Mark Gallagher wrote:
G'day Michael S,
Mark Gallagher wrote:
G'day Daniel S,
(And in the legal world there are also phenomena
such as jury
nullification and rogue judges...)
We have them on Wikipedia, too. Witness the Jack Thompson OFFICE
action and certain admins.
Pardon me, but what exactly are you referring to here?
The Jack Thompson OFFICE action was an incident that occurred not too
long ago. Some background (I don't know if you already know this
stuff, so bear with me if you do): the American Jack Thompson is a
professional lawyer and talented amateur wowser, famous amongst a
small subset of gamers. The reason he's well-known to hardcore gamers
is because the target of his wowserism is violent video games. Since
hardcore gamers typically enjoy playing violent video games above all
else[0], this is not a match made in heaven by any means.
Through a curious quirk of the Internet, hardcore gamers are far more
likely to contribute Wikipedia than American attorneys. In
particular, strange though it sounds, hardcore gamers are far more
likely to contribute to an article about Mr Thompson full of such
improperly sourced, utterly trivial, and of course totally biased
nonsense that the only reason I can't describe it as a "hatchet job"
is because the phrase "embarrassment to Wikipedia" leaps far more
readily to the tongue.
When the Secret Wikipedia Puppet Government, aided by the Men In
Black, finally pulled the plug on this hatch--excuse me, this
embarrassment to Wikipedia, a thousand thousand gamers rose up in
complaint. "That asshole Thompson wins again!", they cried.
"Wikipedia under the control of a Secret Wikipedia Puppet Government,
aided by the Men in Black!", they cried. "I credit my 'blog. That's
enough for me to argue that Thompson is a Satanist, right?", they
cried. "Ow, I just stood up for the first time in seventy-two hours
and my knee joints cracked!", they cried.
As the person who drafted and watched over the rewritten Jack Thompson
article, I do already know what transpired, but you give a decent
summary for those who don't (as long as it's not taken too literally). I
would note that quite a few of the gamer editors quickly recognized the
superiority of a neutral, well-referenced version and have increasingly
taken over defending it and educating the newer arrivals on how to do
things properly.
This seems to me a good case of "jury
nullification": we asked for an
opinion, we got utter bollocks in return, we said, "actually, let's
not do what they said after all."
This is what confused me. If, as it would seem, you're equating the
response from gamers with that of a jury, then you've got the concept of
jury nullification exactly backwards. Jury nullification does not
involve a judge or some other higher authority nullifying the decision
of the jury. Jury nullification refers to the ability of the jury to
reach a verdict contrary to the law and the instructions of the court.
Fans of the concept like to cite John Peter Zenger's acquittal on a
charge of libel as an example of this.
--Michael Snow