Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Aidan Work

message: Hello FreplySpang. Included in your "outside comment" at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Aidan Work you said there "is concern that some of these posts may verge on libel". There is no "may verge on libel" about it. This user's statement (that Tariana Turia tried to cause a bloodbath) is defamatory. If she felt so inclined she  could take him to court in NZ where people read the defamation on Wikipedia while in their homes in NZ. In other words, the defamation was "published" in New Zealand. The author, living in NZ, has given his full name, has not denied authorship, cannot now deny authorship, has not retracted his statement, or apologised. He has stated his hatred for Turia. so there is malice aforethought as well. He doesn't have the defence  "it is true" because he could never prove it is true. This could be very damaging for Wikipedia in terms of bad publicity (a la the Seigenthaler debacle). It has the potential to be the first case where a contributor is sued for defamation, made all the more newsworthy because he is not domiciled in the US, where the medium that carried the statement is domiciled. Turia is a MP in NZ, a former Minister. She could stand in Parliament and ridicule and tear Wikipedia to shreds to such a degree that it was newsworthy internationally. I think this guy needs to have a tight rein put on him before he does more damage. Moriori 22:58, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: In addition his comments on Gerry Adams are definatively slanderous in Ireland, far from "verging on" but straight into the stage where saying them outside the Dail would be pretty much guaranteed to lead to prosecution. --Kiand 23:00, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thank you both for spelling this out. I very much appreciate it, and I appreciate your concern for this important issue. I phrased my comment conservatively because I am unfamiliar with libel laws outside the USA. FreplySpang (talk) 23:09, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Coincidentally, did you see the news report today here about an Italian judge finding that cyclist Lance Armstrong must go on trial for defamation next year A lawyer successfully argued that even though Armstrong's comments were published in France, the act of defamation against fellow cyclist Simeoni occurred when Simeoni read the newspaper via the internet. Moriori 03:02, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting. It certainly raises some large questions about Internet jurisdiction. FreplySpang (talk) 20:52, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reply to User:FreplySpang

message: It is my view that WP:NPOV applies primarily if not exclusively to articles. Statements of opnion are, within reason at least, appropriate on a user page, and may well be appropriate on article talk pages. Similarly WP:V applies primarily to article pages, IMO. However WP:NPA applies particualrly to talk pages of all kinds, as well as to user pages, and WP:CIVIL applies (or should apply) to all pages on wikipedia.
I myself have strong political and persoanl opnions on many subjects. I have not chosen to, but could reasonably, give a short non-inflamatory summery of these on my user page, it might even be a good idea to allow others to discount any bias I may have. I try not to, and should not, allow those viww to affect my editing on wikipedia generally. All wikipediians should attempt to adhere to WP:NPOV in all article edits, and to at least have it in mind in making comments on article talk pages, IMO.
As I understand it, the dispute involves, among other things, creating POV forks of articles to support a particular position on the politics of Ireland in relation to the UK. That is a very contentious issue, and creating POV forks is a very bad idea. DES (talk) 21:48, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: As you may have missed them, here are my comments which started discussions on this page, and which are relevant to your comments here.  'Included in your "outside comment" at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Aidan Work you said there "is concern that some of these posts may verge on libel". There is no "may verge on libel" about it. This user's statement (that Tariana Turia tried to cause a bloodbath) is defamatory. If she felt so inclined she could take him to court in NZ where people read the defamation on Wikipedia while in their homes in NZ. In other words, the defamation was "published" in New Zealand. The author, living in NZ, has given his full name, has not denied authorship, cannot now deny authorship, has not retracted his statement, or apologised. He has stated his hatred for Turia. so there is malice aforethought as well. He doesn't have the defence "it is true" because he could never prove it is true. This could be very damaging for Wikipedia in terms of bad publicity (a la the Seigenthaler debacle). It has the potential to be the first case where a contributor is sued for defamation, made all the more newsworthy because he is not domiciled in the US, where the medium that carried the statement is domiciled. Turia is a MP in NZ, a former Minister. She could stand in Parliament and ridicule and tear Wikipedia to shreds to such a degree that it was newsworthy internationally. I think this guy needs to have a tight rein put on him before he does more damage.'  And the following day,  'Coincidentally, did you see the news report today .... about an Italian judge finding that cyclist Lance Armstrong must go on trial for defamation next year A lawyer successfully argued that even though Armstrong's comments were published in France, the act of defamation against fellow cyclist Simeoni occurred when Simeoni read the newspaper via the internet.'   I respectfully disagree with your comments that Wikipedia  "ought not to apply the legal restrictions of any country except that of the U.S.", and, "Many other countries have particular restrictions on publications which we (Wikipedia) should not IMO attempt to comply with".  We must comply with any and all legal restrictions that effect Wiki and/or its contributors IMO, no matter where they were promulgated. Moriori 23:21, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Then we differ. Editors should be aware of the laws of their own countries, and consider whether an edit might be in conflict with such law. But a policy not to allow any content that violates any law anywhere would effectively censor the wikik accordign to the simultanious, and incompatible, notions of the many jurisdictions that drastically restict free speech and publications in one way or another. Shall we restrict our coverage of China in accord with teh laws of the PRC? Shall we restrict our coverage of Turkish history in accorance with that country's laws. Shall we restrict sexual content and content discussing alcohol in accord with the laws of various islamic countries? I say clearly not. But we are getting rather far afield from the topic of this RfC.DES (talk) 02:15, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: We are not getting far afield from the topic of this RfC by any stretch of the imagination. The third sentence of his RfC says of his edits "Many of them are strongly libelous....."'. I thought it would be crystal clear by now that Wikipedia cannot publish defamatory information about anyone, anywhere. The John Seigenthaler saga should surely be a graphic enough warning of this. And yet you still infer that Wikipedia should not be subject to laws of foreign countries. Sorry. Wikipedia cannot make that choice. Does the Lance Armstrong example (above) mean nothing to you? I agree there are some mighty cans of worms out there, but the best way to deal with them is to not defame people on Wikipedia. Moriori 03:05, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You will note that I said above statements which are clearly defamatory have no place on wikipedia, and statements which are even arguably defamatory and not properly sourced should not be in wikipedia articles, IMO.. I am not arguing for a right to defame on wikipedia. But then, applying the laws of Florida and the U.S will prevent defamation, and without even resorting to questions of legality, defmatory content is pretty clearly against wikipedia policy, and so should not be included even if in some particular case it is not technically illegal (for example if the person is in the US, is a public figure, and the defamation cannot be proved to meet the Actual malice standard). There is really not a need to argue over whether statements "verged on libel" or "were clearly libelous", and whether they were libel under US law or only under the law of some other country. Defamatory statements, particularly unsourced defamatory statemens, do not belong on wikipedia, and posting them, particualarly in articles, is a violation of policy, or should be. It is your much more general statement that We must comply with any and all legal restrictions that effect Wiki and/or its contributors IMO, no matter where they were promulgated. to which i take strong exception. DES (talk) 03:22, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Not to mention blasphemy laws, which are on the books in several countries. We are to comply with them? Obviously not. -EDM 02:37, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  You, (EDM and DES), might like to comment here. Moriori 20:39, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Relevant policies