On 4/20/06, James D. Forrester james@jdforrester.org wrote:
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Using the {{office}} template to tag problem content is a nice idea, but, I would imagine, has a rather serious drawback: Wikitruth.info (amongst other 'helpful' critics) seems to have a sysop working for them. Were we to flag an article that was libellous with {{office}}, you can bet that they would go and dig out the deleted sections, and repost it to their wonderful service. Now Wikimedia has been informed that they are likely to be sued, and in response has done something knowing that it would increase the publication and spread of this libel. - we're then liable for their reposting of the content, and "utterly screwed". I know, I know, "that's not what was intended". Well, tough, that's the way the Real World(tm) works.
Maybe a further way of obscuring deleted content would be helpful here? Something where the deleted revisions could not be viewed by all administrators? I have no idea how difficult this would be to implement, though.
Alternately (or in addition to that) we could crack down on whatever admins are leaking removed content; this wouldn't entirely solve the problem, but might decrease the practical risk of something like this happening.
Kirill Lokshin