On 09/09/2007, Matthew Brown <morven(a)gmail.com> wrote: All banned users are assholes all of the sudden? Then again, now that I think of it, show me someone who has never been an 'asshole', and I'll show you a hermit. So I suppose, by the same logic, you would support welcoming links to 'attack sites' and 'outing sites' on Wikipaedia?

And if it were mistaken, one'd want it to be searchable such that the fact it was mistaken can be seen and corrected. KTC -- Experience is a good school but the fees are high. - Heinrich Heine

Libel is another matter entirely. If the accusations against someone are false, then something should, of course, be done about it. I don't expect there are many such false accusations that haven't been shown to be false (or, at least, unproven)

Where is truth not a defence? By my understanding, libel is defined as publishing damaging lies about someone. Privacy is another matter entirely, and truth isn't a defence there. However, for something to be a violation of privacy (at least under UK law) you have to have a reasonable expectation of privacy (eg. someone takes a picture of you sunbathing naked in your garden and sells it to a tabloid, that's a violation of privacy, if they take a similar picture of you on a nude beach, it isn't). There is no reasonable expectation of privacy on the internet. The only way privacy law can become relevant to Wikipedia is if the person publishing the information knows the person in question in real life (which includes stalkers) - we do have problems with those kinds of cases, but not very often.

On 11/09/2007, Wily D <wilydoppelganger(a)gmail.com> wrote: Try striking out 'libel' and writing in 'defamation'. Try Great Britain. http://www.dba-oracle.com/t_uk_british_web_internet_punblshers_defamation.h… Also Guatemala, where defamation is actually a criminal offence. http://www.speaktruth.org/defend/profiles/profile_03.asp

On 9/11/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote: Hmm, interesting - I'll offer this ref http://www.cippic.ca/index.php?page=defamation-and-slapps/#faq_defences-to-… Which notes that Canadians (sans Quebeckers, as is always the case) enjoy something being "substantially true" as a complete defense to libel, and defamation requires *either* slander or libel in Canada (possibly sans Quebec). There are a stack of other defenses, though none would apply here. Of course, the real damage for telling someone they're blocked indef, especially if you just note what they did in a non-derogitory way is likely to be very small - I could see nominal damages of $1 or less ... That said, if someone wanted to sue me in Guatamala or other places with unusual defamation laws, I suppose my only defense would be that you can't get blood from a stone. I'm also unclear on the enforcability of such judgements. Anyone know? WilyD

On 9/11/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote: No - The Canadian Extradition Act of 1999 says it has to be a crime here too http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/crime/extradition.html Apart from which, extradition is really for criminal matters, not civil ones, although I've no knowledge of Guatamala's legal system, which may not make such a distinction (or most other countries, for that matter). But the answer is just that - I can't be extradited for something that isn't a crime in Canada, (libel and slander are provincial jurisdiction, so actually a crime in Ontario, but I digress), even if I could, they probably wouldn't bother, and it definitely wouldn't be worth anyone's time and effort. I presume (but don't know) that the Feds or the Province wouldn't enforce a foreign monetary judgement, on the same principles, but I'm not positive. Of course, the laws in Florida are of much more interest, I suspect. Being barred from travelling to the States would be annoying. WilyD

On 11/09/2007, Wily D <wilydoppelganger(a)gmail.com> wrote: You do not have to tell them they are indef blocked on a Google-indexed page on a top-ranking site. When someone is blocked, they do not find out they are blocked by reading their talk page - rather, when they try to edit, the Blockedtext displays the block reason that you enter. The block log, the other place where your block reason is displayed, is not indexed by Google. Also, Wikipaedia can use robots.txt to tell Google et. al. not to index various namespaces... I suggest only mainspace and image space ought to be indexed. I am not blaming individual admins so much as the whole Wikipaedia community and the robots.txt file. These things are not transient. Four years after the fact, and a Google search on a banned user still returns negative Wikipaedia pages about that user at the top of the results.

On 11/09/2007, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote: "Libel tourism" is a major failing of the UK court system; if you can show that the material was published *at all* in the UK, and that you have any standing *at all* in the UK which could potentially have been harmed by it, you have a potential case. Neither the plaintiff or defendant has to be a UK citizen, or UK resident, or indeed have any significant UK connections. They just have to be able to show the defamation slipped into the UK somewhere - a dozen copies of an obscure book have been considered enough in the past. And UK law treats "publication" of online material as happening in the jurisdiction it is accessed in, not the one it was authored or hosted in. So the implications of this for defamation on the internet are... copious. Once the court agrees to take it on, the plaintiff has a very easy time of it; defamation law here is very favourable to the putative victim. So you get quite a few of these cases, often with the defendant ignoring the case outright. -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk

I think people tend to take more liberty over online social forums on the internet. Wikipedia, as an active community of users can be compared to such websites in more than one ways. And in no way, their "assholery" or misdeeds should be advertised on the internet by making them available in public archives. It lends a bad name to the project as a whole, and dissuades active and valuable participants to spend their energies building the project. Not everyone can be expected to be on their best online. Please don't give them something that they'd regret later. --Anirudh On 9/10/07, Matthew Brown <morven(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On 10/09/2007, RLS <evendell(a)gmail.com> wrote: When the Wikipaedia community will jump down the throat of someone who has dedicated years to being the model of neutrality and helpfullness when a minor newbie mistake gets noticed years after the fact, resulting in a big huge RfC and BLP-ignorant article on said person.... When Wikipaedia outs people in the course of sockpuppetry and conflict of interest investigations which, while often right, are probabalistic and therefore sometimes wrong.... When someone who has been hurt in the past and therefore feels the need for privacy is assumed to be hiding something he or she has done wrong.... When, in the course of dispute resolution, the community talks only about what you did wrong and never about what you did right....

On 9/10/07, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote: My real name is available on Wikipedia; while it's not my username, it's on my userpage and my signature. My overall record is public, both the stupid things and the smarter things. I try to ensure that the latter predominate. -Matt

On 9/10/07, Matthew Brown <morven(a)gmail.com> wrote: Surely you wouldn't like it if someone decided to gather up a list of the stupidest things you've done, throw in a few accusations of stuff that didn't actually happen, then got together with a bunch of friends and held a circus trial, found you guilty, and documented it all indefinitely on a website which was so loved by Google that it became the number one hit for anyone searching your name.

On 9/10/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote: One can accept something while still thinking that something is completely inappropriate and should be corrected.

On 9/11/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote: Interesting. I certainly believe you can consider something inappropriate and still accept it. But I guess you're right about the wanting to correct it part. From Wikipedia: "Acceptance, in spirituality, mindfulness, and human psychology, usually refers to the experience of a situation without an intention to change that situation. Acceptance does not require that change is possible or even conceivable, nor does it require that the situation be desired or approved by those accepting it. Indeed, acceptance is often suggested when a situation is both disliked and unchangeable, or when change may be possible only at great cost or risk." So I guess I'll modify what I said before to say, no, one shouldn't accept such a situation.

On 09/09/2007, David Goodman <dgoodmanny(a)gmail.com> wrote: : ) Consider, in anthropology, the difference between an outside observer and an active participant. Ideally, I believe an encyclopaedia should strive to be the former rather than the latter - this is especially true when active participation could cause damage to real, individual, living people. (BLP....)