Hi,
I don't understand something, what is the reason of this uproar about
wikitruth's publication of articles deleted by us. There's even talk of
prohibiting admins from reposting content, isn't that completely against the spirit of
this project, free dissemination of information? Why should we care if wikitruth is
posting copyvio and libel articles on their website? They are gonna get sued, bad for
them.
I can't see how reposting of our content will make us legally more liable than we
already were. We do not remove illegal content from our servers, we simply hide it from
all but a select few. That obviously does entail some legal liability. When that content
is reposted for the general public, the extra liability is incurred by wikitruth. We, as
always, are still alllowing only those select few to access the content.
If they are okay about attracting lawsuits, good for us. We have deleted those articles
only for legal or editorial concerns. No harm done to us if someone else decides to
showcase that content. In fact it's good for us since non-admin users can view deleted
content without any possibility of harm to the Foundation. Or is there more to this issue
than meets the eye? I'll like to know.
On a related note, there is another uproar over secrecy, concerning whether office
actions need to be hidden. There is a general perception that the reason office actions
are being taken nee dto be hidden from even admins. I do not see why this is so. We are
not the CIA, the reasons for actions coming from the top is to protect the Foundation from
lawsuits. What's so secret about that. What if every wikipedian knows that corporation
A threatened to sue the Foundation and as a result libellous content has been removed from
their article by office action untill sources are provided? What's the harm if every
office action is advertised on the front page?
I think there's a paranoia about secrecy around. We are an encyclopaedia, it is our
goal to provide information. The Wikimedia foundation is a not-for-profit organisation
running some innovative websites without any illegal activities (hopefully). What's so
secret about that?
Molu
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