Thomas writes:
The WMF expressing legal concerns about the stories is effectively identical to the WMF removing the stories. The WMF wants the stories gone, the stories go - that's the short of it.
That is hardly the case. It's always possible for editors to refuse to follow our advice. If there's a way to compel volunteer editors to do anything, I haven't come across it.
If the general counsel of the WMF tells you there are legal concerns regarding one of your articles, you delete the article, you don't have any say in the matter, regardless of whether or not the WMF actually demands deletion.
If you are under the impression that I told someone they had no choice but to accede to my recommendations, then you are mistaken. I took the trouble of explaining at some length what our legal concerns were. These concerns included legal protection of Wikinews and its individual contributors.
That said, the WMF removing stories because of legal concerns has always been accepted (albeit reluctantly) by the community as something the WMF has to do. The WMF has a responsibility to obey the law, whether we like it or not. There is a big difference between removing the articles due to legal concerns and, as Wikileaks seems to claim, censoring articles critical of Wikipedia. As long as it was just the former (and I have no evidence to suggest otherwise), I have no problem with it.
That's good to hear. But in this instance the WMF did not remove stories.
--Mike
On 18/05/2008, Mike Godwin mgodwin@wikimedia.org wrote:
Thomas writes:
The WMF expressing legal concerns about the stories is effectively identical to the WMF removing the stories. The WMF wants the stories gone, the stories go - that's the short of it.
That is hardly the case. It's always possible for editors to refuse to follow our advice. If there's a way to compel volunteer editors to do anything, I haven't come across it.
Sure, but it's not going to actually happen.
If the general counsel of the WMF tells you there are legal concerns regarding one of your articles, you delete the article, you don't have any say in the matter, regardless of whether or not the WMF actually demands deletion.
If you are under the impression that I told someone they had no choice but to accede to my recommendations, then you are mistaken. I took the trouble of explaining at some length what our legal concerns were. These concerns included legal protection of Wikinews and its individual contributors.
As I explicitly said, it doesn't matter if you actually demand it or not, just saying there are legal concerns is effectively a demand for its removal.
That said, the WMF removing stories because of legal concerns has always been accepted (albeit reluctantly) by the community as something the WMF has to do. The WMF has a responsibility to obey the law, whether we like it or not. There is a big difference between removing the articles due to legal concerns and, as Wikileaks seems to claim, censoring articles critical of Wikipedia. As long as it was just the former (and I have no evidence to suggest otherwise), I have no problem with it.
That's good to hear. But in this instance the WMF did not remove stories.
Yes, you did.
Thomas Dalton wrote:
As I explicitly said, it doesn't matter if you actually demand it or not, just saying there are legal concerns is effectively a demand for its removal.
No, it is not.
On 18/05/2008, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
As I explicitly said, it doesn't matter if you actually demand it or not, just saying there are legal concerns is effectively a demand for its removal.
No, it is not.
Yes, it is. When a person in authority makes a suggestion that is within the remit of that authority, there is no effective difference between that and an order.
No - yes - no - yes... nonsense, you are free to choose as you have no legally binding contract with WMF to do as they say.
John
Thomas Dalton skrev:
On 18/05/2008, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
As I explicitly said, it doesn't matter if you actually demand it or not, just saying there are legal concerns is effectively a demand for its removal.
No, it is not.
Yes, it is. When a person in authority makes a suggestion that is within the remit of that authority, there is no effective difference between that and an order.
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Jimmy Wales wrote:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
As I explicitly said, it doesn't matter if you actually demand it or not, just saying there are legal concerns is effectively a demand for its removal.
No, it is not.
It is hard to avoid the impression that every word spoken by the pope is /ex cathedra/. You and Mike in particular will frequently want to comment as ordinary editors, but it is hard to avoid arguments like "but Jimbo wrote in June 2003 that ...." You may have no memory of what you wrote then, and may even have changed views since, but for someone who is trying to push a point of view it is an irrefutable argument to be exploited.
Much as I would decry it, there remains a level of deference to authority within the projects that is not easily overcome. Much of what you say is treated as a demand irrespective of whether you intended it that way.
Ec
On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 1:47 AM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
As I explicitly said, it doesn't matter if you actually demand it or not, just saying there are legal concerns is effectively a demand for its removal.
No, it is not.
It is hard to avoid the impression that every word spoken by the pope is /ex cathedra/. You and Mike in particular will frequently want to comment as ordinary editors, but it is hard to avoid arguments like "but Jimbo wrote in June 2003 that ...." You may have no memory of what you wrote then, and may even have changed views since, but for someone who is trying to push a point of view it is an irrefutable argument to be exploited.
Much as I would decry it, there remains a level of deference to authority within the projects that is not easily overcome. Much of what you say is treated as a demand irrespective of whether you intended it that way.
Both Mike and Jimmy have tried to be clear when they're communicating an official position. There have been problems with this in the past (the events leading to Erik's short desysopping, for example, among others), but I think in general everyone's more aware of this now. The bulk of administrators and I hope all the Stewards are aware of the issues and won't sanction when there's no clear "the Foundation OFFICE hat was on".
