Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 8:58 AM, FT2 ft2.w...@gmail.com wrote: I agree with the point you make, but still think it's the right thing. Essentially the counter argument boils down to if they don't know there's a BLP they can't make work for us about it. Whatever is in the BLP will be there whether they know it or not. So the question is, is it ethically better, and likely to improve quality, if they do know about it? Probably yes. We will for sure get some irate replies or requests that we simply can't meet (ie demands or expectations that won't work with a neutral reference site). But we will also be recognized as trying to do right in a way few other sources do. I don't think that the problem outweighs the clear benefits of doing so. I discussed this idea with FT2 at length a little over a year ago on Skype, a couple hours I think. This was while I was facilitating the Living Persons task force on strategy (plug here[1]). Our resources can only stretch so far, and in my opinion, as expressed previously in this thread, is that contacting websites/press agents/subjects directly would create much more discord than to reward. The noted issues with explaining, now after invitation, how Wikipedia works and what you can't do after we've invited you to do it is much more probable than successful resolution. Our solutions must be internal, from the Board and the communities. 1. http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Task_force/Living_persons Still awaiting board approval. -- ~Keegan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 1:21 AM, Keegan Peterzell keegan.w...@gmail.comwrote: On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 8:58 AM, FT2 ft2.w...@gmail.com wrote: I agree with the point you make, but still think it's the right thing. Essentially the counter argument boils down to if they don't know there's a BLP they can't make work for us about it. Whatever is in the BLP will be there whether they know it or not. So the question is, is it ethically better, and likely to improve quality, if they do know about it? Probably yes. We will for sure get some irate replies or requests that we simply can't meet (ie demands or expectations that won't work with a neutral reference site). But we will also be recognized as trying to do right in a way few other sources do. I don't think that the problem outweighs the clear benefits of doing so. I discussed this idea with FT2 at length a little over a year ago on Skype, a couple hours I think. This was while I was facilitating the Living Persons task force on strategy (plug here[1]). Our resources can only stretch so far, and in my opinion, as expressed previously in this thread, is that contacting websites/press agents/subjects directly would create much more discord than to reward. The noted issues with explaining, now after invitation, how Wikipedia works and what you can't do after we've invited you to do it is much more probable than successful resolution. Our solutions must be internal, from the Board and the communities. 1. http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Task_force/Living_persons Still awaiting board approval. -- ~Keegan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Task_force/Living_People Apologies, it seems the lowercase p version didn't get a redirect. I'll fix that. -- ~Keegan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 5/23/11 1:40 AM, Thomas Dalton wrote: On 23 May 2011 00:03, FT2ft2.w...@gmail.com wrote: Out of interest, when a BLP is created and not speedy deleted, could we not write a standard email to the subject stating that a biographical article has been created on them on the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, inviting them to review it, explaining what it's about, and pointing them to remedies for fixing minor or major issues or requesting deletion? Hearing from us might at the very least be seen as us trying to do something right. I've not heard that idea before; I like it. We should do that. It wouldn't be difficult and would, as you say, show that we are at least trying to do the right thing. We would need to be prepared to deal with the increased traffic to OTRS that it would inevitably result in, but that's not too big a problem. I don't think it's impossible, but I think finding an email address for the average person is going to be harder than you think. I do a good bit of email-finding to contact journal-paper authors whose email address has changed from the one published in the journal, but especially outside of the sciences, this isn't particularly easy. Many professors have no websites, and many who do don't have an email address on the site. You end up having to dig up the university's find person database and search, and sometimes that database isn't even publicly available. And for celebrities, they actively go out of their way to hide their email. CEOs and similar in the business world usually don't have emails publicly listed either. At the very least, it'd be quite a bit of work, and would probably require someone willing to use non-email communication channels, like LinkedIn messaging or Twitter or something, to achieve reasonable coverage. Might be an interesting experiment. -Mark ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
A specific email address isn't always available but virtually anyone notable will have a method of contact that can be found fairly quickly. Businesspeople have a business, academics have their university website, politicians and high ranking officials have a political website or governmental office, authors have a publisher, and a vast number of people have an easily located personal website, agent, or known organization they are closely affiliated with. Even alleged criminals have a lawyer or a means of contact. The kind of stuff needed for contact details is almost always noted in any keepable BLP, or a minute's web searching. A few may need Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, but I suspect not many. Only a very small minority will not be easily identified with a means of email or other direct contact within a few minutes. Worth it, I think. FT2 On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 2:02 PM, Delirium delir...@hackish.org wrote: On 5/23/11 1:40 AM, Thomas Dalton wrote: On 23 May 2011 00:03, FT2ft2.w...@gmail.com wrote: Out of interest, when a BLP is created and not speedy deleted, could we not write a standard email to the subject stating that a biographical article has been created on them on the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, inviting them to review it, explaining what it's about, and pointing them to remedies for fixing minor or major issues or requesting deletion? Hearing from us might at the very least be seen as us trying to do something right. I've not heard that idea before; I like it. We should do that. It wouldn't be difficult and would, as you say, show that we are at least trying to do the right thing. We would need to be prepared to deal with the increased traffic to OTRS that it would inevitably result in, but that's not too big a problem. I don't think it's impossible, but I think finding an email address for the average person is going to be harder than you think. I do a good bit of email-finding to contact journal-paper authors whose email address has changed from the one published in the journal, but especially outside of the sciences, this isn't particularly easy. Many professors have no websites, and many who do don't have an email address on the site. You end up having to dig up the university's find person database and search, and sometimes that database isn't even publicly available. And for celebrities, they actively go out of their way to hide their email. CEOs and similar in the business world usually don't have emails publicly listed either. At the very least, it'd be quite a bit of work, and would probably require someone willing to use non-email communication channels, like LinkedIn messaging or Twitter or something, to achieve reasonable coverage. Might be an interesting experiment. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
I'm not so sure. As much as living persons have a history of raising/catching important errors in their articles, they also take exception to negative material. I had one rather protracted issue with a BLP where the individual feels he has been attacked by other parties and the media for a number of years. He viewed the associated Wikipedia articles (which were reasonably balanced, but did include negative information about him) as an extension of that attack. His attempts to insert his version of the truth caused disruption, but more importantly it really really upset him. I can forsee this happening a lot more if we *tell* everyone they have a biography :) Sending something like that out is basically an invitation to edit their biography; and the combination of being a WP newbie, and writing about themselves is not usually a good one. If we can address that issue at the same time, then sure, it's a good idea. Tom On 23 May 2011 14:28, FT2 ft2.w...@gmail.com wrote: A specific email address isn't always available but virtually anyone notable will have a method of contact that can be found fairly quickly. Businesspeople have a business, academics have their university website, politicians and high ranking officials have a political website or governmental office, authors have a publisher, and a vast number of people have an easily located personal website, agent, or known organization they are closely affiliated with. Even alleged criminals have a lawyer or a means of contact. The kind of stuff needed for contact details is almost always noted in any keepable BLP, or a minute's web searching. A few may need Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, but I suspect not many. Only a very small minority will not be easily identified with a means of email or other direct contact within a few minutes. Worth it, I think. FT2 On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 2:02 PM, Delirium delir...@hackish.org wrote: On 5/23/11 1:40 AM, Thomas Dalton wrote: On 23 May 2011 00:03, FT2ft2.w...@gmail.com wrote: Out of interest, when a BLP is created and not speedy deleted, could we not write a standard email to the subject stating that a biographical article has been created on them on the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, inviting them to review it, explaining what it's about, and pointing them to remedies for fixing minor or major issues or requesting deletion? Hearing from us might at the very least be seen as us trying to do something right. I've not heard that idea before; I like it. We should do that. It wouldn't be difficult and would, as you say, show that we are at least trying to do the right thing. We would need to be prepared to deal with the increased traffic to OTRS that it would inevitably result in, but that's not too big a problem. I don't think it's impossible, but I think finding an email address for the average person is going to be harder than you think. I do a good bit of email-finding to contact journal-paper authors whose email address has changed from the one published in the journal, but especially outside of the sciences, this isn't particularly easy. Many professors have no websites, and many who do don't have an email address on the site. You end up having to dig up the university's find person database and search, and sometimes that database isn't even publicly available. And for celebrities, they actively go out of their way to hide their email. CEOs and similar in the business world usually don't have emails publicly listed either. At the very least, it'd be quite a bit of work, and would probably require someone willing to use non-email communication channels, like LinkedIn messaging or Twitter or something, to achieve reasonable coverage. Might be an interesting experiment. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
