from_name: Chip Berlet

subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel law

body:
Hi, Having been sued for libel several times (they never won), I am afraid that as absurd as Ray Saintonge may think it is, my understanding of the law is that Steve Block is correct:

> * Newspaper editors are often named in suits, at least within the UK.
> * The reason they are named is that they authorise content which is
>        published.
> * By saving a page, I am creating an edition which is published.
> * I am called an editor.

And as long as the page history text is accessible, all prior versions of the page are "published" even if the current edit has deleted the potentially defamatory material. And so not only are the people legally responsible for Wikipedia potentially laible for damages, but so is every Wiki editor who hit the save button on a page that contained the defamatory text, even if it no longer on the current page.

:-(

I, too, would like to see an actual legal opinion on this.

________________________________

From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org on behalf of Ray Saintonge
Sent: Wed 12/7/2005 5:05 PM
To: English Wikipedia
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Libel law

Steve Block wrote:

> geni wrote:
>
>> On 12/7/05, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Is there any thoughts on private individuals?  Are we open to libel
>>> suits if we edit a page containing a libellous statement and fail to
>>> remove it completely from the edit history?
>>
>> I don't think there are any legal presidents in that area.
>
> No, but it would be nice to hear people's opinions, and also nice to
> hear if any legal opinion had been given to Wikipedia regarding this.
> Look at it this way:
>
> * Newspaper editors are often named in suits, at least within the UK.
> * The reason they are named is that they authorise content which is
> published.
> * By saving a page, I am creating an edition which is published.
> * I am called an editor.
>
> Also note the [[McLibel case]].
>
> Those sued did not make the statements, they simply distributed them.
>
> I would think a lawyer will make a good argument that it is possible
> we can be named in a suit if we have edited a page containing a
> libellous statement and failed to remove it.

Your hypotheseis leads to an absurd result.  If I edit this page
containing an alleged libel for matters unrelated to that statement how
am I supposed to know what is libellous in that article?  By your line
of reasoning, if I want to be safe I might as well delete the entire
article.  Your reading would make busibodies of us all.

Ec

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WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
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list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Kurt Wagner

body:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org
> [mailto:wikitech-l-bounces at wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Brion Vibber
> Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2005 5:34 PM
> To: Wikimedia developers
> Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] Access Denied from Wikipedia's proxies
>
> If we find you doing this, you will be blocked from access to
> Wikipedia.
> Falsifying user-agents is a fraudulent tool used by leeches
> trying to evade blocks.

> *Always* use a real user-agent string which identifies you,
> including enough
> contact information (e-mail address or URL) that you can be
> reached in case
> you're running a legitimate bot of some sort that's causing
> problems by accident.

Ah, apologies.  I actually read one of Jimbo's quotes wrong;
It said: "You could give it a User-Agent string that's
exactly the same as any popular browser, and we'd never know
the difference."  I missed the next sentence, "So it's good
of you to ask."  Oops.

The same list thread (archived) seemed to
imply that bots were allowed on a bot-by-bot basis (with
each user agent being allowed at a time).  This is obviously
not the case.  I will certainly have my bot
use a proper User-Agent string; it was before
I changed it to see if that was the problem.

> Might be, but we can't tell if you won't say what it is.

I was leery about doing so on a public mailing list, but it's
a host, I suppose, so no harm done.  I figured it probably
wasn't a block and was something simple I was overlooking, so
the IP address wouldn't really be needed

I believe it is 64.202.163.79.

> If you are grabbing pages live from Wikipedia and displaying
> them on your site
> with ads attached, or some other such, you will indeed be
> permanently blocked
> when you're discovered.

Not at all what I'm doing.  I'll release the source code if
you'd prefer when I'm done; I'd just like it to pull up a
basic page first.  :P

> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

Thank you for your help,

-HoodedMan
"Wind to thy wings.  Light to thy path.  Dreams to thy heart."


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] NYT to forbid use of Wikipedia as a reference?

body:
If true, oh crap:

From: [New York Times business editor] Larry Ingrassia
To: [Business staff]
Subject: wiki-whatdia?

Colleagues,

You probably saw Kit Seelye's smart Week-in-Review story about inaccurate information in
Wikipedia. In case you didn't, please take a look. Since the story ran, she has received a number
of e-mail messages about other inaccurate information on Wikipedia. We shouldn't be using it to
check any information that goes into the newspaper.

Larry

From: http://poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=10748

-- mav

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


list: wikien-l

from_name: Justin Cormack

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Questions about the "Wikipedia screenshot" category
	of images

body:
On Wed, 2005-12-07 at 12:44 -0500, Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> On 12/7/05, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
> > On Wed, 2005-12-07 at 11:02 -0500, Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> >
> > > Well, I like "4) Stop the nonsense about deleting images simply
> > > because they aren't being used in articles."  This whole process is
> > > based on a misconception about *why* relying solely on fair use is bad
> > > for Wikipedia (and these images likely fall under "fair dealing" as
> > > well as "fair use" anyway).
> >
> > You are not being very clear. What do you think the misconception is?
> >
> The misconception is that it has something to do with whether or not
> it is legal to have these images.  The truth is that we don't want to
> rely on fair use, because *reusers* of the content can't necessarily
> rely on it.

We also dont want to rely on fair use because there are no rulings
outside a court on what is fair use. And we are trying to make a free
encyclopaedia. We are relying on it far far too much. Some is perhaps
necessary, but most of the "fair use" rubbish we have isnt.

> > Commons is for potentially unused images, and many of the images in this
> > category could go there. The others are under a wide variety of licenses
> > depending on the content, but they should be no less free than the
> > content they cover.
> >
> Why aren't these images being moved to commons instead of being deleted, then?

Because most of the ones that are left arent free. Some were moved to
commons but were not free enough for it. Its a bit of a mess as they
are composite works. And hardly any of them are used in article space
anyway. Its just some work that needs doing.

Justinc


from_name: Brian

subject:
[WikiEN-l] The downside to requiring account creation. See also:
	[[Slippery slope]]

body:
I'm still officially on wikibreak (can that be official? =) but I just wanted to
drop a note here on my take on these new restrictions.

Many feel that the [[USA PATRIOT Act]] was only passed on the basis of it being
a highly emotional, gut reaction. Pretty much everyone was OK with it at first,
but over time a lot of Americans have come to wonder if it violates some of our
very basic principles. That's just a surface analogy - don't read into it too
far. The point is that, whether or not it is a perennial suggestion, and whether
or not an article existed for several months and displayed a prominent person as
an assassin, we should absolutely not go against the principles that got us
here.

The reason is simple: It is a slippery slope from stopping "anonymous" editors
from creating new pages, to stopping "anonymous" editors period. I quote
[[anonymous]] because it only (and merely) raises the bar to entry, and does not
affect the pseudo-anonymity that these so-called anons are granted. Creating an
account does not improve our ability to identify you, and not creating an
account does not stop us from identifying you. Creating an account merely gives
you the possibility of handing over legitimate contact information. It is
unnecessary and makes us look like a [[gated community]]. We are not that.

Requiring the creation of an account to solve these so-called problems (and I
will get to that, below) is akin to you realizing you are driving over the speed
limit, and in order to slow down you /turn around and start driving the other
direction/. Now you're just speeding the other way! You are going to the exact
same place, but you're just going to have to drive all the way around
the world to
get there.

I think the point we should take from the experience is this: Wikipedia worked
EXACTLY the way it was supposed to. Sure, we like to trump the fact that we
legions of uber-nerds scanning incoming edits as fast as they can sometimes
catch erroneous facts in a matter of seconds. But sometimes it takes longer.
Instead of requiring account creation, what we should really do is drive the
community to higher inter-linkage of obscure articles so that more people can
read it and the discrepancies can be caught by the very same process that got us
to hundreds of languages, hundreds of thousands of articles (and contributors!)
and multitudes of projects.

I know you can think of other ways we can focus community effort, and I think
that's what we should do. Wikipedia is not a gated community - it is an open
community based on open, (FOSS!) principles. Getting rid of one principle is a
step towards getting rid of them all. If we really do have a problem, e.g., if
we really are experiencing growing pains and not just sensationalism,  we need
to stick to our principles to solve it, not drive frantically in the other
directions. It doesn't solve the problem, it just means its going to be around
for longer.

--
Cheers,
Brian Mingus (Alterego)


list: foundation-l

from_name: Delirium

subject: [Foundation-l] Anons cannot create pages on english wikipedia?

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>Maybe new page patrol needs to be more about researching and improving
>new articles and less about "deleting crap".  The article that started
>this whole discussion wasn't "crap".  It wasn't "nn cruft" or
>"vanity".  But it did have some serious problems that could have been
>resolved if more time was spent researching it.
>
>I'm not saying this to lay blame, after all new page patrol is a
>volunteer effort so any help is better than nothing.  But if you're
>ever "bored" I can think of a few million things to do, things that
>are more important than "deleting crap" anyway.
>
>
Well, they aren't really comparable activities.  New-page patrol for
crap is a mindless activity that can be done to procrastinate and/or
relieve stress.  Researching someone I've never heard of, don't care
about, and don't have the resources available to research in the first
place isn't.  On the occasions I *do* want to do serious research for
Wikipedia, I prefer to do it on areas in which I either have expertise
or at least some amount of interest (I have a long list of articles I
care about that need improving or writing in the first place).  Perhaps
some volunteers can be persuaded to do "random researching", but I
suspect it will be relatively few.

