[WikiEN-l] Query for all harassment-related proposals: How are you different from BADSITES?

[Gabe Johnson]

On 10/18/07, Alec Conroy <alecmconroy at gmail.com> wrote:
> By and large, it seems like the BADSITES-equivalent proposals are
> "mostly dead"--  I think everyone recognizes that "Never link to any
> 'site that is sufficently bad', deletion exempt from 3RR" has been
> rejected by the community. (Rejected in the formal sense-- it's hotly
> disputed, doesn't have consensus, and that isn't likely to change
> anytime soon).
>
> Such proposals may be mostly dead, but of course: "MOSTLY dead" isn't
> "all dead". I see there's at least one BADSITES-equivalent proposal
> still floating around here on the list, namely the proposal that says
> "Any site that is sufficiently bad shall be declared unreliable, and
> may not be linked to".   And, like any perinneal debate, I'm sure
> there will be more such proposals for the  foreseeable future.
>
> Therefore, I'd propose the following question to anyone proposing new
> policies on this subject:
>
> How would your policy prevent incidents like MakingLights  and the
> MichaelMoore from happening again in the future?
>
> ----------------
> DISCLAIMER:
>
> Just to remind us all, I'll recap the Making Lights saga, but I won't
> name the person who was involved, and I sincerely would ask everyone
> else not to criticize someone today for something they did months ago.
>  Seriously.  We've all made mistakes, they're over and done with, and
> I _sincerely_ am not trying to relive this past saga--  I just don't
> want to relive it in the future either.
>
> Ordinarily, I'd use a hypothetical example here, but I've found that
> in this debate, hypothetical examples are invariably dismissed when
> someone says  "Oh, that could never really happen".  So I actually do
> have to use a real-world example if we're going to talk about this.
>
> ----
>
> The Making Light Story
>
> MakingLights is a famous blog, run by a famous person.   People on
> that site's forum got into a flamewar of some sort with somebody.
> Some very-not-nice things were said, and apparently some personal
> information was posted. (Ostensibly the person's real name  could be
> found just by typing his username into google, but I haven't confirmed
> that).
>
> Unfortunately for MakingLights, the person who was flamed turned out
> to be a Wikipedia administrator.  He came to Wikipedia,  declared
> Making Lights an "attack site", and in less than two hours, he went to
> 23 different pages and deleted all the links to Making Lights and its
> affiliated sites.  When members of the community objected to the
> deletions and restored the links, the same admin performed 22 seperate
> reverts in under two hours.
>
> When questioned, the admin justified his actions by arguing, in part,
> that the site's alleged harassment of him "calls the website's
> neutrality into question. If the editor [of Making Lights] is engaged
> in ongoing disputes with Wikipedia and its editors, can it still be
> viewed as a reliable source?"  The admin also offered a quid pro quo,
> whereby if the objectionable content was removed from Making Lights,
> the Wikipedia links to ML would be restored, but if the content
> remained on Making Lights, he promised to continue to remove the links
> to ML indefinitely.
>
> The whole experience was extremely upsetting for all involved, and if
> you look around on Sci-Fi community blogs, you can see that Wikipedia
> lost a lot of respect in that incident. Many in that sci-fi-blogger
> subculture seem to have some harsh words for Wikipedia as a result of
> the experience, and I'm sure we alienated a lot of people who could
> have been valuable contributors.  The people who edit and read Making
> Lights felt bullied, abused, and harassed.
>
> Speaking as a reader/editors of Making Light, Sci Fi megagenius Cory
> Doctorow  summarized the experience thusly:
>
> "This is unseemly. You appear to be attempting to punish someone who
> dislikes you by removing references to her site. This seems like
> retaliation, not an effort to improve Wikipedia. What's more, the
> repeated demand to change something posted to her site seems like
> extortion, not an attempt to improve Wikipedia. TNH claims that
> Wikipedians pursue petty vendettas at the expense of quality. Please
> conduct yourself in a way that does not lend itself to this
> interpretation of the project."
>
> Ultimatlely, that particular incident came to an end when the disputed
> material was deleted from ML, at least temporarily, and the links to
> ML were restored.
> ------------------------------
>
> Now, let's not obsess over WHO did this.  I swear, I'm not bring this
> up to get in a dig at anyone.  The admin in question admits at least
> having "overreacted", and as long as the behavior has stopped, it
> doesn't matter WHO did this--  so by bringing this up, I'm sincerely,
> sincerely not trying to pick on anyone.  We've all done things in the
> past, on wikipedia or elsewhere, that we shouldn't be throwing stones
> over this past thing right now.
> ----
>
> But that said,  I can't help but notice that this sort of abuse seems
> inherent to any  BADSITESesque polices of the form "no linking to
> sites that are sufficiently bad".
>
> My questions for Will Beback, or anyone else in the future who
> proposes a new policy that forbids all links to "sites that contain
> attacks" are this:
>
> #1.  Do you agree that the Making Light case was an abuse of power (or
> at least, incorrect.  .-- i.e. Do you agree Making lights should NOT
> have been purged)?
>
> #2. And if so, how will your new proposed policy prevent this sort of
> abuse when the old policy was unable to.  That is-- if we all
> magically decided to enact your policy today, what's to stop you (or
> me, or anyone) from turning around tomorrow and having a complete
> repeat of this whole fiasco tomorrow.
>
> ---
>
> I believe any future policy, in order to be successful, must recognize
> the past abuses of BADSITES, and must include reasonsable assurances
> that the proposed policy won't lead to the same kind of abuses in the
> future.
>
> If an anthropomophic proposal's answer is "MakingLights and
> MichaelMoore should have been deleted, and if I get enacted, I will
> make sure they get deleted again if a similar situation arises", then
> I personally think such a proposal is unlikely to ever achieve
> consensus.
> ---
>
> Alec
>

What was up with Michael Moore's site being an attack site? I somehow
missed that episode... ~~~~

-- 
Absolute Power
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