On 4/20/07, Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia) <newyorkbrad(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 4/20/07, doc
<doc.wikipedia(a)ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
> George Herbert wrote:
> > On 4/20/07, doc <doc.wikipedia(a)ntlworld.com> wrote:
> >> People have a absolute right not to have their name googled and
find
> >> that the highest ranking site (or
perhaps only internet information
on
> >> them) has been written by a silly
slanderous schoolkid, their
> >> ex-husband's angry girlfriend, or a disgruntled ex-employee or
rival
> out
> >> to trash them. And often these subtle attacks are on the face
reading
> >> well-referenced and seemingly
factual. Never spotted as simple
> vandalism.
> >
> > Look around. There are millions of websites (blogs, home pages,
> > YouTube videos, etc) out there with libelous material, much of it
> > blatantly false, out there for anyone to see.
> >
> > Very few of those have any sort of reasonable feedback mechanism
short
> > of a libel/slander lawsuit. Some ISPs
have a no-attacks policy;
most
> > don't, and those that do often have
a nearly impractical hurdle
> > getting through their abuse department.
> >
> > We have policies with real teeth about what is OK to have here and
> > what isn't. We have people who enforce those policies, vigorously,
> > once we're notified. We have people associated with the project
> > actively looking for them, though I don't presume to suggest that we
> > actually find enough of it ourselves. And we have a stable versions
> > technical upgrade coming sometime.
> >
> > Again: Wikipedia is not the worst place on the Internet from a
> > perspective of actually protecting people's rights not to be
attacked
> > or slandered, or at least to get it
fixed if they are. It's
arguably
> > close to the best place on the Internet
from those perspectives.
> >
> > It's maddening to see you argue elsewise. Look around you.
> >
> >> If Wikipedia can't reasonable insure that people don't have these
> rights
> >> infringed, then it has no business hosting their biographies in the
> >> first place.
> >
> > You're assigning people a lot of rights that they don't legally or
> > socially have.
> >
> > They *don't* have a right, in the United States at least, of
absolute
> > privacy against any discussion of
them.
> >
> > They don't have a right to sue anyone who runs a website on which
> > libel is posted, just for having hosted it, prior to being notified
of
> > it.
> >
> > Your argument isn't "We can't infringe people's rights".
You're
using
> > that language, but it's factually
incorrect.
> >
> > Your argument is, "We can't be mean to non-notable people".
> >
> > That is not legally true. It is to some degree morally true. But
we
> > have to keep that in perspective.
People don't deserve to be
abused.
> > But they don't deserve to hide
notable activities from the public,
or
> > from the historical record.
> >
> > We can destroy the encyclopedia to be nice to people. That's
insane.
> >
> > We can keep the encyclopedia within the law and existing societal
and
> > internet norms for protecting people
against abuse. And we do.
> >
> > We can protect them better than YouTube, MySpace, and a million
other
> > sites. And we do.
> >
> > We don't have to be perfect. We're an open content system, and an
> > encyclopedia, and an internet project. We're within the norms for
> > such projects. We care a lot about this topic, from the amount of
> > arguing over it that happens. And that's good. But it can be taken
> > too far.
> >
> > You all, today, are taking it too far.
> >
> >
>
> I never mentioned law - I am speaking of ethics.
>
> And *'Wikipedia - the best place on the internet to be libeled'* isn't
a
great tag
line.
Frankly, I don't believe that people who are holding the line you are
care at all about this subject. You have just set up so many straw men
it isn't true.
Without discussing any specific individual's situation, I would like to
strongly endorse Doc's overall approach to these issues.
We are now one of the top ten websites in the world and are often, as
has
been noted, the leading hit when a semi-notable
person is searched
for. We
have crucial obligations to live up to in this
area. Whether we are
doing
an acceptable job of upholding standards is a
topic on which there could
be
differences of opinion, but that we have an
obligation to uphold such
standards is not, and making sure that we do so is in my opinion one of
the
two most pressing issues facing the project
today.
Newyorkbrad
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I partly agree and partly disagree with Doc's assessment, but also do
agree that Wikipedia really is probably the "world's best place to be
libelled"-terrible phrasing aside. If someone writes "John Doe eats
babies" on Myspace, you're going to have to raise hell with Myspace to
get that removed. If someone does it on Wikipedia, it will likely be
caught and reverted within seconds, and even if it slips by RC patrol,
the minute you notify us of it, it's gone and whoever pulled the stunt
gets shown the door. We're actually one of the -most- proactive sites
in the world when it comes to preventing harm and libel, as far as
sites with any user-generated content go.
Now, of course, I'm not really hot on the idea of having articles that
barely five sentences can be written on anyway, for the reasons
brought up-they just don't get patrolled well for vandalism or
stupidity. I'd generally be very much for merging such bios into a
larger, more heavily-patrolled article, or getting rid of them.
That being said, we're talking about people of -marginal- notability.
Daniel Brandt (and let's all presume he precipitated this discussion,
because, well, he did) is of -unquestionable- notability. He's very
voluntarily given interviews to the media and solicited public
attention for his endeavors. It's certainly his right to do so. He
can't, however, do all that, then turn around and say "Wait, wait, I'm
not a public figure now!" when something you don't want published
comes up. Brandt's article should receive the same amount of care and
demand the same amount of sourcing as we always require in BLP cases,
of course. But if -that's- the type of bio that will get deleted, this
is a bad idea.
(By the way NYBrad, what's the other issue? Now I'm curious.)
Seraphimblade
I thought you'd never ask. This is the third time I've posted the exact
same sentence and the first time someone's been curious (although I have
mentioned the issue itself before, including in my RfA). However, I don't
want to change the subject of this thread, which is important, so responses
to this comment, if any, should go into a new one.
What I view as the other top priority issue facing the project is the
extraordinarily high rate of turnover and burnout that we seem to suffer
from, especially among top-level administrators and leading contributors.
Turnover is part of any Internet project as any other part of life, but when
I read the names of the participants in an RfA from say a year ago, or
I look at the list of bureaucrats or former arbitrators or top featured
article contributors or whoever, I am consistently amazed and saddened by
how high a percentage of the names on the list have moved on. Sometimes
after a spectacular departure, sometimes after vanishing without a trace.
As highly as I think of our collective contributor and administrator base
at present (and I do think that we have an incredibly strong talent base on
this project, no matter how critical I or anyone might be of some or another
aspect from time to time), just imagine how much greater we could be if a
percentage of those people were still with us. I believe we need to
identify the causes of Wikipedians' stress and burnout -- or in NPOV terms,
of departures from the project -- and figure out if there is a way to reduce
them.
Newyorkbrad