Wikipedia talk:Attack sites/Archive 4

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So, where can we go from here?

I'm not going to be the one to restore the "rejected" tag, but I have to say that I see no movement to take this forward from a state which clearly lacks and is not going to achieve consensus. To wit:

1. In the section "What is an attack site?" the identifying marks are all controversial. The question of what constitutes "harrassment" is not agreed upon; the right to anonymity outside of Wikipedia is not agreed to; and the "legal threats" and "defamation" points have led to unresolved discussions of these matters.
2. The focus on Wikipedia Review has been rejected. The clarification of the arbcom remedies in the MONGO case makes it clear that they do not authorize the deletions that this proposal was invoked to justify. It also implies that there is no existing policy to enforce, other than the specific remedy against Ecyclopedia Dramatica.
3. Nothing has been done to the article text to address the concerns about overly broad definitions.

So far the only points I can see a consensus for are

• that the remedy against Encyclopedia Dramatica is acceptable, and
• that linking to specific revelations of Wikipedia user identity can be forbidden.

Neither of these seems to me to call for a policy change, and what we're left with is a draconian authorization for enforcement of deletions of material whose character we cannot define. Right now there is no consensus about what an attack site might be, much less whether it can be banned from mention in Wikipedia; and it seems to me that there is a hidden concensus that external investigations into the behavior of editors is germane to RfAs, RfMs, and indeed any place where evidence concerning the behavior of editors can be taken into account. It seems to me that we are not going to be able to write a rule for distinguishing what is appropriate from what is not; indeed, there is a hard core of resistance to even trying.

Therefore I don't see any reason for waiting around. Adding more voices to the existing positions isn't going make a consensus appear, and the article itself has only been edited to attach reference to the arbcom clarification, which as it stands is a step back from approval. Mangoe 13:41, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I want to ask just one question: do you find it acceptable that we allow the linking to sites that maliciously attack individual Wikipedians, and attempt to disclose their real-life identities? If you don't, what should we do about it? ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:04, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

It can be acceptable sometimes to link to the sites, although it's generally not acceptable to link directly to the attacks, except in very specific circumstances. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:08, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Good. Can we then codify that into a guideline, or expand WP:NPA to include this? ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:10, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Why would we need to do that? Current policy/guidelines already reflect this, so we don't need any changes. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:27, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

They don't. Where do you see that they do this as a blockable offense? - Denny ^(talk) 15:33, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

The last bullet point here deals with this entire issue fine. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:39, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

They do, actually. WP:NPA states that "Posting a link to an external source that fits the commonly accepted threshold for a personal attack" is not acceptable, so where's the problem? Why do we need this? Linking to personal attacks (and revealing personal non-public information is certainly a personal attack) is already disallowed and can lead to blocking per our no personal attacks policy. --Conti|✉ 15:41, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Good point. Existing policy says all there needs to be said about linking to attack content. We have received a comment from ArbCom that WR is not exclusively devoted to attacks. We had a straw poll above that speaks volumes. Could we just move on? —AldeBaer user:Kncyu38 15:47, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

If I may file off all the "leading the witness" parts of your question: If someone on an external site uncovers the identity of an editor so as to raise questions about the propriety of the editor's edits or other Wikipedia actions, it is 100% appropriate to cite that in discussion of that editor's behavior, no matter how rudely the cited material is phrased. A policy certainly could be established which makes participation conditional on not making such revelations outside Wikipedia (which is not to say that I advocate doing so), but since Wikipedia is in the real world (yes, I'm going to get around to writing that essay) editors are simply going be stuck with responsibility for what they do here. Wikipedia cannot do anything about such "attacks", and frankly I have to say that even meritless complaints about being banned (and there are lots of those out there) are not ipso facto "attacks". Those who took the trouble to look at WR saw that one of their running battles is with the very administrators who appear so frequently as defenders of the ban against WR; these admins are accused there, on a regular basis, of abusing their powers in order to WP:OWN articles and complaints about other editors. I have no idea whether their identification of SlimVirgin is correct, and it doesn't seem to me very relevant in the end; but it's obvious that they have a legitimate interest in finding out who she is. And as for some of the collateral damage accusations: if you are editing anonymously in order to protect you from a requirement by your employer not to, you are engaging in risky behavior. It may not be nice for someone to reveal you, or it may be entirely appropriate if for instance your editing creates a conflict of interest with your day job. But either way, to edit against the direction of your employer is to put yourself in harm's way.

So as far as doing anything about it, there's little we can do except ban people like Brandt. Well, and perhaps take more aggressive measures to reduce the perception of administrator abuses. We can't control what happens on these other sites, so I have to say that we cannot take actions here that essentially result in us taking some responsibility for their contents. Mangoe 15:57, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

ah, wrong, so wrong on so many different fronts I don't know where to begin, Mangoe. Who gives a rats arse if they are trying to find out who Slim Virgin is in real life...my guess is they are about as close to that as they are to figuring out who I am. We can do something about those attacks, and that includes ensuring this proposal is adopted to keep that kind of stupid speculation and harassment off wikipedia.--MONGO 16:33, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

But we can already remove links that contain such information per WP:NPA, right? --Conti|✉ 16:39, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I am convinced this needs to be codified as a seperate page, but that doesn't mean that I agree with the wording on this subject page. I just wish everyone would calm down and either get this worded right or we can reject it...whatever happens, happens.--MONGO 16:43, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd appreciate a more material response than "wrong, so wrong", but as I recall the justification for censoring these "outings" was to prevent stalking actions. Frankly, I think we need to eschew use of the word "harrassment" because it seems to mean anything that the target deems unpleasant. To take the canonical example, tattling about the target to the target's employer re Wikipedia editing isn't harassment, even if most of the time it's rude. And if the tattler is doing so because he believes that the employer should be enforcing a ban on editing, in line with the tattler's principles, it is a matter of moral obligation. Mangoe 19:20, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

User page personal attack against users here

This is clearly a personal attack on users who oppose Denny Ciolt on this page. Is this use of a user space in iorder to attack those who disagree with him acceptable? SqueakBox 15:35, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

He is allowed to express his opinion, but I would prefer to see him remove those comments. In addition, he, myself, Jossi, NewYorkBrad and a few others have opposed having this proposal tagged as rejected, and I am not happy about the editor who has twice replaced the rejected tag and referred to the opposition to this as "trolling". I am therefore once again removing the rejected tag.--MONGO 16:27, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I, for one, am for rejecting this as a policy proposal. —AldeBaer user:Kncyu38 16:29, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Denny also described this as trolling when he replaced the tag [1]. I think we should definitely not have the reject tag yet. Even though I support rejecting the proposal doing so prematurely will not, IMO, help the cause of seeing this proposal rejected. Lets give it another few days? Or at least have a poll about when to close and what is the consensus (I dont think voting is evil), SqueakBox 16:34, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Probably a reaction to WAS4.250 commentary here--MONGO 16:36, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Isn't this starting to sound like a fight among young siblings, full of "He started it!" "No, she started it!" "MOMMMMMMY... he's teasing me!" "Don't listen to her... she was teasing me first!" *Dan T.* 17:42, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Well I hope everyone will calm down over the next week, SqueakBox 17:44, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I will remove the comments as some claim to be offended by my opinion. Also, to reject OR accept there needs to be clear consensus OR historical basis in usage. Mangoe and WAS 4.250 both need to confirm and accept they as either admin or editor have no special rights in any way. WAS's tone in particular is troubling... he seems to think he is special in some fashion. - Denny ^(talk) 16:37, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Everyone needs to stop edit warring over this, I have asked for page protection so we can discuss this...why can't we stew on this over the weekend and make a decision on Monday?--MONGO 16:50, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree that contemplating over the w/end and coming backl to debate this fresh on Monday would be for the best, SqueakBox 16:54, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Brilliant ideas, Mongo - both the page protection and the taking a break. Risker 16:57, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Can everyone please remain civil, especially in edit6 summaries which are not easily removed. And can we work out the reject or not issue on this page and not the project page itself. Thanks for removing the material from your user page, Denny, I for one appreciate it as I consider myself to have high moral standards and do oppose the proposal, SqueakBox 16:53, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I just think we should either figure out the best wording for this or reject it. I just want to remind everyone that NOTHING on wiki is in stone, so we don't need to critique each other...let's just stick to the issue at hand. I'll try and draw up a new wording section by section and add it here and if we decide to make this a guideline, then fine and if not, well, then fine. If it is rejected, it will still exist and if things change in the future, we can once again see where everyone stands. I'm not convinvced we are getting all the feedback we need from all viewpoints about this proposal...so all I am asking for is a little more patience. For the record, I am shooting more for a guideline at this point than a policy.--MONGO 17:06, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Well advertising it, eg at the Village Pump and one of the admin pages would be helpful, IMO, as more input from other editors would certainly be welcome, SqueakBox 17:19, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Summary of ArbComm Clarification

Given that the initial author of this essay/proposed policy was the person who requested that ArbComm clarify its previous rulings with relation to attack sites, it seems unreasonable to exclude the response of the ArbComm at this point. Several editors seem to be removing it. Please stop. Right now this document belongs to the entire community, and edit warring to remove entirely relevant material with which one personally does not agree is not helping the position of those advocating continued debate. Denny, if you prefer to revert this back to a personal essay and withdraw it from review as a policy proposal, I guess you could include what you want in your own personal work. Risker 16:41, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree wholeheartedly. You can't just dismiss an ArbCom response because you don't like it, Denny. —AldeBaer user:Kncyu38 17:01, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I suport the inclusion of this material. Denny, when I said unexplained blanking here I meant that you should explain the blanking on the talk page not just in an edit summary. Thanks, SqueakBox 17:07, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, to be clear, Denny is not the only one who has removed this paragraph; at least two other editors have as well. Nonetheless, it reflects poorly that the ArbComm clarification requested specifically with respect to this matter is not included in the proposed policy. Risker 17:11, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Criticism

Including 'some attempt to engage in legitimate criticism' does not remove the attacks and harassment any more than the occasional spelling correction makes a persistent vandal a useful contributor. Rather than add an insightful critique, they need to remove the attacks. Tom Harrison ^Talk 17:08, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Good idea. Go and tell them. —AldeBaer user:Kncyu38 18:16, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

How about if we just don't link to them and see if they figure it out? Tom Harrison ^Talk 19:31, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

They appear to claim that if people weren't criticising us from their site they would be doing so elsewhere. Which makes sense, there is a need out there to criticise wikipedia (or WR wouldnt be as polular as it is) and it looks bad if we just censor that completely, it just doesn't serve wikipedia at all, IMO, especially when we dont censor what IMO are more virulent sites like Jew Watch. It makes us seem shrill and intolerant which I dont think will in any way benefit this project overall, SqueakBox 00:18, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Page protected

Alison has protected the page for a week, so that gives us time to come to a full consensus on this issue. I'll probably be removed from this for a couple days as I try and figure out the best way to word this. I know many have expressed that they want this to be rejected and those points aren't misunderstood, but I feel it is premature as this thing is not even a week old and there have been a number of voices that oppose rejecting this as of yet. Let's either make this work or reject it, but keep our discussions on wiki, not on the mailing list, or IRC. Thanks.--MONGO 17:40, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I fully agree that this is the only place to discuss this issue and that the proposal hasnt reached consensus to be either rejected or accepted at this point, SqueakBox 17:42, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I concur, additionally I admonish all good editors to fully observe the various conduct policies that are in place, particularly WP:AGF and WP:NPA, which don't require off-site links to violate. Best regards to all,--Academy Leader 18:04, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm skeptical about the chance for consensus support for this proposal, especially given the Free Republic issue (how do we handle sites which have attack content on their forums, but which are also clearly notable enough for Wikipedia pages?), but I agree that it's premature to mark it as rejected. Also agreed that there's been a lot of assuming bad faith going on. JavaTenor 18:10, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree, too. But let me annotate that a lot of assuming good faith has also been going on. More than in some other debates. It's probably too early to congratulate each other, but we're not completely on the wrong track, either. —AldeBaer user:Kncyu38 18:21, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

That's true, I didn't mean to imply that we were off track... my suggestion had more to do with "going forward" than "where we've been" in this debate. Best, --Academy Leader 18:41, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikipedia is in the real world is now available for your review

I've managed to create a first draft of this essay. As its subject is germane to the current proposal, I would appreciate reviews and revisions. Mangoe 18:44, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I can't see how that has anything to do with this. Editors have a right to edit harassment free as much as possible, therefore deliberately linking to websites that posts attacks and harassment shouldn't be allowed. I am trying to think of possible exceptions to this basic premise, but haven't considered all approaches yet. Your essay seems to indicate that we can't hide from attacks, but that doesn't mean we have to tolerate them either.--MONGO 19:00, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

What do "harass" and "tolerate" mean here, anyway? Are you planning to have the foundation sue Daniel Brandt for his revelations? 'Cos if you are, it doesn't take much legal acumen to figure out that the suit would fail.

The point of the essay is to point out limits to the possible. Within the context of this proposal, my position is that blanket bans of links to the supposed attack sites are no better protection from harassment than bans of links to pages with clearly circumscribed content deemed offensive. And even then, the determination of what gets deemed offensive is exceedingly fine. For example, in their identification of an cabal, a lot of what gets said has the character of a personal attack, by any even vaguely reasonable standard. But a lot of it is also in the form of investigative findings, of admittedly varied quality. So here's the question: does the identification of (not to put too fine a point on it) you, SilmVirgin, and Jayjg as members of this cabal count as harassment? And while I'm at it, am I prohibited from linking to threads documenting their "cabal" accusations because parts of it are undeiably offensive? Whatever the answer, the criticism of your behavior isn't going away, no matter how rudely it is phrased. Mangoe 20:40, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I should write an essay entitled "Don't Write Essays That State The Obvious." Of course, such an essay would state the obvious, so I guess I shouldn't write it.--Mantanmoreland 21:00, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, there seems no limit to the obliviousness to the obvious in this world. Mangoe 21:06, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

No, there are limits, but we are oblivious to them because they are so obvious.--Mantanmoreland 21:27, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Arbcom clarification

Why is the arbcom clarification being removed? It's the most pertinent statement we have from the Arbitration Committee on this matter, and was specifically requested by the author of this proposal. Cherrypicking statements to make your it appear that your proposal has support that it doesn't is a very bad idea. You can't simply dismiss it because they didn't come down on your side. Frise 19:21, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Also discussed here[2]. Risker 19:28, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

This is meant as a direct question. I want to know the reason why, from the people who are doing it. Frise 19:39, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Further clarification can be found here.--Mantanmoreland 21:26, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

They appear to contradict each other. — MichaelLinnear

No kidding?--Mantanmoreland 21:43, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

What? — MichaelLinnear 21:49, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

By which I meant, "yes, they do."--Mantanmoreland 21:51, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

OK — MichaelLinnear 21:53, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

My bad. The question mark was confusing.--Mantanmoreland 21:54, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Is it possible that some members of the committee are starting to think that their original decision was too extreme, set a bad precedent, and was an unwarranted act of judicial activism in an area where policy-by-consensus is preferred to edicts-by-fiat, so they're backing off it? *Dan T.* 22:05, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, Fred Bauder might be, he says, "Sites which make some attempt to engage in legitimate criticism such as Wikipedia Review present a different situation and should probably be addressed, not by a blanket prohibition, but on what is being linked to." However, Jayjg then says "It is quite appropriate to "generalize" this principle [total ban] to the case of Wikipedia Review..."— MichaelLinnear 21:49, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

As Michael said, a highly respected, senior member of Wikipedia and arbcom member has endorsed the decision to remove hate sites from Wikipedia. The process toward this being fully ratified is only just begun, but has made great forward strides! - Denny ^(talk) 22:56, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

JayJg is not an Arbcom member. Frise 23:05, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Fred Bauder in his official capacity, speaking for the Arbitration Committee' said something different Denny. — MichaelLinnear 23:08, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Thus, we have a former ArbCom member supporting the old ruling (and its extension to other sites), while a current ArbCom member opposes this. And there is also a newer ArbCom ruling where they upheld the ED link ban (but not unanimously this time), but explicitly voted down an extension of the ban to other sites. So the "process" taking place is in the direction of backing down from the overly strict original ruling, not extending it. *Dan T.* 23:28, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Yet another sign that this "proposed policy" is rapidly becoming a "rejected policy." — MichaelLinnear 23:31, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I'll also point out that the "highly respected" member is highly disrespected over on the Unspeakable Site, though you'll have to look for evidence of that yourself. It's not clear that we've advanced to thepoint of making a link the the site stick. Mangoe 23:42, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Are you saying that there might be a slight conflict of interest here? — MichaelLinnear 23:44, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Um, yeah, there is. Mangoe 00:11, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Things that need to cease in this discussion

• The Passive-agressive behavior. Please read this article and make sure you don't exhibit any of these signs.
• The Appeals to emotion, especially in edit summaries
• The accusations of disruption, trolling, and other misdeeds in edit summaries
• The ad hominem arguments and related deliberate misrepresention of other peoples' positions

Perform an honest evaluation of yourself and make sure this doesn't apply to you. Please be aware that most people here aren't stupid and see right through this type of behavior. It does nothing to help your argument. Quite the opposite, actually. Frise 19:40, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I think homicidal, suicidal and schizophrenic behavior is even less desirable, and fortunately has been absent from this discussion.--Mantanmoreland 21:03, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Weird reply, if I may say so. Frise asks for a self-check of our behaviour. I take it you're not so much into all that Human self-reflection stuff? —AldeBaer user:Kncyu38 21:34, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Not at all. I am totally wrapped up in myself. I was just attempting a note of levity. I think the discussion has been quite civil, and that we don't have to be quite so heavy about it. The essay has been protected for one week, after all. --Mantanmoreland 21:43, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I have a great idea; why don't we just cut off the source by rejecting this proposal? Then we all win. See #1 at #What is the purpose of this page?. Milto LOL pia 23:55, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Hear, hear! But it might be interesting to see this train wreck go on for another week or so.--Academy Leader 00:09, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Ha ha, as much as I love rubbernecking at an utter debacle like this, it's probably better to draw this fiasco to a close. — MichaelLinnear 01:17, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA? Frise 01:25, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Because I'm cold, cruel, evil, and I love to gloat over the fallen corpses of rejected policies. :P — MichaelLinnear 01:38, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

A bit of Google OR

Here's a bit of Google OR. See, we are already number two on their Attack sites search phrase. How is this helping protect the privacy of wikipedians? SqueakBox 23:59, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Ironic indeed. Combine this with Miltopia's points it just goes to show how incredibly ineffective and counterproductive this proposal has been. — MichaelLinnear 00:02, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

SqueakBox, you're being such a pessimist. Why can't you see the wisdom in linking to past instances of harassment, thereby giving anyone ignorant of the situation a full look at the harassment and attack pages created about Wikipedians, and exposing the victims' identities for all to see? Recognition rocks! Milto LOL pia 00:04, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Well if Wikipedia itself eliminated all signs of past harrassment most arbcom cases would collapse, dont you think? And would we not be better off debating this flaw in our system, SqueakBox 00:08, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Miltopia, calling someone a pessimist isn't going to help. Unless I'm mistaken,SqueakBox, your proposal is covered under WP:BEANS?--KZ^{Talk• Contribs} 00:25, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

*sigh* I was being sarcastic, sorry. I think SqueakBox pretty much has the point right on. Milto LOL pia 00:28, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I bet we've given tons more publicity for the so-called "attack sites", and attracted much more interest in them, by this whole big debate than those sites ever would have received from a few inobtrusive links, in non-attack-related contexts, if they had been left alone. This whole debate is a big violation of WP:BEANS. *Dan T.* 00:42, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

As I said several hundred lines earlier, the only reason the Unspeakable Site caught my attention was as a result of an edit that User:DennyColt performed under the aegis of this back when it was still a lowly essay. Mangoe 02:27, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

On the other hand SqueakBox, you might have uncovered the objective. Frise 01:26, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

When will people learn that when you pass special rules against something, you empower it? Prohibition empowered organized crime. The war on drugs keeps drug lords in business. The war on terrorism has inspired a new generation of terrorists. Passing special rules against attack sites will make them more visible, and engender more attacks, and generally steepen the drama gradient between here and there, thus leading to more problems.

Our job here is to be very, very boring, and write an encyclopedia, not to seek justice or anything else. If we just do our boring job, the pain and drama will go away, but throwing energy at it like this is so counterproductive, and so many steps removed from what we're supposedly here for. -GTBacchus^(talk) 07:41, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

But all news becomes old real quick. If this is promoted or not, either way, it will not do the opposite of what it is intended to do for long. All this is is a codification of existing practice...we have been removing harassment from wiki for a long time...this simply is something to point to when we do remove the links and someone says, hey, why'd you do that...it also ensures that those who come here for the sole purposes of posting links to harassment can be blocked without some long argument ensuing on AN/I or elsewhere. What we need to do is identify what an "Attack site" is and I'm trying to come up with a working definition.--MONGO 07:52, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate that you're working from the best of motives, MONGO. I guess we just disagree about what's likely to be effective. Under current policy, is it really so difficult to stop someone from making personal attacks? Does it really happen that we're having trouble blocking people who need to be blocked, because we lack a proper definition of "attack site"? I would think the block should occur because of the harassment itself, not because of the site linked to. Trying to catch harassers because of the URL they link to seems weirdly indirect to me.

Maybe you're right, and maybe taking a hard line against certain URLs is the best thing we can do, but I'm not seeing it. I really think that making special rules about "attack sites" is likely to steepen the drama gradient and bring about unintended consequences. If someone asks me why I blocked someone or removed a link, and I point to WP:BADSITES, then they're one click away from this talkpage, and from endless discussions about why people disagree with this guideline, etc. If I just explain to them politely and clearly that we routinely remove personal attacks, and point them to the very stable policy WP:NPA, I think they've got less to argue with.

All that said, I support your idea of giving this page a good faith rewrite and deciding quickly whether we want to promote or reject it. -GTBacchus^(talk) 08:14, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes I support a good faith rewrite as well as we cant undo what is done. Then hopefully a swift but widely debated conclusion, SqueakBox 20:44, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

If it's Draconian, people will be opposed to it. If it's passive, it'll be instruction creep. I'm not sure if there if there is a point in between those, with something of this nature. Gracenotes^T § 20:47, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Can we at least settle this one question?

Can I put the reference back in this article that was scrubbed on the basis of this proposal? Mangoe 02:28, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

If you're not an admin, not until it's unprotected. *Dan T.* 02:36, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Even if you are an admin you really shouldn't, not while it's protected. — MichaelLinnear 02:42, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant the reference in the talk page here. Mangoe 02:43, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Unless you have more to say on the topic, it might be better to consider the discussion closed. I don't think a stand on principle would facilitate further discussion with those who are adamantly opposed to WR. The link is still retrievable to people who are curious about it via the history tab. If you insist on principle message my talk page and I'll find and restore the link (once) to keep you from getting blocked. But unless you have more to say on it I don't think this would be an appropriate course of action now.--Academy Leader 03:04, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

There's a bit of a paradox here. If the discussion is truly closed, this is because the proposal is dead, and thus nobody should be authorized to block anybody for violating such a nonexistent policy. However, it would also be mostly pointless to revert a link within a dead discussion page, except perhaps for historical interest. On the other hand, if the discussion is still "live", this could be an indication that the proposed policy still has life in it, and might perhaps become enforceable; however, that is the situation under which having the link might be necessary to a vigorous debate of it. It can get as paradoxical as "This Sentence Is False". *Dan T.* 03:43, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, but I didn't intend to get quite that metaphysical. By "discussion closed" I just meant that no one seemed to be commenting anymore on the topic under that heading [3]. Though we could say that the discussion there was violently terminated, or shifted in focus, by removal of the link, I don't think restoring the link would be a good idea in moving forward and "closing" the larger argument, in "winning the war," so to speak. (But I appreciate your thoughts on that!) Academy Leader 03:59, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I can see not restoring the particular reference in question, but we seem to be hung up on whether or not we can actually refer to the website in assessing it. Mangoe 04:50, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Which means, even in apparent defeat, this proposal is still having a chilling effect on discussion. *Dan T.* 04:57, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, it might be interesting to post diffs from the WP history log with the reference on it, to see what happens. But I would say unless you need to make a point using the reference in question, don't do it, as they've already "proved" your point re: overzealous enforcement of (proposed!) policy and suppression of free inquiry.--Academy Leader 05:05, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Just you wait... I expect to see "blocked per WP:PANDA" as a block reason soon... Gracenotes^T § 20:22, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Do remember that if you feel a block is unjustified that there are ways of complaining, eg the arbcom. All questionable admin actions can be taken to this august body and perhaps a somebody's being blocked on this issue could be used to gain clarification on what admins are and arent entitled to do, SqueakBox 20:30, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

← So: don't disrupt Wikipedia to make a point: wait for the disruption, and then make your point! Sorry, I'm feeling a bit facetious today. Gracenotes^T § 20:43, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

For every Wikipedian's review, I've assembled the diffs re: removal and reinsertion of the reference in question.

