[WikiEN-l] ArbCom Legislation

[Todd Allen]

On Sun, Jun 22, 2008 at 9:53 AM, Ian Woollard <ian.woollard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 22/06/2008, Todd Allen <toddmallen at gmail.com> wrote:
>> And now we are seeing an expanded "enforcement" provision come into
>> place. I think, before we worry about -enforcing- BLP more strictly,
>> it needs a good reining in. It needs to be strictly defined as "no
>> unsourced negative information," and perhaps "no undue weight to
>> negative information." NOR should already serve to protect "privacy."
>> If something hasn't already been published in a publicly available
>> source, we can prohibit it under NOR, if it has, there's no privacy to
>> protect.
>
> "Yeah right"
>
> That sort of misses the *huge* point, particularly with the Star Wars
> kid, that the guy was a victim of bullying and copyright infringement.
> The video was stolen and edited to make it look even more foolish and
> distributed. So far as I am aware the guy's name was placed in the
> public domain without his request, and this has been repeated by a
> bunch of publications. He also received a large award in an out of
> court settlement, and could possibly have a case against the wikipedia
> if they chose to *perpetuate* it (the wikipedia may not *ever* go
> away, but other publications tend to fade).
>
> That could happen to *anyone*; it could happen to you, Todd Allen. Are
> you truly saying that this is a *good* thing??? The wikipedia gets to
> chose its policies, we don't pick them and stick to them even if it
> gets the wikipedia legally attacked or it needless helps destroy
> people's lives.
>
> The question here is 'what is undue weight'. Does the wikipedia agree
> that his name is essential to the story or is publishing it undue
> weight, and frankly part of continued harassment?
>
> I would argue that, under the circumstances it is the other sources
> that give it undue weight, not the wikipedia.
>
> --
> -Ian Woollard
>
> We live in an imperfectly imperfect world. If we lived in a perfectly
> imperfect world things would be a lot better.
>
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If there were a likelihood of legal repercussions to including the
real name, I do imagine that Mike Godwin would have told us by now
that to include the name would be a very, very bad idea. Given that
this has not occurred, and I can think of no legal basis under which
such a suit would be made (this is a US site, there is no law in the
US against reporting truthful information that is already widely
available to the public), I don't believe legal concerns are at issue
here.

As to me personally, why yes it could. It could happen to anyone,
given that this is the age where information can flow from one side of
the world to another in a matter of seconds. That's an important
phenomenon, and we would do ourselves a significant disservice by not
reporting on it as accurately and thoroughly as possible, when
verifiable, reliable information is readily at hand.

While there was legal action in the Star Wars Kid case, it was, as far
as I know, taken against those who -initially- distributed the video,
not those who simply reported truthful information regarding the video
or its maker. And the NYT and the like, compared to Wikipedia, aren't
going to "fade" anytime soon. Archives of major newspapers from over a
century ago are available. Wikipedia, compared to that, is in its
infancy. I certainly believe and hope that the Wikipedia model is
robust and will be around for many, many years to come, but that
shouldn't cause us to shy away from our critical responsibility of
reporting verifiable fact from reliable sources, regardless of our
personal feelings regarding it.

-- 
Freedom is the right to say that 2+2=4. From this all else follows.