[WikiEN-l] BADSITES ArbCom case about to close

[John Lee]

On 10/17/07, joshua.zelinsky at yale.edu <joshua.zelinsky at yale.edu> wrote:
>
>
>
> > <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> >
> > 15.1) Wikipedia should not link to websites set up for the purpose of or
> > substantially devoted to harassing its volunteers. Harassment in this
> context
> > refers to cyber-stalking, offline stalking, outing people without their
> > consent, humiliating them sexually, or threatening them with physical
> > violence.
>
>
> I'm very worried that this proposal doesn't make any distinction
> between article
> space and non-article space.


I'm very worried that this means I can't link to an attack site to make fun
of it, as I did with Brandft's hive mind. (I was listed on it, so I thought
it'd make a good userbox joke - gosh, I feel so old.) This makes no
distinction between intent and actual action - [[mens rea]] for the legal
nerds out there. In real life, the law sometimes cannot draw a good
distinction between intent and the act itself, but in Wikipedia, we usually
can. We should be banning the usage of links for the express purpose of
harassing or outing editors; not banning links which *might* conceivably be
used in a context to harass editors simply because of their content.

I'm at least happy that it limits the application of this principle to
websites set up for the purpose (I would prefer sole/primary purpose,
though) or substantially devoted to harassing Wikipedians. This should
*hopefully* reduce the wikidrama that goes on.

Johnleemk