exist whether we link to them or not. They exist whether we talk about them or not. There's no way we can punish them. And linking to them does *not* condone them; that's not the way hyperlinks work.
And then there's #3. I'll be accused of being a victim-blamer here, I'm sure, but fear of being called a victim-blamer is how we let ourselves get boxed into extreme, untenable positions, so I'll persevere.
Guarding our editors and protecting them from harm does not mean that an aggrieved editor gets to make absurd demands for protection or redress and have them followed without question. In particular: if an injured editor declares that any reminder of an attack constitutes a continuation of the attack, or makes whatever declaration it is that somehow induces the rest of us to enact blanket bans, we must politely, sensitively, but firmly let the injured editor know that we've done as much as we can, that the attack site continues to exist regardless of whether we mention its name or not, and that the injured editor needs to work through whatever remaining healing issues they have and move on.
We mustn't twist the project into some misshapen repudiation of its former self just because some numnutz at an attack site did something unspeakable. You may not like acknowledging the existence of the numnutz and the attack site, but I really, really hate giving them the power to corrupt our project, or worse, actively assisting and *enabling* them (by launching into misguided knee-jerk reactions) in corrupting our project. So, please, let's not.
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Fred, at the arb com you proposed:
"Discussion of an allegation derived from an external attack site engaged in harassment is unacceptable. If there is truth, the matter will, in due course, be raised by other witnesses. "
The problem, of course, is that under the policy you are advocating, any such witness will in fact been classified by some as an attack site. If the encyclopedia isn't neutral, even with respect to our own people, it isn't worth the protecting, and we join the attack sites as non-neutral biased sources.
On 9/19/07, fredbaud@waterwiki.info fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
Links to a site, and references to a site, are the oxygen of the internet. We just don't help.
Fred
-----Original Message----- From: Steve Summit [mailto:scs@eskimo.com] Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2007 11:52 PM To: wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] BADSITES ArbCom case in progress
We should, yes, "guard our editors and protect them from harm", or however the saying goes. But at the same time, of course, we have to protect the *project* from harm. And a wrong decision here could really harm the project (not to mention that divisive debates like these are quite harmful, too).
Protecting editors from harm must surely acknowledge the existence of off-wiki attacks. WP:NPA should certainly disallow links which serve to attack, just as it prohibits other, on-wiki attacks.
However: we should not, cannot, must not attempt to enact blanket bans on all links to "attack sites", as the notorious BADSITES policy allegedly attempted to do. It's possible to justify such an attempted ban under the "protect them from harm" doctrine, but a ban goes too far. It harms the project, and does *not* help the injured editor.
I believe there are three underlying motivations for enacting absolute bans:
We must not condone the activities of the attack sites.
We must punish the attack sites.
We must shield injured editors from being reminded of the
existence of the attack sites.
It's a bitter pill to swallow, but numbers 1 and 2 hold no water. The simple, sad fact is that THERE IS NOTHING WE CAN DO TO MAKE AN ATTACK SITE GO AWAY. They exist whether we link to them or not. They exist whether we talk about them or not. There's no way we can punish them. And linking to them does *not* condone them; that's not the way hyperlinks work.
And then there's #3. I'll be accused of being a victim-blamer here, I'm sure, but fear of being called a victim-blamer is how we let ourselves get boxed into extreme, untenable positions, so I'll persevere.
Guarding our editors and protecting them from harm does not mean that an aggrieved editor gets to make absurd demands for protection or redress and have them followed without question. In particular: if an injured editor declares that any reminder of an attack constitutes a continuation of the attack, or makes whatever declaration it is that somehow induces the rest of us to enact blanket bans, we must politely, sensitively, but firmly let the injured editor know that we've done as much as we can, that the attack site continues to exist regardless of whether we mention its name or not, and that the injured editor needs to work through whatever remaining healing issues they have and move on.
We mustn't twist the project into some misshapen repudiation of its former self just because some numnutz at an attack site did something unspeakable. You may not like acknowledging the existence of the numnutz and the attack site, but I really, really hate giving them the power to corrupt our project, or worse, actively assisting and *enabling* them (by launching into misguided knee-jerk reactions) in corrupting our project. So, please, let's not.
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fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
Links to a site, and references to a site, are the oxygen of the internet. We just don't help.
Fred
-----Original Message----- From: Steve Summit [mailto:scs@eskimo.com] Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2007 11:52 PM To: wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] BADSITES ArbCom case in progress
We should, yes, "guard our editors and protect them from harm", or however the saying goes. But at the same time, of course, we have to protect the *project* from harm. And a wrong decision here could really harm the project (not to mention that divisive debates like these are quite harmful, too).
Protecting editors from harm must surely acknowledge the existence of off-wiki attacks. WP:NPA should certainly disallow links which serve to attack, just as it prohibits other, on-wiki attacks.
However: we should not, cannot, must not attempt to enact blanket bans on all links to "attack sites", as the notorious BADSITES policy allegedly attempted to do. It's possible to justify such an attempted ban under the "protect them from harm" doctrine, but a ban goes too far. It harms the project, and does *not* help the injured editor.
I believe there are three underlying motivations for enacting absolute bans:
We must not condone the activities of the attack sites.
We must punish the attack sites.
We must shield injured editors from being reminded of the
existence of the attack sites.
It's a bitter pill to swallow, but numbers 1 and 2 hold no water. The simple, sad fact is that THERE IS NOTHING WE CAN DO TO MAKE AN ATTACK SITE GO AWAY. They exist whether we link to them or not. They exist whether we talk about them or not. There's no way we can punish them. And linking to them does *not* condone them; that's not the way hyperlinks work.
And then there's #3. I'll be accused of being a victim-blamer here, I'm sure, but fear of being called a victim-blamer is how we let ourselves get boxed into extreme, untenable positions, so I'll persevere.
Guarding our editors and protecting them from harm does not mean that an aggrieved editor gets to make absurd demands for protection or redress and have them followed without question. In particular: if an injured editor declares that any reminder of an attack constitutes a continuation of the attack, or makes whatever declaration it is that somehow induces the rest of us to enact blanket bans, we must politely, sensitively, but firmly let the injured editor know that we've done as much as we can, that the attack site continues to exist regardless of whether we mention its name or not, and that the injured editor needs to work through whatever remaining healing issues they have and move on.
We mustn't twist the project into some misshapen repudiation of its former self just because some numnutz at an attack site did something unspeakable. You may not like acknowledging the existence of the numnutz and the attack site, but I really, really hate giving them the power to corrupt our project, or worse, actively assisting and *enabling* them (by launching into misguided knee-jerk reactions) in corrupting our project. So, please, let's not.
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I agree with you. At the same time, we should ensure we're not cutting off more oxygen to us than them. For many attack sites, there's no real reason to link to them at all anyway. Great, no big deal, let's avoid it. But when we're talking about a site like michaelmoore.com, and people are proposing in any form of seriousness to ban links to it, we've got a problem. There are tons of potentially valid reasons to link to that site, not least in [[Michael Moore]] itself, an unquestionably notable figure.
Unfortunately, some people do nasty things. We should avoid providing aid to them where possible, and I can't imagine that anyone would disagree with that, but we should also avoid letting them do what they set out to do-cause trouble.