[Foundation-l] Re: Formal request: Wikinews project

[Erik Moeller]

Fred-
> Yeh, you folks are just not listening. You need to check into what even a
> simple nuisance action against you would cost. God forbid, what the
> consequences would be if there was a substantial award against you.

The Wikimedia Foundation is not some fragile baby that cannot handle the  
real world. If that was so, we should not operate Wikipedia itself,  
because it faces many of the very same risks. Occasional legal harassment  
is something we will have to deal with one way or another and hardly a  
good excuse not to start a potentially world changing project. In fact, it  
is the very protection of the Wikimedia Foundation and the international  
respect that it can command (and which can be turned into donations) which  
makes a project like Wikinews feasible.

Just take the example of Indymedia's confiscated equipment. One reason  
that they weren't able to get much support (not that they tried) is that  
people tend to perceive Indymedia as a fanatic propaganda outfit.  
Wikinews, on the other hand, will be seen as a community effort with the  
goal to neutrally report on events. If we need to defend against any kind  
of harassment, the entire net media and well-funded organizations like the  
EFF will be behind us.

In the event of an author abusing their privileges and reporting  
incorrectly, we will do what any magazine or newspaper will do: We will  
apologize, post a correction, and make sure this person won't report for  
us again. Anything beyond that has to be decided on a case by case basis.

> At a bare minimum, in order that all the work we have done doesn't end up in
> the ownership of a plaintiff

Pure FUD. The ownership of the content is with its authors, not with the  
Wikimedia Foundation.

Regards,

Erik