[WikiEN-l] Suppression of links to 'attack sites'?

[Delirium]

Denny Colt wrote:
> Whatever microscopic benefit  can be (argued by some) to be gained by
> linking to a hate site like Wikipedia Review is immediately outweighed by
> the harm that place and similar pages create. They openly hunt for peoples'
> identaties. They have active Jayjg and slimvirgin hunting threads, and for
> others.
>
> Do you support that? How about harassment of others like mongo, and katefan,
> and phaedriel, and so on...?
>
> I have asked multiple people, can you think of a single GOOD reason to link
> to that site in particular, and got not one good answer, only strawmen
> arguments about censorship and mccarthyism.
>   

This is a strangely self-centered argument, that seems likely to have 
only come up because it's about Wikipedia specifically, and we love 
constructing special cases when stuff has to do with us.  We link to 
lots and lots of attack sites on Wikipedia, most of them much more 
offensive and potentially dangerous than Wikipedia Review.  We even have 
an entire article on [[en:Stormfront (website)]], which obviously links 
to the site in question.  The criterion for external links isn't that we 
*agree* with the link, but that it has some encyclopedic relevance to 
the article it's in.  Wikipedia Review most likely does not have 
relevance to any article except maybe [[en:Daniel Brandt]]; whether it 
should be linked there or not is a content decision based on its 
notability.  But a blanket ban on links to "attack sites" is silly, even 
if we could define what that meant.

-Mark