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

[Guy Chapman aka JzG]

On Mon, 9 Jul 2007 13:33:57 +0100, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:

>> Not having to "enforce" it is evidence of maturity in the project.  We
>> received a complaint, naturally some people will automatically react
>> by pushing as hard as possible for inclusion of the material the
>> subject wants excluded, but these people are not likely to be our
>> finest contributors.

>It would really rather depend on the situation and the context.

Not really.  Most thoughtful contributors are content to wait a bit,
or talk about it for a while, rather than press for content to be
reinserted RIGHT NOW OR ELSE THE WHOLE PROJECT IS DOOMED AND YOU MIGHT
AS WELL DELETE THE WHOLE WIKIPEDIA.  Don't you think?

>> Leaving it in despite knowing that it is
>> contested is, in my view, far more likely to result in a real problem.

>Eh that would be an area where I think some general advice from Mike
>Godwin could come in handy

No need, we had exactly that advice from Brad, and from Jimbo before
him, who has said many times that we should do no harm.  Really, the
idea of removing contentious content until we can be reasonably
satisfied that having it in the encyclopaedia does not violate policy
(including the intellectual property rights of others) would seem to
me to be pretty uncontentious.  The burden of proof is always on those
seeking to include content, after all.

>> In the mean time,
>> volunteers is all we have.  Yes, I know, having an encyclopaedia run
>> by unqualified volunteers is never going to work, God alone knows why
>> we even try.

>The difference is open review. Any edit made on wikipedia is open to
>review by anyone. If I state an image is a copyvio I would need to be
>able to publicly back that up if challenged. The result is that if I
>screw up with regards to copyright law we will likely find out that I
>did and why.

All OTRS volunteers' actions are open to review.  Sometimes,
unavoidably, that review is limited to those who have access to OTRS,
for privacy reasons, but review is always an option, and Jimmy is
active on the OTRS mailing list.  You seem to be casting this as a
people vs. evil censors situation, but it isn't, OTRS volunteers are
just editors like any other - the main difference is that we get to
see at first hand how hurt and upset people can be, and that makes us
a little more cautious, but that's not a bad thing IMO.

---8<-------

>>  You are bitching about the system and not
>> actually offering any practical help in fixing it.

>Can't. In order to fix something you need some level of control. The
>board my have some level of control over OTRS. Perhaps the office
>people. Anyone else? Not so much.

No, no control needed.  You just need to make constructive comments
instead of what looks suspiciously like bitching.  OTRS volunteers are
certainly not looking to be above any kind of peer review, and some
have been firmly corrected for excessively heavy-handed actions. Here,
all we had was one newish volunteer doing his best.  The way to deal
with that best being a bit sub-optimal is to offer informed critique
with no assumption of ill-faith, not to portray it as a "sky is
falling" incident.

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