[WikiEN-l] Harassment sites

[joshua.zelinsky at yale.edu]

Quoting Will Beback <will.beback.1 at gmail.com>:

> K P wrote:
>> On 10/15/07, Will Beback <will.beback.1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 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.
>>>
>>> Will Beback.
>>>
>>
>> Except that Michael Moore uses his website to give readers or fans or
>> whomever more information about himself.  He doesn't publish his phone
>> number or address or hand it out at meetings that I know of.  His
>> publisher is available on his books, and his books should be listed in
>> the article with their pbulishers, so we do this already.    We're not
>> providing every iota of information and no one is even suggesting that
>> by publishing a link to his website we are also demanding to know how
>> much protein he has in his eyelashes.  Other sites all over the
>> Internet publish Moore's web address when they write about him.  But
>> not Wikipedia, because, well, because then we'd have to publish his
>> underwear schedule it seems.
>>
>> KP
>>
> Moore is notable as a filmmaker. He is not notable as a blogger. His
> blog is not encyclopedic. We are only providing a link as a convenience,
> and a very minor convenience because it it the first link that comes up
> on Google. So we are saving our readers about .5 seconds out of their
> lives. We aren't preserving NPOV, we aren't taking a stand against
> censorship, we're merely saving some readers a tiny bit of time. I don't
> begrudge anyone even half a second. But if the tradeoff we're looking at
> is linking to harassment of Wikipedia editors versus the slightest
> inconvenience (hopefully temporary) of our readers, then I don't think
> we should have a question. For completenes inthe article we can say the
> guy has a blog (who doesn't), but unless the blog is notable I don't see
> the overriding need to promote "convenience" above "no personal attacks".
>
> Will

It seems at this point we are just repeating the same essential 
arguments. Some
people, like Will think that NPA can override optimal encyclopedia content.
Others, like myself think that it cannot and should not. I, at least, find it
is a bit ridiculous to not link to the official webpage of a famous 
person from
the person's article simply because the person has a highly negative opinion
about some Wikipedians. And I don't see this as substantially different as
deciding not to link to say, the New York Times if they published an
anti-Wikipedia editorial that attacked Essjay or published an article outing a
Wikipedia editor.