[WikiEN-l] Will the WMF protect admins acting as their agents to enforce policies?

[Slim Virgin]

On 4/19/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > I can't see anything an admin could do within the policies of any
> > > Wikimedia project that would put them at risk legally.
> >
> > In addition to everything a Wikipedia editor could do which would
> > place him or her at risk legally, an administrator could also run a
> > risk by undeleting defamatory material previously hidden, failing to
> > act in a reasonable manner when notified of defamatory material,
> > making defamatory blocking summaries, blocking an editor who attempts
> > to remove defamatory material, protecting articles to prevent attempts
> > to remove defamatory material, placing defamatory material on
> > protected pages, and abusing his administrator privileges to copy
> > defamatory material and publish it elsewhere.  And that isn't by any
> > means an exhaustive list.
> >
>
> I think only about 2 or 3 of the things you list are both illegal and
> significantly related to admin abilities, and even those would not be
> within established policy. An admin doing the kind of things you list
> would be a rogue admin - why would the WMF protect rogue admins?
>
There's the inadvertent restoration of previously deleted material;
that's a very real problem when deleting and restoring. There's the
inadvertent failure to remove defamatory material from an article
we're taking admin action in relation to, or the inadvertent
protection of a page containing defamation. There are quite a few
genuine legal pitfalls.

Sarah