On Sun, 8 Jul 2007 23:39:53 +0100, "Thomas Dalton" thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Ahem. Too often, complainants are insufficiently explicit about which material causes a problem.
Then you ask for more information before acting.
Is the wrong answer. Remember, we are dealing with hurt and upset people. Remember /people/? You might know them as meatware...
OK, sarcasm is unhelpful. But it's true. We should go out of our way to be kind to people, not least because that way when we finally dismiss their complaint as baseless they will have no grounds for complaint or action. Listen respectfully, show that we care, and then do the right thing. The problem with the lava lamp issue was that editors of the article were more concerned about getting it "right now" than getting it right. Who cares if the article is stubbed for a while? Sure, the volunteer could have done a better job, but their action was not in any way evil and a comprehensive explanation was given on Talk, from which concerned editors could certainly work to fix whatever problem might be perceived to exist.
Remember, these lawyers had succeeded in intimidating several other sites, so we had at the very least to give it serious consideration.
To help fix the perceived problem, you could always volunteer.
I did. I was rejected for having insufficient experience of BLP matters.
Try again now. We need people on the permissions queues, for example, which is easy and requires no special expertise. Also there is a mailing list and irc channel for peer review and support.
Guy (JzG)