Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Jean-Baptiste Soufron wrote:
That's an awful lot to proclaim without a supporting argument. I'm interested in details of why you think so.
Well, my PhD is on the emergence of Law and I am using wikimedia and wikipedia as demonstrations for my arguments :)
But you're right, I should write something on it !
A simpler response would be to cite the clause in the statute that says this. To me a fundamental principal of law is that anything which is not specifically forbidden is allowed.
Ec
Hoi, It may be a fundamental principal of law. However, I am uncomfortable with it as it leads to all kinds of weasely people do things and argue: "reading the law I can interpretet it in such a way so it should be allowed" while it is totally against what the law is about. It works both ways as this is also used to prevent people from doing things because some people are great in bending the rules.
Without fundamental principles the law is meaningless. Reading the law in a way that doing something should be allowed is perfectly fine; it is neither weasely nor against what the law is about. Bending rules is a part of the normal legal game. Big companies like Microsoft will do whatever they can to have the law work the way they want it to work. If it's right for them it's right for the little guy, and until the little guy learns that he will forever be a loser. The principle as I expressed it does not prevent people from doing anything. If something is not mentioned in the law then doing it is not a violation of the law. The converse principle, that what is not specifically allowed is forbidden, would lead to the absurdity that any kind of innovation is illegal.
When it comes to our projects, it must be clear that they have their rules, they invoke an image of what they are to mean.
The fewer rules the better. To me an image or vision of what the project is about determines what rules are necessary.
When the language is deemed to be unclear and that is used as an excuse to do what is manifestly against the spirit of our projects, I would not excuse this.
Who does the deeming? If the rules are contrary to the spirit of the project I would change the rules.
The guiding principle of what we do is, we write an encyclopedia, a dictionary, news, training material whatever that is free[,] NPOV and with we do this with respect for our fellow editors.
There's nothing wrong with this, but then it has nothing to do with the topic.
We are not a debating club.
Who said that we are?
We have people active as member of our community in practically all legal entities of this world and therefore there is not only one law and one law's principles that we have to take into account.
So a balance is required, and this only proves my point. If something is clearly allowed in one country, but requires a slight "bending" of the rules in another country we go ahead and bend those rules. This is not the same as an outright violation of the rules. We do not need to strive for the lowest common legal denominator. If we did that we would be bowing to the whims of a government like the one in China which might shut the project down for anything that it felt was an insult to their government.
Our rules are different from project to project, it is the spirit of the Wikimedia Foundation that binds us all. It must be clear, that rules within a project that are against the spirit of the WMF are not acceptable, neither are practices that violate what the WMF stands for.
The separate rules of different projects are not an issue here.
Ec
Hoi, Commenting on each line in isolation, you have lost what is meant. If we were a debating club you would have scored a point but as we are not, it is a pity. You lose sight of the fact that I wrote that I and many with me, are disgusted by the way the interpretation of the law in order to make a position "acceptable". It being a practise held by some does not make this any less true. This was intended as an introduction to what followed. As you may have missed this and then continue commenting line by line I miss the added value of what you try to say. You come to a conclusion that baffles me; as you think it important to talk about principles of law. I concluded with stating a principle; that the spirit of the WMF charter binds us all, a principle that in my opinion should rule all projects and as such is an issue. It is, as I bring it to the attention of us all.
I have no problem with the concept that there are common ideas that bind the WMF projects. My comments could have as easily been about any project or all of them. Your conclusion was a non sequitur. The thread was about legal issues.
Ec