[WikiEN-l] Harassment sites

[William Pietri]

Thanks for the more detailed replies. My answers follow.

Will Beback wrote:
>>     * In terms of persons affected or behaviors changed, what specific
>>       benefits do you believe your proposed policy provides? And how
>>       does it achieve that? (E.g., "It will reduce harassment
>>       because..." or "It will make a harassed editor feel supported
>>       because...
>>   
>>     
> Harassment of Wikipedia editors should not be advertised or promoted. A 
> link to a harassing website is likely to make the harassed editor more 
> aware of the harassment, meaning that it will have more effect on the 
> editor and make the harassment more likely to succeed in driving him 
> away from Wikipedia or at least avoiding the topic.
>   

Is there a particular reason to think that people will think linking to 
a website is advertising or promoting it? We link to the KKK and SLORC 
without people worrying about that.

Second, it's not obvious to me that linking to the website would make 
all editors feel worse. I and others have discussed occasions where 
linking to malefactors made us feel better, not worse.

Third, once the editor is aware of the harassment, would continued 
existence of a link really make them feel worse?

Fourth, wouldn't this apply to entire topics, not just links? By your 
logic, it seems better to delete the entire Michael Moore article.

Fifth, if a harassed editor opens the Michael Moore page and scrolls 
down to the EL section, would them not having a link to click on really 
prevent them from feeling bad?

>>     * How do you reconcile your suggested POV-driven content changes
>>       with the "absolute and non-negotiable" NPOV
>>   
>>     
> This isn't a POV-driven content change.

If you don't have reliable sources saying it's harassment, then it is 
your (or perhaps our collective) point of view that these people are 
engaged in harassment. And it is certainly your point of view that 
harassment of Wikipedians is the one bad act that merits this. Encarta 
is unlikely to adopt a "delete links to people who harass Wikipedia" 
policy.

That's why I consider it a POV-driven content change.

> It's a determination that the 
> writers of self-puiblished websites that engage in harassment of 
> encyclopedia editors are not suitable sources for an encyclopedia. They 
> are trying to inappropriately affect Wikipedia through harassment, so we 
> can presume that they are also interested in affecting Wikipedia 
> content.

There is no way we can presume that. And if we did presume it, so what? 
For somebody who is trying to learn about Michael Moore, the value of 
his website is entirely unaffected by how he treats our editors.

The only time I'd consider this of merit is if the article were on 
Wikipedia. If some scholarly source in our article on Wikipedia were to 
start prank-calling Jimmy Wales at night, I'd say maybe they aren't such 
a reliable source anymore.

>>     * Why do editors alone benefit from your proposal? If we're
>>       protecting people, shouldn't we protect everybody?
>>   
>>     
> Everyone benefits from having articles that aren't based on poor 
> sources. I assume you mean why shouldn't we give the same treatment to 
> self-published websties that actively harass others? I'd hope we don't 
> link to those very often. But there is an important difference. The 
> websites are trying to affect the encyclopedia inappropriately, so we 
> need to preempt that effort.
>   

Deleting links is not preventing them from affecting encyclopedic 
content. It's actively altering articles in response to their behavior. 
The best way to prevent them from affecting encyclopedic content is to 
ignore them and treat them like any other web site in the world.

>>     * Doesn't your proposed policy benefit editors while harming
>>       readers, thereby privileging one over the other? And can that
>>       really be squared with our mission?
>>   
>>     
> Again, the policy is intended to benefit everybody, by giving us better 
> content and happier editors. I don't believe that readers would be 
> harmed in any way.
>   

Ok. I and a number of other people have tried to explain why articles 
would indeed be harmed. If you don't get our point, I'm willing to 
accept that.


> Harassment is not fine. Why would an expert choose to 
> engage in harassment of an encyclopedia editor? The best reason I can 
> think of is that they aren't thinking straight. t is very likely that 
> whatever dispute led to the harassment will be connected to the field of 
> expertise so, as I wrote above, the "expert" is putting himself into 
> conflict with Wikipedia. His integrity and neutrality can't be  taken 
> for granted any longer.
>   

This would be true with any person who engages in harassment. And it 
wouldn't be true just for harassment, it would be true of any behavior 
that would indicate that someone isn't thinking straight. I'm sure I 
could name fifty, so just fill in the blanks here.

To privilege not just encyclopedia editors, but only the editors of the 
encyclopedia you happen to work on strikes me as a pretty obvious bias. 
If you don't see that, well, ok, you don't see that.


>>     * Even if your proposal isn't just a punitive measure against people
>>       who attack us, why wouldn't outsiders, including the persons whose
>>       sites we are de-linking, see it that way?
>>   
>>     
> It is not punitive because linking to a site is not a reward, nor is 
> removing a link a punishment. If someone is actively engaged in 
> harassing a Wikipedia editor, are we really concerned with his opinion 
> of Wikipedia policies? As for the rest of the world, we remove hundreds 
> of links from articles every day and the outsiders don't seem to be too 
> upset.

I understand you believe it is not punitive. However, it will appear 
punitive and petty to the general public.

People accept our removing of links because they generally believe it 
serves them as readers. But if Michael Moore sees us de-linking his web 
site in reaction to what he could well see as the most minor of innocent 
errors, he will likely take it as retribution. And he will probably say 
so to a couple hundred thousand people, who will take it the same way. 
And then maybe it will appear in 50 blogs for a similar readership.

So yes, we are concerned with everybody's opinion of Wikipedia, even 
people who are currently a little around the bend about us. Because how 
we treat them is an important criterion in how people judge us.



William


-- 
William Pietri <william at scissor.com>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_Pietri