On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 10:45 AM, Carcharoth <[email protected]> wrote: > > This whole debate makes the point that when the WMF legal counsel gets > involved because some outside organisation has sent him a letter, and > this debate between lawyers then becomes public, the community > sometimes looks like a deer caught in the headlights, unsure whether > they should debate the issue, or apply what counsel has said, or ask > counsel for further advice. > > The problem with the first two approaches is that the debate might end > up with the wrong result, and if people say "but we followed the WMF > legal counsel's advice" (even if they misinterpreted what he said), > that might be bad for several reasons. The problem with the third > approach is that the WMF legal counsel doesn't scale, and you can't > ask him everything about every image (though if someone thinks it > worth contacting him, they should always do so). The best of several > poor options seems to be for the community to judge as best they can, > contact the WMF legal counsel in rare cases only, and take note if an > external request leads to the WMF legal counsel over-riding a > community debate and learn the lessons from that. >
We have a voluminous body of policy for the legal questions we need to address without the assistance of the WMF (e.g. copyright policies at various levels, WP:NLT, etc.), but I don't see the issue with asking for Mike's input in situations with unusual circumstances. We have a tendency towards knee-jerk reactions, whether its "OMG DELETE!" or "piss off with your censorship." The FBI Seal / Badge issue is a pretty good example of why we actually need Mike's opinion to limit the risk posed by the overly cautious or the overly incautious. Nathan _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
