-----Original Message----- From: William Pietri [mailto:william@scissor.com] Sent: Saturday, October 20, 2007 05:31 PM To: 'English Wikipedia' Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Harassment sites
Durova wrote:
We do it for shock sites, and antisocialmedia.net is odious enough to deserve not being linked.
The purpose is that it reduces incoming traffic from one of the most powerful sources of link traffic on the Internet. If that discourages people from using their sites to intimidate particular editors, then so much the better. NPOV *is* harmed when good editors decide "this isn't worth it" and leave the project.
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
_______________________________________________
You never seem to understand the issue. One suspects your sustained mischaracterization of the issue is not an accident. We have plenty on the site which shocks the average reader and are strongly committed to presenting such information without censorship. Harassment is attacks directed at our users. We support our users by minimizing the degree of harassment they are exposed to. Fred
Fred Bauder wrote:
[William Pietri wrote:]
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.
You never seem to understand the issue. One suspects your sustained mischaracterization of the issue is not an accident.
Fred, this is unworthy of you. Just the same might be said about you.
Harassment is attacks directed at our users. We support our users by minimizing the degree of harassment they are exposed to.
Everyone in this debate understands this goal perfectly, exhaustingly well. What's debated is:
1. whether the attempt to minimize down to zero is worth the cost, and 2. whether removing links truly minimizes exposure in all cases.
These are difficult questions. You have your view of the tradeoffs which you're comfortable with, but others legitimately have different views.
On 21/10/2007, fredbaud@waterwiki.info fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
You never seem to understand the issue. One suspects your sustained mischaracterization of the issue is not an accident.
Oh, so because he disagrees with you he's therefore trolling?
- d.
fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
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.
You never seem to understand the issue. One suspects your sustained mischaracterization of the issue is not an accident.
Fred, if you'd like to say you think I'm acting in bad faith, just do it. Saying "one suspects" when you mean "I suspect" is unhelpful and I find it annoying. Regardless, I'm sorry you suspect that. You're wrong. Let me know if I can do anything to help clear up your concerns for you.
I may well be misunderstanding things, though. I certainly do it often enough. If you are concerned about that, perhaps you could -- like a few others here -- write up an essay with your entire view on the subject? Trying to puzzle it out from a collection of short blocks like the one below is challenging.
We have plenty on the site which shocks the average reader and are strongly committed to presenting such information without censorship. Harassment is attacks directed at our users. We support our users by minimizing the degree of harassment they are exposed to.
Yes, I'm all for minimizing harassment. And I'm also against censorship. I'm glad we agree on these principles
Where I believe we disagree is in the balance between them. When they conflict -- which only happens rarely -- I favor the latter. I believe that article space is inviolate, and that we should exercise great caution in censoring other spaces. My understanding is that in some circumstances, you favor the former principle. I think I understand why, and I agree with the sentiment. I just believe that the benefit is smaller and the costs much larger than what I understand your evaluation to be.
William