Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Attack sites

=Statements by editors not listed in involved parties=

Statement by Thatcher131
This is not a traditional case and the impulse will be to decline it, but the BADSITES (failed) policy, now added to the No Personal Attacks page (currently protected), has been used to justify an incredible amount of edit warring and generally bad behavior on both policy pages and numerous articles including Don Murphy, Michael Moore and Judd Bagley. There probably have been more. It seems like some kind of definitive statement is required, such as. Thatcher131 00:35, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Reply to Mackensen. You heard right. Just read the page history and talk page. Thatcher131 01:28, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Edit warring on
 * Edit warring on   revert last two edits. as per WP:NPA#External links.  'll revert forever. see discussion page for policy you're violating

Statement by Viridae
It should also be noted that links were removed citing the relevant section of NPA when cyde used them as evidence to back up allegations of sockpuppetry against SlimVirgin when he posted notice that he had blocked the sockpuppet account. This was done repeatedly despite the vast amount of criticism it attracted. While this may seem unrelated I believe if arbcom takes this case on they should weigh in on whether linking such attack sites in a constructive manner (ie as evidence as well as in the mainspace) is really a personal attack, and therefore falls under the remit of that policy. Ie if a site is linked to to attack someone, sure its a personal attack, but this argument appears to be over no attacking use of a site. Viridae Talk 00:48, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Response to JzG:"linking to material which directly attacks or outs editors is clearly a form of harassment, and has been used for exactly that purpose" that is only a form of harassment if it is actually used for that purpose. If the use is in any way legitimate (like Cyde providing evidence for SlimVirgin's sockpuppet being blocked or like it being used as a source in an article) then it is no longer harassment. Viridae Talk 23:04, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Picaroon
We have a large amount of users committed to both supporting and opposing the #External links section of the No personal attacks policy. As noted above, revert wars on multiple articles have commenced, and both sides are convinced tha policy supports them - those in favor of removing all links to attack sites by No personal attacks, and those in favor of maintaining encyclopedic coverage even of topics we all find distasteful by Neutral point of view. Since the arbitration committee passed the principle (Links to attack sites in the MONGO case) that spurred the rejected Attack sites proposal as well as the above-linked section which is currently policy, I think that only the committee can resolve this. Simply put, too many members of the community are divided on the issue for consensus to form, and the root of the dispute is with an arbitration case anyways. The committee should only very rarely step in to resolve policy disputes between users, but I think this rises to that level.

Even if a full case of the standard case is not accepted, I request the committee at least thoroughly discuss it - and if possible make the whole of their discussion, not just the decision (if there is one), public. Picaroon (t) 00:57, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Dtobias
I would call attention to this quote from Jimbo, which calls for a thoughtful, balanced approach to site links, not an absolutist, zero-tolerance, "under-no-circumstances" approach as some have insisted be taken. I would also invite everybody to read my essay, which I've been accused of spamming around, but nobody can say is off-topic here, at least. And, to the point of how the suppression of outside criticism makes Wikipedia look to the outside world, a couple of interesting quotes:


 * ...the BADSITES ploy, and labeling any site an "attack site" that contains comments wounding to adminiswiki feelings, seems to be a recurring theme. I'm starting to feel like I'm dealing with Scientologists, and that "attack site" is their equivalent of "suppressive person."
 * Teresa Nielsen Hayden on her Making Light blog


 * Except that item set off yet another edit-war, a "meta"-issue fight, having to do with a Wikipedia administrative faction deeming MichaelMoore.com an "attack site". Which would make it liable to the penalty of having all its links purged from Wikipedia, as a kind of banishment. And that's scary. It's hard to convey to the acolytes within the cult of Wikipedia how petty and in fact, downright creepy, it can appear to outsiders.
 * Seth Finkelstein on his Infothought blog

