http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Orangemarlin#Contacting_people.27s_em...
This is an interesting thread (one of a few on this subject, including in the Jimsch62 (sp) RfAr) - two editors who are in the military/work for the US government claim that it is their legal responsibility to report to the USAF the use of a military PC to edit Wikipedia because that is a violation of the UCMJ. I'm curious about whether that is true, and if it is why we don't block .mil IPs from editing en masse.
Mike Godwin, do you have an opinion on this issue?
Nathan
On 02/01/2008, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Orangemarlin#Contacting_people.27s_em...
This is an interesting thread (one of a few on this subject, including in the Jimsch62 (sp) RfAr) - two editors who are in the military/work for the US government claim that it is their legal responsibility to report to the USAF the use of a military PC to edit Wikipedia because that is a violation of the UCMJ. I'm curious about whether that is true, and if it is why we don't block .mil IPs from editing en masse.
Mike Godwin, do you have an opinion on this issue?
If the US military don't want their personnel editing Wikipedia, it's their job to block it, now our job to block them. If they want us to block them, they can contact the OTRS people and I imagine the request would be honoured, though. Unless we're contacted by the appropriate people, I don't see why we should do anything. The legal responsibilities of US military personnel are not our concern - if they have to report people, they should do so, but it's nothing to do with anyone else.
Generally I would agree, but it is the opinion of at least one editor (who is a physician apparently, not a lawyer) that under no circumstances is editing Wikipedia from a military computer considered legal.
I'm curious as to the legal basis of his reporting requirement and additionally whether there is a conflict between our policies on no legal threats and a warning by an officer of a legal reporting requirement to a NCO suspected of violating the law.
On Jan 2, 2008 1:29 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 02/01/2008, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Orangemarlin#Contacting_people.27s_em...
This is an interesting thread (one of a few on this subject, including in the Jimsch62 (sp) RfAr) - two editors who are in the military/work for the US government claim that it is their legal responsibility to report to the USAF the use of a military PC to edit Wikipedia because that is a violation of the UCMJ. I'm curious about whether that is true, and if it is why we don't block .mil IPs from editing en masse.
Mike Godwin, do you have an opinion on this issue?
If the US military don't want their personnel editing Wikipedia, it's their job to block it, now our job to block them. If they want us to block them, they can contact the OTRS people and I imagine the request would be honoured, though. Unless we're contacted by the appropriate people, I don't see why we should do anything. The legal responsibilities of US military personnel are not our concern - if they have to report people, they should do so, but it's nothing to do with anyone else.
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I'd be more inclined to take medical advice from a lawyer than the other way around.
On Jan 2, 2008 10:34 AM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
Generally I would agree, but it is the opinion of at least one editor (who is a physician apparently, not a lawyer) that under no circumstances is editing Wikipedia from a military computer considered legal.
I'm curious as to the legal basis of his reporting requirement and additionally whether there is a conflict between our policies on no legal threats and a warning by an officer of a legal reporting requirement to a NCO suspected of violating the law.
On Jan 2, 2008 1:29 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 02/01/2008, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Orangemarlin#Contacting_people.27s_em...
This is an interesting thread (one of a few on this subject, including in the Jimsch62 (sp) RfAr) - two editors who are in the military/work for the US government claim that it is their legal responsibility to report to the USAF the use of a military PC to edit Wikipedia because that is a violation of the UCMJ. I'm curious about whether that is true, and if it is why we don't block .mil IPs from editing en masse.
Mike Godwin, do you have an opinion on this issue?
If the US military don't want their personnel editing Wikipedia, it's their job to block it, now our job to block them. If they want us to block them, they can contact the OTRS people and I imagine the request would be honoured, though. Unless we're contacted by the appropriate people, I don't see why we should do anything. The legal responsibilities of US military personnel are not our concern - if they have to report people, they should do so, but it's nothing to do with anyone else.
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On 02/01/2008, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
Generally I would agree, but it is the opinion of at least one editor (who is a physician apparently, not a lawyer) that under no circumstances is editing Wikipedia from a military computer considered legal.
Illegal for the person doing the editing, maybe, but not for WMF, surely?
I'm curious as to the legal basis of his reporting requirement and additionally whether there is a conflict between our policies on no legal threats and a warning by an officer of a legal reporting requirement to a NCO suspected of violating the law.
I guess he ought to report the NCO without warning him, or warn him offsite ("email this user", or look up his email address on some military directory if such a thing exists). The "no legal threats" policy applies regardless of the legal grounds - otherwise non-lawyer admins wouldn't be able to enforce it.
On 1/2/08, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Orangemarlin#Contacting_people.27s_em...
