[WikiEN-l] Rank hath its privileges

[Ray Saintonge]

Joe Szilagyi wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 8:41 AM, Sam Korn wrote:
>   
>> On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 11:48 AM, Wilhelm Schnotz wrote:
>>     
>>> To ray, you have a point, if it is a 3rd parties copyright, it is
>>> their fight. Generally though I don't like the thought of that ability
>>> being used to undelete stuff that is not helpful to this project and
>>> creates these sorts of distractions, but it is now his fight.
>>>       
>> I agree mostly with these sentiments.  If there was a case to be made,
>> I would argue that it should be presented as "using the admin tools in
>> a way likely to bring the project into disrepute".
>>
>> There has been no breach of our copyright policy, as the content was
>> not posted on Wikipedia.  I do not recall ever taking on-wiki actions
>> against a user for breaching the GFDL on another website.
>>
>> As far as I am concerned, this is a minor, if rather stupid, abuse of
>> the tools.  Trout-slapping, rather than arbitration, seems in order.
>>     
> Sam, how is it "minor"? 
Anything that is not major is minor. QED
> A comparable case is User:Everyking, where he
> was emergency desysopped for even suggesting that he might disclose
> deleted information on Wikipedia review--and that pales in comparison
> to this. This admin did disclose information that was apparently
> deleted for copyright purposes, posted it onto one of the busiest
> non-WMF websites in existence, and then had it splashed over one of
> the major media sources on the planet Earth that he did it with his
> WMF admin tools. This is minor how?
>   
I am not familiar with the Everyking case, and it's not worth wasting a 
lot of my time finding out about it, and whether that case was major or 
minor.  Though if I remember correctly the big issue relating to most 
Wikipedia Review cases had to do with revealing private personal 
information of Wikipedians.  That's very different from a make-believe 
problem about copyright, and a make-believe emergency over something 
done two years ago.
> Any admin can freely recover content deleted for copyright purposes
> and then repost it wherever and however they want?
>   
Absolutely. Why not?  We have understandably stricter copyright rules 
about what is included in Wikipedia.  One should not jump to the absurd 
conclusion that violating those rules means violating copyright rules as 
defined by law.

Ec