Quoting Anthony wikimail@inbox.org:
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.
Well, we have engaged in courtesy blanking of RfArs before. And if someone acts like a jerk enough such that the RfAr is damaging to them, I don't have much sympathy.
It's that much of it is incorrect and/or misleading and/or libelous.
Libelous is a concern but I don't recall seeing much in the way of libel, and unless you think a large fraction of the findings of fact are libelous then I fail to see any serious issue.
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.
Frankly, I've never understood this comparison to an MMOPRG and don't see how it is relevant here. Our greatest strength is transparency. There are occasions where we need to sacrifice but I don't see a compelling reason to do so for routine matters like ArbCom proceedings.
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.
The Foundation isn't in general liable for content on Wikipedia and the allied projects because it is put their by volunteers. Hosts of content(that isn't the technical term and I don't remember the correct term off the top of my head) are generally protected if they take basic steps and respond quickly to requests to remove highly problematic content. If the Foundation got more involved in the projects it could easily become more liable for libel or copyright issues.
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.
Excuse me? I fail to see the connection. The Foundation is more valuable than making a few people uncomfortable because of what happens when you google their name (especially when again it is in the case of RfArs generally their own fault). Let's not forget that the English Wikipedia is one of the most visited websites on the internet even before we start getting to the other projects. And the Foundation runs on a tiny budget. The Foundation must be protected for damage to the Foundation can easily become damage to humanity's ability to access free information.