I should also note that in pretty much every recent case that I know of in which somebody has tried to have a link removed as an "attack site" this attempt has failed. I think it was sidestepped once or twice by substituting a link to a different site (that in turn linked to the so-called "attack site"), but that's hardly a shining victory for link-suppression. In a number of other cases, the link-keeping advocates won handily. Thus, if ArbCom holds to its position of not making policy but only following and interpreting it, and that policy is made by consensus as seen by actual editor actions, then there is a clear sign that consensus fails to favor flat link bans. *Dan T.* 01:04, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Reply to Mackensen: Yes, people have (ab)used the policy against actual article content... for instance, this edit, adding a relevant reference, was not only reverted as an "attack site link", but the editor making it was actually blocked for it. *Dan T.* 01:36, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment to 166.166.239.195: Your comments seem off-topic here, since this is about external links to so-called "attack sites", not the making of an article here into a so-called "attack article" itself. There are other policies to deal with the latter situation. *Dan T.* 04:14, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment to Kirill: Earlier, when I mentioned the topic of "attack sites" in that other case, in response to somebody else who had done so, I got criticized by an admin for bringing my "holy crusade" to a case where it's only tangentially on-topic, but apparently you regard it as a major issue of that case now? *Dan T.* 04:14, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment to FloNight: Unfortunately, there's a pushy faction around that does seem to regard rulings as "the law of the land", so hence a need for a new decision to disabuse them of this notion. ("The ArbCom has ruled that the ArbCom's rulings need not be followed!" [insert smiley]) *Dan T.* 14:02, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Reply to MONGO: Your references to ED are a red herring, since, although that site was the subject of the original decision, the fights and abuses of it later very rarely have had anything to do with that particular site. I can recall only one case where somebody actually was fighting to link to that site, to an essay there that he considered relevant to some point, and this debate fizzled out when those charming ED folks added a porn picture to the page in question... even the erstwhile proponents of the link lost interest at that point.  The debate since then has centered around other sites, as you seem to acknowledge when you pull a bait-and-switch; after getting people in a righteous lather of indignation about how disgusting ED is, you suddenly change the subject to a claim that "less than realistic and/or intelligent commentary" is even more disgusting and in need of banning.  You would have the ruling clique of Wikipedia set itself up as a board of censors to decide what sorts of commentary are to be regarded as suitable for the tender eyes of Wikipedians to be allowed to peruse.  But if all those outside sites followed the same rules as us, and banned the same users as us, and in all ways adhered to the same standards as us, then what would be the point of their existing at all?  There's some value to an outside forum that is not run by the same people, with the same friends and enemies, under the same standards of decorum, as our site... a free marketplace of ideas, which is often unruly and messy and noisy, but also sometimes exposes truths that those in power want to suppress, demands it.  Sometimes I too wonder why I'm still here; the free and open community I was originally attracted to, one which was not afraid of outside criticism, has been replaced by one that's all too eager to put its collective heads in the sand and cower in fear at all those evil harrassers and stalkers and trolls (oh my!) on the "attack sites".  It's time to draw a line in the sand against censorship and suppression of criticism. *Dan T.* 14:02, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Reply to JzG: You're right that I don't favor or advocate making direct attacks, either on or off wiki. I do, however, counsel that those who participate in a highly visible role here need, as a practical matter, to develop a fairly thick skin for criticism, fair or unfair, that will result.  Supposedly the role of the press is to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable"; this is hardly completely fair or NPOV of them, but even more unfair is the opposite tack of comforting the comfortable and afflicting the afflicted, but unfortunately that seems to be the aim of much policy enforcement on Wikipedia these days.  The powerful, high-status, and well-connected editors are considered to need special protection against their feelings being hurt, which outranks any impulse to try to be fair and respectful to those of lesser status who have contrary viewpoints that annoy the powerful clique.  Yes, I think it makes some sense to judge a community by how it treats its least-liked enemies, and how it is (or isn't) fair and reasonable even to people who are unfair and unreasonable to it. *Dan T.* 15:35, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Addendum: I've been on a version of Daniel Brandt's HiveMind, and Jeff Merkey's Merkeylaw... I've been the target of flame wars and personal attacks online since I first went online in my college freshman year 25 years ago. Instead of going to pieces about it or demanding censorship, I live with it and laugh at it. *Dan T.* 17:06, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Additional comments: Given that Jimbo is apparently an advocate of Ayn Rand's Objectivism, I wonder what he thinks of all the subjectivism that seems to be driving policy around here. I'm referring in particular to the frequent assertions that the subjective feelings of editors are of such great importance that they often trump other concerns.  In this diff (in an unrelated case not connected with "BADSITES"), an editor asserts that "You are welcome to your own opinions regarding threats that are leveled against you. Attempting to evaluate my concerns using your own metrics is inappropriate."  (This is in the context of supporting a permaban against a user for alleged legal threats, where others dispute that there were any actual threats aimed at the complaining user.)  Basically, in the ideology of some editors, objective reality and logical discourse are irrelevant compared to the feelings of an editor who claims to have been emotionally hurt.  Of course, taking action based on this (such as blocking or banning another user, banning links to particular sites, and so on) will likely cause emotional hurt to the targets of this action, but that is apparently resolved in terms of status in the Wikipedia hierarchy; emotional hurt to a higher-ranked editor is more important than hurt to a lower-ranked one.  If you're way up in the hierarchy, and you act like a drama queen, then you can force everyone and everything on Wikipedia to bend to your will; if you claim to be emotionally hurt by people saying the word "rutabaga", you can probably get it banned. *Dan T.* 22:49, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment to Samiharris: As ArbCom doesn't make policy (by its own admission), it doesn't actually have the power to give (or deny) the right of editors to add (or remove) any sorts of links. What it should do in this case, however, is to issue an unambiguous statement correcting the misimpression to the effect that the ArbCom has in fact imposed binding restrictions on what editors are allowed to link to which are unconstrained by the development of consensus-based policy. *Dan T.* 16:24, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Krimpet
The lynchpin of the BADSITES fiasco has been the findings of MONGO RfAR, which have been vaguely interpreted and expanded upon to form the failed WP:BADSITES policy and its vestiges at WP:NPA. People have used the loose wording of the RfAR to justify all sorts of actions, from massive edit warring, to violating 3RR, and most chillingly, compromising our NPOV as Phil Sandifer explains above, all in the name of enforcing ArbCom's will, even though individual arbitrators such as Fred Bauder have cautioned that the findings are being widely misinterpreted. I urge ArbCom to clarify the findings of the MONGO RfAR and its intended interpretations in some way, as it is the only way that this dispute can be brought to a definitive close. -- krimpet ⟲  01:33, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Amarkov
Normally, I would really strongly oppose this for being an Arbcom case to create policy. But since a previous Arbcom decision is the basis of that policy, I suppose that accepting this case for clarification would be best. -Amarkov moo! 01:35, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Statement by 166.166.239.195
The Judd Bagley article is a poorly written attack piece written as a "biography". It uses selective quoting to include "a flame war among 14-year-old boys", "conspiracy propaganda", "crazy and profane attacks", and "Sleazey McSleaze admits to Sleaziness" to describe Judd Bagley and his work. It violates WP:NPOV and WP:BLP. When I tried to address these concerns it was reverted as "vandalism" by User:Phil_Sandifer, and then semi-protected. I would urge the arbcom to look into his actions, as it is my understanding that WP:BLP concerns should be addressed first, and that administrators should not use their powers in editorial disputes. 166.166.239.195 03:42, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

