[Foundation-l] Communication

On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 2:15 PM, Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com> wrote: But of course, the deletion log was not the only notice. And Yann Forget knew about the deletions at the time they occurred. Sometimes you can. I just did. But of course sometimes you can't, for reasons I've already outlined. (There's nothing magical about the passage of time that eliminates the disincentive effect of disclosing negotiations.) I'm not sure what advice you think it is even theoretically possible that the Foundation could have offered. Are you suggesting that the Foundation is acting as the lawyer for everyone who posts content to Wikisource? There are obvious reasons that is not a sustainable or feasible model. You seem to have the impression that the Foundation staff directly deleted the content. Actually, I shared the list with Cary, who shared the list with community members who implemented the takedown. (I deleted no content myself.) So you can see why the whole notion that the takedown wasn't shared with the community seems flatly wrong to me. We absolutely engaged community members in implementing the takedown. Yann seems to suggest that our actions have been some kind of big secret. The reality, however, is that we did nothing in secret, and that Yann in fact has known what we did for quite a while now. We even made it trivially easy to contact Gallimard and complain about the takedown. But I do understand that it is easier to complain about WMF than it is to pursue Gallimard directly, even though doing the latter might be a more effective choice. I'll note also that the real complaint, as I perceive it, isn't really that we didn't communicate what we were doing. The real complaint is that we actually complied with a formally correct takedown notice, consistent with longstanding policy. Now that it's clearer that we really couldn't make any other choice but to comply, consistent with our fiduciary responsibilities, the need to complain shifts to another target. I hope I may be forgiven for believing that if we had put our compliance with Gallimard's takedown notice in a banner on every project page, we'd still face complaints -- likely from the very same people -- for other ostensible reasons. In short, the real unhappiness here is that we complied with a formally correct takedown notice. All the rest is distraction, IMHO. But as a matter of official policy, we will comply with such notices as we have in the past. Other contributors have responded to our takedowns by reposting the content with appropriate affidavits ("put-up notices"), and we've left the content up in spite of followup demands that we remove it. I do not believe such legally correct responses are beyond the ability of contributors to Wikisource or other projects. I'm I'm not sure what you're perceiving as "a personally accusatory response" -- I've simply shared the facts as I understand them. (Did you think Yann Forget's posting was not "personally accusatory"? I noticed that Cary and I are mentioned by name, personally.) I do share as much as I can, within the constraints of law and professional ethics. I am forbidden to step beyond those constraints. I don't have much to say beyond this. But I do ask that you not assume anything about the takedowns without looking at them yourself. And I'll respond privately to any queries about how we proceeded, if I can. --Mike _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l