On 5/30/07, Sheldon Rampton <sheldon(a)prwatch.org> wrote:
Jayjg wrote:
But Sheldon, Wikipedia has all sorts of rules
about what kinds of
websites it allows links to, both in the actual articles themselves,
and even in the External links sections. The rationale behind these
rules is that linking to these sorts of websites does not assist the
purpose of Wikipedia (which is to create an encyclopedia), and
arguably detracts from it or damages it.
As several people here have previously pointed out, the rules you're
describing above restrict people from linking to those sorts of
websites in the article space, not on talk pages or things like
Signpost.
And that's an important difference because...
And none of those other rules are written as a
backdoor way
of banning links to a single specific site. As a general rule, it's a
bad idea to write an across-the-board policy just to deal with a
single situation.
Well, if you insist on proposing policies again and again, I suppose
I'll have to humor you. As I see it, the proponents of such a policy
would want it to apply to a class of sites, not a single specific
site, though obviously with the hope that the number of sites affected
would remain small (and please don't respond to this with a slippery
slope argument - I understand those logical fallacies quite well,
thank you). As for general rules, they generally apply, but, of
course, not always.
I haven't
heard you
complaining about those rules, yet, oddly, you seem to have become
incensed over even the suggestion that WR is also the kind of site
that could not assist Wikipedia in achieving its goals, and, in fact,
would arguably detract from Wikipedia or damage it. This apparent
double standard is troubling.
I guess this passage is some sort of lame attempt to insinuate that
I'm trying to carry water for WR.
I'm almost certain I just told you in my last e-mail to you that I was
not appointing you as my spokesman. Please rest assured that this is
still most emphatically the case, and please extend that to include
"and not my interpreter either".
I don't give a fig about WR. I've
only visited it a couple of times (always in response to the fuss
that people keep making about it here), and I don't find it
particularly interesting or worth reading.
That's a reasonable assessment.
I get the general idea
that it's a haven for grumbling Wikipedia-haters and that Daniel
Brandt ought to take a chill pill,
True enough, though perhaps understated.
but I haven't seen anything there
reach the level of malignancy that some people here keep insisting is
its very essence.
Perhaps the issue is that it is not your ox that has been gored.
I'd ask you to give me a specific example, but you
seem to have a
policy against that. Instead, you've offered elaborate but vague
hypothetical situations: "suppose someone calls you a pedophile on
their website and then never actually links to the page where they
call you a pedophile but instead slyly links to other pages while
standing on their head and whistling Dixie...."
I think you've mistaken me for someone else.
Since your
hypothetical situations don't resemble anything I've ever actually
seen on WR, I can't imagine how your hypothetical scenarios apply to
this discussion.
Well, as you admit, you've only been there a couple of times. It's
quite a large cesspool, and you've only gotten your ankles dirty. Not
that I'm suggesting you dive in.
I'd ask you to give a specific example rather
than
give hypotheticals, but that would require you to link to WR, and you
can't under your own rules.
Whoops, there goes that strawman thing again. I haven't made any rules.
That's one of the problems with
censorship. It even hurts the censor.
Hysterical rhetoric does the same.