(short) Statement by Purples
I believe this is an issue requiring leadership, and a clear direction, from ArbCom. As well as the passionate advocates on both sides, this is causing confusion all over the wiki, here is one recent, typical example. - Purples 06:52, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment by MONGO
I have an essay as well...here. This is a no brainer...there simply is no reason to link to websites that violate our editor's personal identity or post ridiculous commentary in some blog or do nothing but attack our contributors. The vast majority of these sites completely fail RS anyway. Websites that offer real critical analysis of our editors and of Wikipedia are a whole different matter. Has anyone taken a look at ED lately...the website grows more disgusting by the day...why in the heck would we link to it? How could it possibly be of any encyclopedic necessity? I can't say blanket bans are a good idea and I do agree with a measured and mature response to any delinkings as a rule, but if we "take down" regulations that limit what is acceptable to be linking to, then we open the door for our demise. I have seen entirely too many editors abandon this website due to off-wiki harassment and I can't stand by and simply watch others feel compelled to leave because these attacks are brought into Wikipedia. When admins and editors help facilitate these attacks by demanding we link to specific websites, it really makes me ask myself why I am still editing here. Well, ED is hardly the worst for at the very least they do claim to be a parody site, so certainly, those that pretend to be serious places where "reviews" are made regarding this website and it's contributors, but are instead dominated by banned editors with an axe to grind and consist primarily of less than realistic and/or intelligent commentary, should not pass the smell test either. Sandifer argues that websites like antisocialmedia.net are critical to have in appropriate articles...well, how come, exactly? It is but a blog, fails RS and is not notable for inclusion, especially if you add in the fact that the site is used to attack our contributors. Perhaps it is time to see if a line can be drawn in the sand which will help us specify what is and what isn't acceptable to link to.--MONGO 09:01, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Dtobias laughs at the harassment he has recieved...that's great and worth commending...in fact, if we all did more to laugh off nonsense it would probably make the trolls less effective. However, how laughable is it when you have recieved a threat that your children will be killed? Shall we just bury our heads in the sand and do nothing...surely, it is just trolling afterall. How funny is it if someone sent you photoshopped pictures of your wife engaged in various sexual acts...I wonder how funny it would be if you were at risk of losing your job because some creep has been sending emails to your internal affairs division with links to articles at ED and WR...would the laughs be continuing as you get death threats against your parents? These are but a small sampling of the off-wiki harassment that has been engineered by contributors to ED and WR, many of them banned from here for various offenses...yet there is a rational arguement that we should link to these websites, which BTW don't satisy RS anyway...I really look forward to reading that one.--MONGO 20:44, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment by David Gerard
(I've been editing Judd Bagley, mostly just copyediting. I also recently blocked an overstock.com IP range for spamming and sockpuppetry, which block has received unusual levels of blogosphere attention for a spammer block. I personally couldn't give a hoot about Judd Bagley or overstock.com's existence and would quite like them to go away and never darken our encyclopedia again unless and until they can comport themselves like decent humans, something I personally suspect is unlikely.)

I do not seek to play down Bagley's impact on the victims of his (reliable-sourced) Internet stalking behaviour, or their strength of feeling on this matter. The guy is a completely odious arsehole (reliable-sourced). If he were hit by a fortuitous falling asteroid, the world would be greatly improved.

But. If anyone asserts that a community policy can override NPOV, they are simply wrong and the policy is simply broken and must be ignored - and those edit-warring their misinterpretation are 100% wrong and need to be made to understand why in no uncertain terms.

I note also that Wikimedia communities who think they can vote to override NPOV get their wiki taken away by the Foundation. c.f. the old Belarusian Wikipedia. The Siberian Wikipedia is headed the same way, and the Moldovan Wikipedia was closed for quite some time for completely failing at NPOV. The ArbCom needs to take this case for the defense of the wiki.

We're here to write an encyclopedia. NPA is a means to that end. If it turned out that writing an NPOV encyclopedia required personal attacks, flaming and trolling ... that'd be the rule. As it happens, NPA is pretty much essential to maintaining a working encyclopedia-writing community. But allowing that to mess with article space is unacceptable.

Note also, by the way, that antisocialmedia.net was not linked in the article - it was merely named. Nor were Judd Bagley's on-Wikipedia activities mentioned at all ... because they haven't come up in any BLP-quality sources, at all.

There are many people firmly convinced they are right to purge article space of links to websites they think attack Wikipedians - despite damage to the actual articles. This tendency was not nipped in the bud, and requires urgent attention right now.

There's an AFD on the present version of the article. It seems to be proceeding more or less sensibly, modulo strong feelings from many of Bagley's on-Wikipedia victims. The warring over "attack sites" needs to be quashed, and disinterested editorial processes allowed to proceed - David Gerard 09:58, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment by CBDunkerson
A link to an attack is effectively the same as making or quoting the attack directly on Wikipedia, and thus should be treated exactly the same... which in the case of a nasty comment to a user generally means a warning or block and sometimes (not always) removal of the offending material. On the other hand, linking to an attack in an article may actually be perfectly valid if the attack itself is a notable encyclopedic event (e.g. 'Osama bin Laden writes a blog entry vowing to kill the evil Jimbo because he drinks the blood of muslim babies' - clear attack on a Wikipedia user, but absolutely notable for inclusion). Extending the 'protective' concept to ban any link to a site which frequently hosts attacks is excessive and short-sighted... such sites may still contain some material which is valid and necessary for discussion or encyclopedic coverage. If the link doesn't have some merit then it can and will be removed under existing content policies. Further extending the principle, as has now been done, to ban all mention of a web-site, even without a link, if even a single 'attack' (in the opinion of the individual editor) has been made is the very height of absurdity.

Consider: Michael Moore and THF are both notable individuals who have a pre-existing history of dispute. THF becomes a Wikipedia user, brings that ongoing dispute here with edits about Moore, and Moore retaliates on his web-site by encouraging people to edit THF's page. Suddenly, Michael Moore's website is declared an 'attack site' and all links and references to it (even on the Michael Moore page itself) are removed from Wikipedia... in large part by users who have an avowed political opposition to Moore. This isn't some hypothetical absurdity like the Jimbo and Osama bit. This actually happened.

