Stevertigo wrote:

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Brion:What would such a policy need to say that the Neutral Point of View

policy does not?

Well, Daniel once again has got the feel for the issue... that is that NPOV and being sued for libel are two different things... I can understand what youre getting at Brion.. that they are related, with regard to an editors point of view, But still, we here are involved in making policy and crafting some general ways of dealing with related (even outside in the legal world) issues so that later, when these things might come up, they've been thought through somewhat beforehand.

Do we really need to get carried away with a lot of detailed policy about libel? Common sense guidelines should be quite enough to cover most situations. The problem with a lot of written laws is that people get caught up in the letter of the law instead of the spirit of the law.

NPOV is a good general policy.. but when Libel really means someone trying to edit Wikipedia through a legal interface, rather than the normal one. Here, of course, as I've said on the T:W:Libel page, theres a burden of responsibility automatically placed on someone to make a change themselves, if something is incorrect... Im sure this has been said before, in similar words.. So, I dont think WP has much to worry about at all... If its true, and the tribe sticks to it... and yet they want to sue... fine... That would be one of the easier cases to argue... lawyer or not...

Yes. When a libel is published in a print medium it's much more difficult to correct the information. For an annual publication it will take a year before a retraction can be published. Here an offended party can raise his objection immediately, and proximally to the alleged offence. A front page libel won't have to wait for a retraction at the bottom of page 88 in some future issue. An offended party has a duty to mitigate; if he's aware of the libel he can't just let it run on in the hopes of increasing the damages that he might collect later.

So, yes its an issue.. and having a foundation would inevitably mean a policy with regard to being sued. And whatever policy that is.. simply by nature of being solidified into some guide, would have some minimal bearing on the freedoms Wikipedians enjoy in editing articles.

Sometimes the best insurance against stupid libel suits is not to have any assets. The foundation's only assets are likely to be computer hardware and a bank account with a limited amount of current operating funds. The information would never be an "asset" in the accounting sense, since it has no monetary value. In the worst case scenario a mirror site in another country could take over the editing functions.

Funny enough, a major Libel case - Richard Perle is going to sue Seymour Hirsch (and The New Yorker) for his column... not here in the US, but in England... go figure... the laws there are apparently more favorable to him, despite the fact that neither lives there, and the circulation there is a sliver of what it is here. -Steve

In many other issues jurisdiction shoppors prefer the courts in some US states which give higher awards. When the Process Church sued the author of "Helter Skelter" for his allegations that they had somehow been involved with Charlie Manson they lost their case in the U.S. but won it in England.

Ec