[WikiEN-l] Another "BADSITES" controversy

[jayjg]

On 5/30/07, Sheldon Rampton <sheldon at prwatch.org> wrote:
> Jayjg wrote:
>
> > Wow, what astounding rhetoric. "Censorship".
>
> That's not rhetoric. It's precisely the right term to describe what
> you're trying to do. The Encyclopedia Brittanica defines censorship
> as the "act of changing or suppressing speech or writing that is
> considered subversive of the common good." Wikipedia defines it as
> "the removal and withholding of information from the public by a
> controlling group or body. Typically censorship is done by
> governments, religious groups, online communities or the mass media,
> although other forms of censorship exist." Both of those seem to me
> to aptly describe what you're trying to do.
[snip]
> What Jayjg wants to
> do is forbid anyone else from ever posting a link to WR anywhere on
> Wikipedia under any circumstances whatsoever. That's censorship.
>

Um, no. When I want you to be my spokesman, I'll let you know. Don't
hold your breath.

Back in the real world, someone claimed that links to sites like WR
could benefit Wikipedia. I challenged him to provide examples of how
they could do so. What followed was a paucity of actual examples, but
an increasingly enraged set of posts, insisting that Wikipedia was
being damaged, people were being censored, babies being murdered, etc.

> Once someone has won a court judgment showing that WR has
> engaged in illegal harassment, I would accept a policy saying that
> Wikipedia should ban all links to websites whose owners have been
> convicted of criminal harassment against Wikipedians.

But Sheldon, Wikipedia has all sorts of rules about what kinds of
websites it allows links to, both in the actual articles themselves,
and even in the External links sections. The rationale behind these
rules is that linking to these sorts of websites does not assist the
purpose of  Wikipedia (which is to create an encyclopedia), and
arguably detracts from it or damages it. I haven't heard you
complaining about those rules, yet, oddly, you seem to have become
incensed over even the suggestion that WR is also the kind of site
that could not assist  Wikipedia in achieving its goals, and, in fact,
would arguably detract from Wikipedia or damage it. This apparent
double standard is troubling, and it seems that even discussing this
topic is so dangerous that it must be shut down with bizarrely
overheated rhetoric, and impassioned cries of "censorship" and "prove
your claims in a court of law", often from people who don't appear to
have any real idea regarding the actual issues on WR, but who
nevertheless feel competent to wade in, with both fists swinging.

> If, on the other hand, you can't prove in a court of law that
> Wikipedia Review has actually done something illegal, you should just
> grow a thicker skin.

I think you are somehow imagining that the stuff WR writes about me
actually upsets me. On the contrary, from what I hear, it's often
quite amusing. For example, I understand that quite recently one of
the posters there actually insisted that I had to prove that I wasn't
a teenage boy. I laughed out loud at that one, but then my mom heard
me and yelled that I had to take out the garbage and clean up my room.
:-(

> As a very wise cop once told me, part of the
> price of living in a free society is that you sometimes have to
> tolerate unpleasant behavior by obnoxious individuals.

Indeed; this thread is the perfect example of that, and I have been
doing my best to tolerate them.