This practice needs to be banned and the users who continually abuse and mis-cast policy, arbcom rulings, and/or random comments to serve their own biases rather than the interests of the encyclopedia need to be told that enough is now very definitely more than enough. --CBD 12:33, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment to FloNight. This is about disruptive user conduct. Specifically, some users claim that the Committee already wrote a new policy and that they are allowed to edit war, block, censor, and otherwise steamroll to enforce it. That's about as disruptive as user conduct gets. --CBD 12:40, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Mangoe
WP:BADSITES has been a source of disruption from the beginning, even in the days when it was only being applied to talk pages. In practice it is now being used as a weapon in real world conflicts, in order to disrupt external links in articles. It has never reached consensus, and when it was forum-shopped to WP:NPA, it still failed to gain consensus. Yet people continue to enforce it, which I think is already cause for ARBCOM to step in.

But ARBCOM is also responsible for the single most problematic aspect: this definition of "attack site". That definition came from the original MONGO case: "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." This has consistently been interpreted extremely broadly to include any site where anyone says anything anywhere about the identity of a Wikipedia editor, even if there is no direct link to that statement. In the case of TNH's website, the link to the site as a whole was removed on the basis of a comment to a blog entry— one comment out of several hundred! It took a fair bit of work to find the comment even when I knew which blog entry it went with.

The definition of "attack site" is overbroad. I think we could do without it entirely, but in any case ordinary sensible people would not understand the term as it has been used. And it has been coupled with a general lowering of civility; MONGO, for instance, has trotted out a "guilt by association" attack on me when I've objected to the application of this non-policy.

I don't see any way for this disruption to end without ARBCOM intervention. Either they must clarify their earlier rulings sufficiently so that we can formulate policy unambiguously, or they need to say "look, this was rejected; you can't keep applying it as if it were law." Mangoe 13:46, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Addendum on "Attack" I've been active on the "Internet" about as long as D.Tobias has, long enough to be reviled venomously on usenet and in various fora. Perhaps his statement about thickening one's skin is overstated, but it isn't entirely without merit. On the other hand, we simply cannot stop external sites from hosting "attacks", however the word is construed, and we cannot expect them to honor our definition of what an "attack" is. There's a definite "if a tree falls in a forest and there's nobody around to hear it" quality to the discussion, because in every case of late (as far as I can tell), people had to be told they were being "attacked", and they had to either search for the "attack" or rely on someone else to provide them with a direct link. This has in turn had the perverse effect that the deletion of the innocent link becomes a message that there is something out there to be found. But there is also, as one can see building up here, a great deal of vituperation directed against (perhaps) outsiders as "attackers", and then against challengers to the deletions as tainted allies of the "attackers". This is the other thing that is a big problem: it seems as though BADSITES has become authorization for a great deal of incivility. I've been tagged with guilt by association over and over again. So what we have traded for dubious protection from attacks we often enough wouldn't even know about is a lot of manifest personal attacks within Wikipedia itself. Mangoe 21:51, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Addendum re Wikipedia Review
The BADSITES mess began with a concerted effort by User:DennyColt to remove links to Wikipedia Review, a site critical of Wikipedia of highly variable (and rather often dubious) quality. They do talk about editor identities there; I would tend to expect that any external site discussing Wikipedia would do so.

Back when suppressing WR was the project at hand, both D.Tobias and I predicted that the erasures would escape from talk and user space, and slop over into article space. That's exactly what has happened. The flip side, however, is that the campaign against WR has evaporated. Back in July there were 193 links to WR review, about a quarter of which were associated with ArbCom cases. Yesterday, I found 200+ links. There doesn't seem to be a reason to deal with WR, because nobody seems interested anymore in erasing links to it. It seems to me that ArbCom can stick to dealing with the manifest disruption in article space. Mangoe 15:48, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Statement by GRBerry
I think the ArbComm needs to clarify and bound the remedy in the Mongo case. The remedy itself has become a cause of dispute and drama, which I believe rises to the level of disruption. Whether a separate case is the right vehicle I am uncertain. It may be that a strong warning to certain users about the case specificness of that ruling would suffice, it may be that the ruling itself needs to be edited retroactively to make the case specific nature more clear. It may be that we just need a definition of an "attack site", or, since I think that wording is itself part of the problem, a replacement with "attack page" combined with a definition thereof.

I've heard of, but not seen diffs for, cases where preexisting article references and external links were removed because of this mess. People who remember when and where that occurred should present such examples on the evidence page to help the committee. GRBerry 14:02, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Addendum by GRBerry
Looking at the flailing below towards a clarification; I think a full case may be useful even if the committee intends no more than a clarification. GRBerry 20:07, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Statement by User:JzG
This definitely needs to be worked through and clarified, but I'm not sure if ArbCom is the correct venue. There are competing imperatives here, but also some common ground:
 * linking to material which directly attacks or outs editors is clearly a form of harassment, and has been used for exactly that purpose
 * banning all links to any site which contains such material, without reference to its appropriateness, wider content and the prominence of the attacks within the site, leads to needless drama.

Some people remove links to sites carrying attacks, and this is done in good faith. The MONGO arbitration is usually cited in this context.

