Message here; thread here.

And with a memorable opinion by Mike Godwin proving all at the same time that:

1) On this matter he's an uninformed lawyer
2) He's not too concerned with ethics in this matter
3) He's a pretty typical lawyer

It does show incredibly that WMF's legal councel is just about as cynical about WMF policy as everybody has been saying WMF is. And as ignorant about Sec 230. So I have to give Fiery Angel that.

I can hear in my ears the cue from the Warlords2 game:

"Warlord... a mighty battle is brewing!"

I suppose we should start an Office Pool on how many days of Media Φrenzie they will milk out of this one before they drop it and move on to the next DejaVideo.

What would count as the marker for the day they drop it?

Jon

That's why I claim that Jimbo blew it bigtime when he and Cary Bass came sweeping into Wikiversity and issued a non-negotiable fiat declaring specific content regarding ethical studies verboten, whilst protecting and defending other defamatory content that Sue Gardner now admits is a looming cancer on the project.

Only 3 years too late.

And only because the media has started to really pick up on this. Note how she says "I've been increasingly concerned lately about Wikimedia's coverage". Not "I've been increasingly concerned lately about the utterly unethical and scandalous situation our site has created".

BLP was always one of the major threats to society posed by Wikipedia, and anyone not giving it due weight is merely providing a clueless interference. Yet the amount of blogs and podcasts involving Wikipedians, where they prattle on about irrelevant crap and other Mimbo-Jimbo instead of this key matter has been galling.

Foundation-centric worldview, yeah, but she still recognizes it as a blindingly obvious problem.

It's turning out to be a good Pulaski Day.

Here's an idea for a marker let's say we count the onset of this Gardner-directed DejaVideo as an EOV marker for the Wales-directed DejaVideo on Flogged Re*Visions. By that logic we can take the onset of the Summer Re*Run of Whatever-It-Will-Bee as the EOV marker for the Gardner Show.

Howsabout that?

Jon

I sent Mike a private email asking him what those cases were. Haven't received a response yet.

I suspect it's just Mike blabbing about things he's knows to be untrue. After all just about every website on the Internet has a content policy which is created and enforced by the corporation who runs the website (*). Are all their lawyers incompetent, and Mike Godwin is the only competent one?

(*) Facebook's new "open governance" system, which will probably be a huge failure, being one of the rare exceptions.

Given that Gardner has only been there for two and a half years, this criticism seems at least 16.7% too harsh.

My reading is that he is very mindful of Roommates and either shares my own interpretation or at least finds it too risky to ignore.

Φish, Seals.
Seals, Φish.

Arf Arf …

Jon

Sorry, I misread that — It's really more like this:

Wiki-Punch Wiki-Judy.

Wiki-Judy Wiki-Punch.

Since Wiki-Punch and Wiki-Judy are perfectly capable of having this "argument" in the sanctimoney of their Saint Fracas Inner Sanctum, there must be some other reason why we are being treated to this Public MarshMeloDrama, dontcha think?

Goll-eeee, Barney, you'd think that Moulton, at least, would recognize a Bit O' Dramaturdy when he sees one.

Jon

Godwin's position is entirely reasonable from the point of view of the Foundation. The more that content restrictions are imposed by the Foundation, the more their immunity is placed at risk. Unlike anthony, who I'm sure is a highly qualified attorney specializing in section 230 jurisprudence, I don't know exactly where the invisible line is that, if crossed, will expose the WMF to liability for all the bad biographies. (Perhaps anthony should offer his services to the WMF, pro bono of course.) And of course, Godwin's personal sense of ethics is entirely subordinated by his duty to provide legal advice; if he finds the advice ethically objectionable, he can quit, but he can't give advice he believes is dangerous.

The point of all this being that Sue can beat her breast all she likes and Jimbo can weep tears of sympathy for the poor notable unknowns who find themselves under Wikipedia's microscope, but nothing concrete will be done.

Plus 10 for style, minus 10 for substance.

Be interesting to see what he says.

In any event, Gardner has to know that any line of content policy-control has already long been crossed anyway, what with all of those Jimbo "non-negotiable" pronouncements on what "editors" can and can't do . "Non-negotiable" MEANS by definition that Jimbo and friends decided it, and the community didn't, and can't in the future.

