[WikiEN-l] The problem with flagging things with {{office}}

[James D. Forrester]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Using the {{office}} template to tag problem content is a nice idea,
but, I would imagine, has a rather serious drawback: Wikitruth.info
(amongst other 'helpful' critics) seems to have a sysop working for
them. Were we to flag an article that was libellous with {{office}}, you
can bet that they would go and dig out the deleted sections, and repost
it to their wonderful service. Now Wikimedia has been informed that they
are likely to be sued, and in response has done something knowing that
it would increase the publication and spread of this libel. - we're then
liable for their reposting of the content, and "utterly screwed". I
know, I know, "that's not what was intended". Well, tough, that's the
way the Real World(tm) works.

So, what does this mean? Well, flagging articles as Office-protected is
a legal no-no in that kind of case, and something significantly less
high profile has to be done - and, possibly, the existence of this
action would be buried for all eternity (or, certainly, several decades,
which on the Internet is much the same thing).

This is something that we have to deal with /now/ - the Foundation could
possibly be sued out of existence tomorrow. There is no time for us to
have a nice chat, or wring our hands about whether it's properly the
"wiki way". We're here to build an encyclopædia, above all things, and
if you don't care that the Foundation is here to keep everything
working, then possibly you need to re-evaluate your priorities and
commitment to this project; Distributed Proofreaders could always do
with a few more volunteers, for instance.

Please note that this is all conjecture on my part, I'm not the one who
makes {{office}} decisions.

Yours sincerely,
- --
James D. Forrester
Wikimedia : [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]
E-Mail    : james at jdforrester.org
IM (MSN)  : jamesdforrester at hotmail.com
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFER6p3d7WnstdBQBkRAt9RAJ40jzTONmoihwNtnrd6mbL/yhveQwCfSWfF
2PwGkHMpPru3l7Giy+h6Sh0=
=edGT
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----