This is an interesting thread (one of a few on this subject, including in the Jimsch62 (sp) RfAr) - two editors who are in the military/work for the US government claim that it is their legal responsibility to report to the USAF the use of a military PC to edit Wikipedia because that is a violation of the UCMJ. I'm curious about whether that is true, and if it is why we don't block .mil IPs from editing en masse.
Mike Godwin, do you have an opinion on this issue?
Nathan
I think the meta-issue is what expectation there is on us as Wikipedia editors to separate our perceived "real life" obligations from our "wikipedia editor" obligations. Most of us edit as private citizens, and not under the authority or direction of our employers. If the editor who claims a fiduciary duty to their employer is actually editing as a private citizen, I do not see how this is a "mandatory reporting" situation.
Risker
_______________________________________________
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So, when did we give Jimsch62 access to Checkuser, so he could know that the other editor was editing from a military computer? Seems to me that absent evidence to prove where the editor is connecting from (eg: no proof that any law is being broken) the only purpose of the threat would be to harass & intimidate the other editor.
IMHO, Versageek
Wednesday, January 2, 2008, 1:18:32 PM, Nathan wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Orangemarlin#Contacting_people.27s_em...
N> This is an interesting thread (one of a few on this subject, including N> in the Jimsch62 (sp) RfAr) - two editors who are in the military/work N> for the US government claim that it is their legal responsibility to N> report to the USAF the use of a military PC to edit Wikipedia because N> that is a violation of the UCMJ. I'm curious about whether that is N> true, and if it is why we don't block .mil IPs from editing en masse.
N> Mike Godwin, do you have an opinion on this issue?
N> Nathan
Well, let's break this down into slightly more abstract, essential elements and questions:
Users Foo and Baz are in a dispute. Baz edits from work, sometimes. Foo realizes this, and says they're going to contact Baz's employer to inform them of this workplace policy violation.
Is this a problem?
Does it matter if Foo and Baz work for the same employer?
Does it matter if that employer is a government agency?
-Luna
Assuming the employer has a policy totally prohibiting incidental use of the internet, the only ethical think for Foo to do is to remind Baz to edit from home. This would be true in all situation unless it were specifically part of Foo's normal functions to detect & report violations of this policy--and in that case i would be concerned whether Foo may have trapped Baz by inducing him to violate it.
On Jan 3, 2008 5:13 AM, Luna lunasantin@gmail.com wrote:
Well, let's break this down into slightly more abstract, essential elements and questions:
Users Foo and Baz are in a dispute. Baz edits from work, sometimes. Foo realizes this, and says they're going to contact Baz's employer to inform them of this workplace policy violation.
Is this a problem?
Does it matter if Foo and Baz work for the same employer?
Does it matter if that employer is a government agency?
-Luna _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On Jan 3, 2008 8:17 AM, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
Assuming the employer has a policy totally prohibiting incidental use of the internet, the only ethical think for Foo to do is to remind Baz to edit from home. This would be true in all situation unless it were specifically part of Foo's normal functions to detect & report violations of this policy--and in that case i would be concerned whether Foo may have trapped Baz by inducing him to violate it.
What about workplaces where it is policy that if you come into knowledge of a policy breach you are obligated to report it? Foo may only be trying to cover their own butt.
On Jan 3, 2008 5:25 AM, Chris Howie cdhowie@gmail.com wrote:
What about workplaces where it is policy that if you come into knowledge of a policy breach you are obligated to report it? Foo may only be trying to cover their own butt.
While there are cases in which someone may be obligated to report known or suspected wrongdoing, I am aware of no cases in which someone is obligated to threaten to report someone they happen to be in an on-Wikipedia disagreement with.
This discussion has gone on endlessly about the former, but in actual fact what is being done is the latter. You cannot justify threats (no matter how politely phrased) by pointing out a supposed obligation to DO it, not THREATEN it.
If you think you're obliged to, why bother with threats? It doesn't let you off the hook on your obligation.
If you're not actually obliged to, don't threaten it.
-Matt
On Jan 3, 2008 4:47 PM, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
This discussion has gone on endlessly about the former, but in actual fact what is being done is the latter. You cannot justify threats (no matter how politely phrased) by pointing out a supposed obligation to DO it, not THREATEN it.
Ah, that's a detail I was missing. Yes, I can see no situation in which making such a threat could possibly be ethical.
(Unless you were told to make the threat in exchange for your family's life? ... Yes, I'm being facetious. :) )
On Jan 3, 2008 2:00 PM, Chris Howie cdhowie@gmail.com wrote:
(Unless you were told to make the threat in exchange for your family's life? ... Yes, I'm being facetious. :) )
It still wouldn't be ethical. It might be necessary, but it wouldn't be ethical.