Otherwise, who exactly does he think he's "not negotiating" with?

I can't believe that this discussion on foundation-l has been centered around what color to make the links to complain and where the buttons should go on the page for people to complain.

What about policies that prevent this type of damage from happening in the first place?

Someone on another discussion has compared this to doctors discussing treatment of a cancer patient arguing about whether the pillows are fluffed up and whether the right TV shows are playing. Wouldn't it be better to treat the cancer?

If Sue really wanted input as to how to change the policy, she should have started at places like this, rather than asking the choir to join with a hearty "amen"...

edit: well, look at this: stimulus/response

Doubleplusungood (for Mike Godwin), Jimbo has expressly rejected and ruled out the notion of an autonomous community-crafted social contract setting forth a governance model independent of WMF and Jimbo's imperious dictats.

By the way, here's an update on flagged revisions:



Well, they're still talking about it, anyway...

Sure, entirely reasonable - if the goal is to be able to host content of such a poor standard, you need to protect yourself from getting sued for it.

And it's not that difficult a problem. We suggested transcluded tags for BLP pages long ago:



I mean, how difficult can this OTRS access really be?

Why, thank you, Fiery. And thank you, Sue.

Perhaps the WMF will get a clue and mandate flagged revisions for BLPs in all the different language Wikipedias.

Only the ones we've been banging on about relentlessly for the past few years. These are my basic demands from a year ago:

All this is about is the people Wales meets at parties, and has stuff all to do with BLPs in general. Jimi just doesn't want to have to apologize next time he's hanging out with slime balls like Toni Blair and Richi Branson coz WP says they're shit.

AF

Time to recount the Jimbo Morality Tale again:

If BLP-malignancy is one of the cancers of Wikipedia (and I think it is, so the metaphor is worth extending) then the "preventive measures" will depend on how well you can live without the tissue at-risk. How do you prevent cancer in that chronically inflammed bowel, that undescended testicle, or those badly dysplastic uterine cervical cells? Answer: you can't. If you don't remove them entirely, it's only a matter of time before they become malignant in many cases. The same with online biographies.

We're not talking about Wikipedia's brain and lungs, here. And BLP is in no way the heart of the encyclopedia, unless you really are trying to build the Encyclopedia Revengica, as has been suggested. As we've discussed here endlessly, even the great Britannica got along without any BLPs at all, all the way from 1768 to 1910. And if Britannica had been subject to instant vandalism without any editorial shield, one wonders if they'd have dared to put BLPs even in the 1911 edition. I think not. In any case, Wikipedia can do without them.

Right now, they're holding onto their quarter million BLPs like some woman holding onto her 8 fetuses. It borders on the macabre. Don't try to maintain what you cannot care for.

You're expecting more than is reasonable from any organization run by human beings. Just how often, in the real world, does any organization's spokesperson say "We're evil, unethical, and more harm to the universe than help; I'd say we need a complete radical restructuring, but that probably wouldn't work; it would be better if we immediately disbanded. Perhaps we should get the Army to detonate a tactical nuke on our headquarters. Everybody involved in our organisation should commit suicide right away; Kool-Aid is available in our offices right now; get there quickly to beat the tactical nuke!"

The more typical pattern for an entity that's been doing something bad (slavery, apartheid, torturing dissidents, burning people at the stake for asserting that the Earth goes around the Sun, selling products that poison children, etc... things much more awful than anything Wikipedia has ever done) is to go through stages like:

1. Aggressively support the status quo, declaring it to be utterly righteous and that it will continue forever, and demonize and persecute anybody who dares criticize it
2. While continuing to support the rightness of the policy, admit that times are changing and some careful reform might be desirable; everything we ever did was definitely the right thing to do at the time, in the circumstances, but in the current changed circumstances one can at least contemplate the idea that perhaps an overly aggressive pursuit of such policies might be less desirable than to moderate their application and to consider allowing things that were previously prohibited.
3. After there has been enough change of leadership that few of the original supporters of the former harsh policy are still around, the new leaders without any personal stake in the old system, and some stake in the new system that replaced it, might finally admit that the old policy was wrong, and apologize for it. This can take decades or centuries sometimes.

just fyi, Kato - (hope you don't mind) :-)

Maybe there's light at the end of the tunnel? (though maybe it's an oncoming train?)