-Mark


list: wikimedia-l


from_name: Stan Shebs

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:

>If true, oh crap:
>
>From: [New York Times business editor] Larry Ingrassia
>To: [Business staff]
>Subject: wiki-whatdia?
>
>Colleagues,
>
>You probably saw Kit Seelye's smart Week-in-Review story about inaccurate information in
>Wikipedia. In case you didn't, please take a look. Since the story ran, she has received a number
>of e-mail messages about other inaccurate information on Wikipedia. We shouldn't be using it to
>check any information that goes into the newspaper.
>
>Larry
>
>From: http://poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=10748
>
You mean the "Paper of Record" has been using WP to check their
facts? Don't they realize how frequently we use *them* as a
source? Shades of the Cheney/Miller echo chamber, geez...

Stan


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 12/7/05, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>
> >Maybe new page patrol needs to be more about researching and improving
> >new articles and less about "deleting crap".  The article that started
> >this whole discussion wasn't "crap".  It wasn't "nn cruft" or
> >"vanity".  But it did have some serious problems that could have been
> >resolved if more time was spent researching it.
> >
> >I'm not saying this to lay blame, after all new page patrol is a
> >volunteer effort so any help is better than nothing.  But if you're
> >ever "bored" I can think of a few million things to do, things that
> >are more important than "deleting crap" anyway.
> >
> >
> Well, they aren't really comparable activities.  New-page patrol for
> crap is a mindless activity that can be done to procrastinate and/or
> relieve stress.  Researching someone I've never heard of, don't care
> about, and don't have the resources available to research in the first
> place isn't.  On the occasions I *do* want to do serious research for
> Wikipedia, I prefer to do it on areas in which I either have expertise
> or at least some amount of interest (I have a long list of articles I
> care about that need improving or writing in the first place).  Perhaps
> some volunteers can be persuaded to do "random researching", but I
> suspect it will be relatively few.
>
> -Mark

After reading this, I find it hard to believe there isn't much much
more blatantly false content in the encyclopedia.  It does kind of
kill Jimbo's idea that "reduc[ing] the workload on the people doing
new pages patrol" will solve anything, though, assuming most new page
patrollers treat it the same way as you (limited to just "deleting
crap").  Suddenly I feel less bad about calling new page patrollers
firemen, but I should keep in mind that you don't speak for them all.

Anthony


from_name: Kostas Panagiotopoulos

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki 1.5.2 installation Error

body:
Hello,

I am trying to install mediawiki-1.5.2.on Windows NT. I have installed
apache_2.0.55-win32-x86-no_ssl , mysql-5.0.15-win32 and php-5.1.1-Win32. I
also have done the appropriate configuration(I tthink so!).
After I untar the mediawiki-1.5.2.tar inside Apache2\htdocs and try to
install it, I receive the following message:
________________
MediaWiki 1.5.2 installation
Please include all of the lines below when reporting installation problems.

Checking environment...

Warning: dl() [function.dl]: Not supported in multithreaded Web servers -
use extension=mysql.so in your php.ini in C:\Program Files\Apache
Group\Apache2\htdocs\mediawiki\mediawiki-1.5.2\install-utils.inc on line 17
Could not load MySQL driver! Please compile php --with-mysql or install the
mysql.so module.
_______________

I'm a newbie and I could use as much help as possible.
Thanks in advance.

_________________________________________________________________
FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar - get it now!
http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/


body:
--- Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> >From: http://poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=10748
> >
> You mean the "Paper of Record" has been using WP to check their
> facts? Don't they realize how frequently we use *them* as a
> source? Shades of the Cheney/Miller echo chamber, geez...

Very, very good point. We should work up a page that lists all their big errors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times#Recent_controversies is a good start.

-- mav

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


from_name: Elisabeth Bauer

subject:
[Foundation-l] Press pages for the projects & funddrive press
	release

body:
Hi all,

In regard to the recent wave of press we had, mostly in the english
media but spreading also to France, Italy and Germany, I consider it
very urgent that every project has a press page which describes the ways
how to contact Wikimedia and ask for verification of information.

It should be linked from the main page and contain at least the
following information:
* Link to a description of what the project is about (f.e. Wikipedia
articles about Wikipedia and Wikimedia or a special press dossier like
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Press_kit)
* Link to http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Press - logos and
images for press use
* Statistics, Replies to our critics or whatever you have as additional
information
* Link to the official Wikimedia foundation press room at
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_room
* Links to previous press releases and press coverage (if you have pages
for this)

Contact info:
* If you have trusted people on the wiki willing to act as local press
contact, add their name, email address and phone number there
These people should get in touch with me so I can direct local press
inquiries to them.
* general address for press inquiries is press at wikimedia.org

If you haven't done already, please prepare such a page and link to it
from your main page. You can use the english page as example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Press

The press release for the upcoming funddrive will be available soon on
meta wiki for translation. You can either distribute it locally over
your own distribution list if you have one or contact me to get an
account for the common distribution list to add your contacts and have
it distributed with a wikimedia address as sender.

greetings,
elian, writing here as the press officer of the Wikimedia Foundation


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Press pages for the projects & funddrive press release


subject: [WikiEN-l] Experiment on new pages

body:
On 12/7/05, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/7/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > Frankly, I really don't get it.  Siegenthaler is supposedly a defender
> > of free speech rights.  Doesn't he realize that making ISPs liable for
> > content spoken by others would stifle free speech?  Doesn't he agree
> > that the ability to speak anonymously is absolutely critical to free
> > speech?
>
> I think, like a lot of people who grew up in an age when free speech
> was something only accredited journalists and their sources exercised,
> he preferred that system.  Today's "everyone can be a journalist"
> Internet bothers a lot of people.
>
> -Matt

I usually don't reply just to say "yeah", but yeah, that actually
makes sense (which is not to say it's necessarily the right reason,
but at least it's a reasonable guess).

I think we need to be careful not to give in to that thinking.  In
fact I see it as almost the antithesis of what we're trying to do.
(Yes, some will argue that we're trying to create an encyclopedia, and
that's it, but we will only succeed at this if we reach a consensus on
*how* to create an encyclopedia.)

Anthony


from_name: Wikipedia Romania (Ronline)

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Why MO.wikipedia. - Moldovan,
	are written in cyrillic ?

body:
On 12/7/05, James R. Johnson <modean52 at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> Dumb question, but is that 555 and a half, or 555,500 (five hundred
> fifty-five thousand five hundred)?  And 177 and two-tenths people, or 177
> thousand two-hundred-four?

It's 555,500 (five hundred
fifty-five thousand five hundred) and 177,204.

In continental Europe, the decimal comma is used instead of the
decimal point, while the separator used is the dot, not the comma.
So, one thousand is written 1.000 not 1,000
And 2 and a half euro is written 2,50 not 2.50


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Questions about the "Wikipedia screenshot" category of
	images

body:
On 12/7/05, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> > On 12/7/05, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
> >
> >>On Wed, 2005-12-07 at 11:02 -0500, Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>Well, I like "4) Stop the nonsense about deleting images simply
> >>>because they aren't being used in articles."  This whole process is
> >>>based on a misconception about *why* relying solely on fair use is bad
> >>>for Wikipedia (and these images likely fall under "fair dealing" as
> >>>well as "fair use" anyway).
> >>
> >>You are not being very clear. What do you think the misconception is?
> >>
> >
> > The misconception is that it has something to do with whether or not
> > it is legal to have these images.  The truth is that we don't want to
> > rely on fair use, because *reusers* of the content can't necessarily
> > rely on it.
>
> So that means we aren't an encyclopedia about anything then?  We're
> actually an encyclopedia about what suits commercial usages?  Fair play,
> we have to look out for commercial users, but what is more important
> here, the encyclopedia or the potential reuse of it?

Commercial reuse is only part of the problem with fair use, though
yes, it is one of them.  But even if you don't agree about commercial
reuse, what about non-commercial reuse by people subject to non-US
laws?

You ask what is more important, the encyclopedia or the potential
reuse of it.  The answer is that both are absolutely essential.
Fortunately, they're not mutually exclusive.

Anthony


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [WikiEN-l] Anons banned from creating articles

body:
Delirium wrote:
> Magnus Manske wrote:
>
>> Ah, now I see: This "experiment" is, truth be told, an Alzheimer
>> prevention program to make you remember your password! :-)
>>
>> Seriously: While a scientific experiment is open in its outcome, it is
>> in some way designed along an expectation, namely that your working
>> hypothesis is correct. Only if the experiment shows that this hypothesis
>> is false, you will consider altering or abandoning it.
>>
>>
> At least in the science I'm familiar with, you might personally think
> that your hypothesis is correct (or else you would have hypothesized
> something else), but the *experiment* is supposed to be designed from
> the point of view of a skeptic who believes it to be false.
Technically, we'd have to run a second wikipedia, mirrored at the point
where anaon article creation was disallowed on *one* of them, as a
"negative control" :-)

Since practical reasons prevent us from doing that, we'll have to
compare statistics to the last few month. We should also take opinions
(yes!) from the "new pages patrol" people into acount, wether the
creation of junk pages has dropped noticably.

Ultimately, to see if reality matches your hypothesis, you'll have to
apply the conditions of that hypothesis to reality and see if it matches
the expected outcome. That's what we are doing. If the results do not
match our expectations, thus proving our theory wrong, we'll take the
changes back; I have no doubt about this.

Magnus

(yes, I know the scientific hypothesis analogy is a little flawed...)


from_name: geni

body:
On 12/7/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> The Cunctator wrote:
> > What annoys me particularly is pretending that this is an experiment.
> > It's not. It's a permanent policy change.
> >
> > Who's willing to bet that I'm wrong?
>
> I bet it is a permanent policy change because (a) it seems to be working
> quite well and (b) it is consistent with our commitment to remain open.
>
> --Jimbo

[[Wikipedia:Articles for creation]] is already 62 kb long.

