[WikiEN-l] Searchability of non-mainspace pages

[Larry Pieniazek]

Will Johnson says:

> The reason I'd argue against pre-emptive blanking and/or pre-emptive
No_Index'ing is that we essentially take
> what I consider the arrogant and condensending position that we know
better than the target what would or wouldn't
> be embarrassing to that target.? I've never felt that it's our mandate to
be the guardians of other people's privacy.? 
> If so-and-so blp feels that we shouldn't mention that they were arrested
for drunk driving they can come forward with
> their request.? Some people don't care.

> The same goes for our own editors.? Do we put ourselves in the position of
deciding what to oversight *without 
> any request* from the target party?? If someone did that ostensibly in my
favor, I would be offended by that 
> action personally.? I certainly wouldn't thank them, or find their actions
productive, helpful or even polite.

> Our project should not be attempting to pre-emptively solve all issues,
because we cannot.? We have mechanisms 
> in place to handle each issue that's been mentioned already.? We don't
need more creeping.

I think this is, in general, the wrong way round. Rather than saying we
should be waiting for people who have been harmed to come forward, we should
be trying to avoid harm. By not indexing by default, we avoid harm. I think
it's rather presumptuous to say "people need to come forward to us"... when
we're the ones doing harm. I think it's rather short sighted and perhaps
even mean spirited to say "only those who complain should be offered
relief"...

But then my view of what is arrogant and condescending may differ somwhat
from Will's

Larry Pieniazek
Hobby mail: Lar at Miltontrainworks dot com