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.
Thanks,
Gerard