--
geni


list: commons-l

from_name: Jacques

subject: [Commons-l] [fr] Modification de page impossible

body:
Bonsoir,

Merci Delphine, merci Guillaume pour vos promptes r?ponses! J'ai r?essay? :
finalement, le probl?me vient du navigateur. Ma version d'IE n'est pas toute r?cente. Avec Firefox, aucun probl?me.

A bient?t

Jacques


subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel law

body:
On 12/7/05, Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> > Steve Block wrote:
> > >No, but it would be nice to hear people's opinions, and also nice to
> > >hear if any legal opinion had been given to Wikipedia regarding this.
> >Under US law, we aren't liable for libellous statements that are made
> >by other people.  UK law might differ, but to the extent it does
> >that's not really all that interesting to most people on this list -
> >the foundation is a US company (with, according to Kelly Martin, no
> >legal presense in the UK).
> >
> It may come as a surprise to you, but many of us on the list are not
> Americans, and we find that kind of attitude deeply offensive.  It may
> be true enough that the specific provisions of UK law may not be
> interesting to most of us, but if you substite the Wikipedian's own
> country for UK the resulting total will not be insignificant.  This is
> precisely the kind of arrogant attitude that goes into the image of the
> "Ugly American".
>
Sorry.  I think I misunderstood the question.  I thought the "we" in
the question was Wikipedia.  But looking at it again, the concern
seemed to be more over the individual editors, so the "we" was
probably supposed to refer to individual UK citizens.

I hope you're not offended by the fact that I'm not interested in
this.  I have enough trouble just keeping myself informed on the laws
of Florida and the United States.  (Incidently, I was thinking about
starting a wikibook on US laws from a perspective of laws that
everyone living or visiting here should know: free speech, search and
seizure, copyright, the uniform commercial code, self defense and
excessive use of force, etc.  Anyone else interested in this?)


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Experiment on new pages

body:
Stan Shebs wrote:

> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>>> What does Siegenthaler want?  Does he want Wikipedia to stop allowing
>>> volunteer contributors?  Does he want Congress to remove the
>>> protections given to ISPs for merely carrying content produced by
>>> others?  Does he want to take away the ability of Internet speakers to
>>> be anonymous?  Does he want to start licensing or bonding people who
>>> produce content to distribute over the Internet?
>>
>> Maybe he just wants more awareness around the problem, which is
>> certainly more complex than Wikipedia's involvement in the issue.
>
> My read is that his reaction was fundamentally "OMG, I had no idea
> all this was going on". The allegations would have been just as
> problematic had they appeared on a random blog - freepers and
> stormfronters would have been perfectly happy to have them posted
> on their sites - so his complaints apply to most of the net, have
> little to do with WP specifically (but of course we want to be
> a much better reference than the average website).
>
> People that are just now discovering the Internet are simply not
> going to have any idea how deep it goes. WP is simply one novel
> project among millions, even the experts have trouble keeping up
> with the weird stuff that's being tried out every day (the dot com
> bust has become a dot star boom...)

That's about it, which is why I feel that those who are questioning
Seigenthaler's motives are being a little unfair.  There are any number
of people and groups who are not happy with the lack of control over the
internet.  They would much rather that it reflect their view of the
world   It all comes down to a question of how we minimize the
credibility of the bad actors.  They aren't going to stop their
vandalism; we just need to make sure that the cure is not worse than the
disease.

Ec


body:
On 12/7/05, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> We also have to measure whether or not the problem has just shifted from anons to new users
> (really, anons who's only motivation to create an account was being prevented from creating a new
> page). If that is the case, then we may need to extend the experiment to newly created user
> accounts as well.
>
> -- mav

And maybe the problem will shift from new articles to edits of
existing articles...in which case we may need to extend the
restriction to making edits as well?


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Wikipedia-l] road to stability, formatted. last kick-off posting.

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:

> Setting a version as stable is currently not logged; this isn't a
> technical problem, but sheer lazyness on my part.
> There is a problem with templates; even a stable version will use new
> templates. I do not have a neat soultion for that, except generally
> limiting write access to templates. However, misinformation through a
> template will be hard to achieve anyway, compared to directly editing
> article; also, template changes will be noticed rather quickly.

Would a neat solution be to attach a list of the revision IDs of all
templates in the stable version, so that when the page is called up it
calls up those versions of the templates? Or is this harder than it sounds?

- d.


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] road to stability,
	formatted. last kick-off posting.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel law

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>On 12/7/05, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Steve Block wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>No, but it would be nice to hear people's opinions, and also nice to
>>>>hear if any legal opinion had been given to Wikipedia regarding this.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Under US law, we aren't liable for libellous statements that are made
>>>by other people.  UK law might differ, but to the extent it does
>>>that's not really all that interesting to most people on this list -
>>>the foundation is a US company (with, according to Kelly Martin, no
>>>legal presense in the UK).
>>>
>>>
>>It may come as a surprise to you, but many of us on the list are not
>>Americans, and we find that kind of attitude deeply offensive.  It may
>>be true enough that the specific provisions of UK law may not be
>>interesting to most of us, but if you substite the Wikipedian's own
>>country for UK the resulting total will not be insignificant.  This is
>>precisely the kind of arrogant attitude that goes into the image of the
>>"Ugly American".
>>
>>
>Sorry.  I think I misunderstood the question.  I thought the "we" in
>the question was Wikipedia.  But looking at it again, the concern
>seemed to be more over the individual editors, so the "we" was
>probably supposed to refer to individual UK citizens.
>
The problem related more to "most people on this list" rather than
"we".  I think that my point was made and understood; this is not a
horse that runs well if it's flogged too much.

>I hope you're not offended by the fact that I'm not interested in
>this.
>
What you may or may not be personally interested in is not a problem.
It's perfectly normal for anyone to be interested in the laws of his own
country, and citizens of other countries will have concerns about how
they are affected by US law

>I have enough trouble just keeping myself informed on the laws
>of Florida and the United States.
>
Absolutely.

>(Incidently, I was thinking about
>starting a wikibook on US laws from a perspective of laws that
>everyone living or visiting here should know: free speech, search and
>seizure, copyright, the uniform commercial code, self defense and
>excessive use of force, etc.  Anyone else interested in this?)
>
Interesting, and probably useful.  I have briefly thought of a Wikibook
on comparative copyrights, but am easily discouraged when I think of how
much work is involved.  I already have plenty to do.

Ec


from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] Two Comments on the Siegenthaler Situation

body:
Well and are we technically "re-publishing" each time someone opens
the page in their browser?

I'm not completely clear on what the legal model is in relation to
websites as printing presses, perhaps someone can point me in the
right direction?

FF

On 12/7/05, Tom Cadden <thomcadden at yahoo.ie> wrote:
>
>
> Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote: Steve Block wrote:
>
> .  If we archive libellous statements, we are open to
> > libel suits.
> >
> I don't believe that's true.  When newspapers have been sued for libel,
> typically they are required only to stop *re*publishing the statement,
> i.e. in new editions of the paper; they are not required to excise the
> offending article from their archives, which for historical archival
> purposes ought to be an unabridged record.
>
> -Mark
> There is a difference. The only people who can access a media archives are researchers or people who choose to go in to look at the microfilms, which is a tiny number of people. In addition an apology is required to be entered in the paper. But our archives would be open access, so as long as we had the libel in open archives we could be repeating it by virtue of that access. In addition someone could simply revert back to it and cause legal nightmares.
>
>  Thom
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Yahoo! Messenger  NEW - crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Heinz

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Anons banned from creating articles

body:
Where are the results of that experiment discribed?

Heinz

Stan Shebs schrieb:
> The Cunctator wrote:
>
>> On 12/6/05, Martin Osterman
>> <stonewallgrant at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Perhaps my newness to the encyclopedia (member as of March, 2005) has
>>> left
>>> me feeling naieve.  However, I'm inclined to give Jimbo the benefit
>>> of the
>>> doubt.  He says it's an experiment, so I'm inclined to go with that.
>>>
>>> On what grounds do you suggest that this is a "permanent policy
>>> change" in
>>> the guise of an experiment?
>>>
>>
>> Primarily because experiments are better designed. I think part of the
>> problem is that what I'm thinking of as an experiment is different
>> from how Jimbo's using the word. He's probably just using it to mean
>> "I'm making a change and I'm not 100% certain of what will happen,
>> even though I'm pretty sure it'll be good."
>>
>>
> There's a difference between "experiment" and "scientific experiment".
> The former is appropriate for speaking of "youthful experimentation"
> for instance, which is rarely pursued in a properly controlled way. :-)
>
> Tightening up of WP openness and process is very much akin to what
> has happened to the Internet as a whole, in response to systematic
> assaults on people's computers. It wasn't that long ago that a number
> of idealists routinely made their passwords and other access info
> public, in the name of openness (I personally logged in as RMS a
> couple times, strictly for legitimate reasons! :-) )  Nowadays
> machines will get pwned within minutes - a sad statistic on the
> number of evildoers running rampant in the world.
>
> Stan
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Matt Brown

subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel law

body:
On 12/7/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> The fact that Wikipedia's servers are primarily in the United States
> naturally caries certain legal implications.  We all know that.  That
> the law of the United States is in any way superior is not one of those
> implications.  Sometime we would appreciate a little less bushshit, and
> more of a recognition that the United States is only one country in the
> same world as the rest of us.

However, I suspect that content producers and publishers would
convincingly argue that in the matter of libel law, the United Kingdom
is very much inferior, to the extent that British libel law is an
effective restraint on all kinds of free speech that are legal in much
of the rest of the world.

Of course, those who are frequently written about might disagree.

