[WikiEN-l] FredBauder"clarifies"onattack site link policy

[Gwern Branwen]

On  0, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> scribbled:
> On Mon, 2 Jul 2007 13:52:19 +0100, "Tony Sidaway"
> <tonysidaway at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> Given that the pro-link-ban side has been known to use their cliquish
> >> power to torpedo people's election (in RfAs) using political litmus
> >> tests, why is it so absurd to do the same on the other side?
>
> >Well it makes *you* look as petty and nasty as the other side (if
> >that's what they're doing).
>
> Tony, surely you must know: /we/ are consensus, /you/ are a clique,
> /they/ are a cabal.
>
> Fact is, WR was never a reliable source.  Just look at the ravings of
> Jonathan Barber (JB196, editing WR as Looch) and you'll see that in an
> instant.  The reason we should not link to it is not the attacks or
> the outing, it's because no collection of banned trolls and frustrated
> vanity spammers will ever have anything like a neutral commentary on
> anything, and also because it's a forum not a wiki, so crap either
> stays or is deleted, it's not subject to any process of editing or
> refinement. It simply fails any rational sourcing guideline.

That is precisely the issue with [[Essjay controversy]]: WR may not be a RS about anything else in the world - but is it a reliable source about what happens on WR? More generally, is any site with user-generated content a RS about what happens on that selfsame site? Obviously some people don't think the answer is yes.

> Guy (JzG)
> --

--
gwern
Type I Type II VFCT VGPL WHCA WSA WSP WWABNCP ZNI1 FSK FTS2000 GOSIP GOTS SACS
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