Mark Gallagher wrote:
> G'day Michael S,
>
>> Mark Gallagher wrote:
>>
>>> G'day Daniel S,
>>>
>>>> (And in the legal world there are also phenomena such as jury
>>>> nullification and rogue judges...)
>>>
>>> We have them on Wikipedia, too. Witness the Jack Thompson OFFICE
>>> action and certain admins.
>>
>> Pardon me, but what exactly are you referring to here?
>
> The Jack Thompson OFFICE action was an incident that occurred not too
> long ago. Some background (I don't know if you already know this
> stuff, so bear with me if you do): the American Jack Thompson is a
> professional lawyer and talented amateur wowser, famous amongst a
> small subset of gamers. The reason he's well-known to hardcore gamers
> is because the target of his wowserism is violent video games. Since
> hardcore gamers typically enjoy playing violent video games above all
> else[0], this is not a match made in heaven by any means.
>
> Through a curious quirk of the Internet, hardcore gamers are far more
> likely to contribute Wikipedia than American attorneys. In
> particular, strange though it sounds, hardcore gamers are far more
> likely to contribute to an article about Mr Thompson full of such
> improperly sourced, utterly trivial, and of course totally biased
> nonsense that the only reason I can't describe it as a "hatchet job"
> is because the phrase "embarrassment to Wikipedia" leaps far more
> readily to the tongue.
>
> When the Secret Wikipedia Puppet Government, aided by the Men In
> Black, finally pulled the plug on this hatch--excuse me, this
> embarrassment to Wikipedia, a thousand thousand gamers rose up in
> complaint. "That asshole Thompson wins again!", they cried.
> "Wikipedia under the control of a Secret Wikipedia Puppet Government,
> aided by the Men in Black!", they cried. "I credit my 'blog. That's
> enough for me to argue that Thompson is a Satanist, right?", they
> cried. "Ow, I just stood up for the first time in seventy-two hours
> and my knee joints cracked!", they cried.
As the person who drafted and watched over the rewritten Jack Thompson
article, I do already know what transpired, but you give a decent
summary for those who don't (as long as it's not taken too literally). I
would note that quite a few of the gamer editors quickly recognized the
superiority of a neutral, well-referenced version and have increasingly
taken over defending it and educating the newer arrivals on how to do
things properly.
> This seems to me a good case of "jury nullification": we asked for an
> opinion, we got utter bollocks in return, we said, "actually, let's
> not do what they said after all."
This is what confused me. If, as it would seem, you're equating the
response from gamers with that of a jury, then you've got the concept of
jury nullification exactly backwards. Jury nullification does not
involve a judge or some other higher authority nullifying the decision
of the jury. Jury nullification refers to the ability of the jury to
reach a verdict contrary to the law and the instructions of the court.
Fans of the concept like to cite John Peter Zenger's acquittal on a
charge of libel as an example of this.
--Michael Snow