Wikipedia talk:Linking to external harassment/Archive 2

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
← Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 →


Contents

Harassment sites are unreliable

I changed this:

"Self-published websites that actively engage in harassment of Wikipedia editors should not be used as reliable sources."

into this:

"Special care should be used when evaluating self-published websites that actively engage in harassment, as they are unlikely to meet the criteria for being a reliable sources."

I did this because:

  1. Philosophically, harassment is not ipso facto unreliability. Rather, the harassment and unreliability are extremely highly correlated. Given how much confusion we've had in the past over precisely why we shouldn't link to such sites, i think it's useful to spell out "because they tend to be unreliable" rather than "because they harass".
  2. Principles are good, rules are bad. It's better to sketch out broad principles than to spell out explicit rules.
  3. Even extremely unreliable sources can be considered "reliable sources" under a few very special circumstances that are detailed in RS. I don't expect these to ever come up, but the phrase "Harassers are NEVER considered RS" is, on its face, not literally true-- just practically always true.
  4. Wikipedia editors aren't special. Any site that is actively trying to harass anyone probably isn't particularly reliable. Expanding the potential victims of harassment from just "Wikipedia Editors" to "Anyone being harasses" will make us look more even-handed, and less like we make up special rules for our own.

In general though, I think the observation that harassment sites are probably unreliable is a great principle, and definitely something that probably will make it into a consensus policy. --Alecmconroy 00:36, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Every policy, save NPOV and V, allows for exceptions. We don't need to craft policies that address what happens .00001% of the time.. Instead they should address what happens the other 99.9999%. If folks want to draft principles that's fine elsewhere, but this is intended to be a policy and so should have clear language. "May be" or "unlikely to" are not clear policy statements. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 00:50, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
I would argue that NPOV and V allow for exceptions too. There was an example where a covered bridge was described in sources as having no traffic; a guy visited it and saw it has traffic, but he hasn't published this observation anywhere. It's a classic example of WP:V and WP:RS producing absurd results that require application of WP:IAR. Ken Arromdee 04:10, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
I retained most of your change, only altering it to
"Special care should be used when evaluating self-published websites that actively engage in harassment, as they do not meet the criteria for being a reliable sources."
That's clear and addresses the issues. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 00:51, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Hehe-- well, you did retain most of my words, but certainly not the core of the spirit. But we'll see-- maybe people prefer a hard and fast rule to a general principle. I definitely prefer the latter, and would want to see a phrasing like "tend to not meet" or "generally do not meet" or "usually do not meet".
For an example-- see how the article Wikipedia ReviewWikitruth, which seems like it could qualify as a harasser, references WRWT seven different times-- but always in the context of "WRWT says this [cite]". Even an unreliable source is reliable in a few limited contexts. --Alecmconroy 01:19, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
We don't have an article on Wikipedia Review. It's a redirect. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 01:41, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Sorry-- I can't keep them all straight. I meant Wikitruth. --Alecmconroy
Does that site engage in active harassment of Wikipedia editors? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 02:05, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Probably depends on who's making the call-- but certainly they're worse than Michael Moore, so I'm sure there's lots of people who think that site meets the standards of harassment. --Alecmconroy 02:40, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
On further reivew I don't see why we use it as a source. It isn't a reliable in my view, even without this proposed change. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 02:57, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, see-- there's our problem. For the purposes of WP:V, it's a perfectly reliable source as to direct exhibits of its own behavior. Verifying the same sentences by citing a reliable secondary source would be better, but presumably that's not possible-- in which case, citing the primary source is vastly preferable to leaving the quotes uncited (or, god forbid, willy nilly deleting the sentences altogether).
I think we've hit on the heart of why you can support a blanket rule that they're unreliable. Being a RS isn't quite the same being trustworthy. RS is really all about satisfying WP:V-- and in some cases, even untrustworthy sources can be used to verify some statements. --Alecmconroy 03:19, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
We don't use it as a reference for itself, we use it as a reference for criticisms of Wikipedia. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 04:21, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Also, I don't think it would be considered "self-published", in which case it wouldn't be covered by this proposal. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 05:36, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

You'll see the change I have made - to flip the burden onto ensuring sources are reliable. I think we all agree that all, and only, reliable sources should be used (as sources). Privatemusings 01:35, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I've kept the intent, but made it clearer:
  • Self-published websites that actively engage in harassment are presumed to be unreliable, but may be used if proven to be reliable.
So it would still be possible to make a case for a self-published source that's engaging in harassment actually being reliable, but the burden would be on the editor adding it. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 01:40, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
That's pretty much ok I think (although i'm not a huge fan of the word 'presumed' - I certainly agree with your 'burden' comments above) - you'll see that I removed the final clause as redundant - I prefer to be succinct, and it should be self-evident that a proven reliable source is acceptable. Privatemusings 01:42, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, "presumed" is a bit much. I can just see someone demanding unreasonable amounts of proof to overcome this "presumption of unreliability". Stating that it's "likely" to be unreliable still gets the message across that these sorts of sites are to be handled with extreme care, without raising the specter of a blanket prohibition. --Alecmconroy 02:53, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
I don't understand the problem with "presume", but "likely" isn't strong enough. Let's say instead that self-pusblished sites that engage in harassment "are unreliable unless proven reliable." That also gets the message across without a blanket prohibition. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 03:17, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
See what PM and others think, but I personally think "presumptions of unreliability" and "until proven" just tend to risk this policy, in practice, devolving back into the functional equivalent of BADSITES. WP:RS doesn't have any such strict language, and I don't think we should create it. If we say "has to be proven", people will just rip out all the links, for example, Wikitruth, and then demand exorbitant amounts of proof that the site, in general, is reliable. --Alecmconroy 03:31, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
This proposal has nothing to do with BADSITES, so please stop making that pointless comparison. WP:RS is a guideline, not a policy. This is a proposed policy, so it is appropriate to have stronger language. Yes, the "presumption" is that self-published sites that engage in harassment are not reliable. So yes, it would be necessary to demonstrate that a potential exception is different and hence reliable. That is not much different than saying that a site is "likely" to be unreliable, and in that instance would also need to be shown that the site isn't the usual unreliable self-published harassment site. The only difference is that your version is vaguer. If we were writing a guideline then that might be sufficient, but we're proposing a policy here. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 04:19, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
At this point, I think I need to start to switch tacks here and focus more on reigning in your behavior instead of feeding into it. We've got TWO different pages right now that are protected because you single handedly have edit warred them against consensus until they were protected. Your similar edits to the essay I wrote could easily lead to it being a third protected page if I were to actually restore the essay to its earlier version.
Suffice to say, I still disagree with your stance on what this proposal should be for the reasons I have expressed above. --Alecmconroy 04:23, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
I inserted text that you yourself said "everybody can agree on". Nobody can single-handledly edit war, and since one of the main editors here is a sock puppet, I don't think we can establish what the real consensus is. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 04:44, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
And I don't hold that initial BOLD edit against you. The four reverts, however, I do hold against you. --Alecmconroy 05:22, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
I can't imagine why you would hold it against me when I edit a policy proposal. I'm not sure why you chose to revert me.[1] The sock puppet Privatemusings didn't express a preference for "likely" either, so that's just your preference. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 05:34, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Edit once and I don't hold it against you. Edit repeatedly, despite disagreement, without a consensus to back you and you've got a problem. It's bold-revert-discuss. Not Bold,revert-reinsert five times. This is the same problem we had with you at WP:NPA, multiple reinsert of disputed text that didn't have consensus. --Alecmconroy 05:37, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
The purpose of this page isn't to discuss our editing history, but rather to discuss changes to this proposal. I don't recall seeing a consensus in favor of your changes to "likely", but I'd be happy to discuss it further. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 05:41, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
(unindent) My opinion is registered, as is PM. Until you are willing to comply with WP:3RR, and in general stop disruptively editing without consensuses, the best use of my time is to get you to comply with those policies. --Alecmconroy 05:54, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
All three of us are expressing our opinions, but I still don't see why you felt it necesary to revert my edits. As for the best use of your time, you might try editing an article occasionally. ;) Believe it or not, the purpose of Wikiepdia is not to write (or block the writing of) policies. Harassment is one of the disruptions that keeps us from doing our work. Let's focus on removing harmful disruptions and minimizing editing disputes. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 06:06, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

reboot the discussion....

not a fan of the current version; "Self-published websites that actively engage in harassment are unreliable until proven otherwise".

How about "Self-published websites that actively engage in harassment are....

  • generally unreliable
  • likely to be unreliable
  • unlikely to be reliable
  • usually unreliable


or here's another go from scratch;

  • Sourcing policy - If a link to a page meets Wikipedia's article content sourcing policy (WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:NPOV) as a source for a claim on a Wikipedia article then it should not be removed. Self-published websites that actively engage in harassment will fail to meet these criteria in almost all instances.

Privatemusings 11:45, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

  • Concur. All those versions are consistent with NPOV. My wording is your new one. --Alecmconroy 19:10, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
I think the "scratch" version is sufficient. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 21:50, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
The sentence (in any of those forms) doesn't belong in this policy, imo. Whether a source, self-published or otherwise, is reliable or not should be determined by WP:Reliable sources, not by this policy, because it depends on criteria unrelated to harassment of Wikipedians. Only once a source's reliability has been neutrally determined by that policy should this policy kick in---if the source wasn't reliable anyway according to WP:RS, then the issue is moot and we wouldn't use it anyway. If it was reliable, then we have to do the balancing that this policy envisions. --Delirium 23:22, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
If this policy is approved we can copy the relevant parts to WP:RS, etc. The determination of whether a self-published website is a reliable source includes various factors. The fact that the owner of the site is actively harassing Wikipedia should be part of that determination because it calls their neutrality into question. If they are seeking to improperly affect Wikipedia through editor harassment then it is quite possible that they wish to affect Wikipedia content. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 23:39, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
I don't think it's proper to take specific note of their activities regarding Wikipedia in particular when determining a site's reliability; that is too self-referential on our part. However, the general fact of a site being involved in harrassing anybody (Wikipedian or not) is one factor for evaluating what sort of a site it is. Nevertheless, there are occasions when even a harrassing site is proper to link; the oft-cited example is how the article on the nasty site Stormfront includes a link to the site. *Dan T.* 23:45, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree that the particular identity of who is being harassed by a site shouldn't be a factor. If we would refrain from linking to personal harassment of Wikipedians, surely we would also refrain from linking to personal harassment of others, right? We wish to avoid linking to pernicious websites, period. That means we don't link to sites that sell child porn, sites that show snuff films, sites that advocate illegal activity, sites that publish unverified slander of public or private individuals... unless the page is truly necessary to verify article contents, we have no reason to link there, so we don't do it. We try to be decent.