03:43, 12 April 2007 Kzrulzuall (talk · contribs) reverts Dtobias (talk · contribs): [4]

03:37, 12 April 2007 Dtobias (talk · contribs) reverts Crum375 (talk · contribs): [5]

03:10, 12 April 2007 Crum375 (talk · contribs) reverts Mangoe (talk · contribs): [6]

03:08, 12 April 2007 Mangoe (talk · contribs) reverts SlimVirgin (talk · contribs): [7]

03:07, 12 April 2007 SlimVirgin (talk · contribs) reverts Mangoe (talk · contribs): [8]

02:56, 12 April 2007 Mangoe (talk · contribs) "restores cite" removed 10:32, 11 April 2007 by AldeBaer (talk · contribs): [9]

10:32, 11 April 2007 AldeBaer (talk · contribs) "removing link to attack site" posted 14:05, 10 April 2007 by Mangoe (talk · contribs): [10]

03:24, 11 April 2007 Crum375 (talk · contribs) "removed link to attack site" posted 03:04, 11 April 2007 by AldeBaer (talk · contribs): [11]

03:04, 11 April 2007 AldeBaer (talk · contribs) duplicates (still live) link to identical reference initially posted 14:05, 10 April 2007 by Mangoe (talk · contribs) (there was no edit warring at this point.): [12]

14:05, 10 April 2007 Mangoe (talk · contribs) initially posts linked reference: [13]

Academy Leader 23:28, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

If this is the kind of blindly quixotic audacity with which people are going to enforce WP:BADSITES (if it becomes policy), that seems like reason enough to at least be rather wary of it. Gracenotes^T § 02:11, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't enforcing the policy. My edit summary states what I was trying to do... and I think it worked to a mild degree... --Kz^{Talk• Contribs} 02:16, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't referring to your edit, nor to most of the list of edits; mediating is a good thing, methinks. Sorry for any confusion. I was merely noting that enforcing a non-rule item when its status is disputed leads me to fear its enforcing if it were policy. Gracenotes^T § 02:36, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

What if they deserve articles?

I'm sure that at some point, ED (or some attack site) will garner coverage in some reliable source. If we have a policy against linking to attack sites, what is supposed to happen? Just tell the readers "We don't like this site so you can't go to it"? -Amarkov moo! 20:22, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Well we could change our primary goal from being the encyclopedia of everything to the encyclopedia of everything that isnt critical of us. Perhaps somebody could ask Jimbo to change his memeorable quote about our primary goal? SqueakBox 21:05, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

You mean, as a ferinstance, if some day the proprietor of one of these sites is arrested for cyberstalking? That is certainly within the realm of possibility and I guess it would warrant a mention. --Mantanmoreland 02:46, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Well IMO the day a wikipedia editor gets arrested for wikstalking is the day we'll all feel safer, SqueakBox

Write your congressman! ;)--Mantanmoreland 03:02, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

What I mean is when ED gets notable enough that some bored reporter decides to cover it, which I believe is likely to happen at some point. Then, by our standards, it deserves an article, and nobody's explained what to do about it. No, restricting coverage of things which criticize us isn't a solution, because that excludes pretty much everyone in the mass media who ever has mentioned us. -Amarkov moo! 04:31, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Eh, bored reporters: the bane of the deletionists' cabal. Gracenotes^T § 04:36, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

As ED is now, if their articles remain similar, we won't likly have an article on them ever, just as we don't on WR or the hivemind pages.--MONGO 04:34, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

So you are saying that, even if they do get sourced, we still won't have articles on attack sites? Not being judgemental here, it's just kinda important that people who support this policy realize that's a necessary effect. -Amarkov moo! 04:39, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I can't predict the future, but as it stands now, it would likely take more than a few news sources to make an article on ED possible and that goes with the couple others I mentioned. Though consensus may determine whether we ever do or not, past dicussions have generally been centered around more than just whether these types of websites could be referenced.--MONGO 04:46, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I concur that it is unlikely the more obvious sites that meet the "attack" definition will become notable enough for an article for some time, though I shudder at the thought that this page might be attracting enough attention to get some of those bored reporters curious about them. Unfortunately, not all sites that meet the description used in this proposal are the obvious ones. I myself can think of two sites that would meet the description, and are also used quite heavily in project space, and one of them has an article right now. Risker 04:57, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, it's not such a stretch to imagine a site somewhere in the grey area - not such an obvious attack site as WR, but still hosting harassing material. Such a site might become notable for some completely different reason, having nothing to do with its anti-Wikipedia material. Would we then have an aritcle on it? The quesiton's impossible to answer in the abstract; we'll just have to find out when, and if, that happens. -GTBacchus^(talk) 05:54, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

OK, that was completely out of line

User:Crum375 deleted an entire response of mine because I linked to the Unspeakable Site to illustrate my points. This is intolerable. First, I take it as WP:POINT and frankly bordering on a personal attack. Second, since he is one of the people being criticized by the Unspeakable Site, I consider this a bad faith edit. Third, it's excessive; even if one holds that the site cannot be linked, deleting the whole thing is unnecessary. Fourth, the arbcom clarification specifically disallows it. And fifth, we're back to the Catch-22 problem that we cannot offer evidence about the site to demonstrate that evidence about the site can be offered.

I'm not going to revert the censorship yet, but right now this discussion is dead in the water, since now we're going to have to go through mediation/arbcom to establish that we can even have it. Mangoe 03:17, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Mangoe, as I noted on your talk page, your post could have been perfectly OK had you just stuck to generics. Talk about a generic attack site, that attacks generic WP editors, with no hinting at any specific sites or editors, and all would be fine. If, however, you link to specific attack sites, which make specific attacks on specific editors, then you are furthering those attacks and harassment by repeating them here. If you are really concerned about the generic issues, then please just make your arguments and examples generic. Thank you for understanding. Crum375 03:35, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

What I understand is that you (as well as others) are trying to WP:OWN the discussion. I've asked for mediation as part of the existing case. Mangoe 03:42, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Not at all. All I want is to make sure we don't post attacks on our editors, either directly or by linking to an attack elsewhere. I have no problem at all with discussing any generic issue, but we should not attack or harass individual editors. Crum375 03:49, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

But isn't the very thing we're debating here whether a link to something unrelated to harrassment that happens to be in such a site is acceptable or not, with the side that thinks it's sometimes OK (on a case by case basis) winning by a long shot? In that case, there's no legitimate ground for enforcing a rejected policy. *Dan T.* 03:59, 15 April 2007 (UTC) (UTC)

If you follow what was deleted here, it was clear harassment and attack. Crum375 04:08, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Now we are back to step 1.... Can we stop arguing for a minute and come up with a resolution that we can live with. These accusations are not very productive... --Kz^{Talk• Contribs} 04:06, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Is there any way we can all agree not to link to any of the sites that are being discussed as "attack sites" while we're still talking about it? I think if we could all agree to that, it would be a helpful good-faith gesture that might lower the temperature a bit. Is that a truce everybody can live with? -GTBacchus^(talk) 05:01, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

NO In fact, it's the opposite of the only truce I see as reasonable. A moratorium on making or deleting such links outside this discussion makes sense, and from what I can see it's happening anyway. There were never very many such links to begin with, from what I can see, though it is possible that his crude deletions allowed his detection where others have been more successful in covering their tracks. But it is impossible to advance this without discussion of the actual content of the site that was, for better or worse, put forth as a test case. Mangoe 12:20, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

In the spirit of allowing that the other side might have a point, can we possibly agree to approach such links with caution? Maybe you can describe some content, in generic terms, and we can talk about whether or not it would be appropriate to link to such content? We could even circulate links by email, as long as people feel comfortable with that medium.

I'm looking for compromises because advancing the discussion is more important than being right. Is that something you'd be willing to make a small sacrifice for, Mangoe? -GTBacchus^(talk) 03:25, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

One immediate compromise....

....as i pointed out above (under is this misuse?) - it's not purely the the removal of a link that seems wrong, but the removal of an entire post - you can just leave it there with [link removed] instead of the link - would you mind agreeing to this (Crum, etc....) for now?

