On Sun, May 18, 2008 at 11:49 PM, Michael Snow <wikipedia(a)verizon.net> wrote:
Quite so. If anyone asks you to help with something
they could
accomplish just as well without you, it's entirely your decision whether
or not to assist. "I'm not comfortable participating, ask someone else"
is totally fine as an answer.
--Michael Snow
True, but I'd still say such a situation is pretty much identical to
the WMF performing the action itself.
It's an interesting situation, because the act of deleting the article
is certainly not illegal. I guess it's embarrassing? Or bad PR? I
don't know. If you read my earlier posts you'll see I don't really
understand why the WMF doesn't just perform the deletion itself.
I guess my difficulty in coming up with a good analogy is that I was
thinking of actions which were bad things, but the action of deleting
a libelous article is a good one. So here goes. If I leave a bag of
saplings out on my front porch and I ask someone to plant a tree in my
front yard, is it far to say that I planted a tree in my front yard?
What if I just tell the person that the location of the saplings and
"explain to some length" how cool it would be if I had a tree there?
Then some newspaper story comes out about how I planted a tree in my
front yard, and when asked about the story I say something like "there
is absolutely no truth to that story and I'm shocked that anyone would
engage in such shoddy journalism".
Anthony