Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia) wrote:
Another WP:Office related question on which
clarification might be in order
is under what circumstances an administrator or editor should call
situations to the Office's attention. A few weeks ago, I came across a
serious legal threats situation involving threats to sue the Foundation
unless changes were made in an article immediately. I suggested on one of
the noticeboards that this seemed like the sort of thing that the Office
would want to know about right away. I was e-mailed by two people who
indicated that the Office actually prefers that administrators deal with
these situations on their own without getting the Foundation involved. Some
clarification on when the Office should be notified of the various types of
threats and other situations that arise could be helpful so that admins and
editors are able to do the best possible job of protecting the Foundation
and the contributors.
I agree with the two e-mails that you received. To understand this
requires an appreciation of the subtle distinction between the roles of
the Foundation and the various communities that operate under its wing.
If the function of the Foundation is to serve as some kind of ISP it
does not know about most of these suspicious edits. This is on a more
serious level than just playing dumb. In a sense sourcing is just as
important for complaints as for claims in an article. I believe that
for a person to have a valid claim, he must first of all have standing.
This is a matter of either being directly affected, or being officially
authorized to represent such a person. If the office were to act on
every claim by a third-party do-gooder the situation would be much
worse, and the office would soon grind to a halt.
There are many, many more admins than there are Foundation trustees and
employees. Why should they not be the ones to clean up the situation
when they are apprised of the situation? An experienced admin is not
new to legal threats. Admins as a group have the tools to deal with
such people. While there may be situations involving threats of
physical violence where the office should be notified, we also should
not presume that the office is manned 24/7. The threatened person could
be dead before the office even has a chance to open. Admins based in
Europe, North America and Australia are together in a much better
position to give 24/7 coverage. If someone feels that he has been
treated unjustly, and receives no satisfaction from the admins it's up
to him to notify the Foundation in whatever way he deems appropriate.
Ec