There's no need to have rules so specific as to detail precisely what types of pernicious sites we avoid linking to. Sites that are claimed to be harmful should be omitted until someone can explain why they're necessary. Isn't that what decency and respect call for? Are you going to leave a knife in someone's side until they get three independent witnesses to attest that it does, in fact, hurt? -GTBacchus(talk) 00:38, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Should this policy be recursive?

I seem to have tested the waters by linking to a reliable source which in turn linked to one of our infamous badsites, but it was removed here, and after I restored it again, another editor removed it here, after which point I was threatened with being banned from editing here. The administrator who made the threat hasn't responded to my follow up questions here and here, so I've decided to ignore the threat. Is there anyone reasonably suggesting we need to make bad links apply recursively? For example, we probably can't link to a list of sites we can't link to, right? It seems like an issue that needs to be dealt with one way or another. -- 67.98.206.2 21:42, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Taking only a small look at your situation, it seems that ElinorD believes you to be editing solely for the purposes of disruption (I'm unsure as to her specific reasoning on that, but it does seem to be the case) - and I believe her block threat is related to that belief, not the specific nature of the link you posted.

And thorny though this issue is, there seems to be very little steam being gathered for a link purge, and hopefully a consensus will emerge for this policy which should act as the manual for 'is this link appropriate or not?' Privatemusings 23:21, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

To 67.98.206.2: I don't think that "testing the waters" by trying out links to see whether or not they're removed is very helpful in this discussion. Re-inserting them after removal is particularly unlikely to advance any kind of mutual understanding. We'll reach some kind of consensus more quickly if we refrain from making provocative links. There are always several ways to say what you need to say, and not all of them will involve a link, inserted because it links to WR. That's the only reason you linked to that Slate story, right?

If your goal is to antagonize, then I guess you're doing it right, but if your goal is facilitating some kind of solution to this issue, then I suggest you refrain from repeatedly inserting links to which somebody is objecting. It's rude, and it's unhelpful. Thank you for understanding. -GTBacchus(talk) 23:50, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Repeatedly removing links also strikes me as rude and unhelpful, as well. And objecting to a link because it in turn links somewhere "bad" strikes me as extremely petty. *Dan T.* 23:58, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
It takes two to tango, Dan. Another's repeated removal of a link is not any kind of justification for repeated insertion, especially when you know that the other person is removing the link in order to protect the privacy of other Wikipedians. If someone is objecting that a link is actively harmful, then we should err on the side of leaving it out, unless it is clear that omitting it is actively harmful, and not merely inconvenient.

Maybe it seems petty to you, but are you more interested in finding a solution, or in being right that the other guy is "petty"? In the name of peace, let's not deliberately provoke each other. Is that so hard to agree with? -GTBacchus(talk) 00:15, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

When the purportedly "privacy-invading" content has been published in a major site like Slate, that horse has left the barn a long time ago. *Dan T.* 00:44, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
The fact that a fire is quite large doesn't justify throwing gasoline on it. Going on and on about the fact that someone's privacy has been violated, and linking to the most public mentions of it, isn't very cool. Why not err on the side of decency? That's a serious question. -GTBacchus(talk) 00:57, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
Now you sound like the FCC after Janet Jackson's boob was exposed... :-) *Dan T.* 01:41, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, the FCC's reaction helped bring Janet's boob far more attention than was reasonable. I'm actually suggesting that we give harassment less attention. I guess I don't get your comparison. Do you think I'm suggesting something that would make harassment of Wikipedians and others more public? I'd hate to do that. What I'm trying to suggest is that, if someone says, "please get your elbow out of my side," you might be decent enough to move your elbow rather than jabbing it in, saying "which elbow? This one?! *jab* Are you sure I need to move it? *jab, jab*" What is so wrong with trying to treat other people very, very well? Seriously. -GTBacchus(talk) 01:48, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Beans?

To what extent is this proposed policy a big advertisement for the fact that anyone with a search engine can find personal information about Wikipedia admins? Just how loudly and repeatedly do we want to proclaim that? -GTBacchus(talk) 23:53, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I share this concern, however it has to be weighed against the need for this policy / guideline. I hope all parties would agree that this issue has caused disruption significant enough to demand a community policy. ArbCom is trying, but apparently finding it hard. I can't agree with those who argue for silence on this because of 'Beans' concerns, I rather feel this is necessary, so a necessary evil if you view it in that light. Privatemusings 00:02, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure about it causing "sufficient disruption to demand a community policy". I think it is disruptive, and demands a solution, but whether that takes the form of a new policy is not at all clear to me. -GTBacchus(talk) 00:17, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
Ah yes - you're right. The solution might not be a policy, but I continue to believe that this is the best option at the moment. It would be preferable for us all to rely on decency and common sense, and not to have to rely on an explicit statement, but i rather feel this has proved to be unsuccessful to date. Any further ideas most welcome! Privatemusings 00:36, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
I've got some fairly inchoate ideas, that I'll attempt to express in a new section. -GTBacchus(talk) 00:39, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Compassion

The section on this page titled "Compassion" would currently have us behave in rather uncompassionate ways. Suppose there were a site publishing the address, telephone number, and photos of a Wikipedia editor, together with threats against that editor's safety, and their family's safety. Suppose this information were previously unpublished.

According to the page here, "Deleting the link and forcing people to use history to find it are discouraged while the discussion is at its most active." In other words, until enough people have had a chance to see the editor's personal details, let's leave the information public until everybody agrees that it truly is privacy-violating. That doesn't strike me as very compassionate, nor very sane. Wouldn't it be kinder and more reasonable to remove and oversight the link until someone can make a very convincing case, in private, that the link is truly necessary for our project? Why err on the side of violating editors' privacy and amplifying harassment of Wikipedians? -GTBacchus(talk) 00:28, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

To the best of my knowledge, none of the sites that have been the subject of "link wars" here have published the address and phone number of an editor and made threats on their safety, so that's possibly a straw man. The policy you suggest would effectively result in the people who act most like drama queens, calling every conceivable thing "harrassment", being the ones who drive policy. Is that the most healthy state to be in? *Dan T.* 00:43, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
Dan, it's not a strawman, it's a hypothetical question. I'm not suggesting that such a site exists, I'm asking how we should handle such a situation, if it were to arise. As for this idea that the "drama queens" would "drive policy", I don't think I understand what you mean. I'm specifically suggesting that we don't need to edit policy, so nothing is being driven anywhere. If somebody wants to object to every third link they see, they'll be disappointed when such removals end up being rejected, and if they persist in making frivolous claims, they can be blocked for disruption just as easily as any other recalcitrant editor. -GTBacchus(talk) 00:52, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
To add to that, the degree to which we err on the side of respecting potential victims would vary, directly with the degree of supposed harm, and inversely with the encyclopedic value of the link. -GTBacchus(talk) 00:54, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Totally agree that the example and compassion section need attention. The text was previously removed from the bullet points above them as creating unnecessary and unhelpful bloat, but they don't really sit happily in their own paragraphs either at the moment. The sentence you quote is very poor, but I can't agree that removal and oversight are the best options, i believe they will inflame the situation in fact. Privatemusings 00:41, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm still thinking about that part. There certainly have been cases where we delete and scrub the trail of certain edits without having to discuss it much, and without any inflammation. It's how we generally handle very private information that never should have been posted to the Wiki. -GTBacchus(talk) 00:52, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
You make some good points vis a vis more dire privacy violations. I've started expanding the proposal somewhat so we might define our terms. Purely a suggestion at this point. -- 146.115.58.152 04:52, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
Further to my edit summary, you'll notice that I've merged the new section into 'Scope' and have tweaked some wording. From my perspective the imperative is clarity, not a strict definition of terms, and I hope these small changes moves things forward some more. Privatemusings 05:36, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Mirrors

Jorge Luis Borges wrote that mirrors and fornication are both abominable, for they both increase the number of mankind.

Wikipedia aims to be a kind of mirror, to reflect the state of human knowledge on all kinds of topics. The problem that we sometimes run into is that a putting a mirror into a room makes the room brighter. We can't reflect something without amplifying it. This is often a small effect - Beethoven isn't appreciably more famous because we have an article about him, but the same cannot be said for Star Wars kid. The difference between a 1,000,001 and 1,000,002 means a lot less than the difference between 11 and 12.

This comes up in different contexts at Wikipedia. I remember some nasty deletion discussions regarding articles about someone who is only famous in some humiliating way, like that fat Chinese kid whose name I can't remember.

Here, we're dealing with a policy about whether or not we wish to amplify harassment by linking to it, and the mirror is double edged here. On the one hand, we'd like to avoid linking to harassment, because that makes it more visible and therefore more powerful. On the other hand, writing specifically into our policy that people may not link to sites that reveal personal information about Wikipedians is like putting up a big sign indicating that such sites exist and aren't hard to find, and also that creating such a site is an effective way to get our goat. The policies we write reflect the situations to which they apply.

One would like to ensure that harassment can be removed with a minimum of fuss, and one would like to do it without giving more energy to the harassment by talking directly about it. I think this is possible, but I'm not sure this page is the way to do it.

