Anthere wrote:
Imho, better trust us to have imagination and to find ways to turn around things. In France, I would say the toughest is not the law, the toughest are (is ?) the barriers people build themselves thinking of the law.
This is an insightful comment, but its truth is not limited to France.
There are a lot of people running around trying, in completely good faith, to impose an interpretation of the law that has more to do with their view of the law than the law itself. In other words most of them have no idea what they are talking about, and no direct connection with the current issue. At Wikipedia we probably notice it more in terms of intellectual property law, but it can also come up in other area such as libel, obscenity, sedition etc. My general approach to these is (in order): 1. Use common sense in what I say or write. 2. Investigate what business the complainer has making his complaint 3. Use common sense in evaluating the complaint 4. Admit when I'm wrong while knowing full well that it is easier to get forgiveness than to get permission
The difficulty is obtaining permission is not based on an unwillingness of somebody to give it, but in determining with any certainty just who has the right to give that permission.
Ec