[Wikipedia-l] Two issues here:

Sat May 17 04:30:20 UTC 2003

Tomos wrote:
> Similar things, but with different conditions, would apply for admins of
> other language-wikis. So, sometimes, even if the content is perfectly legal
> to host in a U.S. server, it would have to be deleted by an admin in
> another country.

Uh, no. The /only/ thing that counts is the legality of having the material on 
a server in the US. What is legal for the user to submit to Wikipedia is 
entirely up to the individual user, his or her nation and the amount of risk 
the user is willing to take. 

The /only/ laws that matter here are the ones of California and the US. So if 
the material violates California and US law, /then/, and only then, can it be 
deleted on legal grounds. Of course if the user that submitted the material 
suddenly realizes that they broke the law of their own nation, then an Admin 
should delete the material soon after the user who submitted it asked the 
Admin.

> Regarding copyrights, Japanese laws provide different protections for the
> copyright holders and exemptions for users (like that of fair use in the
> U.S.). So, again, what is legal in U.S. context may or may not be legal in
> Japanese context.

No! This is /exactly/ the thing that has to be avoided. If an Admin insists on 
deleting otherwise acceptable material (meaning it is both encyclopedic and 
legal under US law) because it would be illegal to have that material on a 
server in the nation of the Admin, then we should seriously reconsider the 
Admin's sysop status.

Like I said before we should /not/ have the laws of every nation have veto 
power over what we have on our server. Just pause for a moment to consider 
what Wikipedia would be like if we started down that road. 

Blandopedia - that's what we would be. We would be even more of a joke than 
most public school textbooks in the United States (which are de facto 
censored by state and local school boards who only approve textbooks that 
don't offend a long list of lobbyists both on the right and left).

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)