What I imagine working is something like this: We already has a policy regarding external links. That policy can say that we avoid linking to pernicious sites as much as we can. If a link is not essential under WP:V to verify article contents, and it is determined to be a harmful link, then we should remove it, and a determination about whether or not it is harmful can be made via private channels. The presumption is toward excluding inessential links that are claimed to be pernicious. "Pernicious" can be as general as "defamatory, harassing of any individual, or committing or inciting illegal behavior". There are sites to which we don't want to link; that should be clear enough. We don't have to spell out the reasons that we're morally outraged in full salacious detail, like some kind of early exploitation film or dirty novel.

The private review of a link is an aspect I haven't quite figured out. Perhaps it would involve the admins' IRC channel. I wonder if others agree that what I'm describing could address this problem effectively and without adding heat to delicate situations. Any kind of suggestion or feedback is of course very welcome... -GTBacchus(talk) 01:10, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Private review by a select few doesn't sit too well with me. Classism is a bad thing, and if there's anything that could further inflame the link removal situation, it's saying "Not only is this link going to be removed and not only will you get blocked for adding it, but your opinion on whether it belongs here doesn't even count, because you're not an admin / HUWAC committee member / illuminati member / or whatever group it is that would make the decision".
Regrettably, the people who have been behind the really egregious deletions (e.g. Michael Moore, Making Lights, etc) have been some of the most respect members of our community. The respected subsets of the community have just been wrong too many times, but have invariably been overturned by the community. In contrast, I don't known of any instances where the community as a whole has come down on the wrong side of these specific cases. It seems like the wiki process is pretty good at getting rid of the unencyclopedia nonsense, and keeping the encyclopedic material. So, regrettably, the only entity that I trust to solve these BADSITES debates is the community as a whole. (Although OFFICE seems to do things quite well within its limited jurisdiction, as far as I can tell) --Alecmconroy 06:03, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
I hope I didn't seem to suggest that anybody's opinion wouldn't count. That's really not part of what I was envisioning. I wonder... in your opinion, could there be a case where a link should not be seen by the community at large, but rather deleted before too many people see it? Think of the most harmful link you can imagine. If you still think the community at large is the best entity to decide on its inclusion or exclusion... then that's an interesting position, that I'll have to think a bit about. -GTBacchus(talk) 06:10, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
I would apply the same rough standard as we apply to vandalism. If something can't truly be a reasonable attempt to improve the encyclopedia, chop it on sight. Obscenities, clearly inappropriate privacy violations, etc-- all the bad-faith edits we've been deleting without debate all along-- that's fine. Any editors should delete them on sight.
The so-called BADSITES issue, however, has gone way beyond that, and has suggested that good-faith edits that improve the encyclopedia can be nuked on sight, on the grounds that when balancing "improved encyclopedia" with "decreasing traffic to BADSITE", we should error in favor of "decreasing the BADSITE'S potential traffic". MONGO/BADSITES/NPA#EL even went so far as to imply that "decreasing badsite's traffic" is our #1 priority and all other priorities should be rescinded, including NPOV, V, and Consensus.
So, to answer your question-- the cases where I can support an emergency non-community purge are:
  1. Info which is clearly added in bad-faith or doesn't have a snowball's chance of belonging here.
  2. Info which is truly illegal for the foundation to host on its servers, as judged by the lawyers and their representatives.
Maybe more, but those are the only two that come to mind. --Alecmconroy 06:26, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
I've certainly seen both of the cases you describe, and I agree that we don't need input from the community at large to delete obvious stalker material, for example. If I see a posting with a contributor's real name and telephone number (whether or not I know it to be accurate), I'm going to delete it without calling attention to it, and if the poster objects, I know how to deal with that situation, as I hope do other admins. As for the more borderline cases, I'm keeping an eye on Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Attack sites/Proposed decision, where I think we'll soon get some clear guidance on that point.

I suspect that a lot of the drama has been brought about by those opposed to BADSITES assuming that those in favor of it are somehow untouchable. It's less fraught when we see that it's simply a difference of opinion among good faith editors, and not a case of the power-haves crushing the power-have-nots under some kind of oppression. -GTBacchus(talk) 15:05, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Written rules don't exist to encourage or inspire rule breaking, they are there to protect those who aren't breaking them from the capricious whim of the powerful. We wouldn't be here if having some secret policy either hidden away from the community or acting purely in the minds of individual administrators was a functioning system, and thus ArbCom has encouraged the community to create a written policy. As far as private review, any policy requiring that is too abusable as links will simply disappear down a rat hole of being "under review" never to return, for months, years, etc. We already see the current ArbCom dragging their heels on a number of cases and those are very public and all the evidence is plain to see. Creating a new class of "secret evidence" is double plus ungood. Mirrors can shine light into dark corners too.-- 67.98.206.2 17:40, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
So, are you saying that blatantly privacy-violating personal material can't be removed until the nosiest of the community have had a chance to look at the real name, phone number, wife's name, physical description, etc.? You say "we wouldn't be here if [not having a specific policy] were a functioning system". However, in the case of vandalism, we allow editors to exercise discretion all the time. Do you think that's a bad idea, because it's "purely in the minds of the individual administrators"?

It's all very well for you to imply that I'm suggesting totalitarianism by linking to secret police and Newspeak, but that's not remotely realistic, if you look at the contributions I've made on this subject. If you're going to call me a fascist, please come right out and do it, and be prepared with evidence. Why don't you let us know when you're ready to drop the veiled ad hominem attacks, and tell us what you recommend doing when actual privacy violating material is posted to Wikipedia?

We've dealt with stalkers in the past, it wasn't Gestapo-like at all, and we're prepared to do it again. All we're deciding here is the best way to express certain obvious realities: we don't tolerate the use of Wikipedia for stalking or harassment, and if we need to make a decision about a link that reveals someone's private information, we try to do it discreetly rather than saying, "Hey everybody, look, it's someone being stalked, let's all stare at the evidence and agree that it's really awful, how we now all know their home address and cup size!"

Finally, you say that written rules don't exist to encourage or inspire law-breaking, but we're not dealing with some ideal world where rules only do what they're supposed to do. Writing down a rule can have unintended consequences. Thus, we can't blithely assume that the policies we write will only be read by well-meaning editors. We can say, "don't link to malicious sites", and allow for some discretion (with checks in place, of course); we don't have to say "don't link to this particular malicious site, particularly not this one particular page, which has some nasty info about such-and-such admin. Oh, and if someone does link to it, let us all know, so we can see too."

Your fantasy about some memory hole into which links disappear to spend eternity "under review" is just that: a fantasy, which nobody is suggesting. Now, I don't claim that I've got a perfect solution that's correct in every detail, and I'm entirely open to suggestions, but I really don't appreciate your implication that I'm advocating some kind of authoritarian oppression. -GTBacchus(talk) 20:20, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, I hope anon didn't mean to imply you are a fascist-- and I know I certainly didn't meant to make such an implication about you in my earlier comments. You're definitely an editor who's gotten my respect.
Hopefully, anon just meant to raise the specter of the dangers of centralizing power in the hands of only a few-- which, I think, is a reasonable concern, particularly in light of the history of the BADSITES movement. But that's a far cry from implying you are actively SEEKING such dangers-- and if that's anon's intention, (s)he owes you a big apology.
"We've dealt with stalkers in the past, it wasn't Gestapo-like at all" I think you'll see this is quite true. If I were to say the problem with BADSITES, it was that the 3RR exemption and block threats gave any aggrieved parties an effective "veto power" over link inclusion-- even when all concerned were acting in good faith. In practice, I think even without BADSITES, the community has done an EXCELLENT job instantly purging truly-bad-faith addition to the encyclopedia that are added for the purpose of harassment. We've never had any real abuse of power when it comes to getting rid of stalkers, harasses, and other bad-faith editors. The problems come in when two reputable editors, both with long edit histories and general good faith, get into a content dispute, but one side feels their word is law, that they are exempt from 3RR, and that their concerns about NPA override all other concerns about article quality. --Alecmconroy 21:12, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
Alec, I didn't take offense at anything you said. Perhaps I overreacted; I took exception to the characterization of my position as involving "secret police" and "rat holes". If I read too much into that, and took offense too easily, then I apologize. I agree that we don't want to create some sort of cabal that operates in secret and answers to no one.

You're correct that most actual problems have arisen when there are editors in good standing on both sides of a dispute. In the case of BADSITES, there was an additional layer of grief caused by a "if you're not with us, you're against us" attitude, in which every member of the dispute was characterized either as a troll trying to link to WR, or else as an abusive bureaucrat trying to suppress any criticism. In reality, there were maybe one or two of the former (probably gone by now), and none of the latter.

