[WikiEN-l] You really don't get it

[doc]

George Herbert wrote:
> On 4/20/07, doc <doc.wikipedia at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>> People have a absolute right not to have their name googled and find
>> that the highest ranking site (or perhaps only internet information on
>> them) has been written by a silly slanderous schoolkid, their
>> ex-husband's angry girlfriend, or a disgruntled ex-employee or rival out
>> to trash them. And often these subtle attacks are on the face reading
>> well-referenced and seemingly factual. Never spotted as simple vandalism.
> 
> Look around.  There are millions of websites (blogs, home pages,
> YouTube videos, etc) out there with libelous material, much of it
> blatantly false, out there for anyone to see.
> 
> Very few of those have any sort of reasonable feedback mechanism short
> of a libel/slander lawsuit.  Some ISPs have a no-attacks policy; most
> don't, and those that do often have a nearly impractical hurdle
> getting through their abuse department.
> 
> We have policies with real teeth about what is OK to have here and
> what isn't.  We have people who enforce those policies, vigorously,
> once we're notified.  We have people associated with the project
> actively looking for them, though I don't presume to suggest that we
> actually find enough of it ourselves.  And we have a stable versions
> technical upgrade coming sometime.
> 
> Again: Wikipedia is not the worst place on the Internet from a
> perspective of actually protecting people's rights not to be attacked
> or slandered, or at least to get it fixed if they are.  It's arguably
> close to the best place on the Internet from those perspectives.
> 
> It's maddening to see you argue elsewise.  Look around you.
> 
>> If Wikipedia can't reasonable insure that people don't have these rights
>> infringed, then it has no business hosting their biographies in the
>> first place.
> 
> You're assigning people a lot of rights that they don't legally or
> socially have.
> 
> They *don't* have a right, in the United States at least, of absolute
> privacy against any discussion of them.
> 
> They don't have a right to sue anyone who runs a website on which
> libel is posted, just for having hosted it, prior to being notified of
> it.
> 
> Your argument isn't "We can't infringe people's rights".  You're using
> that language, but it's factually incorrect.
> 
> Your argument is, "We can't be mean to non-notable people".
> 
> That is not legally true.  It is to some degree morally true.  But we
> have to keep that in perspective.  People don't deserve to be abused.
> But they don't deserve to hide notable activities from the public, or
> from the historical record.
> 
> We can destroy the encyclopedia to be nice to people.  That's insane.
> 
> We can keep the encyclopedia within the law and existing societal and
> internet norms for protecting people against abuse.  And we do.
> 
> We can protect them better than YouTube, MySpace, and a million other
> sites.  And we do.
> 
> We don't have to be perfect.  We're an open content system, and an
> encyclopedia, and an internet project.  We're within the norms for
> such projects.  We care a lot about this topic, from the amount of
> arguing over it that happens.  And that's good.  But it can be taken
> too far.
> 
> You all, today, are taking it too far.
> 
> 

I never mentioned law - I am speaking of ethics.

And *'Wikipedia - the best place on the internet to be libeled'* isn't a 
great tag line.

Frankly, I don't believe that people who are holding the line you are 
care at all about this subject. You have just set up so many straw men 
it isn't true.