Misplaced Pages

I'd keep this thread targeted on the single article. There is clearly no consensus to restore for now. I think clarification from WmF is needed. AlisonW is clearly acting in good faith and to help the project, by the way. Gwen Gale (talk) 17:30, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

(ec x lots)Basically, at least from what I understand, it all comes down to this. Alison was informed, by a person who appears to be legit, that should the Misplaced Pages article on Peter Tobin was removed, there was a strong chance his trial would be thrown out, presumably with the implication that he would be freed, whether we now know that to be true or not is irrelevant. So now we come down to Alison's choice, on the one hand, she can ignore it and leave up a mostly insignificant article on a website which people take far too seriously, or alternatively, she can temporarily delete the article so that it doesn't result in a man who it would appear is a very very dangerous rapist and murderer, however small that possibility may be. Now answer me this, all you people arguing that Alison was out of line, if you were faced with the same choice, the reliable contact told you that you had to make a decision on the spot and you were unable to contact the foundation, what would you do? Alison made a decision based on the information available to her at the time, and I believe she should be commended for it--Jac16888 (talk) 17:31, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

• undelete if Godwin doesn't comment in the next few hours then this should be undeleted. We are not subject to Scottish law. Period. There's no plausible reason that we should be treated any differently than the BBC or any other media source that is fine reporting on this. Misplaced Pages is not censored. JoshuaZ (talk) 17:32, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree w/ NYB that this was a good faith action carried out by AllisonW. However, no portion of the deletion log nor the history of the page states that this was an action taken on behalf of the foundation (either expressly or implied). If WMF decides to accede to scottish law they can do so officially (or at least someone can state as much in the log). Until that time we should see if there is a consensus to undelete and restore the material. Protonk (talk) 17:39, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

• I guess I should clarify that I feel the article should be undeleted. Misplaced Pages falls under US Law. Not Scottish law. Or Russian Law. Or Sharia. And the "jury could see this" argument is weak tea. Presuming that scottish juries can get to the internet, wikipedia should by definition not be the only place they can find this information. Protonk (talk) 17:43, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I have no fundamental problem with Alison acting cautiously in the face of direct contact from Scottish authorities, though I do think it would have been better if this had been announced at the time and more plainly directed to the WMF for final disposition. Moving beyond the specifics of this case, can anyone comment intelligently of the principle of sub judice? I would have assumed that the UK doesn't routinely declare mistrials in the face of things stated in the foreign press. Do they contact the NYTimes to take down articles? It all seems very weird. The only thing that might make sense is if the article's content had actually been influenced/edited directly by parties to the case? Aside from something like that, it is difficult for me to see why a Scottish court would consider a Misplaced Pages article's content as having special bearing on the case. Dragons flight (talk) 17:41, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Off the top of my head, the trial of Ian Huntley was almost abandoned in similar circumstances although it eventually went ahead, while the trial of Jonathan Woodgate and Lee Bowyer was abandoned following media reports and the newspaper in question charged with contempt. – iridescent 17:49, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

• (ec)Do nothing now. It's obvious that we should wait for rapid advice from Mike. Absent that I would restore it. Such restraint only occurs in this country (where the servers are located) in the most extreme cases. We really don't want to head down this road of bowing to governmental interference in Misplaced Pages publishing. While I think this could have been handled differently from the beginning, I think the admin acted in good faith. I'd say a few hours should suffice for Mike to comment but apart from a subpoena I'd tell the Scots to take a hike. JodyB _talk 17:42, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

• Most EMPHATICALLY undelete pending notice from Misplaced Pages counsel to forcibly remove the article. Misplaced Pages relies primarily on secondary sources of information for supporting statements of fact in its articles. I.e., if we have to take down this information, then so should every news outlet that holds information we cite. We should never EVER be in the business of trying to aid or hinder a legal process. We are in the business of building an encyclopedia, period. If the judge in the case is so concerned about polluting the jury, s/he can choose to sequester the jury. Even if we have conducted original research in violation of our policy against doing so, at the very minimum the take down should not occur until there is a court order to do so having been properly delivered to the Foundation and its counsel. Alison did make a good faith decision, but the decision was a poor one and sets an extreme precedent that I sincerely hope is never repeated. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:46, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Except, of course, it wasn't a Scottish court; it would appear to be the police, who are prosecuting the case. If they had concerns, they should have raised them in the judge's chambers; that judge may well have issued an injunction prohibiting publication, but that would have been of no effect, and indeed beyond his powers, outside Scotland. This was a back-door attempt to remove our content, maybe with the best motives, but out of process and invalid in law. (disclosure: IWAL, specialising in crime, procedure & civil liberties). --Rodhullandemu 17:51, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Only to be clear, without direct word from WmF I think the article should be restored now and that WP:BLP supports this, but I don't see a consensus here to do so. Gwen Gale (talk) 17:53, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Speedy undelete - This wasn't even a request by the courts, but rather by the police. If the Scottish courts want to keep their juries from being misled, then they should sequester them. --Orange Mike | Talk 18:07, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I suspect that the subtlty of the fundamental issue at the heart of this case is passing by those editors who are pointing to press coverage of the current court case as justification for the Misplaced Pages page on the defendent. The UK press is reporting the current case, but is making no linkage to a specific previous case. In fact, the website of one major UK newspaper (i.e. The Sun) is currently blocking access to its past coverage of the previous case. The BBC has not, but is not linking the two. I presume the problem was that the Misplaced Pages page clearly made that linkage. Nick Cooper (talk) 18:11, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

• Restore pending legal process actually binding on WMF. Reasons: (1) per AlisonW above, WMF counsel has already stated this is a consensus matter, not a legal direction from the WP:OFFICE. (2) This is a request from a police agency, not even a court order. It has no legal authority in the United States, and (while I am a California lawyer, not a Scottish one) I'm not sure it even has legal authority in Scotland or elsewhere in the UK. (3) Misplaced Pages is not, and should not be, in the business of favoring one side or the other in litigation. We report encyclopedic matters, based on citation to reliable, established media sources. If a court needs to limit information available to persons under its jurisdiction, it has means of doing so that have local effect, such as ordering those persons not to access outside information. It is not Wikpedia's mission to accomplish that on a global scope. (4) Misplaced Pages should not, except in the most unusual circumstances, accede to censorship attempts by governments that do not have jurisdiction over its servers; that is an unwise and slippery slope. (I can conceive of exceptional situations, such as where life is in danger as in a hostage situation, but this is not nearly one of them.) Based on what I've read here, the article should be restored and retained, unless there is an office action. --MCB (talk) 18:14, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

• Undelete: AllisonW acted in good faith, but the arguments for reinstating the article are compelling: not censored, request not reviewed by a judge, no jurisdiction. Having the article appear is more likely to promote justice than not. —EncMstr (talk) 18:14, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

One thing I must make explicitly clear is that I took this decision on my own and on its merits. It was not taken on behalf of what the Wikimedia Foundation, nor Wikimedia UK, might have considered the 'right' thing to do (indeed, to do so would open legal avenues we do not wish opened) This was my decision though I believed I made it on behalf of the WP community (and, indeed, with the recollection of the events User:Iridescent refers to above). In his reply to me Mike (WMF Lawyer) was explicit that the Foundation would take no position on this as it is/was a matter for the project. I agree with this. --AlisonW (talk) 18:15, 1 December 2008 (UTC) Further, the request was *passed on to me by the Police* from the Court, not *made* by the Police. --AlisonW (talk) 18:17, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Then this is over - there is *nothing* stopping any editor editing that article as long as it is sourced material and complies with normal policies. --Cameron Scott (talk) 18:20, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

• Restore: While AlisonW took this upon good faith, this is a matter that should be resolved with consensus, not corporate-mumbo-jumbo. The request came from a court passed onto a police agency (how in the hell is that even verifiable?), and holds no legal binding. We are not subject to their requests, and as already noted, Misplaced Pages is not censored. With all of this shroded in secrecy (you know, for the good of Misplaced Pages), it makes me doubt moreso that the page protection is needed. There is nothing that is stopping from anyone coming in, restoring the article, and editing it as long as it is not obvious to any BLP vios. seicer | talk | contribs 18:21, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
• Don't restore, those with contempt for Scottish law really need to rethink what theya re doing on wikipedia, this isn't about editors being under sub judice its about allowing the conditions for justice to be done. Thanks, SqueakBox 19:19, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

• That is not our responsibility. That is the responsibility of the court. Our responsibility is to write an encyclopedia. If we're to be in the business of allowing conditions for justice to be done, we should delete any and all articles regarding BLPs of criminals. Why stop on this article alone? --Hammersoft (talk) 19:23, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
• Courts all over the world such as the United States work just fine without making every little thing sub judice. The notion that we are somehow interfering with justice in any serious way when the same facts are being reported in easy to reach online sources is simply not credible. JoshuaZ (talk) 20:00, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Restored

I've restored the page and unprotected it. It's not a WMF action and consensus is relatively clear here. Protonk (talk) 18:27, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, you beat me to it, I agree consensus had shifted. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:28, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Now I feel sheepish. I wasn't trying to race anyone. :) Protonk (talk) 18:29, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I disagree that consensus is clear. We've only been discussing this for a few hours, some of the calls for undeletion and wrong about the facts "if was the police not the courts", and there are huge issues here. Please reverse your undeletion immediately. There is certainly no harm in having it undeleted for a few more hours whilst this is discussed.--Scott Mac (Doc) 18:30, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

When things are deleted, even without these circumstances, we allow 5 days on DRV. This got 4 hours, and is quite outrageous.--Scott Mac (Doc) 18:32, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not inclined to. I honestly don't see the huge issues. Every source in the article (almost) is web available and we don't need to wait days for it to be clear that WP is not under scottish law nor are we inclined to maker administrative or editorial decisions on behalf of the prosecution or defense in a case. Protonk (talk) 18:34, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

The article should be re-deleted and then taken through WP:DRV. Kingturtle (talk) 18:35, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

(ec) If one wants to bring up process, the article wasn't deleted through CSD or AfD, hence I'd think AN trumps DRV. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:36, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Also, we aren't a bureaucracy. This is a perfectly legitimate venue to discuss this particular deletion. Protonk (talk) 18:37, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

...We aren't a bureaucracy that's shielded in secrecy. If there is a legitimate concern, it would have been outlined from the start. I don't appreciate learning little details here and there, especially when they hold no legal bearing to WP or to this article. seicer | talk | contribs 18:38, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Redeleted

Now deleted again. --Cameron Scott (talk) 18:40, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

• http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Special:Log&page=Peter_Tobin rootology (C)(T) 18:41, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Absurd. Protonk (talk) 18:39, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

If this is recreated, please do not restore it in the state it was deleted. I just removed several paragraphs of poorly-referenced content from the most recent version (Protonk's restoration). This needs to be built up from scratch with every single claim referenced to a reliable source. A noindexed sandbox would be best. Regards, Skomorokh 18:42, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

• Point of fact: it wasn't "my revision" and it was open to editing by anyone. I know you didn't mean to suggest that I took a favored version, so I'm just bringing that up. Protonk (talk) 18:44, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
  • I said your restoration, not revision, meaning the version you restored. Mahalo, Skomorokh 20:12, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Intentional 'Straw Man' argument: How do we (general editorship / readership) know that the person(s) pushing for undeletion are not working on behalf of the defendant in this case and will now seek to have the case thrown out on the grounds that this 'prior acts' information is now public? Clearly, the answer we hope for is that it is not the case, but to what evidence? --AlisonW (talk) 18:42, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

• I'm not working for the defense. Protonk (talk) 18:43, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
• Um, this stuff is all over the internet already, including UK media, and in various print sources, including UK media. Why are we special? Why can't a UK juror just walk down to the library or flip on any international news source online or on TV? rootology (C)(T) 18:45, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

The UK press is reporting the current court case in isolation of any previous events. This is the important distinction. Having viewed the page when it was briefly available again, it clearly did not do this and could therefore be potentially prejudicial to the current trial. The latter is almost over and there is not harm in being patient, but plenty to Misplaced Pages's standing in the UK in not. Nick Cooper (talk) 18:51, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, this is exactly the problem. Just to clarify a point, obviously Misplaced Pages is subject to Florida law, not Scottish or UK, so this is not a legal problem; it's an issue of social responsibility. If there is a real danger of causing significant harm - which would also harm Misplaced Pages's own reputation - we need to err on the side of caution in this matter. There's nothing to be gained by having an empty article for the week or so that the case will take to conclude, but plenty to lose if we harm the outcome of the case. -- ChrisO (talk) 18:58, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Chris, I don't want to get into a lecture about WP:CENSOR. I know you know it. I know you feel strongly that we have some social responsibility to ensure that this case is unaffected. What we are trying to say is that there is a stated, prexisting social responsibility for us to build an uncensored encyclopedia. That is a reputation which may be damaged through changes in content on the basis of government requests. Specifically, the people of Scotland have a responsibility to ensure their trials are fair and speedy. We share in that responsibility as humans, insofar as we shouldn't make efforts to deliberately sabatoge that. However, there has been no claim advanced that the existence of an article like this represents deliberate, willful sabatoge of those goals. The right response (not to bash allison who made a perfectly valid call at the time) is to say "We respect your request but the right way to ensure the jury is not impacted by summary of material in Misplaced Pages is to sequester the jury". Not to delete the article. Certainly not to re-delete the article once objections have been raised about its deletion. Protonk (talk) 19:08, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

For crying out loud, stop voting - this isn't a matter to be decided by the community. For what it's worth, I agree with AlisonW's actions here. As an admin, I'm able to view deleted edits, and I've also had some personal and professional involvement with sub judice issues (IANAL). Some of the material that was in the article was, IMO, clearly prejudicial. While it's not difficult to pull that material together through Googling, Misplaced Pages's unique advantage (and vulnerability in this case) is that we provided all the information in one place. Scott Mac has it exactly right: we have a responsibility to do no harm, not only to individuals, but society as a whole.

There's no pressing reason for us to have this article available in the short term. The trial appears to be about to conclude; waiting a week or so for the verdict will not harm anyone. We've been advised that having the article available will risk serious harm. If the trial gets tossed because of our actions, we will be in a very deep hole indeed; it will cause very serious harm to Misplaced Pages's reputation.

Accordingly, I've re-deleted the article and fully protected it until the WMF's legal counsel has had the chance to advise us on this situation. A legal issue has been raised, an article has been removed on the grounds of a serious and apparently well-founded legal concern, and the disposition of that article is something that will have to be decided by the WMF - not by a baying mob on the admin's noticeboard. Just please wait until (a) counsel has advised us or (b) the case finishes. -- ChrisO (talk) 18:45, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

until the WMF's legal counsel has had the chance to advise us on this situation. they already have - Alison mentions it above - they pushed it back to the community. --Cameron Scott (talk) 18:46, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

(pssst) What can you read here? Oh, let me snip it: "FYI, I emailed the Foundation Lawyer at the same time as I made the temporary deletion (now all some four weeks ago!) who agreed with me that it *is* a consensus matter." seicer | talk | contribs 18:49, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Meanwhile, baying mob? Working for the defense? Wheel warring? Spare me. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:52, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. Thanks for the quote. Alison, just to clarify this, what exactly did the lawyer say? I see lots of people saying above that we need to have a clear steer from the WMF, I'm uneasy about going by a second-hand paraphrase. I'm mindful of the Chinese whispers problem here. Can we have some clarity about what exactly the WMF has said about this? (A direct quotation would be nice, direct input from the WMF here would be better.) -- ChrisO (talk) 18:52, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

From Alison above - In his reply to me Mike (WMF Lawyer) was explicit that the Foundation would take no position on this as it is/was a matter for the project. What is unclear about this? --Cameron Scott (talk) 18:59, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

That is clearer - thanks. See #Unprotected below. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:12, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

• Unsourced or poorly sourced material in a BLP is a matter for immediate removal of that material (In this case most of the material appears properly sourced from reliable sources regarding prior convictions and allegations). If you want to undelete the article and remove material that you don't think is properly sourced, please do so. But in this case we saw an admin make a good faith deletion a month ago and a consensus determination that this action should be reversed. I reversed it. There is no WMF issue, as stated multiple times above. There is no "legal" issue because Misplaced Pages editors and admins are not supposed to make edits on the basis that they bring wikipedia in compliance with non-US law. There is no moral issue because we don't have a moral obligation to support the prosecution or the defense on either side of the trial. On what basis was my deletion reversed? Protonk (talk) 18:57, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

No contentious BLP should be undeleted without consensus. AN is a place of drama-mongering, not consensus-building. Just put it up for DRV and let it be discussed for 5 full days. We don't need everything right now, or even next week. MaxSem 19:03, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

The case will quite possibly be over in 5 days - the Crown has been doing its final summing-up today. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:05, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Or it might not be - nobody has presented a single policy based reason why I cannot start editing that article. --Cameron Scott (talk) 19:07, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

• The reason for deletion seems to have shifted. When I undeleted the page, the reason for deletion was that it was requested by Scottish police. Now it appears that the reason for deletion was that it was a contentious BLP. Where was that determination made? Protonk (talk) 19:09, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

It's an article about a living person, prolematic to the level it had to be deleted. I see no contradiction. MaxSem 19:46, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

The contradiction presents itself when we realize that it wasn't deleted because of some problematic biographical material. If it was, we wouldn't be having this discussion. We can't justify the deletion (either deletion) post hoc on the basis that it was a BLP vio if neither reason for deletion was because it was a BLP vio. Personally, it means that (if we accept this shifting rationale) I just undeleted a BLP vio rather than reversed a deletion based on legal concerns with the conensus of a group of admins and editors. There is a big difference between the two. Protonk (talk) 20:18, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

• A long time ago, in WP:BLP: "The rule of thumb when writing biographical material about living persons is "do no harm.". But it's moot now - see below. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:12, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

• I was hoping for an explanation of how this turned into a BLP issue and how a rough counting of heads above showing ~13 to 4 favoring undeletion (myself included) doesn't represent some consensus to undelete. I'm aware of the contents of WP:BLP. Protonk (talk) 19:18, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

• Consensus doesn't (can't) override legal concerns. A consensus wouldn't override a decision to delete a blatant copyvio, for instance. But as I've already said, since the WMF has apparently said it doesn't see an issue here, that point is moot now. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:22, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

• Right, and that was clear when I undeleted the material. IF this was an OFFICE or COPYVIO or ARB issue, it wouldn't have been undeleted. So, following an administrator executing a consensus decision to undelete an article, why did you reverse my action? Protonk (talk) 19:24, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

• I've already answered the question, Protonk, and I've reversed my own actions following others' clarifications above. As far as I'm concerned, that's an end to it. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:27, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

• I'll be more clear. Would it be a wheel war if I reversed your deletion before you stated below that you had no reservations against it? Protonk (talk) 19:30, 1 December 2008 (UTC) NVM. Action self reversed, not a big deal. Protonk (talk) 19:58, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

If the administration of Scottish law is irretrievably encumbered by the existence of WP, I fail to see why it must be WP that changes. If we accede to the demands of Scottish jurisprudence in the name of expedience, then why not to those of Singapore, or Saudi Arabia? Ronnotel (talk) 19:25, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

A few thoughts. I am concerned that this issue is being framed above as a purely legal matter. Saying WP:NOTCENSORED and "It's not forbidden by U.S. courts" has never been a sufficient argument for inclusion of content in Misplaced Pages. This matter touches on a number of facets of Misplaced Pages's mission, goals, and philosophy. We have serious questions here pertaining to the ethics of posting this material at this time, and shouldn't be trying to rush this question to a conclusion.

We have a good-faith request (apparently) from the courts of a fellow common law nation. Is Scots law different from U.S. law? Yep. Is that a reason to treat polite requests with contempt? I don't believe so. In order to (hopefully) ensure the fair trial of a man charged with serious, abhorrent crimes, we've been asked to hold off on publishing our article until the verdict is rendered. This is not the permanent removal of the information from Misplaced Pages, nor a demand to whitewash an article, nor an attempt to distort the public record. It is a step being taken to try to avoid tainting a jury — period. If we go ahead with undeleting this article now, we face several risks. The most serious is that we interfere with an ongoing trial, possibly preventing a serious criminal from being convicted. From a selfish standpoint, Misplaced Pages risks being blamed for such an occurrence. Even in the event that the trial ends successfully, we still look terrible. The cost to Misplaced Pages of complying with this request is that the article remains deleted for about a week. I'm willing to pay that price — not because we are under a legal compulsion to do so, but because it's the right thing to do. On Misplaced Pages we have WP:POINT, wherein our editors are advised to avoid doing destructive, counterproductive things solely to make a point. Surely some similar principle ought to apply in our interactions with the 'real world'. I acknowledge that this approach means we will need to look at similar cases in the future on a case-by-case basis, as I don't think that there's an easy answer in these matters. I will say, however, that I think the strawman arguments about compliance with Sharia law are absurd. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:29, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

• I'm not arguing that WP:CENSOR is a sufficient condition for inclusion. I'm arguing that an otherwise acceptable article (notable, meets WP:NOT, etc.) should not be deleted at the request of some government that doesn't exercise legal authority over the WMF (unless the WMF chooses to do so officially). I'm arguing that wikipedia has a responsibility to not sabatoge the justice system in scotland and that responsibility is satisfied completely through our core content and inclusion policies. Also, the comparisons to Sharia law, while hyperbolic, are not out of bounds. We get requests each week to take down images of the Prophet Mohammad. Images which would be illegal in some interpretations of Sharia. Our continued refusal to remove those images represents a claim that wikipedia is not influenced by outside demands. We can laugh at that, but are the religious mores of millions of muslims (presuming not all muslims are upset by the images) more important than whether or not a rapist gets another life sentence? Are either important enough to accede to demands like that? I'm not saying that the original deletion was wrong. Allison received a good faith and verified request from someone in her capacity as a press contact. She acted on that properly (IMO). However, once the foundation said it was a consensus issue and once consensus developed surrounding the page, the right answer is no longer to leave it deleted (or to redelete it). This isn't a case where we can oppose "social responsibility" with some internal code. We aren't selfishly disregarding the welfare of others. We are just acting as any organization in the states should in the same situation. If the NYT were given a D notice about this case, would they remove content? Would we? No. Why is it different now? Protonk (talk) 19:47, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

• TenOfAll, no one is advocating that we should have "contempt" for Scottish law. We should of course respect it, as we would respect any country. In this case, they have made a request which we have respectfully decided not to comply with. And as to your comment about this being different from "Sharia" that one legal system is somehow different than another that one must be treated with respect and another not so if the height of imposing a personal POV about the validity of various legal systems. That's why we just stay uncensored. JoshuaZ (talk) 20:05, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
• The NY Times has in fact been in this kind of situation - see . Unfortunately we don't have the ability to selectively block users from particular jurisdictions. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:07, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

• The foundation could completely block UK readership from Misplaced Pages if they so desired. Though I don't think the bugfix to selectively block per-page has been enacted (it's a neat idea tho). Protonk (talk) 20:13, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Unprotected

Thanks to Cameron et al for the feedback. I've unprotected the page. I'm not going to restore it myself because of the legal issues, but if another administrator wishes to do so then I have no objection. But I would strongly advise any UK editors not to try editing it before the case ends! -- ChrisO (talk) 19:12, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Can someone explain to me why DO NOT DISCUSS CASES OR HISTORY OF THIS PERSON HERE. Content is sub judice. is allowed to remain on the talkpage when it is in clear breach of WP:LEGAL? and the general disclaimer? --Cameron Scott (talk) 19:14, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

How is that a legal threat, it seems nothing of the kind to me. Thanks, SqueakBox 19:16, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

It's been removed now, but I don't think it falls foul of WP:LEGAL - who is being threatened? -- ChrisO (talk) 19:16, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Anyone who edits the article - Do not discuss because of LEGAL THREAT - can I roll my eyes at this point? or should I add that disclaimer to some other current cases and see how long it lasts? are we able to time for less than a second? --Cameron Scott (talk) 19:20, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't know where you're getting these words from, but it's not anywhere I see. There are no legeal threats. --Deskana (talk) 19:22, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Same here. Are you looking at a copy that your browser has cached, Cameron? -- ChrisO (talk) 19:23, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

No I'm looking at the copy that people keep reverting to. --Cameron Scott (talk) 19:28, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Reading through this discussion, it appears to me that the consensus was to recreate, and I have recreated the article. However, in line with the serious concerns raised by this case I have cut this down to a stub, removing any references to this man's past history. I hope that this avoids any possible legal issues. I did not restore the full page history and I suggest we keep this as a stub for now, and proceed with the RfC once the case has been decided. Tim Vickers (talk) 19:45, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Please restore

Can someone not beholden to UK law please restore? Why have we not restored the previous content? Whats the point of starting the article over from scratch and tossing all the prior work and sourcing? rootology (C)(T) 19:48, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I can see some agreement above that an article should exist, but I can also see people raising concerns about the wisdom of bringing together multiple sources and including facts that may cause serious consequences in the court case currently underway. Until people can come to agreement about what content we should have, I think it would be wise to err on the side of caution. Tim Vickers (talk) 19:57, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree, but it's not a good precedent. When the next high profile legal case comes through in the UK, will we do the same? Or in France? Or the US? rootology (C)(T) 20:09, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I know, I can see the arguments on both sides of the issue. We have a moral responsibility to present all the facts that do no harm. Tim Vickers (talk) 20:12, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion - RfC

This is a complex issue and we've already got a long thread here in a few hours, with much repetition. I'm wondering whether a Community Requests for Comment might be a better way of ordering this and setting down facts and views. Whatever is decided here is likely to be quoted as a precedent one way or the other. UK editors are likely to be logging on soon, so I'm guessing we've a lot more to talk about here. What say you? (It is also a matter for non-admins too, so the admins' noticeboard might not be best.) How about taking this to RfC. Alison can put here case, and others their's will less repetition.--Scott Mac (Doc) 19:22, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't think there's any real value in this. A legal question was raised, the WMF has apparently answered it, and the article has been unprotected (though not yet undeleted - I'm not going to do this myself for reasons of legal self-preservation). What issues remain to be resolved? -- ChrisO (talk) 19:26, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

How about

• While Misplaced Pages is not compelled to accede to requests made by courts in other (non-U.S.) jurisdictions, should we take such requests into consideration?
• Can we bend our policies a bit where such flexibility is likely to protect the integrity of a criminal trial?
• Should we take into account the likely effects of such actions on Misplaced Pages's reputation?
• Has Misplaced Pages ever been named as the reason for a mistrial in a murder/rape case before? Would we like this to be the first case?
• What is the harm to Misplaced Pages of leaving the article deleted for one week?

You know, those issues. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:34, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

In response to ChrisO, this wasn't ever simply a legal question. If you don't at least understand that there are other concerns (whether you agree with them or not) then I give up.--Scott Mac (Doc) 20:26, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Scott, I do understand very well that this is about more than just the legalities, and I've already said so. However, since Mike Godwin has apparently kicked this issue back to the community it then becomes a matter of community consensus. If the consensus is that the article should exist then we have to respect that - we don't have to be happy about it. -- ChrisO (talk) 20:30, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

What went wrong

It seems to me that what went wrong here wasn't the deletion - an admin was contacted regarding a possible legal issue and made a temporary deletion to deal with the problem while waiting for a response from the WMF general counsel. That seems completely correct to me. The mistake was that, after Mike had said it was a community matter, the matter wasn't brought before the community. We should have had this discussion 4 weeks ago over at AFD (the article could have stayed deleted during the AFD, it's a little unusual, but I don't think it's unprecedented). A temporary deletion was fine, a deletion for a month before there was any discussion was not. --Tango (talk) 19:56, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

That's a complete reasonable, moderate and calm analysis. What are you doing posting on WP:AN? JoshuaZ (talk) 20:21, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

My apologies, I will endeavour to abide by community norms in future. --Tango (talk) 21:02, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

To clarify, I didn't 'delete it pending a response from Mike', I advised him that I had done so as I made the temporary deletion but I did not ask for a formal response from him as the Foundation lawyer. Indeed as WP is a product of those who edit it and *not* the legal responsibility of the Foundation per se (who only host the service) it would have been very wrong to do so. Similarly I - as a WMF contact in the UK - was approached on behalf of the court and, after advising them that WMF/WMUK could not take any action on an 'official' basis for legal reasons I - as an individual editor and administrator - could review the article and choose to prune it severely so as to not impact the court case or stop it proceeding. Upon inspection I found there was so much information about the past history of this individual (no BLP issues; all well-sourced) that there would be minimal article remaining if I were to remove the past activities information (ie that which UK - both England and Scotland - have the problem with). As such, deletion for the duration of the trial appeared to be the logical and sensible conclusion and that is what I did. Note for Americans (et al) is that juries are not sequestered here except once they have been sent by the judge to consider their verdict, ie only after all the presentation of evidence. --AlisonW (talk) 20:24, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment – the deletion was in good faith but the legal response seems odd. It would have made more sense to delete the problematic article, create a new article carefully based on reliable sources, using the quality press with care, and then fully protect that version to prevent dubious content from being added. As it is, a google brings up the current page as the second hit, which highlights this situation, with a Scotsman article at no. 1 and the BBC at no. 3. Given that both articles contain information which presumably meets their legal obligations, it seems absurd that we are going to extreme lengths to avoid displaying that information. A legal discussion with the Procurator Fiscal would seem advisable to establish ground rules, and ideally establish the legal situation which could be displayed in the article rather than making assumptions. By the way, Scots law is neither English law nor Common law. . . . dave souza, talk 20:29, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

In that case, I think you probably acted incorrectly (although, clearly in good faith). This isn't a one-off thing, it will occur for any reasonably high profile court case, so it's a matter to be dealt with by policy not on a case-by-case basis (even if it is done case-by-case, each case should be brought to AN or somewhere for review). If you feel it was correct to delete the article, please propose an appropriate policy for discussion. --Tango (talk) 21:02, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

What Jimbo has just said

" I strongly recommend against restoring the article hastily." I think at least it needs full protection now. The article was restored in quite a rush, there was no need for such speed. dougweller (talk) 20:01, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

• ...No offense to Ten, but the summary he gave jimbo wasn't the most complete or accurate picture of what happened. Protonk (talk) 20:04, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

  Either way, cautioning against hasty action is generally good advice. --Tango (talk) 20:07, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Let's wait and see if a consensus develops on its content over the next few hours before deciding if full protection is required. Reaching a consensus is always preferable to protecting articles. --Tango (talk) 20:07, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Of course cautioning against hasty action is good advice. But unless we all agree to accept what Jimbo has said as just "Advice", there is a problem in asking for some declaration on the subject and leaving out key elements like: Mike Godwin said it was up to the community and the article has been deleted for a month. Protonk (talk) 20:10, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Do we not all agree to accept it as just advice? Other than his vote in board meetings and he role with ArbCom, Jimbo doesn't have to power to do anything more than advise. His advice carries a lot of weight, but it is still just advice. --Tango (talk) 20:31, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

• It would be nice if Jimbo commented here' regarding the incident, to receive the full picture and not to make decisions based on outdated and incorrect information. seicer | talk | contribs 20:11, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

  Yes, but looking at the length of this discussion, I don't blame him for not reading it! --Tango (talk) 20:31, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

If he's giving advice without reading all the documentation regarding the question then he would do better to remain silent on the issue. Flopsy Mopsy and Cottonmouth (talk) 23:27, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Semi-protected

I have semi-protected the article for one month. From my perspective as a completely uninvolved admin, this is how I see the situation. We had an apparently poorly-sourced article about a defendent, and it was so poorly sourced that it almost caused a case against him to be thrown out because of the possibility of prejudicing the jury. Until consensus can be reached on what to do with it, I think it's incumbent upon us to take whatever measures we can to prevent prejudicing a jury--something which judges and law enforcement are very skittish about.

