[WikiEN-l] Harassment sites

[fredbaud at waterwiki.info]

-----Original Message-----
From: Will Beback [mailto:will.beback.1 at gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 03:34 PM
To: 'English Wikipedia'
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Harassment sites

Will Beback wrote:
> William Pietri wrote:
>> Will Beback wrote:
>>   
>>> My proposal is considerably different from "WP:BADSITES". I'm not sure 
>>> why folks continue to use that term to describe every single proposal 
>>> advanced to resolve this problem, but it may not be the most helpful 
>>> plain of engagement. I dub this proposal "WP:COISITES" because it covers 
>>> self-published websites that have a conflict of interest with Wikipedia 
>>> due to their attempts to coerce WP editors.  
>>>     
>>
>> I think the major similarity to me is reducing the utility of our site 
>> to punish people we designate as bad.
>
Linking to websites is not a reward and removing links to websites is 
not a punishment. We remove links to websites every day, not because 
they deserve punishment, but because they do not meet our criteria for 
acceptable or helpful links. I'm proposing that we extend that criteria 
to include a limit on self-published websites that are actively engaged 
in harassing Wikipedia editors because they don't help the encyclopedia. 
Doing so won't punish those sites, or even make them stop the 
harassment, but it will reduce the disruption to Wikipedia that those 
sites cause. If there's a better way to do that then please suggest it.

Will Beback

_______________________________________________
We should always negotiate, especially with subjects who are unaware of our perspective regarding targeting our editors. Most subjects attempt to deal with problems in a mature way once the issues are explained to them. There are exceptions.

Imagine the main page at whitehouse.gov being devoted to trashing a pesky Wikipedia editor...

Fred