Yes, no action from ArbCom or however, followed by a criminal conviction. Quotes from the judge in the criminal trial appearing in the media alongside quotes from those on-wiki who just said, "Closing this... no action... trivial... this isn't a matter for administrators..." etc.

Perhaps even a judge who expresses surprise and/or disappointment at a lack of action from Wikipedia, a headline along the lines of: "Judge accuses Wikipedia for failing to support victim of hate speech."

There is also the crime of defamation which is also a more serious offence under UK law than it is under US law.
US - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_defamation_law#Criminal_defamation
UK - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation_Act_2013

Marie


From: dancase@frontiernet.net
To: gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 12:55:30 -0500
Subject: Re: [Gendergap] press coverage of Gamergate arbcom case

>The litmus test is whether what they have said is not only 'offensive' but, 'grossly offensive'. Wikipedia's internal >systems and thresholds would make no difference to the authorities in the UK. It would be interesting to see what the >public fall-out would be if Wikipedia decided that no action should be taken against X whilst the UK jailed him / her.

Well, there’s this page:
 
 
which never became policy (probably because, it seems, people discussed it more in light of threats of suicide rather than threats to others). But it may be time to revisit that.
 
I assume, in the hypothetical you’re talking about, the question would be whether someone was punished in real life for threats made on-wiki that resulted in no action from the ArbCom? Or from anyone? In the former, yes, the public fallout would be interesting; in the latter, it would depend on whether anyone with the power to take action knew.
 
I do recall some past cases, once described on the now-deleted “List of banned users”, where the trigger for the formal ban (as opposed to the never-lifted indefinite block) was a user threatening violence against someone (usually via their latest sock).
 
Of course, if someone were to be incarcerated in real life as a result of their on-wiki threats, any action after that other than blocking the account to prevent some hacker from making use of it would really be superfluous.
 
Daniel Case

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