On 7/3/07, The Mangoe <the.mangoe(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 7/2/07, Kirill Lokshin
<kirill.lokshin(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Regardless of whether WR is covered by the MONGO
ruling (it's not explicitly named,
and we've sort of waffled back and forth on the issue for some time
now): why exactly do we need to link to it? For our purposes, it's
not a reliable source; we don't add links to random websites -- even
*interesting* random websites -- in the same way we don't add links to
tabloids. If we just enforce the existing policy on external links,
the problem essentially goes away.
WR is a reliable source, and is used as such. That sounds
preposterous? Then go see how many links there are to it: 193 as I
write this. A substantial fraction, maybe half, are citations as
evidence in a bunch of RfC/ArbCom cases.
Erm, no. It may be accurate to say that it's occasionally mis-used by
people who for some bizarre reason think it might be a reliable
source; but on the scale of actual reliability for the purposes of an
encyclopedia article, an anonymous online forum -- largely populated
by people with an obvious axe to grind, to boot -- is one step above
graffiti on a bathroom wall. Its only potential use would be for
coverage of WR itself, which we don't actually have any of at the
moment, making that point rather moot.
(The occasional convenience of having such links in dispute resolution
proceedings are one of the reasons I argued against the total ban
proposed by BADSITES, incidentally; but such proceedings aren't
covered by sourcing policy in any case.)
Kirill