On 12/7/05, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
On 12/7/05, Ray Saintonge wrote:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
Steve Block wrote:
No, but it would be nice to hear people's opinions, and also nice to hear if any legal opinion had been given to Wikipedia regarding this.
Under US law, we aren't liable for libellous statements that are made by other people. UK law might differ, but to the extent it does that's not really all that interesting to most people on this list - the foundation is a US company (with, according to Kelly Martin, no legal presense in the UK).
It may come as a surprise to you, but many of us on the list are not Americans, and we find that kind of attitude deeply offensive. It may be true enough that the specific provisions of UK law may not be interesting to most of us, but if you substite the Wikipedian's own country for UK the resulting total will not be insignificant. This is precisely the kind of arrogant attitude that goes into the image of the "Ugly American".
Sorry. I think I misunderstood the question. I thought the "we" in the question was Wikipedia. But looking at it again, the concern seemed to be more over the individual editors, so the "we" was probably supposed to refer to individual UK citizens.
The problem related more to "most people on this list" rather than "we". I think that my point was made and understood; this is not a horse that runs well if it's flogged too much.
So, you think most people on this list *do* care about UK libel law? If you'd like you can reply to me privately instead of publically, but I'd really like to know what it is that I said that you took offense to. Is it the attitude that I don't care? Is it the attitude that I think most others don't care? Maybe it's the fact that I assume most people on this list aren't from the UK? I really don't understand.
I hope you're not offended by the fact that I'm not interested in this.
What you may or may not be personally interested in is not a problem. It's perfectly normal for anyone to be interested in the laws of his own country, and citizens of other countries will have concerns about how they are affected by US law
But it's wrong to point out that most people on this list don't live in the UK, and therefore don't care about UK libel law?
I really don't understand what you're taking offense to. In hindsight, I shouldn't have said anything, because the question wasn't directed at me in the first place (that was the confusion over who "we" was referring to). But that was an honest mistake, I thought the question was related at least in part to things concerning the English Wikipedia as a whole (considering that that's what this mailing list is about, is it really such a horrible assumption?).
Anthony