Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Attack sites/Workshop

BADSITES / NPA in articles

In #BADSITES above, Mackensen writes, "We're not being asked to write policy; we're being asked to clarify an earlier ruling," to which FloNight responds, "We do not need a new case to make this point," and James F. adds, "the MONGO decision definitely needs re-working." Would it be more appropriate to ask for a clarification here? If so, I so ask the committee to clarify the extent to which WP:NPA applies to articles. ←Ben^B4 15:33, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, here's a try:

The No Personal Attacks policy, as it clearly states throughout the page, applies to comments, not to articles.

I'm trying to be succinct to avoid confusion, but I could expand it:

The No Personal Attacks policy applies to comments. It cannot be applied to articles as they are not appropriate venues for comment on Wikipedia editors qua editors. External sites and their appropriateness for articles are covered under the Sourcing and Referencing policies.

Thoughts?

James F. (talk) 18:24, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Sounds fair enough. AFAIK we are supposed to link only to reliable sources (or, at least, I only link to RS), which should preclude Encyclopedia Dramatica and Wikipedia Review. These hives of scum and villainy are hardly reliable sources in any sense of the word: it's hard to think of a valid reason for linking to them in the first place. Even in cases of "Wikipedia Review proves that X really did say Y", if Wikipedia Review is your only source for this, chances are that nobody cares anyway. Moreschi ^Talk 18:38, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Navel-gazing and lotus-eating is inappropriate for encyclopædia articles.

James F. (talk) 19:01, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

WP:NPA is about Conduct, not about Content. Something applied to user behavior has nothing to do with article content, regardless of the article subject matter. Judge the article on its own bad quality or lack of value, don't try to apply policies or guidelines never intending to be used for article purposes. bastique 18:59, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I really like this. Much clearer than what I wrote. :-)

James F. (talk) 19:01, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, new suggestion from David G., plus some tidying:

WP:NPA is about conduct, not about content. Concepts that apply to user behaviour have nothing to do with article content, regardless of the article subject matter. Judge articles strictly on their content in a disinterested editorial manner; don't try to apply community policies or guidelines not intended for article policies, don't consider one's own opinions of or experiences with the subject of an article.

Input still requested. :-) Will harangue some interested parties.

James F. (talk) 14:14, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I suspect the interested parties will say that they'll provide their input in the context of the new case. Newyorkbrad 14:25, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

The proof will be in the pudding. If ArbCom does not open a case to consider edit warring by various parties on various articles, and only publishes this clarification, will it stop the edit warring? You may want to look at recent discussion at Wikipedia talk:No personal attacks. The idea that applying NPA and attack site link removal to article space is "beyond absurd" doesn't seem to have percolated through to the disputants there. Or at Overstock.com either, where the current state of the article is to have obfuscated the name and removed all links to the site that forms a major part of the article, in the name of NPA. Thatcher131 14:41, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

It's not that "beyond absurd" hasn't percolated down to the little people yet, it's that arguments by assertion aren't very persuasive. Tom Harrison ^Talk 18:06, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

In fairness to Arbcom, it is likely that never once did it occur to them that anyone would take this specific principle (not even a remedy), reinterpret it, stick it in a policy applying to editorial behaviour, and then apply it to article content. Risker 18:18, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

The links in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/MONGO were posted in mainspace. They were links to ED in the article on ED, presumably as critically necessary for NPOV there as at Judd Bagley. It seems a bit thin to say now that nobody thought this would be taken to apply to article content when the original ruling applied to article content. Tom Harrison ^Talk 18:36, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, the article has long since been deleted, but I will certainly take your word for it, Tom. You may well be right that Arbcom was thinking in the particular case of ED that it would apply to article space. At the same time, the notability of the subject was hardly on the same line as Michael Moore, where links to his home page were removed because they were an "attack site." Deleting the ED article was not particularly unreasonable, with or without the links present. I can't imagine developing consensus to delete the Michael Moore article, and the lack of a link to his website would indeed be poor editorial judgment. Risker 03:22, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

And you think deciding that "all parties erred, none are chastised" in two months' time will fix that problem?

James F. (talk) 14:44, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

No, not really. Let's see what happens now. Thatcher131 14:47, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Question though, would linking to an attack site possibly considered to be a BLP vio? Kwsn(Ni!) 14:49, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Excellent question - recent changes to the WP:BLP policy suggest that anything relating to a living person on any page anywhere in the encyclopedia that could possibly be construed as a BLP violation may be removed at any time. Risker 14:55, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

That doesn't have anything to do with this issue. The reason antisocialmedia.net was obfuscated in Overstock.com is not that it was an attack on Overstock.com, it was that it contained attacks on Wikipedia editors. Use of sources and links in articles is governed by policies like use reliable sources. WP:NPA is only supposed to govern how editors interact with one another. When one editor says to another editor, "You suck and I can prove it because somewebsite says so [link]" that's a personal attack. Putting michaelmoore.com or donmurphy.com as external links in the articles about those people is not a personal attack by one editor on another editor, no matter what the content of the web site is. Thatcher131 15:06, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Up to a point. Michaelmoore.com and donmurphy.net are both authoritative sources about notable individuals, neither of them serves primarily to attack. Other sites, with antisocialmedia being a particularly vivid example, but also including wikipediareview and encyclopedia dramatica, have absolutely no redeeming encyclopaedic merit; none of them has anything that we could actually use in an article, so it's much harder to see how any link to them could be valid anywhere. We had a problem in Anne Milton (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) about links to an attack blog run by someone in her constituency, it took some time to get that out. That is the kind of situation covered by BLP. ASM is more of a grey area, in that it doesn't attack any article subject, but it is a site which exists primarily to pursue a vendetta, and it does so in a particularly nasty way. There is pretty much nothing we can learn of value by studying Bagley's critique, since his beef is basically that he was not allowed to pursue an agenda in violation of WP:NPOV and this is not fixable. Bagley is looking to create dissent and drama, and succeeding admirably. His complaint is, and always was, baseless; as Fred said to him, others may have committed minor sins, but he has committed major sins in retaliation; I'd add that he has committed these sins with entirely base motives. We have a guideline that says not to bring external disputes to Wikipedia. We should not ignore those on the losing side of a dispute who then choose to take it off Wikipedia in an attempt to end-run around policy. Guy (Help!) 09:16, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, the bigger problem with ASM is that omitting the site's name is conspicuous, since every citation names it. And as far as "bringing external disputes to Wikipedia", that is exactly the problem with the whole BADSITES non-policy. Without it, we say "Bagley made this site ASM with attacks on WP-ites as part of this larger dispute," and be done with it. What we are getting instead is that BADSITES is being used as a reason/excuse/pretext (depending on how much "good faith" rope you are willing to grant) to control the content of Wikipedia based upon Bagley's attacks. The Anne Milton case has merits as a parallel, but I notice that in her case the source does not name the site. The question of who was behind the blog in her case also doesn't seem to have become a matter of note, whereas in the ASM/Bagley case the importance of the site is precisely that Bagley is behind it. And for those who have their scorecards out, ASM plays off an existing dispute between factors on Wikipedia and various people who have been expelled from here over a particular person who is involved in the disputes around overstock.com and who may or may not be a Wikipedia editor who is participating in these discussions as if he were not an involved party. Just to make things worse, the WR/ED people have a bee in their bonnet about this guy's identity, and if memory serves me, one of the players on WR is also involved in the same disputes that overstock.com is stirring up.

There is clearly room to discuss how much emphasis is placed upon all these connections, especially when we are talking article space. The issue that I see, however, is that we keep running the risk here of sacrificing accurate reportage of the material in order to keep the "external disputes" out, because the disputes aren't really entirely external now. Putting us in the position of suyppressing cited material in order to protect our own is putting us in the position of risking another black mark on our reputation. If someone else is able to demonstrate that certain key ASM allegations are correct, the business press will be able to twig us as (perhaps unwitting) participants in someone's illegitimate financial maneuvering. We need to strike a middle course here, between pretending the allegations don't exist and appearing to endorse them. It seems to me that this course is best followed by naming Bagley (which I think has to be done no matter what), naming the site, and sketching out who (real world) is being attacked wihtout going into detail about what's claimed about that persons' Wikipedia activity. And this all has to be set within the context of Overstock.com's larger securities issues. We surely don't have to repeat the allegations, and there's no way at all that we can't leave enough of a trail for people to find those allegations. Mangoe 14:52, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

BLP does not apply in this circumstance, as BLP is just a guideline that requires NPOV to be followed more strictly in certain circumstances.

Using sources is required by NPOV. Failing to mention a source, or, worse, failing to use it, would be a violation of NPOV. Claiming that a source is an "attack site" is a suggestion that it fails to meet the concept embodied in "use reliable sources" and other such guidelines; I has nothing to do with personal attacks on contributors, as that is a guideline for the behaviour of editors in engaging in comment on- and off-wiki, not in writing content.

James F. (talk) 14:58, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. WP:BLP applies to all content referring to living individuals. Actually, not censored notwithstanding, I would say it is inappropriate to link to sites which prominently attack people, whether editors or not; hate speech sites, for example. But that's just me. Here, we have an editor who feels personally attacked by the presence of the links. We should be sensitive to that, and not make statements of faith that we should link For Great Justice or something, we really need to be more nuanced than that. Guy (Help!) 20:36, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Does BLP apply to me? Does it apply outside the article space? Tom Harrison ^Talk 18:05, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Whether some wikijargon applies to published attacks on article subjects, contributors or both is sort of beside the point. BLP exists because 1) we (at least some of us) are trying to take some responsibility for what we publish 2) neither the foundation nor any contributors can see any benefit in being involved in litigation by the subjects of the articles we publish. I can't see why those concerns wouldn't be equally applicable to attacks on any other living person from the english Wikipedia.Proabivouac 11:23, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

James, you should definitely not bother opening a case if all you're going to do is say, "everyone messed up, no one gets punished." However, don't expect a mere clarification to carry much weight. [1] [2] Thatcher131 15:22, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't want such a ruling, but that is what is likely to come out of this, as all ArbCom-watchers will known. And given how our words are twisted to the purposes of those that use them, will there really be any great merit in seemingly re-writing the previous ruling. Clarifications are meant to have the same "weight" as any other official decision from the Committee.

James F. (talk) 15:59, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you in principle, James F.; however, this interpretation of WP:BLP (as well as WP:HARASS) has already been used in user space, archived pages, RFAR archives, other project space, and throughout article space (including talk) to remove perceived attacks against WP editors. I don't think a clarification of the previous case is going to be sufficient to put paid to such practices, although certainly such an addition to the meta policy is important and valuable. Risker 15:10, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

This seems to me an excellent point - even under the "it doesn't apply to the article space" clarifications, discussion of these links becomes difficult. "Should we mention antisocialmedia.net by name" and "Should we mention the site by name" are two very different questions, as the latter cannot be answered by anyone not already familiar with the situation. This makes things like RFC and requests for attention very difficult in these situations.

