On 5/4/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 04/05/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
No, it is assuming that Wikipedia's mission is to be a reference work, otherwise known as an encyclopedia. The last message we want to send is "If you're big and bad enough, and you don't like what we say, make rumblings about a lawsuit. It'll be gone within the hour." The message we want to send is "We're a reference work. We publish numerical values all over the place. It's not a "circumvention tool", it is a -number-. Its decimal value is somewhere around 1.325E37.
As a typical querulous wikien-l contributor, I must note that it is a string of bits that happens to form a number. Certainly in its notable form, it's a string of ASCII text.
Other than that, yes, precisely. Rolling over on this one is *ridiculous*.
Mind you, I still want to wait at least a week. The article's a bit better now, but needs more substance.
I think David is right. Tell the spammers to fuck off, and take a little eventualistic approach - there's no hurry in writing the article. The article will still be there in 1 week, and by then the legal picture will be a lot clearer, and the spamactivists will have gone away (I hope). Then we can decide whether or not to put the number in - and personally I don't see a reason not to, except for the potential legal consequences (which I think are really minuscule, since so many reputable resources have republished the number - if we do get sued, we'll be in company which can afford to argue our case for us).
Having said all that, yeah, it's way too soon to decide, and for now, let's err on the side of caution and keep the number out. I anticipate that in a week's time, either a lot of other sites will have gotten DMCA takedown notices, or we'll be pretty confident we can publish the number.
Johnleemk