There is a long-running campaign by a very small number of editors to allow links to one or two particular sites, especially Wikipedia Review. I would be extremely uncomfortable ifg any clarification of policy were taken as carte blanche to lnk to Wikipedia Review, as its format and structure, together with its user community (many banned abusers of Wikipedia) is such that what it says on any subject is simply not useful, and every thread is at risk of being hijacked and used to attack and harass. A lot of us have been savagely attacked on Wikipedia Review for evil actions such as preventing User:JB196 from using Wikipedia to promote his book, and blocking his two hundred or more sockpuppets. If we start allowing links to sites which specialise in attacking and outing, among which I would count Encyclopaedia Dramatica and Wikipedia Review, then a lot of us would feel harassed and intimidated; the feeling of harassment would be inherent in links to the site, because the sites have so much vitriol and the editors of the sites are so often vicious. Sites which make a regular practice of attacking members of the Wikipedia community by name must have a very high bar indeed to linking.

However, sites like michaelmoore.com clearly are not attack sites by any rational definition. Posting a link to michaelmoore.com is only harassment if it is done with the specific intent of harassing someone.

Then we have sites like antisocialmedia.net, which exist to attack everybody, and only attack Wikipedians in passing. Bagley is employed to pursue his employer's holy crusade against naked short selling, and is apparently given every encouragement to viciously attack anybody who stands in the way. He does this very well.

With both antisocialmedia have a very specific question: if someone is intimately linked to a site, should we suspend all consideration of our editors' feelings and link as a service to the reader, even where the site has no redeeming values whatsoever. The problem for me is that if we say yes, we are probably also saying yes to linking to Wikipedia Review, which is also devoid of any merit as a source for any article. If we allow links to Wikipedia Review - and probably if we allow links to antisocialmedia - then I suspect we will lose some long-standing contributors.

At the root of all this is the intent of the MONGO arbitration, whihc was to stop people using links to external attacks in order to harass others. I see absolutely no evidence that anybody involved in this case would countenance the use of any link to any site as a means of harassment. Not wanting to speak for others, but past exchanges with Dan Tobias indicate to me that he absolutely would not support the use of any link as a means of harassment (Dan, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). However, this raises a fundamental problem in that some editors will feel harassed if there are any links to some sites, and those will be the sites which prompt the biggest wars. Wikipedia Review, antisocialmedia, and ED if you want to count the bunch of EDers who want an article on ED.

I also see two competing philosophies of Wikipedia. On one hand we have people who believe that contant should be included unless there is a pressing reason not to include it; on the other hand we have people who think it is the job of the person proposing to include content, to achieve consensus to do so. I put myself in the latter camp, partly because of a lot of WP:BLP wars in the past and partly because it's my reading of bold, revert, discuss.

This is not something that's going to be easily solved. My recommendation would be a clarification of the MONGO arbitration that supports the removal of links to sites which *specialise* in attacking or outing Wikipedia editors, or using links to *any* site as a means to harass or attack others; I would also like to see a clarification that if there is no consensus to include a link then it should not be included. It should not be necessary for an editor who feels attacked, to achieve more than a significant minority support in order to be spared those feelings. Guy (Help!) 14:36, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Dan, re thick skin: I hope you never find out what it's like to be viciously attacked in a medium over which you have no control, on spurious grounds, and to have that attack repeated as fact by individuals with an axe to grind, to the point where even your friends start to wonder about it. That's what happened to SlimVirgin, and it's happened to me in the past as well.  It's simply unacceptable to tell victims of despicable attacks to grow a thicker skin. This is not garden-variety Usenet crap which nobody outside Usenet ever sees, we're talking here about publishing real names, addresses, phone numbers, exhorting people to do actual harm, real-world harassment, telephone calls, calls to employers and so on.  Rightly or wrongly, the nutters think Wikipedia matters in a way that Usenet does not, and Wikipedia seems to attract a more resourceful and determined kind of nutter. Guy (Help!) 16:25, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment to SqueakBox: with Wikipedia Review, there is no baby, only bathwater, and foetid bathwater at that. Guy (Help!) 20:52, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Addendum: here's another one that is (IMO) worth considering. Should a user be allowed to link to another user's blog, when that blog contains and links to vitriolic personal attacks on another editor? I refer to the link to the weinerwatch blog in this revision of a user page: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Mr_Grant&oldid=153785278 - I do not see how this serves the purpose of building an encyclopaedia.

Statement by Newyorkbrad
The oft-quoted sentence in the MONGO decision that "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 Wikipedia pages under any circumstances" was drafted by me, before being accepted by the arbitrator who prepared the final decision. (I submitted this and some other proposals anonymously at that time, because I was still a newbie and was not ready to enter into the Encyclopedia Dramatica mess just yet, but I was the original drafter.)

I submitted this proposal because the original draft decision that an arbitrator had prepared on the workshop page already provided that
 * "Links to attack sites may be removed by any user and are exempt from 3RR. Deliberately linking to an attack site may be grounds for blocking."

but it did not contain any definition of an "attack site." Editors commenting on the workshop were faulting the draft decision on that basis. My view was that "attack site," in this context, should be given some more clarity. A site that merely teased Wikipedians in a reasonable if satirical way, or that made good-faith criticisms of people's editing, should not be deemed an "attack site" resulting in unwarranted blocks and link-bans. What I thought put ED beyond the pale was its combination of vicious personal attacks on Wikipedians (and others) together with the publication of (actual or purported) personal identifying information of several editors who choose, as is their right, to edit here anonymously. The dangers created by the irresponsible practice of publicizing editors' private information without their consent are well-known to the Arbitration Committee and need not be rehearsed yet again.

With a year's more experience, this principle as originally drafted still makes a clear and necessary point, but may need some refinement. For example, I did not have in mind, when I wrote it, the type of site that contains "outing" information but also contains legitimate, or at least colorable if ofttimes mistaken or misguided, commentary on and criticisms of Wikipedia and its editors. Opinions vary, of course, on whether such a site should be classified as an attack site and link-banned. In a perfect world, such sites would render the task of classifying them unnecessary by emphasizing their good-faith commentary while minimizing offensive personal remarks about editors and completely eliminating the disclosure of private individuals' identifying information. A perfect world, of course, is not where we live.

