[WikiEN-l] Harassment sites

[joshua.zelinsky at yale.edu]

Quoting Will Beback <will.beback.1 at gmail.com>:

> Delirium wrote:
>> It sounds like what you want is a rule that certain types of sources
>> should not be used due to concerns *other* than their reliability. So
>> why not say that?
>>
>> -Mark
> Folks often say that removing links violates NPOV. But a much larger
> effect on POV comes when editors are harassed off of Wikipedia because
> of content-related edits or decisions. When a coherent group (gang,
> religious sect, etc) succeeds in driving away all interested editors who
> disagree with them then the NPOV of the topic suffer tremendously, far
> more than from the mere absence of a single hot link.
>
>
> We say "comment on the edits, not the editors", which is always a good
> idea,, but of course it's editors who create and modify the content. If
> the editors on one side of an issue are harassed off the project
> unfairly then the project's content will become less neutral.
>
>  It's gaming the system from the outside, just like tilting the pinball
> machine. Even though it's "outside" of Wikipedia, external harassment
> still affects the contents, potentially very profoundly.
>
> Is the project poorer without a hotlink to MichaelMoore.com, or without
> the contributions of THF? For all his faults, I'd say THF has
> contributed infinitely more content than an external link does and if it
> were a matter of THF vs the link then I'd go with THF anyday. We can
> always add the link back after THF leaves (as all editors eventually do)
> or the harassment ends.

You make some good points above. Certainly editors being harrassed off the
project is a more serious problem by orders of magnitude than the external
linking matter. And the community as a whole is not doing nearly enough 
to deal
with that. I'm not however convinced that this is would help substantially and
even if it would help, I see a distinction in NPOV problems created by 
a dearth
of editors and NPOV problems that we willfully engage in. The first is more or
less natural and inevitable since we are an imperfect group composed of
imperfect people. The second however in many ways is potentially much 
worse. We
will likely never achieve perfect NPOV and I question whether perfect NPOV is
even meaningful. However, if we do not strive for the goal of NPOV, then we
will almost certainly fail at it and likely fall much worse than we would
otherwise. NPOV isn't just a goal, it is the glue that binds us together as a
community. NPOV is what allows editors with radically different views to work
together and write articles that they are both satisfied with. Look for 
example
at [[Abortion]]. While there are frequent disputes there, by and large the
pro-choice and pro-life editors work together cordially and have made an
article that they are together happy with. Once we start compromising NPOV
there's little reason for that sort of communal cooperation.