On 2 Nov 2007 at 09:21:11 -0400, "Alec Conroy"
<alecmconroy(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> The sadly comical irony is, for anyone teetering on the brink of
> psychosis, I can't imagine what more we, as an institution, could have
> done to push people into believing allegations. Seriously... If we
> had all gotten together at a secret location and brainstormed for days
> on how to, as a prank, try to convince the world that SV = LM = MI5
> agent who is controlling Wikipedia, we could never have come up with
> anything better than what we've actually done--
Drat! You've uncovered the conspiracy! Now they'll have to kill
you!
--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/
An injunction was sought against WMF to force it to remove content from
the french wikipedia, that the plaintiffs deemed defamatory and
infringing on their privacy. The plaintiffs also sought 63,000 Euros in
damages, and requested from the WMF to provide contact information of
the anonymous editor responsible for the edit.
The court stated that the Foundation is a hosting provider in the sense
of article 6 of the LCEN ("Loi pour la confiance dans l'économie
numérique") and as such has no obligation to keep watch on the content
that it hosts and can not be held accountable for the content added by
contributors to the encyclopedia.
The same law states that hosting providers must remove illegal content
when notified it exists. In this case, the dispute centred largely
around when the Foundation was notified. The plaintiffs believed they
had notified the Foundation via e-mail, although the Foundation has no
record of the e-mails having been received. The court did not consider
e-mails sufficient notification.
Also, the court stated that when a hosting provider is notified about
libelous content, it only has to remove content that is obviously libelous.
In this case, the lawsuit was filed before the Foundation was officially
alerted. As soon as the Foundation received official notification, it
immediately removed the content in question.
The court also stated that once the Foundation was notified of the
problem, it acted swiftly and removed the content. As a result, WMF won
the lawsuit and will not have to pay for any damages. The request to
provide the contact information of the editor responsible for the edit
was also dismissed.
--------
This is very good news for the Foundation. We maintain that WMF is not
the publisher, owner or monitor on any of the Wikipedia projects (and
obviously not the WP FR). We are pleased to have our position upheld and
supported in a court of law.
In general, it is extremely important that we get used to quickly remove
any defamatory content, or privacy-invasive content, as soon as it is
brought to our attention. "We", in this case, mean "all of us". Editors
of Wikipedia, volunteers on OTRS, staff members. The more we care about
people requests of this type, the more we will be recognized as a
community caring about the truth and caring about the individual. Whilst
we must not fall into easy censorship and let ourselves be pressured to
remove information which should be available to humanship just because
it does not please a couple of people, it is also important to remember
that we are a top 10 website, widely read everywhere and that any
erroneous information on people may have huge consequences in their
private and professional lives.
Being available to answer readers concerns *is* important. There is no
gain for anyone to get in a court to solve such issues (except for
lawyers in fact). Most conflicts of that sort could be solved through
communication.
Whilst the current case was not strictly speaking a biography page, it
involved living people. So, my email is also a reminder that policies
such as the "biographies of living people" in the english wikipedia are
very helpful to both protect our projects and help making sure our
content is as reliable as possible.
Let us seek to avoid violence when violence can be avoided :-)
I suggest that every project get a look at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons
And consider building such policies in the near future.
A few links for more information
*
http://wikimedia.fr/index.php/Communiqués_de_presse/La_Wikimedia_Foundation…
(in french)
*
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipédia:Le_Bistro/2_novembre_2007#Proc.C3.A8…
(in french)
* http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_policy (in english)
Florence Devouard
The following firm represented the Foundation in this lawsuit:
HUGOT AVOCATS
www.hugot.fr
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfredo_Kraus
Thank you to all who contacted me on this list and off-list about my
original posting, "Alfredo_Kraus citations". You have been very helpful.
Someone just added a "Sources" section to the above page with 13
lines like,
1.^ Please replace this sentence with an identification of which source(s)
made these claims.
I did not write this or any other Wikipedia biography. Hopefully
this Section will be read by the original author(s) of this biography. I
cannot read their minds as to what References they used.
I will be unsubscribing from this list in the very near future. I
have found that this list is NOT for newbies like myself who have only been
editing pages for a short time. After reading two days of "banning Private
Musings" messages, it seems clear that this list is meant only for the
in-fighting of "Wikipedia Administrators", those who have the power to
delete and/or revert everything us newbies add via "Edit".
There are some things that I am capable of doing to enhance Wikipedia
entries, and things I cannot do, because of lack of expertise or
time. Writing new biographies and sourcing current entries are things I
cannot do.
