Legal isseus update 4/5
Going-on issue 2
--
Aphaea(a)*.wikipedia.org
email: Aphaia @ gmail (dot) com
Going-on issue 2: K.M. vs "Wikipedia Japan"(sic)
Case 2: Warning of assucsation to a libel of "Wikipedia Japan"(sic) on
some administrative activities; including deletion and page protection
Curent status: Dormant
Period: from February 2004 till June 2004
Major disputes:
1. Is deletion of articles libel to a certain organisation or not?
2. Are POV articles libel to a certain organisation or not?
3. Is page protection libel or not?
4. Will K.M. have any benefits from the above accusations?
Background
K.M. is a registered user on Japanese and English Wikipedia, and has
been banned on Japanese Wikipedia since April 2004. K.M. was a
industrious contributor on Japanese Wikipedia, related to the Bible
and Christianity. According to K.M.'s user page, K.M. is a faithful of
Jehovah's Witnesses, Chrisitian or Christianity-influenced
denomination. Except this, his identification is unclear.
Since the late of 2003 it has been pointed out that K.M.'s articles
were on the point of the view of Jehovah's Witnesses strongly and some
Wikipedians suspected if these articles violated their publifications.
In the early of February 2004, some of his articles was apparently
pointed ouf as copyright and licence violation of Jehovah's Witnesses
publification. but K.M. insisted they were original and had no
relation between the denomination's publifications. K.M. didn't admit
those copyright violation, and after their deletion, sh/e claimed
those deletions challenged to the freedom of expression and belief in
a BBS serving ja.wp, and Arbitration page on en.wp. Besides that, K.M.
has disputed with other contributors how doctrines of Jehovah's
Witnesses should be placed among the description of Christianity in
general. From both sides K.M. caused edit wars, it brought up a
request for his blocking on March.
On March some of his contributions began to be listed on the Request
for deletion page, too. K.M. erased sometimes other contributors'
comment supporting deletion. Finally he was blocked indefinitely
because of those erasions (it is a legitimate reason of blocking on
Japanese Wikipedia). and opened a channel to discuss his blocking on
the Idobata BBS (Village Pump BBS) which an Wikipedian run
voluntarily.
Later two faithfuls pointed out closely identification of K.M.'s
contributions' and denominaition's publifications, and requested for
deletion of those articles. Those articles were deleted because of
copyright violation.
On 6/8 K.M. (or a person under his name) posted a warning of
accusation to Wikipedia Japan (sic) because of libel. The post of K.M.
pointed out three points who K.M. considered as libel; ''unjust''
deletion of his/her articles, ''POV'' on some christianity-related
articles (the meaning of this statement is uncertain) and page
protections of those articles.
>> In
http://taurus.kake.info.waseda.ac.jp/wikip/joyful/joyful.u.cgi?mode=res&no=…
私の記事の不当な削除、[[十字架]]、[[復活祭]]、[[キリスト教系の新宗教]]での偏向な内容(POV)の記事記載&管理人による不当ページ保護が続いているようですので、名誉毀損でWikipedia
Japanを告発する。
Because of two reasons this warning seems to be ineffective, according
to some Wikipedians. First, it is uncertain what meant there
''Wikipedia Japan''; if it was intended ''Japanese Wikipedia'',
according to the Japanese law, it has no legal subject; it is not even
''organisation without regal rights'', so hard to be an opponent side
of a suit. Second, on those points s/he referred, it was unclear "to
whom" the lebel has be done. Unless K.M. is an agent of Jehovah's
Witnesses, libel to J.W. (as organisation) is not a libel to K.M. as
individual. In Japanese law a suit on libel is processed only based on
request of interested party, it is therefore doubtful if his
accusation would be processed to a suit. On the other hand K.M. stated
these were libels to the denomination, not to him.
Discussion on this issues continued to 6/11 substantially. It is
uncertain if K.M. has done any other activities related to this
matter.
