RationalWiki talk:Legal FAQ

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You're gonna kill me, but... can I make grammar edits? ThunderkatzHo! 07:24, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

WP:BOLD, as they say. Mjollnir.svgListenerXTalkerX 07:25, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
I am still mucking around with it, will open it up to edits before I do anything official with it, but proceed if you like. The most efficient path might be to wait for me to finish construction. Tmtoulouse (talk) 07:30, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
I'll wait, with gritted teeth :p Reminds me of the good ol' days. ThunderkatzHo! 07:52, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

[edit] Slander and stuff

The thing is that as a wiki project each page is constantly changing and evolving, the content changes, the style changes and the current version is always, really, a work in progress. This makes identifying and attributing anything defamatory. While on signed talk pages we can handwave things as not the responsibility of anyone but the indiviudal who says it, the contents of articles seems more complicated. If legal exception can't be made for a collaborative wiki project, then any diff, even one that is reverted, could be considered slanderous. So if that is the case, an unscrupulous individual can make a slanderous statement about themselves and then attempt to sue RW for libel merely for hosting their own comment. While I don't know if there's even a legal precedent for such a thing, I think this idea should be included somewhere in the answer. Scarlet A.pngtheist 19:01, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Truly slanderous material should be oversited. I am no expert but I think the law generally protects us in cases where someone inserts defamatory/libel into an article. It is the individual who inserted it that is responsible for it. Now if it is brought to our attention in an official capacity and we refuse to do anything about it, that is likely another story. I don't know how much we want to break into these details. Tmtoulouse (talk) 00:35, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
Also, we should probably mention some kind of comedy exception (i.e., obviously untrue slander used for the sake of comedy). ThunderkatzHo! 01:19, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
Well maybe we should do like other sections, keeping things brief here but doing a longer discussion on its own subpage. Tmtoulouse (talk) 01:21, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
That works too. ThunderkatzHo! 01:39, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
Do we need some general guide for the things we can say about living people?--BobSpring is sprung! 12:05, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
As I mentioned on the Talk:Ramanada Jhingade article, I don't think we do. Our policy of "true unless obviously comedy" applies to living people just as well as it does to anything else. --Eira OMTG! The Goat be Praised. 12:39, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
Yes, but maybe we should have something in our user's guide telling people that if they make some true but very negative statement about somebody then it should be sourced or demonstrated in some way. OK, in one sense that's true for everything, but I think it's even more important with living people.--BobSpring is sprung! 12:54, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
I fear that the chilling effect upon honest criticism, and creative satire would be too great to bear for the purpose of this wiki. The wiki holds that we will call bullshit bullshit. I do not think "we need to CYA" is a good enough reason to violate our deeply entrenched philosophies. At some point, RW is willing to stand up against the bullshit, and forcing all bullshit-naming to be heavily sourced seems.... un-Rationalwiki. --Eira OMTG! The Goat be Praised. 13:01, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
Except that is what we should be doing. It's intellectual honesty. We can't just say "you're full of crap" without backing it up as thoroughly as possible. Also, I'd be careful about adding "comedy" caveats - humour is relative and even comedians can be done for slander. "Oh it's a joke" isn't a good defense or even a legitimate excuse for blatant falsehoods and insults creeping into the site. Scarlet A.pngtheist 14:05, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
Let's say that somebody swings through here and writes that somebody has previous conviction for murder, theft or rape. Let's say that they put in an article that he is a paedophile. I'd say that anything like that should be pretty well documented. Indeed, anything criminal should be covered. Then let's imagine that we say that he's well known as a drunk in has local town - I'd say that we would need to be careful of anything like that as well and make sure that we could back it up and do it sooner rather than later.
On the other hand saying that somebody is into pseudoscience or woo is a different kettle of fish. We usually have ample stuff to back that up - and obviously if we don't then we shouldn't say it.--BobSpring is sprung! 14:27, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
This is why I'm weary of people talking about "obvious" woo. There are more than a few stubs where the judgment to evidence ratio isn't entirely satisfactory. I think complacency is the issue there and that many people are too quick to come to a conclusion without having attempted to research the thing properly. Every fledgling skeptic does this at some point as it's just part of the learning curve. Perhaps taking evidence and citations far more seriously could be the resolution for 2011? RationalWiki:Project Citation Found is a step in the right direction there. Scarlet A.pngtheist 14:54, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of accusations that RW promotes vandalism

Accusations of that the site supports vandalism, hacking or other illegal activities are a personal defamatory attack on our members and particularly those that have stepped up to help run the Foundation. Such accusations made on RationalWiki will be removed as defamatory.

Is that really necessary or helpful? These kind of criticisms from certain quarters probably aren't going to go away in a hurry, whether we revert them or not. The best response is to refute them openly, not delete them which could imply that we have something to hide. WėąṣėḷőįďWeaselly.jpgMethinks it is a Weasel 13:12, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

I have to agree. Some members of RW do engage in vandalism, and other illicit activities against creationists. I would rather say that such claims are "baseless"... like homeopathy; rather than "defamatory". --Eira OMTG! The Goat be Praised. 13:24, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
Really, Eira? Care to cite an example of a RWian currently engaging in vandalism? And not the CP definition of the word. Seriously though, those accusations come from one loser on a third-rate little hate-blog, who cites a 4-year-old article. It's easier to refute than to delete them. --Ψ GremlinSnakk! 13:31, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
You're asking me to cite examples for something that I explicitly state is a baseless claim. If I had or knew of examples, then I would not call the claim baseless. We all know that SOME users have done some bad things, but they have done it without the promotion or organization of RationalWiki itself. --Eira OMTG! The Goat be Praised. 13:45, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
Sorry, I read the "some members of RW do engage in vandalism" as implying that we do engage in vandalism. --Ψ Gremlin講話 13:52, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
And what about parody? -- Nx / talk 13:52, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
Our starting point is the generally publicly accepted definition of "vandalism" - not the one employed by one right-wing fuckhead who sees it as "somebody wrote something I didn't like. --Ψ GremlinFale! 13:59, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
Yes but, it's not as simple as that. What about deliberately inserting false information? -- Nx / talk 14:00, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
Rob, Ed, Ken, Karajou, the Terrys and Andy do that as well. - π 14:03, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
So what if a known troll or troublemaker signs up to RW? They still count as a member. RW cannot say that it's members don't engage in any activity from wandalism to downloading child porn. All you can say is that the site does not condone or co-ordinate or support those activities, and that what anyone who happens to be a user of RW does has nothing to do with the site. Scarlet A.pngtheist 14:09, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
I have absolutely no doubt that some people who contribute to RW also commit vandalism. Probably some people who contribute to WP commit vandalism form time to time as well. The question is not what some people might or might not do but what is the position of the site in respect of vandalism.--BobSpring is sprung! 14:14, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
I agree with AMK & Bob. Whether somebody who edits RW also vandalises another site is irrelevant. What's important is that RW doesn't incite or organise that kind of activity. ωεαşεζόίďWeaselly.jpgMethinks it is a Weasel 14:17, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
Having re-read it, we would need to add "unsubstantiated" in front of every use of "accusation(s)". I'd certainly want to know if there was some corner of RW that I wasn't aware of where people were co-ordinating immoral or illegal activity. Scarlet A.pngtheist 14:22, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
I agree there. The official stance is that we don't condone it and if we have people talking about it, we dissuade them. That said, given that accusations of vandalism only come from one site on particular, they can generally be dealt with with the contempt they deserve. --Ψ GremlinParlez! 14:25, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
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