On 9 Apr 2007 at 11:32, Seth Finkelstein sethf@sethf.com wrote:
My view is that I'm not going to go on a legal crusade over my own issues with Wikipedia - that for biographies of living people, it's an attractive nuisance and a weapon of asymmetrical warfare. But I sure do think it's a problem that needs fixing.
You and Brandt both like to call Wikipedia an "attractive nuisance", but that phrase has a precise legal meaning, as I recall from my high school senior elective in law and have refreshed my memory here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attractive_nuisance_doctrine
Something is an attractive nuisance, legally speaking, if it is attractive to children and presents an "unreasonable risk of death or serious bodily harm" to those who are attracted to it and are too young and inexperienced to realize the danger.
In the case of Wikipedia, the alleged potential harm is to third parties, not to those who are attracted to the site; the age of the editors isn't particularly relevant; and the possible harm is more likely to be emotional than physical. It would take a pretty adventurous judge to stretch the doctrine that far.
Daniel R. Tobias You and Brandt both like to call Wikipedia an "attractive nuisance", but that phrase has a precise legal meaning, ...
Correct. Just like "Troll" has a precise D&D meaning:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Dungeons_&_Dragons) "The average troll stands nine feet high and weighs roughly 500 pounds, ..."
However, the word has broader, metaphorical, usages in English.
The phrase "attractive nuisance" is used colloquially to denote a poorly-designed and dangerous creation, with the implication that the creator or maintainer bears some moral responsibility for the inevitable damage due to its existence.
http://intertwingly.net/blog/2004/10/20/Attractive-Nuisance/ "Being a text format, XML is an "attractive nuisance" in that it encourages people to create documents with technologies as simple text based templates"
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:lUN0vQqMt8IJ:www.smalltalksystems.com/p... "We will see that they are poorly supported in most Smalltalk implementations and limit reusability. Hence, they are labeled an attractive nuisance. "
http://www.eric.ed.gov/sitemap/html_0900000b800a1338.html "Qualitative Data as an Attractive Nuisance: The Problem of Analysis."
I do reference the legal doctrine, in order to convey to people the legal concept of "duty of care", as the predominant Net moral ethos sometimes seems to support handing a machine-gun to a little child and saying everyone should be wearing bullet-proof vests anyway.
It would take a pretty adventurous judge to stretch the doctrine that far.
I think of it as a doctrine which helps to establish a general reasonableness of critic's views. Maybe I should refine it. But sadly, there just don't seem to be good forums for that sort of discussion anymore (or at least, I don't know of them).
Seth Finkelstein wrote:
Daniel R. Tobias You and Brandt both like to call Wikipedia an "attractive nuisance", but that phrase has a precise legal meaning, ...
Correct. Just like "Troll" has a precise D&D meaning:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Dungeons_&_Dragons) "The average troll stands nine feet high and weighs roughly 500 pounds, ..."
I've always viewed "to troll" as being from fishing where you pull the baited line behind a moving boat to give the fish the impression that they are going after live food.
Ec