-Matt


body:
Jimmy Wales schrieb:
> The Cunctator wrote:
>
>>What annoys me particularly is pretending that this is an experiment.
>>It's not. It's a permanent policy change.
>>
>>Who's willing to bet that I'm wrong?
>
>
> I bet it is a permanent policy change because (a) it seems to be working
> quite well and (b) it is consistent with our commitment to remain open.
>
> --Jimbo
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

Where can the results of this experiment been read?

Heinz


subject: [WikiEN-l] Experiment on new pages

body:
On 12/7/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> I'm not an expert in US constitutional law; it's not my country.
> Sometimes it does happen though that one right can interferes with
> others.  Reconciling those rights may lead to limitations on one or the
> other.  I don't think that it would be fair to conclude that free speech
> condones defamation.  Whether actual defamation could be proven cannot
> be established unless the person has the right to face his accuser.

The point they were trying to make is that this is a fellow who
supports various civil liberties but seems to desire that it would be
extremely easy for people to get intricate personal information based
only on an IP address, without having the desire to actually file
charges for that information. That's an attitude frowned upon by most
privacy advocates, and S.'s advocacy of it sounds suspiciously like
something he would not want applied as a general rule, but just in his
situation, but I don't know.

Should I be granted access to anybody's personal information just
because I didn't like something they wrote on an internet forum? That
sort of power could be easily abused and I'm sure we've all had
situations where we can recognize that it was a good thing that the
nut on the other end of an electronic exchange didn't have access to
our phone number much less our home address. Of course, if that nut
was filing legal proceedings, that would give them standing for such
information. But if they just want to casually complain -- hard to
justify.

FF


from_name: Angela

body:
On 12/7/05, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Odd. I just created a new user account and was able to upload an image. I was sure that new user
> accounts could not upload. That might have been a temporary measure to combat a group of vandals.

Perhaps you confused uploading with page moving? The newest registered
users can't move pages.

Angela.


body:
Well, that's a question that has been at the center of our policy for
a long time. At the moment the vote seems to be "Let the re-user sort
it out" though I don't think that's entirely adequate, personally.
It'd be nice if there was a possibility of creating "totally-free"
database dumps but alas the database dumping technology seems to be
fairly primitive still (all or nothing).

FF

On 12/7/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> Commercial reuse is only part of the problem with fair use, though
> yes, it is one of them.  But even if you don't agree about commercial
> reuse, what about non-commercial reuse by people subject to non-US
> laws?
>
> You ask what is more important, the encyclopedia or the potential
> reuse of it.  The answer is that both are absolutely essential.
> Fortunately, they're not mutually exclusive.
>
> Anthony
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Geoff Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] David Hager is listed as convicted rapist

body:
On Wed, 7 Dec 2005, Fastfission wrote:

> Um, so what exactly are you proposing is the procedure here? I should
> just rely on my (your?) judgment about when NPOV is being trumped by
> community lack of consensus?
>
I suspect David was attempting to use cruel, unmitigated sarcasm to
deal with the problem, but as you have shown this doesn't work in every
case.

> I think [[Category:Soviet spies]] should be trashed. 95% of the people
> in the category were never charged much less convicted. Most of them
> have a name which appears on some cryptic NSA file but that deserves a
> category of "Listed by the NSA as a spy" or something like that.
>
> I think that the community (lack of) consensus was affected by a small
> horde of POV-pushers rallied for the occasion.

I'd say you're not alone. Unless you can find some objective way to
include/exclude possible candidates (e.g. "convicted of being", "indicted
of being", "identified by a known authority as being"), the category
is useless -- except for people who are POV pushers. Or can I create
[[Category:Moron talk show hosts]]?
>
> So... should I just take it upon myself to delete it? That would raise
> nothing but hell. I'm not interested in that. Do we have mechanisms
> set up for this? Or is it the Ed Poor, "delete first, figure out the
> politics of it later" strategy?
>
If you want to nominate this on RfC, I'd be happy to second it. However,
while the cruel, unmittigated sarcasm strategy might be less effective
than the motions of an RfC, it would doubtlessly be far more satisfying.

Geoff


subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel law

body:
On Wed, 7 Dec 2005, Kelly Martin wrote:

> On 12/7/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> > It may come as a surprise to you, but many of us on the list are not
> > Americans, and we find that kind of attitude deeply offensive.  It may
> > be true enough that the specific provisions of UK law may not be
> > interesting to most of us, but if you substite the Wikipedian's own
> > country for UK the resulting total will not be insignificant.  This is
> > precisely the kind of arrogant attitude that goes into the image of the
> > "Ugly American".
> >
> > The fact that Wikipedia's servers are primarily in the United States
> > naturally caries certain legal implications.  We all know that.  That
> > the law of the United States is in any way superior is not one of those
> > implications.  Sometime we would appreciate a little less bushshit, and
> > more of a recognition that the United States is only one country in the
> > same world as the rest of us.
>
> Dude, get the chip off your shoulder already.
>
Didn't you write in another email in this same thread

> It would be advisable for the Wikimedia Foundation to avoid
> establishing a legal presence within the jurisdiction of countries
> which lack adequate protections for free speech, however.

To rephrase an old saying about Computer Operating systems, legal
protection of free speech in all countries suck, they just suck in
different ways.  (And then some countries don't bother with offering
any protection, which sucks even more.) I think it's fair to say that
the U.S. has done a better job in the past of protecting free speech
than it does now; & I hope that it does a better job of it in the
future. That being said, we US citizens are not in the position at
the moment to start throwing stones.

Geoff


body:
Um, so what exactly are you proposing is the procedure here? I should
just rely on my (your?) judgment about when NPOV is being trumped by
community lack of consensus?

I think [[Category:Soviet spies]] should be trashed. 95% of the people
in the category were never charged much less convicted. Most of them
have a name which appears on some cryptic NSA file but that deserves a
category of "Listed by the NSA as a spy" or something like that.

I think that the community (lack of) consensus was affected by a small
horde of POV-pushers rallied for the occasion.

So... should I just take it upon myself to delete it? That would raise
nothing but hell. I'm not interested in that. Do we have mechanisms
set up for this? Or is it the Ed Poor, "delete first, figure out the
politics of it later" strategy?

FF

On 12/6/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> Steve Block wrote:
> > Jimmy Wales wrote:
> >> JAY JG wrote:
>
> >>> I've been have a months-long debate with another editor on this
> >>> topic. I've been stating that we include people in "Criminals"
> >>> categories if
> >>> they have been convicted of a crime by an independent judiciary.  The
> >>> other editor insists that we have to decide (by some means) whether or
> >>> not they have actually committed a crime, conviction is not enough a
> >>> good enough yardstick.  I'd be interested in other thoughts here.
>
> >> I have a simple thought.  My simple thought is that of course you are
> >> right. :-)
>
> > I agree with you, but community consensus doesn't.  I recently tried to
> > get the criminal categories renamed to include the words convicted but
> > was told that was unworkable since Butch Cassiday was never convicted,
> > or something.
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2005_November_15#Criminals
>
>
> Well, I guess community consensus trumps NPOV ... except of course it
> doesn't. That would get a "don't be dense" category deletion.
>
>
> - d.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
On 12/7/05, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
> Well and are we technically "re-publishing" each time someone opens
> the page in their browser?
>
> I'm not completely clear on what the legal model is in relation to
> websites as printing presses, perhaps someone can point me in the
> right direction?
>
> FF
>
It's the position of the Wikimedia team that the foundation is not
"publishing" at all, ever.  In fact, if you read the USA Today article
closely, Seigenthaler's lawyers apparently agree with this position.

"Federal law also protects online corporations ? BellSouth, AOL, MCI
Wikipedia, etc. ? from libel lawsuits. Section 230 of the
Communications Decency Act, passed in 1996, specifically states that
'no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be
treated as the publisher or speaker.'"

That's a quote from the Seigenthaler Op/Ed piece.  So even he
apparently agrees that Wikipedia is not a publisher.

Anthony


from_name: The Hooded Man

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: "Kurt Wagner" 7 Dec 05

body:
Sorry if I confused anyone with the change in my From: field.  That lists an
old e-mail address which just forwards to my new one.  I've configured my
mail client so that won't happen again.  Sorry about that.

-HoodedMan
"Wind to thy wings.  Light to thy path.  Dreams to thy heart."


from_name: Delphine Ménard

body:
On 12/7/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:

> [[Wikipedia:Articles for creation]] is already 62 kb long.

I have a strong suspicion ;-) that lots of the articles asked on that
page have been asked by wikipedians like you and me... "experimenting"
:-)

Delphine
--
~notafish


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Sources and sourceability

body:
On 12/4/05, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I can just provide my personal history here. I appear in the credits of
> several popular reference works as everything from contributor to assistant
> editor-in-chief (a horrible title, I might add, but then again, so was the  book).
> I have worked on these books for Simon and Shuster, Facts on File,  Macmillan
> (before it was gobbled up by Simon and Shuster), Reader's Digest,  Henry Holt,
> and Continuum. In each book, the facts were checked as Brian  describes. In
> fact, I remember one senior editor at Simon and Shuster boasting  about how
> they would pay grad students a certain amount of money for every  mistake they
> found. They were eager to find errors. I now have a manuscript of a  book that I
> wrote for Marshall Cavendish sitting on my desk. Every sentence was  numbered
> and checked. I have been asked to help source the material. I will be  happy
> to provide the email exchange.
>
> Mind you, I am not suggesting that we go to these extremes. I do think it  is
> important, however, that people understand the lengths that publishers  of
> reference works go to in order to ensure the quality of their products. Of
> course, some publishers are more meticulous than others. And despite all the
> efforts, mistakes always managed to slip in anyway.
>
> I am not about to say that because they do it, so should we. On the  other
> hand, I will state my personal belief that with 850,000 articles already  in the
> English Wikipedia, we should pay even more attention to quality than  usual.
>
> Danny

Is the normal process to number every sentence and then check them one
by one?  Who is normally in charge of matching the sentences to the
sources, the author or the fact checker(s)?  Are the sources
documented, and if so in what way?  Do multiple people fact check the
same sentences?

