User:Alecmconroy/AGF and BADSITES
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[edit] Assuming Good Faith and No Personal Attacks in the BADSITES meta-discussion
or
"Why I argue so passionately and verbosely against BADSITES and why BADSITES is THE greatest single threat to the project"
We try to assume good faith, but that's hard to do when the editing gets hot. I want to convince you that the BADSITES debate is not a debate between Good Faith editors and Bad Faith editors. It is a debate between NPA and NPOV, a debate between Compassion and Liberty, a debate between "Not a Battleground" and "Is an Encyclopedia". There is no bad faith side. It is not a debate between Saints and Sinners. The battle is not between Arbiters and trolls.
But reading over the discussion, I realize some people genuinely don't seem to understand why we Anti-Badsites people have such passion on the issue. I want to explain just why it is I fight so hard on this issue. My hope is that this will lead to greater understanding, more assumptions of good faith, and less interpersonal hostility.
I'm not going to go into the details about evidences and abuses and consensuses and the like, I'm not going to focus on what the policy should be-- I've said enough on this issue elsewhere. I'm just going to try to explain why we care so much.
--
Disclaimer: For convenience, I'm using the term BADSITES to refer the basic principle:
- No linking to sites that harass/attack/out. Removals not subject to 3RR. Violations lead to blocks or bans.
So far, this basic idea has been incarnated in several different places-- arbcom principles, WP:BADSITES, WP:NPA#EL. There are subtle distinctions between the various strains, but they're all the same basic species.
[edit] The Scourge of Personal Attacks against those who are Anti-BADSITES
I think there's a wide understanding that the pro-BADSITES people are motivated by compassion. They see their fellow editors being hurt, and it makes them mad. They just want to protect their friends and their fellow editors. They see the people who have engaged in harassment as fundamentally bad people who are getting away with doing bad things, they long for justice, and they want to use their power to help provide justice. I feel like there's a widespread perception that the pro-BADSITES editors are basically acting in good faith-- perhaps it's because some of their members are pillars of the community, perhaps they've done a better job articulating their motivations, or perhaps their case is just easier to understand.
Regrettably, I feel like there's been widespread allegations that the anti-BADSITES people are acting in bad faith. I know personal attacks and alleging bad faith are found in almost any heated debate, but in this debate, they have become so numerous, it's almost hard to remember that there was ever a taboo against them. Impugning the character of the people who oppose BADSITES has become practically automatic, and such attacks are being slung by some of the most highly respected individuals on the project.
For a concrete example, we need look no further than the recent thread [recent at the time this essay was written] about Slate. John Lee noticed that Slate had linked to Wikipedia Review. Since we ourselves are debating whether or not a responsible organization can link to WR, he thought it would be useful to point out that Slate (a responsible news organization) has done so. He took the time out of his day to bring it to our attention, and his observation has been useful in fostering discussion.
He should have been thanked for his input, which was clearly germane to the discussions at hand. Instead, he was immediately attacked for even raising the point. He's accused of being mischeivious, a "politcal agitator", for writing his post. This, sadly, has become par for the course.
Whenever someone disagrees with BADSITES, almost immediately they are examined under a microscope for any character flaws that can be found. For me, someone dug through my history and accused me of once "badgering" a victim of harassment over year ago merely, because in 2006 I asked a few too many questions about the wisdom and implementation of the ED purge. For other editors, their even having edited ED is their character flaw, and this used to attack them at every turn, even if they never once used their ED account for the purpose of harassment. For some, merely seeking to avoid Ad Hominem attacks is their flaw, as was shown when PrivateMusing, fearing a backlask for publicly questioning BADSITES, created a sockpuppet account to engage in the discussion. That was his character flaw, and he was attacked for not discussing under his main account.
And when no clear character flaw presents itself, the mere disagreement with BADSITES is used to impugn a person's character. Reputable editors with long edit histories are suddenly labeled trolls. Disagreement with BADSITES is immediate equated with supporting harassment. Rhetorical questions are posed that are premised on the claim that any disagreement with BADSITES comes from a deep character flaw. We are asked such questions as:
- Why don't you care about protecting our editors?
- Why are you with the trolls?
- Why do you support harassment?
- There was once a case where a person received a death threat against their children. How can you possibly find that FUNNY?
- Why do you hate Wikipedia?
This behavior is unacceptable. I won't compound the problem by naming names, by citing specific examples, or presenting detailed evidence of this behavior. But everyone who has engaged in these kind of tactics has been around long enough to know better, and they should be ashamed of themselves for having sunk so low. But guilt and blame are not the point-- the point is to stop it in the future.
The comical irony, of course, is that these attacks have occurred in the context of discussions about how to STOP attacks on Wikipedians and how to promote greater harmony within the community. I posit that these sorts of attacks have done far more to hurt our community than bad-faith harassment ever has. When some troll makes some outrageous claim, we naturally rally around our attacked editors. When some lunatic practically accused SV of personally masterminding the 9/11 attacks, faking the moon landings, and being the second gunman on the grassy knoll, that didn't make our community distrust SV, it made us rally around her. In contrast, when we lash out at anyone even discussing the subject (much less linking to it), we create a huge and hateful rift in our community.
