In order to ensure that they are effectively cleansed, snd that we're
not just redistributing protected content, we have to make them
not-viewable - it sort of defeats the point if someone can say "huh,
just look at [revision] for the content".
They already are viewable - by admins. What's the difference from a legal
standpoint if this is expanded to all editors, or even to all editors who
applied for the privilege?
However, for the benefit of the project, we need some way of
overseeing this process - some way of looking at
deleted material to
confirm that it was a copyvio, or to see if it should be undeleted, or
whatever.
And that's where fair use comes into play.
And we can't split things into "deleted because crap" and "deleted
because copyvio", allowing people to look at one
and not the other -
because we'd still need someone to be able to assess the deleted
"copyvio material", check that the process wasn't being abused, &c
&c.
We certainly can split things up, and in fact we already do. As for whether
or not anyone needs to be able to see copyvio materials, I don't think this
is necessary, but it is the way it currently works. If an admin is deleting
as a copyvio articles which never went through the proper channels, that
admin would be quickly found regardless of whether or not the actual text
were viewable. Maybe we should keep the information anyway, just so we could
back out such changes, but all that would need to be viewable is the title
in order to check that the system wasn't being abused.
So, someone has to have this access capacity. It's a big and diffuse
job, so it can't really be handled efficiently by
palming it off on
the handful of developers. Admins are the rational next layer of
people to give the right to - there's enough of them that they can do
the necessary, but not so many of them that the ability to access the
information is being handed out all over the place.
And all editors are the next rational layer of people to give the right to.
And there's no reason that one layer is legal but the other one isn't.
Giving the right of access only to admins is a way of saying "we
intend to limit this capacity to the sole amount
needed by the
project", thus showing that we believe we are using this copyrighted
material in an acceptable manner. Giving it to everyone, or even every
registered user, would be far les so - the project doesn't need four
hundred thousand people to be able to review deleted material, meaning
there's no defensible reason for handing out the power to everyone.
Giving the right of access to all admins isn't *necessary*, it's
*convenient*. Giving it to all editors, or to all editors who requested
permission, isn't necessary, but it'd be convenient. And even then, if that
access were limited to a certain subset of deleted pages, say AFD and speedy
deletions which weren't copyvios, then there wouldn't even be an argument
regarding copyright issues.
On other threads, recently, we've been discussing Special:Checkuser
(and associated database work); there, we're all
agreed that
IP-username information is strictly private, could lead to bad things
if thrown around, and so on. But we have a pressing and valid reason,
integral to the project, to use that information. The solution is to
give it to a limited number of users - it's been suggested for them to
be chosen on a case-by-case basis, or to give it to all bureaucrats or
stewards, as they're the largest group of people we would need to have
the right in order to attend to the problem. The analogy here should
be clearish.
Actually, the analogy is quite poor. The concerns of giving away
IP-username information are completely different than the concerns of
distributing articles on non-notable topics. And it's highly unlikely that
IP-username information will be given to all admins anyway.
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk
Anthony