Unfortunately, this sort of situation can sometimes lead to a negative feedback loop. Jimmy tries to communicate in a neutral manner without overusing authority, and then once in a while has to drop an official action hammer on someone. Some will perceive this as arbitrary hand of god behavior and treat everything else Jimmy says more deferentially as you note. Which was the opposite of the initial intent.
I think that as a general rule, that can be combated by attempting to get to know Jimmy if you have to deal with him - and, generalizing, get to know the people in the "power structure" as it is both in the community and Foundation.
Familiarity usually breeds some mutual respect and lessens the tendency to overreact in stress situations. A great deal of potential problems are headed off because someone does send a private email to someone else, or ask on IRC, or knows someone from posts to wikien-L or the foundation list.
I deleted the article.
Cary contacted me via Skype late at night and said Mike wanted to talk to me. I forwarded my cellphone number. When I saw the article in question, there was no doubt in my mind that it could readily be construed as actionable libel. Thus, I deleted it.
The Bauer case is more complex. Her article was removed from Wikipedia - as I see it - in a good faith move to encourage the court to throw out her action against WMF. Wikinews reported on this, and that article was quashed. Everyone will be able to see why when - hopefully - the court throws out her allegations against the WMF. In this case the EFF is championing the cause, but rules and guidelines are needed; both to retain S.230 protection and to maintain Wikinews' impartiality.
Brian McNeil
On Tue, May 20, 2008 at 4:24 AM, Brian McNeil brian.mcneil@wikinewsie.org wrote:
I deleted the article.
Cary contacted me via Skype late at night and said Mike wanted to talk to me. I forwarded my cellphone number. When I saw the article in question, there was no doubt in my mind that it could readily be construed as actionable libel. Thus, I deleted it.
The Bauer case is more complex. Her article was removed from Wikipedia - as I see it - in a good faith move to encourage the court to throw out her action against WMF. Wikinews reported on this, and that article was quashed. Everyone will be able to see why when - hopefully - the court throws out her allegations against the WMF. In this case the EFF is championing the cause, but rules and guidelines are needed; both to retain S.230 protection and to maintain Wikinews' impartiality.
Brian McNeil
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We'll be able to see why when the court throws out the allegations against WMF? I fail to see what about the Wikinews article would make that less likely to happen, and I certainly don't see what about it would endanger Section 230 protection. Indeed, such things (content created by a site's users and uploaded to the site using its normal mechanisms) are -exactly- what Section 230 protects service providers against liability for. It's a garbage case, so one would hope that the court would throw it out anyway.
2008/5/21 Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com:
We'll be able to see why when the court throws out the allegations against WMF? I fail to see what about the Wikinews article would make that less likely to happen,
In a civil action, being seen to play nice is very important indeed and gets you lots of points. The courts are perpetually clogged, the charges to a litigant for bringing a case are well below what it actually costs the taxpayer, and people are very much expected to do everything they can to resolve problems before it gets that far. Mostly this works. (WMF and its projects have policies of playing nice as far as is reasonably possible, not just for this reason but because it's important to our reputation and people are scared by how powerful we are already.)
and I certainly don't see what about it would endanger Section 230 protection. Indeed, such things (content created by a site's users and uploaded to the site using its normal mechanisms) are -exactly- what Section 230 protects service providers against liability for. It's a garbage case, so one would hope that the court would throw it out anyway.
One would hope they will :-)
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
2008/5/21 Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com:
We'll be able to see why when the court throws out the allegations against WMF? I fail to see what about the Wikinews article would make that less likely to happen,
In a civil action, being seen to play nice is very important indeed and gets you lots of points. The courts are perpetually clogged, the charges to a litigant for bringing a case are well below what it actually costs the taxpayer, and people are very much expected to do everything they can to resolve problems before it gets that far. Mostly this works. (WMF and its projects have policies of playing nice as far as is reasonably possible, not just for this reason but because it's important to our reputation and people are scared by how powerful we are already.)
This is an important point, and clogging in courts knows no international boundaries.
There will of course always be a few bloody-minded obsessives determined to take any dispute to its bitter end, only to be awarded $1.00 in nominal damages. No organisation should feel that its behaviour is hamstrung by this small group.
Ec
David Gerard wrote:
2008/5/21 Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com:
We'll be able to see why when the court throws out the allegations against WMF? I fail to see what about the Wikinews article would make that less likely to happen,
In a civil action, being seen to play nice is very important indeed and gets you lots of points. The courts are perpetually clogged, the charges to a litigant for bringing a case are well below what it actually costs the taxpayer, and people are very much expected to do everything they can to resolve problems before it gets that far. Mostly this works. (WMF and its projects have policies of playing nice as far as is reasonably possible, not just for this reason but because it's important to our reputation and people are scared by how powerful we are already.)
Other news organizations (in the U.S. at least) usually take the opposite approach, and refuse to take any action at all in response to frivolous complaints, lest that simply encourage more frivolous complaints. Certainly the New York Times wouldn't retract a story or remove it from their website, if they thought there was no legal problem with it, simply to "play nice".
-Mark
On 21/05/2008, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
2008/5/21 Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com:
We'll be able to see why when the court throws out the allegations against WMF? I fail to see what about the Wikinews article would make that less likely to happen,
In a civil action, being seen to play nice is very important indeed and gets you lots of points. The courts are perpetually clogged, the charges to a litigant for bringing a case are well below what it actually costs the taxpayer, and people are very much expected to do everything they can to resolve problems before it gets that far. Mostly this works. (WMF and its projects have policies of playing nice as far as is reasonably possible, not just for this reason but because it's important to our reputation and people are scared by how powerful we are already.)
Other news organizations (in the U.S. at least) usually take the opposite approach, and refuse to take any action at all in response to frivolous complaints, lest that simply encourage more frivolous complaints. Certainly the New York Times wouldn't retract a story or remove it from their website, if they thought there was no legal problem with it, simply to "play nice".
You don't need to be so nice when you have several thousand lawyers.
Thomas Dalton wrote:
On 21/05/2008, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Other news organizations (in the U.S. at least) usually take the opposite approach, and refuse to take any action at all in response to frivolous complaints, lest that simply encourage more frivolous complaints. Certainly the New York Times wouldn't retract a story or remove it from their website, if they thought there was no legal problem with it, simply to "play nice".
You don't need to be so nice when you have several thousand lawyers.
What? The New York Times has several thousand lawyers? If so, at the very least the innocent mind is boggled by the idea it feels the need to have them.
Yours
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
On 23/05/2008, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
On 21/05/2008, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Other news organizations (in the U.S. at least) usually take the opposite approach, and refuse to take any action at all in response to frivolous complaints, lest that simply encourage more frivolous complaints. Certainly the New York Times wouldn't retract a story or remove it from their website, if they thought there was no legal problem with it, simply to "play nice".
You don't need to be so nice when you have several thousand lawyers.
What? The New York Times has several thousand lawyers? If so, at the very least the innocent mind is boggled by the idea it feels the need to have them.
I may be exaggerating slightly, but I'm sure they have significantly more than our one.
Nor would Wikinews, but there's a minor niggle there. The NYT has a chief editor who is the one you sue... and he has insurance. I strongly suspect the anarchic nature of Wikinews means we'd never get libel insurance, even though community policing is fairly effective. And who would take that "lightning rod" position of being the person to sue?
This is one of a handful of issues where Wikinews and Wikipedia are worlds apart. Wikipedia can afford to be patient with the Bauer case and let the stupid woman's legal action simply build up more sources for a post-case article. Anything on Wikinews has to be as current as possible; I coined a phrase to describe one of the key differences, "Facts don't cease to be facts, but news ceases to be news".
Brian McNeil
-----Original Message----- From: foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Delirium Sent: 21 May 2008 23:01 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Fwd: [WL-News] Wikimedia Foundation in danger oflosing immunity under the Communications Decency Act
David Gerard wrote:
2008/5/21 Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com:
We'll be able to see why when the court throws out the allegations against WMF? I fail to see what about the Wikinews article would make that less likely to happen,
In a civil action, being seen to play nice is very important indeed and gets you lots of points. The courts are perpetually clogged, the charges to a litigant for bringing a case are well below what it actually costs the taxpayer, and people are very much expected to do everything they can to resolve problems before it gets that far. Mostly this works. (WMF and its projects have policies of playing nice as far as is reasonably possible, not just for this reason but because it's important to our reputation and people are scared by how powerful we are already.)
Other news organizations (in the U.S. at least) usually take the opposite approach, and refuse to take any action at all in response to frivolous complaints, lest that simply encourage more frivolous complaints. Certainly the New York Times wouldn't retract a story or remove it from their website, if they thought there was no legal problem with it, simply to "play nice".
-Mark
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On Wed, May 21, 2008 at 5:34 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
2008/5/21 Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com:
We'll be able to see why when the court throws out the allegations against WMF? I fail to see what about the Wikinews article would make that less likely to happen,
In a civil action, being seen to play nice is very important indeed and gets you lots of points.
Shouldn't the WMF play nice with everyone, not just those who sue it?
As many will be aware, English Wikinews very recently desysopped fourteen or fifteen people - including Jimmy Wales. This was done by project consensus, and despite jwales asking for the privilege back the consensus seems to be "no" or "only on a temporary basis".
Since there are no visible sysop actions for jwales, the only real use has been to see deleted stuff.
A suggestion has been floated that a third way would be a new privilege to see everything. Something that - I think - should be granted to all board members and likely all staff. I don't just mean for Wikinews, but across all languages and all projects.
This doesn't strike me as something particularly difficult to implement, but there are some wrinkles to iron out with it.
First, my assumption is all Board members should have this priv. Staff? Probably, but most definitely Mike Godwin.
Should it include oversighted edits? Is this even technically feasible?
Are there any circumstances where someone could be elected to a project ArbCom without sysop? Should they then have this privilege?
Who should be permitted to grant the privilege? Bureaucrats, or just stewards?
Anything else?
Brian McNeil
2008/5/22 Brian McNeil brian.mcneil@wikinewsie.org:
As many will be aware, English Wikinews very recently desysopped fourteen or fifteen people - including Jimmy Wales. This was done by project consensus, and despite jwales asking for the privilege back the consensus seems to be "no" or "only on a temporary basis".
