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.