[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:
> > On 5/29/07, Slim Virgin <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > 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.
>
> The ArbCom's decision is good as a rule of thumb. Note that it says:
> "[a] website that engages in the *practice* of publishing private
> information concerning the identities of Wikipedia participants will
> be regarded as an attack site whose pages should not be linked to from
> Wikipedia pages under any circumstances ..." (emphasis added). That
> doesn't include an otherwise decent website that happens to repeat a
> Wikipedian's name without that person's consent. It's not a good thing
> that someone has been named, but that one act doesn't tranform it into
> an attack site.
>
> People who want to be able to link to the dedicated attack sites are
> exaggerating the arguments to make their opponents look nuts. Common
> sense has to be applied, as always.


All well and good, except for the problem that a lot of our opponents *are*
nuts.

Johnleemk