[WikiEN-l] Seriously, on BJAODN

[Eugene van der Pijll]

phoebe ayers schreef:
> a) whether the page was or was not a GFDL violation seems subject to doubt
> -- both in specific, as plausible arguments have been raised on this list
> why it might not be a violation, and in general --

What plausible arguments are you referring to? I'm now looking at the
latest subpage, the one that geni wants to undelete [*].

Let's take an example:

== From Obanair ==
Obanair is a small start-up airline based at Oban airport. they
currently do not fly any routes and do not have a plane.

That's the entire entry. The associated history entry is:
20:57, 29 April 2007 . . EliminatorJR (Talk | contribs | block) (61,556
bytes) (From [[Obanair]])

According to the GFDL, we have to acknowledge the author of [[Obanair]];
we don't. There is a link to the original page, but it has been deleted.
There is no way this complies with the GFDL. The only way to include it
is to claim fair use, but according to our policy ([[WP:FU]]):
"Inclusion of brief attributed quotations of copyrighted text.. is
acceptable". So we need attribution for that as well.

There's also the problem that we're making fun of a startup company
here. The third google hit for this company's name is now "Wikipedia:
Bad Jokes". This is not very good for the company; it is the reason why
AfD's are noindexed. If it was a living person, it would be a BLP case.

(And there are many entries about LP's; so the page could have been
deleted on BLP grounds.)

(Additionally, it's not funny.)

> I know enough people who are to know that there are few cut &
> dried cases of interpretation, and I am not inclined to believe that this is
> one of those rare and happy obvious situations;

No, this is not correct. There are a lot of situations that are unclear,
but that does not mean that there are few obvious situations. In faact,
I think the latter outnumber the former.

> b) regardless, I do not believe, as others have also stated, that BJAODN was
> the most egregious potential copyright violation on the site, nor the most
> important to fix;

Every contributor to Wikipedia has his/her own priority list, and this
has long been accepted. We won't tell people that they must work on our
serious articles before starting on [[Pokemon]], and we won't tell
people which copyright violations they must give priority to.

> c) if b) is true, then moving deleting the page up to the top of the to-do
> pile and deleting it hastily seems advisable only if there is a real and
> pressing danger that the page will affect Wikipedia adversely by existing,
> which is usually because we are clearly breaking the law with a copyright
> violation, or because someone is likely to sue and/or be harmed by the
> contents;

No, it's always advisable to do something about a copyright violation.
(If it's advisable to do it *now*, doesn't matter; see my previous
reply.)

Eugene


This mail is partly based on GFDL text by [[User:Obanair]].

[*] A worthwhile idea, if only to show that it won't work; that the will
to make these pages complyant is not there.