[WikiEN-l] Legal threats as grounds for automatic termination

Daniel Mayer maveric149 at yahoo.com
Tue Jun 15 09:04:42 UTC 2004


--- Mark Pellegrini <mapellegrini at comcast.net> wrote:
>...
> I started digging through our policies, and found this dusty relic:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_legal_threats
> 
> At this point, it's only a proposal. Also, it doesn't actually *do*
> anything. I'd like to suggest adopting a terminate-on-site rule -- you make
> a legal threat, and you're automatically banned. I'd like to know what
> others here think.

Before any ban the user should be made aware of the policy first. Irismeister
was was banned for 10 days in part due to legal threats (there was a 6 to 0
ruling forbidding him from using legal threats as a tactic to intimidate other
users). So, IMO, this policy has been confirmed by the AC and should be
considered to be enforceable. 

But do try to work with people first - banning them outright will only confirm
their paranoia and possibly make it more likely that they will mount a
frivolous (or otherwise) lawsuit. And those could be expensive to defend
against (or at least make it impossible for Jimbo to travel to countries where
there are bench warrants for his failure to appear in court). 

--Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


	
		
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - 100MB free storage!
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail 



More information about the WikiEN-l mailing list