You see, there's no need to take anything but the link away - you may not agree, but please try to explain the justification for removing any more than just the link - i don't get it at the moment....

best - Purples 05:11, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

There is clearly no justification for removing another user's comments completely. Perhaps Denny was right that the troll template is needed here (which I wont link to for the saftey of other wikipedia users), although what a shame! Perhaps an impartial admin would care to to block Crum, albeit for a few mins, SqueakBox 05:15, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any need for a block...linking to attack sites while we are discussing not linking to them is disruptive.--MONGO 05:32, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Um, that completely begs the question. At this point it's up to you to prove that it is an attack site, which proof requires references to what was actually said. At the moment, the claim that they are an attack site is an unsubstantiated attack. Mangoe 12:24, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

(ec)::Yes but if I make a serious point to you and include the word effing you should replace effing with [censored]. You should not remove the whole comment as it just looks like an attempt to manipulate a debate in one's own favour, and who is going to respect that? Crunm could have removed the link not the whole comment and by removing the whole comment he was surely engaging in a personal attack. By showing we dont tolerate censorship dont we give ourselves more validity? and by tolerating on site attacks and not off site attacks dont we show ourselves in such a poor light that we pretty soon wont have any volunteers left? And dont we just feed WR, who are obviousl;y monitoring every word of this debate? SqueakBox 05:42, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Furthermore, blocks aren't punitive but preventative. I don't see that Crum375 is on some kind of comment-removal spree and needs to be stopped. -GTBacchus^(talk) 05:33, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Well a 2 min block would send a powerful message without being punitive. Otherwise what? We just tolerate users removing other users messages because they dont like them and if we agree with the deletor we turn a blind eye. What kind of message is that? SqueakBox 05:42, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

We talk about it, and we engage the user in discussion, and we work it out, maintaining civility and assumption of good faith the whole time. That sends the message that we're acting like professionals and being effective rather than emotional. -GTBacchus^(talk) 05:44, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Removing links to sites while we are discussing the foolishness of trying to ban such links is disruptive. *Dan T.* 13:33, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

However, removing them while we're discussing the wisdom of banning such links is common sense. Please consider that we're dealing with more than one perspective here. The discussion will be advanced further by thinking pluralistically than by digging into trenches. We can't assume that either side is right a priori, ok? That means that we should be very circumspect when talking about specific examples.

A big part of productive discussion is allowing for the possibility that the other guy might have a point. Would it be possible for Mangoe to describe the sort of content that was linked to, and then we can talk about why it might or might not be appropriate to link to such content? -GTBacchus^(talk) 03:22, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

The unacceptability of deleting other users comments

Okay. Here goes.....Crum, please dont delete others users comments under any circumstances. If you see an attack within another user's comments remove the attack and explain your reasons without fail here, SqueakBox 05:47, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

SqueakBox, I did want to remove the link only, but then I realized that there was actual discussion of a specific editor mentioned in the link in the text itself. So I would have had to somehow modify the verbiage of the post in a non-trivial manner to make it generic, if I really wanted to excise mention of individuals, and I felt this was inappropriate. Instead, I removed the entire post and suggested to the editor to re-post it generically, without mentioning specifics. I felt this was the only reasonable course, given that I wanted to eliminate the effective personal attack immediately. I am willing to assume that the editor had no malicious intent by posting this information. Crum375 11:10, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

And what about this edit? —AldeBaer 13:28, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

This is a link to an essay, which is generic, but as you scroll below it you can find at least one personal attack in the lower posts, plus if you scroll up to the top and navigate to any of the other main parts of the site, you can find copious amounts of attacks and harassment of our editors. In that case, the attack site link was the essence of the short post, so I removed the post with an appropriate comment. The original poster could re-post while not linking to a specific attack site, full of harassment and attacks. If we are discussing generic issues, there is no reason to promote or facilitate actual attacks on editors by linking to specific sites. Crum375 16:37, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation, SqueakBox 18:26, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

A link to an essay containing: "Examples of provocative responses:

• Question the anti-partisan’s motives.
• Accuse the anti-partisan of being disruptive.
• Stop responding to the anti-partisan’s talk page comments while still reverting, using a tag-team if necessary, any attempts to contribute to the article.
• Shift from reverting the anti-partisan’s undesirable attempts to contribute to aggressively reverting any and all attempts by the anti-partisan to contribute no matter how minor the changes." was deleted. Maybe someone felt described, I mean attacked. WAS 4.250 15:59, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

What is an "attack site"

Risker has asked me on my talkpage to begin working on this definition. He linked to a website that has many links to hate sites...sites that seem to promote hatred on the web. It's a pretty expansive list. Anyway, for our defintion, I would suggest that an attack site is

• ...any website in which the contributors compile evidence that is used to try and discover the real world identities of Wikipedia contributors

This can be reworded of course and I hope we can come up with a working definition. I think that the link provided by Risker on my talk page falls under a different category if it is not doing what is in my summary above...they fall under the category of "hate sites". So maybe that needs another page...maybe this and that need to be codified into WP:NPA in better detail than is attributed there...I don't know yet. I feel even though a lot of folks have commented on WP:CREEP...(that excessive policy and rules pages are anarchy)...that we still need this page. I've been in the forefront in trying to help editors here defeat harassment. I have worked with a number of editors in this effort, and done some behind the scenes work as well. For a lot of people these days, real life harassment is a serious issue...even if the people who post these things about real life identities do so just for the sake of curiousity, real miscreants also read these things...I mean some real bad folks, people. I know, I have had to deal with them in my job in the past. I think for those people who want to remain anonymous, it is critical we do all we can to assist them...we need to make contributors here know that we do not support harassment on wiki, or imported from elsewhere into wiki, and we will defend them from it.--MONGO 05:49, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

The concept of attack sites has fuzzy boundaries, so a clear-cut definition can never be given. I propose the following list of characteristics of attack websites

Attack websites contain a substantial fraction of

1. Outing or other invasions of privacy or

2. Ad hominen criticisms on non-public figures or

3. Abusive language

In addition

4. The attacks should be generated by Wikipedia. A mere perpetuation within Wikipedia of an internet conflict outside of Wikipedia does not make a website an attack site. For example, the homepage of Michael Moore is not an attack site if Mr. George W. Bush incidentally becomes a Wikipedia contributor.

Webpages or posts in a forum (including Wikipedia) are called attack pages if they contain

1. Any outing or other invasions of privacy or if they contain a substantial fraction of items 2 or 3 listed here above.

Trenchant non-abusive criticism of the editing behavior of certain Wikipedia editors should not be considered a characteristic of an attack site, forum post or webpage. Andries 08:00, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Not all "outings" are "invasions of privacy." Privacy is never a guarantee and should not be considered as such. Furthermore, the idea of a "non-public figure" is not one anyone's going to agree with - one could make the argument, for instance, that writing for a top 10 website is not the act of a private person. And "abusive language?" if I drop an F-bomb on a site that criticizes Wikipedia, oh well? How silly. As for #4, that can be debated to death, but one could say, for instance, that the Katefan issue was not perpetuated by Wikipedia, but by a percieved separate conflict. I wouldn't buy it, but that doesn't mean others won't. The holes are too big. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:36, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

When would an outing not be an invasion of privacy? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:28, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I would agree with SlimVirgin on this. What do you think the motivation of the "outers" are? It is to intimidate editors on wikipedia by inviting real world harassment. I disagree with badlydrawnjeff contention that writing for wikipedia is not the act of a private person. If that were so, then having a myspace page would make you a public person, too. Or what about when you post to a message forum of a popular newspaper? WW, ED and probably WR are all "attack sites". --rogerd 20:01, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

On a mostly unrelated note, I think having a MySpace page really does make people quite a bit more public than they may expect, given, well, any number of these links. JavaTenor 20:44, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. It will be clear that I think that the definition of an "attack site" will never be completely clear and is not a black and white issue, and so there will always be holes. Andries 13:44, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Considering the critical reception of Michael Moore's films, many would be moved to refer to his homepage as an "attack site" regardless of whether or not the president takes up editing in Wikipedia. Mangoe 17:10, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Youi guys are confusing the WP:BLP issues with Wikipedia editors...though some Wikipedians have biographies here, those are already protected by policy. Individual wikipedia editors in themselves are not as specifically protected aside from the oftentimes vaguely defined NPA policies...in which there is incessant wikilawyering as to what a personal attack is. My summary makes it clear what an attack site is...this is not about biographies.--MONGO 17:15, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

If it quacks like a duck, it is a duck. Harassment and outing have real-world consequences. People know this and can be discouraged from contributing by a sustained campaign. Anonymous editing is important, and so this interferes with our work. Even more important, outing can jeopardize a real person's job or family. Linking to an attack site is working against ourselves.

Linking to a site devoted to abusing our fellow volunteers feeds the flames, and the trolls, whether there is a real underlying disagreement, an imagined offense, or a pretext just for drama. Not linking helps deny recognition and avoids promoting the site.

Removing these links does not deny our readers any encyclopedic resource, any more than removing links to spam or random blogs.

