On 20/10/2007, Durova nadezhda.durova@gmail.com wrote:
Here's one possible way to implement this that wouldn't relate to the NPOV policy: don't remove links, simply deactivate them. The same information remains for anyone who wants to cut and paste the URL into a browser manually. The article content isn't affected. What does get affected is the outgoing traffic from Wikipedia to the site (since a lot of people are lazy), and Wikipedia is a very considerable source of link traffic. This doesn't need to be done on a permanent basis, just as long as...say...a certain editor got specifically targeted on the home page of Michael Moore's website. I haven't pushed this idea particularly because another editor whose judgement and experience I very much respect asked me not to. I'm not necessarily advocating it now, rather presenting it as an alternative perspective at a polarized discussion.
Yes, this is fine and entirely defensible.
Note, of course, that in the recent arbcom case, listing the name of the site in plain text in an article was removed as a "personal attack."
- d.