I agree with the point you make, but still think it's the right thing. Essentially the counter argument boils down to if they don't know there's a BLP they can't make work for us about it. Whatever is in the BLP will be there whether they know it or not. So the question is, is it ethically better, and likely to improve quality, if they do know about it? Probably yes. We will for sure get some irate replies or requests that we simply can't meet (ie demands or expectations that won't work with a neutral reference site). But we will also be recognized as trying to do right in a way few other sources do. I don't think that the problem outweighs the clear benefits of doing so. I'm also inclined to believe innate human decency will help us - a few people act like jerks but the majority, given a fair explanation, will appreciate the effort, thank us, understand they are being consulted on any issues they notice, and try to help. Maybe we can design a possible email, experiment on a couple of batches of 30 - 50 newly created and older BLPs, and see what happens? FT2 On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 2:34 PM, Thomas Morton morton.tho...@googlemail.com wrote: I'm not so sure. As much as living persons have a history of raising/catching important errors in their articles, they also take exception to negative material. I had one rather protracted issue with a BLP where the individual feels he has been attacked by other parties and the media for a number of years. He viewed the associated Wikipedia articles (which were reasonably balanced, but did include negative information about him) as an extension of that attack. His attempts to insert his version of the truth caused disruption, but more importantly it really really upset him. I can forsee this happening a lot more if we *tell* everyone they have a biography :) Sending something like that out is basically an invitation to edit their biography; and the combination of being a WP newbie, and writing about themselves is not usually a good one. If we can address that issue at the same time, then sure, it's a good idea. Tom On 23 May 2011 14:28, FT2 ft2.w...@gmail.com wrote: A specific email address isn't always available but virtually anyone notable will have a method of contact that can be found fairly quickly. Businesspeople have a business, academics have their university website, politicians and high ranking officials have a political website or governmental office, authors have a publisher, and a vast number of people have an easily located personal website, agent, or known organization they are closely affiliated with. Even alleged criminals have a lawyer or a means of contact. The kind of stuff needed for contact details is almost always noted in any keepable BLP, or a minute's web searching. A few may need Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, but I suspect not many. Only a very small minority will not be easily identified with a means of email or other direct contact within a few minutes. Worth it, I think. FT2 On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 2:02 PM, Delirium delir...@hackish.org wrote: On 5/23/11 1:40 AM, Thomas Dalton wrote: On 23 May 2011 00:03, FT2ft2.w...@gmail.com wrote: Out of interest, when a BLP is created and not speedy deleted, could we not write a standard email to the subject stating that a biographical article has been created on them on the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, inviting them to review it, explaining what it's about, and pointing them to remedies for fixing minor or major issues or requesting deletion? Hearing from us might at the very least be seen as us trying to do something right. I've not heard that idea before; I like it. We should do that. It wouldn't be difficult and would, as you say, show that we are at least trying to do the right thing. We would need to be prepared to deal with the increased traffic to OTRS that it would inevitably result in, but that's not too big a problem. I don't think it's impossible, but I think finding an email address for the average person is going to be harder than you think. I do a good bit of email-finding to contact journal-paper authors whose email address has changed from the one published in the journal, but especially outside of the sciences, this isn't particularly easy. Many professors have no websites, and many who do don't have an email address on the site. You end up having to dig up the university's find person database and search, and sometimes that database isn't even publicly available. And for celebrities, they actively go out of their way to hide their email. CEOs and similar in the business world usually don't have emails publicly listed either. At the very least, it'd be quite a bit of work, and would probably require someone willing to use non-email communication channels, like LinkedIn
[Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
My experience at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_reports/Living_people_on_EN_wiki_who_are_dead_on_other_wikis is that however famous a sportsperson was in the 40s, 50s and 60s, getting a reliable source to confirm their death is not always easy. Hence we have quite a backlog where a non-English wikipedia thinks someone is dead but we don't yet have a reliable source to justify changing EN wiki. I'm pretty sure that an email address for the same age group would be much harder, especially if they are still alive and have not yet had an obituary published about them; or we don't have anyone in the relevant task group who is confident to deal with sources in that particular language. People notable for a something in the last year or two probably would be easier to get hold of, but I don't think the proposal is only for these unspecified volunteers to do this where it is easy to do so. WereSpielChequers Message: 3 Date: Mon, 23 May 2011 14:28:11 +0100 From: FT2 ft2.w...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: BANLkTinaY0mykAd_-C-wOG=jr_+qoh2...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 A specific email address isn't always available but virtually anyone notable will have a method of contact that can be found fairly quickly. Businesspeople have a business, academics have their university website, politicians and high ranking officials have a political website or governmental office, authors have a publisher, and a vast number of people have an easily located personal website, agent, or known organization they are closely affiliated with. Even alleged criminals have a lawyer or a means of contact. The kind of stuff needed for contact details is almost always noted in any keepable BLP, or a minute's web searching. A few may need Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, but I suspect not many. Only a very small minority will not be easily identified with a means of email or other direct contact within a few minutes. Worth it, I think. FT2 ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
Regarding the original point about superinjunctions, an MP has named Ryan Giggs in the House of Commons and this is being widely reported in the British media. The superinjunction will be gone by the end of the afternoon. http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Video-MP-Names-Footballer-At-Centre-Of-Gagging-Order-In-House-Of-Commons/Article/201105415997439?lpos=UK_News_Carousel_Region_1lid=ARTICLE_15997439_Video%3A_MP_Names_Footballer_At_Centre_Of_Gagging_Order_In_House_Of_Commons ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
Regarding the original point about superinjunctions, an MP has named Ryan Giggs in the House of Commons and this is being widely reported in the British media. The superinjunction will be gone by the end of the afternoon. Yet, this remains true: The judge said: It has never been suggested, of course, that there is any legitimate public interest, in the traditional sense, in publishing this information. Fred ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 21/05/2011 23:09, Sarah wrote: On Sat, May 21, 2011 at 16:01, Riskerrisker...@gmail.com wrote: As to the comments from MZMcBride and Sarah, I would like to see a significantly higher minimal level of notability for BLPs. In the past few years of working with the Arbitration Committee, I have seen literally thousands of BLPs that easily meet the current notability standards, but have been turned into coatracks to highlight a particular belief of the subject (whether or not that is why they are notable), to self-aggrandize, to attach all the negative information that can be found about the subject regardless of its comparative triviality. Worse yet are the ones that are userfied instead of deleted, or never even made it into article space; they often come up as top google hits for the subject, because Google crawls user space. (They don't seem to crawl user talk or article talk, or if they do, they do not include them in their results.) A huge percentage of the BLP problems I've seen in the last six years have been vanity articles. Raising the notability bar would help to resolve that. There are many core problems that affect this issue. One of which is 'Verifiability not truth' which seems a laudable concept when applied to hearsay, and to allow articles on the paranormal etc. But is often used in BLP articles to justify including untruths, rumours, and to repeat slurs about someone, that happen to have a source that can be verified. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
Well, the CTB Superinjunction is now broken in a number of places on en.wikipedia. So there we go. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
Also rather interestingly, it appears that a Scottish newspaper has revealed the identity of the footballer in question, on the grounds that English superinjunctions don't apply in Scotland. Perhaps the WMF should open an office in Edinburgh, if London is too risky ;-) Chris ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
Dead wood has been suggested, but I strongly disagree with it. While there are issues and it needs careful work (nobody's denying that) I'm not seeing hard evidence that so many BLPs - even minor BLPs - are the train wreck that some represent nor as hard to manage as some portray. What I wouldn't mind seeing is one of three easy ways to improve BLPs: - *Creation limited to editors with some kind of non-trivial track record * (and a suggestion/request mechanism so IP users and newer editors lacking that record can contribute suggestions) - *Creation of BLPs always in some kind of [[Draft:]] namespace or BLP incubator* that's NOINDEXed and not allowed into mainspace until of a reasonable quality of sourcing and balance, with [[Draft:]] articles removed or blanked after 10 or 14 days of inactivity. - *Community support for the principle behind notability*, rather than the lazy version. Too many users still assume that verifiability + coverage = notability. Notability is a *proxy measure* for enduring or lasting significance -- not just brief coverage, promotional coverage, minor or transient coverage, coverage that doesn't speak to lasting human cultural significance. More emphasis on questioning whether a subject really has true historic significance as a reference item, and less reliance on a mention here or there, would probably help. We're in a world of changing data and information. We need to be responsive as well as high quality, and we do that best in the same way that the whole project was created - by innovating ways to achieve it. If BLP's are not satisfactory then we develop and learn how to do BLP's well. Not by merely refusing to host biographies under the same content standards as other content. Not really inclined to endorse defeatism. FT2 On Sat, May 21, 2011 at 10:08 PM, Sarah slimvir...@gmail.com wrote: We could solve that by hosting only BLPs that have already had encyclopedic or extensive treatment elsewhere, i.e. have already been the subject of (a) an encyclopedia article; or (b) a book or book chapter from a reliable publisher; or (c) a profile or in-depth piece in a high-quality newspaper (one about the person, not about events the person was involved in). I know this has been suggested before, but it's coming time to consider it seriously. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
In a message dated 5/22/2011 1:35:51 AM Pacific Daylight Time, wiki-l...@phizz.demon.co.uk writes: There are many core problems that affect this issue. One of which is 'Verifiability not truth' which seems a laudable concept when applied to hearsay, and to allow articles on the paranormal etc. But is often used in BLP articles to justify including untruths, rumours, and to repeat slurs about someone, that happen to have a source that can be verified. Truth is elusive. Many people define Truth to suit themselves. We're not in a position to be judge, defense and jury. So we should not try. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 22 May 2011 11:58, Chris Keating chriskeatingw...@gmail.com wrote: Also rather interestingly, it appears that a Scottish newspaper has revealed the identity of the footballer in question, on the grounds that English superinjunctions don't apply in Scotland. I rather doubt that is their legal position. There is past clase law suggesting that really wont work. More practically they are likely betting the CTB thing wont last beyond Monday on the basis that at this point there are hermits in central wales who know who CTB is. -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 22 May 2011 11:58, Chris Keating chriskeatingw...@gmail.com wrote: Also rather interestingly, it appears that a Scottish newspaper has revealed the identity of the footballer in question, on the grounds that English superinjunctions don't apply in Scotland. I rather doubt that is their legal position. There is past clase law suggesting that really wont work. More practically they are likely betting the CTB thing wont last beyond Monday on the basis that at this point there are hermits in central wales who know who CTB is. -- geni Nevertheless, when the minimum bet at a table is 100,000 pounds it is wiser to watch than to play. There is no way deliberate calculated violation of an injunction will be viewed favorably, at least initially. An adverse decision may be overturned or enforceable, but it is an expensive game. Fred ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On Fri, May 20, 2011 at 6:14 PM, Thomas Morton morton.tho...