This is something most of us already do - remove links to attack sites. Writing it down will let all of us work with less worry that the project we are contributing to is contributing to our harassment. Tom Harrison ^Talk 22:33, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Unless you can get Google to stop indexing those sites, they'll be out there for our enemies to easily discover any time they want to. Not linking them here mostly gets in the way of us seeing, discussing, and responding to what our enemies are doing and saying... it does nothing at all to impede anything they're doing against us. *Dan T.* 22:38, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm off to church, so I can't come back to this until evening. But I don't see how we can discuss what an attack site is without discussing exactly how the one site that is being blocked at the moment fits or does not fit the standards people propose. Mangoe 13:46, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

From what I have gathered from this proposed policy (I don’t think guideline would be the correct classification for something dealing with harassment of others), it looks like this is long overdue. I noticed it was locked down till Apr 20th, but I don’t think it needs too much more tweaking. As the internet is a dynamic place ever-changing, keeping the defining characteristics of what is an attack site more in a general sense will allow administration and editors keep up with the new sites that appear that harass editors. I think overall this needs to be moved forward to a full policy. JungleCat Shiny!/Oohhh! 02:17, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Policy RFC anyone? Also, related "privacy" proposals rejected

Though discussion here is already rather unwieldy, it seems that voices we are mainly familiar with have been doing most of the talking. Would anyone be interested in formulating a substantiative query for an Wp:rfc#Request_comment_on_policy_and_conventions? This may bring in more third parties into this discussion. Also, was anyone aware of the debate (or lack of one) re: the rejection of various privacy proposals, two of which were explicitly designed to protect our vulnerable youth from the sort MONGO seems most worried about? [14]

The individual rejected proposals are:

Wikipedia:Protecting children's privacy

Wikipedia:Youth protection

Wikipedia:Privacy

Before I read the utter lack of comments from the hardcore proponents of this policy on those pages (except for Crum375, who helped sink Wikipedia:Protecting children's privacy!), I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and think they were sincere in caring about the safety and well-being of all Wikipedians. Now I can see they only care about themselves, and are willing to construct policy purely in view of their own benefit. They don't care about other Wikipedians, they only supported this policy because they saw that WR was on to them. I say, just deserts! Academy Leader 07:46, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Crum375's thoughts on ArbCom and consensus:

ArbCom does not set policy, and I don't see anywhere in ArbCom's decision where they declared this proposal a policy, or even a guideline. They did conclude that the community "failed to achieve consensus" about it, and that further work is needed. I think we all agree and accept that no consensus was reached. Crum375 12:19, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[15]

And morality:

I think WP:BG&E was rejected because it is unnecessary and sounds like a trollish hoax anyway. The way I see it, WP's mission and mandate is to spread well sourced notable knowledge and present it in a neutral way. Most of us here believe that that mission alone is a moral common denominator. Going beyond this common mission starts down a slippery slope to imposing one's own brand of morality on others. Crum375 16:48, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[16]

Also, Radiant! (talk · contribs) seems ok (thankfully!), but neither was he a heavy hitter in favor of this policy.--Academy Leader 08:51, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I haven't been fully following this, and don't know why or when the above comments were struck, and the history is too long and complicated for me to want to investigate it. I hope that it was Academy Leader who struck the comments. It may not be completely appropriate to respond to something that has been crossed out, but the point I want to make is such an important one, that I think I should do so. It is a point which addresses the abominable insinuation that people in favour of banning links are only in favour of it because their (possible) identities are reported on these sites.

Let me state, as a victim of one of the worst cases of real life stalking that Wikipedia has had, that some of the people who are pushing for this policy, and some of the people who have or had what may be their real names, photos, and contact details on some of the stalking sites, were people who absolutely overwhelmed me with their kindness and support when this first happened to me, and before it happened to them. There were several who sent me kind, supportive messages, watched over my user and talk pages, where sexually-sadistic, gloating posts were appearing, reverted, blocked, and deleted histories, while I was asleep — without ever drawing attention to it. There were several who traced IPs, made abuse reports, offered to make phonecalls, tracked down contact details of police and FBI agents for the relevant location. There was one who sent me his real name and address, although it wasn't public on Wikipedia, and told me to call on him anytime. There was one who did everything he could to spare me distress, jumping in to answer awkward questions about why an article had been deleted, leaving discreet messages of support, e-mailing me after I had apologized for not keeping him updated, to say that I should not feel any obligation to respond to correspondence from him, and that I should know I had his support regardless of how recently we had e-mailed. At the time that this started, deleting and partially restoring a page could take half an hour, or longer, yet all these people were prepared to do that for me.

I will further state that of all the people who were kind and supportive, I can think of only one who thinks it can be okay to post the URL of a site that speculates on the identities of editors who wish to remain anonymous. I'm not going to identify the editors who helped me, as I don't want to expose them to any (further) harassment. But I will say that the implication that they only support removal of the links because they are in danger of exposure, and they don't care about others is one of the most offensive things I have ever seen on Wikipedia. Musical Linguist 13:42, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Help me with a better interpretation. I can only judge myself, and I strongly believe that not having been the target of an outing campaign is what enables me to argue for some caution when it comes to carte blanche bans against controversial sites. You're basically calling me an ass because I would like to be able to link to subpages without personal attacks? How much more ad hominem can it get? I hate attacks on any Wikipedia editors and I do feel sorry for what happened to you, but this is not a matter of emotional reaction. We simply need a rule how to proceed with possibly problematic links. Obviously problematic ones are forbidden anyway by existing policy. —AldeBaer 18:26, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I understood that the next morning after I posted the above, so I struck my own comments. Still, the relative uproar over this proposal and the relative lack of interest (or less conflicted interest) in the related failed "privacy" proposals, especially concerning children's privacy, does seem worthy of some social analysis. I made my own immediate connections, and posted them, but realized independently they were grossly inappropriate per this immediate discussion. Comparing the thematic elements of the two policy area discussions, what seems to be animating this one are actual, linkable instances of outing attempts as opposed to a more nebulous specter of "child endangerment." As I understand the circumstances, those discussions might have failed due to the lack of observable instances of such re: minors on Wikipedia, and for the relative lack of self-identified minors (or specific victims, or their guardians) involved with those discussions. It would be a natural response for victims of such sites to militate against them, and it does not necessarily follow that they are self-interested. I was wrong to suggest such, but there must be some objective way of accounting for the lack of a vigorous community effort to push the proposed privacy policies through. My utmost apologies if I have offended anyone.--Academy Leader 18:35, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Discussion of Individual Sites that some consider to be "Attack" Sites

I notice that someone quoted Fred Bauder's ArbCom comment above where he states that Wikipedia Review is okay to mention on Wikipedia because it often presents valid critiques of things ongoing in the project. Since that time, it appears to now be okay to mention Wikipedia Review without being warned and having the comment "oversighted." Since this policy seeks to label entire sites as "attack" sites and put them "off-limits" to mention on Wikipedia, I think we should list all of the potentially offending sites here and debate on why or why not they are "attack" sites. Until we can openly discuss these, we're not going to get anywhere. How are we going to decide if a site is against this policy if the mere mention of the site's name is immediatly "oversighted" (i.e. the "unmentionable" site(s)) and the person who mentioned it is threatened with a "block?" Wikipedia may not be a democracy, but it isn't (at least not supposed to be) so Orwellian either. Cla68 23:28, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Fred's opinion was contradicated by another member of the ArbCom from the Mongo case period, and he quoted the actual ruling, which would clearly include Wikipedia Review. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:30, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

He wrote: "Actually, speaking as an arbitrator who was involved in the MONGO case, the unanimous Arbitration Committee ruling there was quite clear: A website that engages in the practice of publishing private information concerning the identities of Wikipedia participants will be regarded as an attack site whose pages should not be linked to from Wikipedia pages under any circumstances. Since Wikipedia Review spends a fair bit of time in various attempts to do exactly this, it is clearly an attack site as defined by the Arbitration Committee ruling. Fred voted for this statement, as, for that matter, did I. It is quite appropriate to "generalize" this principle to the case of Wikipedia Review, since these broad principles are stated for exactly this purpose, and since the application is quite obvious and appropriate in this case." Jayjg (talk) 21:17, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

No, he did not write that; you did. diff Mangoe 23:57, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

What are you talking about. The diff that you give shows clearly that it was Jayjg who wrote that. ElinorD (talk) 14:10, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

OK, I see that-- though it doesn't really help. Two arbcom members disagreeing (much less two against one) is hardly clear. Mangoe 14:31, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

• I was checking out WR and didn't see any outing. Can anyone point me to where this is occurring? .V. _[Talk|Email] 23:52, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I understand why some of you are eager to try to protect yourselves from sites that try to "out" things about your private lives, especially since some of them are apparently trying to target the most active or "powerful" administrators in the project (by powerful I mean admins with extra "powers" such as "oversight" authority or members of the ArbCom). Some of these sites, do, however, sometimes point-out some significant, article-related problems occurring on Wikipedia, which was the case with the Gary Weiss article that I helped clean-up recently, and for which in return I've received a fair degree of "grief" (And to be honest I could have handled the situation better. But, the problem with the article did exist and did need correction.). Fred's opinion that we should be able to selectively quote from sites that present a valid case of a problem on Wikipedia is valid. If another site points-out a POV or COI problem with an article on Wikipedia, and backs it up with evidence that anyone can validate for themselves, then that article should be available for consideration, discussion, and/or debate here in the project. However, only that particular article can/should be linked to. If the rest of the site tries to "embarrass" or humiliate administrators of this project by giving unrelated details of their private lives, then I support putting that sort of calumny off-limits.

