On Dec 12, 2007 11:08 AM, <joshua.zelinsky(a)yale.edu> wrote:
Quoting Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org>rg>:
We're talking about a website with about as many visitors as Myspace.
Imagine if Myspace had a bunch of volunteers deciding how to handle
stalkers and other criminals who use its website. Imagine the CEO of
Myspace was talking about the problem with some of these volunteers on
a "private" Wikia mailing list. Imagine if Myspace had volunteer
sleuths ban people based on evidence that they refused to reveal.
Imagine if Myspace had public trials published on their website
whenever they wanted to ban someone. Wikipedia needs to grow up.
I don't see whats so bad about "public trials"- transparency is a good
thing.
It's not just that it's public. It's that it's virtually uncontrolled
as to what nonsense people can post about others on it. It's that the
entire transcript (of virtually everything, from the evidence
gathering through the questioning through the deliberations through
the decision) is made public on the web, on a page which shows up very
highly in the search engines, released under a free license which
others are encouraged to mirror. It's that much of it is incorrect
and/or misleading and/or libelous. I think it's pretty clearly bad.
But my comment was to imagine if Myspace did it. There's a tendency
to think of Wikipedia like an MMORPG, which I think blinds us to some
extent from how obviously bad some of the policies are.
The rest I'm somewhat inclined to agree with, but
the liability concern
for the
Foundation if it does this sort of thing is serious. This would need to
be very
carefully thought out.
What exactly is the liability concern? The idea that the WMF is
somehow escaping liability by running its website in a way completely
different from every other major website doesn't strike me as logical.
And it's even more clearly unethical. I'm reminded of the situation
where a group of EMTs let someone drown because they were afraid of
the liability they'd incur if they had tried to save him. A more
extreme case? I guess. I don't think anyone has died as a direct
result of Wikipedia yet. But that's what this line of reasoning
reminds me of.