User talk:Barras

Please do not use the revert tool

The revert tool is for reverting obvious repeated vandalism. Please provide informative edit summaries for your edits, particularly when making deletions of talk page discussion comments of Wikiversity community members. --JWSchmidt 14:20, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

This was a potential libellous information which can be seen as vandalism. -Barras 14:21, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Barras, please describe the nature of the "potential libellous information" that you are concerned about. "can be seen as vandalism" <-- please do not game the system by calling good-faith edits of Wikiversity community members vandalism. Barras, I will block you from editing this wiki if you treat the good-faith edits of Wikiversity community members as vandalism. I suggest that you discuss Wikiversity content that you view as vandalism at the the community discussion forum. --JWSchmidt 14:31, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Good faith - this makes me loling. -Barras 14:38, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

• Barras, do you think it is funny to revert good faith edits? --JWSchmidt 04:16, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

• No, but those ongoing additions of personal information and he as a known cross wiki trouble maker... -Barras 09:08, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm going to guess that you are talking about non-public personal information such as phone numbers, home addresses or workplaces. How do you know that the personal information at this website is not public information? Is the personal information a phone number? A home address? A workplace? "a known cross wiki trouble maker" <-- What does "trouble maker" mean? Is there a policy on "trouble makers"? --JWSchmidt 11:56, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Real names are also personal information, postings of private mail conversations without any approval of the people involved in the conversation is also against several laws. And a cross-wiki trouble maker is someone who is blocked on several wikis for disruption and the like. -Barras 12:16, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

"several laws" <-- Barras, are you saying that there was material at Wikiversity that was in violation of laws? Which laws? Are you a lawyer? "blocked on several wikis for disruption and the like" <-- I generally object to bad blocks for reasons such as "the like". I've seen Wikimedians who were subjected to bad blocks and then those bad blocks are used to "justify" additional bad blocks on other wikis. I see no record of any discussion before a group of invaders disrupted this wiki by falsely calling wiki content vandalism and imposing unjustified blocks. My questions have not been answered: how do you know that the personal information you are concerned about at this website is not public information? --JWSchmidt 12:29, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Barras, would it not have sufficed to simply redact the names and/or e-mail addresses, if that was the issue? Why did you find it necessary to balete the entire thread, which presented direct evidence to refute the false and defamatory characterization of an identifiable living person that Firelion requested that you oversight on the English Wikiversity, per the WMF Policy on Biographies of Living People?

Also, please take note of the WMF Privacy Policy, which states:

The public and collaborative nature of the projects

All Projects of the Wikimedia Foundation are collaboratively developed by its users using the MediaWiki software. Anyone with Internet access (and not otherwise restricted from doing so) may edit the publicly editable pages of these sites with or without logging in as a registered user. By doing this, editors create a published document, and a public record of every word added, subtracted, or changed. This is a public act, and editors are identified publicly as the author of such changes. All contributions made to a Project, and all publicly available information about those contributions, are irrevocably licensed and may be freely copied, quoted, reused and adapted by third parties with few restrictions.

Moreover, there is a Whistleblower Policy which protects those who call fouls on erratic WMF functionaries who exceed their authority and abuse their power. Under that policy, Moulton is protected from reprisals by those erratic or abusive WMF functionaries who inappropriately overstep their otherwise legitimate authority.

Finally, are you aware that here in the US, the WMF enjoys the protection of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which gives Internet Service Providers immunity from liability, provided the operator of the site does not exercise editorial control over the content created by the users. When you act in the capacity of a WMF functionary, exercising editorial judgment over content, you transfer liability from the individual user to the WMF. Have you checked with WMF counsel to obtain their opinion as to whether your intervention is appropriate? To my mind it is unwise for any WMF-empowered steward to exercise editorial control over content that may be tortious or libelous, because doing so transfers liability from the individual user to the WMF.

Gastrin Bombesin 00:53, 19 March 2011 (UTC)