It's sad that it takes a court case to reveal BLP issues. Blueboy96 20:20, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

No one has claimed that anything inside the article was poorly sourced. Please let's not wreck the signal to noise ratio anymore. JoshuaZ (talk) 20:22, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

That wasn't the issue - it was what it revealed about his past (which was sourced). In a UK court case, previous convictions are not mentioned - that was the issue. --Cameron Scott (talk) 20:23, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, the content was very well sourced (!) and that was the problem. If the court finds out that a jury has been made aware of a defendants past history (ie convictions) then the case can be thrown out and although a retrial is possible it rarely happens (cf. comment above about previous cases where history was detailed in the media) --AlisonW (talk) 20:27, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

So on that basis are we going to adopt stubbing of uk court cases of people already convicted of a crime as SOP? because all of the issues here would apply to each and every one of them. --Cameron Scott (talk) 20:29, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, maybe I did read the thread wrong ... but at the very least, we have to do what we can to keep information from being inserted that may prejudice a jury until we can figure out what to do with this article. TenofAll raises a valid point--we can't allow Misplaced Pages to potentially be held responsible for altering the outcome of a criminal case. Given the circumstances, whoever contacted AlisonW must have seen the "anyone can edit" notice and panicked. Blueboy96 20:30, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Blueboy, there's no reason to believe that anyone had any concern about the ability for anyone to edit at all. You seem to be stuck in viewing this issue as part of a certain paradigm (the problem of addition of unsourced or poorly sourced information). It has nothing at all to do with that. JoshuaZ (talk) 20:32, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. It seems to be the exact opposite. --Tango (talk) 20:35, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

The courts must know that in the "information age" they can't really expect jurors to not know anything other than what they hear in court. Jurors are told not to read the papers or do other research, if they choose to ignore that and look the person up on Misplaced Pages, it's not really our problem. --Tango (talk) 20:35, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Like I said, I admit I may have read the thread wrong. But given the circumstances, we don't want anyone to say, "If they knew that they could affect the outcome of a trial, why didn't they do something?" So maybe my original reasoning behind the semi-protect may have been wrong--but the result based on what the NYT had to do is probably correct. And even though we don't have a sub judice rule here in the States, cases have been thrown out because the media (and like it or not, we're considered part of the media) created an atmosphere that made a fair trial impossible. Blueboy96 20:49, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

We aren't part of the media - Wikinews is. We're an encyclopedia. We provide information on notable individuals that has been previously reported by reliable sources, such as actual members of the media. And in this case, even if we decide to keep the article down during the trial, that material is all going to be available in the various reliable sources in which we had found it in the first place. I don't see that taking down our article is going to do any real good as far as keeping members of a jury in the dark. Right now, our article is the #1 Google result for Mr. Tobin's name. If someone looking for information on him and his criminal past isn't able to find it on our site, they can go all the way down to the #3 result, a BBC News article entitled "Sex killer Tobin's violent past", which describes his past convictions for rape and murder. Regardless of what we do, the genie isn't going back into the bottle. As such, since the police's goal here is patently impossible, I'd tend to focus on our primary mission - which involves putting together a fair, thorough, and scrupulously accurate article on Mr. Tobin, with appropriate citations. -Hit bull, win steak 21:15, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Normally it should be fully protected in case involving the Foundation, so I made it full. Secret 20:52, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

It's not involving the foundation, though, Mike apparently said it was a community matter. --Tango (talk) 21:03, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

"...in cases involving the Foundation"... How many admin actions on this article does that make today by people with no firm grasp of the situation? If you're going to act on an article because of an AN thread, at least read the entire thread. --barneca (talk) 21:02, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

• At a minimum, it should be reduced back to semi protection. Tango's correct. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:05, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I have an interest in this matter as, when I was doing my masters, I lived next to the high court of the justiciary and I used to attend the Angelika Gluk court case. Anyways, that aside, JW's comments are wise and I'm baffled people decided to act so quickly on this thing. Just weigh up the potential harm gained every second the article is not visible to non-admins versus the potential, if unlikely, alternatives. The Scottish police of course, acting on their own, do not have the authority to permanently remove content from an internet encyclopedia based in servers in Scotland let alone in Florida, but that's neither here nor there in the short term. Given Alison's lack of competence (and this is the WF fault for being disorganized) she acted, as we want our kids to act when they hear fire alarms, on the side of caution. And yes, it would have been helpful if Alison had indicated her position as normal admins should feel safe doing their jobs without wondering if there's some secret WF issue (yes, I read "It was not taken on behalf of what the Wikimedia Foundation", but that should have been stated also if you can be found by other admins as a WF contact). There should be no problems restoring this article ... though obviously the verifiability of most of its assertions will probably be stricter now and its size probably cut down. A Scottish WF, for interest, and any wiki editor based here, would not likely be vulnerable to any legal action as long as there was a reasonable attempt to ensure that any potentially damaging information was true. That's of course a different matter from the moral issue of prejudicing a jury. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 21:06, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I feel I should point out that our article on the Angelika Kluk murder case also includes (with citations) a partial description of Mr. Tobin's criminal past. So even if Mr. Tobin's article is (unwisly, IMO) stubbed for the duration of the trial, anyone running a simple search of the site will still be able to uncover the true state of things. -Hit bull, win steak 21:18, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

That material is fine, since it does not explicitly link him to the current murder case. You would have to know about that past case in order to find that article, so the article wouldn't have told you anything you didn't already know. The problem would come from adding a link from the Peter Tobin article to that article on his past history. Tim Vickers (talk) 21:28, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually, if you type "Peter Tobin" in the search box and then click "Search" instead of "Go", the Angelika Kluk murder case page is the fifth result. You also find several other pages (HMP Peterhead, Donald Findlay, Tobin, and Bible John) that reference Tobin's past crimes and/or convictions. Alternately, you could just use the "what links here" link on Tobin's article and get the same information. -Hit bull, win steak 21:49, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

• We are an encyclopedia, and our job is to present sourced information.,Given the previous crimes, he meets the standard for notability. Given the sources for the information, it's well sourced. There is no further action necessary except to guard against the insertion of information that does not meet the requirements. Taking any action of this sort on request from a police force is an abnegation of our responsibilities for NPOV . To what extent the foundation would want to deal with legal action taken about them is their concern. In this case, they were consulted and said they did not wish to take legal action. That would seem to settle the matter. It does not violate our own policies, and there is no legal requirement to remove. point out this was a rquest from the police, not the court.To what extent we want to deal with police requests in public safety emergencies might possibly be another matter, but this was not one of them. The UK legal system will do what it chooses to do, and people in the UK may prudently wish to consider its restrictions in their own editing, but they cannot take action that interferes with the content submitted by others.

One question I have not seen addressed--what is the current status of the case? I can see possible removal for a day or so during a trial, but if a country has a policy of blocking news for weeks or months or years unti ;lfinal decision of a case, that amounts to censorship, and we do not do that or we forfeit our creditability. I therefore propose the following policy: Requests for removal of information during an ongoing legal case should be referred to the foundation. if they do not choose to take action, we do not remove material, but we do make sure our own BLP policy is enforced strictly. DGG (talk) 21:18, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

The case is currently in its final stages; the prosecution and defence have given their closing statements, and I would imagine that the judge will sum up tomorrow. The jury will be sent out after that and a verdict can be expected a few hours or days later. There's a reasonable chance that it'll all be over by Friday. -- ChrisO (talk) 21:33, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure this incident is particularly problematic (the guy is a convicted multiple rapist and murderer, the jury will know that anyway without the wiki article having any additional effect on their factual judgment about these particular other crimes). Legal action won't very likely happen here either (I would though be interested to know who specifically made the request), but, ignoring the fact that it is up to particular countries to protect their own juries from prejudice, we should surely have moral concerns and perhaps then specific policies about trials and the effects our articles could have, even beyond the current BLP stuff. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 21:37, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Zimbabwe also has sub judice laws - if we get contacted are we going to stub articles around individuals that in court there? There are a whole raft of questions. Can anyone/someone kick off a discussion in a suitable place because I don't think that we are going to settle them all here in this AN thread. --Cameron Scott (talk) 21:25, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Deacon, having moral concerns about the effects of our articles is the exact opposite of NPOV. We would then publish no articles unless good would come of it--depending on ones viewpoints, all articles on crime would emphasise the penalties, all articles on politics the virtues of democracy. We would eliminate any link to a site that was morally dangerous, would not cover X rated movies or pornography, and would not describe sexual or violent scenes in books. To decide whether to cover a possible criminal, we would have to decide whether or not he was guilty. to be sure, this is where the logical extension of do no harm would lead us. Myself, I hold to the strict but very narrow interpretation of BLP as the only precaution against degenerating into censorship. DGG (talk) 00:38, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

For my part, I think the article should have been deleted and immediately recreated as a stub, not just deleted outright. Blueboy96 23:07, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

BLP discussion

I've started a general discussion of the principles raised by this case at Wikipedia_talk:Biographies_of_living_persons#Current_legal_cases. Tim Vickers (talk) 21:55, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

This discussion seems to be moving towards consensus. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:33, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Summary of discussion

Since this is a long discussion, for the sake of those arriving late to the discussion I'm writing a brief summary. Feel free to edit. Dcoetzee 22:55, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Peter Tobin, the accused in the Vicky Hamilton murder case in Dundee, Scotland, is currently being prosecuted in a trial by jury. The article Peter Tobin was temporarily deleted by an admin named User:AlisonW after being contacted by the Scottish police, who were concerned that the information presented in this article was likely to taint the jury and lead to the case being thrown out in the near future, because it discussed Peter Tobin's inadmissable prior crimes. Although she is a United Kingdom press contact and OTRS agent for the Wikimedia Foundation, WMF explicitly takes no position on the action and she deleted the article of her own accord. Users supporting the deletion believe that we have a moral obligation to avoid tainting jurors; that causing a mistrial could have a negative impact on public relations and possibly incur sanctions for contempt of court; and that the temporary nature of the deletion makes it tolerable. Users opposing the deletion view it as an act of censorship that sets a negative precedent, and believe that no information should be in the article that is not already available elsewhere online. The article was restored based on this discussion as a protected stub, with any prejudicial material removed. There is general agreement that any concerns should be based on the current state of the article, rather than fear of what might be added; and that the issue will be moot when the case wraps up in the next few days.

• It may be a fair summary, but to call it "government censorship" is an absurdity - the police are not the government, and the inadmissibility of prior convictions is an established principle; previous cases have been declared mistrials because of prejudicial reporting by newspapers. This will all be sorted out well before the deadline. Guy (Help!) 23:53, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

• I'm not sure I agree with the contention that "the police are not the government". The police are (or at least represent) the government in most countries I know. If we are waiting for that moment where Mao will rise from the dead and command the politburo to censor wikipedia in order to call it government censorship, we will be waiting a long time. Most censorship is mundane, like this. fighting it means making the right mundane decision each time. Protonk (talk) 02:26, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

To correct elements in your summary: (a) As a matter of policy - and to retain the rights of editors - the Foundation would not get *formally* get involved as that would suggest a legal liability of a sort which does not exist, and whilst I was contacted as a representative of the Foundation (and WMUK) I could not and did not act in that capacity. (b) This is not in the strict sense about our (WP) legal liability or responsibility, but about our ethical responsibility to see no harm done and, imho, if a temporary deletion while process of law continues assists our meeting that ethical standard, then I say it is a good thing. (c) There was at no time any question of 'censorship'. All of the (well-sourced) information is safely stored away in the archives and can be retrieved as soon as the trial is over (and, indeed, the article added to, I have no doubt). (d) The argument that 'what do we do next; remove content at the request of Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia, etc?' is rather a straw man. I would suggest - without prejudice - that each request be taken on its merits. 'Do no harm' is a great way to behave; there is nothing to be gained by us saying 'publish and be damned' if being damned means we lose our reputation - and our income donations. (e) I made the decision almost a month ago. That it 'exploded' today is, um, 'interesting', but the evidence would appear to suggest that great haste in overturning / revisiting that decision is not necessary and, indeed, may prevent a sensible decision being reached. --AlisonW (talk) 00:10, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

As the user who first asked AlisonW about the deletion, I support the decision to remove past history pending the resolution of the current matter before the Scotish court. As Jimbo said, "The case will still be as famous and appropriate for an encyclopia(sic)... a week from now." However, I disagreed that we couldn't expand the article to include some information about the current trial - certainly there can be no prejudice to report things that the jurors themselves are hearing. I apologize for not bringing it to the wider community earlier, but I thought who cares if it isn't there over the next few weeks, it will be there soon and then stay there for years! --Trödel 00:44, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

I am disinterested in the outcome and I invite the summary to be edited; I was merely attempting to summarize and rephrase the arguments of others and make no claim as to their merit. I've removed the word "government". Dcoetzee 01:32, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Given that the protection template on the article links to this very discussion, I'm wondering what the point of the stubbing was. 86.44.21.140 (talk) 00:06, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Re: Doing no harm, what harm are we talking about? There is no evidence that Scottish court proceedings can be prejudiced by foreign websites, other than the assertions of a police officer. It seems to be the consensus that the police officer was simply wrong. If such a 'loophole' exists, then the possibility exists that a future case may be thrown out. Peter Tobin is already in jail for the rest of his life so I assert that it is better that this trial goes awry and lessons are learned/laws changed rather than a future case where the verdict has a real effect on the freedom of a defendant. The act of deleting the article may in a way have caused harm by helping to sweep what may be an important issue under the rug. 81.133.232.215 (talk) 00:56, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

