On 9/6/08, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
2008/9/6 Angela beesley@gmail.com:
You might be better off talking to Wikinewsies than Wikipedians considering Wikinews already does allow discussion about the topic (as opposed to discussion about the article). http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AAllPages&from=&to=&namespace=102 shows pages from their comment namespace, which is used for non-NPOV chat not related to improving the article. There's more information on it here: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Commentary_pages_on_news_events
Something like this would be tempting for Wikipedia articles, but it'd be a BLP and confidential info nightmare on anything controversial ...
Would BLP concerns even need to apply to a project/subproject that is a straightforward simple message board host? At least in article-space, someone can make an argument that the foundation "endorses" the article or otherwise contributes to a libel. But a message board host should be every bit as free from liability as the US Postal Service for the letters it carries, or the phone company for calls that go through its lines, or for the emails written on Gmail.
But of course, I'm not a lawyer, and would love to know if I know what I'm talking about. :)
Alec