@googlemail.com wrote: Also; hard to see anyone suing you for communicating the info for the purposes of supressing it :-) Tom Morton A few years ago, I would have said the same about communicating the info for the purposes of free press. --Dan ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 22 May 2011 17:22, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote: On 22 May 2011 11:58, Chris Keating chriskeatingw...@gmail.com wrote: Also rather interestingly, it appears that a Scottish newspaper has revealed the identity of the footballer in question, on the grounds that English superinjunctions don't apply in Scotland. I rather doubt that is their legal position. There is past clase law suggesting that really wont work. More practically they are likely betting the CTB thing wont last beyond Monday on the basis that at this point there are hermits in central wales who know who CTB is. I agree. The only legal argument that stands any chance of success is that CTB's identity is now common knowledge so the injunction is moot. Whether that argument will succeed or not, I don't know, although there's a good chance it will never actually get as far as a day in court. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 22/05/2011 11:58, Chris Keating wrote: Also rather interestingly, it appears that a Scottish newspaper has revealed the identity of the footballer in question, on the grounds that English superinjunctions don't apply in Scotland. Perhaps the WMF should open an office in Edinburgh, if London is too risky ;-) The editors aren't safe though. JW was on the BBC radio yesterday saying that the WMF would hand over IP addresses if asked by the courts. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 11:00, wiki-l...@phizz.demon.co.uk wrote: On 22/05/2011 11:58, Chris Keating wrote: Also rather interestingly, it appears that a Scottish newspaper has revealed the identity of the footballer in question, on the grounds that English superinjunctions don't apply in Scotland. Perhaps the WMF should open an office in Edinburgh, if London is too risky ;-) The editors aren't safe though. JW was on the BBC radio yesterday saying that the WMF would hand over IP addresses if asked by the courts. Jimbo said the Foundation would hand over the IP addresses of Wikipedians if asked by a British court because of these injunctions? Did he actually say that, and if so when did the Foundation decide this? Sarah ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On Sat, May 21, 2011 at 21:22, Philippe Beaudette phili...@wikimedia.org wrote: I asked Christine to do a quick scan, what follows is her response: *There isn't an exact BLP queue in OTRS; there is one for overall quality (called, what else, Quality) which is where a lot of the BLP concerns go, as they are quality issues. Of the current tickets in the queue, not quite half are BLP related (96 out of 209). Of those BLP tickets, about 15% of them mention being attacked/articles being biased or slanted. I didn't do any deep research into whether the accounts are true or not; this is merely the perception of the person writing in, which is the most relevant measure for the topic currently under discussion. * *Also of those BLP tickets, the same percentage specifically mention libelous information, slander, etc. * * * Hope that helps, pb Thank you, Philippe, this is very helpful. Would it make sense to set up a separate living persons queue to make it easier to keep track? The BLP problem is a very divisive one on the English Wikipedia, but it's not entirely clear how grounded it is in fact. Sometimes we're told OTRS is overwhelmed by the number of BLP complaints, but no figures are given. Some hard stats -- X number of complaints concerning Y number of articles within time T, of which Z were actionable -- would be very useful. Sarah ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 22/05/2011 19:32, Sarah wrote: On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 11:00, wiki-l...@phizz.demon.co.uk wrote: On 22/05/2011 11:58, Chris Keating wrote: Also rather interestingly, it appears that a Scottish newspaper has revealed the identity of the footballer in question, on the grounds that English superinjunctions don't apply in Scotland. Perhaps the WMF should open an office in Edinburgh, if London is too risky ;-) The editors aren't safe though. JW was on the BBC radio yesterday saying that the WMF would hand over IP addresses if asked by the courts. Jimbo said the Foundation would hand over the IP addresses of Wikipedians if asked by a British court because of these injunctions? BBC radio4 5pm news. Didn't hear the full interview as I'd just parked up for comfort break. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 13:33, wiki-l...@phizz.demon.co.uk wrote: On 22/05/2011 19:32, Sarah wrote: On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 11:00, wiki-l...@phizz.demon.co.uk wrote: On 22/05/2011 11:58, Chris Keating wrote: Also rather interestingly, it appears that a Scottish newspaper has revealed the identity of the footballer in question, on the grounds that English superinjunctions don't apply in Scotland. Perhaps the WMF should open an office in Edinburgh, if London is too risky ;-) The editors aren't safe though. JW was on the BBC radio yesterday saying that the WMF would hand over IP addresses if asked by the courts. Jimbo said the Foundation would hand over the IP addresses of Wikipedians if asked by a British court because of these injunctions? BBC radio4 5pm news. Didn't hear the full interview as I'd just parked up for comfort break. Given that he said a few days ago that privacy laws were a human-rights violation, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13372839 I'd be surprised if he now said the Foundation would just cave in and hand over IP addresses in relation to them. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 22 May 2011 20:39, Sarah slimvir...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 13:33, wiki-l...@phizz.demon.co.uk wrote: On 22/05/2011 19:32, Sarah wrote: On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 11:00, wiki-l...@phizz.demon.co.uk wrote: On 22/05/2011 11:58, Chris Keating wrote: Also rather interestingly, it appears that a Scottish newspaper has revealed the identity of the footballer in question, on the grounds that English superinjunctions don't apply in Scotland. Perhaps the WMF should open an office in Edinburgh, if London is too risky ;-) The editors aren't safe though. JW was on the BBC radio yesterday saying that the WMF would hand over IP addresses if asked by the courts. Jimbo said the Foundation would hand over the IP addresses of Wikipedians if asked by a British court because of these injunctions? BBC radio4 5pm news. Didn't hear the full interview as I'd just parked up for comfort break. Given that he said a few days ago that privacy laws were a human-rights violation, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13372839 I'd be surprised if he now said the Foundation would just cave in and hand over IP addresses in relation to them. Well, whatever he meant, it isn't his decision. The WMF's legal dept has recently published their draft policies, which includes one on subpoenas [1]. It basically says that, unless lives are at stake, they will only comply with US subpoenas. For US subpoenas, they'll decide whether to comply with or contest them based on the facts presented to them. Of course, if they contest a US subpoena unsuccessfully, they have no choice but to comply with it. 1. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal/Legal_Policies#Subpoenas ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
Well, whatever he meant, it isn't his decision. The WMF's legal dept has recently published their draft policies, which includes one on subpoenas [1]. It basically says that, unless lives are at stake, they will only comply with US subpoenas. For US subpoenas, they'll decide whether to comply with or contest them based on the facts presented to them. Of course, if they contest a US subpoena unsuccessfully, they have no choice but to comply with it. 1. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal/Legal_Policies#Subpoenas I read that rather differently; to me what it says is that they will make an optimum response tailored to the situation presented. I'm not sure that would include refusing to release the ip address of an account on the warpath against superinjunctions. There is a distinction between trying, and perhaps failing, to comply and aggressive defiance. By the way, I think this NYTs article: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/22/us/22gossip.html?ref=todayspaper The Gossip Machine, Churning Out Cash may be of some relevance. I don't think we should pander in this way, regardless of public interest by the public, the media, or our editors. Perhaps just a note on any article about a celebrity that there is public interest by the tabloids in their personal affairs. Fred ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 22 May 2011 19:58, Sarah slimvir...@gmail.com wrote: The BLP problem is a very divisive one on the English Wikipedia, but it's not entirely clear how grounded it is in fact. Sometimes we're told OTRS is overwhelmed by the number of BLP complaints, but no figures are given. Some hard stats -- X number of complaints concerning Y number of articles within time T, of which Z were actionable -- would be very useful. Some figures Amory Meltzer and I came up with in 2010: In a single week in late 2009, we got an average of 40-50 active tickets per day - not spam, not people thinking we were someone else, etc. 15% of those were about BLP issues. If we look *only* at tickets about specific article issues (removing the general WP/WMF-related enquiries and normal vandalism reports), BLP tickets made up 30% of the traffic. Making an estimate for recurring cases, this suggests we get contacted regarding 2,000 to 2,500 BLP issues per year. I don't have any figures on actionability, I'm afraid, but it's an intriguing question... The vast majority of these were regarding one specific BLP article; a couple were BLP issues on non-BLP articles, usually companies and towns. All told, BLP articles proportionally generated about two to three times more issues than other content. The interesting aspect here is that two-thirds of BLP issues are reported by the subject, or by someone close to or involved with the subject (a relative, colleague, agent, etc). If we look *only* at third-party reports, BLPs seem to generate about as much traffic as any other content. The same held for looking solely at normal vandalism reports - 15%. Read what you will into that one... my personal interpretation is that BLP failings were more likely to be seen and more likely to cause some kind of real or perceived harm, leading to a greater response rate. From the *workload* perspective, however, whilst BLPs only make up ~15% of traffic, they take up substantially more time and effort. My initial estimate was that they take up at least half the editor-hours put into handling OTRS tickets; it would be hard to quantify this without some fairly detailed surveys, but it feels right. Writing to someone involved with the issue personally is always more complicated, especially if they're - justifiably - angry or worried about the situation. The problems are often quite complex, so can sit longer while people consider how to approach the issue, and are more likely to involve (long-term) onwiki followup, or require multiple rounds of correspondence. As a result, I suspect my 30% of article issues and Christine's 45% are closer than they might seem - there's an unusually large backlog of tickets this past month, compared to the situation a few months ago, and so a count based on still open will suggest more of them than actually come in on a daily basis. Regarding a separate BLP queue, we found that a significant number of tickets get handled in the wrong queues, because it's often simpler for someone to respond to the email wherever it's come in rather than move the ticket and then respond to it. Which is perfectly fine, of course - a response goes out and everyone's happy - but it does mean that the response data categorised by queue is often fairly inaccurate. For meaningful data on any particular class of tickets, you'd probably have to sample. Apologies for the length, but hopefully that's of some use! -- - Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 22 May 2011 23:03, Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk wrote: Writing to someone involved with the issue personally is always more complicated, especially if they're - justifiably - angry or worried about the situation. The problems are often quite complex, so can sit longer while people consider how to approach the issue, and are more likely to involve (long-term) onwiki followup, or require multiple rounds of correspondence. FWIW: when I talk to press, etc. about this, I say I can't promise a particular result, but I can promise someone will take it seriously. Which I suspect is what people hope for, really. Remember that we are big, scary and mysterious from the outside. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
