Before any ban the user should be made aware of the policy first.

From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)Wikipedia.org> Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2004 07:27:44 -0700 To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)Wikipedia.org> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Legal threats as grounds for automatic termination Mark Pellegrini wrote: We already have enough excuses for banning people. We don't need another one. These threats are almost always hollow. My response to legal threats is, "Go ahead and sue." When the person finds out what's involved in bringing forth a suit across international jurisdictions they quietly drop the whole thing. This is another variation of, "Don't feed the trolls." Ec _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)Wikipedia.org> Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2004 12:07:58 -0700 To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)Wikipedia.org> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Legal threats as grounds for automatic termination I don't think that it's a question of what the Foundation has the legal right to do. Most of these "threats" of legal action are just a matter of blowing off steam. Many of these "disputes" don't come near to being a part of arbitration procedure. Do you really want to make more work for yourself than you already have? :-) Ec Fred Bauder wrote: > What I want to do is to create an agreement that all disputes will be > handled through our arbitration procedure, thus precluding any legal action > other than possible appeal of an arbitration decision. I don't think folks > realize that we can legally do that. > > Fred

I want to forstall filing of law suits, especially in federal courts (which can be quite arbitrary). A simple, essentially bogus, legal action in a federal court with associated appeal can easily cost the defendant $100,000 or more.

What I want to do is to create an agreement that all disputes will be handled through our arbitration procedure, thus precluding any legal action other than possible appeal of an arbitration decision. I don't think folks realize that we can legally do that.

Well, I think one way to do this would be to have a policy that no discussion of lawsuits could take place on the wiki, that is to say that, once a user has declared their intention to take legal action surrounding Wikipedia or its users, the policy would be to block that user and anyone else who discussed it, because of the potential for incrimination / liability etc. Ban them, and direct them to raise the issue offline with the foundation's legal representative. Most companies and non-profits have a similar rule that their employees and volunteers are not empowered to discuss legal aspects. If they drop the case, or it is settled, then allow them back. Mark --- Mark Pellegrini <mapellegrini(a)comcast.net> wrote: (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special: Contributions&target=Fel http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk: Raul654&diff=3853204&oldid=3852747, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk: Moriori&diff=3853177&oldid=3852828 > I started digging through our policies, and found > this dusty relic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_legal_threats > At this point, it's only a proposal. Also, it > doesn't actually *do* > anything. I'd like to suggest adopting a > terminate-on-site rule -- you make > a legal threat, and you're automatically banned. I'd > like to know what > others here think. > --Mark > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

Well, I think one way to do this would be to have a policy that no discussion of lawsuits could take place on the wiki, that is to say that, once a user has declared their intention to take legal action surrounding Wikipedia or its users, the policy would be to block that user and anyone else who discussed it, because of the potential for incrimination / liability etc. Ban them, and direct them to raise the issue offline with the foundation's legal representative. Most companies and non-profits have a similar rule that their employees and volunteers are not empowered to discuss legal aspects. If they drop the case, or it is settled, then allow them back. Mark