[WikiEN-l] ArbCom Legislation

[Ian Woollard]

On 22/06/2008, Todd Allen <toddmallen at gmail.com> wrote:
> And now we are seeing an expanded "enforcement" provision come into
> place. I think, before we worry about -enforcing- BLP more strictly,
> it needs a good reining in. It needs to be strictly defined as "no
> unsourced negative information," and perhaps "no undue weight to
> negative information." NOR should already serve to protect "privacy."
> If something hasn't already been published in a publicly available
> source, we can prohibit it under NOR, if it has, there's no privacy to
> protect.

"Yeah right"

That sort of misses the *huge* point, particularly with the Star Wars
kid, that the guy was a victim of bullying and copyright infringement.
The video was stolen and edited to make it look even more foolish and
distributed. So far as I am aware the guy's name was placed in the
public domain without his request, and this has been repeated by a
bunch of publications. He also received a large award in an out of
court settlement, and could possibly have a case against the wikipedia
if they chose to *perpetuate* it (the wikipedia may not *ever* go
away, but other publications tend to fade).

That could happen to *anyone*; it could happen to you, Todd Allen. Are
you truly saying that this is a *good* thing??? The wikipedia gets to
chose its policies, we don't pick them and stick to them even if it
gets the wikipedia legally attacked or it needless helps destroy
people's lives.

The question here is 'what is undue weight'. Does the wikipedia agree
that his name is essential to the story or is publishing it undue
weight, and frankly part of continued harassment?

I would argue that, under the circumstances it is the other sources
that give it undue weight, not the wikipedia.

-- 
-Ian Woollard

We live in an imperfectly imperfect world. If we lived in a perfectly
imperfect world things would be a lot better.