Maybe we shouldn't do this, and even if we should there are probably
more efficient ways to do it using a wiki, and there are other
problems which would make our processes less efficient (it's gotta be
harder to fact check a constantly changing work, especially one with
such a multitude of different authors).  But some more insight into
*how* all of this fact checking is accomplished would be helpful.

Anthony


body:
Magnus Manske wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:

>>Would a neat solution be to attach a list of the revision IDs of all
>>templates in the stable version, so that when the page is called up it
>>calls up those versions of the templates? Or is this harder than it sounds?

> So, a new table to store all revision numbers of the templates used in
> the stable article version.
> And the templates used in *these*, too. (And so on.)

Ew. Ew ew ew. I forgot templates in templates. Ew.

(That buggers that solution to the same problem with article validation.
Ah well.)

Bah, I guess storing the wikitext of the stable version separately would
be the least worst solution then?

- d.


from_name: Tom Cadden

body:
Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote: Steve Block wrote:

.  If we archive libellous statements, we are open to
> libel suits.
>
I don't believe that's true.  When newspapers have been sued for libel,
typically they are required only to stop *re*publishing the statement,
i.e. in new editions of the paper; they are not required to excise the
offending article from their archives, which for historical archival
purposes ought to be an unabridged record.

-Mark
There is a difference. The only people who can access a media archives are researchers or people who choose to go in to look at the microfilms, which is a tiny number of people. In addition an apology is required to be entered in the paper. But our archives would be open access, so as long as we had the libel in open archives we could be repeating it by virtue of that access. In addition someone could simply revert back to it and cause legal nightmares.

 Thom

---------------------------------
Yahoo! Messenger  NEW - crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail


from_name: James R. Johnson

body:
So true. Jayson Blair, anyone?  And how many other errors/omissions/biases
on the NYT could we list if we tried?

James

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Daniel Mayer
Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2005 10:00 PM
To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] NYT to forbid use of Wikipedia as a reference?

--- Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> >From: http://poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=10748
> >
> You mean the "Paper of Record" has been using WP to check their
> facts? Don't they realize how frequently we use *them* as a
> source? Shades of the Cheney/Miller echo chamber, geez...

Very, very good point. We should work up a page that lists all their big
errors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times#Recent_controversies is a good
start.

-- mav

__________________________________________________
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body:
David Gerard wrote:
> Magnus Manske wrote:
>
>
>> Setting a version as stable is currently not logged; this isn't a
>> technical problem, but sheer lazyness on my part.
>> There is a problem with templates; even a stable version will use new
>> templates. I do not have a neat soultion for that, except generally
>> limiting write access to templates. However, misinformation through a
>> template will be hard to achieve anyway, compared to directly editing
>> article; also, template changes will be noticed rather quickly.
>>
>
>
> Would a neat solution be to attach a list of the revision IDs of all
> templates in the stable version, so that when the page is called up it
> calls up those versions of the templates? Or is this harder than it sounds?
>
So, a new table to store all revision numbers of the templates used in
the stable article version.
And the templates used in *these*, too. (And so on.)
And tell the parser to use these. (What if one of these revisions was
deleted? Use the "nearest"?)
And all that from within an extension.

Ask Erik Moeller about WikiData and "revision consistency hell" ;-)

Don't get me wrong, this is possible, no doubt; but I'm still struggling
with the logging system (my attempt is half-broken, could someone take a
look there?). IMHO templates (in this context) are a problem, but a very
minor one, compared to what the feature achieves otherwise with very
little mess.

If templates turn out to be a big problem later, we can just say (globally):
* If showing a stable version, use the stable (in contrast to the
latest) template version, if such is set (latest remains fallback)

That would minimize messing with the system while giving high-quality
results, with a minimum of special cases.

Magnus


from_name: Alin Dosoftei

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Script conversion for Vlax Romany Wikipedia

body:
I want to write also the features that I think this conversion system should
have:
*automatic making of links between the 2 versions when a new article is
written in one of the scripts to allow an easy leaping between them
*a function to point out the pieces of text that are not wanted for
conversion
*also to appear in "history" fom which script was done the edit.

Desiphral


subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel law

body:
Matt Brown wrote:

>On 12/7/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>The fact that Wikipedia's servers are primarily in the United States
>>naturally carries certain legal implications.  We all know that.  That
>>the law of the United States is in any way superior is not one of those
>>implications.  Sometime we would appreciate a little less bushshit, and
>>more of a recognition that the United States is only one country in the
>>same world as the rest of us.
>>
>>
>However, I suspect that content producers and publishers would
>convincingly argue that in the matter of libel law, the United Kingdom
>is very much inferior, to the extent that British libel law is an
>effective restraint on all kinds of free speech that are legal in much
>of the rest of the world.
>
>Of course, those who are frequently written about might disagree.
>
Just because I was given the incentive to be critical of United States
attitudes doesn't mean that I would not take advantage of a similar
opportunity to be critical of the United Kingdom.  After all, whatever
hypocrisy that we might now see emanating from the United States
reflects a well learned lesson from its colonial past.  When it comes to
criticising government the United Kingdom still maintains a draconian
Official Secrets Act to make it clear that speech is only as free as
government wants it to be.

Ec


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] User ratings

body:
***delurk***
Hi all,
  There have been sporadic mentions of the idea of rating users to more
easily detect vandalism.  Has there been any serious discussion of this
idea?  The obvious example to follow is eBay, where the more activities
you carry out in the system without negative criticism, the higher your
rating.  Perhaps the Wikipedia example would be counting unreverted
edits.

This would trivially wipe out the problem with the new "anon users can't
create new pages", namely that anon users can instantly become
registered users.  If the rule was instead, "users with rating < 10
can't make new pages", that problem would pretty much go away.
Similarly, with the dangers of anonymous users editing pages, it could
become that users with a rating less than X could not make *visible*
changes to pages.  If they edit a page, their change is recorded but not
publicly visible.  The next time a user with a suitable rating edits the
page, the "pending" changes are displayed, accepted or rejected, then
commited.

This follows on from the discussion of meritocracies recently.  If
Wikipedia is becoming a meritocracy, why not formalise the idea?  Give
privileges to users with ratings >100, >1000 etc.  Restrict voting on
admins to users with certain ratings etc.

There are obvious downsides if too many privileges are given, namely
that people will be encouraged to make large numbers of meaningless
edits.

Comments welcome!

Steve (Stevage on en.wiki)


from_name: Anthere

subject:
[Foundation-l] Re: board manual and where information about the WMF
 should really be

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
>
>> Hello everyone,
>>
>> There has been a bit of discussion recently about Non Profit
>> Foundations and their organisation. Michael Davis has been discussing
>> a lot in the past few days with a lawyer we are working with, and
>> amongst various conclusions, it was recommanded that we try to
>> anticipate the best we could our growth curve and to get a strong
>> legal framework in place asap. Which seems to involve good functioning
>> structure... and sticking a bit more to traditional board governance
>> procedures, with some evolution in the way we handle agendas, minutes,
>> bylaws, resolution, board manual, insurance and so on.
>
>
> It's hard to know when an exponential growth curve will level off.  Thus
> far we all stand in amazement at the growth.  Generally this is a step
> in the right direction.
>
>> We are currently working on all this very much. Each according to its
>> own ability.
>> Some of this can only be done by board members proper, other tasks can
>> also be supported by officers, and some can involve anyone who is
>> serious and supportive.
>>
>> Amongst the tasks I will try to take care of in the next few weeks (or
>> months...) is documentation, such as typically board manual. Michael
>> has provided us with some documentation (such as
>> http://www.boardsource.org/FullAnswer.asp?ID=98) and I gathered some
>> more as well. Most of what is typically required on a board manual, we
>> already have, but it is dispersed on at least 3 different wikis and
>> poorly organised. This is unfortunate.
>
>
> I would suggest beginning with a Table of Contents or site map for the
> Manual.  This would be helpful in monitoring the development of this
> project.
>
>> Board governance is not something new and there is no reason for us to
>> reinvent the wheel. When I looked at some of these pages, I recognised
>> areas where we have indeed tried to reinvent the wheel... other areas
>> we have never explored at all, areas where we found our own balance
>> and areas which are still a mess :-)
>>
>> I invite you to join and help the way you can if you have such a
>> desire. Either help to organise the structure of the future document
>> (and more generally Foundation website), help to gather what already
>> exist, help write what does *not* exist, help fix poor english, help
>> translate (much later) some of the pages.
>>
>> If you are interested, please, let's talk about this on meta or by
>> irc. I presume this will be very boring for most editors here, so it
>> will probably rarely be mentionned on the list, but if you wish to
>> help, please jump in any time.
>
>
> I object to your saying that such a task would be boring. ;-)    Where
> on meta?
>
> Ec

hello,

Considering the amount of ink spilled on topics such as new languages,
or new page creation by anons, or the deletion of a joke book...

Ach, chatting (sorry, trolling ?) has never been boring :-)

I'll start working on this next week probably. And yes, first on meta.
I'll post a link.

