To get an idea of the ignorance floating round this BLP discussion at the moment, this is a sample of an "argument" that Wikipedians continue to push, allowing Wikipedia to continue to avoid any responsibility for the harm and rampant defamation it is causing...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_tal...raphical_optout













Obviously this "argument" shouldn't even come out of people's keyboards, let alone appear on a discussion page, and refuting it is so banal it seems not even worth bothering, but here it is again.

WIKIPEDIA IS NOT A NEWSPAPER.

NEWSPAPERS ARE PUBLISHERS, WIKIPEDIA IS NOT LEGALLY DEFINED AS A PUBLISHER AND IS LEGALLY EXEMPT FROM THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF PRINT MEDIA.

WHEN A NEWSPAPERS DEFAMES SOMEONE, IT LEAVES ITSELF OPEN TO LEGAL ACTION . WHEN WIKIPEDIA DEFAMES SOMEONE - WHICH OCCURS SOMEWHERE ON THE SITE AT ALL TIMES - IT IS NOT LEGALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THAT HARM.

IS THAT CLEAR?

WIKIPEDIA IS NOT A NEWSPAPER. AND ANY COMPARISON IS ENTIRELY INAPPROPRIATE.

I find that the large font and the red letters make your argument much more persuasive.

And I find your complete lack of cogent counter-argument telling. "Style over substance" is the Wikipedia way. You have it down perfectly, Mr. Everyking.

Yes. It's called Proof By Vigorous Assertion.

I tried to say the same thing, without font or color adjustments, as did Brandt immediately following me, but the Wikipediots obviously don't pay attention to persuasive arguments that maintain standard fonts and colors; therefore, I applaud Kato's efforts here.

Now, here is something that sometimes does get their attention:

Sjakkalle is a witless boob.

MBisanz is a mindless nincompoop.

Stifle is an incoherent twit.

Fram is without any measure of intellect.

Odd nature is a babbling idiot.

Blanchardb has the sagacity of a 3-year-old.

There, that ought to do it.

Greg

I'll see if I can extract a sensible argument from my colleague at Utah State who teaches Public Affairs Reporting, Online Journalism, and Ethics in Journalism.

Wikipedia's ArbCom has ruled that the use of bold and other formatting on talk pages is uncivil.

linkage

I hope the red bold font works out, because if they don't, the next step is rainbow font.

Don't make us go there, for everyones sake!

Not only are newspapers publishers who are legally responsible for what they print, they usually make some attempt to verify accuracy BEFORE AN ARTICLE IS PRINTED.

As opposed to the wonderful Wikipedia idea of "oh, surely someone will notice any defamation and remove it before it is a problem!"

And need I add that any comparison between Wikipedia and a newspaper (of any variety) is incredibly insulting to the people who publish newspapers?

Yeah. Journalism has an actual professional code of ethics, but even if it didn't, the law would prod them into doing it.

Newspapers can be sued for publishing defamatory letters, but Congress thought that defamation was too quaint a concept for the internet.

Beautiful summary, Kato.

Hello all,

So Kato raises the point that Wikipedia, as a database owned and operated by the Wikimedia Foundation, a 501©3 entity, is exempt from publisher's defamation laws. From my understanding of the topic, that seems to be true. However, I do believe that individual editors, are still totally liable for defamatory statements. Since the history of articles is publically available and even if the person is a registered editor, Wikimedia, has AFAIK, provided IP addresses per court subpoena, there is still a person who can be sued for making defamatory statements.

Further, I don't believe I said Wikipedia was in the same legal class as newspapers, merely that we practice a form of damage control similar to that of newspapers.

a mindless nincompoop

Ooooh, let's see how much we can sue an individual editor for! Whaddya think... 20 bucks? Hey, maybe we can garnish their wages and ultimately get, like, 100 bucks!

Just don't bother trying to get them to remove the revenge article that started the ball rolling, though - that's a non-starter.


Well then, you would have said something totally untrue in either case, wouldn't you have?

Fan-fucking-tastic. So you march into court, and after prying the IP from WMF, you politely subpoena Comcast, who might someday tell you that 128.X.X.X is a judgment-proof teenager in Omaha, Nebraska who didn't like your last movie.

MBisanz, this is the worst bullshit reply to the problem I've ever read.

Here's a clue: when newspapers screw up, they pay--not their writers. It forces them to behave responsibly. When nobody is accountable, and when there's no traditional code of ethics, we see the kinds of AfD debates that we do on Wikipedia. If I had a "marginally notable" friend defamed on the site, I would never run them through that gauntlet. You need a better option. I understand the objections to opting out, but FIXIT ferchristsake.

Oh, and being a non-profit has nothing to do with it. It's because Wikipedia is online, and congress decided that defamation shouldn't exist when a server hosts content provided by third parties such as myself. CDA Sec. 230. WR has the same immunity, and so does Google, and so does anyone who hosts "third party" content.

