[WikiEN-l] Harassment sites

[William Pietri]

Will Beback wrote:
> I'm not proposing removing all external links, I'm proposing removing a 
> small number of links.
>   

I never suggested otherwise.

You said removing external links from articles was not a big deal. I 
suggested you go try doing that with a bunch of articles. Just removing 
ones like the link to the article subject's website. You will quickly 
have a host of people willing to explain in detail why it is a big deal 
-- right after they have reverted you.

Ergo, the links do have value.

> I hope that you aren't saying that all external links provide value and 
> we should never remove any external link that a well-meaning editor (or 
> greedy website owner) adds. If we stopped deleting external links and 
> removed the spam blacklist I predict we'd have more links than text, 
> especially in some topics. We include a large variety of links because 
> they provide encyclopedic value. If we determine that they don't provide 
> that value then we delete them.
>   

I can't tell if you really have the notion that I would suggest that.

If you don't, then it's a rhetorical device that tells me that we won't 
make any more progress here. If you do, then I have obviously failed to 
convey to you pretty much anything that matters to me. In which case I 
also think future discussion is unlikely to be fruitful.

Sorry.

William

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