Ant


subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel law

body:
Geoff Burling wrote:

>On Wed, 7 Dec 2005, Kelly Martin wrote:
>
>
>>On 12/7/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>It may come as a surprise to you, but many of us on the list are not
>>>Americans, and we find that kind of attitude deeply offensive.  It may
>>>be true enough that the specific provisions of UK law may not be
>>>interesting to most of us, but if you substite the Wikipedian's own
>>>country for UK the resulting total will not be insignificant.  This is
>>>precisely the kind of arrogant attitude that goes into the image of the
>>>"Ugly American".
>>>
>>>The fact that Wikipedia's servers are primarily in the United States
>>>naturally caries certain legal implications.  We all know that.  That
>>>the law of the United States is in any way superior is not one of those
>>>implications.  Sometime we would appreciate a little less bushshit, and
>>>more of a recognition that the United States is only one country in the
>>>same world as the rest of us.
>>>
>>>
>>Dude, get the chip off your shoulder already.
>>
>>
>Didn't you write in another email in this same thread
>
>
>>It would be advisable for the Wikimedia Foundation to avoid
>>establishing a legal presence within the jurisdiction of countries
>>which lack adequate protections for free speech, however.
>>
>>
>To rephrase an old saying about Computer Operating systems, legal
>protection of free speech in all countries suck, they just suck in
>different ways.  (And then some countries don't bother with offering
>any protection, which sucks even more.) I think it's fair to say that
>the U.S. has done a better job in the past of protecting free speech
>than it does now; & I hope that it does a better job of it in the
>future. That being said, we US citizens are not in the position at
>the moment to start throwing stones.
>
I considered a direct response to Kelly, but the comment was so glib,
facile and out-of-character that doing so would have served no useful
purpose.  On top of that, Anthony, who had inspired my outburst, already
appeared to grasp where I was coming from.

Each of us is ultimately responsible for safeguarding his own free
speech, even in a country where the trappings of free speech are
superb.  Perhaps more so when those trappings give an illusion of
safety.  Free speech when exercised at an unfortunate place and time can
be too easily characterised as conspiracy.

Depending solely on the legal protection provided for free speech in a
single country is poor strategy.  In the freest country that can change
with frightening rapidity.  For the moment the protection provided
elsewhere may appear inferior, but in certain times of crisis that will
be better than nothing.

Ec


from_name: Domas Mituzas

subject: [Wikitech-l] Access Denied from Wikipedia's proxies

body:
>
> If you are grabbing pages live from Wikipedia and displaying them
> on your site
> with ads attached, or some other such, you will indeed be
> permanently blocked
> when you're discovered.

And lately we can afford anti-leech assault teams (ALATs). Beware.

--Domas


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel law

body:
On 12/7/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> >On 12/7/05, Ray Saintonge wrote:
> >>Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> >>>Steve Block wrote:
> >>>>No, but it would be nice to hear people's opinions, and also nice to
> >>>>hear if any legal opinion had been given to Wikipedia regarding this.
> >>>Under US law, we aren't liable for libellous statements that are made
> >>>by other people.  UK law might differ, but to the extent it does
> >>>that's not really all that interesting to most people on this list -
> >>>the foundation is a US company (with, according to Kelly Martin, no
> >>>legal presense in the UK).
> >>It may come as a surprise to you, but many of us on the list are not
> >>Americans, and we find that kind of attitude deeply offensive.  It may
> >>be true enough that the specific provisions of UK law may not be
> >>interesting to most of us, but if you substite the Wikipedian's own
> >>country for UK the resulting total will not be insignificant.  This is
> >>precisely the kind of arrogant attitude that goes into the image of the
> >>"Ugly American".
> >Sorry.  I think I misunderstood the question.  I thought the "we" in
> >the question was Wikipedia.  But looking at it again, the concern
> >seemed to be more over the individual editors, so the "we" was
> >probably supposed to refer to individual UK citizens.
> The problem related more to "most people on this list" rather than
> "we".  I think that my point was made and understood; this is not a
> horse that runs well if it's flogged too much.
>
So, you think most people on this list *do* care about UK libel law?
If you'd like you can reply to me privately instead of publically, but
I'd really like to know what it is that I said that you took offense
to.  Is it the attitude that I don't care?  Is it the attitude that I
think most others don't care?  Maybe it's the fact that I assume most
people on this list aren't from the UK?  I really don't understand.

> >I hope you're not offended by the fact that I'm not interested in
> >this.
> >
> What you may or may not be personally interested in is not a problem.
> It's perfectly normal for anyone to be interested in the laws of his own
> country, and citizens of other countries will have concerns about how
> they are affected by US law
>
But it's wrong to point out that most people on this list don't live
in the UK, and therefore don't care about UK libel law?

I really don't understand what you're taking offense to.  In
hindsight, I shouldn't have said anything, because the question wasn't
directed at me in the first place (that was the confusion over who
"we" was referring to).  But that was an honest mistake, I thought the
question was related at least in part to things concerning the English
Wikipedia as a whole (considering that that's what this mailing list
is about, is it really such a horrible assumption?).

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel law

body:
On 12/8/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Depending solely on the legal protection provided for free speech in a
> single country is poor strategy.  In the freest country that can change
> with frightening rapidity.  For the moment the protection provided
> elsewhere may appear inferior, but in certain times of crisis that will
> be better than nothing.
>
> Ec

Is that what you're saying?  That I should care about UK libel law
because one day the US laws might get so bad that I will be forced to
move to the UK?  Or maybe you're saying that Wikipedia might one day
be forced to do this (which is a bit more reasonable, I guess)?

I actually think the best long-term solution for Wikipedia in this
regard is to move out of the reach of pretty much all jurisdictions -
to go P2P.  But I suppose it's possible (though extremely unlikely)
that US free speech laws and precedents could change so fast to
necessitate moving outside of US jurisdiction before that's possible.
Still, with Wikipedia being under the GFDL we could rebuild an entire
organization in a new country rather quickly if we really had to.

By the way, I think it's fairly unlikely that something like this
would really become necessary in the US.  Our Constitution has many
weak points, but its protection of freedom of speech for educational
purposes is very strong.  The Supreme Court also has a long history of
adhering rather tightly with the concept of stare decisis.  Such
radical changes to the interpretation of our Constitution *usually*
take place over a long time span.

Anthony


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [Wikipedia-l] NYT to forbid use of Wikipedia as a reference?

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Anthony DiPierro stated for the record:

> I don't understand why people are taking offense to this in the first
> place.  In my opinion, *of course* the New York Times shouldn't be
> using Wikipedia to check information.  Is someone here suggesting that
> they should?  It seems to me like a ridiculous proposition in the
> first place.
>
> Anthony

So should anybody, anywhere, be using Wikipedia for any purpose?

If so, then why are the editors at the New York Times "of course"
different from those that should?

- --
 Sean Barrett     | Damned shame about Scrooge -- a shrewd
 sean at epoptic.org | businessman before this lunacy.
                  | I'm afraid he's for Bedlam now.
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel law

body:
On 12/8/05, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
> G'day Ray,
> > Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> >> On 12/7/05, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> >>> No, but it would be nice to hear people's opinions, and also nice to
> >>> hear if any legal opinion had been given to Wikipedia regarding this.
> >>> Look at it this way:
> >>
> >> Under US law, we aren't liable for libellous statements that are made
> >> by other people.  UK law might differ, but to the extent it does
> >> that's not really all that interesting to most people on this list -
> >> the foundation is a US company (with, according to Kelly Martin, no
> >> legal presense in the UK).
> >
> > It may come as a surprise to you, but many of us on the list are not
> > Americans, and we find that kind of attitude deeply offensive.  It may
> > be true enough that the specific provisions of UK law may not be
> > interesting to most of us, but if you substite the Wikipedian's own
> > country for UK the resulting total will not be insignificant.  This is
> > precisely the kind of arrogant attitude that goes into the image of the
> > "Ugly American".
>
> While I'm behind you 100% on the "America is not the world!" position
> (heck, earlier I was getting irritated at the US-centricism of [[Safety
> orange]], for cryin' out loud), I don't think Anthony meant what you
> think he meant.  You (presumably) read it as "UK law is not worth
> talking about unless you're English, and we're American", while Anthony
> (presumably) meant it as "the servers are in Florida, so US law is what
> we *really* need to worry about".
>
> I agree that it wasn't phrased as well as it could have been, but this
> isn't the time to start complaining about US-centricism, and Anthony
> isn't the person to rant at (yet).
>
Yeah, actually my point was more one of "UK is not the world!"


body:
On 12/7/05, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> > And maybe the problem will shift from new articles to edits of
> > existing articles...in which case we may need to extend the
> > restriction to making edits as well?
>
> This is not a slippery slope. We already don't allow newly-registered users to move pages. So
> there is a ledge. As I said before: We should only lock things down slowly and only when not doing
> so will cause more harm than good.
>
> -- mav

We already don't allow users who use anonomous proxies (even if they
are logged in, in fact even if they are admins) to make edits, so
there's "a ledge" there too.

Of course we should only lock things down slowly and only when not
doing so will cause more harm than good.  Not allowing people to
create new pages unless they've already had an account for a while
*would* (in my opinion) cause more harm than good.  There is, quite
frankly, no experiment that I can foresee be performed that would
convince me otherwise, because the harm would likely take place over a
long time period.

Anthony


from_name: Kelly Martin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel law

body:
On 12/8/05, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
> Actually (ignoring the rest of this thread), UK libel law is probably
> the most important in the world, mainly because it is so bad and you
> can choose your jurisdiction. Cases have been heard where Americans
> sue Americans about libels in US publications just because a few
> copies reached the UK. For many years the UK was the only place any
> major libel cases were heard (in the days of [[Peter Carter-Ruck]]),
> as you could get serious damages and it was very much slanted in
> your favour. It has changed a bit now. The main thing was you didnt
> have to prove damages, unlike in the US; you would get a notional
> (often large but once famously a penny) amount of damages for loss
> of reputation.