To my mind, the problem is that NPA is a policy that, at its core, is designed to attack bad faith behavior. The inclusion of the attack sites material changes it so that it now attacks good faith behavior. But it is not equipped to do that, nor should it - good faith behavior should virtually never be reverted on sight. Phil Sandifer 15:51, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree that there are still difficulties in modifying our policies so that those unable to follow the most important - use common sense - are still able to contribute. I'm not sure that that is an efficient or deseriable use of our time, however. (Or, in brief, discussion of valid contributions to an article are always appropriate on said article's talk page. If you don't like it, don't view it.)

On the larger point, I think Phil has it just right here: the NPA behavioural rule does indeed apply to situations where you're already assuming bad faith, and that that isn't appropriate as a rule to apply to editing at large.

James F. (talk) 15:59, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

It would be more accurate to say it was used in most of those places to claim that those links were attacks. I like the general drift of this clarification, but even if articles themselves are placed off-limits, there's still the problem that BADSITES has been invoked to cripple discussion of the sites in question by censoring citations to material on the sites. Presumably it could also be invoked to (for instance) keep Don Murphy's site from being referred to in any discussion context.

The thing that is causing all the disruption is the imputation that any link to a site where there is an "attack" (whatever that might be) is thus also an attack. So someone writes an article on Teresa Nielsen Hayden (who is emphatically notable) and includes the obvious extern link to her site. Time passes, and in the blog there she makes a post about Wikipedia, and down in the comments, someone names an editor here. So all of a sudden, the link is ex post facto an attack. Well, that's just nonsense. All that matters is the context in which a link occurs, and not the link itself. Mangoe 15:36, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely, such an application of any rules would be nonsense on stilts.

James F. (talk) 15:59, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

A clarification regarding links to so-called attack sites in main article space is a very useful thing to have, but it then still leaves unsettled the separate question of what sort of links are appropriate, and in what circumstances, in places such as talk, user, and project pages, where Wikipedia-centered navel-gazing is appropriate, and giving the appearance of suppressing criticism is not the best image. *Dan T.* 15:41, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

This is what consensus is for. We did not form the Committee to be the Herod of community. We aren't here to set policy, and people should stop asking us to do this. If the community really does want the Privy Council to go ahead, they should talk about doing so, not appealling to us due to a lack of anyone else.

James F. (talk) 15:59, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

In the Overstock page, where this is a live issue, I pointed out that naming ASM neither adds nor detracts from the article. However, since it is in large measure devoted to attacks against and "outing" of Wikipedians, NPA tips the scales against including. Currently NPA mandates (or appears to mandate) removal of links from article space. I don't see why it can't be a consideration, however, if the neutrality of the article is not compromised. I think that you can easily adjust NPA to clarify that point. Perhaps something like: "links or references to external attacks should be removed from article space if they do not compromise the neutrality of the article." Then you have your cake and eat it too. If the concern is neutrality and only neutrality, this should rectify that concern.--Mantanmoreland 16:12, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I think it very misleading to say that it adds nothing to the article. It adds something in the same way that the inclusion of the hexadecimal string does in AACS encryption key controversy or the inclusion of the picture of L. Ron Hubbard's handwriting does in Xenu - it adds a level of transparency and thoroughness to the article. Put another way, if someone reading the article thinks "OK, but what is the site?" then we're obviously excluding expected information, which is a problem for the article. Obscuring the site also presents some verifiability issues, and, by extension, some NPOV issues. Certainly, if there were a situation that were genuinely without other consideration the statement "remove the link to an attack site" would hold, but I cannot imagine an editorial situation that was actually so neutral. Phil Sandifer 16:49, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

What has happened is that another one of my predictions back in the original BADSITES arguments has come to pass: the fact that someone has created an attack website (and that characterization is utterly fair in this case) to discredit someone via Wikipedia, and that site has hit the news. So now we have notable attacks. Which do we choose: censorship, or completeness? If we take the "article" formula being proposed, then we get completeness. If we let Wikipedia is not censored be the governing principle, then we get completeness.

I'd also like to point out that the dispute has affected the accuracy of the article. The situation has apparently changed somewhat since the conflict began, and the "nonlinking" version is no longer correct. Mangoe 17:31, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

That's not correct. The "nonlinking" (current) version reads as follows: In January 2007, it was revealed that an executive of Overstock.com was responsible for the creation of anonymous website which attacked critics of Overstock.com, including media figures and private citizens on message boards. Byrne has expressed public support of the site. That is how it has read for a long time, and it is accurate (see quote from the Times posted by Thatcher on the talk page).

Phil, that paragraph is carefully sourced, and there are no possible verifiability issues. If we omit "antisocialmedia.net" so as to not link to harassment of an editor, there is no loss to the reader. As you point out, the name of the site is in the sources. As for neutrality, you keep baldly asserting that its inclusion makes the article less neutral but you have not demonstrated how this is so. I'd say exclusion or inclusion is a wash. --Mantanmoreland 17:53, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

There seems to be a separate content issue, in that the site-name-less version whitewashes Bagley's (and therefore overstock.com's) involvement in the site. Even on the basis of the citations, what it says is inadequate. So it seems I was mistaken, and that the contested paragraph was always inaccurate when it didn't name the site. All this is a bit irrelevant; we are still stuck against the reality that the site's attacks upon you are notable. It may be necessary for ArbCom to consider that question, it appears, because even if BADSITES is finally repudiated I anticipate conflict on that specific point. Mangoe 19:13, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

There is no "content issue," and never was until a half-dozen editors never previously interested in the company began adding the name of the site to the article. No previous editor on the page, including the Bagley sock who was just banned, ever insisted on adding the name of the site. You may disagree with omission from the article but continually calling it "inaccurate" when it is not is disruptive and adds nothing to the discussion.

Since you may not be familiar with Overstock.com, I would like to point out that the company is the subject of two SEC investigations and a massive amount of negative and even lurid publicity. The Bagley misdeeds are small potatoes compared to what this company is up to and the article describes everything in a balanced and neutral fashion. I can't imagine the ArbCom forcing upon this article a great deal of negative material on this one matter when there is so much more of greater significance albeit less titillation value.--Samiharris 15:54, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

It would be more accurate for it to read along these lines: "In January 2007, it was revealed that, Judd Bagley, director of Communications for Overstock.com, was responsible for the creation of anonymous website which attacked critics of Overstock.com, including media figures and private citizens on message boards." I fail to understand the reticence to give his name, when every source in the matter does. It doesn't seem to be a matter of relative importance, either, but simply one element of a larger conflict over stock manipulations. Mangoe 03:44, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Your version is neither more or less accurate or neutral than the consensus version that was there for months and was not disputed by any of the editors of the article. Actually it is slightly less precise than the current version because it gives his title as "director of communications" when he was originally "director of social media" and then recently "director of communications." This is an encyclopedia, not Trivial Pursuit. Are we going to bang out in "Requests for arbitration" every editorial decision about the naming or not naming of some minor corporate officer made by editors in an article months ago? --Samiharris 12:54, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Those details are easily polished, and indeed I see someone has done so in response to the Judd Bagley AfD closure. Again, I continue to be puzzled by the urge to play down this incident, as it has proven to be really quite easy to cite this thing. And I am coming around to the view that there is a POV problem here. I just don't see the sources saying that this is unimportant; indeed, from what I can see they view this as an interesting twist in the tactics of dubious stock manipulation. It might be unimportant in the long run, but WP:CRYSTAL applies in that direction too. Mangoe 13:53, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Then we probably need an unambiguous ArbCom statement to the effect that the community, by its normal means of consensus, has the right to enact whatever policy on this issue it deems proper (within the bounds of core foundation policy), and that it's not proper to cite any past ArbCom decisions as if they were binding precedent that trump consensus, as has been frequently done. *Dan T.* 16:26, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

• There is a problem here in that we leave the door open for linking in mainspace to offsite content which is defamatory or attacks living individuals, so we should probably agree (as editors, not through ArbCom) some clarification to WP:BLP which presumes against linking to sites which have significant amounts of attack or denigration, unless there is a compelling reason to link. The onus is always on those proposing content to justify it and achieve consensus, where that consensus is absent, and where the content attacks people who are, incidentally, Wikipedia editors, then pressing zealously for links may, with some justification, be thought to be harassment. Guy (Help!) 20:29, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't see that this is a problem; I cannot see how we (individually, corporately, ecumenically...) can be held responsible for what people do on other sites, any more than Google can be held responsible for people using it to search for defamatory material. If someone has a problem with material on some site that we link to, their recourse is to approach those who control the offending site, since the material is there whether we link to it or not.

And that those attacked are Wikipedia editors is not the least bit incidental. It is a major threat to our credibility. In almost every case thus far, the editor being criticized in the attacks has shown up to invoke this non-policy, generally without any admission that they are an interested party. I just don't think we can afford this; again, this is something which is going to show up in citable media someday: that these policies are being used to protect questionable activity from external criticism.

Almost anything can be done to harass, if it is done persistently enough; one man's harrassment is another's annoyance. Yes, I'm sure it's annoying that we keep complaining about these deletions; and I find it annoying that the matter keeps coming up. Life is full of annoyances; the way to get rid of this one is to resolve the matter once and for all. Mangoe 20:51, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

There are many rules regulating external sites, and particularly their application to living people. That tends to toss out linking to these "attack sites" long before they land in this "badsites" controversy.--Samiharris 20:43, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Then enforce those other rules, where it's appropriate to do so... we don't need any separate BADSITES-style rule at all. *Dan T.* 21:12, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

• • It seems to me the sticking point is what denotes offsite content, ie an attack page or a BADSITE that has attack pages but with the attack pages not being directly linked to from wikipedia (as is the case with Don Murphy's website) and that is what the arbcom need to give clarification over, SqueakBox 20:35, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I'll note that, just now, User:JzG has added a Wikipedia-criticism site to the spam blacklist without discussion, despite the general guideline that such things need to be discussed on the talk page. This seems to be yet another of the many attempts to get some spawn of WP:BADSITES to be treated as policy. *Dan T.* 17:58, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

• That's not a "wikipedia criticism site" by any realistic or sensible definition of the term. The site operator's sole criticism of Wikipedia is that it would not let him pursue his Holy Crusade, and I blacklisted the link (on en: only, not in the main spam blacklist, although I am a meta sysop) because it is not used in mainspace but was being used in project and user space in a way that was causing real distress and harassment to a long-standing editor. It is very hard to think of an analogy without violating Godwin's Law; we are under absolutely no obligation to take seriously, still less facilitate, the delusional outpourings of sociopaths. But don't worry, Dan, Viridae immediately removed it, so you're free to link to yet another pile of fetid excreta masquerading as critique. These are not "so-called" attack sites, they are attack sites. There is a huge difference between something like Wikitruth which at least tries to be fair some of the time, and has some kind of commitment to making Wikipedia better, and ASM, which exists solely to pursue one man's mission to edit in violation our core policies. If you thik Bagley wants to make Wikipedia better, then you are deluded. He wants to make Wikipedia support his agenda, and nothing else. Guy (Help!) 08:35, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
  • It's a straw man argument to claim that I'm saying that this guy is trying to make Wikipedia better, since I've never claimed any such thing (though we all must be careful about publicly imputing derogatory motives to a living person, under BLP and NPA and AGF... even banned editors retain a right not to be unnecessarily attacked). My arguments are more along the lines of (1) Even if somebody is doing someting for totally biased and self-serving motives... even if he's a completely evil person... that doesn't mean that everything in their line of argument is wrong. Sometimes the "bad guys" serve a useful role in their ability to find and publicize things that the "good guys" are doing wrong, which others on the "good" team will be inclined to shove under the rug out of personal and team loyalty. Perhaps Superman really needs a Lex Luthor around, else his unchecked power will eventually get to his head and be abused (there have actually been several stories in the comics along those lines). Things the "bad guys" say certainly need to be taken with a huge grain of salt, and independently verified before any action is taken, but that isn't the same as automatically dismissing and suppressing them. (2) And if the attacks are totally without merit and truth, then why be afraid of them? Best to confront and refute them openly, or just ignore them, but not give the appearance of trying to cover something up. *Dan T.* 15:21, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

