[WikiEN-l] FBI vs. Wikipedia

[Nathan]

On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 10:45 AM, Carcharoth <carcharothwp at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> This whole debate makes the point that when the WMF legal counsel gets
> involved because some outside organisation has sent him a letter, and
> this debate between lawyers then becomes public, the community
> sometimes looks like a deer caught in the headlights, unsure whether
> they should debate the issue, or apply what counsel has said, or ask
> counsel for further advice.
>
> The problem with the first two approaches is that the debate might end
> up with the wrong result, and if people say "but we followed the WMF
> legal counsel's advice" (even if they misinterpreted what he said),
> that might be bad for several reasons. The problem with the third
> approach is that the WMF legal counsel doesn't scale, and you can't
> ask him everything about every image (though if someone thinks it
> worth contacting him, they should always do so). The best of several
> poor options seems to be for the community to judge as best they can,
> contact the WMF legal counsel in rare cases only, and take note if an
> external request leads to the WMF legal counsel over-riding a
> community debate and learn the lessons from that.
>

We have a voluminous body of policy for the legal questions we need to
address without the assistance of the WMF (e.g. copyright policies at
various levels, WP:NLT, etc.), but I don't see the issue with asking
for Mike's input in situations with unusual circumstances. We have a
tendency towards knee-jerk reactions, whether its "OMG DELETE!" or
"piss off with your censorship." The FBI Seal / Badge issue is a
pretty good example of why we actually need Mike's opinion to limit
the risk posed by the overly cautious or the overly incautious.

Nathan