This is tempered by the fact that UK libel law is so bad that most
other countries will not enforce a UK libel judgment.

Kelly


from_name: Poe, Marshall

body:
I just mention this a kind of journalistic experiment.  Here in DC we
have a free weekly called "The City Paper." I think it's terrific.  They
have a standing feature called something like "Mistakes in the
Washington Post." Their readers and editors scour the paper for
boo-boos.  It's both funny and enlightening. The WP is a great paper,
and it takes pains to be right. But neither The Post nor any other paper
can be 100% correct. Most people don't realize this.  If the community
at Wikipedia looked carefully at the NYT for one day or a week, I'm sure
you'd come up with quite a list.  This list, in turn, would get picked
up by the press.  I'm certain of it.

All the Best,

Marshall Poe, Ph.D.
The Atlantic Monthly
600 New Hampshire Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20037
202-266-6511
mpoe at theatlantic.com
-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of James R. Johnson
Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2005 10:51 PM
To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
Subject: RE: [Wikipedia-l] NYT to forbid use of Wikipedia as a
reference?

So true. Jayson Blair, anyone?  And how many other
errors/omissions/biases on the NYT could we list if we tried?

James

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Daniel Mayer
Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2005 10:00 PM
To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] NYT to forbid use of Wikipedia as a
reference?

--- Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
> >From: http://poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=10748
> >
> You mean the "Paper of Record" has been using WP to check their facts?

> Don't they realize how frequently we use *them* as a source? Shades of

> the Cheney/Miller echo chamber, geez...

Very, very good point. We should work up a page that lists all their big
errors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times#Recent_controversies is a
good start.

-- mav

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
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from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

body:
I don't quite understand about why the response to people finding flaws  with
us is to find flaws with them. It seems rather puerile to me. Instead, we
should try to find ways to overcome and correct our flaws.

Danny


body:
On 12/8/05, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
> I don't quite understand about why the response to people finding flaws  with
> us is to find flaws with them. It seems rather puerile to me. Instead, we
> should try to find ways to overcome and correct our flaws.
>
> Danny

I don't understand why people are taking offense to this in the first
place.  In my opinion, *of course* the New York Times shouldn't be
using Wikipedia to check information.  Is someone here suggesting that
they should?  It seems to me like a ridiculous proposition in the
first place.

Anthony


subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel law

body:
On 12/8/05, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
> On 8 Dec 2005, at 11:28, Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> >>
> > But it's wrong to point out that most people on this list don't live
> > in the UK, and therefore don't care about UK libel law?
>
> Actually (ignoring the rest of this thread), UK libel law is probably
> the most important in the world, mainly because it is so bad and you
> can choose your jurisdiction. Cases have been heard where Americans
> sue Americans about libels in US publications just because a few
> copies reached the UK. For many years the UK was the only place any
> major libel cases were heard (in the days of [[Peter Carter-Ruck]]),
> as you could get serious damages and it was very much slanted in
> your favour. It has changed a bit now. The main thing was you didnt
> have to prove damages, unlike in the US; you would get a notional
> (often large but once famously a penny) amount of damages for loss
> of reputation.
>
> Justinc

I think I'll wait to worry about this until I have a big enough
presense in the UK that a ruling against me would matter.  The UK
can't garnish wages from my US employer, can they?

(Actually, at the point where I have significant assets in the UK I'll
be able to afford a lawyer to research these issues for me.  I
certainly won't ask around on an international mailing list which has
pretty much nothing to do with law.)

As far as Wikipedia goes, once again, it's my understanding that the
foundation doesn't have any significant assets in the UK.  This means
a UK ruling against it would be pretty much meaningless (other than
taking that country out of the running for Wikimania anyway), right?

Anthony


from_name: wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: Articles for Creation vs. Requested Articles

body:
> From: geni <geniice at gmail.com>
> >
> > I bet it is a permanent policy change because (a) it seems to be working
> > quite well and (b) it is consistent with our commitment to remain open.
> >
> > --Jimbo
>
>
> [[Wikipedia:Articles for creation]] is already 62 kb long.
>
> --
> geni

The "Requested Articles" pages are longer.

Actually I don't know even how long they are, because they are currently
a medium-sized page consisting of nothing but links to a hundred or so
medium-sized pages consisting of nothing but article names.

So, what's your point?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel law

body:
On 12/8/05, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> Justin Cormack wrote:
> This is one of the points I'm trying to make.  Since Don King sued a US
> lawyer in the UK courts, what is to stop someone suing a US editor in
> the UK courts?  I believe the foundation has satisfied itself Wikipedia
> is immune from Englandf and Wales libel law, but I think it is important
> to establish the position to individual editors.

Nothing stops you from suing a US editor in UK courts.  You will
probably have problems with jurisdiction (a domicilary of the United
States is not subject to the personal jurisdiction of a UK court even
under very broad long-arm principles, although this doctrine has been
become rather disheveled of late) and with service of process, and
even if you obtain a judgment you will have problems enforcing it
against the US editor since the US will not enforce a UK libel
judgment without basically retrying the case under US law.

The largest risk, IMO, is to domicilaries and subjects of the United
Kingdom, who are subject to the personal jurisdiction of the Queen's
courts and may reasonably expect to be held responsible for their
actions in those courts.  The rest of us (unless we own property in
the United Kingdom or otherwise have ties there) can probably safely
ignore UK libel law.  In general, an editor of Wikipedia must exercise
caution to avoid violating local laws regarding speech, or be prepared
to suffer the consequences of their actions under those laws.  (Which
really sucks for people living under oppressive regimes, but there's
only so much we can do for them.)

> I mean, taking it a step further, although Wikimedia may be exempt from
> a writ in the UK courts, if one was to aimed at Wikimedia from the UK
> courts with editors named on the suit, the best recourse from my reading
> of the law is that courts allow a full apology, retraction and some sort
> of small financial settlement rather than have a lawsuit.  Would
> Wikimedia be happy to comply with that even though it is likely exempt
> from the suit itself?

The Wikimedia Foundation would be foolish to do anything other than
seek to have itself dismissed from any such action.  I do not expect
the WMF to act as a liability insurer for its volunteer editors.

> Basically, I am asking whether the policy is shoot libel on sight.

Libels should be removed as soon as they are discovered.

Kelly


from_name: Carbonite

subject: [WikiEN-l] Guardian in defense of Wikipedia

body:
On 12/8/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> By the way, I really hope the experiment of switching off anon page
> creation is followed up with an experiment in switching off AFD for a
> month.

Isn't that a bit like experimenting with not taking out your trash for a
month? They're both fairly unpleasant experiences that no one really wants
to do, but they can't be halted without some other way of getting rid of the
refuse.

Carbonite


from_name: Mark Ryan

subject: [WikiEN-l] disputing block: 69.108.172.162, lysdexia

body:
On 15/11/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> I've removed Lysdexia from the list. They posted a rant ending in a
> personal attack, which I rejected, and they couldn't see where the
> personal attack was and made further ones. Too bad, IMO.

And Lysdexia retorted to this by sending all the list admins a message
saying "Some obvious admin banned me for no reason, and is trying to
suppress my last message to my thread, and will have hell to pay for
corruption when I report his corrupt arse to the rest of Wikipedia."
Riight.

~Mark Ryan


from_name: The Cunctator

subject:
[WikiEN-l] The downside to requiring account creation. See also:
	[[Slippery slope]]

body:
On 12/7/05, Brian <reflection at gmail.com> wrote:
> Many feel that the [[USA PATRIOT Act]] was only passed on the basis of it being
> a highly emotional, gut reaction. Pretty much everyone was OK with it at first,
> but over time a lot of Americans have come to wonder if it violates some of our
> very basic principles. That's just a surface analogy - don't read into it too
> far. The point is that, whether or not it is a perennial suggestion, and whether
> or not an article existed for several months and displayed a prominent person as
> an assassin, we should absolutely not go against the principles that got us
> here.

Perfectly said.


body:
On 12/8/05, Carbonite <carbonite.wp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/8/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > By the way, I really hope the experiment of switching off anon page
> > creation is followed up with an experiment in switching off AFD for a
> > month.
>
> Isn't that a bit like experimenting with not taking out your trash for a
> month? They're both fairly unpleasant experiences that no one really wants
> to do, but they can't be halted without some other way of getting rid of the
> refuse.

Turn off AfD, let all editors delete articles.


from_name: Nyenyec N

subject: [WikiEN-l] What's the big deal about anonymous editing?

body:
I've been following this argument with great interest for a long time.

I have to admit that I never really understood why anonymous editing
was such an important thing for so many people. Especially, since it
doesn't give you more privacy than a username does.

A typical internet user creates user accounts on dozens of sites. You
can't even read email without a user account. You can't even access
the internet without some sort of user account at your ISP.

I admit but sometimes it's convenient not having to log in, but both
the server and modern browsers help you remember your username /
password, so mostly it takes less than 10 seconds to log in.

And it seems that no one talks about this, but its soo *frustrating*
to communicate with anonymous users? Has the anonymous editor been
warned already not to upload copyrighted material? Not to write in ALL
CAPS? Pointed to various policies or guidelines? Was this her first
edit?  You can't tell, because they don't have a user name.

Can anyone tell if Wikipedia wouldn't have reached its current size if
you required the creation of a user account, just like 99.9% of the
websites does?

Did anonymous editing make such a great difference? Can someone prove it?

