[WikiEN-l] Docs look to Wikipedia for condition info: Manhattan Research

[Carcharoth]

On Sun, May 24, 2009 at 11:46 PM,  <WJhonson at aol.com> wrote:
> In a message dated 5/24/2009 12:11:40 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
> thomas.dalton at gmail.com writes:
>
>
>> > At any rate, the person would have to sue the editor, not the project,
>> and
>> > the editor could stand on the basis of simply quoting the PDR.
>>
>> Could they sue other people that have edited the article without
>> fixing the mistake? What about someone that reverted vandalism to that
>> sentence, thus putting back the incorrect information? We can't rely
>> on the law only holding the person directly responsible liable.>>
>
> --------------------
> I don't think you would agree if this logic were extended to all articles.

Disagree.

> Am I responsible, fixing the birthplace of George Bush, that someone else,
> in another section of that article has said "He killed his parents when he
> was three."

Fixing birthplace, maybe not. But reverting vandalism is different.

> No I'm not responsible for that.  I'm solely responsible for the edits I
> make, not those of others.

If you revert to a version that includes stuff previously taken out by
another editor, then you are re-instating the material that was
removed. That is why I always check a diff of what changes have been
made before, or just after, saving. That is also why I argue against
bot-like blanket reversion of contributions of banned users without
manual checking. If they removed vandalism, we can't blindly revert
that.

> Similar to reverting vandalism.  If the previous version was incorrect,
> than the responsibility rests on whomever put that into the article in the
> first place.  Not on any subsequent editor.

With vandalism, I think there is a duty of care to check the recent
history and go back to the last version before the vandalism started.
Sometimes you have to stop and look quite carefully, but if you don't,
who else will?

So many times I've seen Twinkle and Huggle users only revert the last
bit of vandalism and ignoring the previous 3 or 4 edits that also
added vandalism. It makes the Twinkle and Huggle users look really,
really silly. They end up saving an article with blatant vandalism
that they would see if they had looked at it for even a few seconds.

The different scenario where you spot a single mistake and go in and
change it is somewhat different. Reading and checking the whole of an
article is not always feasible. But I would be happier if there was a
tick box to be updated by trusted editors that said "I've read the
whole of this article and it looks OK". After months and years of
nothing but vandalism addition and reverts, it is easy for stuff to
creep in without being spotted. Sometimes every article needs someone
to step back, read the whole thing, make what overall changes are
needed, and tick the box saying "an editor has read and checked the
whole article".

Carcharoth