So you have an IP address. What happens when it belongs to an ISP, which is nearly always? They may well decide not to give out the information. And even if they are willing to, it's as likely as not to trace back to some teenager who just defamed you for "lulz". Suing teenagers is not something most people want to do.



So what? Newspapers also have procedures in place that are supposed to screen inaccurate information to a slow trickle before anything is even published. Things that will block a trickle do not necessarily work well against a firehose.

It's a feebly ineffective and therefore incredibly hypocritically cynical "attempt," to be sure. One that is designed to show that they are absent malice, because they did something in the way of a gesture. As for whether you're hurt or not, the average newspaper cares as little as Wikipedia, because (so long as they go through the motion of fact-checking, however badly) they have just as little to worry about in the way of retribution from you, as Wikipedia does.

If you want to see some truly ethically responsible journalism (and I hope you appreciate the irony)-- take a look at a bio mag that depends on repeat customers (that is, requires that its reputation for not screwing celebs stay intact, lest it get no more interviews). I'm talking about, yes, People Magazine. Look how careful, gentle, and ethical they are. I don't know if it's because they're intrinsically all nice people, and suspect it isn't. Doesn't matter. What does matter, is that the feedback loop is closed. So if they're not actually nice, they're forced to act as if they were.

The average newspaper or TV journalist, or private producer of peices to sell to TV, can expect never again to see the person or firm that they interview and may (for their own purposes to make something more "interesting") screw and trivialize and print errors about. And that's why they can get away with refusing to allow subject pre-vetting of articles, as a matter of "journalistic ethics". Ethics, my butt. This is as far from "ethics" as it's possible to be. Ethics evolve from repeat interactions and prior trust, in journalism no less than in business (see repeat customer) and personal relations (reputation, credentials). Where these don't happen, or don't exist, the fourth estate performs no better than WP, save for the fact that a stable of English lit majors there do prevent the gross obscenity-type of vandalism in newspapers, that shows up in WP. But that's about it. Don't give them credit for much else, because (unless they work for the Washington Post) they don't really deserve it.

Well I have tried to contribute to fixing the BLP issue. Its very very far outside my area of activity on Wikipedia, but I've said I'd probably agree to letting subjects post a rebuttal to sourced facts in their bio, and I've also pushed for all BLPs to be semi-protected with full protection on request, and of course I'd support for vigorous sanctions for people cause vandalizing BLPs (say an automatic 1 week block for starters).

But as you may have seen with the image debates, I don't like deleting workable material. And I don't trust admins like myself to have perfect judgment. So I don't like the idea of giving admins the right to delete bios on request.

Full protection on request (as long as it's truly on request, for as long as the subject wishes) would solve vandalism problems. What happens when the issue isn't vandalism? What happens if, as in Daniel Brandt's case, the issue is instead with what editors in good standing are writing?

You're comparing the retention of BLP's with fair-use images? And you follow that by saying that people should just accept the fact that they're going to be defamed by a bunch of anonymous revenge-obsessed internet goons because you don't like deleting workable material?

And you people wonder why sites like this exist!

Well, HEAVEN FORBID that the target of some Wikipedian's revenge obsession might actually suggest the deletion of "workable material"...

If a BLP is sourced, fairly presented, etc, I consider it workable material, and it shouldn't be deleted on subject request and I shouldn't decide on notability myself, thats what AFD is for.


And yes, when I say full protection on request, I mean person X emails OTRS saying "I feel there are issues with my article, do something about it" and OTRS goes in, removes libel, and indef full protects.

That's a lot of "if's," wouldn't you say? Of course, all those articles about tranny porn and pederasty are probably "workable" too, I suppose. It's important that people not be allowed to choose whether or not they get profiled by the same "editors" and on the same site as stuff like that, huh?

Also, I assume you meant you shouldn't decide on notability yourself... never mind that the whole concept of "notability" on Wikipedia is completely screwed up from the get-go.

Here's a question, then. Do you deny that numerous Wikipedia users, including some admins, are motivated by their desire to use the site to pursue private and public vendettas against living individuals with whom they disagree, compete with professionally or politically, or simply hate?


And if OTRS ignores the person completely? Or if the OTRS volunteer is the very person who's inserting the libel in the first place?

Well I've avoided BLPs altogether, but I would agree that in a population of 1500 admins, there is an extremly high probability that 1 or more of them have edited in pursuit of a vendetta. And I'd agree the number is higher for registered users who see wikipedia as an alternative forum to pursue their off-wiki aims and even higher for drive-by IP vandal edits, so essentially yes.

And well I'd say that OTRS person would be abusing their access, and no I don't know how to report OTRS abuse. I assume though that the person could email a random admin, and that the odds of both admins being in league to thwart that person would be low.

