what issues do you have with the
Journal for the Study of Judaism from which the paper
linked by sam was published in?
None to speak of.
what was your take on the content of the link?
It's splitting hairs.
No opinion.
for the record, if i need a specific paper, i do not care where the shit is hosted. neither do i care to pay for something when i can find it for free.
Understandable, but inappropriate. Hate sites are a tainted avenue for even the most innocuous of information.
If no clean, free sites exist, then this speaks strongly to the appeal of the publication in question, to the point where dirty links must be scrupulously avoided if the linker wishes to avoid
prima-facie association with their agenda.
If clean, free sites do exist, then the selection of a hate site speaks strongly to the selector's character and motives.
the content should ideally be allowed to speak for itself and not serve as an endorsement for the site that hosts it
Well, again, if no other site hosts it, then that adds up to a fairly strong statement by the content, no? Appealling to particular audiences is one of the primary ways in which content speaks for itself.
And if clean sites are available, then the selection of a hate site is an endorsement quite apart from anything the content might have to say.
Moreover, the fact that the appropriate sources apparently can't be had for free supports my assertion that such topics are not amenable to original analysis here: you just end up arguing about what's in professional journals and library archives that nobody in the conversation has access to.
The appropriate thing to do in this case would have been to write a summary including key excerpts, and also link to the various reviews of the material, and encourage people to pay for the article and read it themselves. If a poster insists on linking to content on a dirty site, then there should at least be a disclaimer dissociating them from objectionable content on the site.
That's all supposing the poster doesn't approve of the site in question, of course, something we have no evidence for in this instance. Even when confronted with the nature of the site, no such disclaimer was forthcoming. Indeed, the contents of the site look more-or-less like a compendium of S.A.M.'s favorite talking points.