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

[Rich Holton]

Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> On Sat, 28 Apr 2007 15:31:33 +0800, "John Lee" <johnleemk at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> It's *basic common sense* not to
>> link to /webpages/ which contain personal attacks or any of the sort, unless
>> absolutely necessary (e.g. evidence in ArbCom). Similarly, it's basic common
>> sense to link to webpages which contain helpful information (but not
>> personal attacks), even if these pages are hosted on sites which also host
>> personal attacks.
> 
> No it's not.  Let's say (to take an unambiguous article) you have a
> white supremacist article, and you choose not to link to articles on
> that site in respect of their opinion on prominent black people. Would
> you then link to their recipes pages just because they are good
> recipes?  Or would you look for an alternative and less contentious
> source for the same content?  Or perhaps think to yourself that, after
> all, it's not that big a deal, so maybe best not to link to them and
> let people buy a recipe book?
> 
> There are some editors who have been so viciously attacked that any
> link to these sites, however innocuous the individual page, feels like
> a mortal insult.  What's on these sites that justifies that pain?
> 
> Another way of looking at it: some trolls also contribute occasional
> good edits.  In the end, if they continue trolling, they get blocked.
> Pragmatically, the costs outweigh the benefits.  
> 
> The option to stop trolling is always open.  The option not to violate
> the privacy of our editors is always open.  The rules are not hard to
> grasp, and people who wilfully ignore them, really, are no loss.  
> 
> Maybe someone can offer an example of a link to one of these sites
> which is so self-evidently important that the article would be
> incomplete without *that link* (rather than that content cited to a
> print source, say).
> 
Guy,

Your example is so close to a straw-man as to make almost no difference. 
Let's talk about something a little more substantial than recipes, over 
which there has been much debate as to their mere existence in Wikipedia.

Besides, we're not talking just about articles here. We're talking about 
removing *all* links to attack sites from *every* page of Wikipedia in 
*every* space, without exception. Period. Do with a 'bot; no 
intelligence required. Is that really what you want to support?

-Rich