In a message dated 5/22/2011 1:35:51 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
wiki-list(a)phizz.demon.co.uk writes:
> There are many core problems that affect this issue. One of which is
> 'Verifiability not truth' which seems a laudable concept when applied to
> hearsay, and to allow articles on the paranormal etc. But is often used
> in BLP articles to justify including untruths, rumours, and to repeat
> slurs about someone, that happen to have a source that can be verified.
>
>
"Truth" is elusive. Many people define Truth to suit themselves.
We're not in a position to be judge, defense and jury. So we should not
try.
[Posting wearing my battered free-speech (ex)activist hat, not
the Wikipedia-critic hat]
1) Stand-down a little - apparently Twitter is only being asked to
produce identity information, same as the Wikimedia Foundation has
been in other cases (under court order).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13477811
"Lawyers at Schillings who represent CTB have issued a statement
clarifying the action it has taken.
It said it was not suing Twitter but had made an application "to
obtain limited information concerning the unlawful use of Twitter by a
small number of individuals who may have breached a court order"."
That is, this isn't a provider liability case.
2) Regarding "Our BLP policy has worked.", that's a fascinating
argument that the super-injunction *is* worthwhile. If Wikipedia
defines verifiability in terms of major media sources, and the
super-injunction inhibits those sources, then it effectively
inhibits Wikipedia (even if it's impolitic to put it that way).
I actually believe that the accumulated sourcing now *should* satisfy
Wikipedia's verification requirements in the case of the footballer,
and was tempted to make that argument. But given I have a nontrivial
connection to UK jurisdiction, plus I'm sure I'd get a huge amount
of personal attack due to the various politics, it wasn't worth it.
Just observing, on various talk pages, I believe the WP:NOTCENSORED
faction has made its sourcing argument poorly. Maybe there's another
lesson there as to relative costs imposed.
--
Seth Finkelstein Consulting Programmer http://sethf.com
Infothought blog - http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/
Interview: http://sethf.com/essays/major/greplaw-interview.php
David Gerard writes:
Over the last several years, the UK libel laws have been a strong
> consideration in WMF carefully maintaining *no* local business
> presence in the UK. The legal environment here is toxic for anyone who
> doesn't have to put up with it.
>
I've discussed this precise issue (informally) with Twitter's general
counsel, and we agree that the exposure for Twitter in the UK is
significantly different than it would be for the Wikimedia Foundation. I
mean, of course you can libel someone in 140 characters -- we've all seen it
happen. But the role of Twitter in relation to tweets is much more like
(say) a phone company's role than it is like WMF's or even Google's.
Twitter is an excellent company to put this analysis to the test -- it has
the legal resources to challenge a libel lawsuit (or a hundred, or a
thousand), and the role it plays as a communications medium is, if not
unique, then certainly pretty unusual.
I'd look at legal precedents involving SMS/texting in the UK -- that may
tell you what Twitter is thinking.
The risks for WMF in the UK (and, indeed, throughout the EU as a function of
UK membership in the European Union) remain pretty significant, largely for
all the reasons that Wikipedia is something different from Twitter.
--Mike
The English Wikipedia has been experiencing painfully slow load times over
the last few days, and lots of error messages when trying to save, to the
point where the site has become difficult to use. There's discussion about
it on the Village Pump, and someone has filed a bug report, but no one has
any idea why it's happening, or whether it's being looked into. I would link
to the discussion, but I can't get the page to open.
Does anyone on the list have information about it?
Sarah
Hello, everyone.
Today is the deadline to volunteer to serve on the Grant Advisory
Committee[1]. If you were interested but forgot to actually apply, please
do so within the coming 24 hours.
Thanks,
Asaf Bartov
Wikimedia Foundation
[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grant_Advisory_Committee
Hi all,
The Office of General Counsel (OGC) has drafted OGC staff policies that may
be of interest to the Community. They are in “beta” version now, and, if
you'd like, you should feel free to leave any comments on the discussion
page. There is also an FAQ. You can find them at:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal/Legal_Policies
Geoff
Geoff Brigham
General Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
I asked this in another thread, but didn't get a response. The POTY
banner appears on English-language projects. Why wasn't there a
request to translate it as it usually happens with such banners?
--
Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
http://aharoni.wordpress.com
"We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace." - T. Moore
I’m not a very active Wikimedian at the moment (though hopefully someday
I shall return) and so the time has come to handover my chairship of the
IRC Group Contacts. I am ceding it to Casey Brown, but this is just a
formality, and really it is both Filip and Casey who I leave in charge
of Wikimedia’s IRC presence.
I imagine that they may well want to make some changes to how things are
done on IRC and they have my blessing in this, even if I might disagree
with the specifics. It has been a great pleasure to work with them both
for the past few years, and with James F. before that, in running our
IRC channels. IRC is not important, and it should remain unimportant,
so I don’t expect most people to appreciate this, but it has been good
to solve problems together and I think we all learnt a lot from the
experience, and, hopefully, kept IRC useful for everyone else.
S
--
Sean Whitton / <sean(a)silentflame.com>
OpenPGP KeyID: 0x3B6D411B
http://sean.whitton.me/
Could Phoebe, Jan-Bart or Kat please give us an update on the activities of
the working group looking into the recommendations resulting from the 2010
Wikimedia Study of Controversial Content?
Have any conclusions been drawn, and are there any plans or discussions about
implementing any of the recommendations?
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/215066?search_string=…
Andreas
>
>
> -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Do WMF
> want enwp.org? Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2011 15:58:37 -0500 From: aude
> <aude.wiki(a)gmail.com> <aude.wiki(a)gmail.com> Reply-To: Wikimedia
> Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org><foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> To:
> Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org><foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
>
> On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 3:37 PM, Thomas Wang <tl-lomas(a)hotmail.com> <tl-lomas(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > Hi!
> >
> > If WMF want enwp.org I will gladly hand it over.
> >
>
> Thank you for running this service! I use it all the time for including
> wikipedia links in Twitter.
>
> It would be nice if it was officially supported by WMF or you were given
> resources necessary to maintain the service.
>
>
Hi, Thomas!
Really appreciate the offer! We've been talking about this for a few months
now; it's a great tool used by a lot of us here. We'll talk to a few folks
from the tech team and see how they can help.
Thanks again!
Cheers,
Moka
>
> Cheers,
> Katie (@aude)
>
>
>
>
> >
> > -Thomas
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
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>
>
--
Cheers,
Moka
Moka Pantages
415.839.6885 x 635
@moka