[WikiEN-l] a few new wrinkles in the external link issue

[Delirium]

MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> On 1/22/07, Jeff Raymond <jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:
>   
>> 2) Myspace blogs were recently added to the spam blacklist by Raul per
>> request of Jimbo, although no one else seems to know why, how, or per
>> what rationale.  I won't pretend to know what Jimbo's been up to past
>> not having edited Wikipedia since the is-it-or-is-it-not-a decree, but
>> perhaps some more explanation on this would be worthwhile?  Seems like
>> we're blocking a shitload of otherwise worthwhile primary source
>> material for many of our articles for the sake of...well...nothing.
>> Meanwhile, a blog ''not'' hosted on MySpace is still a-okay, which is
>> patently absurd on its face.  I'm wondering what the thought process was
>> on this, since no one else seems to want to chime in.
>>     
>
>
> Other blogs aren't a-okay, but it's simply not possible to block all blogs.
> Personally, I will allow blogs as sources when its contents can clearly be
> attributed to a notable individual. 99% of MySpace members isn't remotely
> notable at all.
>   

The point is that many MySpace blogs *are* hosted by notable 
individuals, which is what makes the blanked technical-level blocking 
(as opposed to editor-level exercise of judgment) problematic.  And also 
note that we're not talking about *sources*, but *external links*.  
While I agree that rarely is a blog a good source for anything, it seems 
absurd to me that the blog of Professor X is not a suitable external 
link from the page [[Professor X]].

-Mark