Dear Trustees,
it is my pleasure to send you the legal isseus update on Japanese
projects (Wikipedia, Wiktrionary and other projcets) made by
coorinations of many wikipedians. I appriciate my co-contributos and
hope our report will help your discussion and good decision to our
future.
We cut update into 5 as below; every part will be mailed to the board.
1 Disclaimer / Backgrond - Tomos & Aphaia
2 Resolved isseus - Suisui
3 Going-on issue 1: Dolfin vs WMF - Tomos
4 Going-on issue 2: K.M. vs "Wikipedia Japan' (sic) - Aphaia
5 Going-on issue 3. John Doe (in report referred as "X") vs an
Wikipedian - Tomos
As an appendix a note on a resolved matter will be send.
Besides the above three, many other Wikipedians worked to make it sure details.
Feel free to contact us, if further information is necessary.
Cheers,
--
Aphaea(a)*.wikipedia.org
email: Aphaia @ gmail (dot) com
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Disclaimer and Warning
First, this report is personal in nature. That is, views
expressed in this report are not a representative
view of Japanese Wikimedians. The report is an aggregation
of views of individual authors. Earlier drafts of various
parts of the report were presented on the mailinglist
WikiJA-l for general feedback. Yet due to
language and time restrictions, it is far from regular
concensus-building process on Japanese Wikipedia.
Every part of this report has the signature of its reporter at the end.
Likewise, the views expressed in this report may not
be fair representations of the views held by the parties
involved in the disputes.
Second, none of the authors are legal experts. The terms
used in the reports should be interpreted with caution, because
it could well be inaccurate and/or misleading.
Please also remind that there is no strict correspondence between Common
Law judical terms/concepts and Japanese ones reflecting differences in
their legal systems.
The legal terms are chosen possibly because they are the closest imaginable
to the writer, and the choice could be inaccurate and misleading, too.
Third, none of the authors are native speakers of English.
Please feel free to ask for further clarifications.
(This part written by: Tomos)
*General Background
This year we have now no legal issues or troubles on any other
Japanese projects than Wikipedia (except Wiktionary deletion issue on
June, see the below #Legal issues related to ja in 2004).
Situation on ja.wp has not changed from Tomos report on March
[[m:User:Tomos/Legal_discussions_on_Japanese_Wikipedia]] basically. On
processing deletion and blocking/banning the basis of juristic
analysis are same, but recently the growth of user population
resulted in some policy changes as follows.
Decision on deletion and blocking/banning were formerly on full
concensus, but now are based on rough consensus. Today it is difficult
for ja.wp to reach the full consensus because of its huge population
of registered users, although most of decision are made based on full
consensus in fact and the request for cancellation of decision are
rare in case there were opposite parties.
Certain contributers assert the deletion should be (or is expected to)
noticed to the original contributors, in addition to thier agreement
in advance at the time their submission. This opinion is partly based
on a view of courtesy but also on the legal aspect in relation to a
Japanese law, Law of Providers' Responsibility or shortly ISP Law(see
the below, #Deletion and ISP Law).
Introduction of ''Terms of Use" which will be applied only to Japanese
Wikipedia was proposed in February 2004, when there was no other
Japanese project within Wikimedia. The proposed draft of Terms of Use
was written in Japanese and discussed during February and March
mainly. But the discussion subsided, and the proposal still remains at
a draft status. That draft is linked from MediaWiki:Lastupdate
but seldom refered in the community. There is no possibility of further
discussion on Terms of Use now. Other Japanese projects have
no such discussion on making their own Terms of Use or shared
with other projects.
(This part written by: Aphaia)
*Deletion and ISP Law
On ja every contributor is expected to read the notices below the edit
window including they are considered to give the project full agreement
for the possible deletion of their contribution when they submit.
On the other hand in Japan, Law Concerning Limitation of Damages to
Specific Telecommunications Service Provider and Disclosure of Sender
Information, so-called ISP Law states that certain prior notice
relieves liabilities of the provider.
