[WikiEN-l] Bans and online/offline reputation (was Re: Follow-up on my Ban from Wikipedia (part 3))

[Armed Blowfish]

On 11/09/2007, Wily D <wilydoppelganger at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/11/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Indeed, I'd be very curious about this too.  Mistake of fact is not
>>> always a defense to libel, but I'm unaware of any jurisdiction where
>>> truth is not a defense of libel accusations.
>>
>> Indeed. I remember the phrase "reckless disregard for the truth" from
>> somewhere - possibly the legal definition of defamation, which is
>> pretty similar to libel. You don't have to know it's false, but if you
>> didn't take reasonable steps to verify that it was true, you are still
>> liable (under UK law, anyway). If it's actually true, though, then
>> you're fine.
>
> Hmm, interesting - I'll offer this ref
> http://www.cippic.ca/index.php?page=defamation-and-slapps/#faq_defences-to-defamation
> Which notes that Canadians (sans Quebeckers, as is always the case)
> enjoy something being "substantially true" as a complete defense to
> libel, and defamation requires *either* slander or libel in Canada
> (possibly sans Quebec).  There are a stack of other defenses, though
> none would apply here.  Of course, the real damage for telling someone
> they're blocked indef, especially if you just note what they did in a
> non-derogitory way is likely to be very small - I could see nominal
> damages of $1 or less ...

You do not have to tell them they are indef blocked
on a Google-indexed page on a top-ranking site.

When someone is blocked, they do not find out they
are blocked by reading their talk page - rather,
when they try to edit, the Blockedtext displays
the block reason that you enter.  The block log, the
other place where your block reason is displayed,
is not indexed by Google.

Also, Wikipaedia can use robots.txt to tell Google et. al.
not to index various namespaces... I suggest only
mainspace and image space ought to be indexed.

> That said, if someone wanted to sue me in Guatamala or other places
> with unusual defamation laws, I suppose my only defense would be that
> you can't get blood from a stone.    I'm also unclear on the
> enforcability of such judgements.  Anyone know?
>
> WilyD

I am not blaming individual admins so much as the
whole Wikipaedia community and the robots.txt file.

These things are not transient.  Four years after the
fact, and a Google search on a banned user still
returns negative Wikipaedia pages about that user
at the top of the results.