• In this case, everything in his line of argument is wrong. Add to that his baseless and flagrant attempts to violate privacy, his promotion of discredited conspiracy theories and other general lunacy, and you have a site which has absolutely no redeeming merits whatsoever. Let's be absolutely clear here: there is no way that Bagley improves Wikipedia. There is no way that his site improves Wikipedia. There is no way that linking to his site improves Wikipedia. Nobody is afraid of his attacks, but they are distressing to the person attacked. Again, it is hard to reply without invoking Godwin's Law. Would you say that the self-evident fatuity of anti-semitic polemic means it's fine to link it even though it offends Jewish editors? We should not aid and abet the likes of Bagley in pursuing their tawdry and selfish campaigns. Guy (Help!) 12:50, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

• I don't know if there ought to be a modern version of Godwin's Law that applies to comparisons to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, but one should note that our article on that guy includes a link to his infamous videos. It's hard to get more evil than that. There are probably 9/11 widows offended by that, but we don't let that override the need of people to be fully informed, including about what the "bad guys" are saying. *Dan T.* 12:58, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
• An interesting essay on karma vs. image in a Google-related blog states that one of the differences is that karma is often improved by outside criticism, while image is often hurt by outside criticism. It would appear that various people involved in Wikipedia-related debates are more concerned with image than karma, including editors who are hyper about how they're being hurt by "attack sites", as well as bio subjects demanding veto power over having an article about them because they regard this as inherently harmful. *Dan T.* 15:41, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
• Re; "Would you say that the self-evident fatuity of anti-semitic polemic means it's fine to link it even though it offends Jewish editors?" You mean, like this (I presume that there is anti-semitic rhetoric there, I don't care to taint myself by looking)? There is enough good policy to disallow linking where there is no useful purpose for an encyclopedic article, but BADSITES derived NPA language sets a different standard to elsewhere Wikipedia content, as my example shows. Are Jewish (or any other potentially discriminated grouping) editors more worthy of consideration than Jewish (or any other.. etc.) readers? The MONGO case originally referred to the linking to sites, containing material attacking an individual editor, for the purpose of harassing said editor, not a group(ing). LessHeard vanU 21:13, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Can we get some resolution here?

The whole BADSITES thing seems to be in a state of supreme contradiction. The attempt to open a case seems to have stalled because of this request for clarification. This request seems to have stalled because the situation w.r.t. overstock.com and antisocialmedia and Judd Bagley has pushed the discussion into new territory. Meanwhile ArbCom (with the advice of some unnamed others) has gone off and simply blocked linking to ASM.net.

I'm not as bent about the latter blockage as some are, because I can understand not wanting to have to police the place to keep out what in this case clearly are attacks. But besides all the questionable implications of doing it, the "clarification" seems to be: "Well, if ArbCom takes a sufficient dislike to a site, they can unilaterally block it." This is not an improvement in clarity. BADSITES has always wavered between a "policy" delivered by ArbCom and a non-policy rejected on two attempts already; now we have some unstated version of it being acted on without any community consensus. Nobody knows what the rules are, and meanwhile it continues to be a disruption, particularly in this case where the offending website isn't just an external link, but is named as content.

Can we get some resolution here, or at least some progress in that direction? Mangoe 22:16, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

It's pretty simply really, if a site is really nasty you should not link to it. If it is a site that occasionally has negative material, you should simply avoid the negative material. It's kind of like the difference between a fart and and a pile of shit. If there is real harm being done, avoid it completely. Fred Bauder 04:50, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, see, that doesn't leave us with any resolution other than to have a fight every time someone points to a site that might, somewhere in its bowels, do "harm". If real harm is being done, the victim has recourse to the courts, and does not need our assistance. Bagley is, after all, named as author of the site in question, and is thus available to be sued. What we have inevitably talked about here is hypothetical harm. And often enough, it may not be the kind of "harm" that constitutes a tort: after all, it isn't libel if it's true.

And as has been said before here, "Wikipedia is not censored." Nastiness by itself isn't an criteria for exclusion. Therefore trying to exclude things on the ground of simple nastiness is going to provoke arguments, because it isn't simple. Every "simple" argument that has come up here in defense of exclusion has been poked full of holes, when it wasn't just bald misrepresentation of the facts. Whenever protecting people has come to the fore of all other principles, it has turned into a cover for people who are potentially doing something wrong to protect them from being criticized for it.

And not to pick on you, Fred, but single statements by ArbCom members or admins have simply served to fan the flames, because nobody feels particularly bound by them. They're just another thing to argue about. Mangoe 11:02, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Fred, some people have understood that decision in the way you mean from the very beginning. Others have tried to drastically expand it (the failed BADSITES proposal and the changes snuck into NPA) and apply it to article space. What remains to be seen is whether this clarification will stop the edit warring. Thatcher131 11:11, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Nobody snuck in anything (though it would be cool to have an 'insert' button to match 'delete'). And the arbcom findings applied to article space - links to ED in the article about ED. Tom Harrison ^Talk 11:59, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I think you're rewriting history, since the ED article was already deleted at the time that decision was made, and most people feel that, should it ever be recreated (and some argue that it's notable enough for that, while others disagree) it ought to have a link to the site as is normal practice to link to sites on articles about them. My impression is that the decision pertained to "trolls" spamming links to the site in inappropriate places following the deletion of the article that would be the one legitimate place to put it. At any rate, the Arbcom lacks the power to make policy or make content decisions regarding articles. *Dan T.* 12:21, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Quoth Fred: "It's pretty simply really, if a site is really nasty you should not link to it."

No. Wikipedia links to neo-nazi sites. It links to radical Islamic sites. It links to some of the nastiest sites in existence. And it should. We're a neutral encyclopedia, not the arbitrators of moral rectitude. We can't accurately report on a subject without giving information about what they believe and do. Linking to sites they create and maintain is one of the clearest and most direct ways of doing so... which is why our link guidelines hold that we should do so.

If a link is appropriate under our standards for reliable source and notability or external links then it can and should be included... regardless of how 'nasty' subjective opinions hold the site to be. If a link to a site is needed to demonstrate some valid point in discussion then it should be included.

We already have policies to cover all of this. Links which are posted solely to insult some user rather than because they are relevant to the article/discussion are personal attacks and can be treated as such (warnings and blocks - possibly removal, though 'remove personal attacks' has always been controversial and this new 'remove links to attack sites' application of it no less so).

If Kim Jong-il signed up for a Wikipedia account we wouldn't suddenly remove all references to criticisms of him. We wouldn't ban all links to sites which engaged in 'attacks' upon him. We wouldn't ban links to criticism of him from discussion on talk pages. Rather, we would continue to apply our requirements that any criticism and links be to reliable sources, that the information included be notable, and that this user be treated with civility and not subject to personal attacks (well, in theory, we'd do that last). There is no need for any sort of 'new' procedure for handling these issues... and every effort to construct one has been, and will be, used as a wedge in efforts to change the way our core principles are applied. --CBD 12:43, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

It is apparent from the voluminous commentary that the original ArbCom ruling allowed for some extremely expansive interpretation. If we can all settle on the clarification that "linking to attacks as a kind of trolling or harassment is prohibited", or similar language, then I think this could be settled quickly. But we need some consensus expressed from ArbCom one way or the other. Right now it seems that we're getting a variety of inconsistent personal opinions. Mangoe 13:19, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I supported the BADSITES policy proposal only because my definition of what a BADSITE is is one that routinely engages in the "outting" of our contributors who wish to remain anonymous. We cannot regulate what other sites have posted, but we can work to protect our editors from potential real life harm by not aiding in the dispersal of their real life identity by linking to such a site. If one of these "BADSITES" has relevent information that might be needed by arbcom, then it can always be emailed to them. The issue, as far as I am concerned, is not a suppression of criticism, even if it is invalid, but protection of our editor's right to privacy.--MONGO 19:41, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Which brings us back to the perennial question: is this right to privacy absolute? Taken in the large, it is not, and indeed, it is nonexistent. If someone figures out who a Wikipedia editor is, and publishes his conclusion, he has the right to do so. It may be immoral (by whatever standard), but law and rule cannot address that.

Therefore whatever protection we can offer is limited, and the case of ASM.net illustrates just how limited it is. Anyone who comes across the cited sources is told where to find the attacks that most surely do exist on that site, so omission of the site's name in the article is banking on readers not looking at the cited work. Putting the name in but not hotlinking it is banking on them not typing the URL in themselves.

We can't put editor's masks back on if they fall off. I understand the concern over one editor taking advantage of such a site to put in an indirect attack upon another, but I doubt whether going beyond that is more important than writing an accurate, unbowdlerized, comprehensive encyclopedia. Mangoe 21:09, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes... if real life were like the comic books, then it might be possible to regain anonymity... if somebody discovers that Superman is Clark Kent and tells a whole crowd of people, he can still resort to super-hypnosis, or get an amnesia ray from his Fortress of Solitude, or get his Justice League friends to help pull off an elaborate super-hoax that has the public thinking that the earlier revelation was wrong... or whatever other plot twist the writers might have. The real world isn't quite the same. *Dan T.* 23:18, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia editors have the right to edit anonymously if they wish. If their real life identity is "discovered" by people on other websites and that is linked here against their wishes, then we are violating their right to privacy. If editors here previously posted their real life identity or information which led them to having their real identities becoming discovered, and they then change their information provided to protect them from being exposed, we should do what we can to honor their wishes to not aide and abet other websites that do not care about their current desires to edit anonymously.--MONGO 05:05, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

But not to the point of restricting WP's ability to link to a source for the purpose of building the encyclopedia. If the information is available on the internet somewhere there is no point, IMO, in lessening WP's "right" to provide informative links simply to reduce the potential of accessing some information that could be found anyway. Primarily, WP is an encyclopedia first and an (anonymous) editing grouping some way behind. LessHeard vanU 09:31, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

There are some websites that do little other than provide harassment fodder and as such, I highly doubt the exclusion of these extremely few websites is going to reduce our ability to be encyclopedic.--MONGO 14:42, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Some seem to think Wikipedia should be renamed "Editors Anonymous", since it serves as a support group for the obsessive-compulsive. *Dan T.* 12:13, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

We don't aide and abet the efforts of other sites to "out" our contibutors.--MONGO 14:29, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Quite right, WP never has... so, how does not being able to link to a site for the purposes of improving the encyclopedia effect that? LessHeard vanU 20:12, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