I truly believe that the decision currently being developed by ArbCom will help us deal with these ugly linking situations. I suspect it won't take much new policy to make it work, either. -GTBacchus(talk) 21:24, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict, expanding earlier comment)
In practice, I think even without BADSITES, the community has done an EXCELLENT job instantly purging truly-bad-faith addition to the encyclopedia that are added for the purpose of harassment. We've never had any real abuse of power when it comes to getting rid of stalkers, harasses, and other bad-faith editors. The problems come in when two reputable editors, both with long edit histories and general good faith, get into a content dispute, but one side feels their word is law, that they are exempt from 3RR, and that their concerns about harassment override all other concerns about article quality.
Even if it's true-- people do not like being told "It's the rule, your view doesn't count, and it doesn't matter what you say, I'm making this change, and if you try to stop me, you'll get blocked". It's a very, very frustrating experience, and even if the change is a good one, it breeds resentment and bad feelings. Being on the wrong side of a consensus may be disappointing, but it's noting compared to feeling bullied. And BADSITES was a recipe for such experiences.
My own experience, for example. Started with the MONGO case. I had an essay on my watch list which contained a link to ED. The link didn't criticize anyone, it didn't out anyone, it didn't harass anyone. I wasn't the one who added the link. It wasn't a substantive link-- just a silly little page, on a silly little essay, and nobody misses it now that it's gone. I'd never heard about ED, I hadn't heard about the MONGO case. One day an admin shows up, deletes the link, won't explain why (aside from pointing to the arbcom case and saying "because I said so"). When I ask to many questions and try to complain, I get a talk page full of block threats.
In the light of day, they were right. For one, closer inspection revealed that the linked-to page had been altered in ways that made it unsuitable for being linked to. And it was a stupid link anyway. But let me tell you-- the amount of time I was willing to devote to wikipedia dropped to 10% of what it had been the week prior to that. Because NOBODY likes that alienating experience of "cause I said so, and it doesn't matter what you or anyone else thinks", and we should do our best never inflict that sensation on anyone.
I'm just one person, and I got over it once I realized just how anarchic wikipedia was, and how no one really speaks for anyone but themselves. But let me tell you, I've heard the same story again and again. The people at Making Lights and their allies-- noted sci-fi authors. Educated, literate, geeky-- these should be prime candidates for people to sing our praises. Instead, we've allowed an admin to use his status as an editor to exact revenge on them for some disagreement that happened on their forum. It upset them greatly, and it will be a long long time before anyone who loved Making Lights starts smiling when they hear the world wikipedia.
I guess what I'm saying is-- BADSITES does enormous, enormous damage to our community, our civility, our assumption of good faith, and our reputation. Not to mention all this time that could have been better spent. We'll be far better off when we just say: If everyone's truly acting in good faith and complying with BLP, then it's a content dispute, and we decide it by consensus. That would, ultimately, be quicker, more fair, less prone to abuse, and would still easily filter out the overt bad-faith attempts at harassment-- just like we able to do long before anyone ever thought up the Attack Sites principle. --Alecmconroy 21:36, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
I didn't mean to imply that you are actively or slyly advocating wikipedia descend into fascism here, GT. I believe that with your suggestion of a system of private review you are paving a road with good intentions. I am suggesting, quite seriously, where that road leads. So I suppose I'm saying your suggestion lacks foresight; if you insist on taking such criticism personally, well, sorry. I had an experience similar to Alecmconroy only Friday. In my case all I got was a wall of silence from the administrator who threatened me. No apology, no discussion, and I'm one of perhaps a dozen editors actively trying to craft this policy; I'm exactly the guy such a concerned administrator should want to talk to. In light of that experience, I don't find the idea of links under "private review" disappearing behind a similar wall of silence particularly far fetched. Sure there are times when this policy has gone well, but have been other editors who, it turns out, have been committing egregious WP:COI violations who go crying foul that any revelations of this are essentially state secrets and it really bugs me. Pardon my pessimism. -- 67.98.206.2 22:51, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
Anon, I understand that you're claiming that my suggestion involved "good intentions", and I'm fully aware of where that road leads. What I object to is the implication that I'm somehow attached to my initial "thinking aloud" words on the matter. I'm extremely open to criticism, and I'm extremely willing to take ideas on board and to modify my position accordingly. We're brainstorming here. All you have to do is suggest improvements, and we'll talk about them.

I'm sorry that your experience has been negative as regards the whole COI issue, but that doesn't make me an unreasonable interlocutor. I'm sorry if I took your comments in an unfairly negative light. I'm still optimistic about the community figuring out that, in the long run, walls of silence and failure to respond to legitimate concerns is counterproductive. I still remember User:Jimbo Wales/Statement of principles, point number 7; I consider it fundamental. I'm also optimistic that unreasonable editors who would enforce ridiculous link bans are not, in the long run, going to have community support for any "purges". This current controversy is simply a wave that we have to ride out, and Wikipedia will be fine, stronger even. -GTBacchus(talk) 08:20, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I didn't mean any such implication; I'm just thinking aloud too, you know? I only linked-out to those pages such that people unfamiliar with the phraseology might have some context (I almost linked to mouse-holing but that didn't seem right), not as an attempt to make those links an implicit subtext of my criticism. What the community has figured out and what the individual does freely without consequence don't necessarily intersect, like Alec said WP is too "anarchic" for that. The worst thing which could happen with some "secret evidence" solution to this crisis is that it works perfectly, and the next crisis, be it 10, 20 or 100 years from now decides to use that approach as a model. There's an interesting article today on Slate taking the same pessimistic view of how the idea of secret evidence, however well intentioned, quickly spreads its wings. At at the risk of being perma-banned, what with my daily reading being among the purgable WP:BADSITES now and all, you may possibly get to read it here. It's great to be optimistic but history shows there are tipping points and unintended consequences. I'm reminded of a line -- a dark joke about modern society -- from the French movie Hate: "Heard about the guy who fell off a skyscraper? On his way down past each floor, he kept saying to reassure himself: So far so good... so far so good... so far so good. How you fall doesn't matter. It's how you land!" -- 67.98.206.2 18:10, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
That's fair enough, that we're both thinking aloud. I apologize for jumping to conclusions about your intentions. As for the topic at hand, I would point to past experience. We have dealt with stalkers in the past, and nobody seemed to have any problem with the fact that we didn't all get to see the personal info that the stalker posted. It was deleted, as personal information, and that was fine. Are you saying that such cases should be dealt with more publicly, by airing the personal information to a wider audience? That's a serious question. If you're talking about how bad any kind of hidden evidence is, where do you draw the line? Must the most privacy-violating material be made fully public (thus rewarding the stalker/harasser)? Is that what you're suggesting?

I tend to agree that we should maximize transparency and minimize the need for "secrets", but that position, taken to the extreme, is just as awful as the opposite extreme. How about we talk about finding something between the extremes? -GTBacchus(talk) 21:15, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

99% of cases, the link will be removed, and the edit possibly WP:Oversighted as needed. It's the one percent of people trying to WP:GAME the system for whom we need something in writing. Otherwise, the gamers can remove any link they want and claim it's harassment. Sorry we live in a fallen world. Anyway, we'll probably carry this on elsewhere. -- 67.98.206.2 02:11, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
We don't need to write a special rule for the 1%. Those are few enough individual humans that we can deal with them as individual humans. Our rules are not suicide pacts in any sense. A rules-gamer can't hold us to some kind of technicality or loophole; the Wiki has no technicalities or loopholes. See WP:IAR and WP:WIARM. If somebody wants to be disruptive and claim that every third link is harassment, then they're being disruptive, and we can deal with that on a case-by-case basis. It doesn't often happen. -GTBacchus(talk) 02:24, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
You're talking someone who was bullied by an admin not even a week ago over this issue. I know what I know. If you actually delve into some of these sites which criticize Wikipedia and it's editors -- and maybe you've just never done so, believing they are too prurient -- you'd understand that there's a whole lot of tomfoolery going on here. Yeah, some of it is prurient, for example link I'm forbidden from giving and sure some of these critics have made lapses of good judgment, like link I'm forbidden from giving, but even some of those occasionally make good points about administrators clearly abusing their powers, like link I'm forbidden from giving. Oh crap, I forgot, in your universe, where the rules are in each admins heads, I can't actually give you any examples; no need to come to any silly WP:Consensus, the rules are whatever the Inner Party says they are is at any given point in time. May I just add that I love Big Brother? I wish O'Brien was here, he'd stick his neck out for me. Raised my chocolate rations he did once! I mean, the thing to remember is none of these people running these sites are as evil and depraved as Emmanuel Goldstein -- not by any stretch. Which reminds me: I have to end this post now; it's time for the Two Minutes Hate. -- 67.98.206.2 03:23, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Huh. You have some very strange ideas about what I believe. If you knew more about me, you would realize just how far off-base you are about what I think. Why don't we try to understand each other before we talk about how screwy each others' beliefs are? Does that seem like a good idea, or would you rather keep attacking some views that aren't mine at all? Do let me know. -GTBacchus(talk) 05:46, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Oh, by the way, I don't find Wikipedia Review too prurient to read. I find it too boring. -GTBacchus(talk) 06:02, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
I was thinking of a different site as the prurient site, and I agree with you about the site you mention being dull. I was largely thinking of the other other site. Ain't that helpful? Anyway, I believe we do have a general philosophical difference here beyond just this proposal and I'll reply with any more thoughts on your talk page. -- 67.98.206.2 18:16, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Oh, if you're thinking of ED, I'm quite familiar with it. I've been around the block enough times that I don't really blanch at the prurient, or the downright gross. Some of their stuff is hilarious. Other material... I keep tabs on. I find that site to present some interesting problems, and if you would like to talk about it by email, please feel free to shoot me a line. -GTBacchus(talk) 20:47, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
It should, I'll add, bug all of us. They are the ones who, by trying to WP:GAME the system in the first place, and despite getting caught, continue to try and game the system to make all evidence of their orginal gaming of the system disappear. Unfortunately, by hiding behind a cloak of victimhood, it's the real victims who will be ever more effected by any WP:BEANS blowback this policy will create. -- 67.98.206.2 23:21, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
The above describes very well my own feelings, and explains why I fight so strongly on this issue too. My desire to work hard editing Wikipedia articles, or to send money to the Wikimedia Foundation, have been greatly sapped by my feeling of frustration about a pushy group of people censoring links based on their own personal feelings and grudges. I hope things will reach a point where I can get that desire back. *Dan T.* 23:54, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
Dan, I hope you noted my comment above, about a lot of the strife here being caused by people on either "side" having unrealistic views of the other side.

Those supporting some version of BADSITES are neither a cabal, nor untouchable, nor interested in censorship or oppression. They're trying in good faith to protect human beings from humiliating and potentially dangerous situations. You may disagree about how they're trying to effect that, but continually repeating words such as "censorship" and "taboo" is a terrible idea because it is inimical to consensus building discussion. Until you recognize this, there will be no peace. I plea with you to desist your use of clearly prejudicial language. Is there any way you can agree to that, Dan?

Now, on the other side, those opposing BADSITES are not suggesting that we roll over and allow all kinds of links in all circumstances. They are not trolling, and they're not trying to deny people the ability to edit in peace and safety. Any implication from supporters of BADSITES that the opposers are working from shady motives is inimical to consensus building discussion. Until they realize this, there will be no peace. I plea with supporters of BADSITES to desist from their use of prejudicial language. -GTBacchus(talk) 21:15, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Reasonably major set of changes.....