When a deletion request is made by a third party, the provider can
make a notice to the contributor and if no objection is raised within
7 days, the provider can delete the posting free of liability to
the contributor, even in the case the deletion eventually turns out
to be based on a misunderstanding or incorrect information.
(This part written by: Aphaia)
On Japanese Wikipedia and Wiktionary, there were discussions if non-GFDL
license should be introduced to address the issues surrounding internal
handling of the texts. No significant change have happened.
The copying-and-pasting, archiving by copying, use of boilerplate texts,
dividing a long page into several parts, and copying of a page one
project to another are some of the actions that are likely to be in
violations of GFDL. It was suggested that certain remedies be implemented.
Suggested remedies included:
a) introduction of dual-licensing system, the second license making
materials available under public domain terms within Wikimedia projects.
b) partial change in the text(s) to which all contributors agree when
they press "save" button, resolving only a limited range of problems.
Objections included:
-the discussion was not easy to understand for the general participants
-participation was not wide enough to legitimatize such a radical change
-GFDL is said to be one of the core-elements of the Wikimedia projects so
that no deviation should be allowed
-introducing non-GFDL would be inconsistent with other language-projects'
adherence with GFDL
It was also indicated by some that the existing texts of Wikipedia, to which
all the contributors have been agreeing through the pressing of "save" button,
can be interpreted that the internal treatment of the contributions would be
made not according to GFDL. In that case, no change is necessary, and there
is no problem that above actions are in violations with GFDL.
(This part written by: Tomos)
*Legal issues related to ja in 2004
Until Oct 7 there have been several legal issues on ja, some have
already been resolved, others are going-on or uncertain if they are
resolved. In this section brief information on each issue is found
successively by date. Usernames are only showed for on-going issues.
Apparently Resolved
Suisui will provide details to the board on two resolved issues in another
mail. Here I mentioned only when they happened
R1. Dec, 2003 - resolved in the early 2004
R2. Wiktionary deletion; May, 2004 - resolved on June.
Going-on issues or uncertain if resolved
G1. Apr. 2004 Dolfin vs Wikimedia Foundation or "Japanese Wikipedia" - Tomos
G2. Jun. 2004 K.M. vs "Wikipedia Japan"(sic) warned in
http://taurus.kake.info.waseda.ac.jp/wikip/joyful/joyful.u.cgi?mode=res&no=…
- Aphaia
G3. Sep. 2004 X vs uncertain in the text; the admin of the BBS - Tomos
(running by an reigistered user of ja)? warind in
http://taurus.kake.info.waseda.ac.jp/wikip/joyful/joyful.u.cgi?mode=res&no=…
Report of Going-on issues will be sent or forwarded individually.
(This part written by: Aphaia)
From: Aphaia <aphaia(a)gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 10:37:39 +0900
Subject: Re: [Translators-l] [Translation] Fundraising thank-you banner
To: Sj <2.718281828(a)gmail.com>, Wikimedia Translators
<translators-l(a)wikimedia.org>
ja.w? sysop 各位
Aphaia です translators-l 経由
On Sun, 3 Oct 2004 12:18:05 -0400, Sj <2.718281828(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> The current fundraiser will be over soon; we should reach the target
> goal early, within the next hour or so. The fundraising banner will
> be replaced by a thank-you banner for the rest of the day:
>
> ====
> Thanks to you, we have reached our goal of $50,000 in
> [http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising donations].
> We are grateful to everyone for their help. Donation breakdowns
> are now available
> [http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2004/Q4 online].
> ====
試訳:
ありがとうございます。ご協力により5万米国ドルの[[Wikimedia:寄付 資金を集める]]目標を
達成しました。ご支援いただいたみなさまにお礼申し上げます。寄付の詳細は[[Wikimedia:Fund_drive/2004/Q4
ネット上で]]みることができます。
wp, wt, wb の update をよろしくお願いします。wq は私のほうで更新しておきます。
--
Aphaea(a)*.wikipedia.org
email: Aphaia @ gmail (dot) com
--
Aphaea(a)*.wikipedia.org
email: Aphaia @ gmail (dot) com