[WikiEN-l] Non-office OFFICE actions

[Guy Chapman aka JzG]

On Fri, 23 Jun 2006 18:47:44 +0930, "Alphax \(Wikipedia email\)"
<alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:

>> This article originally stated that Lauder-Frost was cleared on appeal
>> of charges of theft.  This turns out to be a lie: he was convicted.
>Per [[WP:LIVING]], we can't say that without a source.

And sources for both the conviction and failure of the appeal has
indeed been provided, as has a source for the sequestration of assets
following conviction.  The London Gazette is one of the most reliable
sources there is, in matters of public record.

>> His supporters assert that the theft may now not be mentioned
>> (although they were perfectly happy for the lie to be in there, it
>> seems),
>That shouldn't be in there either.

Obviously :-)

>> because it is a "spent" conviction under the rehabilitation of
>> offenders act.  This appears to be a novel interpretation, since the
>> text of the act as posted to Talk only prevents publication with
>> malicious intent.
>I assume that this is a piece of UK law, which probably doesn't apply to
>Wikipedia since the servers and the WMF are based in Florida. However,
>IANAL, and the UK has some wacky defamation/anti-libel laws, so anything
>could happen.

The law prevents a prior conviction from being used to discriminate
against a  job candidate, and prevents its malicious use, but does not
prevent (as far as any of us can tell) its use in a neutral biography.

>> They have argued long and hard for removal of this conviction from the
>> article.  I do not think neutral biography can omit it.
>Provided it's sourced, of course.

Indeed.  And William posted numerous references to support it. Sourced
it is - and as far as I can tell Lauder-Frost doesn't deny it either.

>> Lauder-Frost has had his solicitors write to one editor (who made no
>> significant edits to the article as far as I can see) and has
>> contacted the Foundation; Brad is involved.  User Sussexman has been
>> blocked for alluding to these legal threats before they were made - he
>> is clearly in contact with Lauder-Frost.
>Well, legal threats are grounds for immediate and indefinate blocking.

Yup. Sussexman is blocked (see legal threats by proxy post above), I
am not sure whether that is good or not - tough call.

>> I think they are gaming the system.  They wanted a long puff piece
>> about Lauder-Frost, when it was trimmed and the truth of his
>> conviction added they wanted it deleted.
>It's been AFD'ed twice, and kept both times. At present it's
>semi-protected, which is the appropriate action to take when extensive
>IP/sockpuppet vandalism has taken place.

It was already sprotected, and unusually here the IP vandalism
consisted of *removing cited content* rather than adding uncited
content.

Guy (JzG)
-- 
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG