An interesting side note: the distinction between 'transient' and 'fixed' communication or media appears to underlay the legal notion of defamation. Wikipedia doesn't fit cleanly into either of those categories. Should a work that is universally and indefinitely editable be subject to the same requirements as traditional slander and libel? It could certainly have an effect on an individual's reputation, but at the same time that individual (or any other) is empowered to immediately remove the offending passage. --Judd --Judd Antin School of Information Management & Systems (SIMS) University of California Berkeley jantin@sims.berkeley.edu http://technotaste.com blog: http://technotaste.com/blog Barry Wellman wrote:
the current AOIR debate about wikipedia highlights another problem. It is quite easy to make legally defamatory statements on Wikipedia.
Normally, the remedy is a law suit for civil damages.
But if the author is anonymous, whom does one sue?
And yes, I know that defamation law suits are expensive and hard to do. But at least the legal remedy is there in principle -- when the author is known. But the Wikipedia approach is like someone flooding the mail with anonymous defamatory photocopies.
Barry _____________________________________________________________________
Barry Wellman Professor of Sociology NetLab Director wellman at chass.utoronto.ca http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman
Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162 To network is to live; to live is to network _____________________________________________________________________
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