Since there are no visible sysop actions for jwales, the only real use has been to see deleted stuff.
A suggestion has been floated that a third way would be a new privilege to see everything. Something that - I think - should be granted to all board members and likely all staff. I don't just mean for Wikinews, but across all languages and all projects.
Sounds like a good idea.
This doesn't strike me as something particularly difficult to implement, but there are some wrinkles to iron out with it.
First, my assumption is all Board members should have this priv. Staff? Probably, but most definitely Mike Godwin.
I think giving it to all senior staff and board would be good. Low level staff (an intern doing filing, say) probably don't need it.
Should it include oversighted edits? Is this even technically feasible?
I'm sure it's feasible, it may require a bit of work, though.
Are there any circumstances where someone could be elected to a project ArbCom without sysop? Should they then have this privilege?
That would be up to individual projects.
Who should be permitted to grant the privilege? Bureaucrats, or just stewards?
This is where it gets a little complicated. At the moment there is no such thing as a global permission, as far as I know (it may be planned as part of SUL, but I don't think it's implemented yet). I think the simplest way would be a system similar to that which stewards use to sort problems on small wikis - the steward has the permission on meta that allows them to give permissions to accounts on other wikis. In this case, they would just have the right to give and remove this one user group, rather than any group like stewards can. Stewards would probably be responsible for giving the staff/board's meta accounts the permission, then each staff/board member would give their own accounts on other projects the user group as and when they need it. Technically, they would be able to give the group to anyone, not just themselves - I think the only option there is to get them to agree not to (it's all logged on meta, so it's easy enough to monitor).
Hi
Why are you trying to complicate things? just give him back the sysop bit and move on to other useful stuff.
Staff don't need it, they will grant it to themselves if they do need it, same goes for board members.
Hello,
On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 2:57 PM, Mohamed Magdy mohamed.m.k@gmail.com wrote:
Hi
Why are you trying to complicate things? just give him back the sysop bit and move on to other useful stuff.
Staff don't need it, they will grant it to themselves if they do need it, same goes for board members.
Same goes for Jimmy. He can still grant it to himself temporarily in case he needs it for official matters. What Brian is proposing is an "official" status, for instance for board members who are not stewards elected by the community.
Guillaume Paumier wrote:
On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 2:57 PM, Mohamed Magdy mohamed.m.k@gmail.com
wrote: Hi
Why are you trying to complicate things? just give him back the sysop bit and move on to other useful stuff.
Staff don't need it, they will grant it to themselves if they do need it, same goes for board members.
Same goes for Jimmy. He can still grant it to himself temporarily in case he needs it for official matters. What Brian is proposing is an "official" status, for instance for board members who are not stewards elected by the community.
There is another issue - which is that from a systems management perspective you never give anyone a privilege they do not need. It is, speaking as a former manager of OpenVMS systems, a commonsense part of the account management process. In fact, VMS has a "READALL" privilege built into the OS.
Brian McNeil
If they can grant themselves the privilege, then it is no use of a new user role. If the purpose is to avoid a situation where those users can be said to edit in an editorial role, then it could possibly block some cases whereby someone claims we don't get cover from section 230 of the CDA.
Other than that, I think it is wise to make any interference from outside the communities as visual and transparent as possible. That includes any interference from WMF into separate language projects on Wikipedia. Wetter that means if Jimbo operates as steward on nowp to do some work there, or if Eric does it as a admin or if Florence does it as a regular user I don't really care. I know they do a good job anyhow. What I do care about is if someone has invisible rights and may come and go unnoticed.
If Jimbo, Eric or Florence wants to be admin on no.wp on a permanent basis I guess we can put them up as candidates on the admin list and they will have a lot of users voting for them! :D
John
John at Darkstar ha scritto:
If they can grant themselves the privilege, then it is no use of a new user role. If the purpose is to avoid a situation where those users can be said to edit in an editorial role, then it could possibly block some cases whereby someone claims we don't get cover from section 230 of the CDA.
I'd say the main difference is that there are no logs for reading deleted revisions, but there are if user rights are changed. Which means: if Steward A assigns herself sysop rights on project B and performs no sysop action, people may just wonder why. With a separate user group, nothing is visible.
Other than that, I think it is wise to make any interference from outside the communities as visual and transparent as possible. That includes any interference from WMF into separate language projects on Wikipedia. Wetter that means if Jimbo operates as steward on nowp to do some work there, or if Eric does it as a admin or if Florence does it as a regular user I don't really care. I know they do a good job anyhow. What I do care about is if someone has invisible rights and may come and go unnoticed.
If Jimbo, Eric or Florence wants to be admin on no.wp on a permanent basis I guess we can put them up as candidates on the admin list and they will have a lot of users voting for them! :D
Uhm, I guess they couldn't qualify on it.wp (not enough edits probably), or that many people would vote against them as not sufficiently active... I guess that would be quite embarrassing anyway
Cruccone
It.wp does not know how to bend the rules? That *is* shocking! :D
John
Marco Chiesa skrev:
John at Darkstar ha scritto:
If they can grant themselves the privilege, then it is no use of a new user role. If the purpose is to avoid a situation where those users can be said to edit in an editorial role, then it could possibly block some cases whereby someone claims we don't get cover from section 230 of the CDA.
