[WikiEN-l] Fwd: IDG press enquiry regarding the HD-DVD controversy

[Todd Allen]

We treat it just like anything else. We wouldn't add the New York
Times to the spam blacklist -even if- some idiot was spamming
"SUBSCRIBE TO THE TIMES TODAY!" links all over the place, because
there are potentially legitimate uses that good editors may make for
such links. Instead, we would stop the spammers while permitting
legitimate use.

There's no good reason to permit the thing on userpages or anywhere
else. It serves no legitimate encyclopedic purpose there. On the other
hand, there -are- articles in which it really does serve a legitimate,
encyclopedic purpose. Let's take it off the blacklist, whack the
spammers, apply semi-protection as needed, but let it be used where
it's genuinely encyclopedic and appropriate.

Seraphimblade

On 5/3/07, Ken Arromdee <arromdee at rahul.net> wrote:
> On Thu, 3 May 2007, David Gerard wrote:
> > As I said on the blog:
> >
> > A flashmob of fight-the-power morons are still spamming an allegedly
> > illegal number into every input box on the web. The Wikipedia admins
> > collectively declared "FUCK OFF YOU SPAMMERS." (Some have gone rabid
> > "ZOMG LAWSUIT" and we were getting a pile of oversight requests as
> > well ― I didn't zap, Fred did, until Erik told us not to. Mind you, it
> > nicely short-circuited the idiotic deletion review.) Eventually it was
> > put into the spam filter, because distributed spam is spam.
>
> I entirely agree the number shouldn't be put in a zillion places in Wikipedia.
> But I get the impression that the loudest objections are about use of the
> number *at all* and that getting rid of number spamming is merely a more
> publically acceptable first step towards getting rid of it period.
>
> The proper response is to allow the number on Wikipedia, but ban its use
> as spam, not to completely ban it in any form whatsoever.
>
>
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Freedom is the right to know that 2+2=4. From this all else follows.