[WikiEN-l] BADSITES ArbCom case in progress

[charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com]

"George Herbert" wrote

> Ok, so a link to an attack site is making a personal attack on the
> user being attacked.  

This is vague, generalised stuff, though.

>Is making that link in the course of discussing
> an apparent violation of WP administrative policy ok (recent SV case,
> though the details turned out to not be a violation, I believe)?  

Who is placing such a link, where? Is this dispute resolution, or people gossiping? We don't have a Gossip namespace.

>Is a
> link to Michaelmoore.com deletable when he has an edit link to a WP
> user or user talk page, but must immediately be restored if that edit
> link goes away?  

It is fairly clear that a link to a specific page may be conditional on the page content, so in general terms, yes. If there is a link to page P, for some content, and then page P is edited so as to make the page less reliable, then the link can be removed. Remember that WP:NOT has the thing about not being a directory. We don't link to sites simply to be able to say that our articles have good coverage of relevant sites.

>Is restoring a link to michaelmoore.com while there's
> a possibly violating link from there to edit a user talk page
> disruptive by nature and blockable or bannable?

People get blocked all the time for being disruptive jerks. You'd have to look at details, here. Is someone warring when warned not to?
 
> It's really dangerous for Arbcom to wade in halfway.  If you do, I
> can't tell what to warn people about, revert over, or what to block
> people about, where there will unambiguous agreement that I've done
> the right thing.

Well, we have our remit on the ArbCom. The _community_ has to write its own policies. It may be that the community is deadlocked. Then people may indeed want case law, but ArbCom cases are not binding precedent. They are supposed to be worked examples of the application of policy, but that's it.

> If the fact of the matter is that the community is unsettled about
> this, then Arbcom can either try to settle it, with enough specificity
> that I and other generally reasonable good-intentions people don't
> find ourselves scratching our heads next time going "Uh...", or make
> it clear that it's unsettled other than a few corner cases, and that
> AGF will still have to apply and that wheel-warring or edit-warring
> will be handled normally in grey areas where it's not clear what the
> right answer is (i.e., if you don't slow down and talk when an action
> turns out to be controversial, you will get in trouble).

My Rule Number One on this: don't force the issue. It appears that the BADSITES proponents did exactly that, and the ArbCom has to pick up the pieces. I would say that it is forcing the issue to _insist_ that any link appear on the site, if it is not either (i) being used as a source in an article, or (ii) in rare cases, evidence in dispute resolution where there is a very clear reason to be looking off-wiki. Little of what gets discussed so intensely on this issue falls under either of those. On the other hand, there is our strong culture of being an open place. But people do have to remember that no page on Wikipedia is in any way "theirs".
 
> Somewhere in the middle is the worst possible case, because it's still
> likely to leave reasonable admins and users unsure of what to do in an
> actual case, but aware that they're going to be judged more harshly if
> they make a mistake...

Umm. Try diplomacy: you know, tact, persuasion, gentle reminders of what we are here for. Don't do drive-by.

Charles

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