I'd say the main difference is that there are no logs for reading deleted revisions, but there are if user rights are changed. Which means: if Steward A assigns herself sysop rights on project B and performs no sysop action, people may just wonder why. With a separate user group, nothing is visible.
Other than that, I think it is wise to make any interference from outside the communities as visual and transparent as possible. That includes any interference from WMF into separate language projects on Wikipedia. Wetter that means if Jimbo operates as steward on nowp to do some work there, or if Eric does it as a admin or if Florence does it as a regular user I don't really care. I know they do a good job anyhow. What I do care about is if someone has invisible rights and may come and go unnoticed.
If Jimbo, Eric or Florence wants to be admin on no.wp on a permanent basis I guess we can put them up as candidates on the admin list and they will have a lot of users voting for them! :D
Uhm, I guess they couldn't qualify on it.wp (not enough edits probably), or that many people would vote against them as not sufficiently active... I guess that would be quite embarrassing anyway
Cruccone
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Jimbo was almost desysopped on nl.wiki on the same arguments a few years ago. Nothing special there. Anthere, Jimbo and Eloquence would never pass the sysopvote on nl: You have to be a saint to pass those. To many nitpicking individuals.
Waerth
It.wp does not know how to bend the rules? That *is* shocking! :D
John
Marco Chiesa skrev:
John at Darkstar ha scritto:
If they can grant themselves the privilege, then it is no use of a new user role. If the purpose is to avoid a situation where those users can be said to edit in an editorial role, then it could possibly block some cases whereby someone claims we don't get cover from section 230 of the CDA.
I'd say the main difference is that there are no logs for reading deleted revisions, but there are if user rights are changed. Which means: if Steward A assigns herself sysop rights on project B and performs no sysop action, people may just wonder why. With a separate user group, nothing is visible.
Other than that, I think it is wise to make any interference from outside the communities as visual and transparent as possible. That includes any interference from WMF into separate language projects on Wikipedia. Wetter that means if Jimbo operates as steward on nowp to do some work there, or if Eric does it as a admin or if Florence does it as a regular user I don't really care. I know they do a good job anyhow. What I do care about is if someone has invisible rights and may come and go unnoticed.
If Jimbo, Eric or Florence wants to be admin on no.wp on a permanent basis I guess we can put them up as candidates on the admin list and they will have a lot of users voting for them! :D
Uhm, I guess they couldn't qualify on it.wp (not enough edits probably), or that many people would vote against them as not sufficiently active... I guess that would be quite embarrassing anyway
Cruccone
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2008/5/22 John at Darkstar vacuum@jeb.no:
It.wp does not know how to bend the rules? That *is* shocking! :D
Not rules just community views. Jimbo would probably struggle on en between the not enough edits group and the don't like like him group.
On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 7:54 AM, Brian McNeil brian.mcneil@wikinewsie.org wrote:
As many will be aware, English Wikinews very recently desysopped fourteen or fifteen people - including Jimmy Wales. This was done by project consensus, and despite jwales asking for the privilege back the consensus seems to be "no" or "only on a temporary basis".
Since there are no visible sysop actions for jwales, the only real use has been to see deleted stuff.
A suggestion has been floated that a third way would be a new privilege to see everything. Something that - I think - should be granted to all board members and likely all staff. I don't just mean for Wikinews, but across all languages and all projects.
This doesn't strike me as something particularly difficult to implement, but there are some wrinkles to iron out with it.
First, my assumption is all Board members should have this priv. Staff? Probably, but most definitely Mike Godwin.
Should it include oversighted edits? Is this even technically feasible?
Are there any circumstances where someone could be elected to a project ArbCom without sysop? Should they then have this privilege?
Who should be permitted to grant the privilege? Bureaucrats, or just stewards?
Anything else?
Brian McNeil
This sort of idea has been tossed around for a while now, see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comments/Wikimedia_Foundation_staff_permissions for the proposal and the talk page (mostly, if not totally) in support.
As an aside, this would be hugely helpful to OTRS legal queue reps, who often need to view deleted revisions on other projects. Similarly, any future interns that Mike has would make good use of it.
-Dan On May 22, 2008, at 11:49 AM, Casey Brown wrote:
On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 7:54 AM, Brian McNeil brian.mcneil@wikinewsie.org wrote:
As many will be aware, English Wikinews very recently desysopped fourteen or fifteen people - including Jimmy Wales. This was done by project consensus, and despite jwales asking for the privilege back the consensus seems to be "no" or "only on a temporary basis".
Since there are no visible sysop actions for jwales, the only real use has been to see deleted stuff.
A suggestion has been floated that a third way would be a new privilege to see everything. Something that - I think - should be granted to all board members and likely all staff. I don't just mean for Wikinews, but across all languages and all projects.
This doesn't strike me as something particularly difficult to implement, but there are some wrinkles to iron out with it.
First, my assumption is all Board members should have this priv. Staff? Probably, but most definitely Mike Godwin.
