[WikiEN-l] BADSITES ArbCom case in progress

[Armed Blowfish]

On 18/09/2007, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:
> We should, yes, "guard our editors and protect them from harm",
> or however the saying goes.  But at the same time, of course, we
> have to protect the *project* from harm.  And a wrong decision
> here could really harm the project (not to mention that divisive
> debates like these are quite harmful, too).

Encyclopaedias do not suffer, only the people
placed second in importance to them.  (Didn't
Marc say something like that earlier?)

Criticism of Wikipaedia and its community as
a whole should not only be allowed, but
actively be encouraged.  What other
alternative is there to personal criticism,
which often involves attacks?  Also, criticism
of Wikipaedia and its community as a whole
is more likely to be constructive rather than
destructive than personal criticism. The
Wikipaedia community needs to be reminded
that it is not the centre of the universe, or even
the centre of the internet.

The Wikipaedia community can handle it.
Individuals, however, do need to be protected,
and the Wikipaedia community varies from not
doing enough to protect those individuals, to
encouraging the attacks, to engaging in attacks
of its own.

> Protecting editors from harm must surely acknowledge the
> existence of off-wiki attacks.  WP:NPA should certainly disallow
> links which serve to attack, just as it prohibits other, on-wiki
> attacks.

Definitely.  Also note that in the United Kingdom,
this may be a legal issue.  In the UK, links to
defamatory material may be considered to be
participating in the defamation, and in the UK,
the definition of defamation is rather broad.

> However: we should not, cannot, must not attempt to enact blanket
> bans on all links to "attack sites", as the notorious BADSITES
> policy allegedly attempted to do.  It's possible to justify such
> an attempted ban under the "protect them from harm" doctrine, but
> a ban goes too far.  It harms the project, and does *not* help the
> injured editor.

It may protect the project from defamation
suites in the United Kingdom, and in any
case, Wikipaedia's lack of concern for its
own editors lowers my opinion of the whole
project.  I'm probably not the only one.

> I believe there are three underlying motivations for enacting
> absolute bans:
>
> 1. We must not condone the activities of the attack sites.

Or at least, don't condone the attacks.
They are probably doing other things
too.

> 2. We must punish the attack sites.

No.  That will just escalate the cross-site
flame wars, encouraging further attacks
on individual Wikipaedians.

Also, just because someone contributes
to a user-contributed website, which
engages in attacks, as most user-
contributed websites do, does not mean
that person deserves to be called a
holocaust denier, which some contributors
to such websites have complained of.

Rather, Wikipaedians in high-level positions
on Wikipaedia should offer to act as
representatives for those attacked, to ask
for attacks to be removed from the websites.
In order for this to work, Wikipaedia should
seek better relations with websites which
regularly publish attacks against individual
Wikipaedians.

> 3. We must shield injured editors from being reminded of the
>    existence of the attack sites.

Definitely.

> It's a bitter pill to swallow, but numbers 1 and 2 hold no water.
> The simple, sad fact is that THERE IS NOTHING WE CAN DO TO MAKE
> AN ATTACK SITE GO AWAY.  They exist whether we link to them or
> not.  They exist whether we talk about them or not.  There's no
> way we can punish them.  And linking to them does *not* condone
> them; that's not the way hyperlinks work.

Yes, there are things the Wikipaedia
community can do.  Build better relations
with them.  Ask for them to take things
down.  And hyperlinks do count as
distribution in some jurisdictions, such as
the UK.