[WikiEN-l] Oversight log

[Andrew Gray]

On 22/06/06, stevertigo <vertigosteve at yahoo.com> wrote:
> TK:
> "Unfortunately this means that the log itself has to
> be kept private. Those people with oversight can view
> it. No one else can."
>
> What people seem to disagree with is with the notion
> that the log "has to be kept private" due to someone's
> claim of 'legally problematic revisions.' Is Google
> facilitating the "damage of Starbucks' reputation" by
> not removing "consumer whore" from its Image searches?
>
> Understanding that legal systems are not always
> reasonable, WM cant reasonably be responsible for
> everything in the history of its articles. And to say
> the risk is great is simply to court the clique of
> privelege who think they can simply make a phone call
> and get things deleted through a privileged legalistic
> and back-door process -- for what everyone else does
> with the edit button.

Wait, wait, wait.

There isn't a "clique of privilege" who "think they can get ... a
back-door process". There are normal people who write to us saying
"You have an article about X school, where I work, giving my home
address and saying I'm a child molestor. Please get rid of this!"

It's not only impolite to expect people to tactfully and quietly learn
how our system works and remove this material, it's also fundamentally
stupid. /That isn't going to happen/. They're going to write to us,
and we're going to have to handle it.

And the risk *is* great - I've dealt with a suprising number of emails
to the info-en address which complain about their article and say
*someone else told them*. What if that someone else is the employer,
the client... the schools inspector?

We cannot be held legally liable for everything that's there. We may
not even be legally liable for leaving it up once they've told us it's
there (though I'm sure that question will be tested by someone
somewhere someday). But we are *morally* liable if we don't at least
try to do something about helping a person who, through no fault of
their own, is suffering from the misuse of our resources. It's simple
humanity.

And on the first part... if we're deleting these things, expunging
them totally, is there any *reason* for the log to be public? Any at
all? Oversight, perhaps. But... what effect does this oversight have?
Are we really, honestly, concerned about the dozen people with this
capacity using it in some nefarious way to win arguments or to rewrite
history? I sound like I'm attacking a strawman here, but I honestly
don't think I've seen a good reason why people think this tool is
dangerous. Please, someone, give me a scenario where this could be
used badly, where the ability to expunge deleted revisions is somehow
harmful in a way that a public log would prevent...

-- 
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk