On Sun, May 18, 2008 at 8:10 AM, Mike Godwin mgodwin@wikimedia.org wrote:
Mark writes:
It's certainly possible (and I'm not saying this is what happened because I have absolutely no idea) that the articles were being developed by someone who interviewed people who work for the Foundation, and that person was forbidden to submit the articles, or told to remove some things.
So far as I can determine, the articles were accessible by anyone in the world who was capable of using "Recent changes."
So whatever happened, happened "post-publication" as far as the law goes.
I'll note that Wikileaks is wrong to assert that the Foundation removed the stories. (And Slashdot is wrong to repeat this assertion.) If that had been our method of operation, I could have removed the stories myself. Instead, we went to great lengths to explain what our legal concerns were, privately, to representatives of the community.
My view continues to be that the Foundation should almost never engage in direct editing or removal of project content, except (as in DMCA takedown notices) when we are required to do so by law.
Anything else should normally entail engagement of community members.
--Mike
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"Asserting your concerns privately", from a position of authority, is just a roundabout way of not having the "official stamp" on an official action. If the concerns had been brought up PUBLICLY, and a regular community discussion held (I don't know the exact way Wikinews handles deletion discussions, I'm sure they have some procedure), and the community agreed, then we can say it's a community action. Otherwise, backroom stuff is backroom stuff, regardless of who pulled the trigger.