From: Todd Allen <toddmallen(a)gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Fwd: [WL-News] Wikimedia Foundation in danger of losing
immunity under the Communications Decency Act
To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List"
<foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Date: Sunday, May 18, 2008, 4:44 PM
On Sun, May 18, 2008 at 12:58 PM, Mike Godwin
<mgodwin(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
Todd Allen writes:
> I agree that not all legal concerns can be
>
discussed publicly, and
> have made that point myself. And if the
Foundation
>
believes that there
> is a legal concern, it can certainly OFFICE
the
>
article in question.
My belief is that OFFICE removals should be very
rare,
and that OFFICE
edits should be practically nonexistent.
On that, I would agree. However, when it -is- WMF taking an
official
action, it should be clearly marked as such. If it is not,
it should
be made absolutely, 100% clear that this is "Mike
Godwin, the editor"
not "Mike Godwin, the WMF representative" putting
forth the position.
What should be studiously avoided (ESPECIALLY in cases
where the
material at issue is critical of WMF) is some grey area
between the
two.
I don't see the issue here. If you are approached as an administrator and asked to
delete something and given information about why this is recommended it is clearly a
request. To be completely clear, I have been approached about such a thing in past (i.e.
before Mike Godwin). There was no doubt in my mind that I was expected to use my judgment
as an administrator and uphold the trust of my community and not follow advice I believed
to based on grounds the community would dismiss even if they could not all be given access
to the necessary info.
After all it is not like WMF doesn't have access to the database if they must remove
something. If they are asking an admin it is a recommendation, no grey area about it.