As applied to the present case, the MONGO principle as written remains sound. It refers to "websites that engage in the practice of publishing private information concerning the identity of Wikipedia participants." A single or isolated instance of something is not a "practice," nor is discussion of generally known information about a prominent individual in public life equivalent to the relevation of private facts (although publicizing leaked, culled, or now-withdrawn information about other editors might be; I hesitate to discuss specific examples because I do not want to draw attention to problematic instances of this behavior). Thus, it does not follow from the MONGO decision that a site that reveals borderline private information about a single editor must be banned from all linking in article-space. The community might choose to establish such a policy, or editors on an individual article might decide to drop a link, but this is not compelled by the ArbCom ruling.

Of course it goes without saying that I am commenting only on the meaning of the sentence that I had in mind when I wrote it and I cannot speak for the arbitrators who decided to include it in the final decision of the case. I also express no view on whether this case represents an appropriate vehicle or forum for addressing the issues presented. Newyorkbrad 15:56, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Casey Abell
I've had two run-ins with BADSITES. Once SlimVirgin reverted a link I had made at Criticism of Wikipedia to a thread on Wikipedia Review. I had originally nowikied the link; another editor eventually made it live before SV's reversion. The thread outed nobody and didn't make any personal attacks. The reason I linked it was to illustrate how some editors have intentionally vandalized WP to test the reliability of the encyclopedia. The thread discussed exactly such an effort. Believe it or not, some comments in the thread were actually sensible, and criticized the vandal for such pointless and counterproductive edits.

But SV has been subjected to so much ridiculous abuse from Wikipedia Review that I didn't have the heart to restore the link. Instead, I found another (impeccable) source to make the same point. Okay, BADSITES didn't really bite me in the BADPARTS there, but I still didn't like the revert of a harmless link.

My other close encounter was a lot more frustrating, and I yelped about it on WP:ANI. Perverted-Justice, an organization that seems to upset a lot of people around here, has famously or notoriously, depending on your mood today, called WP a "corporate sex offender." I think the cirticism is unfair, but I think a lot of stuff in Criticism of Wikipedia is unfair. Perverted-Justice probably thinks the "Criticism" section of its WP article - which accuses the organization of every crime and misdemeanor including war in the Middle East, the Lindbergh kidnapping, the heartbreak of psoriasis, and the entire career of Carrot Top - is unfair.

I tried to link to the site's redirect page from WP, which outed nobody and made no personal attacks. The link got reverted. Then the massive two-dozen-word mention of P-J disappeared entirely from Criticism of Wikipedia, while far lengthier (and sillier) criticisms remain. BADSITES really bit here, and I thought the policy made Wikipedia look like a scared old maid from the 1870s.

I'm on record as calling BADSITES the craziest, silliest, most misguided attempt to make policy since the last time I thought about writing policy for Wikipedia. I don't understand the urge to rip links out of the encyclopedia that attack no one and divulge no personal information, just because those links may coexist on a site with objectionable material. All sorts of objectionable material is a couple clicks away on the Internet. I ask ArbCom to clarify that the MONGO policy should be applied on a link-by-link basis. Thank you. Casey Abell 17:26, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Deskana
WP:NPA is a 'means to an end' policy. Preventing personal attacks from one editor to another helps us build a productive environment, in which the end result is Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. In my opinion NPA should not apply to article content. Obviously if someone ads "DESKANA IS A DOUCHE" into an article, then that should be reverted per NPA, as that is an unencyclopedic personal attack. However, if linking to a "BADSITE" is required to build the encyclopedia, then it should be done. A community policy like NPA doesn't override NPOV, which is a foundation issue. As such, I request the arbitration committee accepts this case, to fully review the situation. --Deskana (talky) 18:32, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Statement by SqueakBox
Its obvious we shouldnt link to any attack page off or on wikipedia except in dealing with arbcom pages but to not link to any site that contains an attack page is throwing the baby out with the bath water especially with forum sites like Wikipedia Review or when a site is an integral part of an article, such as Don Murphy' official site for his bio. While Denny Colt was well intentioned in creating the BADSITES proposal he was also an inexperienced user and appears to have been incredibly naive as to the implications such a policy would have. I hope the arbcom accepts the case so it can give clarification re whether NPA means just the attack pages or whether it includes whole sites, and whether it applies to the main space, SqueakBox 18:35, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Iamunknown
I agree that clarification from the Arbitration Committee is sorely needed. I worry, however, that clarification in any direction will be seen as further mandates and thereafter be regarded as the law of the land. Wikipedians in general seem to be very poor at seeing things in shades of grey. --Iamunknown 18:48, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Dekimasu
I must agree in large part with the editors who have commented to the effect that we are, first and foremost, an encyclopedia. We cannot allow off-Wiki attacks to degrade the quality of our articles and dicate our policy, or they will have accomplished their goals in a very real way. Direct links to attack pages violate the spirit of WP:NPA regardless of whether or not external links are mentioned, but when linking to a specific page is beneficial to an article, that should be allowed regardless of the content of other pages on the site. Some editors are driven off by what is written about them off-Wiki, and that is both understandable and regrettable. At the same time, we make conscious decisions to discard a certain amount of our anonymity when we invest our time and effort in user accounts. A Wiki handle can be discarded, but if we cease to uphold WP:NPOV, and thus become systematically biased at a policy level, working here at all starts to lose its meaning. Dekimasuよ! 11:39, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Slrubenstein
Most of this discussion has pitted NPO against NPOV. But why? Because that is how Phil Sandifer presented it, in his opening statement. But I have yet to read any compelling argument - I mean, actual reasons rather than bald assertions - that NPOV requires the inclusion of such material. In the one case I am most familiar with, Overstock.com, the question is simple: should the article mention Chris Bagley and provide a link to his site, or not? In this case I see no compelling reason, not even a plausible reason, for mentioning Chris Bagley by name or naming his website - certainly not NPOV. First of all, not naming Bagley or the site does not exclude any view at all. The article already provides an account of critics of Oversight.com's management, as well as responses to those criticisms. The material in question (keep/delete) is not a view, it is merely information that Chris Bagley has created a website attacking critics. That is not a view; deleting it does not delete a view, so it cannot be a violation of NPOV. The real issue here is notability: is Chris Bagley's website notable enough that it merits mention in the Overstock.com article. I have seen no compelling argument that it is notable. The article already has lots of views from notable sources.