Should it include oversighted edits? Is this even technically feasible?
Are there any circumstances where someone could be elected to a project ArbCom without sysop? Should they then have this privilege?
Who should be permitted to grant the privilege? Bureaucrats, or just stewards?
Anything else?
Brian McNeil
This sort of idea has been tossed around for a while now, see <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comments/Wikimedia_Foundation_st...
for the proposal and the talk page (mostly, if not totally) in support.
-- Casey Brown Cbrown1023
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Brian McNeil wrote:
As many will be aware, English Wikinews very recently desysopped fourteen or fifteen people - including Jimmy Wales. This was done by project consensus, and despite jwales asking for the privilege back the consensus seems to be "no" or "only on a temporary basis".
Since there are no visible sysop actions for jwales, the only real use has been to see deleted stuff.
A suggestion has been floated that a third way would be a new privilege to see everything. Something that - I think - should be granted to all board members and likely all staff. I don't just mean for Wikinews, but across all languages and all projects.
I like the idea. Admin privileges are often dependent on what someone intends to do with the privilege, and somehow simply using its passive features doesn't count. I have avoided becoming a en:wp for the last six years, but there have been times when being able to look at deleted edits would have been very useful. Notably in reviewing the edit history of transwikied material that has already been deleted from wp. Having the privilege in other languages would also be useful too, even when an attempt to make a single edit would look idiotic.
Who should be permitted to grant the privilege? Bureaucrats, or just stewards?
It should be much easier than becoming a sysop. The damage that such privileges can create are much less. Someone with the privilege who uses it to expose private identities on other sites would not be a good person to have the privilege, but that extreme badly-behaved group remains very small.
Ec
2008/5/22 Anthony wikimail@inbox.org:
On Wed, May 21, 2008 at 5:34 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
2008/5/21 Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com:
We'll be able to see why when the court throws out the allegations against WMF? I fail to see what about the Wikinews article would make that less likely to happen,
In a civil action, being seen to play nice is very important indeed and gets you lots of points.
Shouldn't the WMF play nice with everyone, not just those who sue it?
When doing so doesn't compromise our goals, yes.
On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 6:07 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
2008/5/22 Anthony wikimail@inbox.org:
On Wed, May 21, 2008 at 5:34 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
2008/5/21 Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com:
We'll be able to see why when the court throws out the allegations against WMF? I fail to see what about the Wikinews article would make that less likely to happen,
In a civil action, being seen to play nice is very important indeed and gets you lots of points.
Shouldn't the WMF play nice with everyone, not just those who sue it?
When doing so doesn't compromise our goals, yes.
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I think that's an important point, and one perhaps forgotten a little too often. Our ultimate goal is an accurate, NPOV work. If we can avoid bruising feelings while writing such a work, great. If bruising feelings is an inevitable consequence of following accuracy and NPOV, and not doing so would compromise those things, we, to put it bluntly, should bruise them. Unfortunately, sometimes, as the old saying goes, the truth hurts. That doesn't mean, when it's well-sourced and appropriate for inclusion, that we should not tell it.
On Sat, May 24, 2008 at 12:45 AM, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 6:07 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
2008/5/22 Anthony wikimail@inbox.org:
On Wed, May 21, 2008 at 5:34 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
2008/5/21 Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com:
We'll be able to see why when the court throws out the allegations against WMF? I fail to see what about the Wikinews article would make that less likely to happen,
In a civil action, being seen to play nice is very important indeed and gets you lots of points.
Shouldn't the WMF play nice with everyone, not just those who sue it?
When doing so doesn't compromise our goals, yes.
I think that's an important point, and one perhaps forgotten a little too often. Our ultimate goal is an accurate, NPOV work. If we can avoid bruising feelings while writing such a work, great. If bruising feelings is an inevitable consequence of following accuracy and NPOV, and not doing so would compromise those things, we, to put it bluntly, should bruise them. Unfortunately, sometimes, as the old saying goes, the truth hurts. That doesn't mean, when it's well-sourced and appropriate for inclusion, that we should not tell it.
I think it's an open question as to which category the deletion of the Bauer article falls into, but if the answer is that its deletion *doesn't* compromise the goals of the foundation, then I think there's a lot more deletion that should take place.
If this was an office action, that's one thing. If Mike Godwin properly assessed the legal risk the article posed and Sue or Erik (or whoever is supposed to be in charge of making decisions on "office actions") decided that the risk wasn't worth it, that's fine. But if this wasn't an office action, then what was it? Can a single random admin decide they don't like an article and delete it? Does Wikinews give that much power to its admins?
Is there a good place to go for a neutral account of the story about the story about the story about the article?
I'm hardly a random admin.
For the Bauer article I received a most concerned email from Mike Godwin that there was a risk that publication was contempt of court, so the issue was an IAR one.
Brian McNeil
-----Original Message----- From: foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Anthony Sent: 24 May 2008 15:55 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Fwd: [WL-News] Wikimedia Foundation in dangeroflosing immunity under the Communications Decency Act
On Sat, May 24, 2008 at 12:45 AM, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 6:07 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com
wrote:
2008/5/22 Anthony wikimail@inbox.org:
On Wed, May 21, 2008 at 5:34 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
2008/5/21 Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com:
We'll be able to see why when the court throws out the allegations against WMF? I fail to see what about the Wikinews article would make that less likely to happen,
In a civil action, being seen to play nice is very important indeed and gets you lots of points.
