On 30 May 2007 at 21:34:50 -0700, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
For example, in your hypothetical case of a person maliciously posting links to a site with libel elsewhere on it, I'm not seeing as banning talk-page links to the whole site as particularly effective. Instead, I'd rather we got together as a community and set up a legal fund for a libel suit. I feel like banning links to some kook's site is just rewarding their desire to cause trouble, and doesn't hurt them in any way that matters. A well-funded lawsuit, on the other hand is plain scary. Speaking of which, I'm in for $500 if somebody makes your hypothetical case real.
Would that sort of activity violate [[WP:NLT]]?
Daniel R. Tobias wrote:
On 30 May 2007 at 21:34:50 -0700, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
For example, in your hypothetical case of a person maliciously posting links to a site with libel elsewhere on it, I'm not seeing as banning talk-page links to the whole site as particularly effective. Instead, I'd rather we got together as a community and set up a legal fund for a libel suit. I feel like banning links to some kook's site is just rewarding their desire to cause trouble, and doesn't hurt them in any way that matters. A well-funded lawsuit, on the other hand is plain scary. Speaking of which, I'm in for $500 if somebody makes your hypothetical case real.
Would that sort of activity violate [[WP:NLT]]?
Good question! I hadn't thought of that.
My first thought is no, as if person A libels person B off Wikipedia and person B then sues person A, there's no threat made and, most importantly, no chilling effect for editing Wikipedia articles. Some third party could write a reasonable and neutral noticeboard or signpost article, with links to appropriate backing info and links to the legal fund(s) involved. I trust the community to make good choices with the full information.
What I think would violate NLT would be person B posting a lot on Wikipedia about how they *might* sue person A for off-Wiki activity.
That's my first take, anyway, but you've now got me wondering what exploits for a system like that would be. I'll chew on it more, and if you find any holes, let me know. But hopefully, we'll never need it.
William