[Foundation-l] Eloquence #01 - libelous info

Sun Jun 11 05:38:29 UTC 2006

Zack Clark wrote:

>on  Thu, 8 June 20:43:11 Erik Moeller explained
>
>==================== Quote ====================
>See [[John Seigenthaler, Sr.]]. We publish potentially libelous
>information alongside a huge collection of well-referenced quality
>material, under the same logo, without any distinction for the reader
>between one and the other. We make that information available as free
>content, and allow anyone to scrape it off our site or download our
>database, meaning that the libelous information gets copied all over
>the place. Legally speaking, if Wikipedia didn't exist, no lawyer
>would ever approve it.
>================== END Quote ==================
>Thanks so much for your excellent example of the problem.
>It leaves me aching to know:
>1) How & why was WP structured so fragile in the first place?
>2) What can be done to protect WP from this vulnerability?
>3) Who is developing plans to address such issues?
>4) Is any subject more crucial to our future??
>5) What do YOU feel is the ideal solution?
>
Any new venture is fragile and vulnerable.  Regretably, more fail than 
succeed.  A new venture that starts in an atmosphere of safety, security 
and risk aversion leaves very little chance for creating anything really 
new.  A person who undertakes an ordinary venture with meticulous 
attention to details and little risk will likely end up with ordinary 
results.  Competent but ordinary.  Perhaps the fragility that was there 
in the structure in the first place was was because there was no 
preconception about the structure.  There are circumstances where 
fragility and vulnerability can be great strengths.

Ec