How then, do we decide, what is valid for linkage and what isn't? I say that the policy should state that any article that critiques Wikipedia and allowed to be linked to, must relate to a POV or COI issue, and must present evidence that can be verified by a neutral party. I believe that the article that originally pointed me to the Gary Weiss article does just that, and is therefore not an "attack" article, but a valid critique that merits discussion and shouldn't be censored by a "blanket" policy that might inhibit corrective actions here in the project. Cla68 23:58, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with the article in question, but it seems to me the subject probably has you to thank for those issues not blowing up the way the Essjay controversy did. Best, --Academy Leader 00:41, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Uh, let's be clear on something. The "fair degree of grief" to which you refer is the defeat of your RfA, which took place because you repeatedly pushed the agenda of a banned user. That banned user, via several dozen sockpuppets, has harassed Wiki users and administrators and vandalized project pages. That banned user runs an attack site on behalf of his employer, a site that you admire, but that hate site was secondary to your agenda-pushing -- which you demonstrated during your RfA by linking to that banned user's attack site even after being told not to do so. You said then and say now that you could have "handled it better," yet you are still arguing that banned user's cause. You were advised to "drop it"[17] but you still have not taken that wise advice.--Mantanmoreland 15:28, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Please remain civil. However, Jayjg is not an ArbCom member anymore. That's why I stick with what current ArbCom member Fred Bauder said. —AldeBaer 18:29, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

That has nothing to do with my comment, which concerns this user repeatedly pushing the agenda of a banned user.--Mantanmoreland 18:41, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

That sort of thing (presuming what the agenda of a user is) seems like an Assume Good Faith violation. If you guys are so intent in finding them on the part of opponents, you should be aware of them in yourself too. *Dan T.* 20:23, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

When a user repeatedly pushes the agenda of a banned user[18] , or parrots what he or she sees on the very attack sites we are discussing [19], the assumption of good faith does not apply. --Mantanmoreland 21:49, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I can see no reason for any of us not to assume good faith to all other editors on this page, SqueakBox 21:53, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Hivemind

The Hivemind page that names wikipedia editors is currently not to be found. Success? SqueakBox 01:56, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, you can read Brandt's explanation on the Unspeakable Site. Of course, at the moment it seems that I cannot give out a precise link, because it will be reverted. Mangoe 11:01, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

There's no reason why, without endangering and distressing your fellow Wikipedians, and without resorting to sarcasm, you can't simply state that Brandt said that he took it down because, as he moved towards litigation, he realised that Jimbo and the Foundation are the ones who are responsible for what editors do, because it is they who control the structure of Wikipedia. See? No sneering. No sarcasm. A nice rewording, with all the necessary information, but with nothing that will antagonise or endanger others. No need for a link at all. It's not even a very interesting thread. ElinorD (talk) 11:25, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

That misrepresents what Brandt said. WAS 4.250 11:34, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

If you think I misunderstood it, why not post a summary in your own words, but without linking? The only point I'm making is that it's possible to explain why the site is gone, without posting the address of something that would enable people to harass someone in real life, and without making sarcastic remarks about the fact that one can't post the link. ElinorD (talk) 14:17, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

It's pretty arrogant and patronizing to say that we don't need to see that thread because you've seen it, and allegedly paraphrased it, and you say that it's uninteresting and antagonizing. *Dan T.* 11:52, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I didn't have any "need" to see it myself, and would gladly have forfeited the pleasure of seeing any thread if it meant lessening the risk that somebody's is going to be stalked in real life as a result of a stalker who frequents Wikipedia but hasn't yet discovered these other sites clicking on a link here and finding out the real name and contact details of someone that he has just had a disagreement with. I was simply pointing out that if Mangoe knew what Brandt had said, he could simply have told us, without saying that he can't link because it would be reverted. As for being "arrogant" and "patronising", if I knew the exact address of some secret location that Kate Middleton has gone to, in the hope of avoiding harassment from the public, as she discusses with her family her recent split with Prince William, I would do what I could to ensure that other people didn't find out what I had found out. It wouldn't mean I thought I had a particular right to the information myself. It would just mean that since I, rightly or wrongly, had discovered something that might endanger another person, I would not want other people to get hold of it. Do you think it's arrogant of an admin with oversight access to use oversight on something that might endanger others? Should they say, "Well, since I've seen it, it would be very arrogant and patronising of me not to allow others to see it"? I think not. Oh, and I didn't say that Brandt's thread was antagonising. I was referring to the post on this thread, with the edit summary "Oh the irony". I felt that if Mangoe had just wanted to tell us why the site was down, it would have been better to have just told us why. ElinorD (talk) 12:15, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

"Do you think it's arrogant of an admin with oversight access to use oversight on something that might endanger others?" Yes, if the extent of their analysis of the context and degree of probability of harm and degree of possible harm consisted solely of identifying it as a Wikipedia Review web page link. Mindlessless causes more harm than good. WAS 4.250 13:36, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

My name, workplace, and contact details were posted at that site, along with a link to the (then) address of my parents. They were never removed. I was stalked by a sexual predator who became interested in me on Wikipedia, and then discovered my identity and work address, tried to blackmail me, harassed and abused the girls in the office where I worked (as he couldn't get them to put him through to me), told my superior (falsely) that I was editing Wikipedia during worktime, made threats against my elderly parents, told me that he was working on some technology that could use an existing photo of me and produce one of what I look like naked, sent me maps of the part of the city I work in, with my work building highlighted, and the words "Now that we have you surrounded, we start slowly tightening the ring. Very slowly and firmly. Very slowly . . . ", and did a lot more. If you were to weigh up the negative side of all that (and I really do mean that there was a lot more) against the negative side of removing a link to something that is itself inoccuous but is only three clicks away from the a post that "outs" someone else, could you explain why you think that oversighting such a post is more terrible than refusing to lessen (even if we can't entirely remove) the risk that what happened to me might happen to someone else? Musical Linguist 15:20, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Sounds pretty nasty. Of course, I didn't even know that until it was brought up via this policy proposal. So why on Earth would you want this proposal to pull through (unless you don't)? This is exactly the problem with the recognition thing people have been talking about. I know so much more about people's privacy problems than I did before this page existed. Milto LOL pia 16:07, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

The analogy with Prince William's love/social/personal lives is strained, at best. And while I can be pretty privacy-paranoid, typing stuff into a service which promises to distribute them to any of the six billion humans who has internet access and is interested in reading is just about as public as one can get without actually disrobing in Times Square with one's passport clenched in one's teeth.

But that's not the point. I am having a hard time deciding exactly how relevant Brandt's story is to this proposal. The fact that his alleged presence on the Unspeakable Site is being used as sufficient justification to censor them looks punitive to me. But what should be perfectly evident from these exchanges is that the problem of not being able to quote the site means that the proposal effectively authorizes making unsubstantiable charges about a site, and indeed forbids substantive discussion. Assuming that he doesn't jump out of the electronic bushes and threatens to sue us, his response could be quoted here and cited-- except for this proposal of prior restraint. So what is happening is a completely unsubstantiated disagreement over what Brandt said.

And that's a running theme in all of this. There is a group of people on the Unspeakable Site who believe that SlimVirgin, MONGO, Jayjg, and in fact pretty much anyone who is defending this proposal are part of a concerted effort to WP:OWN a variety of articles. They accuse these people of abuses of power, left and right. So here appears DennyColt, who drops this "policy" in as an essay and then proceeds to enforce it systematically. That cat having been let out of the bag by the almost immediate objections to this, it's obvious that those on the Unspeakable Site are going to be very interested in the identity of this DennyColt. And as it happens, they are, and there is the inevitable thread there trying to puzzle him out. And I think their interest is legitimate; if it turns out that he is essentially a front for an attempt by the supposed cabal members to censor the Unspeakable Site, then we would have an object, documented case of dishonesty and administrator misconduct. Except, of course, that such evidence could not be produced ehre, because of the censorship of the site.

