On Sun, Jun 22, 2008 at 9:53 AM, Ian Woollard ian.woollard@gmail.com wrote:
On 22/06/2008, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
And now we are seeing an expanded "enforcement" provision come into place. I think, before we worry about -enforcing- BLP more strictly, it needs a good reining in. It needs to be strictly defined as "no unsourced negative information," and perhaps "no undue weight to negative information." NOR should already serve to protect "privacy." If something hasn't already been published in a publicly available source, we can prohibit it under NOR, if it has, there's no privacy to protect.
"Yeah right"
That sort of misses the *huge* point, particularly with the Star Wars kid, that the guy was a victim of bullying and copyright infringement. The video was stolen and edited to make it look even more foolish and distributed. So far as I am aware the guy's name was placed in the public domain without his request, and this has been repeated by a bunch of publications. He also received a large award in an out of court settlement, and could possibly have a case against the wikipedia if they chose to *perpetuate* it (the wikipedia may not *ever* go away, but other publications tend to fade).
That could happen to *anyone*; it could happen to you, Todd Allen. Are you truly saying that this is a *good* thing??? The wikipedia gets to chose its policies, we don't pick them and stick to them even if it gets the wikipedia legally attacked or it needless helps destroy people's lives.
The question here is 'what is undue weight'. Does the wikipedia agree that his name is essential to the story or is publishing it undue weight, and frankly part of continued harassment?
I would argue that, under the circumstances it is the other sources that give it undue weight, not the wikipedia.
-- -Ian Woollard
We live in an imperfectly imperfect world. If we lived in a perfectly imperfect world things would be a lot better.
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If there were a likelihood of legal repercussions to including the real name, I do imagine that Mike Godwin would have told us by now that to include the name would be a very, very bad idea. Given that this has not occurred, and I can think of no legal basis under which such a suit would be made (this is a US site, there is no law in the US against reporting truthful information that is already widely available to the public), I don't believe legal concerns are at issue here.
As to me personally, why yes it could. It could happen to anyone, given that this is the age where information can flow from one side of the world to another in a matter of seconds. That's an important phenomenon, and we would do ourselves a significant disservice by not reporting on it as accurately and thoroughly as possible, when verifiable, reliable information is readily at hand.
While there was legal action in the Star Wars Kid case, it was, as far as I know, taken against those who -initially- distributed the video, not those who simply reported truthful information regarding the video or its maker. And the NYT and the like, compared to Wikipedia, aren't going to "fade" anytime soon. Archives of major newspapers from over a century ago are available. Wikipedia, compared to that, is in its infancy. I certainly believe and hope that the Wikipedia model is robust and will be around for many, many years to come, but that shouldn't cause us to shy away from our critical responsibility of reporting verifiable fact from reliable sources, regardless of our personal feelings regarding it.