Now let's move from Overstock.com to the larger issue: websites that attack wikipedia editors, the subject of WP:BADSITES. How likely is it that such a site represent a notable view in an encyclopedic topic? Personally, I think it is very unlikely, and so far I have not seen any attack site that the rejected proposal would have addressed that rises to any reasonable standard of notability.

WP:NPA says that personal attacks are not tolerated in Wikipedia. I agree with an above comment that this policy is meant to address personal behavior, not content per se. But the opposition between personal behavior and content is a false opposition. All behaviors at Wikipedia take the form of edits - the question is, is the edit a personal attack or not? And in many cases, this depends on the content of the edit. Moreover, I fear the ArbCom has not noticed a loophole in its enforcement of the policy that some others have. ArbCom usually concerns itself with the contents of talk pages in assessing personal attacks. If ArbCom does not look at edits to the article pages as well, abusive editors will learn that they can attack someone as long as they do not do so on the talk page, but find a way to disguise it as article content.

I will refer to content of articles only for an analogy. NPOV has always been our policy, and NPOV from the beginning asked editors to cite sources. So why was there a need for an NOR policy, generally recognized to be a core content policy? Because while NPOV distinguished between majority, minority, and fringe views, there were editors who were using sources to argue that minority or fringe views were in fact superior to majority views. I think we have a similar situation here as well. NPOV hinges on distinguishing between notable and non-notable views, and I see no grounds for excluding notable views from an article even if they offend editors. But the issue here is that some editors are representing non-notable views as if they were notable views (this is the only way to call NPOV into play). And they are doing so to promote sites that attack Wikipedia editors.

The question here is not NPOV, it is notability. I suggest that an editor who presses to include a non-notable attack site is doing so to attack a fellow editor: an end-run around our policies, taking advantage of an apparent loophole in NPA. I urge the ArbCom to consider notability before it decides whether NPOV really is at stake. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 15:50, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment by User:Jossi
I would urge the ArbCom to hear this case to assess the the impact that attack sites has on the community and its editors. We are all volunteers and many of us dedicate an extraordinary amount of time to the project, only to be left fending for ourselves when attacked for our participation and commitment to this project. We have made BLP into a policy to "get it right" as it pertains to these living people about which we write articles. Would not be appropriate to "get it right" as well as it pertains to us editors? ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 19:10, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment by LessHeard vanU
I implore the Arbcom to provide the community with a form of words that allows editors to link to any site, providing that the material directly linked to does not contain an attack, as defined in the Mongo decision, or for the purpose of an attack on an editor, so Wikipedia maintains the ability to use all sources that enable the building of the encyclopedia, and furthermore to recognise that assuming good faith requires that the need for removing of any link has to be proven, on a case by case basis. LessHeard vanU 11:45, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Response to Samiharris; Read the italicised text above. LessHeard vanU 16:18, 8 September 2007 (UTC)Further; Indeed, but this Request for Arbitration is in regard to Badsites/NPA and the consequences of the MONGO ruling - as was my comment. I am aware also that the Arbcom does not create policy, but only interprets or otherwise clarifies existing policy, so reference to other criteria for not linking to off-Wiki sites is irrelevant here. This is my comment simplified (by being made longer); a request to produce a form of words to clarify that the MONGO ruling relates specifically to the kind of attacks commented upon there, and not the broad interpretation which has lead to the (attempted) removing of links to (and the sanctioning of editors posting such links) sites which have been construed by some editors as attack sites, and that the case for removing links per the MONGO ruling should be dealt with on an individual basis and not default to a class of sites/links, so editors may link to such sites as help build the encyclopedia without fear of sanction.LessHeard vanU 20:42, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
 * (response to Alecmconroy below). I don't think there is a need, the RfA has been notified at WP:AN and there are enough non-censorship voices already engaged. LessHeard vanU 13:11, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment by DHeyward
Web sites that use attacks on their page to troll wikipedia should be treated as any other troll. revert, blco, ignore. These sites are using Wikipeida to either generate traffic to their site or to improve their google ranking. Certainly no one advocates removing relevant content, but also it's very debatable whether a hotlink to a web site is required for an article especially when it exposes Wikipedia editors to harassment. Just because a troll puts up a website doesn't mean we surrender to the trolling. If we wouldn't allow the troll to post the material on a wikipedia user page, we probably shouldn't link to it in articles. That doesn't mean we don't write about it, just that we don't take people to the trolling and we don't increase their google rank and we don't generate traffic. --DHeyward 04:19, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment by DGG
I simply urge Arbcom to take this case, simply on the basis that the conclusion of the previous related case needs to be further explicated, as it has become obvious that the meaning is not being clearly understood. I am not necessarily objecting to the close there, but a further statement is needed to deal with aspects that it has become clear were not adequately treated. This would seem the obvious place and time. DGG (talk) 21:30, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Proabivouac
I fully support the spirit of BADSITES, but it is the height of hypocrisy to criticize others 1) for outing editors' real-world identities and for 2) publishing malicious, disparaging and potentially libelous information about living people, when we do the same in mainspace, talk space and project space alike (e.g. the archives of this very committee.) What is is they say about motes vs. beams?Proabivouac 08:19, 10 September 2007 (UTC) I ask if there is any definition of "attack sites" which isn't fulfilled by the proceedings of this very committee other than, "not controlled by the Wikimedia Foundation."Proabivouac 13:10, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Quick question by Alecmconroy
Would it be appropriate to post a notice about this at WikiProject Wikipedians against censorship? It's definitely something that would interest all the people who watch that page, and posting would possibly help bring more ideas into a very important discussion. But at the same time, they're definitely going to be predisposed to have a certain point of view on the issue, and I'm not totally sure whether it's a good thing to notify ideological-centered projects about issues. Thoughts?--Alecmconroy 09:52, 15 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Since there were no objections and voting has begun, I've gone ahead and added a notice about it to that project. I would encourage others to also get further community input, pro- and con-, about this case.  It is  a fundamental debate about what kind of project Wikipedia is going to be. --Alecmconroy 09:03, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Wwwwolf
I'm a bit of a latecomer, and I usually don't comment on ArbCom cases, but in this case, I really have to ask the Commitee to do something about this mess. In my view, the MONGO decision would not have caused any problems if people had been perfect, but human nature being what it is, it had some Subtle Implications. Specifically, it stated that some sites can't be linked to, and if someone successfully argues some sites fall within the spirit of that definition, they can't be linked to. A simple ArbCom decision that has somehow blossomed into a giant policy debate. ArbCom wasn't supposed to dictate policy, but in this case, they let the Pandora's box go slightly ajar, and we got into a giant mess. So please clarify things - I'm confused!

