[WikiEN-l] Another "BADSITES" controversy

[Risker]

A few posts up, Slim Virgin said:

"Please don't keep raising the issue of BADSITES. It was started by a
strawman sock for the purpose of stirring it. Please don't do his job
for him."

I completely agree with Slim that this was started by someone who had some
pretty murky ulterior motives; I'll take her word that it was a sock.  The
question is how to stanch the bad practices that are flowing from it.

The most straightforward way would be to mark BADSITES as either rejected or
historic, and to remove the disputed section in the current policy.  (That
takes care of the messy attempt made by DennyColt.)  As far as I can tell,
there was absolutely no objection to the idea of including a statement in
the current NPA policy supporting the removal of any links where the content
of the link met the definition of a personal attack, regardless of the
origin of the content.

Recent history - and from what I read, past history as well - indicates that
wiping out all links to sites where there is negative content about one or
more editors has had a negative impact on the encyclopedia.  But even people
who have argued that links should be removed on a case-by-case basis have
demonstrated that they are willing and ready to remove links to threads that
can even remotely be considered personal attacks.

I agree that the current impasse has gone on long enough.

Risker



On 5/28/07, Slim Virgin <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 5/28/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 28/05/07, Slim Virgin <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On 5/28/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > > The supporters of BADSITES talk sweet reason, but every time they
> > > > *act* upon the idea they act like rabid killbots on crack. Surely
> you
> > > > can see this introduces scepticism, and is also why many of us have
> > > > profound scepticism of the idea.
> > > > The attempt to abuse an RFA to try to backdoor in an utterly failed
> > > > bad policy proposal is disgraceful.
> >
> > > That isn't even remotely what's happening, David. First, I haven't
> > > seen anyone who supports the removal of these links going around
> > > removing them in any systematic way, never mind like "rabid killbots
> > > on crack."
> >
> >
> > The last go-round, when the policy's supporters were removing Daniel
> > Brandt's links from the Signpost article about Daniel Brandt. The
> > go-round before that, when they were removing the names of sites from
> > the discussions.
> >
> > This is why the policy failed: how it was actually carried out in
> testing.
> >
> >
> > > Please don't keep raising the issue of BADSITES. It was started by a
> > > strawman sock for the purpose of stirring it. Please don't do his job
> > > for him.
> >
> >
> > I dislike BADSITES because of the way it's been implemented every time
> > it's been put into practice. Or is that the trolls deleting the links?
> >
> BADSITES had existed in spirit for about 18 months and had been
> practised without fuss for the most part. Then a troll turned up and
> decided to write it down, and cleverly chose a shortcut that in itself
> would make most people cringe. The troll's concept was that the best
> way to get rid of a law you don't like is to enforce it rigorously.
>
> Any rule applied without common sense is going to get a bad name --
> but as you say, it's the application that's at fault, not the basic
> idea. I'm arguing here against throwing the baby out with the
> bathwater.
>
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