On 03/01/2008, Josh Gordon user.jpgordon@gmail.com wrote:
On Jan 3, 2008 2:00 PM, Chris Howie cdhowie@gmail.com wrote:
(Unless you were told to make the threat in exchange for your family's life? ... Yes, I'm being facetious. :) )
It still wouldn't be ethical. It might be necessary, but it wouldn't be ethical.
You have strange ethics... I think it would be perfectly ethical to choose your family's lives over being nice to someone.
You guys do know that I was just introducing that scenario as an obnoxious joke, right?
On Jan 3, 2008 5:40 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 03/01/2008, Josh Gordon user.jpgordon@gmail.com wrote:
On Jan 3, 2008 2:00 PM, Chris Howie cdhowie@gmail.com wrote:
(Unless you were told to make the threat in exchange for your family's life? ... Yes, I'm being facetious. :) )
It still wouldn't be ethical. It might be necessary, but it wouldn't be ethical.
You have strange ethics... I think it would be perfectly ethical to choose your family's lives over being nice to someone.
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Sure. And I've always liked to respond to obnoxious jokes literally; takes the wind right out of the joker's sails sometimes.
On Jan 3, 2008 3:27 PM, Chris Howie cdhowie@gmail.com wrote:
You guys do know that I was just introducing that scenario as an obnoxious joke, right?
On Jan 3, 2008 5:40 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 03/01/2008, Josh Gordon user.jpgordon@gmail.com wrote:
On Jan 3, 2008 2:00 PM, Chris Howie cdhowie@gmail.com wrote:
(Unless you were told to make the threat in exchange for your
family's
life? ... Yes, I'm being facetious. :) )
It still wouldn't be ethical. It might be necessary, but it wouldn't
be
ethical.
You have strange ethics... I think it would be perfectly ethical to choose your family's lives over being nice to someone.
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-- Chris Howie http://www.chrishowie.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Crazycomputers _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
There are many, many different professions with affirmative reporting requirements. I've been using the word 'warning' instead of 'threat' because threat implies a particular tone that is entirely different. A warning might be "You've mentioned you work in the Air Force, but please be aware that if you provide more completely identifying information about yourself I or others may have to report you." Now, thats polite, isn't a threat and is issued in a situation where "just go ahead and do it" doesn't apply.
The reason the "whole conversation has been about the former" in this case is because that is most closely what happened (between OM and VO) *and* it is the situation with policy implications. (On-wiki incivility is dealt with by policy, off-wiki non-harassing incivility is irrelevant). I'm satisfied with what Mike Godwin wrote, which is that if politely issued it is wrongheaded to construe policy as prohibiting warnings of a legal obligation.
For examples of some professions who must report information in various situations: Physicians, lawyers, judges, psychologists, school administrators, teachers, social workers, guidance counselors, essentially all law enforcement, military personnel. This class obviously includes many millions of people, so it makes sense to adjust the policy to account for the affirmative reporting requirement issue. Nathan
On Jan 3, 2008 5:15 PM, Josh Gordon user.jpgordon@gmail.com wrote:
On Jan 3, 2008 2:00 PM, Chris Howie cdhowie@gmail.com wrote:
(Unless you were told to make the threat in exchange for your family's life? ... Yes, I'm being facetious. :) )
It still wouldn't be ethical. It might be necessary, but it wouldn't be ethical.
-- --jpgordon ∇∆∇∆
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On 1/4/08, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
There are many, many different professions with affirmative reporting requirements. I've been using the word 'warning' instead of 'threat' because threat implies a particular tone that is entirely different. A warning might be "You've mentioned you work in the Air Force, but please be aware that if you provide more completely identifying information about yourself I or others may have to report you." Now, thats polite, isn't a threat and is issued in a situation where "just go ahead and do it" doesn't apply.
The reason the "whole conversation has been about the former" in this case is because that is most closely what happened (between OM and VO) *and* it is the situation with policy implications. (On-wiki incivility is dealt with by policy, off-wiki non-harassing incivility is irrelevant). I'm satisfied with what Mike Godwin wrote, which is that if politely issued it is wrongheaded to construe policy as prohibiting warnings of a legal obligation.
I am pretty sure that isn't what Mike Godwin wrote. If pressed I am willing to go through the postings Mike made and analyze in depth the passage you are clearly misparaphrasing here, but in general, as a lawyer, this is not the way they generally phrase things. In general if lawyers thought two different viewpoints were impossible on a matter...