Shouldn't the WMF play nice with everyone, not just those who sue it?
When doing so doesn't compromise our goals, yes.
I think that's an important point, and one perhaps forgotten a little too often. Our ultimate goal is an accurate, NPOV work. If we can avoid bruising feelings while writing such a work, great. If bruising feelings is an inevitable consequence of following accuracy and NPOV, and not doing so would compromise those things, we, to put it bluntly, should bruise them. Unfortunately, sometimes, as the old saying goes, the truth hurts. That doesn't mean, when it's well-sourced and appropriate for inclusion, that we should not tell it.
I think it's an open question as to which category the deletion of the Bauer article falls into, but if the answer is that its deletion *doesn't* compromise the goals of the foundation, then I think there's a lot more deletion that should take place.
If this was an office action, that's one thing. If Mike Godwin properly assessed the legal risk the article posed and Sue or Erik (or whoever is supposed to be in charge of making decisions on "office actions") decided that the risk wasn't worth it, that's fine. But if this wasn't an office action, then what was it? Can a single random admin decide they don't like an article and delete it? Does Wikinews give that much power to its admins?
Is there a good place to go for a neutral account of the story about the story about the story about the article?
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2008/5/24 Brian McNeil brian.mcneil@wikinewsie.org:
I'm hardly a random admin.
For the Bauer article I received a most concerned email from Mike Godwin that there was a risk that publication was contempt of court, so the issue was an IAR one.
Contempt of court? Before, people were talking about libel (although, I think that was just guesswork). If there's a specific court order that would be violated by the article, I don't understand why it wasn't an OFFICE action - complying with court orders would seem to be just the kind of thing OFFICE was created for.
The Wikipedia article was libel. The Wikinews article was after the WP one was deleted and potentially contempt of court.
The child porn article was potential libel.
Brian McNeil
-----Original Message----- From: foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Dalton Sent: 24 May 2008 16:19 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Fwd: [WL-News] Wikimedia Foundation indangeroflosing immunity under the Communications Decency Act
2008/5/24 Brian McNeil brian.mcneil@wikinewsie.org:
I'm hardly a random admin.
For the Bauer article I received a most concerned email from Mike Godwin that there was a risk that publication was contempt of court, so the issue was an IAR one.
Contempt of court? Before, people were talking about libel (although, I think that was just guesswork). If there's a specific court order that would be violated by the article, I don't understand why it wasn't an OFFICE action - complying with court orders would seem to be just the kind of thing OFFICE was created for.
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On Sat, May 24, 2008 at 8:54 AM, Brian McNeil brian.mcneil@wikinewsie.org wrote:
The Wikipedia article was libel. The Wikinews article was after the WP one was deleted and potentially contempt of court.
The child porn article was potential libel.
Brian McNeil
-----Original Message----- From: foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Dalton Sent: 24 May 2008 16:19 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Fwd: [WL-News] Wikimedia Foundation indangeroflosing immunity under the Communications Decency Act
2008/5/24 Brian McNeil brian.mcneil@wikinewsie.org:
I'm hardly a random admin.
For the Bauer article I received a most concerned email from Mike Godwin that there was a risk that publication was contempt of court, so the issue was an IAR one.
Contempt of court? Before, people were talking about libel (although, I think that was just guesswork). If there's a specific court order that would be violated by the article, I don't understand why it wasn't an OFFICE action - complying with court orders would seem to be just the kind of thing OFFICE was created for.
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Publication being "contempt of court"? It was my understanding that prior restraint of free speech had to meet a pretty high standard. I also strongly doubt if it was published by someone who was a party to the court action. The whole point of Section 230 is to make clear that the -service provider- is not the -publisher- unless the provider itself generates the content. And if the court ordered the Foundation specifically to delete the Wikinews article, they shouldn't have screwed around asking nicely for someone to do so, they should have either challenged the order if they believed it wrong or complied by an OFFICE action if they believed it correct.
As to the Bauer article "being libel"? Not so sure. To be libelous, one must show the material was false. "X said Y about Z" cannot be libel if X really did say Y, even if Y in and of itself is wholly false, because the fact that X said it is true. Of course, if Y is wholly or partially -true-, any libel case is totally out the window. Regardless, we're still back to Section 230, where WMF did not actually generate the content, so the person who -did- do so would still bear responsibility for any libel.
On Sat, May 24, 2008 at 10:06 AM, Brian McNeil brian.mcneil@wikinewsie.org wrote:
I'm hardly a random admin.
Could you elaborate on that? Were you elected to a special position in the admin community? I admit I'm not familiar with the Wikinews structure.
For the Bauer article I received a most concerned email from Mike Godwin that there was a risk that publication was contempt of court, so the issue was an IAR one.
What is meant by "publication", what exactly did the court order, and if the court ordered the Foundation to delete the article, why did they have to contact you to do it? When you say you're hardly a random admin, do you mean you're acting as an agent of the organization?
