[WikiEN-l] Libel law

Thu Dec 8 14:55:08 UTC 2005

On 12/8/05, Steve Block <steve.block at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> > I think I'll wait to worry about this until I have a big enough
> > presense in the UK that a ruling against me would matter.  The UK
> > can't garnish wages from my US employer, can they?
> >
> > (Actually, at the point where I have significant assets in the UK I'll
> > be able to afford a lawyer to research these issues for me.  I
> > certainly won't ask around on an international mailing list which has
> > pretty much nothing to do with law.)
>
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is the mailing list for the english
> Wikipedia, yes?  So the point of asking is to try to work out what the
> policy is on that Wikipedia regarding libel.  Great, you personally
> aren't affected.  Does that absolve you of responsibility in attempting
> to formulate an understanding of the position to those it does affect
> and also to try and develop a policy on the situation?  If you
> personally are unaffected, I'm very happy for you.  Perhaps you could be
> sympathetic and at least understand the concerns of those that may be.
>
Libel, at least so far as it consists of false information, has no
place in Wikipedia.  This has nothing to do with UK law, though.  If
we're talking about true information, then I'd argue that Wikipedia
*should not* bow down to the UK or any other legal authority if there
is any possible way for it to avoid coming into their jurisdiction.

If use of the seven dirty words is illegal in Pennsylvania, should
Wikipedia develop a policy around that situation?  I think we can all
agree that it absolutely should not.

Frankly, I think it's ridiculous to think that the UK government is
going to give judgements against people simply for editing a page in a
section completely unrelated to libellous content.  But if they do,
what can we do about it?  Well, what can we do about Chinese citizens
who can't legally contribute to the encyclopedia?  We can facilitate
anonymous contributions and make sure we don't put any significant
amount of assets in that country, not much else.

If the country you live in goes nuts, I'd suggest you start
contributing to the encyclopedia anonymously.  There's not much else
you can do.

Let's bring back the ability for at least some of us to contribute to
Wikipedia using the Tor network.  That's at least one policy change we
should make.

Anthony