my personal interpretation is that BLP failings were more likely to be seen and more likely to cause some kind of real or perceived harm, leading to a greater response rate. I suppose that if your a notable figure... you probably take a look to see if a Wikipedia article exists... and even money says you won't like what you find. Other subject don't quite have the personal connection :) Tom On 22 May 2011 23:03, Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk wrote: On 22 May 2011 19:58, Sarah slimvir...@gmail.com wrote: The BLP problem is a very divisive one on the English Wikipedia, but it's not entirely clear how grounded it is in fact. Sometimes we're told OTRS is overwhelmed by the number of BLP complaints, but no figures are given. Some hard stats -- X number of complaints concerning Y number of articles within time T, of which Z were actionable -- would be very useful. Some figures Amory Meltzer and I came up with in 2010: In a single week in late 2009, we got an average of 40-50 active tickets per day - not spam, not people thinking we were someone else, etc. 15% of those were about BLP issues. If we look *only* at tickets about specific article issues (removing the general WP/WMF-related enquiries and normal vandalism reports), BLP tickets made up 30% of the traffic. Making an estimate for recurring cases, this suggests we get contacted regarding 2,000 to 2,500 BLP issues per year. I don't have any figures on actionability, I'm afraid, but it's an intriguing question... The vast majority of these were regarding one specific BLP article; a couple were BLP issues on non-BLP articles, usually companies and towns. All told, BLP articles proportionally generated about two to three times more issues than other content. The interesting aspect here is that two-thirds of BLP issues are reported by the subject, or by someone close to or involved with the subject (a relative, colleague, agent, etc). If we look *only* at third-party reports, BLPs seem to generate about as much traffic as any other content. The same held for looking solely at normal vandalism reports - 15%. Read what you will into that one... my personal interpretation is that BLP failings were more likely to be seen and more likely to cause some kind of real or perceived harm, leading to a greater response rate. From the *workload* perspective, however, whilst BLPs only make up ~15% of traffic, they take up substantially more time and effort. My initial estimate was that they take up at least half the editor-hours put into handling OTRS tickets; it would be hard to quantify this without some fairly detailed surveys, but it feels right. Writing to someone involved with the issue personally is always more complicated, especially if they're - justifiably - angry or worried about the situation. The problems are often quite complex, so can sit longer while people consider how to approach the issue, and are more likely to involve (long-term) onwiki followup, or require multiple rounds of correspondence. As a result, I suspect my 30% of article issues and Christine's 45% are closer than they might seem - there's an unusually large backlog of tickets this past month, compared to the situation a few months ago, and so a count based on still open will suggest more of them than actually come in on a daily basis. Regarding a separate BLP queue, we found that a significant number of tickets get handled in the wrong queues, because it's often simpler for someone to respond to the email wherever it's come in rather than move the ticket and then respond to it. Which is perfectly fine, of course - a response goes out and everyone's happy - but it does mean that the response data categorised by queue is often fairly inaccurate. For meaningful data on any particular class of tickets, you'd probably have to sample. Apologies for the length, but hopefully that's of some use! -- - Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 23 May 2011 00:03, FT2 ft2.w...@gmail.com wrote: Out of interest, when a BLP is created and not speedy deleted, could we not write a standard email to the subject stating that a biographical article has been created on them on the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, inviting them to review it, explaining what it's about, and pointing them to remedies for fixing minor or major issues or requesting deletion? Hearing from us might at the very least be seen as us trying to do something right. I've not heard that idea before; I like it. We should do that. It wouldn't be difficult and would, as you say, show that we are at least trying to do the right thing. We would need to be prepared to deal with the increased traffic to OTRS that it would inevitably result in, but that's not too big a problem. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
My blog is my hobby http://sdgunung03.blogspot.com Powered by Telkomsel BlackBerry® -Original Message- From: Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com Sender: foundation-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Mon, 23 May 2011 00:40:10 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing Listfoundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Reply-To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action On 23 May 2011 00:03, FT2 ft2.w...@gmail.com wrote: Out of interest, when a BLP is created and not speedy deleted, could we not write a standard email to the subject stating that a biographical article has been created on them on the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, inviting them to review it, explaining what it's about, and pointing them to remedies for fixing minor or major issues or requesting deletion? Hearing from us might at the very least be seen as us trying to do something right. I've not heard that idea before; I like it. We should do that. It wouldn't be difficult and would, as you say, show that we are at least trying to do the right thing. We would need to be prepared to deal with the increased traffic to OTRS that it would inevitably result in, but that's not too big a problem. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
My blog is my hobby http://sdgunung03.blogspot.com Powered by Telkomsel BlackBerry® -Original Message- From: wiki-l...@phizz.demon.co.uk Sender: foundation-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Sun, 22 May 2011 22:46:00 To: fredb...@fairpoint.net; Wikimedia Foundation Mailing Listfoundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Reply-To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action On 22/05/2011 21:04, Fred Bauder wrote: By the way, I think this NYTs article: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/22/us/22gossip.html?ref=todayspaper The Gossip Machine, Churning Out Cash may be of some relevance. I don't think we should pander in this way, regardless of public interest by the public, the media, or our editors. Perhaps just a note on any article about a celebrity that there is public interest by the tabloids in their personal affairs. The Gossip Machine, Churning Out Cash: an article where paragraph after paragraph is ... wait for it ... gossip. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
My blog is my hobby http://sdgunung03.blogspot.com Powered by Telkomsel BlackBerry® -Original Message- From: Sarah slimvir...@gmail.com Sender: foundation-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Sun, 22 May 2011 16:32:06 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing Listfoundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Reply-To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 16:03, Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk wrote: On 22 May 2011 19:58, Sarah slimvir...@gmail.com wrote: The BLP problem is a very divisive one on the English Wikipedia, but it's not entirely clear how grounded it is in fact. Sometimes we're told OTRS is overwhelmed by the number of BLP complaints, but no figures are given. Some hard stats -- X number of complaints concerning Y number of articles within time T, of which Z were actionable -- would be very useful. ... In a single week in late 2009, we got an average of 40-50 active tickets per day - not spam, not people thinking we were someone else, etc. 15% of those were about BLP issues. If we look *only* at tickets about specific article issues (removing the general WP/WMF-related enquiries and normal vandalism reports), BLP tickets made up 30% of the traffic. Making an estimate for recurring cases, this suggests we get contacted regarding 2,000 to 2,500 BLP issues per year. I don't have any figures on actionability, I'm afraid, but it's an intriguing question... It's very helpful, Andrew, thank you. I'd like to see some kind of confidential reporting system for BLP issues, because a lot aren't channeled through OTRS. But because we have no way of recording them, the extent of the problem is unknown. It would have to be confidential, so as not to draw attention to the articles. A Foundation email address would suffice, where we report that someone complained about [[Article X]]. Sometimes it's as simple as receiving an email request to remove a date of birth, but the point is we have caused that person worry. I would like to know how much worry we are causing the subjects of our articles. And yes, I take your point about how long it can take to resolve these things. I've been involved in non-OTRS BLP issues, and people need a lot of reassurance, so it can be very time-consuming. Sarah ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
My blog is my hobby http://sdgunung03.blogspot.com Powered by Telkomsel BlackBerry® -Original Message- From: Sarah slimvir...@gmail.com Sender: foundation-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Sun, 22 May 2011 13:39:46 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing Listfoundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Reply-To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 13:33, wiki-l...@phizz.demon.co.uk wrote: On 22/05/2011 19:32, Sarah wrote: On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 11:00, wiki-l...@phizz.demon.co.uk wrote: On 22/05/2011 11:58, Chris Keating wrote: Also rather interestingly, it appears that a Scottish newspaper has revealed the identity of the footballer in question, on the grounds that English superinjunctions don't apply in Scotland. Perhaps the WMF should open an office in Edinburgh, if London is too risky ;-) The editors aren't safe though. JW was on the BBC radio yesterday saying that the WMF would hand over IP addresses if asked by the courts. Jimbo said the Foundation would hand over the IP addresses of Wikipedians if asked by a British court because of these injunctions? BBC radio4 5pm news. Didn't hear the full interview as I'd just parked up for comfort break. Given that he said a few days ago that privacy laws were a human-rights violation, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13372839 I'd be surprised if he now said the Foundation would just cave in and hand over IP addresses in relation to them. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On Fri, May 20, 2011 at 20:19, Wjhonson wjhon...@aol.com wrote: It is not up to us to decide that something is private. If it's been published, then it is public. If it's been published in a reliable source, than it's useable in our project. But not everything that's usable has to be used. I'm increasingly wondering whether we should be hosting any BLPs, because these are often difficult decisions to make -- at which point there is legitimate public interest in a person's private life -- and they can't be reached thoughtfully in an open-editing environment. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
Our BLP policy is pretty solid, and the editors that enforce it are pretty good at keeping out the crap :) We can always improve it, of course. And there are never enough BLP editors. (There are probably about 5 or 6 that specialise heavily in such content). Most of the outstanding issues are with current events (not to blow my own trumpet but see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:ErrantX/Current_events_and_BLP), which tend to attract enough non-BLP experienced editors to overrule them (leading to articles with content that we don't really need/want). IMO it's far from the point that hosting BLP's is more harm than it is worth. Tom On 21 May 2011 14:21, Sarah slimvir...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, May 20, 2011 at 20:19, Wjhonson wjhon...@aol.com wrote: It is not up to us to decide that something is private. If it's been published, then it is public. If it's been published in a reliable source, than it's useable in our project. But not everything that's usable has to be used. I'm increasingly wondering whether we should be hosting any BLPs, because these are often difficult decisions to make -- at which point there is legitimate public interest in a person's private life -- and they can't be reached thoughtfully in an open-editing environment. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 5/20/11, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: Please mail User:Oversight with any such instance you are aware of. We do suppress any mention of a superinjunction, as the assertion that there is embarrassing personal information sufficient to support issuance of a superinjunction is defaming. Is there any project which allows usernames such as Administrator, Bureaucrat, Oversight or Steward? Isn't that confused and probably not allowed? Or which project allows a user name for more than one person? Cruccone ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 21 May 2011 14:39, Marco Chiesa chiesa.ma...@gmail.com wrote: Is there any project which allows usernames such as Administrator, Bureaucrat, Oversight or Steward? Isn't that confused and probably not allowed? Or which project allows a user name for more than one person? en:wp has User:Oversight, administered by the Arbcom - its only purpose is so you can use the wiki's email this user functionality to alert the oversighters to seriously problematic material on the wiki. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