How big was the risk? Obviously there's always some risk with just about anything. Who made the decision that the legal risk was too great to bear? Mike? You? Someone else? No one?
Both Mike and Jimmy have tried to be clear when they're communicating an official position. There have been problems with this in the past (the events leading to Erik's short desysopping, for example, among others), but I think in general everyone's more aware of this now. The bulk of administrators and I hope all the Stewards are aware of the issues and won't sanction when there's no clear "the Foundation OFFICE hat was on".
I think, when Mike is giving legal advice, it's natural to assume he's doing that in an official capacity, regardless of what headgear he may be wearing.
Thomas Dalton wrote:
Both Mike and Jimmy have tried to be clear when they're communicating an official position. There have been problems with this in the past (the events leading to Erik's short desysopping, for example, among others), but I think in general everyone's more aware of this now. The bulk of administrators and I hope all the Stewards are aware of the issues and won't sanction when there's no clear "the Foundation OFFICE hat was on".
I think, when Mike is giving legal advice, it's natural to assume he's doing that in an official capacity, regardless of what headgear he may be wearing.
That requires distinguishing between legal advice, and a lawyer's opinion.
Ec
On 20/05/2008, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
Both Mike and Jimmy have tried to be clear when they're communicating an official position. There have been problems with this in the past (the events leading to Erik's short desysopping, for example, among others), but I think in general everyone's more aware of this now. The bulk of administrators and I hope all the Stewards are aware of the issues and won't sanction when there's no clear "the Foundation OFFICE hat was on".
I think, when Mike is giving legal advice, it's natural to assume he's doing that in an official capacity, regardless of what headgear he may be wearing.
That requires distinguishing between legal advice, and a lawyer's opinion.
A lawyer's opinion on a legal matter related to their employment would generally be considered legal advice.
Thomas Dalton wrote:
On 20/05/2008, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
Both Mike and Jimmy have tried to be clear when they're communicating an official position. There have been problems with this in the past (the events leading to Erik's short desysopping, for example, among others), but I think in general everyone's more aware of this now. The bulk of administrators and I hope all the Stewards are aware of the issues and won't sanction when there's no clear "the Foundation OFFICE hat was on".
I think, when Mike is giving legal advice, it's natural to assume he's doing that in an official capacity, regardless of what headgear he may be wearing.
That requires distinguishing between legal advice, and a lawyer's opinion.
A lawyer's opinion on a legal matter related to their employment would generally be considered legal advice.
With respect to the lawyer's client, this is true, but that only shifts us to the question of identifying the client.
--Michael Snow
George Herbert wrote:
On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 1:47 AM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
As I explicitly said, it doesn't matter if you actually demand it or not, just saying there are legal concerns is effectively a demand for its removal.
No, it is not.
It is hard to avoid the impression that every word spoken by the pope is /ex cathedra/. You and Mike in particular will frequently want to comment as ordinary editors, but it is hard to avoid arguments like "but Jimbo wrote in June 2003 that ...." You may have no memory of what you wrote then, and may even have changed views since, but for someone who is trying to push a point of view it is an irrefutable argument to be exploited.
Much as I would decry it, there remains a level of deference to authority within the projects that is not easily overcome. Much of what you say is treated as a demand irrespective of whether you intended it that way.
Both Mike and Jimmy have tried to be clear when they're communicating an official position. There have been problems with this in the past (the events leading to Erik's short desysopping, for example, among others), but I think in general everyone's more aware of this now. The bulk of administrators and I hope all the Stewards are aware of the issues and won't sanction when there's no clear "the Foundation OFFICE hat was on".
Unfortunately, this sort of situation can sometimes lead to a negative feedback loop. Jimmy tries to communicate in a neutral manner without overusing authority, and then once in a while has to drop an official action hammer on someone. Some will perceive this as arbitrary hand of god behavior and treat everything else Jimmy says more deferentially as you note. Which was the opposite of the initial intent.
I think that as a general rule, that can be combated by attempting to get to know Jimmy if you have to deal with him - and, generalizing, get to know the people in the "power structure" as it is both in the community and Foundation.
Familiarity usually breeds some mutual respect and lessens the tendency to overreact in stress situations. A great deal of potential problems are headed off because someone does send a private email to someone else, or ask on IRC, or knows someone from posts to wikien-L or the foundation list.
I could not agree more. It should be pointed out that Jimbo does not have the authority to act alone, in the name of the Foundation. As WMF person, he does not have any more authority than any other board member.
If an action is "board approved", then it must have been approved by the entire board. If the action seem to be "under approval of board", then a wise move might be to check with another board member.
If an action is more operational in nature (such as a legal-related removal), it should probably be done by our lawyer, or under order of our lawyer, by a staff member. (office hat on). I would advise that Jimbo never do "office" action. He is no office. It might be confused with authoritative action. And Mike is probably much more likely to make a decision strictly based on legal considerations.
If the move does not belong to either of the two above categories, then it is a "personal" edit, and should be treated as such. Which means it is up to the community to decide whether Jimbo has a special authority to edit or not.
Ant
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