Well, a large set of smallish changes anyway. Just a note here to let editors know that I've made several tweaks, and they might like to re-read where we're at. Privatemusings 06:07, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

ArbCom makes a good point

Among the proposed findings of fact at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Attack sites/Proposed decision is one that I find quite insightful: here we read that "Allowing anonymous editing and forbidding conflict of interest is an obvious contradiction which necessarily is imperfectly resolved."

That might be the sort of point that should be made on this page. -GTBacchus(talk) 06:14, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I suppose the key question is does exposing a conflict of interest justify a privacy violation? - Our current wording states 'yes'. Should consensus agree, then we have an appropriate guideline re: external links (in that area). I agree it might be useful to reference the broader philosophical point, but am unsure as to how. Ideas? Privatemusings 06:20, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Nutshell

A while back, the nutshell was "Links that serve no encyclopedic purpose, and harass, may not be posted and will be removed. Links that serve the encyclopedia may not be removed."

Now, its: "We must balance compassion for those who feel a link is a thorn in their side with Wikipedia's need for open discussion, neutral content, and accurate archives."

Looking over the earlier discussion, it seems to me the earlier version had more support. Both sentences are true, but I personally think the first version is much simpler, clearer, and better suited to being a nutshell. --Alecmconroy 07:04, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Have to agree. (and as the author, i mean that, i have to agree.) Privatemusings 07:09, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

"Links that serve the encyclopedia..." is too vague. Some one can argue that spam links serve some purpose, or fan forums. I don't thik the sentence "serves" any purpose and I don't support it. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 07:12, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
How about "Links that serve no encyclopedic purpose, and harass, may not be posted and will be removed. Links that improve the encyclopedia may not be removed.". I find the two synonymous, and prefer the reading of the first draft, but this may satisfy your concerns? Privatemusings 07:26, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
We have WP:EL for what links are encyclopedic. Excepting any version of BADSITES there it should be clear generally what links improve the encyclopedia. For links that are useful for discussion but don't meet WP:EL there will inevitably be a gray area. I strongly agree that the compassion version is unacceptable as it currently stands and borders on an attempt to make this into another BADSITES. JoshuaZ 14:56, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
It says ""We must balance compassion for those who feel a link is a thorn in their side with Wikipedia's need for open discussion, neutral content, and accurate archives." BADSITES advocates want compassion to trump open discussion, neutral content, and accurate archives in all cases without thoughtful balance while the strawman advanced by BADSITES advocates is for open discussion, neutral content, and accurate archives to trump compassion in all cases without thoughtful balance. The essence lies in the word "balance" and it is the job of the policy itself to flesh out what a proper balance is. WAS 4.250 18:01, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
It could be a fine "guiding principle", but it just isn't a very good nutshell. The old nutshell, I could read two sentences and have a pretty good grasp of what the policy says. The balancing nutshell tells me something of an underlying philosophy, but it doesn't really explain what this policy is, in practical terms. Ya know? --Alecmconroy 18:09, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
WAS is right. A traditionally trite nutshell isn't going to work; there's too much nuance involved which is vital for consensus to begin with and will be vital for people to fully understand down the road. -- 67.98.206.2 18:38, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
My reading of the above is that there is more support for "Links that serve no encyclopedic purpose, and harass, may not be posted and will be removed. Links that improve the encyclopedia may not be removed." than the current problematic 'balance compassion' version - I shall make that change. Privatemusings 22:11, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
I appreciate WAS' aim for a compromise, and won't edit it further, but I'm not sure that the tone of each sentence is consistent, which for me effects the quality of the nutshell. Privatemusings 23:00, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
I reverted due to this and earlier discussion, and Will, discussion of what links serve the encyclopedia and what doesn't aren't going to be blanket resolved in this section, but could be debated on WP:EL and various other pages. Milto LOL pia 23:35, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think we can stick with 'intended to serve' because ultimately, it's not so much the intention, as the actual encyclopedic value (determined by our other policies and guidelines) that matters. Someone who intends a link to a non-notable blog to provide an improvement to an article shouldn't be able to argue against removal of said link citing this policy. I'm happy with simply removing the 'intended to'. Privatemusings 03:36, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Done. I've tried to add a little clarity to the meaning of "encyclopedic purpose" as well. I don't know if it bears elaborating that, of course, the community exists to write the encyclopedia. -- 67.98.206.2 04:28, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I think we're having trouble with this because it's intrinsic to the nature of a nutshell to be clear and concise. When it's not quite hitting the mark, and a tweak is made, unfortunately often we lose the baby with the bathwater; that is to say although we may get a little more specific, it loses its impact, and therefore loses quality as a nutshell. I prefer "Links that serve no encyclopedic purpose, and harass, may not be posted and will be removed. Links that improve the encyclopedia may not be removed". Privatemusings 06:39, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm fine with that in the nut if we use a more robust explanation of "encyclopedic" as relating to both the encylopedia proper as well as the community which maintains it. Editors could conceivably rationalize that nothing outside of article main-space is "encyclopedic" which misses the point. -- 67.98.206.2 06:53, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
Editors should of course read the text of the policy for clarification. I believe it's reasonable to assume 'Encyclopedic' is defined as helping the mission of the encylcopedia / project. The health of the community is considered by most to be part of that, but I see no demand to be explicit here really. Let's see what some others think before tweaking further. Privatemusings 07:01, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
I've returned the nutshell to what i consider a more pithy version. We shouldn't take the pith. Privatemusings 02:13, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm still worried that this could be used to remove legitimate links from article space. JoshuaZ 03:37, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Should that occur, I would probably quote WP:EL "Articles about any organization, person, web site, or other entity should link to the official site if any" to justify the link as 'improving' the encyclopedia per our policies. Privatemusings 03:49, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Good point. JoshuaZ 04:20, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

not sure i understand the intention of this bit;

"Wikipedians are expected to be real people with legal names, so whether revealing an editor's legal name constitutes a privacy violation needs to be dealt with on a case by case basis." - I've edited a couple of times, because i can't really see what else wikipedians would be except real people (!), and I'm missing the nuance of the importance of 'legal name' - am genuinely unsure as to the intention and meaning of this sentence. Privatemusings 22:14, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

You're right it is awkward. I'll try again. -- 67.98.206.2 22:59, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

"You may ultimately need to begin editing under a new username to regain your anonymity."

This is depressing. I don't think it should advise editors to admit defeat, but I didn't remove it. Comments plz. Milto LOL pia 23:36, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't read well to me either. I believe it's intended as a note to an editor who has been exposed somewhere on the web that once this information is out there, nothing we can do here on wikipedia will likely prevent it from disseminating. Once someone has posted somewhere that 'Privatemusings is really David Tennant and I can prove it etc. etc.' if I wished to continue to remain anonymous, the best advice would likely be to change my username.

This is an analogy of course. Privatemusings 23:42, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

It's simply advising them of the option, which I think obviously hasn't occurred to some editors. Like PrivateMusings says, there's an underlying Humpty Dumpty problem. All the kings horses and all the kings men etc. But hey, I'm a power outage away from being a new editor everyday, so I'm used to living on the edge.... -- 67.98.206.2 04:38, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
Side note: how did you sign like that? [2] Milto LOL pia 05:21, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
Cut and paste and 5 tildes (~~~~~) for the date. (3 tildes also gives the User without the date.) -- 67.98.206.2 05:56, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps Miltopia was confused by your signing of a username, which looks like an IP address, from a different IP address. Or perhaps he was asking how the tildes became that sig when posted from an IP user, or perhaps these are things that only confused me! None of it's really material though, just interesting. Privatemusings 06:02, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
Sorry for any confusion, but some efforts at talk page signature consistency helps me (146.115.58.152) avoid sock allegations. Well, most days! -- 67.98.206.2 06:35, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
I can't find the source I'm thinking of at the moment, but there've been journal articles (in sociology of computing) that more or less concluded the same thing: once a pseudonym has been linked anywhere on the internet to a real name, it is practically impossible to keep any information linked to the pseudonym from being linked to the real name. It doesn't hurt to be frank about this. --Delirium 06:05, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

New Shortcut

I'm afraid BADLINKS will forever conjure up connections to BADSITES and BADTHINGS in general, so I've tried a new shortcut WP:PROBLEMLINKS. Privatemusings 06:21, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I like it, but is that short enough to be a shortcut? What about WP:PROBLINKS or is that too clever by half? -- 67.98.206.2 06:49, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
It's probably short enough, but I suspect there's a better pithy alternative out there somewhere... Privatemusings 06:56, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I see we also now have the rather pleasant WP:LINKLOVE - thanks WAS! Privatemusings 03:10, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Pleasant? Sounds Orwellian to me. But, then, so did the others. —Random832 13:37, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Sounds like some sort of hippie event to me. I guess to someone with a hammer... -GTBacchus(talk) 03:18, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

encouraging more editors here with a view to promoting to policy.

I'd like to encourage as many editors as possible over here for their views / feedback / input etc. - and it would be great to demonstrate the success of the community in creating a viable, useful policy / guideline as soon as possible (balanced of course with remembering that there's no rush.).

Perhaps someone could post a note to the mailing list? Or perhaps we should encourage wiki friends over? I'm hopeful that we may have something workable within a month or so? - in which case we should be aiming to straw poll within a week or two.

I have hope for this process and this policy. Privatemusings 05:26, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Recycled

I hate to detract from the discussion regarding the development of this page, but does anyone else feel like this is simply a recycling of BADSITES? If so (and that's a big if so), I worry that those advocating it will simply recycle indefinitely :-( Milto LOL pia 06:17, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I hope that this direction is utterly different to the discredited notions of BADSITES. It's my reading of this proposal that links to michaelmoore.com would never have been removed, nor Making Light, and the justification for the removal of links to other sights would have required context - there is no blanket ban.

