Wikipedia talk:Attack sites

Rejection revisited

So here we are again. The lock on the page has expired, and the fate of this can be considered anew.

I am willing to accept the redirection if and when WP:NPA incorporates some version of this proposal. It's not at all clear that any such thing will happen; at this point it looks as though the discussion there is simply a continuation of the discussion here, and that there's a fair chance that it will also end in a lack of consensus. It has been discussed at length how the redirect creates the false impression that this proposal essentially passed. Therefore this proposal should go back to being tagged as rejected, for lack of consensus. It can point to the WP:NPA discussion, but that is all. Mangoe 15:33, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

The point I have raised there is that lack of consensus should default to the safe postion - ban links to these sites. Sophia 15:39, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I've mentioned this several times already: noone has disagreed that the existing policy is more than sufficient to cover any malicious or malfeasant linking to inappropriate external content. The remaining issue is innocent or unintentional linking to such material and it is that question which is the locus of the dispute. Until that is resolved the default position must be that which everyone agrees on - which is that malicious or malfeasant linking is not permitted. --bainer (talk) 03:43, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

So will anyone object if the "Rejected" tag is put back? Risker 04:02, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm in full support. --badlydrawnjeff talk 04:23, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I strongly oppose it, and it's obvious from comments all over this page, which have not been retracted, that several others do as well. ElinorD (talk) 04:55, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Mangoe, you said "it creates the false impression that this proposal essentially passed. I ask again: it creates that impression for whom? Can you provide any credible story where someone is misled by that redirect, and there's somehow a bad consequence? Who's going to link to Wikipedia:Attack sites or search for "Wikipedia:Attack sites"? If someone does, and gets redirected to WP:NPA, and that gives them the impression that there may be (or may have once been) discussion of something called "attack sites" in that policy, then so what?

If they actually care, and bother to dig through talk pages and history to find this dispute, they'll be disabused of the false impression you seem so concerned to protect them from. I don't understand your point. It's like you want the page to be visible with a scarlet "A" on it so everyone can see that we don't forbid linking to so-called attack sites, even though we're all agreeing that it's almost never helpful to actually do so.

Why not just let it die? -GTBacchus^(talk) 04:25, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely agree. And, as I've said elsewhere on this page, it's far from clear that this was rejected. Several people thought that there was something that could be worked on, while not necessarily endorsing the exact wording; there was quite a lot of edit warring and of argument on the talk page. People disputed that it had been truly rejected, and felt it should be discussed further. Then, a little prematurely, someone redirected it. Several people who had been in favour of some version of this page (while acknowledging that modifications would be appropriate) accepted the redirect, and took their arguments to the other page. That is the reason that they stopped working on this page. Personally, I'm happy with the redirect, but if we're not having a redirect, then we should go back to discussing what there is in this essay / proposed guideline / proposed policy that needs to be worked on. I've been unhappy all along with the broad use of the word "attack", as the issue that Denny presumably was trying to deal with was that of posting links to a site which engaged in "outing" anonymous editors. But the discussion stopped not because the proposal was clearly rejected, but because the redirect meant that we began to discuss the issue elsewhere. ElinorD (talk) 04:55, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

ElinorD, I'm wondering if you saw what I wrote just above; I've seen noone disagree that malicious or intentional linking to inappropriate content is bad, just that innocent or unintentional linking is not necessarily so, and that's really what the dispute is about. I think I mentioned this to DES a couple of sections above, that both a redirect to a policy page and a plain {{rejected}} tag would be misleading, and then I suggested that a more precisely worded tag would be appropriate (that only this form is rejected, but the substance still has support). Would you support some tag like this? The wording is open to suggestions of course. --bainer (talk) 05:01, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Don't let Elinor distract you - I'm still waiting to hear just who is supposed to be misled by a redirect, and what the harm is in that unlikely event. -GTBacchus^(talk) 05:22, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Anyone following links to this page, or reading any of the extensive discussion about this on-wiki or on the mailing list. A rejected proposal should not redirect to a policy page. --bainer (talk) 13:24, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

About 30 pages, mostly user talk pages that are frequently archived, link here. You've answered less than half of the question. These people following these links, what kind of false impression are they going to get, and how is that harmful?

Saying, "a rejected proposal should not redirect to a policy page," categorically like that reminds me of saying categorically that we should never link to any so-called "attack site". I think a case-by-case approach is better in both cases. In this case, some of us have been arguing that it's better to redirect, so let's talk about this case. How does the redirect hurt? -GTBacchus^(talk) 13:31, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Because it's misleading due to the idea that there was consensus to redirect it aywhere, or that the idea could be replaced by simply pointing it elsewhere, and because consensus was overwhelmingly to reject it. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:39, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

And because it gives the impression, unless someone reads WP:NPA very carefully, that a policy against "attack sites" has been enacted. Conversely, I don't see what the problem is with being up front about the status of this: it has failed to get consensus, and discussion has moved to WP:NPA. Mangoe 13:42, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I think what the problem is has been repeated several times. To have a page saying "Rejected" right above "Don't link to attack sites" makes it look quite a bit like linking to attack sites is somehow condoned or cool, when that's not the case. The reason this proposal didn't go forward it quite a bit subtler than that; so there's your "false impressions". Furthermore, keeping this page up is a big old pot of WP:BEANS in the sense that, as long as it's been talked about, and linked to, and indexed in search engines, it makes it more likely that people will learn about sites where outing of Wikipedians goes on, which is precisely what we'd rather avoid.