As for attack site debate, I'm pretty sure all of them have to be dealt on case-by-case basis, each and every reference, link and mention should be considered by their merit alone - not by the site contents, not by a definition of the site, but the applicability of the mentioning the site if it is necessary for a neutral, comprehensive article. If mentioning a site is necessary for a complete description of a fact, even if it may lead to inconvenient situation, it should not be a problem if the matter is handled with appropriate tact. If that argument can't be made, and the site has offensive content, it probably shouldn't be mentioned at all.

In short, I'm confused, and my debating skills are weak as of late; I hope this is clear enough. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 08:45, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

(short) statement by aldebaer
I have yet to come across an example of a link to a website which contains attacks on Wikipedians that would be a useful addition to an article, contributing to a more neutral point of view and better verifiability. In my opinion, the anything goes approach disregards our most basic editorial standards, not to mention the safety and feeling of safety associated with Wikipedia as a working environment for our volunteer contributors. I also agree with Purples (somewhere far above) that this issue requires leadership to be effectively resolved. — [ aldebaer⁠ ] 19:06, 19 September 2007 (UTC)


 * To clarify, what do you think of the alleged attack sites that we currently do link to-- like "Michael Moore" and "Making Light". Are you classifying those as "Not Useful" or as "Not Attack sites"? --Alecmconroy 19:17, 19 September 2007 (UTC)


 * They are borderline cases in that their basic concept is not that of being solely or predominantly engaged in action against WP editors. Temporarily taking down links so as to encourage better ways of dispute resolution is an option with such sites. — aldebaer⁠ 07:28, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Rob Smith, aka User:Nobs01
Evidence has been presented on the Evidence page purporting that I maintain an attack cite. This is a McCarthyite smear without foundation, again. I am a public person, identified by name two days ago on the Foundation-1 mailing list by the same user who posted the attack on the evidence page. The site in question should be referenced by the site's own name, and not an innocent person's name such as myself. I am requesting this baseless impugning of my person, character, and integrity be removed at once.

This case supposedly is to protect living persons and prevent slander, and the Arbitration process itself is being used to slander a living person wholey without evidence. Thank you. -- Rob Smith, aka Nobs01

Statement by JulesH
It's about time this issue was discussed in a broader context. I've seen time and time again people treating the previous ArbCom ruling regarding ED as if it were a blanket ruling that allows any links to any sites that contain any personal information of a wikipedia editor to be removed (even just a single item, copied from another already existing web site, and buried in the middle of a long page that wasn't even the same page linked to, on a site with hundreds of individual pages on a wide variety of topics). WP:BADSITES is not policy. It never will be policy because it is too broad in scope to be useful. Sure, as MONGO says above, some sites seem unlikely to ever be a useful destination for a link. But this is an assessment that must be made on a case by case basis, not blindly applied for every site that contains personal information about a wikipedia editor. The potential importance of the site to the subject being discussed must be considered, as must the ease of finding the personal information in question. As I see it, information on a page linked-to directly, or on the home page of a site, should usually prevent a link being used. Information buried in archives that is only refered to tangentially and not linked directly should almost never prevent the link.

I can't comment on this specific situation, because I am unfamiliar with the site in question. I only know the questions I would be asking: did any of the links in question go directly to the information that is considered undesirable. If not, is the information prominently placed on the site, or a major topic of discussion there? If the answer to the first question is yes, the link should be removed with no questions asked. In the latter case, a whole site ban may be appropriate, but only in the case where the site is not directly relevant to an article's content. The final question to ask is related to the intent of the user posting the link. If it is clear that the user is posting it to be disruptive via revealing editors' personal details, then a long block or even a ban would be appropriate. In cases where this is not clearly the case, I don't feel either is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by JulesH (talk • contribs) 21:26, 22 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Is ED only an attack site? It seems to me to be an Internet "drama" site - sure, this includes attacking, but it also includes joking, a hell of a lot of silly 4chan memes, and stuff about junk Wikipedia doesn't consider notable. It's like Uncyclopedia with a potty mouth and a tinge of Internet (and 4chan) pop. &mdash;  Rickyrab | Talk 04:09, 18 November 2007 (UTC)