[WikiEN-l] Harassment sites

[RLS]

On 10/19/07, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> RLS wrote:
> > Dude.  Nobody's arguing against removing a poor source.  We're arguing
> > against removing valid, useful sources just because the same site
> > contains harassment of an editor. THAT will cause us to violate NPOV.
>
> Isn't this fairly rare, though?
>
> Let's not get too hung up on edge cases.  The bulk of the cases of
> interest are links to sites that are *literally* harasssment sites,
> through and through, and not valid references for anything at all.
>
> 1. No one is arguing (I hope) that links to Encyclopedia Dramatica are
> valid sources for articles.
>
> 2. No one is arguing (I hope) that a random evil post on a BBC
> messageboard would make it ok to ban all links to the BBC.
>
> The only real question is where and how to draw the line, but we are
> actually fortunate in this regard: there are virtually no borderline
> cases as an empirical matter.

That's basically what I've been trying to say throughout my several
messages on this matter.  The clear-cut cases are already well-covered
by existing policy and guidelines--link the material if it's a good
source, which typically won't include sites lacking enough in
editorial control to become harassing; and don't link to the sites
which aren't good sources.

With that point assumed, therefore (logically) the editors who
continue to bring up this matter must be arguing for a policy to deal
with the borderline cases; I keep trying to point out that we can't do
that in advance as it will really depend on the value to the
encyclopedia of the good material linked, the harm any alleged
harassment will/has cause(d), the actual placement of harassing
material on the pages, etc etc.

Regarding your numbered points, you're definitely right on #1.
However, what I percieve from Will Beback and others who keep bringing
this up is that they're trying to lean towards a position far closer
to #2 than I (and many others) are comfortable with.

--Darkwind