User talk:JzG/Harassment links

The arbitration case Requests for arbitration/Attack sites specifically mentions antisocialmedia (ASM). As far as my reading of it goes, this is for the following reasons, among others:
 * Wikipedia is not the place to promote your agenda. This is addressed in WP:NPOV (and in WP:BAN, which allows for the banning of those who are here to pursue an agenda).
 * Wikipedia is now so big that it is of paramount importance to those advancing an agenda, to get that agenda promoted here.
 * Harassment of editors is a natural consequence of this, but that does not make it acceptable; nor does the fact that Wikipedia is now so big as to make harassment inevitable, imply that when people registered some time ago they should have recognised that this would happen.
 * We should aspire to a low-to-zero-tolerance approach to harassment. This is recognised in existing policy. WP:HARASS.  There is a clear difference between persecution of one's opponents, and sincere debate with an aim of achieving rapprochement or at least a truce, in order to develop content which reflects all significant points of view without editorially favouring one or the other, deferring instead to the balance of independent scholarly opinion.
 * Sometimes, people prove incapable of working collaboratively with others. We try to help them, but in the end if they are not capable of working in a collegiate manner we exclude them.  This is policy, WP:BAN.
 * Sometimes, such people continue the argument, attacks and threats after banning, either by registering new accounts or by using their user space, which blocked editors can still edit. Neither is acceptable. WP:SOCK and WP:PPOL reflect the consensus that nobody has an indefinite right to continue an argument.  You only get so many kicks at the can.
 * A banned editor is banned because their actions are destructive to the project. They do not become any less destructive when repeated in an external venue.

The reason the arbcom case was brought, and ASM links deemed unacceptable, is because of this last point. Pursuing and escalating an agenda offsite, especially by personalising and attacking those who acted to enforce community consensus and policy by preventing the abuse of Wikipedia to pursue an agenda, is absolutely 100% unacceptable.

Right now, banned User:WordBomb, the operator of ASM, is pursuing exactly the same campaign through Wikipedia Review (WR). Simultaneuously, some pro-LaRouche activists are pursuing a campaign against User:Cberlet on the same site. Simultaneously, the banned user WordBomb is also pursuing a campaign against those who advocated removal and banning of links to ASM, also on the same site. Simultaneously, Herschelkrustofsky, also banned from Wikipedia, is pursuing a campaign of harassment and outing against SlimVirgin, alleging sockpuppetry (WP:SOCK is very clear on the distinction between a sockpuppet and an alternate account, and his evidence in any case establishes no credible link between the two named accounts). In another thread, allegations are made that User:Ryulong is a sockpuppet. In another thread, banned User:Jon Awbrey is speculating on an inappropriate and undeclared editing relationship between User:Jayjg and User:Jpgordon, also implying sock- or meatpuppetry.

In the arbitration case, the need to be able to draw distinctions is discussed. This is as it should be. It is, right now, very hard indeed - near impossible I'd say - to draw a distinction between Judd Bagley engaging in harassment at ASM, and Judd Bagley pursuing precisely the same campaign at WR. When Judd Bagley pursues a campaign against those who advocated banning of ASM, it does not matter whether it is here or at WR. Within the context of Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia, Bagley's agitation against those who prevented his attempts to skew the content in a particular direction, are not relevant or welcome.

Applying the duck test, particularly in respect of banned user WordBomb's actions, it would seem to that Wikipedia Review is covered by the findings of the arbitration case. The findings are carefully worded, and reading the carefully worded findings this fits the following:


 * 15.1) Wikipedia should not link to websites set up for the purpose of or substantially devoted to harassing its volunteers. Harassment in this context refers to cyber-stalking, offline stalking, outing people without their consent, humiliating them sexually, or threatening them with physical violence. WR is, by now, substantially dedicated to harassing and outing Wikipedia editors, particularly those members of the administrator community who have been active in achieving the banning of certain editors and preventing them from abusing Wikipedia to pursue their agenda.
 * 8) Except for obvious cases, such as ED, it is difficult to sort out sites engaged in criticism of Wikipedia and its editors and administrators from sites engaged in harassment. Likewise, when information is provided about the alleged wrong-doings of Wikipedia users, it can be difficult to differentiate legitimate complaints from bogus ones calculated to cast a user in a false light. Wikipedia Review contains more, more sustained, more personalised and more sinister attacks on administrators than ED did at the time of the original MONGO case, and does now.  The actions coordinated on Wikipedia Review have caused more distress, more personal real-world issues and more disruption than the campaigns coordinated on ED.
 * 5.1) This decision applies only to links to AntiSocialMedia.net and similar sites which engage in malicious behavior toward Wikipedia users. Attempts to extend this remedy to sites critical of Wikipedia and its users' behavior are discouraged. Wikitruth is critical of Wikipedia, and occasionally hard on Wikipedians.  Wikipedia Review is, at present, being actively used by several banned users - e.g. User:WordBomb, User:Jon Awbrey, User:JB196, user:Internodeuser - to further the campaigns and disruption that led to their original bans.  Some editors who are not banned appear to be acting as proxies for these campaigns.  Wikipedia Review, while it undoubtedly is critical of Wikipedia, in the same way ASM is also critical of Wikipedia, is also a "site engaged in harassment".  The baseless allegations of sockpuppetry by User:SlimVirgin are currently repeated on WR.  The assertion of SV's real world identity, as promoted by ASM, is stated as fact on WR.  WR is actively engaged in trying to build the memes of their accusations to undermine those who have opposed POV-pushing, soapboxing and vanity abuse of Wikipedia, leading to well-supported bans of those now active on WR.  WR also appears to be actively recruiting banned or disenchanted users.

On the other hand, at least one individual (who is active on Wikipedia Review) argued passionately against any attempt to blanket-ban critical sites, and this is supported by the case. The restriction, and as a clarification of the MONGO arbitration, that restriction as well, applies only to sites which engage in malicious behavior toward Wikipedia users, and set up for the purpose of or substantially devoted to harassing volunteers. WR is unquestionably engaging in malicious behaviour, and is arguably substantially (and unarguably significantly) devoted to harassing Wikipedia volunteers. This is because it provides a platform and campaigning forum for several individuals, of whom Bagley is the worst. Thus, the problem is not inherent in WR itself but is a result of its current user base.

Wikipedia Review does not, however, constitute a reliable source for information critical of Wikipedia or any individual Wikipedian. Links to Wikipedia Review do not constitute "legitimate criticism", because the criticism has no authority and has, as presently constituted, strongly suspect motives. We would not accept a post on Stormfront as a source for an allegation that an editor is pushing a pro-Zionist POV, and for the same reason we cannot accept a post on Wikipedia Review as a source for any criticism of a Wikipedia editor or admin, because to a very high degree of probability that will be motivated by personal animus.

Wikipedia Review is no longer Daniel Brandt's good-faith attempt to fix Wikipedia through critique, its focus at present is largely to undermine and destroy Wikipedia, or to mould it into a different shape where NPOV is replaced by the POV of those who have, either through choice or through inability, failed to influence content decisions to their own liking. Not everybody on WR is happy with this, I would say. While there is some glee at the undermining of admins willing to make tough calls, there is also some disquiet about some of the actions undertaken by certain individuals, and their motives for contributing.

While assuming good faith, then, we should recognise that WR,in its current state, is dangerous and inimical to the process of building an encyclopaedia - as with any link to offsite blog posts, aggravation, harassment, outing, attacks and other behaviour unacceptable within the framework of Wikipedia, links to WR are likely to be pernicious and corrosive, and (most importantly) not at all likely to actually result in improvements to content. Such links, to WR especially, risk undermining attempts to build consensus in the most contentious of topics. They damage the one thing that Wikipedia is about, above all else, which is co-operating to build the best encyclopaedia we can. So we banned links to ASM, and we should also ban links to WR. But there is more to WR than just Bagley, and there are editors who insist that some WR members, at least, have good intentions of fixing genuine abuse. There is a need to reconcile these, and to arrive at a position where the actual problem, rather than a sideline issue, is fixed. We all, I think, know that links to ASM are a sideshow here, it is Wikipedia Review, first and foremost, whose links concern large numbers of editors and have motivated the majority of recent debates on link removal, attack sites, external link sections in WP:NPA and WP:HARASS and so on. These problems predate ASM, and the particular individual who has done more than anyone else to prevent a BADSITES policy, keep the argument alive, resist any tendency to remove attack links on principle and apply the MONGO ruling to sites other than ED, is active on WR, not ASM.

