In en-wiki we are making good progress in addressing BLP concerns related to non-notable individuals, as well as being very cautious about using primary sources that have not been described in secondary sources (such as court documents) in BLPs of notable individuals. But what about Wikisource?
Currently there is no exclusionary criteria in Wikisource that will limit contributors into adding material such as civil cases court rulings, including divorce proceedings, bankruptcy cases, and other such disputes.
As it stands know, an editor can upload a bunch of court documents to Wikisource, link these Wikisource pages back to Wikipedia articles and add a links to Wikisource to WP articles via the {{sisterlinks}} or {{wikisource}} templates.
Material that would not have been acceptable to include in a BLP, either as text or as an EL, by virtue of the lack of a consistent exclusionary policy in Wikisource, and relative low number of contributors and admins that monitor material there, is now bypassing all these BLP protection measures we have in place.
Any thoughts?
-- Jossi
jf_wikipedia wrote:
In en-wiki we are making good progress in addressing BLP concerns related to non-notable individuals, as well as being very cautious about using primary sources that have not been described in secondary sources (such as court documents) in BLPs of notable individuals. But what about Wikisource?
Currently there is no exclusionary criteria in Wikisource that will limit contributors into adding material such as civil cases court rulings, including divorce proceedings, bankruptcy cases, and other such disputes.
As it stands know, an editor can upload a bunch of court documents to Wikisource, link these Wikisource pages back to Wikipedia articles and add a links to Wikisource to WP articles via the {{sisterlinks}} or {{wikisource}} templates.
Material that would not have been acceptable to include in a BLP, either as text or as an EL, by virtue of the lack of a consistent exclusionary policy in Wikisource, and relative low number of contributors and admins that monitor material there, is now bypassing all these BLP protection measures we have in place.
Any thoughts?
BLP is a construct of en:Wikipedia, and unless it has been properly discussed in other projects it would be improper to impose this on them out of nowhere.. The autonomy of each project should be respected unless there is a very good reason to do otherwise.
Have there been any real problems of this sort in Wikisource, or are you just speculating? Wikisource does not write its own biographies, except to give a few details that would help to identify authors whose works are included.
Court documents are in the public domain in many jurisdiction, this would include pleadings of all sorts as well as decisions of judges. Realistically, only the decisions tend to be regularly reported. Court decisions are themselves a part of the law in that they provide a body of precedents to be used in future decisions. They provide the reasoning that is essential to the law. They are a significant factor in attaining an accountable judicial system in a free and open society.
You mention the possibility that some individuals could circumvent WP policies eith links to WS. A more important question is how many such instances have their actually been. If there have been none, or they are very few, it would seem that following your suggestion would be to seek solutions for make-believe problems. Perhaps then, the most practical approach would be to deal with this at the link level on WP.
Ec
On Jun 15, 2007, at 1:29 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
Court documents are in the public domain in many jurisdiction, this would include pleadings of all sorts as well as decisions of judges. Realistically, only the decisions tend to be regularly reported. Court decisions are themselves a part of the law in that they provide a body of precedents to be used in future decisions. They provide the reasoning that is essential to the law. They are a significant factor in attaining an accountable judicial system in a free and open society.
I understand what caselaw is, Ray. My question was related to the lack of exclusionary criteria in Wikisource. But I think that there is nothing we can do in that regard, as Wikisource collects free texts, and court orders and decisions are indeed in the public domain in many jurisdictions.
As you said, we could address any specific cases on the linking from WP, not giving a special treatment to Wikisource vs the text of the same court order in caselaw.com, for example. The fact that it is in Wikisource does not mean that we *have* to link to it, if deemed inappropriate for a BLP.
-- Jossi