[WikiEN-l] BADSITES ArbCom case in progress

[George Herbert]

On 9/18/07, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
> On 18 Sep 2007 at 03:38:18 +0000, fredbaud at waterwiki.info wrote:
>
> > Now, I'm not kidding...
> >
> > What are the major issues?
>
> Have you read the workshop and evidence pages, and their talk pages?
> The issues have been debated heavily there.
>
> The way I see it, it's a debate about the basic nature of the
> Wikipedia community...  Are we going to be a free and open community
> unafraid of exploring, researching, and discussing every issue
> including criticism of ourselves, or are we going to bury our heads
> in the sand and be afraid of our own shadows?  Are we able to take in
> good stride the broad spectrum of opinion about Wikipedia itself as
> well as every other subject, or are we a mind-control cult that
> excommunicates people it doesn't like and declares them unpersons, in
> order to kill the messenger who brings ideas distasteful to some of
> us?  Are we a community based on consensus hashed out in free-
> spirited discussion, or a repressed and secretive group with a rigid
> hierarchy and lots of landmines and third-rails in the form of taboo
> topics for discussion?
>
> Unfortunately, your proposed findings in this case don't give me much
> hope for an outcome that won't lead me to lose interest in
> participating in and supporting Wikipedia.  Your "Salt the Earth"
> remedy is utterly repugnant to the spirit of what Wikipedia aspires
> to be.  Your idea of banning all references to "the attack site"
> without actually saying what site you're talking about is downright
> Kafkaesque.  And your statement that "the community may not override
> a fundamental policy such as Wikipedia:No personal attacks" is
> absolutely and utterly wrongheaded.  NPA is definitely *not* a
> foundation issue; see
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Foundation_issues
>
> NPA isn't there.  NPOV is, and that's a principle that many say
> contradicts the imposition of any absolutist link/reference bans.
>
> Saying that NPA is a "fundamental policy" is like saying that a law
> against selling liquor on Sunday is a basic U.S. constitutional
> principle alongside freedom of speech, and can't be modified by the
> legislature or referendum; that's simply false.  NPA is a policy
> adopted by consensus; it can be modified, reinterpreted, tweaked,
> altered, limited, expanded, or even abolished by consensus, so long
> as the actual foundation issues aren't impacted.
>
> --
> == Dan ==
> Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
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> Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/


To follow this thread (if not particular post) up...

I don't have a strong opinion either way on BADSITES, but I'd like to
agree with whichever arbcom member it was who pointed out that what
was really needed was clarifying, not restating, the MONGO case
precedent.

The state of confusion over where and when to remove things is the
primary problem.  We can't just leave it up to people's judgement; the
criteria for applying the judgement (both in existing and so-far
proposed decision in this new case) are too vague.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com