I propose therefore that the following clarification should be adopted, which takes into account the good faith concerns of those Wikipedia editors who are active on WR or consider it has at least the potential to act as part of the essential mechanism of checks and balances:
 * No more links to Wikipedia Review threads should be added until the problem of offsite harassment, outing and coordination of abuse is fixed. In particular, restating as fact the allegations published at ASM is wholly unacceptable.
 * The content of Wikipedia Review should be monitored by the Arbitrators periodically, with a view to lifting this restriction if Wikipedia Review reverts to being a good-faith attempt to improve the project, rather than a gathering ground for banned abusers.
 * If any editor believes that Wikipedia Review contains a valid criticism, supported by sound evidence, of any Wikipedia editor or process, then three channels are open to them:
 * Mailing lists, specifically WikiEN-l, which is an officially supported channel for meta-debate, and is at one remove from the content of the project, thus allowing discussion with much less risk of inflaming already tense situations.
 * Email to the arbitration committee, who investigate and discuss privately or in public, as appropriate, credible and supported allegations of abuse of the project.
 * OTRS, which is a back-channel open to article subjects and those affected by content issues, where independent trusted Wikipedians can review the basis of the case and make a decision as to whether, and how, it should be raised.

At the tactical level:
 * Threads already linked, which have drifted into attack, are stale, repeat allegations which are also available from a better source, or which contain harassment, intimidation or outing, may be removed, with an explanation, by any editor in good standing. Automated removal, as was done for ED, is strongly discouraged, and it is preferred that subjects defer to independent editors rather than remove old links referring to themselves.  Old may be taken as prior to the acceptance date of the attack sites arbitration, a date at which it may be reasonably expected that the community pulled its collective socks up in respect of external harassment.
 * Attempts (by Wikipedia Review members especially) to reinsert links removed by others should be sanctioned. Disputes should be referred to the arbitration committee as requests for clarification.  If a link contains personalised criticism against an individual, little is lost if the link is temporarily unavailable while it is deliberated in a neutral venue.

I believe that this is a proportionate and reasonable clarification. It addresses a clear and evident present problem, which has been identified by many users; it satisfies the legitimate concern that valid criticism not be suppressed, by identifying three supported routes for that criticism to be assessed and responded to; it removes a farcical situation where we ban eighthundredpoundgorilla.com while allowing links to corneroftheroom.com, where EightHundredPoundGorilla is a prominent member and is pursuing exactly the same agenda, along with several other problematic individuals also pursuing other agendas; it defines a mechanism by which the site, which has as contributors several Wikipedians in good standing, can fix the identified problem and play a full part in what was, at face value, its original purpose; it addresses a significant and serious concern about ongoing offsite harassment of Wikipedians.

And most important of all it does this: it reinforces the point that keeping Wikipedia as a place where it is safe for people to work on documenting controversial issues is much more important than keeping Wikipedia as a place where you can criticise others for the way in which they try to work on documenting controversial issues.

Wikipedia is not at all reluctant to discuss problems and criticisms, but we are not obliged to do so at the same venue where we are working on the core goal of building a verifiably neutral encyclopaedia, especially when doing so risks undermining that vital goal. Guy (Help!) 12:40, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

taking balls and running with them, too far sometimes
There is much to agree with in this essay. Were it to become policy, however, the question needs to be asked, how would be interpreted and used, and would it lead to any abuses? We've seen many instances where overly-excitable editors have used the literal wording of one policy or another to justify arbitrarily extreme and ultimately disruptive actions.

A blanket ban, no matter how thoroughly justified, is a very dangerous tool, because it condones some of the worst kinds of witchhunts and jihads. Do you, JzG, honestly believe that your recent flurry of link removals has significantly improved the encyclopedia overall? Many of those links were off in old and utterly forgotten threads where they certainly weren't hurting anyone. Most of the removals have been reverted, some several times. Does the cost of the squabbling outweigh the incremental reduction of harassment afforded by the links' removal? I fear it might.

I am not condoning the links or the sites behind them; they're nearly all noise at best, and odious harassment at worst. I am keenly aware of the need not to feed trolls or offer them soapboxes. But I remain afraid that blanket bans and their zealous enforcement end up causing more problems than the trolls caused (and, of course, the worse the infighting gets, the more the trolls rejoice). —Steve Summit (talk) 19:28, 20 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, I do believe that the removals improve the encyclopaedia, either by making the environment safer, or by removing commentary by banned users form areas where content is being decided. Those are the criteria on which I am working. Guy (Help!) 13:09, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

A new BADSITES variant
This is an interesting variant on the kind we've seen before. To do a run down, there are some sites that have raised our ire, and we don't Wikipedia editors & admins to be allowed to link to them, under any circumstances.


 * BADSITES proper: sites that attack us our automatically forbidden.
 * NPA#EL: Links/discussing sites that attack us constitute a personal attack, and are forbidden
 * WillBeBack version 1: Sites that attack us have a conflict of interest, and shouldn't be linked/discussed on those grounds.
 * WillBeBack version 2: Sites that attack us are automatically defined as unreliable, and shouldn't be linked on those grounds.

