MediaWiki talk:Spamprotectiontext

Problem with the message

The default with all URLs is that they are allowed. However, when a site has been added to many wikis, even if all the additions are legitimate, the additions can be viewed as spam, and editors blocked and sites blacklisted. Most blacklistings are of sites actually being spammed, but exceptions are not uncommon. The claim that a page must be clearly demonstrated to be of benefit, however, is excessive. Whitelisting a single page, upon a reasonable showing of the possibility of usefulness, and AGF for editors would require us to start with this assumption from a request, cannot create massive spamming without calling attention to it, and thus to possible sanction of the responsible editor. "Massive spamming" that cannot be handled in another way is one of the few grounds for blacklisting, and this cannot apply to a URL-specific whitelist entry, reasonably reviewed.

Most blacklistings that affect Wikiversity are done on Meta, and the argument and assumption there is often that a site must satisfy Reliable Source guidelines, which do not necessarily apply to Wikiversity. Rather, here, we would want editors to be able to add to a resource any site which participants here might consider useful, which could, for example, include web sites promoting fringe views, or political opinion, or the like. If such sites are judged to be "safe," i.e., reasonably free of copyvio (it doesn't have to be perfect, according to en.wiki standards, anyway), with the site not hosting libel that could cause difficulties, whitelisting the entire site may be considered. Otherwise, if a single page is requested, the default should be that it will be routinely accepted upon review. Otherwise we have administrators making content decisions, bad idea.

I intend to bring some boilerplate from en.wikipedia to MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist, modifying it as seems appropriate for Wikiversity, and when that is done, I'll ask for this message page to point to the whitelist talk page, and propose other changes to the message. I worked out this procedure for en.wikipedia with a blacklist administrator there, but was prevented from implementing it there by political problems on en.wikipedia, problems I do not expect will repeat here. --Abd 21:39, 13 April 2010 (UTC)