Daniel Mayer wrote:

Sascha Noyes wrote: http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2004-January/009686.html

I responded: http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikilegal-l/2004-January/000239.html

Please respond on the legal list since this is very obviously a legal issue.

WikiLegal-l sign-up page: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikilegal-l

I don't think this is a legal issue. If I understand him correctly, he was making an analogy between the sort of process followed in civil and criminal trials. Obviously, this is an internal administrative matter, akin to a private school keeping a child in from recess, not either a civil or a criminal trial (and thus not a legal matter). I think Sascha's point, unless I misunderstand him, was that we ought in this case to use a model more closely analogous to a criminal trial, where there is a prosecutor for the public interest (in this case Wikipedians' interest), rather than one analogous to a civil trial, where two people (two users) are set up in opposition to each other.

-Mark