As for your answers regarding the harm in the redirect, I'm not seeing it. I'm still trying to figure out who's going to see this redirect, and what actual harm comes about. So what if someone is under the impression that we have some kind of policy relating to something called "attack sites"? What's the actual negative consequence? Are they going to freak out and start... doing what? I don't get it. Jeff and Mangoe both, why is it bad if someone (who doesn't read very carefully) thinks there was either consensus for a redirect (which I'm trying to build now) or that we "enacted" some kind of policy regarding "attack sites" (whatever any of that means)? I'm looking for an actual harm, not just a false impression that has no effect in the world. -GTBacchus^(talk) 14:54, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

You can't make the argument that there is no harm in a redirect because noone will be following links to the page, and at the same time argue that you can't tag it as rejected because of all the people that will follow links to the page and get the wrong impression.

Now can you please address the idea that I have raised a number of times now, of having a customised tag that makes it clear that this particular wording is rejected but much of the substance is being incorporated elsewhere? Both extremes, redirecting and tagging only with {{rejected}}, would be misleading. What is wrong with using a more accurate tag? --bainer (talk) 15:05, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

This may be controversial so can you please say exactly what the tag would say, SqueakBox 15:12, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Bainer, actually I can make that argument. The redirect is pretty much invisible; a page with a rejected tag on it is indexed by search engines. As long as it's sitting there with content on it, the chances are much greater that people read it, link to it, get ideas from it, etc. A redirect does not constitute BEANS; the proposal does.

I note that nobody has established any credible story where a redirect leads to an actual bad consequence. I'm pretty sure nobody can come up with such a scenario.

The custom tag... I'm not necessarily opposed to that. I think the redirect is better, and I think the argument that the redirect implies anything to anybody is silly, but you're right that a custom tag is better than simply a rejected tag.

By the way, what about "historical" as opposed to "rejected"? Is that an option? -GTBacchus^(talk) 21:05, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Some very good points in what GTBacchus is saying. For the record, I completely agree with Crum375 redirecting it, and I'm sorry to see another administrator using rollback on Crum's edit. ElinorD (talk) 14:53, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't agree with this proposed policy and I would like it to be permanently rejected. Removing direct links to attack pages it's ok, but removing generic links to sites that may contain somewhere attacks to wikipedians is unacceptable and should be considered ad a vandalism. So, either delete it, or make it a redirect, or at least let me remove that 'nutshell' box please. --Twilight 14:08, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Twilight, I think you are misunderstanding something. The argument is not for deleting links to sites "that may contain" attacks somewhere. The argument is for deleting links to sites that are run by people who harass Wikipedians by publishing their real names, photos, etc. Sites that engage in the practice of publishing private information about Wikipedians — not sites that have something completely legitimate as their regular business, but that have somewhere a page which attacks someone. ElinorD (talk) 14:53, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

ElinorD, with due respect, I think Twilight's message is valid - he has defined exactly how this rejected policy has been used by some individuals, and even administrators. Having said that, it is indeed a *rejected* policy as it stands, while relevant content has been included elsewhere. I'd encourage everyone to stay with the subject of this section, which is whether this *rejected* policy should simply say that it is rejected, or if it should be redirected elsewhere. Whether or not it is redirected, the customized *rejected* tag should remain in place. Risker 15:34, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Please review new proposal

Wikipedia:Linking to external harassment has been fleshed out with some more comprehensive general restrictions, and specific exemptions. Please have a look. ←Ben^B4 06:48, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Semi-protection request

Shouldn't Wikipedia policy pages be semi-protected? That's why I request this page to be semi-protected. --99.163.124.116 (talk) 02:36, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

You may propose a change to WP:SEMI on its talk page. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 17:10, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Kiwi Farms

This page WP:Attack sites was established in 2007 and is not changed much since then. There is a contemporary discussion about a website called Kiwi Farms which may be an attack site, and could be regulated by a Wikipedia policy on attack sites if one existed. No such policy exists right now. See the discussion

• Talk:Kiwi_Farms#RfC_on_linking_to_Kiwi_Farms

The accusation against Kiwi Farms is that it is a user generated content site were random Internet people meet to coordinate harassment activities against others. Kiwi Farms is particularly accused of being the forum which organized harassment leading to the deaths of several people.

That discussion is a bit different from the 2007 intent of this proposed policy, which was to block attacks against Wikipedia editors. If we revived this policy, I think it would be more useful to discuss when to block access to sites when there is evidence that they coordinate harassment against anyone, Wikipedian or not.

If we are going to block sites based on a rationale of them being attack sites, then I think we should have a documented policy of how this works and a process for logging evidence and discussions which led to the decision of blocking. Bluerasberry (talk) 15:22, 12 September 2022 (UTC)