[WikiEN-l] Saucy Sources, reliable and re : libel.

[William Pietri]

Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 15:22:44 +1100, "private musings"
> <thepmaccount at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>   
>> The implication of recent editing there is that we can no longer
>> mention or refer to sources like The Times, or The Guardian even on
>> talk pages, if they may lead readers who click on them to think worse
>> of the article subject.
>>     
>
> Are you willing to foot the legal bills?  I have seen the emails to
> OTRS from di Stefano.  He is a lawyer.  A wealthy lawyer who is
> prepared to defend people like Milosevic and Noye.

And for those wondering, I believe the official Wikimedia Foundation 
position is that editors are indeed on their own when it comes to the 
legal consequences of any edits they make. Even if those edits are 
obviously what we'd consider good edits.

There's some sound legal reasoning behind this, and I think they've made 
the right choice, but it was still a surprise to me when I learned it.

My guess is that if there were a reasonably good test case, there would 
be a fair bit of public support and possibly donations and/or pro bono 
legal assistance. But even with that a lawsuit like this would still be 
a substantial burden, probably a multi-year one, for the editor involved.


This does leave us with the risk of having articles that have been 
whitewashed due to legal threats. That worries me, so I've proposed a 
warning template for articles in that condition:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_Pietri/Legaldispute

But I don't think anybody has used it yet.

William




-- 
William Pietri <william at scissor.com>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_Pietri