I agree with this. There is a great deal of information that has been published based on Soviet archives, for example the two books based on the Mitrokhin Archives. That is all good, but when you are in court and trying to get a judge to accept evidence from a published report of what is in the Soviet archives you are going to be in big trouble. The books based on the Mitrokhin Archives were vetted by the lawyers for the publisher, but they had access to copies of the original documents, you probably don't.
Fred
On Nov 7, 2005, at 7:25 AM, Chip Berlet wrote:
Hi,
The Wikipedia entry "Category:Soviet spies" is a magnet for a defamation lawsuit. Many of the people in the list were never indicted, and some denied the charge in public. At least one person is still alive: "Harry Magdoff".
At best, this should be renamed to something like: "Category:Accused Soviet spies" .
I freely confess I have a vested interest in this matter, currently well into the second month of mdiation with Nobs01on a related matter without a single compromise paragraph having been written:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_mediation/ Cberlet_and_Nobs01/Workshop
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_mediation/ Cberlet_and_Nobs01
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_mediation/ Cberlet_and_Nobs01/A3
But since this mediation seems to be dragging on for months, I though that I would mention this now, rather than wait for the mediation to hit the year 2006.
Some folks here on this list should consider the possible defmation issue very seriously. I messed up my first attempt to deal with this on Wiki. I meant to suggest a name change or deletion, but misunderstood the process.
I have prevailed after being sued for defamation twice, but it cost tens of thousands of dollars just to get a judge to toss me out of the case.
Cberlet _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l