On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 2:00 PM, Peter Ansell ansell.peter@gmail.com wrote:
If the article is properly sourced then all of the opinions and facts expressed in the article are derived from outside sources so they are not being harmed by unique information in wikipedia, just their perception of wikipedia being more influential than scattered news articles and books. If wikipedia doesn't say anything new any harm due to the compilation of facts is immaterial IMO.
I think that in the end what people are really complaining about isn't Wikipedia per se. It's the Internet and Google. In the past, long-ago minor incidents, even if documented in a major news source at the time, were only available in physical archives that had to be searched through by hand (often with an index, but still...) Even after the first data revolution, news archives and the like were generally subscription services not available to the public at large.
Now, Wikipedia editors are putting stuff online that wasn't easily available before, and in a place that's easily accessed and searched. Furthermore, many major newspapers are putting their archives online (e.g. the NYT), so it's not just us.
The second part of the problem (as they see it) is Google and its habit of putting our article at or near the top no matter what.
Unless a court rules that random facts can't be combined in properly sourced secondary/tertiary sources due to the effect of the combination alone then they have no case.
I think in most cases we're talking not only about legal liability but about what's the right thing to do in a more general sense. There are plenty of legal things that one probably still shouldn't do.
-Matt