Forum shopping and recycling have been shown to be wholly ineffective in any case, so I wouldn't be overly concerned at their negative effect, even if some previously pro-BADSITES editors become active on this page. There is good cause for hope! Privatemusings 06:26, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it is a recycling of BADSITES, though this may turn out better. --Pleasantville 12:52, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
For this to be a success it needs to clearly allow deletion of links we all agree should be deleted and insists on discussion otherwise. Until BADLINKS came along, actual link deletion was reasonable. It wasn't until the promotion of the idea of going out and looking for links to delete and deleting them that we had a problem. Careful caring case by case thoughtful evaluation must be the standard. Not some bright-line test to be applied without thought. WAS 4.250 16:30, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree with WAS, regarding careful case-by-case evaluation. I suspect that we don't need a separate page to say that. The two policies related to this question are WP:NPA and WP:EL. All we should need is some kind of common sense wording to the effect that we remove links to harassment of any kind, allowing for exceptional cases where clear encyclopedic value outweighs the danger of linking to such a page. This can be accomplished with a sentence or two on the relevant policy pages. Such exceptions are determined by human beings acting in good faith and talking with each other. The more dangerous the material is, the more discreet the discussion must be, but it comes down to the same thing.

The problems that we've been facing aren't problems with the wording of a policy, they're problems with people disagreeing with each other about what is right and necessary. Such a disagreement will not be solved by writing something down, it will be solved by people on both sides of the fence recognizing each other's good faith and discussing the issue rationally. I see the ArbCom case as a big step in that direction. The reason it won't be solved by a policy worded just-so is that the problem wasn't caused by words on a policy page. It was caused, first by people engaging in harassment, and then by other people taking their reactions to said harassment too far. -GTBacchus(talk) 21:34, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the above as well. In particular, case-by-case evaluation would've avoided most of the ridiculous results that the previous rigid attempts resulted in, like people trying to removing a link to michaelmoore.com from Michael Moore because Moore had posted some negative comments about specific Wikipedians who had edited his article (doesn't pass the "isn't this a silly thing to be doing that won't actually help anyone anyway?" test). Most cases of external sites harassing Wikipedians are not all that complicated and the link can be removed by reasonable editors without some lengthy policy prone to abuse. --Delirium 05:59, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
You obviously know nothing about the michelmoore case, or how he and his supporters sucessfully harassed a wikipedian perminately off wikipedia, good job anti-badsites people one less editor soon you will get rid of us all and there will be no wikipedia. (Hypnosadist) 23:07, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
I don't think it will come to that, Hypnosadist. Wikipedia has a certain turnover rate, and there will certainly be more editors to replace each of us who moves on. It's always regrettable to lose a good contributor, but remember: these are growing pains we're going through, and we're learning. In a year, we'll be much better at dealing with situations like this; stick around. -GTBacchus(talk) 03:23, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Importance

No-one has responded with any justification why good faith should be considered unimportant. I don't like that there's an "order of importance" at all (if something is legitimate for ANY reason, that should override any arguments based on other aspects of it), but if there's going to be, I think good faith should be the MOST important, or we risk banning editors for asking questions. —Random832 18:33, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Sadly, I have to agree. I like the general idea of ordering by importance, but it's hard to work out. If something was truly written in good faith, it's not harassment. If something is a reliable source or a notable source, it should stay. It's hard to figure out the order these things should go in, or if they should go in an order at all. --Alecmconroy 18:39, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
The ordering was supposedly created to prevent ambiguity, but really it creates it by making you subjectively rate based on relative importance, severity, etc - having each criteria be independent - a sort of "order deny,allow" statement where one 'allow' overrides any 'deny' instead of requiring a complex (and highly subjective) algorithm. —Random832 18:56, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Maybe the "order of importance" should be removed, but you don't want to say that anything with a single allowed aspect is never denied, because then, for example, a famous person could get away with anything on the grounds of notability. 1of3 00:03, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that is correct. There is absolutely nothing that Michael Moore could put on his website that would justify removing the link from the external links section of the Michael Moore article. —Random832 13:38, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Concur - am removing. I don't believe the table is of less use without the 'importance' detail. Privatemusings 04:03, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

The "Notability" and "Reliable source" criteria shouldn't be absolute - the first should only apply to non-source ELs in articles (and it's the subject's notability and the site's status as the subject's website that allow it to be linked in that article), and the second should only apply to sources. —Random832 13:35, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I've written a short paragraph attempting to explain clearly how these criteria interact. Anyone else is of course welcome to expand it —Random832 13:55, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Spam blacklist

Isn't that run by the programmers and not by admins? The current wording of the last paragraph may be incorrect I think. -- 67.98.206.2 21:22, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

No, admins can edit the enwiki blacklist. 1of3 00:01, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

If You Are Harassed

I've added a direct link to Requests for oversight to the If you are harassed section. There was a link to the general oversight page before, but I thought it would be worthwhile to let people know that they can contact oversight directly. --Bfigura (talk) 00:53, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Arbcom's final decision

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Attack sites - please update your jargon/update catch-phrases from the asinine MONGO decision in your brains accordingly. Milto LOL pia 06:59, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Employment

"Employer, unless such employment reveals a conflict of interest":

I question the wisdom of the "unless" clause. I far I (possibly poorly) understand the issue is about linking to harassment sites. If it is so, then I fail to see why the policy must give them any standard leeaway in disclosing personal information. If the information in question is of encyclopedic value and the "harassing" source is considered admissible by wikipedia policies, then the issue must be judged by the relevance to the wikipedia article in question or to the discussion in question, rather than a possible legal gain (detection of the "conflict of interest"). Laudak 01:10, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

If the discussion is about that editor's conflict of interest, then it's relevant. *Dan T.* 01:26, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
I suppose what Laudak is considering is what to do about a link that reveals employment details as part of an overt call for harassment, thus revealing a CoI that wasn't previously being discussed. This is a very tough one, but I'm afraid I would say that overall it will always be a good thing for conflicts of interest to be exposed. Tough though. Privatemusings 04:06, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
Or to put it another way, if a link creates a genuine discussion about conflict of interest, then it should remain only as part of that discussion. Privatemusings 04:07, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I am more concerned about ethical issue here. If a harassing website reveals CoI and you cannot verify the CoI statement from decent sources, where is the proof that this CoI statement is just a piece of harassment? And if you can verify it wrom a decent source, why would you wand to link the harasser? What is more detrimental: givinng a forum to a slanderer or an unconfirmed CoI? Laudak 06:11, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm personally wouldn't have gone with listing the verboten data types, and then adding a "okay for COI purposes exception". I would have a "good faith/bad faith" distinction. A regular, trusted editor politely raising an COI concern, based on material that came to their attention, even if that material might reveal personal details-- probably good faith. A single-purpose editor speciously alleging a COI as an excuse to create a link-- probably bad faith. --Alecmconroy 11:46, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:AGF isn't just for certain editors and not for others Alec! -- 146.115.58.152 02:12, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

"Probably" - possibly controversial edit

I've removed "probably" [3]. After I did so it occurred to me that this may controversial. Are people ok with this removal? JoshuaZ 01:44, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I might consider replacing it with "generally". It's not that I've got exceptions in mind, but I don't like for our policies to make prescriptive generalizations like that. I would generally prefer that we avoid prescriptive language in policy, and say something like "websites maintained by notable people or groups are generally linked from their articles. There's no need not to allow for "sound editorial judgment". -GTBacchus(talk) 15:19, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
That sounds reasonable. JoshuaZ 17:28, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Removal 'forbidden' -> 'discouraged'

Recently, the following text:

If a link to a page meets Wikipedia's article content sourcing policies (Verifiability, No Original Research, Neutral Point of View) as a source for a claim on a Wikipedia article its removal on the basis of this policy is forbidden.

was altered so that the removals were "discouraged" rather than "forbidden". I prefer "forbidden" insofar as it applies to this policy. so for example, it's forbidden to say "I removed a reliable source because of WP:Linking to Ext Harassment." On the other hand, we should be clear that content disputes happen all the time, and this policy is neutral in normal content debates.

Can we think of a good way to say this? (or did the old wording say it correctly)--Alecmconroy 16:18, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

We should try to avoid making anything "forbidden" or "mandatory" if we can possibly help it... such absolutism has been the problem with many past iterations of the policies on this issue. *Dan T.* 16:29, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
It is not forbidden to say anything. If this policy makes fallacious arguments a blockable offense that is a substantial problem. Semiprivatemusings 16:59, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
I see what you're saying, and there's a definite point there. The "forbiddenness" is more about the policy, not the behavior. This policy has is forbidden from applying to good links. Not so much users that users are forbidden from being wrong. I'd like some wording that gives us a hard limit on scope, but doesn't extend a draconian limit to behavior. Nothing comings to mind, but maybe somebody has something. --Alecmconroy 17:11, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
Obviously, WP:IAR always applies. What do our other policies use for language to say the same thing? I don't care as long as the language is consistence to both adding and removing links "on the basis of this policy" as it were. -- 146.115.58.152 02:06, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Not enflaming editwarring

Recently, the following sentence was added:

"If someone is repeatedly removing a link, do not inflame the situation by engaging in an edit war. Follow the steps provided in Dispute Resolution.Further options are detailed belows"

I'd like to see that changed to be content-neutral-- a generic suggestion to avoid edit wars, rather than addressing that suggestion specifically to the person who opposes link removal. --Alecmconroy 16:22, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