I don't see semi-protection of all BLPs ever making it off the ground, but a trial of Flagged Revisions should be a no-brainer.

It would be interesting to see how many BLP's would be deleted if a stricter set of sources were required.

Kevin

on the mailing list, Philippe Birken just said:
Great. Now get the en-wiki
people to go along. Gooood luck, sonny.

And as usual, Gerard is a wet blanket.

This is a laff-riot.
All I can say is, may I please have some money to edit WP???
For $2000/month, I'll even call David Gerard a good bloke.....

Eh? Why? I would think it would be exactly the other way around, with sprotect the no-brainer, and flagged-versions having a hard time.

After all, if you had a Bio on yourself, would you like it exposed to nearly unblockable IP vandals from every junior high school in the world? Try to use your imagination.

You see that Jimbo and his girlfriends and a lot of WP personnel have their own bios sprotected. I take that to mean that's therefore a no-brainer. Since some of these people are not known for their huge brains.

Get real.

Real World.

The Russell Brand Show - broadcast apology: BBC Management statement



BBC Trust statement in full - Re: Rigged Phone-in Competitions



BBC director-general Mark Thompson - Re:Apology to Queen for unethical documentary practices.

Wiki-World

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=157139762

Mike Godwin: "The available cases (mostly US cases, but some foreign ones) suggest that any top-down initiative from the Foundation to control the development or maintenance of content (including BLPs) runs the risk of being interpreted by courts and/or legislatures as general editorial control, which would undercut the legal principles we rely on to protect the Foundation."

This is extremely naive in at least two ways.

First, deliberately refraining from an initiative, when one is called for, can equally well be interpreted as exercise of control (protection of the status quo).

Second, these initiatives began the moment Jimbo Wales received veto rights, which he has actively used to influence certain BLPs.

I am convinced that 'the line' was crossed a long time ago. All it takes is someone motivated and with deep enough pockets and WP will be dismantled.

I think I see the solution —

They need to change the name to Eavesdropedia and display the following motto at the top of every page:

Eavesdropedia — the obscene phone call that any heavy breather can join.

Jon

I don't see how Roommates applies, except for the part in which immunity was granted 2-1.

But it is quite telling that Godwin uses the term "general editorial control". A search for that term in case law comes up with Stratton Oakmont Inc. v. Prodigy Services Co., which was the decision that Section 230 of the CDA was passed in order to overturn.

Let me be clear, here. I'm not accusing Mike of not understanding the law. What I am accusing him of is making an incomplete and intentionally misleading statement on the mailing list. Note that his post didn't even mention Section 230 of the CDA.



[citation needed]



What in the world would make you think that?



Then don't comment on whether or not Mike is giving good advice. As I pointed out, his advice contradicts that of just about every other company operating an Internet website.



I doubt he'll respond, and I don't really blame him. It's counter to his client's interests to point out cases which might be used against it in court.

What we need is one or preferably a few lawyers uninterested in the WMF to offer commentary on this. It seems glaring to me that Mike is taking a position far outside the norm. Let's take a look at Google Knol's content policy:



Google doesn't "make *suggestions* to the community about what content policy should be". It makes the policy, and it enforces it.

I've spoken to Godwin before about this, though it was before the example of Google Knol was available, so I had to use a less perfect analogy. His response was basically that Google can afford to take these risks, because it has more money to spend on lawyers. That's a terrible response for so many reasons:

1) Google has quite clearly adopted these policies to minimize its legal risks. There's simply no business reason for it to do so other than to minimize legal risks.

2) It's bullshit. If the WMF adopted a policy of policing its own content, and they got sued because of it, free legal help would come pouring in from around the globe - in fact, Google itself would probably send a team of lawyers over to help, since they'd be one of the biggest losers if a precedent got set that adopting and enforcing content policies causes a corporation to lose its Section 230 immunity. I mean, c'mon, every friggen Internet company on the planet would be in line to offer free legal help in order to avoid setting such a ridiculous precedent.

3) Even if this were truly an unavoidable cost of having and enforcing a content policy, it's still worth it to have it. If my choices are between a Wikipedia with ads and a Wikipedia with libel, I choose ads.

