[Foundation-l] Fwd: [WL-News] Wikimedia Foundation in danger of losing immunity under the Communications Decency Act

[Michael Snow]

Birgitte SB wrote:
>
> --- On Sun, 5/18/08, Todd Allen <toddmallen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>   
>> From: Todd Allen <toddmallen at gmail.com>
>> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Fwd: [WL-News] Wikimedia Foundation in danger of losing immunity under the Communications Decency Act
>> To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
>> Date: Sunday, May 18, 2008, 4:44 PM
>> On Sun, May 18, 2008 at 12:58 PM, Mike Godwin
>> <mgodwin at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>>     
>>> Todd Allen writes:
>>>
>>>       
>>>> I agree that not all legal concerns can be
>>>>         
>> discussed publicly, and
>>     
>>>> have made that point myself. And if the Foundation
>>>>         
>> believes that there
>>     
>>>> is a legal concern, it can certainly OFFICE the
>>>>         
>> article in question.
>>     
>>> My belief is that OFFICE removals should be very rare,
>>>       
>> and that OFFICE
>>     
>>> edits should be practically nonexistent.
>>>
>>>       
>> On that, I would agree. However, when it -is- WMF taking an
>> official
>> action, it should be clearly marked as such. If it is not,
>> it should
>> be made absolutely, 100% clear that this is "Mike
>> Godwin, the editor"
>> not "Mike Godwin, the WMF representative" putting
>> forth the position.
>> What should be studiously avoided (ESPECIALLY in cases
>> where the
>> material at issue is critical of WMF) is some grey area
>> between the
>> two.
>>     
>
> I don't see the issue here.  If you are approached as an administrator and asked to delete something and given information about why this is recommended it is clearly a request.  To be completely clear, I have been approached about such a thing in past (i.e. before Mike Godwin).  There was no doubt in my mind that I was expected to use my judgment as an administrator and uphold the trust of my community and not follow advice I believed to based on grounds the community would dismiss even if they could not all be given access to the necessary info.
>
> After all it is not like WMF doesn't have access to the database if they must remove something. If they are asking an admin it is a recommendation, no grey area about it.
>   
Quite so. If anyone asks you to help with something they could 
accomplish just as well without you, it's entirely your decision whether 
or not to assist. "I'm not comfortable participating, ask someone else" 
is totally fine as an answer.

--Michael Snow