[Foundation-l] Greetings, Wikimedians

Mon Jun 19 09:43:01 UTC 2006

James Hare wrote:

>That's what's so hard.
>
>My plan has been to have a protected mainspace and editable drafts that
>weren't obvious to the public eye, but that was denounced as unwiki. Having
>a freely-editable website, however, introduces us to extreme liability and
>would make Jimmy Wales's head explode if it were to happen.
>
>What we need is a middle ground -- one that's not awfully anti-wiki but
>should keep us pretty safe.
>
Your proposal would likely increase our exposure to liability, not 
decrease it.  As long as the public is _clearly_ informed that the 
information in a medical article is not necessarily the product of 
professionals we are probably better off than if we gave people a false 
sense of security about the reliability of the articles.  Remember too, 
how people interpret such written material often has no relation to what 
was actually written or what the author intended.  Do not underestimate 
people's capacity to misread information, and use that as a basis for 
starting a lawsuit.

Ec