Marco Chiesa wrote: Is there any project which allows usernames such as Administrator, Bureaucrat, Oversight or Steward? Isn't that confused and probably not allowed? Or which project allows a user name for more than one person? http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Title_blacklist prohibits those names across all Wikimedia wikis. MZMcBride ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
Sarah wrote: I'm increasingly wondering whether we should be hosting any BLPs, because these are often difficult decisions to make -- at which point there is legitimate public interest in a person's private life -- and they can't be reached thoughtfully in an open-editing environment. I think anyone who has been in the BLP trenches has had the same thought. The reality is that an encyclopedia without a Barack Obama article or a Nelson Mandela article really isn't a general reference encyclopedia, or at least isn't a very good one. The issue is making a reasonable distinction between those types of individuals and everyone else. Personally, I'm not particularly concerned about this biography as it has plenty of people watching it at the moment and for the foreseeable future. The same is true of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dominique Strauss-Kahn and many others. It's the much lower profile biographies of living people that are the real concern. MZMcBride ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On Sat, May 21, 2011 at 14:33, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: Sarah wrote: I'm increasingly wondering whether we should be hosting any BLPs, because these are often difficult decisions to make -- at which point there is legitimate public interest in a person's private life -- and they can't be reached thoughtfully in an open-editing environment. I think anyone who has been in the BLP trenches has had the same thought. The reality is that an encyclopedia without a Barack Obama article or a Nelson Mandela article really isn't a general reference encyclopedia, or at least isn't a very good one. The issue is making a reasonable distinction between those types of individuals and everyone else. MZMcBride We could solve that by hosting only BLPs that have already had encyclopedic or extensive treatment elsewhere, i.e. have already been the subject of (a) an encyclopedia article; or (b) a book or book chapter from a reliable publisher; or (c) a profile or in-depth piece in a high-quality newspaper (one about the person, not about events the person was involved in). I know this has been suggested before, but it's coming time to consider it seriously. Sarah ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
Sarah wrote: On Sat, May 21, 2011 at 14:33, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: I think anyone who has been in the BLP trenches has had the same thought. The reality is that an encyclopedia without a Barack Obama article or a Nelson Mandela article really isn't a general reference encyclopedia, or at least isn't a very good one. The issue is making a reasonable distinction between those types of individuals and everyone else. We could solve that by hosting only BLPs that have already had encyclopedic or extensive treatment elsewhere, i.e. have already been the subject of (a) an encyclopedia article; or (b) a book or book chapter from a reliable publisher; or (c) a profile or in-depth piece in a high-quality newspaper (one about the person, not about events the person was involved in). I know this has been suggested before, but it's coming time to consider it seriously. That sounds vaguely similar to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BLP_problem#Dead_tree_standard. Let me know if you start a Requests for comment/discussion about this. I'd be interested, as would a number of other list participants, I imagine. MZMcBride ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On Sat, May 21, 2011 at 15:14, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: Sarah wrote: On Sat, May 21, 2011 at 14:33, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: I think anyone who has been in the BLP trenches has had the same thought. The reality is that an encyclopedia without a Barack Obama article or a Nelson Mandela article really isn't a general reference encyclopedia, or at least isn't a very good one. The issue is making a reasonable distinction between those types of individuals and everyone else. We could solve that by hosting only BLPs that have already had encyclopedic or extensive treatment elsewhere, i.e. have already been the subject of (a) an encyclopedia article; or (b) a book or book chapter from a reliable publisher; or (c) a profile or in-depth piece in a high-quality newspaper (one about the person, not about events the person was involved in). I know this has been suggested before, but it's coming time to consider it seriously. That sounds vaguely similar to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BLP_problem#Dead_tree_standard. Let me know if you start a Requests for comment/discussion about this. I'd be interested, as would a number of other list participants, I imagine. Yes, it's similar to dead tree standard, except not applied only if a BLP subject requests deletion, but applied across the board. It would solve our BLP vanity article issue too. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 21 May 2011 22:14, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: That sounds vaguely similar to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BLP_problem#Dead_tree_standard. Let me know if you start a Requests for comment/discussion about this. I'd be interested, as would a number of other list participants, I imagine. MZMcBride You realise that [[Daniel Brandt]] passes that test yes? On the other hand recently elected African leaders will tend not to. -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
MZMcBride, 21/05/2011 22:25: Marco Chiesa wrote: Is there any project which allows usernames such as Administrator, Bureaucrat, Oversight or Steward? Isn't that confused and probably not allowed? Or which project allows a user name for more than one person? http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Title_blacklist prohibits those names across all Wikimedia wikis. But sysops can override the title blacklist. Nemo ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 21 May 2011 17:35, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemow...@gmail.com wrote: MZMcBride, 21/05/2011 22:25: Marco Chiesa wrote: Is there any project which allows usernames such as Administrator, Bureaucrat, Oversight or Steward? Isn't that confused and probably not allowed? Or which project allows a user name for more than one person? http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Title_blacklist prohibits those names across all Wikimedia wikis. But sysops can override the title blacklist. That is correct, which is precisely why we were able to create this account. It has been very helpful in reducing the number of on-wiki posts saying I need oversight for this diff! which was not really terribly helpful. On the other hand, it would probably only be useful for larger projects with a lot of oversight requests and also use an email notification system. Nonetheless, it's a bit off-topic. As to the comments from MZMcBride and Sarah, I would like to see a significantly higher minimal level of notability for BLPs. In the past few years of working with the Arbitration Committee, I have seen literally thousands of BLPs that easily meet the current notability standards, but have been turned into coatracks to highlight a particular belief of the subject (whether or not that is why they are notable), to self-aggrandize, to attach all the negative information that can be found about the subject regardless of its comparative triviality. Worse yet are the ones that are userfied instead of deleted, or never even made it into article space; they often come up as top google hits for the subject, because Google crawls user space. (They don't seem to crawl user talk or article talk, or if they do, they do not include them in their results.) Risker/Anne ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On Sat, May 21, 2011 at 16:01, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: As to the comments from MZMcBride and Sarah, I would like to see a significantly higher minimal level of notability for BLPs. In the past few years of working with the Arbitration Committee, I have seen literally thousands of BLPs that easily meet the current notability standards, but have been turned into coatracks to highlight a particular belief of the subject (whether or not that is why they are notable), to self-aggrandize, to attach all the negative information that can be found about the subject regardless of its comparative triviality. Worse yet are the ones that are userfied instead of deleted, or never even made it into article space; they often come up as top google hits for the subject, because Google crawls user space. (They don't seem to crawl user talk or article talk, or if they do, they do not include them in their results.) A huge percentage of the BLP problems I've seen in the last six years have been vanity articles. Raising the notability bar would help to resolve that. For those who deal with the BLP queue on OTRS, how serious is the problem of BLP attack pages, whether rising to the level of defamation or not? I know the problem exists -- anyone who edits can see it -- but I'd be interested in hearing from OTRS people how pervasive it is in terms of what's reported to them. Does anyone keep figures? Sarah ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On Sat, May 21, 2011 at 3:09 PM, Sarah slimvir...@gmail.com wrote: For those who deal with the BLP queue on OTRS, how serious is the problem of BLP attack pages, whether rising to the level of defamation or not? I know the problem exists -- anyone who edits can see it -- but I'd be interested in hearing from OTRS people how pervasive it is in terms of what's reported to them. Does anyone keep figures? Sarah The Community Dept (Christine) is in the midst of looking at and classifying inbound tickets to begin to give us a real feel for that. I hope we'll have some answers soon, but I'll ask her to give me a 30,000 foot overview and report back here. pb ___ Philippe Beaudette Head of Reader Relations Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 415-839-6885, x 2106 (reader relations) phili...@wikimedia.org ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On Sat, May 21, 2011 at 3:09 PM, Sarah slimvir...@gmail.com wrote: For those who deal with the BLP queue on OTRS, how serious is the problem of BLP attack pages, whether rising to the level of defamation or not? I know the problem exists -- anyone who edits can see it -- but I'd be interested in hearing from OTRS people how pervasive it is in terms of what's reported to them. Does anyone keep figures? I asked Christine to do a quick scan, what follows is her response: *There isn't an exact BLP queue in OTRS; there is one for overall quality (called, what else, Quality) which is where a lot of the BLP concerns go, as they are quality issues. Of the current tickets in the queue, not quite half are BLP related (96 out of 209). Of those BLP tickets, about 15% of them mention being attacked/articles being biased or slanted. I didn't do any deep research into whether the accounts are true or not; this is merely the perception of the person writing in, which is the most relevant measure for the topic currently under discussion. * *Also of those BLP tickets, the same percentage specifically mention libelous information, slander, etc. * * * Hope that helps, pb ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
A footballer protected by one of the British superinjunctions is suing Twitter and persons unknown after he was alleged on Twitter to have had an affair. Something that could have repercussions for Wikipedia. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/may/20/twitter-sued-by-footballer-over-privacy Sarah ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
