[WikiEN-l] Wikilists and GDFL

Tue Sep 30 14:39:32 UTC 2003

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Fred Bauder" <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
To: "Alex T." <alex756 at nyc.rr.com>; "English Wikipedia"
<wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2003 8:40 AM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikilists and GDFL

> The violation, the infringement, the tortious conduct such as defamation
or
> invasion of
> privacy are all the work of volunteer contributors. It is their wrong, it
is
> their copyright infringement, it is their action, it is not the action of
> "us" or "we". There is no "us" or "we" in this regard.
>
> We do have a collective responsibility however it may be expressed
legally.
> We are working toward, and perhaps have now, established a non-profit
> corporation. As a corporation the usual rules apply and the corporation is
> responible with auxilliary responsibility with individuals who may have
> commited a particular transgression.

I disagree with this completely. Jimbo has started a non-profit corporation
to aid in the financial stability of Wikipedia so it survives. We are not
that corporation and we will probably only participate in that corporation
by donating to it. The corporation is in no way responsible for the
contributions of members. This is outragously wrong to think that someone
is absolved of personal responsiblity by posting something to an
OSP as user: JamesDay points out that Wikipedia is. It is the poster who
always
has and always will be responsible no matter how much the volunteers
try to protect the good name of Wikipedia, fundamentally it is the duty
of contributors to make sure that their work is not in violation of any
laws.
They are doing the contributing. How can we be responsible for the
defamation done by some third person, we may not even know that it
has gone on until long after it happened?

Alex756