On May 30, 2014, at 6:04, Luis Villa <lvilla(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
...
With those reminders aside, I would be interested to hear this group's thoughts on
next steps here from a Wikimedian *cultural* perspective. Ignore the legal question for
the moment: should editors be handling things differently than they currently do? The
same?...?
Thanks-
Luis
Many Wikimedians are ideologues[1] when it comes to issues of privacy and freedom of
knowledge. This particular issue might have been designed to cause community disruption
for Wikipedia as it places those values in conflict.
However, a simplified reading of the Foundation and its projects focuses on making
knowledge available freely. So it seems to me the Foundation is doing well in working to
allow the communities to be uncensored - not even self-censored where possible. Such a
reading would encourage communities to resist calls to omit or remove accurate
information, and to also disseminate when such calls are made in the interests of
transparency. It would be useful to automate the process of making such requests,
publishing the requests, and where appropriate denying them. (This would, handily, also
give OTRS folks an easy answer: "Please use our process at [link]")
One important note is that programs such as the one used in Germany, which suppresses
reporting of facts under an individual's 'right to be forgotten', removes the
ability to find (or in some cases to use) authorities and primary sources as citations. It
brings to mind the actions of the Roman Inquisition[2] regarding heliocentrism, banning
books which even referenced the concept.
Amgine
[1]
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/idealogue
[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Inquisition