A footballer protected by one of the British superinjunctions is suing Twitter and persons unknown after he was alleged on Twitter to have had an affair. Something that could have repercussions for Wikipedia. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/may/20/twitter-sued-by-footballer-over-privacy Sarah Oversighters have been diligently suppressing this stuff. Hopefully none of our money will be wasted on this. Obviously superinjunctions are totally over the top and not sustainable, but it is not our job to straighten out the High Court. Fred ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 20 May 2011 12:09, Sarah slimvir...@gmail.com wrote: A footballer protected by one of the British superinjunctions is suing Twitter and persons unknown after he was alleged on Twitter to have had an affair. Something that could have repercussions for Wikipedia. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/may/20/twitter-sued-by-footballer-over-privacy Speaking as someone who's been in the middle of this exact issue from the Wikipedia perspective, edits similar to the one described to have been made on Twitter were removed multiple times from our own site over an extended period: not because of the injunction, but because it was contentious and negative information that could not be reliably sourced. Our BLP policy has worked. Risker/Anne ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
A footballer protected by one of the British superinjunctions is suing Twitter and persons unknown after he was alleged on Twitter to have had an affair. Something that could have repercussions for Wikipedia. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/may/20/twitter-sued-by-footballer-over-privacy Speaking as someone who's been in the middle of this exact issue from the Wikipedia perspective, edits similar to the one described to have been made on Twitter were removed multiple times from our own site over an extended period: not because of the injunction, but because it was contentious and negative information that could not be reliably sourced. Our BLP policy has worked. It won't be too long before a reputable news source covers the whole issue - or indeed a British Parliamentarian raises it under parliamentary privilege. Then, of course, the material will be in the article even if there is still an outstanding superinjunction Risker/Anne ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 20 May 2011 17:37, Chris Keating chriskeatingw...@gmail.com wrote: It won't be too long before a reputable news source covers the whole issue - or indeed a British Parliamentarian raises it under parliamentary privilege. I'm thinking it will be interesting to see how Twitter's position is handled, namely that it's not a publisher. This is the issue that would impact on Wikipedia. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
This does all raise an interesting question of what jurisdictions actually cover. In the superinjunction case for example, which of these is legally able to be sued: - A UK citizen who posts the names online from their home in the UK and then remains in the UK after - obviously yes. - A US citizen who reads the names on Twitter and re-posts them online from their hotel while on vacation in the UK, then remains in the UK for some time - A UK citizen who reads the names on Twitter and re-posts them online from their hotel while on vacation in the US 1/ actionable while still on vacation in the US? 2/ actionable upon return to the UK? - A US citizen who reads the names on Twitter and re-posts them online from their home in the US 1/ actionable while in the US (having not traveled)? 2/ actionable when they travel to the UK on vacation a while later? Just curious which of these is litigable or in contempt, and which is not. FT2 ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
I ask since clearly a US citizen in the US can post these online, so - can a UK citizen on holiday there? Or a US citizen in the UK? Or...? In other words, how do the factors interact such as -- 1/ the country you're a citizen of, 2/ the country whose laws were claimed to be broken, 3/ the jurisdiction you were in when you took the alleged breaking action, or 4/ the ability of local legal process to access you, in deciding what's legally actionable? Lawyers welcomed :) Curiosity and enlightenment more than anything. FT2 ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 20 May 2011 17:37, Chris Keating chriskeatingw...@gmail.com wrote: It won't be too long before a reputable news source covers the whole issue - or indeed a British Parliamentarian raises it under parliamentary privilege. I'm thinking it will be interesting to see how Twitter's position is handled, namely that it's not a publisher. This is the issue that would impact on Wikipedia. The action is in the U.K. The publisher fiction is American law. It might come into play if an attempt is made in U.S. courts to collect any judgment. Fred ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
I ask since clearly a US citizen in the US can post these online, so - can a UK citizen on holiday there? Or a US citizen in the UK? Or...? In other words, how do the factors interact such as -- 1/ the country you're a citizen of, 2/ the country whose laws were claimed to be broken, 3/ the jurisdiction you were in when you took the alleged breaking action, or 4/ the ability of local legal process to access you, in deciding what's legally actionable? Lawyers welcomed :) Curiosity and enlightenment more than anything. FT2 I think any user who uses Twitter to publish information in the U.K. may potentially be liable. Commons sense has got to kick in somehow, but look at the wigs they wear... Fred ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 20 May 2011 19:21, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: I think any user who uses Twitter to publish information in the U.K. may potentially be liable. The jurisdictional issues impact the users. Suing Twitter is unlikely to go very far. It is *possible* they may be able to do something to Facebook, who I believe have business presence in the UK. Suing WMUK is unlikely to affect the behaviour of WMF, any more than the several suits against WMDE have affected the behaviour of WMF. I think our editors will continue to do the right thing concerning the subjects of BLPs. And that we do this is IMO very important to practical opinions concerning Wikipedia: that is, Wikipedia (WMF) is not legally liable, but tries to do the *right thing*. We're here to write an encyclopedia, not investigative journalism or a gossip rag. That IMO is the most important *practical* protection of Wikipedia's good name. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 20/05/2011 18:06, FT2 wrote: I ask since clearly a US citizen in the US can post these online, so - can a UK citizen on holiday there? Or a US citizen in the UK? Or...? In other words, how do the factors interact such as -- 1/ the country you're a citizen of, 2/ the country whose laws were claimed to be broken, 3/ the jurisdiction you were in when you took the alleged breaking action, or 4/ the ability of local legal process to access you, in deciding what's legally actionable? Lawyers welcomed :) Curiosity and enlightenment more than anything. One might want to factor in a Google News Case in Belgium that dealt with which laws apply where: http://www.barrysookman.com/2011/05/17/is-google-news-legal/ Also if it is found that WMF is negligent they may consider any senior member of WMF resident in London to be personally liable. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 20/05/2011 18:06, FT2 wrote: I ask since clearly a US citizen in the US can post these online, so - can a UK citizen on holiday there? Or a US citizen in the UK? Or...? In other words, how do the factors interact such as -- 1/ the country you're a citizen of, 2/ the country whose laws were claimed to be broken, 3/ the jurisdiction you were in when you took the alleged breaking action, or 4/ the ability of local legal process to access you, in deciding what's legally actionable? Lawyers welcomed :) Curiosity and enlightenment more than anything. One might want to factor in a Google News Case in Belgium that dealt with which laws apply where: http://www.barrysookman.com/2011/05/17/is-google-news-legal/ Also if it is found that WMF is negligent they may consider any senior member of WMF resident in London to be personally liable. Oh! Poor Jimbo! Fred ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 20/05/2011 19:56, Fred Bauder wrote: Also if it is found that WMF is negligent they may consider any senior member of WMF resident in London to be personally liable. Oh! Poor Jimbo! I wouldn't count on that DBE being in the post. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 20 May 2011 17:37, Chris Keating chriskeatingw...@gmail.com wrote: It won't be too long before a reputable news source covers the whole issue - or indeed a British Parliamentarian raises it under parliamentary privilege. They won't. Most reputable news sources are not interested in kiss and tell and there are other ones that are in place for really rather good reasons to the point where breaking them would probably get you sued for libel under even US law Then, of course, the material will be in the article even if there is still an outstanding superinjunction What we've actualy got however is an argument over what is considered a reputable news source. -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
They won't. Most reputable news sources are not interested in kiss and tell and there are other ones that are in place for really rather good reasons to the point where breaking them would probably get you sued for libel under even US law Heh, what news do you read! Then, of course, the material will be in the article even if there is still an outstanding superinjunction What we've actualy got however is an argument over what is considered a reputable news source. Almost all of the content is trivial tabloid content of little interest... the injunctions give it a minor twist but probably not enough to invalidate the other BLP issues. So other than if the financial times splashed it across their front page I doubt any of the stuff hidden by super-injunction is worth having in the articles. Tom/ErrantX ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 20 May 2011 21:21, Thomas Morton morton.tho...@googlemail.com wrote: They won't. Most reputable news sources are not interested in kiss and tell and there are other ones that are in place for really rather good reasons to the point where breaking them would probably get you sued for libel under even US law Heh, what news do you read! [[WP:ITN]] There other thing to consider is that kiss and tell unless it involves someone like Michael Jackson doesn't have much of an overseas market. Almost all of the content is trivial tabloid content of little interest... the injunctions give it a minor twist but probably not enough to invalidate the other BLP issues. So other than if the financial times splashed it across their front page I doubt any of the stuff hidden by super-injunction is worth having in the articles. The Trafigura clearly was of interest (incidentally it appears that one of their PR people is trying to edit the Trafigura article). The Fred Goodwin one probably is. The rest that I know of probably not. -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 20 May 2011 21:21, Thomas Morton morton.tho...@googlemail.com wrote: They won't. Most reputable news sources are not interested in kiss and tell and there are other ones that are in place for really rather good reasons to the point where breaking them would probably get you sued for libel under even US law Heh, what news do you read! [[WP:ITN]] There other thing to consider is that kiss and tell unless it involves someone like Michael Jackson doesn't have much of an overseas market. Almost all of the content is trivial tabloid content of little interest... the injunctions give it a minor twist but probably not enough to invalidate the other BLP issues. So other than if the financial times splashed it across their front page I doubt any of the stuff hidden by super-injunction is worth having in the articles. The Trafigura clearly was of interest (incidentally it appears that one of their PR people is trying to edit the Trafigura article). The Fred Goodwin one probably is. The rest that I know Yes, that was my asessment too :-) Tom ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On Fri, May 20, 2011 at 19:29, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 20 May 2011 19:21, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: I think any user who uses Twitter to publish information in the U.K. may potentially be liable. The jurisdictional issues impact the users. Suing Twitter is unlikely to go very far. It is *possible* they may be able to do something to Facebook, who I believe have business presence in the UK. Twitter are planning to open a London office: http://www.brandrepublic.com/bulletin/digitalambulletin/article/1066031/twitter-open-uk-office-serve-commercial-needs/ This should be... interesting. -- Tom Morris http://tommorris.org/ Please don't print this e-mail out unless you want a hard copy of it. If you do, go ahead. I won't stop you. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 20 May 2011 22:22, Tom Morris t...@tommorris.org wrote: Twitter are planning to open a London office: http://www.brandrepublic.com/bulletin/digitalambulletin/article/1066031/twitter-open-uk-office-serve-commercial-needs/ This should be... interesting. Over the last several years, the UK libel laws have been a strong consideration in WMF carefully maintaining *no* local business presence in the UK. The legal environment here is toxic for anyone who doesn't have to put up with it. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 20 May 2011 17:23, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: Speaking as someone who's been in the middle of this exact issue from the Wikipedia perspective, edits similar to the one described to have been made on Twitter were removed multiple times from our own site over an extended period: not because of the injunction, but because it was contentious and negative information that could not be reliably sourced. Our BLP policy has worked. Questionable. Oh we've kept the better known cases under wraps but oversight and rev del but the lesser known cases and the flat out false ones (want to damage a footballer's reputation? hint that they have a super injuction) we haven't been so good at keeping up with. The pattern of reverts and rev dels is pretty obvious if you know what to look for as is the suspicious traffic bumps. Perhaps ironicaly the number of false accusations has reached the point that if we did care about BLP issues the responcible thing to do would be to publish most of the 53 on the main page. -- geni Please mail User:Oversight with any such instance you are aware of. We do suppress any mention of a superinjunction, as the assertion that there is embarrassing personal information sufficient to support issuance of a superinjunction is defaming. Fred Fred ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 20 May 2011 17:37, Chris Keating chriskeatingw...@gmail.com wrote: It won't be too long before a reputable news source covers the whole issue - or indeed a British Parliamentarian raises it under parliamentary privilege. They won't. Most reputable news sources are not interested in kiss and tell and there are other ones that are in place for really rather good reasons to the point where breaking them would probably get you sued for libel under even US law Then, of course, the material will be in the article even if there is still an outstanding superinjunction What we've actualy got however is an argument over what is considered a reputable news source. -- geni Actually no, the information is generally an invasion of privacy, and is oversightable on that basis, but see Arnold_Schwarzenegger#Infidelity Sometimes there is no point. Fred ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 20 May 2011 22:47, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: Please mail User:Oversight with any such instance you are aware of. That's not actually legal. -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 20 May 2011 22:22, Tom Morris t...@tommorris.org wrote: Twitter are planning to open a London office: http://www.brandrepublic.com/bulletin/digitalambulletin/article/1066031/twitter-open-uk-office-serve-commercial-needs/ This should be... interesting. Over the last several years, the UK libel laws have been a strong consideration in WMF carefully maintaining *no* local business presence in the UK. The legal environment here is toxic for anyone who doesn't have to put up with it. - d. Failed state. Fred ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
David Gerard writes: Over the last several years, the UK libel laws have been a strong consideration in WMF carefully maintaining *no* local business presence in the UK. The legal environment here is toxic for anyone who doesn't have to put up with it. I've discussed this precise issue (informally) with Twitter's general counsel, and we agree that the exposure for Twitter in the UK is significantly different than it would be for the Wikimedia Foundation. I mean, of course you can libel someone in 140 characters -- we've all seen it happen. But the role of Twitter in relation to tweets is much more like (say) a phone company's role than it is like WMF's or even Google's. Twitter is an excellent company to put this analysis to the test -- it has the legal resources to challenge a libel lawsuit (or a hundred, or a thousand), and the role it plays as a communications medium is, if not unique, then certainly pretty unusual. I'd look at legal precedents involving SMS/texting in the UK -- that may tell you what Twitter is thinking. The risks for WMF in the UK (and, indeed, throughout the EU as a function of UK membership in the European Union) remain pretty significant, largely for all the reasons that Wikipedia is something different from Twitter. --Mike ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 20 May 2011 22:47, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: Please mail User:Oversight with any such instance you are aware of. That's not actually legal. -- geni What on earth is illegal about assisting the project in avoiding publishing defamatory information? Fred ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
Huh? Why? Tom Morton On 20 May 2011, at 23:00, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote: On 20 May 2011 22:47, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: Please mail User:Oversight with any such instance you are aware of. That's not actually legal. -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 20 May 2011 18:02, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: On 20 May 2011 22:47, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: Please mail User:Oversight with any such instance you are aware of. That's not actually legal. -- geni What on earth is illegal about assisting the project in avoiding publishing defamatory information? What Geni means is that if he (as a UK resident) identified something that violated the superinjunction, emailing Oversight would be sufficient for him to violate the superinjunection. I am not certain that is 100% correct, if he does not name any names, but I can understand that perspective. As it is, there are plenty of non-UK citizens/residents watching the articles involved to address the situation, so generally speaking UK residents/citizens should not feel they are obliged to put themselves at risk. Risker/Anne ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
Ah. No thats not accurate. Fortunately even the British courts can't stamp On private communication. The injunction is on publishing the info. Telling your mates down the pub is fine. Tom Morton On 20 May 2011, at 23:08, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: On 20 May 2011 18:02, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: On 20 May 2011 22:47, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: Please mail User:Oversight with any such instance you are aware of. That's not actually legal. -- geni What on earth is illegal about assisting the project in avoiding publishing defamatory information? What Geni means is that if he (as a UK resident) identified something that violated the superinjunction, emailing Oversight would be sufficient for him to violate the superinjunection. I am not certain that is 100% correct, if he does not name any names, but I can understand that perspective. As it is, there are plenty of non-UK citizens/residents watching the articles involved to address the situation, so generally speaking UK residents/citizens should not feel they are obliged to put themselves at risk. Risker/Anne ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
Also; hard to see anyone suing you for communicating the info for the purposes of supressing it :-) Tom Morton On 20 May 2011, at 23:08, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: On 20 May 2011 18:02, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: On 20 May 2011 22:47, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: Please mail User:Oversight with any such instance you are aware of. That's not actually legal. -- geni What on earth is illegal about assisting the project in avoiding publishing defamatory information? What Geni means is that if he (as a UK resident) identified something that violated the superinjunction, emailing Oversight would be sufficient for him to violate the superinjunection. I am not certain that is 100% correct, if he does not name any names, but I can understand that perspective. As it is, there are plenty of non-UK citizens/residents watching the articles involved to address the situation, so generally speaking UK residents/citizens should not feel they are obliged to put themselves at risk. Risker/Anne ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
One interesting thing jumped out at me from this article: Google argued that the users of Google News were responsible for the acts of reproduction and communication, not Google. It contended that it only provided users facilities which an enabled these acts and so was exempt from infringement... Interesting that Google's defense is basically the same as P2P website hosts. We're just indexing, it's the people who download that are responsible for any breach. I can't decide if this dismissal is reassuring (shows they are consistent between big sites and smaller ones how the legal knots are tied) or worrying (because of the severity it implies) in copyright terms.. FT2 On Fri, May 20, 2011 at 7:28 PM, wiki-l...@phizz.demon.co.uk wrote: One might want to factor in a Google News Case in Belgium that dealt with which laws apply where: http://www.barrysookman.com/2011/05/17/is-google-news-legal/ ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 20 May 2011 18:02, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: On 20 May 2011 22:47, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: Please mail User:Oversight with any such instance you are aware of. That's not actually legal. -- geni What on earth is illegal about assisting the project in avoiding publishing defamatory information? What Geni means is that if he (as a UK resident) identified something that violated the superinjunction, emailing Oversight would be sufficient for him to violate the superinjunection. I am not certain that is 100% correct, if he does not name any names, but I can understand that perspective. As it is, there are plenty of non-UK citizens/residents watching the articles involved to address the situation, so generally speaking UK residents/citizens should not feel they are obliged to put themselves at risk. Risker/Anne Even the U.K. has not formally enacted Catch 22. Fred ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 20 May 2011 23:13, Thomas Morton morton.tho...@googlemail.com wrote: Ah. No thats not accurate. Fortunately even the British courts can't stamp On private communication. The injunction is on publishing the info. Telling your mates down the pub is fine. No it isn't. Telling one mate down the pub might but multiple people is kinda dicey. I assume more than one person has access to the User:Oversight feed. Exactly what is and isn't considered a private communication is a complex area though. -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
It's not publishing the info. It's fine. The point is to stifle mass media. Tom Morton On 20 May 2011, at 23:28, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote: On 20 May 2011 23:13, Thomas Morton morton.tho...@googlemail.com wrote: Ah. No thats not accurate. Fortunately even the British courts can't stamp On private communication. The injunction is on publishing the info. Telling your mates down the pub is fine. No it isn't. Telling one mate down the pub might but multiple people is kinda dicey. I assume more than one person has access to the User:Oversight feed. Exactly what is and isn't considered a private communication is a complex area though. -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 20 May 2011 23:33, Thomas Morton morton.tho...@googlemail.com wrote: It's not publishing the info. It's fine. Err you are aware that the courts regard sending the information on a postcard counts as publishing? The point is to stifle mass media. That doesn't mean that they are the only people the law applies to. -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 20/05/2011 23:14, FT2 wrote: One interesting thing jumped out at me from this article: Google argued that the users of Google News were responsible for the acts of reproduction and communication, not Google. It contended that it only provided users facilities which an enabled these acts and so was exempt from infringement... Interesting that Google's defense is basically the same as P2P website hosts. We're just indexing, it's the people who download that are responsible for any breach. I can't decide if this dismissal is reassuring (shows they are consistent between big sites and smaller ones how the legal knots are tied) or worrying (because of the severity it implies) in copyright terms.. Central to that is the Viacom argument as to whether Google is a service provider or a content provider. http://www.copyhype.com/2011/04/is-youtube-a-service-provider-or-content-provider/ In the Belgium case Google were doing all the copying at their own volition. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
