[WikiEN-l] Re: Could an Administrator please look into this conflict?

Fri Jan 27 22:56:51 UTC 2006

On 1/25/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
> I don't think we should penalize copyright holders for serving WP
> with a cease-and-desist for a copyvio, whether formally or
> informally, although we might want to require them to, as a
> prerequisite for their future participation, state that their
> grievances are met and that no further action will be taken.

In general, we don't and shouldn't punish copyright holders for
good-faith requests for copyright violation removal.

What we do want to punish, and strongly, is what has become the common
/modus operandi/ of Usenet kooks; constant threats of legal action
against anyone who disagrees with them.

'No Legal Threats' stops that behavior dead in its tracks.  It either
makes the nuts play nice at least to that degree (because they don't
actually intend to sue anyone, just intimidate by the threat) or gets
the incorrigible ones banned in short order.  WP:NLT is a great nutjob
filter.

As a practical matter, we want our contributors to settle their
differences peacefully rather than escalate the argument arms-race to
lawsuits.

-Matt