We also don't aid and abet the Aryan Nations' goals of white supremacy, but that doesn't stop us from linking to their homepage; the idea that acknowledging the existence of harassment is the same as supporting it is in direct opposition to the goal of building a comprehensive encyclopedia. It's possible for bad things to be notable, or for a Web site where bad things happen to be notable for other reasons. ShaleZero 20:22, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Dan T., I think we can all agree that obsession is bad. Tom Harrison ^Talk 14:36, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

This rather abstracted talk about whether we can do without the attack sites and whether or not we should "aid[e] and abet" the attackers has become pretty much detached from reality. I do not think that the right to anonymity here is absolute, but in any case, as I seem to find myself repeating, we can't make people anonymous again once their identities have been revealed. Difference of opinion over how hard we can make it to find these attacks never seems to be resolved. But in any case, reality has outstripped the MONGO decision. It was one thing when people linked to these sites to torment others; nobody disagrees that this ought to stopped. When we went from there to other Wikipedia criticism on the same sites, it at least could be argued that such criticism was worthless, though in practice you and others edit warred to prevent contrary evidence from being presented. But then we move on to other sites which happened to have one or two revelations of identity buried in a mass of other material; and now we have a site whose attacks on editors are themselves noteworthy. I don't see how we can avoid making distinctions among these cases. Mangoe 03:10, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Apparently Mangoe feels that offsite personal attacks on Wikipedia editors are too hard to find, so he repeats them here. I don't see that as a good argument for linking to those sites. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 03:03, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Is it detached from reality? Interesting. No, there is no reason to link to websites that "out" our contributors against their wishes. We now have a website whose attacks on our contributors is noteworthy? How so? If it is "outting" anyone here against their wishes, but is something arbcom needs to make a decison, then it can be emailed to them...and that makes it unnecessary to link directly to it.--MONGO 04:04, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

To be clear: is it your argument that there is no reason to link to Michael Moore's official site in our article about Michael Moore? Should we, or should we not link to Patrick Nielsen Hayden's official site in our article on Patrick Nielsen Hayden? In a more recently contentious matter, how would you suggest administering the external links section of Don Murphy? The relevant policy seems pretty clear that, in general, official sites of people or organizations covered in articles ought to be linked from those articles. JavaTenor 05:23, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

At present, I see no evidence any of the sites you mention is engaged in the effort to "out" our contributors. Moore's site was previously doing this and the webmaster there had links that took one directly to two open editing windows on our site, which appeared to be an invitation to vandalize. Morton devonshire and I were singled out by a well known conspiracy theorist [3], but I didn't delete links to his website since he wasn't "outting" either of us.--MONGO 05:36, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

So, if that activity was still going on at www.michaelmoore.com, you would have us delete links to it, regardless of notability or its relevance to a notable subject?ShaleZero 06:11, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Journalistic Integrity-- the crux of the matter

I have proposed the guiding principle: "Wikipedia should report matters regarding itself or its editors with the same vigor and candor as it would other institutions or individuals."

The principle is taken from the Associated Press's Statement of Ethical Principles. I think it really gets to the heart of the matter. There are some other principles that I think are roughly equivalent:

• We should treat our critics the same way we treat our supporters. If they're encyclopedic, reliable, and notable, we should cover them from a neutral point of view. If they're unencyclopedic, unreliable, and unnotable, we shouldn't cover them.
• We shouldn't include content that criticizes us if that content is unencyclopedic. We shouldn't delete content sites that criticize us if that content it is encyclopedic.
• We shouldn't have "two sets of rules"-- one set of rules for content that doesn't involve us or our editors, and a different 'set of rules' for content that attacks us.
• Content that attacks us shouldn't have to meet a higher standard to merit inclusion than content which supports us. Content that attacks us shouldn't be easier to remove than content which supports us.

In the end, it's all really comes down to NPOV. The second we let attacks against us affect the way we write articles, we're not really writing from a NPOV anymore. We're writing from a Wikipedian Point of View.

The solution to the attack sites problem can be simple, if we let it. Bad faith edits that intentionally try to harass are a behavior problem, and subject to our usual bad behavior processes. Good faith edits, even those which might be critical of us, are a content dispute, and subject to content process disputes. As always, there will be gray areas between good faith and badfaith, people trying to game the system and wikilaywering, and we can handle those the way we always do-- by community commonsense and appeals to Arbcom.

Please, please-- don't expand the MONGO case to a general rule. Don't let our article content be influenced by our emotions. The second it's okay to delete a notable "hate site", "attack site", or "badsite", something very special will be lost, and even though 99.9% of our readers will never notice the difference, it just won't be the same. --Alecmconroy 08:03, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

More longwindedness by Alecmconroy

Posted to Workshop:

comment I think that the AP's ethical principals are a valuable resource as we consider our own ethics. I add however that this is an encyclopedia not a newspaper, and WP:NOT makes this an explicit principal. What we consider balanced and unbiased may be different from what journalists consider balanced and unbiased. And as an encyclopedia we may confront ethical issues journalists do not. So I have no problem with this as long as it does not in any way violate or do an end-run around WP:NOT. Our job is to help give everyone access to make the sum of human knowledge, and this entails a standard of notability that is much higher than newspapers (which report on news that people may forget within days) and this may require different ethical principles. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:02, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes! Yes! you hit the nail on the head, and I love it when people give words to something I also am thinking, but haven't said. AP's ethical principles are a GREAT source of inspiration, but they're not something we can just adopt willy-nilly.

I actually had quite a saga trying to put into words what I thought was the danger in over-interpreting the MONGO case. A year ago when it was decided, I tried to talk about why I felt it was so dangerous, but when I tried to type it out to people, basically just gibberish came out. Nobody found anything I had to say very convincing, and I was doing more rambling that communicating.

So, I accepted the ruling and went back to editing, but it's be stuck in the back of my mind for a year. Finally I couldn't take it anymore, and I emailed and old professor, and he told me to call a couple of Journalist Ethics Hotlines-- so I called some random journalist and spoke with them and we brainstormed trying to come up with a way. Trying to find something I could point to that to say "This is a big issue, it's not just about the Ency. Dramatica freaks, it's about something really important".

Anyway, all the journalists kept pointing me to conflict of interest. In the newspaper world, if you have a personal dispute with someone, they take you off the case. The Journalist Ethics advisors answers (the first three I spoke to) said "This is simple. Just pull MONGO (or whoever) off the articles, because he has a conflict of interest, so just forbid him from making any decisions about any article mentioning anyone who'se harassed him".

It's a dynamite idea in the world of print, where you have an army of paid professional journalists wh ocan instantly fly in and take over an article-- but it's a horrible solution for wikipedia. MONGO, (I believe?) got harassed because of his excellent work debunking 9/11 conspirasy theories? We don't HAVE another MONGO-- each of our editors has a unique skill set and knowledge set. We can't pull them of articles just because they get harassed-- we'd kill our moral, and we'd be left with no good editors left.

So, that's the thing. The world of professional print journalism can be a source of inspiration, but you can't just copy their Standards and Practices over and call it a day. Wikipedia is special and unique-- it's up to use to write the rule-- nobody's ever done this before. We can look to print journalism for noble sentiments we want to encorporate into or own project-- just as the founders of the enlightenment looked to the ancient greco-roman world for inspiration in forming democracies. But Wikipedia is a whole new world, and we can't just blindly follow the rules for a print newspaper.

That said, the fourth person I talked to pointed me to the line in the AP's ethics that I think really summarized the dilemma we're facing. It's very hard for an institution, ANY institution, to cover itself the same way we'd cover others. We care about our project, we care about each other. We have a human compassion, a need to defend our teammates.

When there's an organization that outs, I dunnno, closeted gays or abortion doctors-- it's easier for use to see clearly, becase most of us aren't closted gays or abortion doctors. But when there's a website that cruelly attacks US, wikipedia and our editors-- suddenly the reptile brain fires, it gets hard to think straight, and we want to delete their articles, purge their links, and salt the earth. Our compassion for our teammates is what drives this. It makes us good people. We want to stop the pain our friends our experiences-- we want to stop that pain at any cost.

But, we have a duty to resist those temptations. We have a duty to treat them like any other article. Deleting if they're unnotable, including if they are, with our eyes keen on the goal of "What will make the best encyclopedia". We owe it to the project. The whole project depends on use mainting our integrity-- no retributions, no clouded judgement. No scales stacked against our critics, not higher barriers for them to qualify for inclusion.

...

I've waited a year for this case to come up, because I knew it would. This is the critical moment. Wikipedia is at a crossroads right here. If BADSITES is killed and MONGOCASE is clarified to apply only to bad faith, overt attempts at harassment-- then it'll be okay. If this goes the other way-- if we start purging our critics from our articles.. it will truly be the end of Wikipedia as we know it. Dead serious.

We don't have to purge much. Just a few articles or two-- but sanctioned by official policy. The main stream media will pick up on it eventually. The print journalists, already threatened by us, will call "Pravda"-- purging our critics from our articles like Stalin did. One day we'll wake up to the headline "Wikipedia purges mentions of critics", and that will be the end of "The Encyclopedia Anyone Can Edit". After that day, it will just be "The Encyclopedia anyone can suggestion changes to". Teachers will forbid studets to use us, colbert will call us communists, britannitca will give interviews about how the amateurs have no ethics. The crazy billionaire who hates us will be on larry king, or sue us. It will make Essjay Controversy look like a pleasant sunday stroll.

Thanks for listening to all this tirade. I hope I'm wrong, and that we could delete all the critical links we want and no one will notice, and there won't be a New York Times article about "Wikipedia purges all references to critic But most of all, I hope ArbCom puts things right, and we never find out whehter my doomsday scenario is plausible or just worrying too much.

--Alecmconroy 12:11, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I concur. If I may paraphrase (and correct me if I'm wrong), "What is more important? Wikipedia or the content?" We must allow criticism of both the project and its contributors, otherwise the content will suffer. LessHeard vanU 13:28, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

What has this got to do with the subject of this arbitration, ASM? No one is suggesting that site is WP:RS or could be linked under existing policies--Mantanmoreland 16:48, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Mantanmoreland, this RFAR is categorically NOT about ASM, which is simply one example of the multiple occurrences where the MONGO decision was used to justify editorial behaviour. Risker 16:54, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how that can be. The michalmoore.com and Sicko stuff is the subject of a separate arbitration. I don't see how you can't mix in separate cases involving an entirely different set of editors, particularly when the editors from that separate issue are not involved. The only editors involved in this case are the ones who edited the Overstock and Judd Bagley. Ted Frank has not been invited in as a party. As a matter of fact, though I wasn't active in that artice at one point I weighed in and supported retaining the links to michaelmoore.com. Mr. Frank was peeved at me for that.--Mantanmoreland 17:26, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Evidence versus discussion

I think there is too much discussion on the workshop page, and not enough evidence. Give the Arbs some more evidence to work with before filling up the workshop page, please. GRBerry 02:57, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I've added some. *Dan T.* 03:37, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Attack Sites versus Attack Pages

I don't know if its necessary, but it might be worthwhile to distinguish between "attack sites" and "attack pages". At one point someone (and I forget who) purged all the links to Conservapedia because one of the talk pages contained an offhand comment about the real-life identity of a Wikipedia Admin. While in the case of Wikitruth or someplace the whole "site" can be regarded as an attack, an offhand occurange in a website with 50K+ pages should not be poisoning the whole well, it's just silly. The "New Yorker" was, at one point, an outing forum, and yet we still link there (although Essjay is now retired). If I post a message about the real life identity of a Wikipedia in the readers' comments section of a globeandmail.com story, would that invalidate linking to the paper of record in Canada? WilyD 17:04, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

The New Yorker was never and outing forum. An outing forum in the context of the BADSITES argument is one which publishes information (whether accurate or not) on the identity of a Wikipedian editor who is trying to remain anonymous. Essjay provided the information voluntarily. The New Yorker no more outed him than it would out Mindspillage and Morven by publishing that their names are Kat Walsh and Matthew Brown. Nobody who favours removing links to sites that attempt to give names of people trying to remain anonymous has ever tried to prevent links to sites that give Angela's surname or Anthere's real name. That is not to say that it's kind or sensitive to be happy with the amount of publicity that Essjay got when his bogus credentials were exposed, but he was not outed, and it is unfair on those who are trying to protect people who have not volunteered their private information to claim that the two cases are the same. ElinorD (talk) 18:09, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Even so-- if in the future The New Yorker were to out a wikipedian, MONGO/BADSITES/NPA (as interpreted by some), would require us to purge all links to The NewYorker. Clearly, such a policy is not compatible with NPOV. --Alecmconroy 18:39, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

(ec)I agree with WilyD. The phrase "attack sites" is being thrown around an awful lot, but I have yet to see a consensus definition of it. It makes it tough to discuss an "attack site" when there are individuals who really are not sure what one is. daveh4h 18:41, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Err, attacks can consist of more than just outing. I misspoke, but in Essjay's case a lot of people could've made the case that the New Yorker was an attack forum at the very least. Attack pages and Attack sites are very different - the Conservapedia example I gave was a talk page where the identity of an editor who doesn't seem to want her identity speculated on was discussed - I'm skeptical this should prevent a link to Conservapedia's homepage, since the chance of navigating from conservapedia's homepage to the page is question was essentially zero. WilyD 19:15, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

The "official definition", as included in BADSITES, came from the MONGO decision: "A website that engages in the practice of publishing private information concerning the identities of Wikipedia participants will be regarded as an attack site whose pages should not be linked to from Wikipedia pages under any circumstances." "Engages in the practice" could be interpreted as "has any cases", which is how these erasures of links to large sites with passing statements have been justified. Other kinds of attacks (e.g. name-calling) were never cited as justifications for these erasures, as far as I am aware, other than the rediculing of Wikipedia Review that was an early feature of the controversy. Certainly there was and is enough negative material in TNH's commentary on Wikipedia that some might call attacks, but the erasures ignored all this and concentrated on two or three single comments. Mangoe 19:41, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Examples of 'proper' application of 'BADSITES'?

The evidence page is replete with examples of this philosophy being used to remove links from pages where their inclusion was entirely appropriate under normal Wikipedia guidelines. These are dismissed as 'mis-applications' of the concept... though if that is so then I think that the number of examples demonstrates that this 'mis-application' is the norm. Can we have some examples of cases where people think 'BADSITES' (i.e. 'removal of links to attack sites') has been applied 'properly'? I'm sure some must exist, but the only ones I've seen cited (Michael Moore, Making Light, antisocialmedia) are the same ones which other BADSITES proponents are calling mis-applications. For instance, those three examples all involve existing conflicts between Wikipedians and people with outside websites where the outside site then 'attacked' the Wikipedian... JzG and others have said that 'attack sites' are only those which routinely engage in efforts to 'out' and 'harass' Wikipedians or which have it as one of their major purposes, whereas these three examples are websites almost entirely uninvolved with Wikipedia save for these disputes with individual users here. Were removals of links to those sites 'correct' under the BADSITES philosophy? And if not, what are some examples of removals that were? There aren't any lists of these 'good' removals on the evidence page to offset the disruptive ones. If we can get to the cases where a consensus of users think that link removal was appropriate then >I< believe we will see that they were all egregious abuses where no special policy was required. --CBD 00:06, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

You want diffs for removal of a link to a site that gives private details about your fellow editors? Does it not occur to you that posting that kind of evidence means that anyone at all can click on "older edit" and then get to harassing and objectionable content in one further click? Can you not see why some of the people who support the victims might be rather reluctant to post that kind of evidence? ElinorD (talk) 00:12, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Why can't the "supporters" e-mail or message those links to arbitrators and note here that they have done so? It's certainly understandable that you'd take that precaution, and some indication of how much evidence there is on that side would be better than nothing. ShaleZero 00:21, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

If you can't provide the evidence, the arbitrators have no case to look at. Besides - if there is a legitimate use for posting links such as these, this is one of them. Viridae^Talk 00:22, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I think the canonical example of a proper removal would be the one authorized by the original MONGO decision. JavaTenor 00:34, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Life is too short to go reread all the material in that case. But my understanding of what happened was that the links were dropped into various places with strong hints (if not outright statements) that attacks could be found were the links followed. With the exception of the ASM.net case (which after all was mentioned in the cited works because it contained attacks) as far as I know all the examples referred to here gave no indication that there was anything nasty to be found at the other end. Three of the cases were routine "official site" links; the WR link that first got my attention was a citation for a quotation. I can understand the problem with links used as attacks, but the situations that set off the conflict were not of themselves attacks, nor even hinting at them.

The ASM.net is a completely different kettle of fish, and even less like the MONGO situation. Here we have the outside world deciding that an attack site is notable (and its intent as an attack site is undeniable); therefore we have a conflict between editor pseudonymity on the one hand and comprehensivity on the other. It's not an external link issue at all; it's a citation issue, and citations are not optional. Mangoe 00:48, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

ElinorD, I didn't ask for links. I asked for examples. JavaTenor cited the ED links from the original MONGO decision. No offending links or attacks required, just a general description of the situation. Any other examples? As I said, there are plenty of 'bad' cases cited on the evidence page. Let's hear about the 'good' results of this practice? As to the MONGO case itself... as I recall, those were links directly to personal attacks on MONGO being used as attacks - rather than valid links to a site which contained attacks somewhere on it. To me those fell under the long existing 'no personal attacks' policy... the fact that someone wrote the attack somewhere else and then said, 'look at this', was no different than writing it directly on Wikipedia... and should have been handled in exactly the same way. Warnings and blocks as appropriate, possibly removal and/or oversighting of the links if they were truly egregious. Just as we have always handled personal attacks. No new policies or practices were needed. We could have taken care of that problem just the way we did without introducing this new concept and all the disruption and abuse it has caused. Why do we need 'BADSITES'? What does it give us, other than disruption, which we couldn't do without it? --CBD 01:52, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Proper application is likely to be uncommented upon and unnoticed. Really, WilyDisagoatfucker.blogspot.com should just get removed by the first person who sees it, and it won't blow up, so only one or two editors ever see it happen. I don't think anyone really disputes that correct usage is the normal, but the idea of attacksites doesn't need to exist to get the same result in the same situations. It is fundamentally stupid to need an arbcom to say "Linking to Encyclopedia Dramatica to harrass MONGO is not to be done.", the result is that people are overenforcing a principle. WP:NPA already covers the correct uses anyhow. WilyD 02:32, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Bad Sites Concept

I am trying to understand this. It has been mentioned by CDB and others that we link to websites such as Stormfront, but an arguement is brewing over if its ok to link to sites that "attack" wikipedia users. I did some digging and its not just "talk" sites such as Stormfront where it seems a bunch of racists talk hate, but there are links to the webpages of FARCEP, a group operating in Colombia that employs children soldiers to fight against the Colombian government and is believed to be involved in Cocaine trafficking. Now I understand the personal nature of links which may "out" wikipedia editors, however as one myself I expect a level of privacy here on Wikipedia, I do not however expect Wikipedia to fight battles over my privacy on other websites.

The issue I am not understanding is why Wikipedia finds it more important to remove links to people on the internet who are attempting to find the identity of editors here, and not stop links to groups which are engaged in rape, torture, drug trafficking, child abuse, and the use of children soldiers? I think if anything is a "bad site" it would be one that attempts to recruit people to that case, not simply saying CDB is really Mark Harington of Long Island. The concept of what is bad, or what is beyond the need of Wikipedia is beyond my understanding.

I partially feel as though Wikipedia editors are attempting to do something noble, help fellow editors, but are doing it in the name of this project, which is not its purpose. A website you participate on can only offer you protection of privacy on its own site, or those affiliated, not everywhere on the internet. For Wikipedia to fight privacy battles by holding links as ransom, as they did with Michael Moore, seems beyond the scope of the encyclopedia. --SevenOfDiamonds 13:58, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I've observed that too, and the only thing that can be deduced is that if the victims of these groups just joined Wikipedia and became editors, the community here would take up their cause. I didn't know Wikipedia was about taking up causes, protecting people, etc. I thought it was about building an encyclopedia. I am also somewhat offended that groups of people advocating racial hatred are not as bad as a person who complains about an editor here, while using their first and last name. I assure you though, as a person who has followed this discussion for some time, raising this is not going to change anyone's mind, this is a point that many participating are aware of. That is, they are aware of it if they have actually been reading what other people are typing. daveh4h 15:34, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is about building an encyclopedia. There is no doubt that that is the only end. But what kind of encyclopedia? Intrinsic to the encyclopedia we are building is that it is a wiki encyclopedia. I think it is a tremendous error (and one that fetishizes the notion of encyclopedia) to think of wiki merely as a technology, a means to the end of writing an encyclopedia. I think that this is a wikipedia fundamentally changes the very character of the encyclopedia. In short, it is an encyclopedia written by any and conceivably everyone. This makes it fundamentally different from other encyclopedias, like EB, that have editorial boards that review articles by credentialed scholars. That kind of encyclopedia is based on expertise; wikipedia is based on community. The cultivation of a diverse community that is supportive of collaborations and the efforts of its members is therefore essential to wikipedia. In short, the end of this project - the purpose, is 'not to creat an encyclopedia, it is to create a wikipedia. And instead of policing credentials, as regular encyclopedias do, we need to police - in the sense of protect - the community. If we do not do that then we are NOT serving the purposes of the wikipedia. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:55, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

The goal is not to create a Wikipedia, the goal is to create an encyclopedia. The idea of a Wiki is that the community builds the project, not that the project is about the community, the goal remains the same. In your example, do you ever see an encyclopedia removing content based on someones opinion about an editorial board member? You obviously would be hard pressed for two reasons, someone with a problem with a topic most likely would not be in charge of writing about it in any form. The second reason is because the project is always more important than those working on it. The idea further of removing content not based on its offensiveness to entire races, nationalities or any other social group, but instead based on a persons real information being displayed seems far fetched. We are instead placing our individual editors above the good of everyone else. Why is my privacy more important than the offensiveness of Stormfront being linked to? --SevenOfDiamonds 16:16, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Let me give an example. On certain races I believe there would be talk about killing people of a particular religious group in mass numbers, in vile ways. How is this less offensive, or less a matter of harassment, then posting one persons real life information? The second question is, if someone has their real life information posted, or is insulted off wiki, why is Wikipedia's job to seek action against them? --SevenOfDiamonds 16:18, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Wikipedia vs EB? I thought our advantage was that _WE_ are the open, free, uncensored one. What would we say if it was discovered that attacking a member of the Encyclopedia Brittanica review board could get all mention of you purged from their encyclopedia? Or, more to the point, what do you think Encyclopedia Britannica will say about us if they find out we officially sanction purging our critics from our articles? Because there _is_ an EB out there, they _are_ looking for ways to establish why people should buy their articles instead of just coming to Wikipedia. And you better believe that if Fred's policy passes, one of Wikipedia's critics is going to find a way to let the whole world know. Suddenly the kooks will have journalists listening to them.

Fred's policy is very dangerous to our community. If we strike our critics from the encyclopedia, they will become more powerful than we can possibly imagine. --Alecmconroy 16:22, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

You are making three mistakes. First, SevenofDiamonds is blaiming the victims of stalking, suggesting that they "have problems" with a topic. That is not the problem. The problem is that Wikipedia is transparent in a way that EB is not, and there are people who do not like certain editors and have gone to lengths to discover their identity and threaten physical assault on them and their families. Because of our transparency, our editors are more vulnerable than people working at EB. Second, SevenofDiamonds confuses offensive speech for harrasment. Wikipedia has articles on anti-Semitism and Nazis, and in those articles provides accounts of the views of anti-Semites and Nazis - and no one is saying that such offensive views should be removed from Wikipedia. But if an anti-Semitic organization not only discloses personal information about an editor, threaten to rape her or members of her family, and send threatening e-mails and place threatening phone calls, that is simply not expressing "a point of view," that is an attack. Regardless of the good of the project, we should not be supporting such attacks. But let's speak of the good of the project. Please provide me with an example of a notable point of view that would be excluded from Wikipedia if we commit ourselves to protecting our editors from violent threats? Really, please give me an example. In the meantime, I am arguing that the good of the project demands that we support our editors. Wikipedia depends on a diverse group of editors and supporting attacks against editors just drives away good editors. You are wrong to say we are just an encyclopedia; we are a wikipedia and that means our claims to being worthwhile hinge on an ongoing open process of colaboration among a diverse group of volunteer editors. If you do not believe in that, please get a job for EB or Encarta or some other encylopedia because obviously you do not care about the best interests of wikipedia. Supporting anything that threatens this diverse group of collaborators (and no, NPOV does not threaten that, on the contrary, NPOV was created to enable that) is bad for the project, very bad. Third, Alecmconroy seems not to understand what the word "censor" means. If you believe that Wikipedia publishes any and all statements an editor wishes to put in an article, you are wrong. There is no need to argue over it - if you believe I am wrong, write to Jimbo and ask him, and he will tell you that you are wrong. There are limits on what is included in Wikipedia. it must be relevant to an encyclopedic topic and a notable point of view. And no one - no one - has yet to explain to me how removing links to non-notable attack sites in any way hurts the encyclopedia project. If someone threatened the life of an EB contributor, it is likely that that person woulod be as non-notable as the vast majority of people who are attacking Wikipedia editors and on the basis of notability alone don't deserve to be topics of encyclopedia articles. But let's say a notable person wrote a book providing the home telephone number and address of an editor, with information about that editor and his or her family, and threats against the editor. Of course they would not purge their encyclopedia of an article about that person (and, if the person is notable, neither would we). But EB would not send its customers free copies of that person's book. That is what we are doing when we provide a link to the attack site. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:52, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Now let me give you an example: we have a "no personal attacks" policy. If you violate it repeatedly, you can be blocked or banned. This is one reason why I think the word "censorship" is meaningless at Wikipedia, and really just serves to inflame and confuse the issue. But my point is this: why do you think NPA is a policy, a policy so important that violating it can eventually lead to an editor being banned? think about it. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:55, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

"No one has yet to explain to me how removing links to non-notable attack sites in any way hurts the encyclopedia project"

No one disputes the removal of non-notable, non-reliable links from articles. The "Non-notable attack site" strawman is besides the point. As far as I know, _ALL_ non-notable, non-reliable sources are removed from articles-- attack us or not. This whole debate is about what we're goint to do with NOTABLE or RELIABLE sites that criticize Wikipedians. That's the only issue about which there is substantial disagreement.

Do we delete notable criticism, as BADSITES would want? Or do we include them, as NPOV/V/ENCYCLOPEDIA would require.

What do you do with Notable & Reliable & Critical. That's the issue. That's the dilemma. It doesn't help to say the dilemma hasn't come up in the past-- it has. It doesn't help to pray it will never come up again-- it will. What are we going to do the next time Michael Moore outs a user with a conflict of interest?

--Alecmconroy 17:12, 19 September 2007 (UTC) (revised after SL replied)

Few people are going to help with a project that contributes to their continued abuse and stalking. Tom Harrison ^Talk 17:35, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I guess I'm a glutton for punishment, because I haven't quit despite getting a good deal of abuse from people who disagree with me on issues such as this. *Dan T.* 11:19, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

(in response to SL) Just to explain, I was specifically thinking of THF who writes articles professionally bashing Michael Moore's movies an inaccurate. So he obviously "has a problem." Second point, you state I not being accurate, however you are assuming all revelations of identity are followed by "threats of violence," which seems to not be the case in the majority of situations I am aware of. MONGO's identity was not revealed by ED, and any threat of violence can only be taken so seriously then. THF's life was not threatened, he actually revealed his own identity, the idea of editing the same articles under your initials, is not attempting to be anonymous really. The good of the project demands we support our editors, this is correct, however it does not demand the entity of Wikipedia be involved in using its bandwidth as a negotiating tool without the authority of the "office" or whoever owns Wikimedia.

As for how it hurts the project to remove links to "non-notable" sites, well that is not the issue. Links to official sites of notable people were removed, hence that is a red herring.

Further. NPA is on Wiki, attempting to censor off wiki commentary is what is wrong. We do not have freedom of speech here, however attempting to use links as "digital hostages" for the ability to make an editorial decision on an off wiki site is wrong. Further it is not for an editor to decide, we as editors have freedom to edit articles within policy, we do not have the write to use this project to extort the results we seek around the internet. --SevenOfDiamonds 17:16, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

And which of these attack sites do you think are notable and required for an encyclopedia article? Slrubenstein | Talk 17:08, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

By my count-- MakingLight, MichaelMoore, DonMurphy, Wikipedia Watch, Wikitruth. By Fred's proposed definition as it currently reads, Wikiscanner and whatever media organizations outed Essjay would also qualify-- but even he's gonna have to reword that once he has time to look it over. I don't think his words accurately reflect what his intention is. --Alecmconroy 17:17, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Who is claiming that Making Light is an attack site? I think that's a strawman. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 17:20, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Permit me to point out that it was you, Will Beback, who called her site an "attack site" when you removed the link for the first time back in May [4]. And when you were called on it, you elaborated on this at length here. Perhaps you have changed your mind about your original response, or perhaps you hold that since the link was removed, it is no longer an attack site. And if it is the latter, permit me to inform you that I have checked, and the link is once again there. And so, perhaps, her site is once again an "attack site".

It would be a major improvement if we could codify "one bad link or remark does not an attack site make" as a principle here. The history, however, is that any such "attack" has been seized upon as justification for erasing all links to the offending site, no matter how peripheral the material was. I invite you to disown your prior statement, but even so the way seems open for others to emulate your previous actions. Mangoe 18:16, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I had publicly withdrawn my charge that Making Light was an attack site when the blog owner removed the info. If it has been restored since, despite the previous requests and with knowledge that the material was unwanted, then it would appear that the site is indeed engaged in deliberate harassment. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 18:27, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Will, could you investigate and find out whether it has indeed been added back in / could someone who knows email you a link, so we can establish whether we have an admin classifying MakingLight as an active Attack Site? --Alecmconroy 18:46, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd rather not. You go ahead. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 20:15, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

So is MichaelMoore.--Mantanmoreland 17:50, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

And which of these attack sites is telling people to call Wikipedia editors' home phone numbers in the middle of the night and harrass them, or making threats of physical violence against them? I'd call "put up or shut up" on this, except for the obvious difficulty that even I wouldn't want to see somebody actually linking directly to such postings, should they actually exist... this, unfortunately, makes it extremely difficult to carry on a rational discussion about the nature of particular sites. I just know that, in my own reading and participation in sites that have been so labeled, while I've seen a good deal of obnoxious stuff (including all sorts of vague legal threats to sue Wikipedia into oblivion, get Congress to outlaw it, get the UN to pass a treaty against it, and so on), I can't recall ever seeing somebody posting advocacy of calling people in the middle of the night or making physical assaults. *Dan T.* 17:27, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

What are these supposedly notable and reliable sites sources for? What fact does citing them allow us to include that removing the link would prevent us from including? Tom Harrison ^Talk 17:34, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

That'd be something to take up with the editors who mantain the relavant pages. We have 109 links to MichaelMoore, 118 links to Making Light, etc. If you can prove that every one of those has been inserted in bad faith, then I guess it'd be okay to delete them. For the moment, I'm going to AGF that they have been inserted because they are contributing to the encyclopedia.

Even if there weren't any notable outing sites, we still are faced with deciding what we are going to do in the future when there ARE such sites. Fred says that when the New York Times runs a story that reveals "Wikipedia X has been revealed to by Y", we are REQUIRED to block the New York Times. That's what his policy proposal says as of this moment. It's _GOING_ to come up-- it already has. --Alecmconroy 18:41, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

A rational discussion? I am sure, Dan T, that you do not mean to impugn my good faith. I am not making this up, and for obvious reasons I am not going to name the victims or direct anyone to the site where they are outed. The real issue here, as Tom harrison observes, is that Wikipedia Watch and Wikitruth are hardly notable. Now lets go back to the question raised by SevenOfDiamonds and others: the quality of Wikipedia. This will be a great encyclopedia because of its in-depth coverage of the arts and sciences, social and political issue, and so on. Bernini is notable, even Basquiat. Asteroids and amoebas are notable. The Seven Years War is notable. There are so many notable subjects we need covered in depth. I think it is practically criminal to risk losing editors who can work on these articles and many more, just so an article on pathetic little topics like Wikipedia Watch or Encyclopedia Dramatica include links to attacks on people we need to make a great encyclopedia. That would be the death of the encylopedia. When we put these miserable little sites - and Alecmconroy, if you really think that giving kooks free advertising and promotional space at Wikipedia is some ransom we have to pay them or else they will become "even more powerful than we can imagine" I think you are really deluded about their significance - when we put these mierable litle sites on Wikipedia we are already straddling the line of notability, but to do anything to promote them is just absurd (and no, Michael Moore is not one of them; he is notable and that is why including him in the loist is a red herring. It's like saying "We need to express views of people even if we don't like them, whether they are my neighbor, my uncle's plumber or Hitler ... uh, only one of the three merit an encyclopedia article). I realize that for someone whose idea of research means not leaving their basement and relying on whatever is on the web, websites come to assume an importance they do not have for most people. But for most encyclopedia articles on noteworthy topics, we need people who know how to do serious research, who are willing to go to libraries and read books and peer-reviewed journals, and so on. We have an NPA policy because we do not want to risk losing good researchers who are willing to put a lot of work into the project. Let's focus on serious articles for a serious encyclopedia. Next to that, these attack sites are just garbage. You think that they might dig up something that the press will cae about? Today's newspaper is tomorrow's garbage. Take a look at the difference in Wikipedia user levels before and after Essjay and know what? We have more readers than ever before. These readers will come because of high-quality encyclopedia articles, not because of what some nerd with his own web-site has to say about our editors. Ignoring those attack-sites is good for the project; given them attention is bad for the project. me: I care about the project. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:10, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

You are not ignoring anything if you are actively purging the encyclopedia of it. A real professional project would ignore it. I am sure if someone publishes a book bashing the New York Times, the NYT's will not go back and purge every book review of them and possible news story. They would brush it off and continue to do their work. Truely ignoring them would be doing nothing different in response to them. Not gathering the pitch forks and wiping them out of wiki-existence. --SevenOfDiamonds 10:36, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Nonsense... they should go through their online archives all the way back to 1851 and purge them of all references that might even be construed as having anything to do with the offending author, including redacting the name of the author's great-grandfather from an 1862 account of Union soldiers in the Civil War. *Dan T.* 11:04, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, some of the article subjects you mention, such as Wikipedia Watch and Wikitruth, have in fact survived the article deletion process and are still here, so I guess you're sometimes outnumbered in your opinions. Others, such as Encyclopedia Dramatica, have been deleted. It would be best if such editorial decisions were made without irrelevant rhetoric about whether something is an "attack site", a concept that sheds more heat than light. (It's ironic that one of the sites alleged to be an attack site is actually named "Making Light".) *Dan T.* 11:19, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, a big problem is that advocates of the link ban have carte blanche to make whatever assertions they want -- sensationalist claims about the evils of the sites ("The attack sites are trying to rape my children!!!!!") combined with an assertion that there's no possible reason to ever link to it either on the encyclopedia or the meta-discussions about it... and no burden of proof whatsoever is needed, and any attempt to prove or disprove any of these assertions with actual evidence will bump into the problem of the link ban being invoked against anything involving linking to the offending site in order to demonstrate something about it, so the discussion will be limited to vague generalities and unsupported assertions. Also, anybody who questions the assertions will be accused of trolling, of being partisans of the attack site, of engaging in a "holy crusade", or whatever other character assassination can be applied in the hopes it will stick. They'll also be called "insensitive"... "You are being callously indifferent to the children that attack site is trying to rape!" If, on the other hand, there's enough outcry against suppressing links to some particular site, and it's coming from people on whom such labels can't possibly be made to stick, then the link ban advocates are free to change their tune and say "That was never really an attack site after all... it's a straw man to claim it ever was, even though I myself was edit-warring to suppress the link a short time ago, and some of my friends are still saying that removing the link would be a good idea." *Dan T.* 18:14, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Are you saying that if there is clear evidence of stalking, harassment, and threats, then removing the link would be acceptable to you? As for changing tunes, I never ever ever suggested that Michael Moore's site was an attack site. If you have any proof that I have "changed my tune" as you say please provide it. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:35, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't favor linking directly to things like threats of physical injury and the like (which unfortunately makes it hard to provide evidence that such exist). However, I would still regard banning absolutely all references to the entire site in which such threats existed to most likely be overkill... it would depend on the nature and purpose of both the site and the links to it. If the attack was prominent on the front page of the site, and the link was inserted with comments like "Look at this site... it really puts you in your place... Nyahhhhh!", then that's clearly an attack. If the attack is buried deeply in the site, and the link is a routine reference to something completely unrelated, then no, there's no point in removing it (edit-warring over it only calls attention to the fact that there's an attack there). *Dan T.* 11:19, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Another site to consider: is Slashdot an attack site? Why or why not? (At some point in the past, there was a front page story there which purported to reveal personally identifying information regarding a Wikipedia contributor. I would assume that the story in question is still available in the site's archives.) JavaTenor 19:24, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I believe Slashdot is the main reason the SV story got out as well. They picked up the story from that obscure site. --SevenOfDiamonds 20:23, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

If Slashdot were ever determined to be an attack site, would the edits and discussion of some of its contributors who edit on WP be deemed as advocacy or tainted by association? LessHeard vanU 12:41, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Analysis of TNH website now available

I have added Analysis of Nielsenhayden.com links which has a breakdown of where the links are. I didn't count all cites vs. ELs but sampling showed the ratio was likely 50/50. Mangoe 19:49, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

It must be noted in this regard that Mangoe has finally admitted to being a poster on this website,[5] yet he refuses to say what username he uses there.[6] He is apparently participating in this ArbCom case as an advocate for the site. He may have even participated making derogatory personal remarks, one of which he chose to re-post on this page. Yet he writes: "The big issue around pseudonymous editing is, of course, that it can be used to cover malign editing."[7] Yes, that may indeed be an issue. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 02:59, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

There you go again, imputing motives to people who oppose you. "Partisan of an attack site" is a common smear used to dismiss people, with the unusual twist in this case because of the fact that your side of the argument is simultaneously arguing that the site in question is not actually an attack site, which strangely doesn't stop you from using the fact of somebody posting there as a smear anyway. *Dan T.* 03:17, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

It takes a bit of nerve to show up on my talk page accusing me of posting personal attacks [8] and then drop one like this into the pot. The two blog posts in question document adequately that there is/was a conflict between you and TNH; it is not an attack to point this out. She didn't just call you names; she accused you of ill-treatment. Whether she was right is not for me to say-- frankly, I think I've read too much already, trying to figure out all the dynamics in this. Nonetheless, what you did lends itself to the interpretation that you acted out of retribution. My participation in those comments doesn't mitigate that at all. As far as the merits of her site, my position remains that if it is being referenced for citations, the citations have to point back at the site. That is all. Mangoe 03:37, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

In my opinion, when a site hosts posts that harass Wikipedia editors, it is an "attack site". By his recent admission, we now know that Mangoe was participating in the site at that time. He didn't feel it necessary to mention that involvement until today. Yet while defending them for outing a Wikipedia editor, he refuses to even give his own username on that site. He even asserts that pseudonyms on Wikipedia can be used to hide malicious editing, while not allowing us to review his edits on a potential attack site. He goes further by re-posting one of the personal attacks from that site, twice. I'm not smearing anyone for posting on a website, I'm complaining that he is making hypocritical assertions and refuses to live up to the standards he sets for others. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 03:41, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

You're undermining the Party's position on this issue... last I checked, the Official Party Line is that TMH's blog is not an Attack Site, has never been an Attack Site, and the attempts to label it as such were merely a case of mistaken identity (cue the Kim Carnes song) easily corrected, and definitely not a case of the BADSITES policy actually quashing valid use of sources. Or, have we now always been at war with Eastasia Eurasia Making Light, and it's an attack site, has always been an attack site, and has never been a reliable source, so a proper use of the BADSITES policy is to suppress all references to the evil site? *Dan T.* 03:52, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Those remarks do not appear helpful. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 03:58, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

The point you are avoiding that was attempting to be made is first, you are attacking the motives of someone here and providing no proof of it. The second is that you are in the minority in terms of the people who believe TMH is an attack site. The last is that you were directly involved in the dispute as pointed out by the dif's, which is perhaps why you are one of the only people claiming its an attack site while others claim calling it such is a red herring. Hopefully everyone can stop accusing eachother of things, since its basically all ad hominems in the face of the points you each have been raising. --SevenOfDiamonds 10:32, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not attacking anyone's motive, which I have no way of knowing. I'm complaining about the hypocrisy of Mangoe in defending a blog that engaged in outing an editor while at the same time he refuses to out himself by revealing his username on that website. And I'm complaining that he gratuitously reposted personal attacks from that website. Do you think personal attacks are approrpriate on Wikipedia? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 17:22, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Will, a very large portion of those of us who frequent the comment section of Making Light do so under our REAL NAMES. You may be requesting a real name, something I gather no one is obligated to supply here. Also I feel that your claims about the regular commentors there (which include a number of well-known writers and editors) seem in danger of crossing the line into incivility. --Pleasantville 17:48, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Mangoe is saying it's OK for us to link to blogs that out anonymous editors. Yet he is seeking to maintain his own privacy. He is certainly not required to provide that information, nor is he required to make logical arguments. I'm pointing out that his argument is illogical and inconsistent. As for incivility, isn't reposting derogatory personal comments uncivil? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 19:03, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Its not really illogical to think the encyclopedia as an entity should not be engaged in seeking punishment for matching a real name with an online persona, yet still expecting the encyclopedia to protect your privacy. As I keep stating I think anyone expecting the entity here we are attempting to create, to use its bandwidth and semi-political power to force content changes on others sites is a bit over the top. Are you stating that all people who support revealing the identities of child abusers should also support their children having their identities revealed everywhere they go? Perhaps all people supporting a war have to sign up to participate? Its not as black and white as you are presenting it to be. --SevenOfDiamonds 19:10, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Removing links to a website is not punishment. It is a method of minimizing disruption to the project. We can't force anyone to do anything, nor should we try. What we can do is modify our external linking practice, which already contains several prohibitions, to include restrictions on linking to sites that intentionally harass Wikipedia editors. We block external linking to spamming commercial sites because it is disruptive, and we block personal attacks because they are disruptive too.

As for issues being black and white, it's not uncommon to hear criticism of politicians who advocate war while having avoided combat service, or whose children don't volunteer in wartime. In an egalitarian society we expect that the advocates of a regulation will not exempt themselves from its consequences. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 09:15, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Right however the concept is flawed and its why they are not thrown out of office or called liars and hypocrites in major media papers. I would guess because the world is not black and white. If you do not believe in commercialism, then is it ok for someone to rob your house of all your fancy stuff? Obviously not. If you believe in assisted suicide, then do you believe its ok to murder people who wish to die? Murder as in chop their body into small pieces. Obviously not. Again I think you are mistating the point, not sure why, the idea that because you do not believe an encyclopedia should fight battles that obviously your lawyer is better equipped for, does not mean that you no longer have a right to privacy, they are not even comparable. If a person believes they are being harassed, call the cops. Wikipedia is not the only site on google. If someone is trying to find your real name, and its posted on the internet, it does not take a Wikipedia article to find it. Your arguing that people involved in protecting the earth cannot use gas. --SevenOfDiamonds 12:19, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not arguing anything of the kind. There is a difference between silent supporters and vocal advocates. I was addressing my concerns to someone who is vocally advocating in favor of linking to outings sites. If an environmentalist condemns driving SUVs while driving one himself then that person is subject to having his hypocrisy noted. Regarding the availablility of personal information. Nowadays, if one searches hard enough, one can find all kinds of information about anyone. Wikipedia consciously excludes much of that information from biographies of living people, restricing them only to widely-available sources. Editors are living people too. Even if the information is available somewhere, it doesn't need to be available here. Material intended to harass editors has the effect of disrupting Wikipedia and preventing us from achieving the project's mission. Just look at how much time is spent dealing with these cases, and this ArbCom case. We need a clearer, more easily enforceable policy that reduces the disruptive turmoil caused by a few sites that intentionally harass people working on the encyclopedia. It's that simple ·:· Will Beback ·:· 21:52, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

When it's in the middle of a detailed account of an incident that's only relevant because of the attack? No, I'd say that it isn't. ShaleZero 19:13, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Dan wouldn't even answer the two questions I posed for him above - I am starting to think he just doesn't want to be helpful. Maybe I am wrong - let's see. Slrubenstein | Talk 09:40, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Comments like this are un needed. If you wish to have Dan answer some question you can point them out to him on his talk page. Calling someone "unhelpful" because they have not, for whatever reason, answered your questions is just going to raise tensions needlessly. --SevenOfDiamonds 10:33, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Attack Eggs!

I got into a bit of trouble for declaring rutabagas to be an "attack vegetable", but it turns out the essence of this whole controversy was actually anticipated by a greatly superior satirist to myself, hundreds of years ago. *Dan T.* 00:54, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

...the two great empires of Lilliput and Blefuscu. Which two mighty powers have, as I was going to tell you, been engaged in a most obstinate war for six-and-thirty moons past. It began upon the following occasion. It is allowed on all hands, that the primitive way of breaking eggs, before we eat them, was upon the larger end; but his present majesty's grandfather, while he was a boy, going to eat an egg, and breaking it according to the ancient practice, happened to cut one of his fingers. Whereupon the emperor his father published an edict, commanding all his subjects, upon great penalties, to break the smaller end of their eggs. The people so highly resented this law, that our histories tell us, there have been six rebellions raised on that account; wherein one emperor lost his life, and another his crown. These civil commotions were constantly fomented by the monarchs of Blefuscu; and when they were quelled, the exiles always fled for refuge to that empire. It is computed that eleven thousand persons have at several times suffered death, rather than submit to break their eggs at the smaller end. Many hundred large volumes have been published upon this controversy: but the books of the Big-endians have been long forbidden, and the whole party rendered incapable by law of holding employments. During the course of these troubles, the emperors of Blefusca did frequently expostulate by their ambassadors, accusing us of making a schism in religion, by offending against a fundamental doctrine of our great prophet Lustrog, in the fifty-fourth chapter of the Blundecral (which is their Alcoran). This, however, is thought to be a mere strain upon the text; for the words are these: 'that all true believers break their eggs at the convenient end.'

And which is the convenient end, seems, in my humble opinion to be left to every man's conscience, or at least in the power of the chief magistrate to determine. Now, the Big-endian exiles have found so much credit in the emperor of Blefuscu's court, and so much private assistance and encouragement from their party here at home, that a bloody war has been carried on between the two empires for six-and-thirty moons, with various success; during which time we have lost forty capital ships, and a much a greater number of smaller vessels, together with thirty thousand of our best seamen and soldiers; and the damage received by the enemy is reckoned to be somewhat greater than ours. However, they have now equipped a numerous fleet, and are just preparing to make a descent upon us; and his imperial majesty, placing great confidence in your valour and strength, has commanded me to lay this account of his affairs before you."

-- Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels

Thank you, this was well needed to lower tensions here. --SevenOfDiamonds 10:28, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

"Look everybody! She's being mean to me!"

Personally, the more I watch the conflict between Will Beback and TNH, the less sympathy I have. As best as I can ascertain, there was minimal indication in Wikipedia that TNH had any beef with him until he started deleting links and telling people why he was deleting them. It's possible that they came into direct conflict when she was editing WIkipedia herself, but I haven't come across it.

The net result, whatever the intention, was to attack her for mistreating him. If it were me, and the attacks bothered me, the one thing I wouldn't do is announce to everyone that they were there so everyone could read them. If he had left well enough alone on Wikipedia and approached her privately, he might have achieved a resolution that didn't desseminate them further. There was no link to attacks upon him, until he created one. Now anyone who comes across the BADSITES controversy, if they have any curiosity, is likely to seek them out.

My gut reaction, re BADSITES, is to forbid anyone doing anything out of context to draw attention to attacks on anyone, including themselves. When the attacks are of note in the Real World, that's a different story that needs a different approach. But if what we are trying to do is avoid directing people to the attacks, BADSITES is clearly doing exactly the opposite. Mangoe 22:07, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

You are uninformed. Posting your opinion on topics that you haven't researched fully doesn't help. I engaged with TNH as an editor on Wikipedia, primarily in regard to Roger Elwood and Disemvowelling, and aside from mailing her to ask her to remove personal information I've never had any other interaction with her. While I have written (politely) that I doubt her expertise and neutrality on all publishing topics, I have never attacked her in any way. Removing links to a blog is not an attack on the blogger. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 22:32, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the wisdom of seeking out the webmaster of an offending site as a first step, that's exactly what I wrote at the time and in my evidence in this case. Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Attack sites/Evidence#Regarding Making Light. I certainly agree that it would have been better to ask the webmaster first. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 22:44, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Will, perhaps you should publicly address the issue of why TNH felt she had been harassed by you in your interacions on Wikipedia; she certainly feels that way, as I have mentioned to you previously. --Pleasantville 12:25, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how that is relevant to this case, and I think that further rehashing of the past will tend to reinflame a dispute which you worked to ameliorate. TNH is still an active editor on Wikipedia and if she'd like further explanation of my actions she is welcome to contact me. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 21:03, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment (yes, I know it is a talkpage, but...) Is the debate here and on the Workshop page truly to do with ArbCom/Attack pages, or the TNH matter? If it is the TNH matter, can this be moved to the appropriate place (or a moratorium declared until parties concerned have more time)? LessHeard vanU 21:29, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

"Removing links to a website is not punishment"

User:Will Beback stated above that "Removing links to a website is not punishment." I invite him to reconsider that. Perhaps he believes it in his heart of hearts, but it is a very safe bet that the rest of the world doesn't agree, and especially not in the circumstances that surround the erasures he made. There comes a point when we have to give up our own perspectives of what is right and wrong and take into account how others interpret what we are doing. For Wikipedia to maintain a good reputation, we can't constantly rely upon our own interptations of our acts.

At least three times-- four if we consider the two TNH incidents separately-- someone externally put up a particular kind of nastiness on some site we link to. And each time the response was to go on a greater or lesser campaign to eradicate links to the offending site, even when the links didn't go to the offending matter or even hint that there was anything offensive to be found. We can call it policy; the rest of the world is likely to call it retaliation, especially when the person attacked is the one who does the deleting. In these cases, if nowhere else, we have to adopt a more measured response; we need a protocol that doesn't look so obviously vindictive.

I have been accused, many times, of wanting to keep links to WR simply for the sake of linking to it. Those are personal attacks, and it would be according to policy if they ceased. I think that 90% of what goes on there is crap, and if Jon Awbreysome of them never posted again, anywhere, I think the world would be a better place for it. And hey-- maybe it would be OK to say, "OK, we'll make the one citation in Essjay controversy (with a big disclaimer about how awful the site is), and never make another link to it again." It's not that I think it's a "good" site; it's that I see that a "good" Wikipedia-critical site wouldn't look different, in this particular respect, because a "good" site would feel compelled to name editors in some cases. As it is, the vendetta between some of the WR members and a group of Wikipedia administrators makes the latter's actions against WR look self-serving and even petty. Their WR persecutors look the same way, but there's nothing we can do about that. Well, we could sign up for WR in such numbers as to tilt the balance, but it appears that only D.Tobias and I are subborn/stupid enough for that.

The ASM.net case presents a complete different problem. We all hate it; nobody disputes that it is an attack site. The problem is that w.r.t. the overstock.com article, it is notable; there's only so far we can bend in not mentioning it without slanting the article. And that's the other problem: the "one size fits all" BADSITES non-policy treats these three situations the same way, when they in reality present quite different problems. The irony is that this treatment is tending to convert all three situations into the third one, to the point where these conflicts are themselves going to eventually become notable. Then what are we going to do? Mangoe 21:54, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

We only link to outside websites for two reasons: verification and further reading. The presence of a link in an article should be judged on those two criteria alone. We don't add a link in order to reward a website and we shouldn't remove a link in order to punish one either. We do delete links that distract from the purpose of an article or our mission, which is to gather, in the article itself, verifiable information on a topic presented in a neutral fashion. Our aim isn't to collect interesting web links.

One of the core policies of Wikipedia is "ignore all rules". No matter how strictly a policy is written, someone can always argue that a particular, good faith use requires violating it. That can happen in an article like the "Essjay controversy". It doesn't mean the rules don't exist anymore, but that every rule (except the core policies) can have exceptions. Because of that, we don't have to have a policy that covers every conceivable case. Special cases can be handled specially. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 22:14, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I suggested this very possibility some time ago, but it didn't get any traction. I also differed in that I believed policy should recognise the potential of invoking IAR, and therefore be worded so that it need not be so invoked. LessHeard vanU 11:35, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Right to anonymity

I was thinking about adding this as a proposed finding of fact, but after I noticed the Workshop is semi-protected, this became stillborn. But, here is the thought as it was:

a) Any editor who is "outed" can simply drop the user name they have and start a new account, and thus disappear again. To quote a great line from a great movie: The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist. Online no one knows you're a dog, and you don't have to be a real life Keyser Söze to exercise this power.

And if you don't want to take advantage of the tools of anonymity wikipedia offers, that's your own problem. Hence:

b) If some website comes out tomorrow and says 146.115.58.152 is actually the reincarnation of Pol Pot, I'd take that as a personal attack, no matter how ludicrous. If it revealed I was a mail clerk for The Economist, I'm not sure how that's an "attack" even were such a proposition true. So ultimately, I'm having a real hard time understanding what all the fuss is about here. This wikipedia editor is a person, and has a name. Stayed tuned for when our cameras reveal the secret contents of Al Capone's glove compartment.

Just my two cents. -- 146.115.58.152 06:19, 1 October 2007 (UTC) ROADMAPS!!

Hmm. Well, I think you minimize the amount of distress that the "outings" and "attacks" have caused to the people who have been outed. Maybe connecting a name with a username seems innocuous to you, but a lot of people do find it extremely distressing. Maybe you might not-- but on the other hand, maybe you would find, if you were actually in that situation, that you did in fact find it incredibly stressful.

Regardless, there's no doubt that the people who have been outed do find it INCREDIBLY upsetting, and we should be considerate and respectful of that.

Unfortunately, nothing we can do will give someone who has been "outed" their anonymity back. It's just not within our power. So long as Google still indexes an "outing site", the anonymity no longer exists. In the end, it's not a debating between NPOV and Anonymity-- it's a debate over whether to trade our precious NPOV for a bag full of magic beans that will neither restore anonymity nor improve the encyclopedia. --Alecmconroy 07:09, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

If I found myself being stalked and harassed, I'd have little problem getting a new username or just using none at all. People are making their ego problems the community's problem by failing to take advantage of that possibility. -- 146.115.58.152 16:11, 2 October 2007 (UTC)