Obviously this is all unsubtantiated-- not because the material isn't there, but because I'm not allowed to produce it. And that's where we seem to be left: the supposed cabal members can make unsubstantiated attacks upon the Unspeakable Site, but effective refutation of their allegations is disallowed. If I were Javert and felt WP:POINTed, I think could delete every statement made about the content and nature of the Unspeakable Site as being unsubstatiated; and I could additionally justify deleting the claim that they are an attack site as being a attack-- even a personal attack. We've already had, in the course of this, a completely fallacious attack upon Dtobias for participating on that site, even though anyone who bothered to read what he posts there would see in a second that the mostly disapproves of the anticaballists. But of course, that cannot be substantiated either.

Meanwhile, the conflict of interest sails on. It seems to me that if all of those who are "attacked" on that site were to recuse themselves from this discussion, there would be an overwhelming consensus for rejecting it on the spot. That is a very bad sign, and a stain on Wikipedia's reputation that these people cannot back away from the discussion. Mangoe 14:19, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't it make even more sense if contributors to that site, such as yourself, recused themselves?--Mantanmoreland 15:01, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) Actually, I made that offer back when I made an abortive RfA 9diff). At the time, I'd posted a few messages there, one or two of which could be interpreted as bearing on this discussion. I did not initially reveal my identity, though anyone who was following both sides should have figured out the connection. This was some days after the controversy started, though; as I've said before, I'd never heard of these people until the censorship campaign brought them to my attention. I'm willing to repeat the offer to recuse, but I'm not willing to pull out of this unilaterally. I am far, far less tainted by my associations with this than the others are. And frankly, I see no reason for Dtobias to pull out, seeing as how his activity on the Unspeakable Site have largely been rather negative criticisms of the others on that site. Mangoe 15:33, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Though in that case I'd have to recuse myself too, given that I've been attacked on that site too (not "outed", given that I freely [foolishly?] disclose my personal info anyway). But it adds to the irony of the whole situation that, in this case, the thing whose discussion is being muted by the alleged link ban is actually the fact that Brandt has taken down personally identifying information that could be used for harrassment. *Dan T.* 14:59, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

"Could be" or "was"? ElinorD (talk) 15:07, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Unquestionably "was used for harassment." Musical Linguist 15:13, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

(unindenting, after edit conflict) Musical Linguist said here that people in favour of banning links to sites that try to "out" editors were among the kindest and most helpful supporters she had when she was stalked and before they were. I see no conflict of interest. We have people who hold strong views that censorship shouldn't be allowed, and who, to uphold that principle, are prepared to take the risk of increasing the possibility of a stalker getting hold of information to enable him to find a new victim. (Of course, they don't agree that the risk is significant, but they can't deny that there's some risk.) We have others who think that safety of editors is more important than allowing nine hundred and ninety-nine possible non-stalkers to see information that one stalker would abuse. Both sides seem to feel strongly. I can't see why one should recuse more than another. It also seems likely that many ordinary editors would agree with the position that we should put protection of editors first, and would happily forfeit their "right" to see personal information if forfeiting it meant that the creepy guys couldn't see it either. However, these ordinary editors are just editing articles, and haven't discovered the page. I can't even remember how I discovered it. ElinorD (talk) 15:22, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Deleting bios of Wikipedians is the first thing Brandt has done that makes me think he is serious about going to court over Wikipedia's bio on him. But he still has significant bio data of other people no more famous than he is at his NameBase website. WAS 4.250 11:41, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Attempts to suppress categories of things have a tendency to lead to self-referential strange loops where attempts to engage in commentary and criticism regarding such suppression are themselves suppressed. See, for instance this case where a professor's posting of a video of the National Football League's copyright notice at the beginning of American football telecasts, for the purpose of commenting on whether this notice took an overly broad interpretation of the rights the league has under copyright law, was itself the subject of a takedown notice by the NFL. *Dan T.* 15:48, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

A quick solution

Someone suggested this to me in a private communication: can we just change this from attack sites to attack pages? Mangoe 02:24, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I would support this page move. And while I wouldnt guarantee to support such a re-named policy it would certainly make it more likely, SqueakBox 02:26, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Sounds more reasonable and more in line with common sense to me also. I think we may have reached a workable compromise. A poll in order? Cla68 02:35, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I believe attack pages are already covered by WP:NPA: "Posting a link to an external source that fits the commonly accepted threshold for a personal attack, in a manner that incorporates the substance of that attack into Wikipedia discussion, including the suggestion that such a link applies to another editor, or that another editor needs to visit the external source containing the substance of the attack." The difference between that sentence and this, is that this proposed policy applies to any external sources which host such material, even if the page directly linked to does not fit the NPA description. I'd suggest that if this policy is ultimately accepted, it could probably be reduced to a single sentence in NPA rather than the current mound of beans.JavaTenor 14:13, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I would concur with that, with the observation that prohibitions against attack "content" would make an even finer distinction, not that I see the utility of more than a single sentence amended to WP:NPA to that effect, as the editor above me suggested.--Academy Leader 03:58, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Case by case evaluations are needed even if the proposal changes "site" to "page" or "link" or "content". It is in no case the right choice to switch off our brains when called on to make an editorial choice. WAS 4.250 11:47, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree. And so does the ArbCom. Seems some people have yet to understand that. —AldeBaer 18:11, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate the comment about "not switching off our brains," as the dialogue on this page is becoming increasingly divorced from reality, as it relates to both the attack sites and our procedures regarding websites in general. We have very stringent policies that relate to websites. Even fan sites with accurate information about celebrities are not permitted to be cited on Wikipedia. I don't see people throwing themselves in front of trains to retain links to those sites. But here we have a situation were a tiny number of websites make vile accusations against Wikipedia and editors, and strenuous efforts are underway to ensure that these websites remain quoted, linked and such, and that not doing so is "Orwellian" and other such overblown rhetoric.--Mantanmoreland 19:16, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

WP:CIVIL. —AldeBaer 20:52, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

A user who serves as a representative of an attack site, as you did via this edit [20], should not preach to others about WP:CIVIL and, in my humble opinion, not be editing Wikipedia at all.--Mantanmoreland 21:52, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

That's ad-hominem, and doesn't even seem to be obviously true; the diff you cited merely had him expressing an opinion against censoring links to external sites, consistent to the one he's expressing here; how do you stretch it to saying he's being a "respresentative" of that site? Anyway, your arguments here are full of straw men and apples-and-oranges comparisons; there's a difference between what's a reliable source to cite in an article and what may be linked to in a talk page in the context of discussion; and, besides, it's not true that all links to fan sites are banned anyway; last I heard, it was considered acceptable to link to the one most prominent fan site for a given celebrity in the "external links" section; it was just discouraged to let the fancruft get thicker by adding more fan site links than that. *Dan T.* 21:59, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

He's not even a member of WR let alone a staff member so how can he be their representative? SqueakBox 22:06, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

User:WordBomb runs another attack site. The "strikover" jibe in that edit indicates that Alde is (in my hunble opinion) a meatpuppet of User:WordBomb and the attack site that he runs for his corporate employer, the CEO of an Internet company. It is not WR. I don't object to this edit, as it shows the agenda at work here. Oh, and incidentally Dan T., in the process of stomping your feet about my imaginary "ad hominem" you threw in some real ad hominems yourself.--Mantanmoreland 22:16, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

IMO if you think somebody is a sock of a banned user you should report it at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents or inform an admin, etc. In the meantime we must do what we can to assume good faith on this page, SqueakBox 22:28, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I didn't say that Alde was a "sock" of a banned user, but that this edit indicates that he was pushing the agenda of a banned user. If Alde continues with that kind of behavior, yes a block would definitely be warranted. Again, you are incorrect about WP:AGF. Read the policy. It is not absolute and does not apply to this editor in light of his behavior. --Mantanmoreland 22:45, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Interesting recent action

I thought this might be of interest to participants in this discussion. For reference, the forum mentioned in that post is owned by a Hollywood producer who was annoyed at WP:BLP issues in his article. There are several threads on his forum which are in clear violation of WP policy. Apparently there exists a bot-based procedure for local blacklisting of links, which I wasn't aware of. JavaTenor 15:28, 16 April 2007 (UTC)