[WikiEN-l] When Websites Attack

[Daniel R. Tobias]

On 26 Aug 2007 at 17:00:07 +0100, <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> 
wrote:
[long line rewrapped in accordance with RFC 2822]
> "Daniel R. Tobias" wrote
> 
> > * Anti-pedophile site Perverted Justice set up a redirect based on 
> > HTTP referrers so that anybody following links to any page in their 
> > site from Wikipedia get redirected to a criticism page that blasts 
> > Wikipedia for not cracking down on pedophile editors.  This made the 
> > whole thing an "attack site" according to some who seem to think that 
> > anything that has anything critical to say about Wikipedia is an 
> > "attack" that must not be linked to.  
> 
> Question: What connection would there be between compiling an
> encyclopedia, and linking to any site which took the step of
> redirecting incoming links to somewhere not intended? 

I mentioned what was ultimately done in response to the redirection, 
the changing of links to unlinked URLs in places where they're needed 
as references.  Such a forced redirection should be treated like any 
other case where a link is made less usable, like a "404 Not Found" 
dead link, a page retreating behind a registration-required login 
wall, a site redesign leading to it being inaccessible in some 
browser versions or full of annoying, intrusive ads... in all of 
these cases, the use of the link needs to be reconsidered, possibly 
changed to a "nowiki" URL or to an archived copy somewhere else or to 
an alternate site with similar content, and possibly the site owner 
should be informed of the unusability of their link in an 
encyclopedia and encouraged to fix it.  But in none of these cases is 
there the "moral panic" of saying "They're an eeeeeeeeeeeevil Attack 
Site and all references to it need to be DESTROYED!!!!!!!"

-- 
== Dan ==
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