The previous iteration told only link removers to avoid edit warring. It told people to "Consider ignoring external harassment at first, and use email if possible to deal with it to maintain discretion." It did not include any advice to not reinsert removed links. I have further modified the provision to deal with your concerns. Semiprivatemusings 17:00, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks :). I truly laughed out loud at your use of the phrase "goose gander neutrality". Not just typed lol, mind you-- actually produced an audible sound, making people around the room look at me like I'm insane. Good job. :) --Alecmconroy 17:05, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
Speaking of people "repeatedly removing links", User:JzG has just begun a Scouring of the Shire with regard to Wikipedia Review, seeking out and removing links from various old talk archives and such, despite failing to get any support for such draconianness from ArbCom. Anybody think anything ought to be done here? *Dan T.* 01:41, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes help him! Why do we need those links???????????????? (Hypnosadist) 02:24, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, Dan, stop adding links to WR to pages where you haven't first built consensus for their inclusion. Links that are challenged as violations of WP:EL are not allowed by default just because ArbCom didn't mention them by name. You mention that JzG is removing links, but you don't mention that you're helping to edit war a WR link into the Criticisms of Wikipedia article. Stop doing that. -GTBacchus(talk) 08:11, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I note that this policy was soundly violated by the lot of you with respect to these links. There is no dispute that edit warring is to be avoided. Should not individuals who cannot keep themselves from edit warring be ignored in this discussion until they can demonstrate some restraint? I think so. MusingsOfAPrivateNature 22:59, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Um, that would be most of the major participants on both sides. Edit warring is still edit warring when you feel it's morally justified. Especially then, actually. -GTBacchus(talk) 02:13, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
If you think my comments are limited to one "side" of this travesty, you are sorely mistaken. In fact, I wrote "by the lot," because I was speaking to the lot of you. MOASPN 02:19, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
The lot of who? -GTBacchus(talk) 02:44, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
I do not intend to name names. If individuals do not know they were engaging in edit warring, they do not need to be named, they need to be banned. If they know they were engaging in edit warring, they do not need to be named, they need to stop. Edit warring is editing by force, rather than by discussion - it is often signaled by edits that are similar to other reverted edits that are made without discussion or the intent to discuss, and reverts to those same edits made without discussion. The first edit in an "edit war" may be an attempt to WP:BRD - the second may just be the revert. The third and beyond are basically unacceptable. MOASPN 02:49, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Nonsense. Reverting vandalism isn't edit warring. -- 146.115.58.152 00:28, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Can you please try to make rational arguments for or against positions, instead of resorting to ad hominem attacks on the proponents or opponents? *Dan T.* 00:36, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes. As soon as you stop edit warring I'm happy to do that. MOASPN 02:08, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Such ultimatum-making is why there's still war in the Middle East, after all these thousands of years. Someone has to be the first to the discussion table. -GTBacchus(talk) 02:12, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Unless you think I'm an alternate account of one of the edit warriors, I haven't engaged in any edit warring. MOASPN 02:21, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Good, neither have I. Glad to have you on board. Sorry if I jumped to a conclusion - instant karma from the other page! -GTBacchus(talk) 02:44, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

This appears to be a proposed policy

What existing policy page were you planning on getting rid of?Genisock2 01:43, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

This is just something new. -- 146.115.58.152 02:10, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
we have enough policy. If people want to add more they first need to get rid of some existing policy.Genisock2 11:29, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
um... no, not really! You're probably aware of the broo ha ha over various external links, well this policy is intended to become the accepted guideline for all editors - what do you think of it? Privatemusings 12:12, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion for review of potential BADLINKS

Preamble

(Sorry for the wordiness - I haven't got time this evening to make a shorter post.)

This policy needs to find a balance between two competing forces. On the one hand, it is important that we protect our editors from privacy violations and harassment. Using Wikipedia resources to harass or out Wikipedians is utterly incompatible with our project, and there is no room for it on our servers.

At the same time, we must maintain as much transparency as possible, per the wiki process. As an anonymous user pointed out above, we can't just disappear content into a memory hole with no accountability. Such a policy would tend to create an environment of paranoia and charges of suppression of information, thus adding heat and potentially heightening the drama level, thus rewarding trolls and harassers.

The tension between these two forces creates the condition for dangerous system-gaming, and we've been seeing the fallout from that. ArbCom has tasked the community with developing a policy solution to this problem we're experiencing.

Suggestion

I suggest a possible compromise position. Suppose an admin finds or is informed of some link or other content that is, in that admin's judgment, unacceptable to have on the wiki due to privacy or other security concerns. That admin should delete the edit in question, and then post immediately to WP:AN requesting that other admins view the deleted content and confirm that it must be removed.

In clear cases, other admins will corroborate the first admin's decision, and the edits in question can be queued for oversight. In cases where the link or material was clearly not a security threat, the material can be restored and the admin advised accordingly. In less clear cases, admins can discuss the material at AN, and their conversation, but not the content that they are discussing, will be visible, in the interest of transparency.

Comments

This approach requires that we trust the community of administrators to make good consensus decisions about what sort of content really can't be visible on the wiki, and to discuss it c in a sufficiently discreet manner, while making their reasons clear enough. Supporters of 100% transparency may not like that non-admins can only see the discussion, but not the content in question. However, 100% transparency, taken to the extreme, would require that we air the private information so that everyone can see just how private it is, thus rewarding the harasser and worsening the privacy violation.

The admin making the initial deletion would have to be careful not to proceed in a way that escalates the situation. It would be an understanding that we suspend reposting the material while the discussion is ongoing; anyone violating this courtesy principle could be stopped with the usual tools (warnings, blocks, possibly talk-page protection), if necessary.

After admin consensus has been shown for particular content, it will no longer be necessary to go through the whole process for further postings of that same content; the content would effectively be black-listed at that point.

Opinions? -GTBacchus(talk) 07:59, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't really believe any 'closed door' policy is sustainable or desirable. In all cases, the material is very easy to find, and denying all editors the chance to discuss anything they wish (providing good faith) is bad. We must be able to discuss critical views openly. It also makes the material attractive - I for one would never have visited antisocialmedia.net had I not been outraged that senior editors were advocating removing even references to that site.
A proposal I could certainly support, which might be common ground for all, is to allow text strings, but not active links, in borderline cases. The lazy editor after titillation will likely not bother to cut and paste the link, and it would facilitate informed good faith discussion.
I appreciate your efforts though, there are good thoughts and ideas above, despite my disagreement. Privatemusings 09:35, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm not talking about critical views. I'm talking about damaging personal information. If your phone number were unavailable, and then someone started posting it as an act of harassment, would you insist that everyone be able to see it, because "we must be able to discuss critical material openly". Please re-read the above with that in mind - I'm not talking about crical views of Wikipedia; I'm talking about stalkers. -GTBacchus(talk) 16:11, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Just to be clear then, you wouldn't include michaelmoore or Making Light in that category? - The danger is that several admin.s and others have done just that. I would worry that the presumption would become remove first, discuss behind closed doors later. The phone number of any editor should be removed / oversighted immediately in every context. Privatemusings 21:39, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Right, so somewhere between Michael Moore and Wikipedians' phone numbers is where the line gets drawn. I think we're probably all on the same page about that (until Michael Moore starts posting our phone numbers...!). -GTBacchus(talk) 02:10, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
I also have to give major props to GTBacchus-- not only for being such a stand up guy in general, but also for taking all the time to what is clearly a well-thought-out proposal. Regrettably, I too don't think the "behind closed doors" would work. Being an admin just isn't something that implies trust-- and as a general rule-- all the fiascos we've seen (michael moore, making lights, etc), admins has been the driving force, and there's been no shortage of admins (and arbiters) that have endorsed their actions. In short, the community of admins hasn't been trustworthy, in total ,hasn't been trustworthy in the past. And in my experience, people tend to abuse power even worse when they're operating in secret.
Really, what we're debating here is the whole idea of whether or not the world should be allowed to have an internet. Remember back in the day, circa 96 or 97, when it finally dawned on the general public that there would be a free medium in which anyone could say anything?? Anti-Semites would be free to attack jews, teenagers could read porn, satanists could publish their manifestos for anyone to read. It's easy to forget now, but there were all sorts of prognostications that the world would come apart when every human was allowed to talk to every other. But it didn't.
In the end, everyone now is a publisher. If someone wants to transmit personal information, they are going to be able to do so. We cannot stop them. Once something shows up here, somebody knows it-- and that same somebody can put it all up a million other places if they want. That's the world we live in. We cannot stop it, we cannot slow it down, we cannot impede it. Online harassment is a matter for the police and the courts-- in the end, we have a poor power to add or detract from genuine harassment. All we can offer is Pyrrhic victory-- removing one tiny instance from string of hundreds in campaign of harassment.
All we can do is make an editorial decision if it's useful to the encyclopedia, and do what we've always done: If it's a clear-cut case of something added in bad faith that has no business being on the project, chop it. If it's something that seems to have been added in good faith, then it's a content dispute, and go through the usual dispute resolution process, remembering that there's is no deadline, and no way to unring a bell.
And of course, as an added safeguard, there's always the foundation lawyers to fall back on. --Alecmconroy 17:36, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
I appreciate the kind words, and I understand your reservations about any material being hidden while decisions are being made. However, I'm not talking about criticism of Wikipedia being hidden or suppressed. I'm actually thinking of creepy stalking cases, of which we've had several, and I think the process I've described is the unspoken and uncontroversial status quo method of dealing with such cases. When a clearly bad-faith privacy violation is posted, it gets whacked, just like any piece of simple vandalism, and that's that. The difference is that a privacy violation gets deleted, whereas most vandalism is simply reverted. A deleted privacy violation can still be seen by other admins, and if there's any problem about it, it gets resolved.

Even cases such as the recent Michael More and Teresa Nielsen Hayden, links were removed, and then after some discussion, they were put back. The only actual problem with such a process is if people freak out while it's happening, and doing so really isn't necessary. No link is so important that its absence for a day is going to destroy Wikipedia. The community managed to decide within a reasonable time to put those links back, despite the fact that some admins aren't too well trusted. Jackboots were not involved at any point. It was just a matter of someone dealing with the problem maturely once it was brought up, and this is something the community will get better at. We're just started to learn.

