[WikiEN-l] Another "BADSITES" controversy

[jayjg]

On 5/30/07, Joe Szilagyi <szilagyi at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/30/07, jayjg <jayjg99 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I'm not talking about BADSITES, which was a straw man policy. I'm
> > exploring the claim that it would benefit Wikipedia to link to WR or
> > sites very much like it.
>
>
> I understand. Let me phrase it this way: RFA. Bob runs for adminship. Bob
> has good edits, good this, good that. He'd likely be a fine canidate and a
> fine admin. John alleges, on Bob's RFA, that Bob is a regular contributor to
> an attack site. Someone asks for proof of this. Here are three questions for
> both you and Slim, and others:
>
> 1. How can John offer proof? We can't link to attack sites. Is John supposed
> to name the site, and tell people what to search for?
>
> 2. Without proof, anyone--given the poisonous nature of BADSITES/attack
> sites--can poison a canidate and nuke an RFA with impunity. Do you think
> that being allowed to make allegations without matching evidence is
> appropriate? Note that RFA is a community matter, and the RFA process needs
> to be transparent.
>
> 3. Bob can refute the possibly empty allegation, but what does it matter?
> People are drive by !voters. Submit, and gone. If someone gets a poison pill
> into the RFA early enough, it doesn't matter. You know this to be true. Bob
> can't even in some interpretations NAME the offending site without directing
> people right to it. What are your thoughts on this?

Yes, that's one of the two cases I've seen so far that might qualify,
someone who is running for a Wikipedia "office" and is also posting to
WR (or accused of it). The other would be the unlikely event that WR
was notable enough to actually warrant a Wikipedia article.