[WikiEN-l] weekeepeedee-uh Libel

Tue Apr 1 18:56:15 UTC 2003

Stevertigo wrote:

>>>Brion:What would such a policy need to say that the Neutral Point of View
>>>
>policy does not?
>
>Well, Daniel once again has got the feel for the issue...  that is that NPOV
>and being sued for libel are two different things... I can understand what
>youre getting at Brion.. that they are related, with regard to an editors
>point of view, But still, we here are involved in making policy and crafting
>some general ways of dealing with related (even outside in the legal world)
>issues so that later, when these things might come up, they've been thought
>through somewhat beforehand.
>
Do we really need to get carried away with a lot of detailed policy 
about libel?  Common sense guidelines should be quite enough to cover 
most situations.  The problem with a lot of written laws is that people 
get caught up in the letter of the law instead of the spirit of the law.

>NPOV is a good general policy.. but when Libel really means someone trying
>to edit Wikipedia through a legal interface, rather than the normal one.
>Here, of course, as I've said on the T:W:Libel page, theres a burden of
>responsibility automatically placed on someone to make a change themselves,
>if something is incorrect... Im sure this has been said before, in similar
>words.. So, I dont think WP has much to worry about at all... If its true,
>and the tribe sticks to it... and yet they want to sue... fine... That would
>be one of the easier cases to argue... lawyer or not...
>
Yes.  When a libel is published in a print medium it's much more 
difficult to correct the information.  For an annual publication it will 
take a year before a retraction can be published.  Here an offended 
party can raise his objection immediately, and proximally to the alleged 
offence.  A front page libel won't have to wait for a retraction at the 
bottom of page 88 in some future issue.  An offended party has a duty to 
mitigate; if he's aware  of the libel he can't just let it run on in the 
hopes of increasing the damages that he might collect later.

>So, yes its an issue.. and having a foundation would inevitably mean a
>policy with regard to being sued. And whatever policy that is.. simply by
>nature of being solidified into some guide, would have some minimal bearing
>on the freedoms Wikipedians enjoy in editing articles.
>
Sometimes the best insurance against stupid libel suits is not to have 
any assets.  The foundation's only assets are likely to be computer 
hardware and a bank account with a limited amount of current operating 
funds.  The information would never be an "asset" in the accounting 
sense, since it has no monetary value.  In the worst case scenario a 
mirror site in another country could take over the editing functions.

>Funny enough, a major Libel case - Richard Perle is going to sue Seymour
>Hirsch (and The New Yorker) for his column... not here in the US, but in
>England... go figure... the laws there are apparently more favorable to him,
>despite the fact that neither lives there, and the circulation there is a
>sliver of what it is here. -Steve
>
In many other issues jurisdiction shoppors prefer the courts in some US 
states which give higher awards.  When the Process Church sued the 
author of "Helter Skelter" for his allegations that they had somehow 
been involved with Charlie Manson they lost their case in the U.S. but 
won it in England.

Ec