I have been writing Discographies and Bibliographies, i.e. indexing
musician's entries in books, since I first discovered the old UW-Parkside
"Internet Music Archives" in October 1991.
http://www.folklib.net/index/uwp_gone.shtml
At last count, over 3,700 mostly non-Pop/Rock musicians
http://www.folklib.net/index/discog/birth2days.shtml
found in over 280 books
http://www.folklib.net/index/discog/bibliog.shtml
And, I have been accumulating links for also mostly non-Pop/Rock
musicians since November 1995.
Examples of what I can do for Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfredo_Kraus#Referenceshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfredo_Kraus#External_links
To start with, I can do these two things for the 200 Opera Singers
listed at,
http://www.folklib.net/opera/singers.shtml
including creating new pages for Singers who have no Wikipedia page now,
but which will contain only the above two sections.
If something is wrong with what I have added to the Alfredo Kraus
page, or if my doing these two things ONLY, per the examples, are
unacceptable to you Administrators, I will stop editing pages. Thank you.
____________________________________________________________
Doug Henkle - mailto:henkle@pobox.com
P.O. Box 1447, Oshkosh, WI 54903-1447
http://www.folklib.net/
FolkLib Index: A Library of Folk Music Links
On-line since 11-25-1995
http://www.folklib.net/index/wi/
FolkLib Index - Wisconsin Music Site Map
(everything related to Wisconsin Music and Musicians)
(both current and historical information)
Matt wrote:
>Personally, if Mongo or Guy chose to create a contentious-site-issues
>alternate account, I would disapprove of it just as strongly. There
>has been frankly much too much of this recently.
>
>I know this is taking one point out of your larger context and not
>answering the rest, but the rest requires a more considered answer, I
>believe.
No, I appreciate you saying that, and I don't mean to make too big a
deal out of this whole "Us vs Them" issue. Every participant in every
dispute since the beginning of time has felt like "My side is being
treated unfairly, whereas the other side is getting away with
wrongdoing" It happens in elementary school, it happens in blended
families.. In journalism, it's called the Hostile media effect,
where partisans on both sides of an issue are simultaneouly convinced
the journalists are biased against them.
So, maybe that's all it is. I just wanted to share my subjective
experience with the community. The world is full of illusions, and
no evil cabal or conspiracy is necessary to explain my feelings that
Guy, Mongo, et al can be bullies with impugnity, while the slightest
transgression on PM's part instantly meets with instant retribution.
You generally can't trust your own impressions when you're in the
middle of these things-- you just have to report how you're feeling,
and trust the larger community to see if there's truth behind your
words.
---
One thing I am sure about, however, is that a few bad apples have
resorted to the regular use of vicious personal attacks, rumors, and
allegations in order to discredit the libertarian side of the BADSITES
dispute, and I great would welcome any help in changing that, as it
does take its toll on people. It's not a cooincidence that PM had to
create a sock puppet. I get emails from people saying they silently
agree with me, but don't want to speak out for fear of being flamed
out of existence. And that shouldn't happen on something as
beautiful as Wikipedia.
Alec
>For me, the use in discussion was one thing, but the use to edit war
>over a contentious link went over the line. Others may disagree.
>-Matt
I think it's fine to consider, in the abstract, what sort of rules
avowed sock puppets should be governed by. If there's a general
agreement that PM stepped over a line, the answer is to tell him where
the line is, ask him to respect it, and to only begin to consider
blocking after that.
Instead, we have pretty much every possible mistake an admin could make:
* Admin was personally involved in past disputes with user
* Admin was currently involved in content dispute with user
* Admin didn't warn whatsoever, just jumped straight to block
* Admin didn't block for a reasonable period of time, just jumped
straight to indef.
* Admin is still calling for indef block to be reinstated even after
user has agreed to stop behavior.
Even if PM did unknowingly cross some unseen line-- how is NOT an
example of an admin doing everything wrong?
--
I have to say, emotionally speaking, I do start to feel a twinge of a
double standard when it comes to how rules are enforced. For a time
there, it looked like the pro-badsites people were completely exempt
from NPA. It claims "some types of comment are never acceptable--
Using someone's affiliations as a means of dismissing or discrediting
their views -- regardless of whether said affiliations are mainstream
or extreme." Now I bet I could find 500 diffs in which someone
affiliation or alleged affiliation was used to attack them, but I
don't think a single block was ever issued.
On edit warring-- we had an editor, who had a long history of problem
behavior, reinsert the SAME disputed text, into a POLICY, repeat the
behavior TWELVE TIMES, AGAINST consensus, slinging personal attacks
as fast as he could type them, and a 72 hr block was overturned
within minutes as too harsh.