-- nyenyec

On 12/8/05, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/7/05, Brian <reflection at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Many feel that the [[USA PATRIOT Act]] was only passed on the basis of it being
> > a highly emotional, gut reaction. Pretty much everyone was OK with it at first,
> > but over time a lot of Americans have come to wonder if it violates some of our
> > very basic principles. That's just a surface analogy - don't read into it too
> > far. The point is that, whether or not it is a perennial suggestion, and whether
> > or not an article existed for several months and displayed a prominent person as
> > an assassin, we should absolutely not go against the principles that got us
> > here.
>
> Perfectly said.
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from_name: Chip Berlet

subject: [WikiEN-l] Libel law

body:
The advantages of having a son in law school who specializes in computers...

Usual disclaimer -  not by an attorney, not a legal opinion, research just for information and discussion:

= = =

Britain and America have separate standards for publication. America
follows the single publication standard for statutes of limitation:

Here is the American rule:

Van Buskirk v. New York Times Co.,  No. 00-9220 (2nd Cir. 2003).  The
Second Circuit applied the single publication rule to statements posted on
the Internet. Following a broadcast of a news special alleging misconduct
by the American military, John Plaster wrote a letter to the New York
Times stating that the allegations were untrue and identifying Robert Van
Buskirk as the source of the untrue allegations. The letter was published
in the newspaper's editorial page and posted online by Plaster. Two years
after the editorial page letter was posted on the Internet, Van Buskirk
sued Plaster and the New York Times for defamation. Applying the single
publication rule, the court dismissed the action because it had not been
brought within one year after the article was first posted on the
Internet.

Here is the British multi-publication rule:

Loutchansky v. The Times Newspapers Limited,  2001 EWCA Civ. 1805 (England
and Wales Court of Appeal, 2001).  The Court of Appeal held that a
newspaper's online archive does not enjoy a qualified privelege with
respect to defamatory material. The court's ruling confirmed that
defamatory content made available online will be considered to be
republished each time that it is accessed by users. The defendant printed
articles identifying the plaintiff as "a suspected mafia boss." After
publication, the articles were posted on the defendant's website. The
court held that although the printed articles were protected by a
qualified privelege to defamation regarding matters of public interest,
the online archives were not protected by the privelege. The court noted
that continuing to post the material without a warning that the
allegations may be untrue was not only defamation but also irresponsible
journalism.

The two courts reached very different conclusions. Under British law there
is a new publication each time the material is accessed. This has the
potential to make a lawsuit possible decades after the first publication.
Under American law the first publication starts the statute of
limitations. Thus after 1 year, there is no longer any liability. I am not
sure what happens when articles are edited. It may be that this is enough
to restart the statute, or it may only start again for the new information.

On the issue of liability - in America it is unclear:

Sabbato v. Hardy,  Case No. 2000CA00136 (Ohio Ct. App., Dec. 18, 2000).
An Ohio appellate court reversed a lower court's decision concerning
immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA). Hardy
operated a website that allowed users to post and read opinions on the
website. Sabbato sued Hardy for defamatory comments that were posted on
his website. The appellate court found that the lower court had erred in
granting Hardy immunity under the CDA. The court determined that Hardy was
not automatically entitled to immunity under Section 230 of the CDA
because the complaint alleged that Hardy had personally participated in
creating the defamatory comments.
Opinion at http://legal.web.aol.com/decisions/dldefam/sabbatodec.pdf

Schneider v. Amazon.com Inc.,  31 P.3d 37 (Wash. Ct. App. 2001).  A
Washington court held that Amazon.com was shielded by the Communications
Decency Act (CDA) and not liable for statements posted by a third party on
its website. Several books written by plaintiff Jerome Schneider were for
sale on the Amazon website. Amazon also posted several book reviews that
criticized Schneider personally. Schneider requested that the reviews be
removed; however, Amazon failed to take any action. Schneider filed an
action for defamation and other torts. The court found that Amazon
qualified as an interactive service provider under the safe harbor
provision of Section 230 of the CDA. As such, Amazon was not liable for
statements posted on its website by third parties.

Given Wikipedia's editing policy, it is unlikely to qualify for the safe
harbor protection under the CDA. Amazon.com does not edit posts, and thus
is essentially immune from suit. While the other case found an editor
liable, that was because it appeared from the complaint that he had
participated in the libeling. Wikipedia, unfortunately, falls between the
two extremes.

Internationally, it is even more confusing. Wikipedia has the potential to
be sued in basically any jurisdiction for the content that it posts online
and the standards vary.

Here are two articles that give a good overview of defamation on the
internet.

http://www.internetpolicy.net/practices/libel.shtml
http://www.murdoch.edu.au/elaw/issues/v8n4/nicholson84_text.html

If all an editor did was hit save, I do not think liability would attach,
but if any editing was done, even simply reading the page, there is an
argument that they are liable.

-Robert Berlet

________________________________

From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org on behalf of Steve Block
Sent: Thu 12/8/2005 4:54 AM
To: English Wikipedia
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Libel law

Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Steve Block wrote:
>
>> geni wrote:
>>
>>> On 12/7/05, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Is there any thoughts on private individuals?  Are we open to libel
>>>> suits if we edit a page containing a libellous statement and fail to
>>>> remove it completely from the edit history?
>>>
>>>
>>> I don't think there are any legal presidents in that area.
>>
>>
>> No, but it would be nice to hear people's opinions, and also nice to
>> hear if any legal opinion had been given to Wikipedia regarding this.


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Request management

body:
--- Neil Harris <usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk> wrote:

> Magnus Manske wrote:
> >
> > I hereby suggest a mechanism for "request management". Each article
> > would have a "Request" (or "task") tab, and there would be a
> > Special:Requests page. Through these, requests of all kind could be
> > handeled (added, listed, removed). Each request would get its own
> > "Request:" page for discussion.
> >
> > A request would consist of:
> > * Article name (automatically filled in)
> > * Request type (chosen from a list)
> > * Comment/reason/explanation text
> > * Status (from a list, similar to bugzilla; "open", "solved", "wontfix")
> > * Other automatically filled-in information (who requested it, time of
> > request)
> >
> > Requests would be shown in the sidebar of the page (like "Requests:
> > cleanup, wikify"). Details would be shown of the Special:Request page
> > *for that article*. All requests, sorted and filtered, would be shown on
> > Special:Request (*not* for a specific page).
> >
> > Optionally, a filter could be applied for the categories an article is
> > in. This would allow me too see all articles in "Biochemitry" that need
> > a cleanup, for example.
> >
> >
> > Quick, tell me what you think, while I'm in a coding mood ;-)
> >
> > Magnus
> >
>
> That's a great idea: Wikipedia workflow!

So long as readers can very easily see the workflow status of the article w/o having to access a
tab, then I?m all for it. In other words ; this system should look the same as what we do now. The
only difference would be added software support to make things easier for editors.

-- mav

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from_name: Steve Block

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Questions about the "Wikipedia screenshot" category
	of	images

body:
Delirium wrote:
> Steve Block wrote:
>
>> So that means we aren't an encyclopedia about anything then?  We're
>> actually an encyclopedia about what suits commercial usages?  Fair
>> play, we have to look out for commercial users, but what is more
>> important here, the encyclopedia or the potential reuse of it?
>
>
> We've never been *solely* an encyclopedia---we've explicitly been a
> *free-as-in-freedom* encyclopedia.  The *entire point* of creating
> Wikipedia is to make a reusable encyclopedia, not solely to make an
> encyclopedia hosted on wikipedia.org and distributed by the Wikimedia
> Foundation (if that were the goal, there would be no reason to have an
> open-content license in the first place).  In the case of fair use, this
> is a tradeoff: We want to make as unencumbered an encyclopedia as
> possible, with maximal possible reuse by anyone for any purpose,
> balanced against the fact that we'd like maximal coverage of everything
> as well.  So, we allow fair use, but generally prefer free sources where
> possible, and only use fair use where it ads something that makes it
> worth the potential copyright difficulties for reusers.

You seem to have misunderstood me, which is entirely my fault, I wasn't
clear enough.  What I want to know is, if as you say:

 > We've never been *solely* an encyclopedia---we've explicitly been a
 > *free-as-in-freedom* encyclopedia.  The *entire point* of creating
 > Wikipedia is to make a reusable encyclopedia

Then that means we can create an encyclopedia, and as long as all uses
of information qualify for encyclopedic purposes, there is no problem.
However, where you say:

 > So, we allow fair use, but generally prefer free sources where
 > possible, and only use fair use where it ads something that makes it
 > worth the potential copyright difficulties for reusers.

That to me implies there is a potential conflict between creating an
encyclopedia which is reusable, and making an encyclopedia tailored to
reusers.  If we are doing the latter, then I for one would rather be
renumerated for my work, thank you very much.  At what point do we
censor the encyclopedia for the commercial sensitivities of reusers?

I may be missing something here, and am willing to cede that, and I
admit my language is rather strong, for which I apologise, but I draw
your attention to this quote from Jimmy Wales:
"Wikipedia is first and foremost an effort to create and distribute a
free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single
person on the planet in their own language."

Now to me, "the highest possible quality" doesn't imply that such
quality is tempered by potential reuse considerations, because, let's be
frank, what we are arguing about here is commercial reuse, isn't it?
Now, I do not see why, if the material is useable on the online
Wikipedia, it should be removed due to reuse considerations.

However, if it is decided that commercial reuse does place limits on the
material we use, then some mention of that fact should be made quite
explicitly somewhere.  Unless I have really got the wrong end of the
stick.  However I see no mention of the fact that Wikipedia tailors its
material to suit commercial considerations in the article at
[[Wikipedia]].  If someone can clarify that is the case, I will gladly
correct that.

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