I refactored my prior post to relect my intent, giving individual admins more individual discretion is probably a bad thing. Under BLP opt out I could also imagine admins who say "no I won't delete your bio because you are notable and if you ask anyone else we will add libel", so that wouldn't be exempt from abuse.

Such an admin would have to explain himself once the story made it into the mass media, surely? Why, that might actually be grounds for a desysopping!

Anyway, the whole point should be to take arbitrary notions of "notabilty" out of the equation. Simply make a rule whereby anyone who has been the subject of a published (and not vanity-published!) biography is exempt from the opt-out policy, and the problem is solved.

Beyond that, sure, we'd all expect there to be a certain amount of administrative malfeasance in the application of such a policy, but probably no more than in the application of any other WP policy. Remember, the point is not necessarily to protect the interests of the relative handful (I'd continue to guess considerably fewer than 500) of bio subjects who are the subjects of attack articles being protected by established editors. The point is to put Wikipedia into a position of leadership throughout the interwebs in making the interwebs safe for genuine and responsible freedom of social and political expression. Flouting of personal libel and defamation laws, and providing anonymous goons with a free revenge platform, does the opposite of that - it leads to lawsuits, crackdowns, and ultimately, legislative intervention.

In other words, if Wikipedia doesn't start policing itself, there's a pretty good chance that eventually the police will do it for them.

So, my colleague (who is two time zones west of me) got home late last night, well after I had gone to bed. She found the message I had left for her...

Regardless of BLPs, newspaper arguments or even blathering masses, the root issue is that Wikipedia is ultimately a publication, regardless of whether the WMF publishes it or whether it is some amorphous mass that does the publication, and therefore there should be some system of ethical control and a readily contactable body which assumes the mantle of responsibility for the publication on behalf of this amorphous mass. As it is a publication, then rather than trying to invent some untried system of control, it should in the first instance look to the industry best practices as ways of dealing with an issue, whether that industry is telecoms or is publishing.

It seems to me that WMF functions worse than an ISP (if we disregard the rogue ones in difficult to police countries). An ISP is genuinely uninvolved in the majority of crap that they host. If they are presented with evidence of improper materials, they are uninvolved enough to simply get rid of problem users, they do not want the grief, they do not debate, they have no interest in saving the world through all this vital information published, without which the world will surely end. They implement acceptable use policies to allow them to do this, yet keep plausible deniability. Jimbo himself in the past HAS intervened, so he did acknowledge a responsibility, presumably in his role as a WMF member.

WMF has not understood that if it is feasible for ISPs to ultimately take responsibility for the contents of their servers, there should be a way for the WMF to do the same without piercing the shelter of section 230 or whatever. That might be as simple as saying - "If we get complaints, the article goes, we do not investigate or take responsibility other than that" and taking the flak from the Wikipediots. Alternatively, the WMF should finance and impose a control system, even if that system is run by some arms length organisation (presumably answerable to the community rather than WMF, though operating within mandated ethical limits).

If crap takes down the good with it, the community might have an incentive to develop better ethical policies to deal with the problem in the first place.

If and when the WP community tumbles to the notion that they have a collective responsibility to adhere to some normative standards of accuracy, excellence, and ethics in onlne media, perhaps we can pick up the conversation where it left off last September, when the adversarial editors who pitched me overboard summarily rejected that notion.

(fixed for readability)


And the people who post the material aren't, either? But that's not really relevant to my point here



While legal liability on the part of WMF vs on the part of the newspaper publisher is not one of them, it can hardly be denied that there are other similarities between Wikipedia and a newspaper.

The people who post material are in the large part anonymous and unaccountable. They are very difficult to track down, and Wikipedia's culture actually discourages this. Ask Fuzzy Zoeller how he's getting on with his case regarding gross defamation by Wikipedia?
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/9913/53/

Anyone who thinks that an anonymous drive-by editor is acting with the same diligence and intentions as a credited journalist is out of their minds. There is virtually no legal incentive to prevent an anonymous editor from seriously defaming a subject. Which is why Wikipedia does it so often -- more often in a week than print journalism will do in a year or more. WP carries sections in biographies called "Wife-beater" which turn out to be gross distortions and lies, Siegenthaler gets accused of shooting Kennedy etc. And this happens all the time, only a tiny percentage of these constant outrages reach the wider world as evidence of failings. But even they are enough to cause alarm. Or should be in any mature, thinking person.

If Wikipedia seriously wants to stop random people adding libelous crap to BLPs, a good start would be to add, in huge, multicoloured, preferably blinking letters (much like Kato's), a message that says "you're legally responsible for saying John Doe is a homosexual terrorist" at the top of the edit window.

Sure, it won't detract those who realise that they can't easily be tracked, but it's better than the current climate of waiting for OTRS complaints.

or indeed, in these enlightened times "Jane Doe is a heterosexual terrorist"

Sexist pig that I am.