>> But we (and here I mean "we" as individual contributors) also have the legal and moral right to ensure that we avoid damaging misinformation.
>
>---------------
>On legal "false". *We* as the collective we have no legal requirement to
>ensure that we avoid damaging misinformation. This has been gone over before.
>The entire legal requirement rests solely on the shoulders of the editor who
>posts whatever they post. Period.
What part of "as individual contributors" was confusing to you...
>>Moreover, this isn't a mosquito: OTRS gets e-mails every day from victims of defamation.
>
>When we have 100,000 BLPs and get one or two issues per month... that's a mosquito.
...and is it the same as the part of "every day" that was?
Anyway, out of sympathy to the great many people subscribed to this
list, I'll disengage now. Last word (in our bilateral exchange,
anyway) to you, if you want it.
Steve
In a message dated 12/15/2008 10:24:14 PM Pacific Standard Time,
sarcasticidealist(a)gmail.com writes:
But we (and here I
mean "we" as individual contributors) also have the legal and moral
right to ensure that we avoid damaging misinformation. >>
---------------
On legal "false". *We* as the collective we have no legal requirement to
ensure that we avoid damaging misinformation. This has been gone over before.
The entire legal requirement rests solely on the shoulders of the editor who
posts whatever they post. Period.
Morals are in the eye of the beholder :)
Will Johnson
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> We can't protect everybody from everything and we shouldn't be trying.
> We already do a pretty good job and that's as much as we should attempt.
We shouldn't be trying to protect everybody from everything. We
should be trying to protect people from the negative consequences of
our own activities (i.e. setting up an "anybody can edit"
infrastructure that any person can edit with substantial insulation
from the consequences, and leaving that infrastructure in place once
it became one of the largest sites on the internet and among the top
results for many Google searches.
We are writing about people without their consent and broadcasting
what we write to an extremely wide audience. We have the legal and,
generally speaking, the moral right to do that. But we (and here I
mean "we" as individual contributors) also have the legal and moral
right to ensure that we avoid damaging misinformation. As Greg said,
there's plenty that we could do but don't do in that area.
Moreover, this isn't a mosquito: OTRS gets e-mails every day from
victims of defamation. If the defamation was committed by a
registered account, they have no legal recourse - the WMF is immune as
a common carrier, and the subject has no way of finding out who
actually committed the defamation (and even if they could, the
offender's as likely as not to be a fifteen year old with no assets).
Wikipedia enables the hurting of a lot of innocent people, and we
should take reasonable measures to reduce that enabling.
Steve
In a message dated 12/15/2008 7:34:57 PM Pacific Standard Time,
michawest(a)gmail.com writes:
I dont understand is this some kind of xmas joke?>>
---------------------
It is not. I want to know if there's a way to embed an object like this.
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A lot of hurrah about nothing.
We get these few and far between. But hey let's kill that mosquito with a
sledgehammer, that'll do the trick!
We can't protect everybody from everything and we shouldn't be trying.
We already do a pretty good job and that's as much as we should attempt.
Will Johnson
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In a message dated 12/15/2008 8:28:56 PM Pacific Standard Time,
larsen.thomas.h(a)gmail.com writes:
Yes, that's true. However, it is still possible to (a) act quickly to
remove defamation and minimise its harm and (b) punish people who
engage in defamation.>>
------------------------------------
Which we already do. So I'm not seeing what we could have done differently
in this case.
Will Johnson
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In a message dated 12/15/2008 8:37:54 PM Pacific Standard Time,
larsen.thomas.h(a)gmail.com writes:
Just because we couldn't have done anything differently doesn't mean
he has no right to be upset about it.>>
----------
Sure and since the badbusinessbureau.com allows any person to bitch about
any other person, without any significant limit, they can be annoyed by it there
as well. That won't stop it.
This is 2008, when anybody can defame anybody online :)
Of course defamation is not just rude language, you have to prove it's true
defamation in that it's knowingly untrue, and malicious. If it's true, then
it's not defamation.
Will Johnson
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In a message dated 12/15/2008 8:19:17 PM Pacific Standard Time,
sarcasticidealist(a)gmail.com writes:
defamatory vandalism was allowed to persist for two days. Even if his
overall views on Wikipedia are incorrect, which some (by no means all)
of them are, he's entitled to sympathy and everything we can do to
prevent this from happening again. >>
----------------------
There isn't any way to prevent defamation.
If there was, it would have been instituted in real-life long ago.
Will Johnson
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I'm not familiar with WND, but I suspect that I wouldn't think much of
it if I was. That said, the man has an extremely valid complaint: his
article, even in its unvandalized form, was pretty lousy, and then
defamatory vandalism was allowed to persist for two days. Even if his
overall views on Wikipedia are incorrect, which some (by no means all)
of them are, he's entitled to sympathy and everything we can do to
prevent this from happening again. Responding to Wikipedia-hosting
defamation with "But he's objectionable in his own way" suggests
(incorrectly, I'm sure) that the responder believes that defamation
against people we don't like is okay.
Steve
Looks like Wikipedia has another dissatisfied customer:
http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=83640
The cached copy that Farah mentioned is not hosted by WP, it is hosted by Yahoo. Joseph Farah has a right to his own views. While I am a strong evangelical Christian like Farah, WorldNetDaily (WND) and Joseph Farah need to know that studies have proved time and again that Wikipedia has been reliable and most vandalism is removed quickly. WND had lost my personal support when it bought into the Obama citizenship conspiracy theory (Side note: I voted for McCain), and now it is preparing a boycott of Wikipedia all because of one anonymous editor's vandalism. Ugh.
William King (Willking1979)