In a message dated 4/7/2008 9:59:10 AM Eastern Daylight Time, wknight8111@gmail.com writes:
In all this, you can't forget that the WMF board retains ultimate legal control over the projects, and nowhere has there been a suggestion that this legal authority be passed to any other entity, much less the VC.
One again, I do not know the answer. I simply think we should not speculate, but rather ask someone with a legal background, in this case, Mike Godwin, to chime in here.
To quote from Wikipedia's own CDA article: "Effectively, this section immunizes ISPs and other service providers from torts committed by users over their systems, unless the provider fails to take action after actual notice or is itself involved in the process of creation or development of the content_[1]_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Decency_Act#cite_note-0) ."
GerardM's proposal states: "This council will be about the projects and will deal what makes the projects function better." As such: 1) would someone angry with a project be able to give notice to this PC; and 2) is this PC, by its very nature, somehow be construed as involved in the creation and development of content?
I am sure someone more legally minded can formulate even better questions. Perhaps the answer is No, as you suggest. But it sure would suck to find out that the speculation was wrong while in the middle of a court case.
Danny
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