Meanwhile, As far as I can tell, Private Musings has truly, in good
faith, worked his hardest to comply with the rules. He's been honest,
upfront, and polite. And his actions have been under a constant
microscope, and the first excuse someone can find, he's indefinitely
blocked. His crime: four edits, over three days, reverting
vandalism by the sockpuppet of a banned user, and buttressed by a
strong consensus on the talk pages.
--
I realize there are lots of intervening factors. High edit counts can
and should translate into judicial leniency. "Stop the evil, bad
people who want to hurt us" is always going to be an easier rallying
cry than "Lets stop and consider the principles of this situation".
But emotionally speaking, PM's block makes me feel like there's two
different sets of rules-- rules for the "US"es and the rules for
"THEMS". If one of US edit wars against consensus on a policy page
twelve times while violating NPA with practically every edit summary--
well, I'm sure he just got a little overheated. Blocks are
preventative. He's learned his lesson.
If one of "THEM" makes four reverts, good reverts, but inadvertantly
crossing a line ever so slightly-- well, let's take the opportunity
to just get rid of them them.
Maybe that logic holds up when the only people we call "THEM" are
people who are truly just trying to cause trouble-- but I know I'm a
THEM. PM is a THEM. Dan T is a THEM.
Perhaps none of this is true-- i leave that possibility completely
open. Maybe from the proper perspective, I could see a consistent
set of rule are being applied to everyone. I'm not objective, so it's
totally plausible.
BUT-- from where I sit, it definitely feels like MONGO and JZG can
pretty much slug away at us anti-BADSITES people as much as they
want, but if PM gets uppity and decides he'd like to edit instead of
just talking, he's outta here.
Just a subjective observation of what it feels like to be on this side
of the univese. Take it or leave it.
Alec
>Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>I don't think we should apply the same reasoning to participating in
>community discussions as we do with respect to editing a controversial
>article.
There is much wisdom in this post. I think the use of sockpuppets
presents a lot of really interesting issues, and I think this could be
a really strong argument for tightening the rule under which they're
used.
The problem with the indef block of PM was that I think he went out of
his way to follow the rules as they currently are. He was always very
polite, and he was very very helpful in mediating the discussion.
>From the information I have in front of me as of this second, he's an
icon of compliance with our SOCKS rules as they currently exist, and
his block had much more to do with WP:BADSITES than WP:SOCKS.
>Social pressure is a primary driving factor in creating cooperation
>and civility.
That's true, but in PM's defense, the BADSITES issue isn't just any
old issue. The level of on-wiki incivility that BADSITES opponents
are subjected to is really unprecedented. If you come out against
BADSITES, there's a vocal group of people who are going to hate your
guts for the rest of your Wikipedia career. They'll accuse you of
"aiding trolls", "being a troll", "badgering", and everything in
between.
With BADSITES, there's a real climate of partisan hatred that I've
never really seen before on Wikipedia. There's a groups of people who
are definitely "collecting names", and overtly hostile to anyone who
has strongly opposed Badsites, and if you're sensitive to attacks,
they can completely poison your wiki experience.
If you strongly oppose BADSITES but are the kind of person who really
needs a happy, civil working environment to make it pleasant to edit
wikipedia, you really either have to make a pseudonym or you have to
just have to keep your mouth shut.
PM chose the pseudonym route, and absent any evidence of wrongdoing,
we should respect his choice and thank him for lending a hand to
trying to mediate our #1 community disagreement.
Alec
The ability to selective short circuit the social
factors by occasionally dropping your pseudonym and commenting
anonymously is an enemy to cooperation and civility.
Plus, it makes the rest of us tenured folks who have the courage to
stick our names next to difficult positions, accepting the social
consequences, look more unusually controversial than we are.
A little bit of this behavior here and there won't hurt us and we
couldn't prevent it in any case, but I think privatemusings has gone
too far and that outright endorsing this behavior in this case or for
others would be terribly unwise.
>The question is whether a user in good standing can create an alternate
>account to troll with.
>Fred
The question also seems to be whether NPA applies to everyone. Where
I come from, accusing an editor in good standing of trolling is a
personal attack. I see to remember we had some rule about doing
that, once upon a time.
Alec
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hIGNIcztySvpGhm95iGPhNL7ov1AD8SKHF7G1
Rowling Sues to Block Harry Potter Book
By DAVID B. CARUSO – 12 hours ago
NEW YORK (AP) — Author J.K. Rowling and the maker of the "Harry
Potter" films are suing a small publisher in Michigan over its plans
to release a book version of a popular Web site dedicated to the boy
wizard.
----
One may wonder what happens if someone prints out
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Harry_Potter and its articles
and sells it in a GFDL compliant way...
Mathias