[Posting wearing my battered free-speech (ex)activist hat, not the Wikipedia-critic hat] 1) Stand-down a little - apparently Twitter is only being asked to produce identity information, same as the Wikimedia Foundation has been in other cases (under court order). http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13477811 Lawyers at Schillings who represent CTB have issued a statement clarifying the action it has taken. It said it was not suing Twitter but had made an application to obtain limited information concerning the unlawful use of Twitter by a small number of individuals who may have breached a court order. That is, this isn't a provider liability case. 2) Regarding Our BLP policy has worked., that's a fascinating argument that the super-injunction *is* worthwhile. If Wikipedia defines verifiability in terms of major media sources, and the super-injunction inhibits those sources, then it effectively inhibits Wikipedia (even if it's impolitic to put it that way). I actually believe that the accumulated sourcing now *should* satisfy Wikipedia's verification requirements in the case of the footballer, and was tempted to make that argument. But given I have a nontrivial connection to UK jurisdiction, plus I'm sure I'd get a huge amount of personal attack due to the various politics, it wasn't worth it. Just observing, on various talk pages, I believe the WP:NOTCENSORED faction has made its sourcing argument poorly. Maybe there's another lesson there as to relative costs imposed. -- Seth Finkelstein Consulting Programmer http://sethf.com Infothought blog - http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/ Interview: http://sethf.com/essays/major/greplaw-interview.php ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
Hmm. TL;DR version - communicating the contents of an injunction is not inherently illegal, communicating it to a private mailing list might be actionable, but highly unlikely, especially if the intent is to help supress publication of the information in a wider forum. Ok, now the longer form. What we are talking about here is civil litigation - so the first thing to clear up is that there is no criminal action involved in publishing the information. Which means if you do publish the information in a way the subject feels is in violation it is up to them to take you to court over it. No police will be knocking on your door :) So the first point to make there is.. how likely are they to take you to court over it? An injunction is a form of legal finding called an equitable remedy (we have articles about all of these things BTW, I just checked) which in this case widely prohibits people from a certain act (publishing the info). If you violate the injunction the litigant has to take you to court, which will then decide if you have broken the injunction and, based on your specific case, award some form of damages. This may simply be fines, or worse. From a technical perspective the litigant may legitimately consider you telling your friends down the pub this information. From a practical perspective, if they took you to court over it they would not get far (because whilst the litigant is able to interpret the order as broadly as he or she likes, the courts interpretation is the binding one). The scope of the injunction depends a lot on the wording, but the intent in this case is to gag the media and other forms of mass publication - a judge is not very likely (at least in my experience of civil litigation) to interpret it so broadly. In addition, if a judge did allow the litigation to go fully before the courts there is great scope to argue that it is a violation of our right to free speech. Finally, if you are simply linking to already published information (i.e. on Wikipedia) there is a fairly strong argument that you are not the publisher of this information. Especially if you make no mention of the actual information in the communication. As the intent is to suppress the data it could be construed under necessary communique as part of complying with an equitable remedy. It is all a lot more complex than there is time for to go into in a single email :) but the practical upshot of this is; do not be too concerned about sending links to pre-published content that violates an injunction. The press has put a lot of stress on the terrifying scope and danger of these orders. There is danger (to society) in these things, and there is something to be concerned about. But not on a personal level. (IANAL; my interest in law is academic, but I have the good fortune to work alongside a pile of lawyers, civil and criminal) Tom On 20 May 2011 23:34, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote: On 20 May 2011 23:33, Thomas Morton morton.tho...@googlemail.com wrote: It's not publishing the info. It's fine. Err you are aware that the courts regard sending the information on a postcard counts as publishing? The point is to stifle mass media. That doesn't mean that they are the only people the law applies to. -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
Publish means to make public. To make available to the public. Telling your buddies in the locker room is not publishing. No it isn't. Telling one mate down the pub might but multiple people is kinda dicey. I assume more than one person has access to the User:Oversight feed. Exactly what is and isn't considered a private communication is a complex area though. -Original Message- From: geni geni...@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Fri, May 20, 2011 3:28 pm Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action On 20 May 2011 23:13, Thomas Morton morton.tho...@googlemail.com wrote: Ah. No thats not accurate. Fortunately even the British courts can't stamp On private communication. The injunction is on publishing the info. Telling your mates down the pub is fine. No it isn't. Telling one mate down the pub might but multiple people is kinda dicey. I assume more than one person has access to the User:Oversight feed. Exactly what is and isn't considered a private communication is a complex area though. -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
{{fact}}
I dispute that private communications are public.
Err you are aware that the courts regard sending the information on a
postcard counts as publishing?
-Original Message-
From: geni geni...@gmail.com
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Sent: Fri, May 20, 2011 3:34 pm
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 20 May 2011 23:33, Thomas Morton morton.tho...@googlemail.com wrote:
It's not publishing the info. It's fine.
Err you are aware that the courts regard sending the information on a
postcard counts as publishing?
The point is to stifle mass media.
That doesn't mean that they are the only people the law applies to.
--
geni
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Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On 21 May 2011 00:42, Wjhonson wjhon...@aol.com wrote:
{{fact}}
I dispute that private communications are public.
The catch is the postcards are not considered private (postman can
read them). If this applies to unencrypted emails (that can in theory
be read by the admin of any server they go through) is a question that
I've never run across an examination of.
As for the wider point:
In law publication means distribution to just one other person (the
third party) or potential distribution (for example on a postcard or
maybe even just graffiti written on a wall).
http://journalism.winchester.ac.uk/?page=227
--
geni
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Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
2) Regarding Our BLP policy has worked., that's a fascinating argument that the super-injunction *is* worthwhile. If Wikipedia defines verifiability in terms of major media sources, and the super-injunction inhibits those sources, then it effectively inhibits Wikipedia (even if it's impolitic to put it that way). I actually believe that the accumulated sourcing now *should* satisfy Wikipedia's verification requirements in the case of the footballer, and was tempted to make that argument. But given I have a nontrivial connection to UK jurisdiction, plus I'm sure I'd get a huge amount of personal attack due to the various politics, it wasn't worth it. Just observing, on various talk pages, I believe the WP:NOTCENSORED faction has made its sourcing argument poorly. Maybe there's another lesson there as to relative costs imposed. -- Seth Finkelstein Google searches for superinjunction Name of footballer name of squeeze yields no hits at reliable sources. Fred ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On Fri, May 20, 2011 at 18:01, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: 2) Regarding Our BLP policy has worked., that's a fascinating argument that the super-injunction *is* worthwhile. If Wikipedia defines verifiability in terms of major media sources, and the super-injunction inhibits those sources, then it effectively inhibits Wikipedia (even if it's impolitic to put it that way). I actually believe that the accumulated sourcing now *should* satisfy Wikipedia's verification requirements in the case of the footballer, and was tempted to make that argument. But given I have a nontrivial connection to UK jurisdiction, plus I'm sure I'd get a huge amount of personal attack due to the various politics, it wasn't worth it. Just observing, on various talk pages, I believe the WP:NOTCENSORED faction has made its sourcing argument poorly. Maybe there's another lesson there as to relative costs imposed. -- Seth Finkelstein Google searches for superinjunction Name of footballer name of squeeze yields no hits at reliable sources. I saw it in a reliable source recently that would have passed muster. I personally don't care who's had an affair with whom, so I didn't think to use it, but it would have been policy compliant -- except in the sense that it was only one source and BLPs are safer with multiple sources for anything contentious. So yes, the sourcing policy (V, not BLP) -- specifically the concept of verifiability, not truth -- did work. And, as Seth points out, that means the superinjunctions worked too, because they're the reason we lacked verifiability until recently. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
On Fri, May 20, 2011 at 18:01, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: 2) Regarding Our BLP policy has worked., that's a fascinating argument that the super-injunction *is* worthwhile. If Wikipedia defines verifiability in terms of major media sources, and the super-injunction inhibits those sources, then it effectively inhibits Wikipedia (even if it's impolitic to put it that way). I actually believe that the accumulated sourcing now *should* satisfy Wikipedia's verification requirements in the case of the footballer, and was tempted to make that argument. But given I have a nontrivial connection to UK jurisdiction, plus I'm sure I'd get a huge amount of personal attack due to the various politics, it wasn't worth it. Just observing, on various talk pages, I believe the WP:NOTCENSORED faction has made its sourcing argument poorly. Maybe there's another lesson there as to relative costs imposed. -- Seth Finkelstein Google searches for superinjunction Name of footballer name of squeeze yields no hits at reliable sources. I saw it in a reliable source recently that would have passed muster. I personally don't care who's had an affair with whom, so I didn't think to use it, but it would have been policy compliant -- except in the sense that it was only one source and BLPs are safer with multiple sources for anything contentious. So yes, the sourcing policy (V, not BLP) -- specifically the concept of verifiability, not truth -- did work. And, as Seth points out, that means the superinjunctions worked too, because they're the reason we lacked verifiability until recently. We routinely suppress disclosure of private information. When do the details of an affair become public? And how? Decisions by media editors is the short answer, but what criteria do they use? If the subjects are mere celebrities, as opposed to persons with political responsibilities, does intense public interest transmogrify private affairs to public? Fred ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Interesting legal action
It is not up to us to decide that something is private. If it's been published, then it is public. If it's been published in a reliable source, than it's useable in our project. We routinely suppress disclosure of private information. When do the details of an affair become public? And how? Decisions by media editors is the short answer, but what criteria do they use? If the subjects are mere celebrities, as opposed to persons with political responsibilities, does intense public interest transmogrify private affairs to public? Fred ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
