[WikiEN-l] The Register decries Wikipedia's "censorship" via OTRS

[Kat Walsh]

On 7/8/07, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
> On Jul 7, 2007, at 5:43 PM, Thomas Dalton wrote:
> > As much as I hate to admit it, they have a point this time.
>
> No, actually they don't have much of a point at all.
>
> > We can't
> > just accept every demand to take down a page and leave it down for a
> > fortnight.
>
> But see, this is exactly what happens when you trust the Register to
> report on anything accurately.  We certainly do NOT "accept every
> demand to take down a page" nor is it normal or usual for a page to
> be "down for a fortnight".
>
> Every case is different, and while it is of course sensible to always
> be vigilant for ways to improve the OTRS system and practice, the
> Register was completely unfair in their "reporting".

I agree, about that.

A lot of people say that every time they hear about OTRS it's because
of some big frustrating action. This is largely because the small
undramatic actions or the ones where the people writing are told
"sorry, we don't do that" -- or the ones where people get into tense
20-message exchanges that amount to "sorry, we don't do that" -- no
one hears about those.

> > I don't have access to OTRS, so I don't know what this was
> > about, but from the talk page it would appear to be related to
> > trademark issues. Since when have encyclopedias been restricted from
> > using trademarked terms? We're not selling lava lamps, we're just
> > talking about them - IANAL, but I'm pretty sure trademark law does not
> > apply.
>
> That's right, but real legal threats from real lawyers have to be
> taken seriously.  I think this case could have been handled
> differently, and that's worth talking about.  But the hysteria of the
> Register is well known, and should be taken into account here.

Again concur. People are human and make calls that aren't perfect. If
the worst that happens as a result of a mistaken call is that a few
articles out of a million or two are stubbed or blanked longer than
they need to be, I think the system isn't working too badly.

-Kat

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