In any case, on wikipedia, policy would trump law in this case, as the NLT policy is not about law, which is excercised in court not on wikipedia, but is about civility, and as such I would much more (though not much more ;) trust a ruling by the arbcom that supported your misreading of what Mike Godwin said, than I would trust the foundations legal counsel. We operate on tradition on wikipedia.
For examples of some professions who must report information in various situations: Physicians, lawyers, judges, psychologists, school administrators, teachers, social workers, guidance counselors, essentially all law enforcement, military personnel. This class obviously includes many millions of people, so it makes sense to adjust the policy to account for the affirmative reporting requirement issue. Nathan
If this were really what we were going to do, I would be mortally dissapointed. I feel fairly certain that the arbcom would never let content be gamed using nebulous assertions of having to report somebody.
The whole reason for the NLT in the first place (to give a bit of historical backround) was for people like that one Canadian chap, who would claim that his freedom of speech was being endangered by people not allowing his opinions win the day in content discussions, and "warned" people that the whole site might be brought in contact with the law, if he were not allowed to excercise his free speech, by overwriting other patient editors emendments to his political screeds.
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
On Jan 3, 2008 1:47 PM, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
On Jan 3, 2008 5:25 AM, Chris Howie cdhowie@gmail.com wrote:
What about workplaces where it is policy that if you come into knowledge of a policy breach you are obligated to report it? Foo may only be trying to cover their own butt.
While there are cases in which someone may be obligated to report known or suspected wrongdoing, I am aware of no cases in which someone is obligated to threaten to report someone they happen to be in an on-Wikipedia disagreement with.
This discussion has gone on endlessly about the former, but in actual fact what is being done is the latter. You cannot justify threats (no matter how politely phrased) by pointing out a supposed obligation to DO it, not THREATEN it.
If you think you're obliged to, why bother with threats? It doesn't let you off the hook on your obligation.
If you're not actually obliged to, don't threaten it.
-Matt
I guess if you determine it to have been an uncivil threat, then whether it breaches the NLT policy or not is immaterial in that sense.
Admins need some leeway to handle problem users, but we shouldn't be getting away with abusing them in the process.
Also, unless Foo, Baz, or both are checkusers, how does either one know where the other one is editing from? And even if one is a checkuser, would it not be a gross violation of the privacy policy to use checkuser in that manner in the absence of misconduct? (This is, of course, provided that Foo and Baz do not edit anonymously, but in this scenario we're generally talking about registered accounts.)
If there is a case (outside of a specific court order, which would generally be served on the Foundation itself rather than any individual checkuser anyway) where a checkuser could have legally mandated disclosure in violation of the privacy policy, that person should not be a checkuser. Nothing personal against any such person, it's to their benefit as much as anyone else's not to be placed into a conflict-of-interest situation.
On Jan 3, 2008 6:17 AM, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
Assuming the employer has a policy totally prohibiting incidental use of the internet, the only ethical think for Foo to do is to remind Baz to edit from home. This would be true in all situation unless it were specifically part of Foo's normal functions to detect & report violations of this policy--and in that case i would be concerned whether Foo may have trapped Baz by inducing him to violate it.
On Jan 3, 2008 5:13 AM, Luna lunasantin@gmail.com wrote:
Well, let's break this down into slightly more abstract, essential elements and questions:
Users Foo and Baz are in a dispute. Baz edits from work, sometimes. Foo realizes this, and says they're going to contact Baz's employer to inform them of this workplace policy violation.
Is this a problem?
Does it matter if Foo and Baz work for the same employer?
Does it matter if that employer is a government agency?
-Luna _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
-- David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG
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On 02/01/2008, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Orangemarlin#Contacting_people.27s_em...
This is an interesting thread (one of a few on this subject, including in the Jimsch62 (sp) RfAr) - two editors who are in the military/work for the US government claim that it is their legal responsibility to report to the USAF the use of a military PC to edit Wikipedia because that is a violation of the UCMJ. I'm curious about whether that is true, and if it is why we don't block .mil IPs from editing en masse.
Obviously WikiMedia Foundation has no legal obligation to enforce these chaps' interpretation of the UCMJ. Also I'm pretty sure that there is nothing in the UCMJ blankly prohibiting the entire military from placing material on the internet, so blocking all .mil IP numbers isn't necessary.
Military organisations can make their own arrangements for internet access and we don't need to act as if they didn't have system administrators and whatnot.
If a Wikipedian sees his legal responsibilities as coming into conflict with Wikipedia policies, he can always refrain from editing, which will remove the conflict.
Tony Sidaway wrote:
Military organisations can make their own arrangements for internet access and we don't need to act as if they didn't have system administrators and whatnot.
I suspect that they have far more resources available for doing this than we can ever dream of.
Ec