[WikiEN-l] Another "BADSITES" controversy

[John Lee]

On 5/29/07, Slim Virgin <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 5/28/07, John Lee <johnleemk at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Exactly. Context is key - and furthermore, banning things on a
> site-by-site
> > basis is ridiculous. If the entire site is devoted to, say, outing an
> > anonymous individual's identity, then hell yes, kill links to it with
> fire
> > (unless, say, it becomes notable, in which case, link to it where
> absolutely
> > necessary). But if there's a site run by a famous chef who also has a
> > vendetta against, say, me, should we ban links to his site because one
> page
> > of it is devoted to libel against me ...
>
> John, I don't think anyone is arguing that extreme position. It's a
> strawman. The whole BADSITES policy proposal was a strawman started by
> a sockpocket. All that's being argued is that sites *devoted* to
> outing and defamation  -- the purpose-built attackers, where it's all
> or most of what they do -- shouldn't be linked to.


Then that's eminently reasonable (with the caveat, of course, if that such a
site ever makes the headlines worldwide, our article shouldn't be excused
from linking to it just because it attacks Wikipedians). The problem is,
many people I've seen enforcing this idea - Will Beback just being the most
recent example - don't take such a reasonable stance. It's not even based on
the rejected BADSITES proposal; I've seen people basing their ridiculous
claims solely on the arbcom decision's wording.

Johnleemk