[Wikipedia-l] WP:OFFICE-like action in the Hebrew Wikipedia

[Florence Devouard]

Amir E. Aharoni wrote:
> (Short intro: I am User:Amire80, editor in Hebrew, Russian and English
> Wikipedias, and sysop in the English one.)
> 
> The whole article about Amnon Yitzhak, a well-known and controversial
> Jewish preacher, was deleted from the Hebrew Wikipedia.
> 
> It happened after Wikimedia Israel received a letter from an attorney
> representing Yitzhak, which requested to remove allegedly defamatory
> material from the article.
> 
> The article was deleted and recreated without older versions. For the
> short time that these versions were available, it was possible to see
> that the article was not any more defamatory against Amnon Yitzhak
> than an average newspaper or television item about him. The editors
> who worked on it were not vandals and the material was reasonably
> sourced. Now it's impossible to see that, too (unless one is a sysop
> there).
> 
> Nevertheless, the bureaucrats of the Hebrew Wikipedia chose to salt
> the article with an explanation similar to WP:OFFICE.
> 
> The problem is that it is doesn't seem to be a case for WP:OFFICE.
> Wikimedia Israel is not the main Wikimedia Office, but only a small
> local association, which is just beginning its life. In any case, as
> far as my understanding of jurisdictions goes, Wikimedia Israel cannot
> be held responsible for the content of the article and neither the
> article's editors.
> 
> I am sincerely sorry to be a "schtinker". That's a Yiddish word for
> "informer". The bureaucrats of the Hebrew Wikipedia are excellent
> contributors, thanks to whom the Hebrew Wikipedia is one of the very
> best projects of the WMF. But i am quite sure that they made a mistake
> in this case. Wikipedia must not censor out sourced material after one
> feeble legal threat so easily.
> 
> Many respected editors of the Hebrew Wikipedia voiced their opposition
> to this deletion, but the sysops do not agree to restore the deleted
> versions, saying that they won't do it without proper legal advice.
> This is understandable; so - can someone from the Foundation Office,
> who has experience with BLP legal situations help the Hebrew Wikipedia
> sysops to solve this problem?
> 
> Thanks in advance.


Hello Amir,

There are different points in your emails, and I would like to take each 
points in turn.

First, Wikimedia Israel is not the first chapter to receive legal 
threats and mails from a lawyer. When this happens, the best is to 
inform the Wikimedia Foundation Legal Counsel.

Second, Wikimedia Israel is not the host provider of the website, as 
such, it should not be threatened for activity of editors on the 
website. The host provider is Wikimedia Foundation. The right step to 
take is the inform the lawyer contacting Wikimedia Israel, that 
Wikimedia Israel is an independant organization, not a sub-organization 
of WMF, and that the legal request should be addressed to the Wikimedia 
Foundation. Several chapters have already been concerned, and have 
developped templates letters. The best is to ask them for the template 
and translate it.

Third, since Wikimedia Israel is not the host provider of the project, 
but simply an association of users, it should be very careful of not 
providing WP:Office. WP:Office should come from Wikimedia Foundation. 
Naturally, for communication purpose, Wikimedia Israel can help 
communication between editors, sysops, WMF etc... but it should make it 
clear, for its own legal protection, that it is not in charge of content 
and hosting.

Fourth, administrators and bureaucrats should also clearly understand 
that they do not have to "obey" a request from Wikimedia Israel.

Fifth, the community of editors, or sysops, or bureaucrats (depending on 
how you are internally organized) should be the ones deciding and 
implementing the deletion of an article if THEY feel it is too 
illegal/diffamatory. If it is their decision, they should not label it 
WP:Office. It would be a community decision, and an entirely fair 
decision to make of course !

Sixth, I tend to understand the position of bureaucrats and sysops, 
refusing to undelete the information ! Once, we had the problem on the 
french wikipedia. Someone added illegal information. Later, an ip 
removed the illegal information, and a sysop restored the information 
removed by the ip. Infortunately, the police is now seeking information, 
NOT about the original author of the illegal content, but about the poor 
sysop who unfortunately restored the wrong content !
So, I understand them hesitating to restore the content if it is REALLY 
bad :-)


Ant