Ms. Gardner’s attitude passes here as enlightened, but is actually grossly irresponsible, and exemplifies the problem I see with the singular focus on BLPs. A respectable reference work would see a significant mistake in an article about the War of 1812 as a very serious problem, which causes people real-world harm: it defrauds readers.

Such a cavalier attitude towards content, naturally accompanied as it is by indifference to who is contributing it and why, is exactly what makes biographies a problem to begin with. The difference here is, instead of the damage being distributed among thousands of readers who may never realize that they’ve been misled, there is someone motivated enough to complain.

To jimmy the system especially for biographies amounts to an admission of general failure: given that we are inevitably and by design a font of misinformation, let’s limit the damage to people naïve enough to rely upon us. As it is, the only way to spare third parties from damage is to stop publishing completely, making it visible only to participants until the underlying problems are addressed.

There are days when I just can't believe how naive some people can be.

A lawyer talking to the Press, or just plain shooting the breeze in Public, is a whole different game than a lawyer making a case in court.

You need to ask yourself why Godwin is blathering on about this stuff in a Public Forum.

Jon

WMF is on increasingly shaky grounds when it comes to using Section 230 to shield itself from liability.

It's a no-win situation for WMF. If they don't exercise responsible content management, the project will continue to devolve into an unregulated, out-of-control defamation machine.

If they do exercise responsible content management, they belatedly assume editorial responsibility for the defamation nightmare that WP has become.

With a $6M annual budget, WMF cannot afford to defend itself from a serious lawsuit. More than likely, the project would simply sink under the weight of litigation.

The project might have saved itself had it started with functional social contract, jointly crafted by WMF and the volunteer community. But now it's too late for that.

The Titanic is on a collision course with the looming iceberg, and there is nothing anyone can do to stop the trainwreck or save the pundits from using atrocious mixed metaphors.

Image here:

I'm afraid I have to agree - there's been nothing but hemming, hawing, stalling, and empty rhetoric from the Foundation and Jimbo on this issue (and many others) for years. Not to mention the usual arrogance, hypocrisy, and dishonesty... This is just more of the same. I have to assume they're just gassing on about it because it helps them assuage their consciences in some way.

But hey, that's what making the internet suck is all about!

Nicely put.

Too late!

Again, I still think nothing will change, until they GET SUED.

Wow. That's some thread, and no mistake. I was skimming through the posts, having a laugh, but had to stop because part of the lyric of that famous song by the Beatle Band kept running through my mind : "It's a gas, gas, gas". Yes. By the way, if anyone's wondering whether there's a technological solution for the spotting of any future gaseous mailing-list threads they could try this device. Very reliable model.

hey, even I know that's a Stones song....

That Bottled Spider user seems to pride himself in having even less factual accuracy than Wikipedia.

The Stone Roses? No way. I'm sure it was Paul McCartrey and his Beatle Band; you know, from the 70's/80's. No band with the word "Stones" in their name could possibly catch on, ever. Electric guitars are dead.

PS
That song? Could have been the Kinkies.

That's, bullshit Moulton. There are few sites accepting user-generated content that set fewer ground rules than Wikipedia. Section 230 was invented precisely so that exerting control would not invalidate immunity.

It has nothing to do with ground rules — since Wikipedia is groundless there — it has to do with the capricious and discriminatory actions of site ownership.

Redlining is still illegal.

Jon Awbrey

One of the more interesting aspects of the Godwin list post is his reference to non-US authorities. With this he widens the scope beyond Sec 230. This is the first public acknowledgment, as far as I know, by WMF of a wider risk management strategy premised on the bifurcation of the corporation and "the community." Previously this was discussed by critics but not the foundation. It is the public unveiling of the Great Firewall of Irresponsibility.

I don't know the in and outs of what is obviously a transient interpretation of an ephemeral law.

All I know is that there are some practices that a Free And Civil Society (FACS) will not tolerate — well, not for long … well, not forever.

One of those intolerable practices is conspiracy to deny people their civil rights.

You just can't keep saying, "It's a Public Service", with one fork of your tongue, "But it's more like a Private Club", with the other fork of your tongue — like they just keep doing on the Wiki Lists — and get away with it for long. The Mind rebels at that kind of "logic", and The People will eventually get wise and smash it.

Jon Awbrey