[WikiEN-l] Fleshlight

[Andrew Gray]

On 09/10/06, Kris & Adrian <emailus at btopenworld.com> wrote:

> Will we have to delete Coca Cola etc if they start "demanding" editorial
> control?
>
> Could we have some further clarification on this please?

Certainly.

Company A makes an obscure sex toy. There appear to be three people in
the world who care about it, and they're all trying to use us for
advertising.

Company B is an international household name, with a turnover in
billions of dollars, about whom entire shelves of material have been
written.

I think there is a pretty clear distinction between the two, and
arguing we've set some kind of "precedent" for all corporations by
deleting an article on a silly piece of unimportant plastic just
doesn't hold water.

There are justifiable reasons to worry about the implications of
Danny's action, but I really don't think we need to worry that this in
some ways means we're now beholden to anyone with a PR guy and a
phone. (Personally I feel the article was asking to be deleted pending
a user looking after it, since it had degenerated into an
unmaintainable mess of spammers and counter-spammers, but I accept
that's an unusual view... and I feel it was rather helpful of the
spammer to identify the spam for us!)

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