We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. It is essential that good-faith users be able to discuss absolutely anything they think is relevant to the project, without their comments being deleted or their character being impugned. When the ability to have such discussions dies, I think the soul of Wikipedia dies with it. Those of us who oppose BADSITES have a different opinion than those who support it. But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We all have compassion for those who feel harassed, we all want to create the best encyclopedia possible. We have called by different names editors of the same principle. We are all pro-BADSITES, we are all anti-BADSITES. And If there be talk posts that accuse us of conflict of interests or of being MI-5 secret agents, let those stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. The real trolls cannot destroy unless we are willing to dismantle the encyclopedia to get back at them. No trolls can destroy Wikipedia, unless we are all their accomplices.
[edit] Why We Fight [Against Badsites]
Wikipedia is heading towards being THE most important content site on the entire Internet. And the thing that makes the Internet (and Wikipedia) so magical is that it's the first communications medium in human history that is truly completely uncensored. The internet has every point of view imaginable, and Wikipedia discusses every notable subject imaginable.
This kind of communication really is changing the world. A year or two ago, I was playing Warcraft and got to know talking with one of the people I was playing with. She was a Jewish teenager, living in Israel. She has a boyfriend, she told me, someone she met online, but she had never met him in person.
"Did you two live too far away from each other to be able meet in person?", I asked.
"No," she replied. The boyfriend lived within 50 miles of her. But you see, he was Palestinian. She was Israeli. Even though they were close together geographically, their families would never have allowed them to date, or even to meet. But they secretly were very very close, using the internet, the uncensored medium.
The internet is going to change the world. Wars are going to become infinitely harder to fight. Historically, it was conceivable for Americans to bomb Russians-- who did we known in Russia? Thanks to the Internet, all peoples are going to start to come together more and more. You don't want to bomb a country when you're scared your friend there might die. You don't want to declare war on a country if it means half your Quake Clan might be killed.
In Myanmar, where there's a massive human rights crisis, the government shut off the internet, because they knew it would bring world attention to the people of Myanmar, and tend to make the rest of the world reach out and want to help. Whereas, without TV or internet or phone service-- Myanmar is just a place on a map-- not faces of people we want to help.
In all this, I've spoken in terms of the Internet, but I could just as easily talk about Wikipedia, since we're on the cutting edge of the internet. It's a wonderful beautiful thing. An encyclopedia that covers _Everything_, that's free to anyone who we can possibly get it to. Christian children can learn about the Islamic view of Jesus and Muslim children can learn about the Christian view of Muhammad. Creationists can learn about Evolution even if their communities don't want them to, and Evolutionists can learn about Creationism even if their communities don't want them to.
But we have to resist the temptation to start censoring. It has to be the encyclopedia of EVERYTHING notable-- not just an encyclopedia of the popular or the approved. And censoring always starts so small-- surely THIS speaker is sufficiently evil that we can censor discussion of THAT person/group. No one would ever defend this person/group-- they're without redeeming value. We can get rid of them. Oh, and what about this one too? And what about this one? And soon-- amazingly soon-- we're not censoring coverage of ED trolls anymore, we're censoring coverage of Michael Moore.
So, that's my story. Wikipedia is a powerful force, and it's tempting to use that power to try to stop specific cases of harassment. But not only is such power easily misused, ultimately, the value of having a totally uncensored encyclopedia of every notable subject is so great that it far outweighs whatever small help censoring the encyclopedia would. Not linking to harassment will not cause that harassment to no longer exist. The simple fact is-- if someone is harassing you, stalking you, or threatening you-- you have to take it to the real courts, not to Wikipedia. We don't have the power to do anything about it.
And censoring those accused of harassment from our encyclopedia (if they are notable to merit mention) will sell out our reputation. We don't HAVE to be the uncensored encyclopedia of everything, after all. We could be the encyclopedia of only "acceptable" point of view, rather than NPOV, and if we're not careful, that's where we might wind up. Already, at least one arbiter has comment that NPOV may simply not be a realistic goal when it comes to covering our critics.
BADSITES isn't about ED or ASM or even Michael Moore. It's about Wikipedia. No one here has the ability to delete Michael Moore's speech. The BADSITES proponents aren't trying to delete things from Michael Moore's site-- they're trying to delete things from Wikipedia. From our site.
If a vandal came here and started randomly deleting external links, we would immediate recognize that they're deleting valuable content and we should defend the encyclopedia from them. But when those very same deletions are done out of a compassion to protect the harassed, suddenly it's very hard to see that a valuable part of our encyclopedia just got deleted. But we _NEED_ the link to Michael Moore-- and just as surely as we should defend it from a vandal deletion, we should defend it from a compassionate deletion. (although, of course, we have far more respect for the deleters in the latter case).
BADSITES is a test of Wikipedia, the Uncensored, Free Encyclopedia dedicated to covering everything notable. It is a test of whether this project, or any project so conceived and dedicated, can long endure. If we give in in to the temptation to censor, and if we don't change our minds later and turn back, then in the end, Wikipedia will just be little more than a fancy blog host.
I want Wikipedia to work. I want the world to have a Wikipedia. I want the Wiki process to work. And if I can take a few minutes out of my day to try to help the Wikipedia stay free, and work, that has to be worth my time.
I don't know how to help the world. What action can I take that will help give a citizen of China the right to vote in a democratic election? What can I do, today, to help make a woman in Saudi Arabia be allowed drive a car? I don't know. But one think I can do to make the world a little better is try to protect Wikipedia from becoming a censored oligarchy. And silly as it is, I think in the end, that will help the world.