Maybe it's that I'm an admin, but I don't think of what we do as particularly secret. There are hundreds of us, representing all kinds of perspectives, and the idea of enough of us colluding to push a particular POV, or to suppress criticism, just doesn't strike me as realistic. That would be like 600 cats marching down a street in lock step - it's a scary picture, but it'll never happen, even though there's nothing stopping them in principle. Cats just don't herd well. Most admins would make terrible Gestapo, and those that would be good at it don't make for the best admins. -GTBacchus(talk) 02:10, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, I guess the standard I'd use is "Is there any chance this is a good-faith content dispute between good-faith editors?" If it isn't, admins should already feel free to whack and delete away. On the other hand, if it might be a good-faith content dispute between good faith editors-- let dispute resolution work. Having some procedure in the middle it's a content dispute, but only admins matter-- that's no good.
I guess part of it comes from my own unique status. I have never (and will never) go for an RFA, because I don't need the tools. I'm not good at tedious tasks, like the kind that admins tools are used for. I don't multitask-- I pick a project and work on it for months. Most of my contributions are anonymous, since they need no name attached. And although you might not know it to see me lately, I loathe flamewars and conflict, and I wouldn't want to get involved in blockings and bannings and protectings.
That said, I feel just as much a "member" of Wikipedia as admins. Adminship is not a tropy or a badge of honor, or a rank-- but if it were any of those things, well then I would want to be an admin. I care about Wikipedia a lot, and I've put WAY more of my time into improving it than my wife would have liked.
And I think there are a LOT of people like me here. People who have valuable input, but no need for the tools, and so no need to ask for the tools. I get very shaky whenever I see anything that elevates the decisions of admins over the decisions of non-admins. Adminship isn't a rank, it's a driver's license. I don't want to drive, so I don't need a driver license-- but that doesn't make me any less trustworthy than someone who DOES have a drivers license. (obviously, not just me personally, a whole class of people here).
"I'm not talking about criticism of Wikipedia being hidden or suppressed"-- Oh I know you're not-- but I know others would be. I just don't see how the "set of admins" is any better at making decisions than "the set of people who edit talk pages". I probably would have answered differently a year or two ago. There was a time when it seemed like "admin" implied "trustworthy", but since that time, I've seen too many cases of admin (and arbiter) abuse.
That said-- for true emergencies involving actual criminal behavior, I think the foundation & its lawyers still seem trustworthy, and obviously, any editor finding content they believe to be criminal in nature should probably remove it and refer it to them. So, from THAT point of view, I don't object to your general principle of "review by a few"-- I just would rather those few be legal professionals operating under the strictest guidelines, than the admins, some of whom have whole collections of axes which need griding --Alecmconroy 03:25, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Ok, I agree with most of that, and I agree that a formulation that looks like "content dispute, but only among admins" is a non-starter. I was envisioning something like admins deciding whether it's a content dispute (in which case undelete quickly and hand back to dispute resolution) or a serious privacy violation.

The trouble, I suppose, is that clear-cut cases of either aren't a problem; the gray area is. (Is Dtobias listening? He likes gray.) That gray area might be sparsely populated now, but it's likely to fill out over time. In that gray area are the cases where some admins/editors see something that seems to them to be a beyond-the-pale, not-a-good-faith-content-dispute attack, while another admin see the same conflict as a good faith content dispute between reasonable editors. The the disagreement is over someone's intentions, and that's when things get ugly.

I think the community will just have to keep feeling our way around and try to learn quickly from our mistakes in situations like that. -GTBacchus(talk) 03:59, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Gt, you are a scholar and gentleman.
I guess I, for one, don't really get what the privacy violation emergency is. In a pre-internet world, where you really could put a genie back in the bottle, I see how it would be useful to have a "break glass in case of emergency privacy violation". But in the age of the internet, it's a trivial matter for any human being to communicate with any other human being. If someone's trying to violate privacy by going around posting personal details-- they're going to succeed. We just not going to be able to stop them.
Usenet, Google, Yahoo, etc... none of these groups have a "emergency delete button" either. If Wikipedia was the only thing on the internet, I understand the rush. But we're not-- if someone's up to no good, there are still PLENTY of venues for them to publish that information. If someone wants to tell the world about a privacy violation, they'll succeed, no problem. Even if we had an automated, foolproof way to stop them from posting it on Wikipedia in the first place, they'd just post it elsewhere. Probably many elsewheres.
If someone finds out my real name (assuming I had tried to hide it) and posts all this personal info about me on wikipedia-- sure, I'll be upset that now the whole world knows who I am. But will I really be So much more upset if it was up for a day instead of an hour?
I guess what I'm saying is Wikipedia:There is no deadline-- even for odious things. There's no reason to wait before pulling out something obviously inappropriate-- but there's no ticking clock hurry to get rid of something which might be useful either. --Alecmconroy 04:28, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm thinking of a particular example. I realize it's anecdotal, but it's what I'm thinking of in this conversation.

There was a user stalking an admin here. I won't name names, because that's sort of the point. This stalker was posting personal information, and we were deleting it on sight. Despite the fact that "they'd probably just post it elsewhere," this was their preferred venue.

This person's goal was to conduct their harassment on Wikipedia, because that's the context in which they could most effectively "get to" their victim. If you want to hound someone off of Wikipedia, you're best of doing it here. We prevented that stalker from using Wikipedia as a weapon, by taking a hardline stance of "revert on sight; block on sight". It worked. I now cannot find that admin's personal information by googling, and that's a good thing. (The stalker actually did go to WR and tried to continue his campaign there. They banned him, too. (!) I'm pretty sure he's in the jailhouse now.)

Maybe it's not the most on-point example, but I think it helps explain where I'm coming from -GTBacchus(talk) 20:57, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

An upsetting story-- i'm glad it seems to have worked out okay in the end. And I'd say the deletion on sight was 100% the right thing to do, because it was a clearcut case of a bad-faith edit. Hopefully, there was a 100% total consensus on how to handle that. --Alecmconroy 22:03, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
(de-indenting) Yeah, there wasn't any trouble in that case. The cases that concern me are those where some people see it as a clear-cut example such as that one, while others see it as a content dispute about legitimate criticism. -GTBacchus(talk) 22:29, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
In general, we don't need a special policy to tell us to get rid of trolling and harassement. And the gray cases will be nature be gray. Given that, there's no need to treat possible harassement using links as at all distinct from any other type of harassement. We therefore don't need any special policy to deal with these situations. JoshuaZ 03:36, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, apparently we do, because editors continue to delete perfectly valid links while claiming cover under some nebulous and non-existent "bad sites" policy. As my step-father used to say: locks are there to keep honest people honest. -- 146.115.58.152 05:14, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
The fact that people are engaging in some kind of inappropriate activity does not indicate that we need a new policy; it indicates that those people need to learn how to behave appropriately. Problems are not solved by writing rules. -GTBacchus(talk) 19:59, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Somebody asked if I'm there? Yes, I am (I hope this manages to post... my Internet connection has been incredibly flaky for the last few days). I don't know if I'd say that I "like" gray, but I do tend to see controversies, especially the ones interesting enough to devote any attention to thinking about, to be much more gray than black or white. While it's almost certainly true that most actual attempted links on Wikipedia are either "white" or "black" -- linking to the official site of the Disney Channel in the article on that isn't likely to ever particularly offend anybody (even those who despise everything to do with Disney will probably just stay away from that article rather than get peeved we added a link to it), while linking to a commercial site called "Buy Viagra Cheap Now!" isn't likely to be approved by anybody not profiting from that particular site -- when you restrict the matter of consideration to the cases where somebody (an actual Wikipedian, not a drive-by spammer/troll/vandal) found something interesting/useful/informational enough to link, while somebody else took offense to it, you're almost by definition in gray-area territory. There will be a few exceptions, of course, like clearcut cases of stalking and harrassment, but these are the minority. I do thank GTBacchus, although I disagree with much of his position, for conducting his participation in this debate with calm reasonableness and complete lack of any ad-hominem attacks or other smears or appeals to emotion rather than rationality. If everybody in the debate were like that (and I can't say that I've been perfect in that regard myself) it would be a much more pleasant and productive discussion. *Dan T.* 00:03, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Forbid/discourage

The re "forbidding" of erroneous arguments remains a deal-breaker. MusingsOfAPrivateNature 22:58, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Since when is forbidden erroneous applications of a policy is a bad thing? It's not as if we're say that making an erroneous argument results in an insta-ban-- we're just saying, ya know, you're not supposed to do that. lol. --Alecmconroy 23:01, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
We should, however, try to avoid language that sounds prohibitive or draconian... a big problem with Wikipedia culture these days, in my opinion, is the increasing prevalence of such attitudes, which are the direct opposite of "Wikilove". *Dan T.* 23:04, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes-- "principles" are better than "rules" Rules are where the old BADSITES policies got into trouble. Rules make people think they can overrule consensus, or not listen to the opinions of others, or game. Principles much better. :) --Alecmconroy 23:12, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Other policies (like WP:3RR and WP:NPA) use language like "Do not" or "must not". I'll try switching all this around to more active language. It gets the point across with sounding as dracionian. -- 146.115.58.152 00:41, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
I should have made a note here previously - I've replaced all forbiddens with inappropriate per a common dislike of overly authoritarian language. Privatemusings 00:47, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Forbidden isn't accurate though; there may be cases where the forbidden behavior is best. It's best to avoid such stonewallish words even in policy, per the 5th of Wikipedia's WP:5P. Milto LOL pia 07:24, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

"If you are harassed"

This section troubles me deeply. On first reading it sounds uncomfortably like "we'd rather you kept quiet about this," and it could easily be misread as recommending that harassment not be reported to law enforcement or other authorities. If those aren't the intended meanings then the section needs to be rewritten. Raymond Arritt 03:51, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

That's a good point. It might be worth while cribbing some of the language from WP:NPA about external harassment in general. I'm not sure what sort of legal advice we can give otherwise, if that is what you are suggesting? -- 146.115.58.152 04:29, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Oh, actually, I see the problem. Yep, this needs a rewrite! -- 146.115.58.152 04:32, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
OK, I've rewritten this and tightened it up. I'm fairly certain we all meant "report publicly" to mean "report publicly on Wikipedia." I also removed some of the language which didn't apply to links; I presume this is covered in WP:HARASS. We might want to point readers to this too. I'm not sure either of the re-title. -- 146.115.58.152 05:06, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Much better, thanks. I'm not sure the bolding is necessary but that's a quibble. Raymond Arritt 05:36, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

"email an administrator you trust"

I feel this section could be expanded to suggest exactly what an admin could do for you, but not being an admin, I'm not sure what all that would be exactly. Suggestions? -- 146.115.58.152 05:22, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

A piped wikilink to Wikipedia:Administrators would possibly cover it. Neil ☎ 17:51, 21 October 2007 (UTC)