[WikiEN-l] Another conflict regarding linking to "attack sites"

[John Lee]

On 4/25/07, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
>
> I was being "unnecessarily inflammatory" according to Steve Bennett
> for saying that some people have a problem with people linking to
> sites they don't like.  A couple of others have already referred to
> the big WP:BADSITES debate, including the edit warring, threats,
> accusations of WP:POINT, and so on that attended the addition and
> removal of links to sites used to illustrate why sometimes linking to
> such sites makes sense.  Now, yet another conflict has broken out
> along those lines.
>
> This week, Wikipedia Signpost has an article about the latest
> developments in the Daniel Brandt flap:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2007-04-
> 23/Brandt_unblock
>
> The original version, by Michael Snow, included a link to Brandt's
> Wikipedia Watch site, which was relevant to the article because it
> was in fact being discussed there.
>
> Michaelas10 then removed the link, using "Attack site" as his edit
> summary.
>
> Then, SqueakBox reinstated it, saying that [[WP:BADSITES]] is not
> policy.
>
> Musical Linguist then reverted that, and there was one more round of
> edit warring by these last two users, before it settled to its
> current state of not having the link.
>
> Musical Linguist also left a warning message threatening to block
> SqueakBox, which he deleted from his talk page.
>
> Some of the commentary referred to "enforcing the MONGO ArbCom
> decision", and it's a perfect example of why I consider that
> decision, at least the part of it that imposed a ban on linking to
> "attack sites", was a bad idea.


I am honestly speechless. Since when was it permissible to enforce a
proposed policy? In any other day and age, those responsible would have been
ticked off appropriately. It seems that the Mongo judgment may be being
stretched a little here; perhaps it would be appropriate for the Arbcom to
clarify their judgment?

Johnleemk