On 10/17/07, fredbaud@waterwiki.info fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
-----Original Message----- From: John Lee [mailto:johnleemk@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2007 01:17 AM To: 'English Wikipedia' Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Harassment sites
On 10/17/07, Will Beback will.beback.1@gmail.com wrote:
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".
It's an official website, not merely a blog. And even then, I'm pretty sure we frequently link to the official blogs of prominent people. The question is, why are we making an exception for Michael Moore? Is it motivated because of some editorial reason (i.e. including the link reduces the usefulness and value of the article), or because we're Wikipedia and we don't like how Moore treated one of our editors? If the latter, it's a pretty clearcut NPOV violation.
Johnleemk _______________________________________________
That's the real dilemma. We don't much like that editor ourselves and we do like Michael Moore, enough of us anyway to over-ride our policy regarding harassment of users. Neutral point of view has nothing to do with it. NPOV has to do with the content of the article, not a link to a site which was harassing a Wikipedia user by inviting vandalism of his talk page.
Take a real good look at this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/29/Arbcom.jpg
Is Michael Moore so wonderful, that such behavior is excusable? What harm is done by removing the link to his website for so long as that is its content?
I don't know who that editor is, and I don't care much for Moore either. The fact that the content of our articles differs based on whether the subject has harassed one of our editors in the past, however, clearly indicates that we are not keeping in line with, at a bare minimum, the spirit of neutral point of view.
You are arguing external links do not constitute content. But they do. An article would not be considered comprehensive if it did not have a link to the subject's official website(s) - I defy anyone to try to get such an article past FA/GA. (I'd rant about the ridiculous nature of GA standards, and its deviation from its original purpose, but that's for another time.)
If you want to argue that external links are not content, I suggest you try to effect that policy change first. You're putting the cart before the horse at the moment.
Johnleemk