To these, JzG now adds a novel theory:
 * Jzg version: Users who link to sites that quote or feature banned users are acting as proxies for banned users, and are therefore forbidden.

Obviously, I disagree all the different legal theories that have been put forward. In this case-- if someone quoting or linksto  a banned user, that does not automatically, make them a proxy for the banned user. If they show a persistent pattern of problem behavior, take it up through the usual behavior channels. If they don't show a patter of behavior suggesting they're trying to be disruptive, assume good faith. In either case, deleting other people's comments is almost never going to be helpful, but will only inflame the situation (except, of course, in cases of simple, obvious vandalism. ) --Alecmconroy 20:01, 20 October 2007 (UTC)


 * That said-- let me tell you how much I appreciate you writing all this up, trying to deal with it even-handedly, and making a policy proposal. I may disagree with it, but I _greatly_ appreciate that you're doing it in process--   writing a proposal, proposing in, getting consensus, then declaring it a policy, and only then enforcing it.


 * One of the problems we've had that has made this situation more complicated is people, both pro-BADSITES and anti-BADSITES, directly inserting their new proposals into existing policy-- leading to edit wars and stuff. I don't _think_ your policy is gonna find consensus, but I give you two hearty thumbs up for taking this upfront, honest, good-faith approach to it. :) --04:14, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Not available for comment?
I note that none of the responses at Requests of arbitration - Clarification re Attack Sites, No's 2 (and 3), nor the entire (now removed) subsequent discussion on your talkpage are mentioned on this page or the essay. Should the reader not be aware that it has failed to gain traction, and the reasons, in its original guise before representing it as an essay? LessHeard vanU 20:28, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Assorted comments
Hi, Guy! Great work on this. Thanks for posting it. A few first-impression comments:
 * I think the "Background" section is great overall. Thoughtful, evenhanded, and cool in tone.
 * The last paragraph of that section I'm less comfortable with. First and foremost, I think we are here to produce an encyclopedia. I think a deep commitment to a safe virtual workplace can be pretty easily derived from that. But if there are circumstances where those conflict, I think we must favor the encyclopedia. Could your point be made as well in another fashion?
 * I really like the "Consensus positions" section. It's easy to forget that all participants are in agreement on most points.
 * I'm not entirely comfortable with "Linking to some external content is inherently unacceptable" as a summary, but I'm not quite sure why. Would dropping the word "inherently" be as good from your perspective?
 * Those concerns are all good ones. I think there are more. Do you plan to beef up that section?
 * For the second item in your proposed plan, what about changing "and is not appropriate" to "which is not appropriate"? That seems to make it clearer that it's the proxying that is the issue.
 * For the third item, I agree that harassment is not welcome, but I'm concerned about the absolute phrasing of the solution. Could you introduce some editorial discretion? These are cases where I personally would want to be able to choose to post links to dubious pages:
 * where people could be seen as harassing me, in order to get help with a problem (done this once, and it was very helpful)
 * where someone mixes legitimate concerns about me with frothing abuse, so that I can get others to evaluate the legitimate parts
 * when they contain evidence of an immediate threat to the encyclopedia (as in the michaelmoore.com case) or an editor
 * when there is a mix of dubious content and valuable content (important to prevent gaming by someone who posts something vile on an otherwise useful page, forcing us to delink)
 * Could we add a COI clause to this? At least one recent debacle resulted when one editor self-nominated as victim, judge, and executioner. Presumably if something is well over the line it should be easy to get somebody not involved to do the cleanup.
 * How would you feel about recommending that deletion of well-meant links is marked? E.g. replacing them with "[harassment link removed]"?

Regarding the last bit, I feel like there's some tension between deleting information and expecting people to move on. With most of the things we expect people to accept, we can point them to the extensive discussion and multiple revisions that led up to something. Whether that convinces them or just wears them out depends on the situation, but either way it aids in keeping things quiet. Is there some way we can get some of that value here?

Also, could you make it clearer how you see this applying to article space? Making Light and Michael Moore's web sites are interesting examples of that. Personally, I'm much more comfortable with something like this applying to talk and user spaces than I am in article space.

Thanks again, William Pietri 00:51, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

cold fusion
It's quite incredible you write all this and still do what you just did in the cold fusion dispute. "We need to keep Wikipedia as a place where it is safe for people to work to document contentious subjects in keeping with core policy" ? No kidding. Pcarbonn (talk) 06:42, 26 July 2008 (UTC)