[WikiEN-l] Harassment sites

[Delirium]

Will Beback wrote:
> Will Beback wrote:
>   
>> Delirium wrote:
>>     
>>> Will Beback wrote:
>>>   
>>>       
>>>> The purpose of Wikipedia is to create articles full of content, not 
>>>> full
>>>> of external links. I'd argue that the article on Michael Moore does not 
>>>> require a link to his website, nor does any article require having any 
>>>> external link. External links are a convenience to readers, but aren't 
>>>> part of the goal of the encyclopedia.
>>>>
>>>>     
>>>>         
>>>   Sure they are. The technical matter of a link is merely a convenience to 
>>> our users, true, but the mention in the article body that Michael Moore 
>>> runs a popular website is encyclopedic content. And furthermore posts on 
>>> the website of a popular person are reliable sources for that person's 
>>> view, and frequently used as such in academic writing (articles on 
>>> michaelmoore.com are cited in hundreds of journal articles and 
>>> academic-press books). Having a separate self-referential standard for 
>>> sources is bizarre: we should generally not have policies about sources 
>>> that special-case them based on what they say about Wikipedia.
>>>
>>> -Mark
>>>   
>>>       
> This proposal isn't about criticism of Wikipedia or its editors. It is 
> about active harassment of Wikipedia editors. Real live volunteers just 
> like you and me.
>
> For some reason MichaelMoore.com seems to be the single example folks 
> are interested in. But we also need a policy that can address 
> non-celebrity blogs like ASM, forums like WP, wikis like ED, and any 
> other self-published website that actively engages in harassing 
> Wikipedia editor. Most of them are only usable as sources for themselves 
> anyway, so the collateral damage of re-categorizing them as unreliable 
> would be minimal.
>
> There are many ways that we could help readers get more information on a 
> BLP subject. We could post the subject's phone number or address so that 
> readers could contact the subjects directly. We could provide links to 
> their publisher's website. We could add external link to sites that 
> charge money, or that are published in a foreign language. Yet we don't 
> normally do those things for good reasons. Simply providing every 
> possible iota of information isn't our purpose. We redact personal 
> contact info from BLPs because we respect our subjects, and we shouldn't 
> include links to self-published sites that are harassing Wikipedia 
> editors because we respect our editors.
>   

To be frank, I don't see how your response was at all a response to my 
post. Nobody is proposing that we include Michael Moore's home phone 
number in his article, or "every possible iota of information". What 
some of us are proposing, rather, is that encyclopedic information that 
would otherwise be included in an encyclopedia article on the subject, 
such as a website of a famous person that is cited hundreds of times in 
academic literature, should not be removed from the Wikipedia article on 
the subject solely for reasons that include the word "Wikipedia" 
self-referentially in them. If it *isn't* encyclopedic, then remove it 
for that reason, which is a completely separate issue.

That's why we're focusing on examples like michaelmoore.com in this 
thread. Random non-notable forums that aren't encyclopedic are 
completely irrelevant to WP:BADSITES, since they shouldn't be included 
anyway (due to lack of notability / encyclopedic content). The problem 
with WP:BADSITES is that it proposes that encyclopedic information that 
would normally be included in an encyclopedia should be removed from our 
particular encyclopedia. My argument is that if we're removing 
information that Encarta would include because of some reason that 
doesn't have to do with making a better article, we're doing something 
wrong.

Compare to how the New York Times writes its articles: they don't decide 
not to cover otherwise newsworthy subjects because of how their 
reporters are treated.

-Mark