[Foundation-l] [Commons-l] Wikimedia Foundation's help to the projects

[Ray Saintonge]

Erik Moeller wrote:

>Aside from the potential issues with the WMF "officially" giving such
>advice to the communities, Brad (our GC and ED) simply doesn't have
>the time to do this. 
>
Nod.

>Let's brainstorm about how we can get juriwiki-l
>going, i.e. a functioning, community-driven group of advisors with
>demonstrable legal expertise.
>
Given the history of how threads tend to wander into nothingness, most 
issues end up rolling back down the hill like Sisypus' boulder.

>At the moment juriwiki-l is configured so that postings from the
>outside are moderated and replied to by a group of insiders. Is there
>any real issue, from a legal point of view, with making it a public
>mailing list? This is perhaps something Brad can answer.
>  
>
There are both good and bad reasons for a public or private list.  I 
can't see any of our lawyer types (Brad included) putting themselves in 
a position where their legal observations can be used against them.  
Public perception is often very different from what a person actually 
says.  This is especially problematical where people expect answers even 
when answers don't exist.

We really need to promote an attitude of critical thinking in a game 
theoretical model.  It might even take a whole new wiki, but I'm not 
sure of that.  The state of the law is questionable when any kind of 
solution really depends on a sophisticated analysis that depends on the 
efforts of professionals at a cost far in excess of the amounts being 
discussed. 

Maybe we need to be writing our own law.  Free the law!

Ec