[Wikipedia-l] Re: Bylaws Part IV

[Alex R.]

From: "Anthere" <anthere8 at yahoo.com>
> Ray Saintonge a écrit:
> > Anthere wrote:
> >
> >> Section 4.2. WRITTEN RESIGNATION.
<..snip..>
> I understand the intent, but...why may the board decide to remove the
> account of a user upon the reason he resigned from the association ? A
> resignation is a voluntary act, not the act of a banned user or a
> vandal. So, it is up to the wikipedian to ask the deletion of his
> account if he wishes so. No ?

Who does the account belong to?  It is something that is owned by the web
site, not the user of the web site; like the credit card is owned by the
bank or the passport is the property of the government that issued it.  Only
they have the right to take it back. Any user account does not belong to the
user, this is why
Jimbo was able to "freeze" the mediator role account. If Wikimedia turns off
the servers and erases the user pages they are gone and so are the user
accounts.

Also, all text on Wikipedia is released under the GFDL so the user cannot
really request that any text that they have input on Wikipedia be removed,
no?  I know user talk sub pages are an exception to this and if someone
posts personal information they can also get the page history blanked for
privacy reasons, but isn't the information that users post done so under the
GFDL?

It is really even a violation of the Board of Trustees to remove it (but let
them get sued by someone for violating the GFDL, not the member). I am sure
that if someone asked to have it removed for a good reason the Board of
Trustees would remove it. It seems to me that what it is really about is to
protect the user so that no one can accuse them of violating the GFDL, just
my opinion though, maybe we should ask Jimbo to submit this to a panel of
Florida judges and get them to figure out what it all means!

Alex756