This is one of the more asinine cases of censorship I have seen on Misplaced Pages. The argument has been made that well sourced, highly encyclopedic and NPOV material about a notable individual should be removed from Misplaced Pages because members of a jury in Scotland might read it and their reading it might render a fair trial of the subject impossible. I have served on a jury, in the U.S., in a felony trial. The jury was not sequestered. The judge did not find it necessary to forbid all the newspapers from publishing information about the accused. He just instructed the jury to refrain from reading press accounts, or from discussing the case with others, or from going to the crime scene and trying to be a Crime Scene Investigator. Are judges in Scotland unable to instruct the jurors not to read up on the defendant in Misplaced Pages? Wikimedia Foundation is not subject to the laws of Scotland, and any well referenced NPOV material consistent with WP:BLP should be left in the article regardless of the demands of the legal system somewhere else in the world. Should a court in Iran, China or North Korea be able to censor the content of Misplaced Pages like this censorship by a Scottish court? I think not. If a juror somewhere in the world informs the judge that he is unable to resist reading up on the case in a foreign source such as Misplaced Pages, the juror should be dismissed and punished, and replaced by an alternate willing to respect the orders of the judge. Edison (talk) 04:40, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't matter. Things have changed around here, man. 2 years ago this would have resulted in a roaring fusillade of community outrage that WP:CENSOR was being being stepped on to please a foreign police agency. Nowadays, the pendulum has swung to where we have 300 editors and admins standing around wringing their hands and whining about the best way to "do no harm" to a cited, notable murderer. You people want to talk about loss of community support in the UK if we don't self-censor to please the Scots? How about the loss of community confidence in the neutral, monolithic, encyclopedic nature of this Project we've dedicated literally years of our lives to??? WP:CENSOR is not just another bunch of administrative, semantic crap; for some of us anyway, it's been an ideal that strikes to the very core of what the Project stands for. But, like I said, that was then, this is now. If the shifting winds of consensus have decided that WP:BLP should be placed first in our priorities, and it should focus on appeasement and "The squeaky wheel gets the grease, regardless of the merits", maybe it's time I take a long Wikibreak. Bullzeye 06:36, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Unprotect

Since it isn't a foundation issue, as was assumed when it was last fully protected, and we have decided not to delete it, can we get a consensus to unprotect this page. I don't think the position that content allowed by our BLP policy should be removed from the article--this represents some interpretation of BLP that I am wholly unfamiliar with. Further, the current article represents far less than can (or should) be summarized from emminently reliable sources as well as far less info than exists about the subject on other articles (e.g. articles on the various crimes he has or is alleged to have committed). As for the "no rush/no deadline" argument...sure. We aren't in a rush. And there is no deadline. But if there was no consensus to remove the material in the first place, nor any policy (or foundation direction) directing such a removal, replacing the content isn't a "rush" or a push to "finish" the article. Replacing the content is ensuring that we aren't actively making the mistake of offloading editorial decisions to judicial systems which have no legal authority over wikipedia. It is much less "getting it right" than it is "making sure we aren't getting it wrong". So what do we say? Unprotect and edit this article just as we would any other BLP? Protonk (talk) 04:34, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

• Endorse Unprotecting the article. Edison (talk) 04:42, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
• Bad idea. There is no deadline, let's just do the decent thing and wait a couple of days, since The Man asked nicely. It's not like we're saying this is permanent or anything, only until the jury returns its verdict. That really is not a big deal. Guy (Help!) 08:57, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
• Don't unprotect, it's not going to do any harm to wait. We were asked nicely. Stifle (talk) 09:45, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
• Unprotection would almost certainly lead to an edit war. Editors who are worried about precedents and chilling effects can have a nice long RfC about this after the fact, but playing it safe for now seems wise considering that this is new ground for us. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:30, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
• Leave it protected. We need to pick our battles carefully and the free speech vs Sub Judice one isn't one we can hope to get any glory out of. Protection - and it's not for long, so nobody will miss Misplaced Pages's pressing deadline - allows for reflection. ➨ ❝ЯEDVERS❞ a sweet and tender hooligan 10:40, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
• Leave fully protected with understanding that those who can edit a protected article may edit it. This allows trusted users to make edits with the concerns/issues discussed here in mind. --Trödel 13:51, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
• Unprotect, and politely decline the Scots' request. Sequestering members of a jury is their job, not ours, and in any event removing the (well-cited) content from here will just funnel interested parties to other sites that have no qualms about hosting it, such as the various news reports we used to write the article in the first place. -Hit bull, win steak 14:37, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

• The United Kingdom doesn't sequester juries. They go home each night. ➨ ❝ЯEDVERS❞ a sweet and tender hooligan 14:50, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

To be precise - the jury can be sequestered if the judge thinks it's needed. It's not been done in the case, so I guess the judge doesn't think it's needed. Maybe we should wipe all of this discussion in case a jury member reads it? --Cameron Scott (talk) 14:53, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

• Unprotect on the condition that we be very thorough on the article in references everything to the best of our abilities. There is nothing here that can't be found by anyone wanting to know elsewhere. As long as we're not putting opinions, and everything is verified, then it should be returned. Canterbury Tail talk 15:14, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
• Leave protected per there's no rush and it isn't permanent. Whether or not this is a precedent can be discussed separately, but atm we've not had that discussion. Let's for the mo just err on the side of caution and respect the request. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 15:42, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
• Do people not understand the basic notion that the jury can be warned not to read press accounts and not to discuss the case with anyone WITHOUT sequestering them? Is that concept unknown in the UK? Are jurors there so irresponsible that they must be locked up in a cheap motel to keep them from watching the news coverage of the trial on tv and reading newspaper articles or Misplaced Pages articles about the case or the accused? I find that surprising, to say the least. Edison (talk) 05:28, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Convicted

Tobin's conviction has now been announced on BBC News 24. May we get this article back to normal? There's only one sentence he will receive, and the jury has no say at all in that. --Rodhullandemu 16:00, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Indeed - can this silly sorry episode conclude as it should? with a restored article. --Cameron Scott (talk) 16:01, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

By all means. -- Derek Ross | Talk 16:13, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

But a protocol should be put into place for future court requests. Kingturtle (talk) 16:11, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, but not under the pressure of a brou-ha-ha. I've restored the article and it has now been updated to reflect recent developments. --Rodhullandemu 16:25, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

The "protocol" should be NOT to delete such an article in the future unless legal process requires it, since only well referenced information should be in such an articlem, and an over-curious computer-literate juror can simpley find the sources via Google News search. It should be up to the judge to instruct the juror not to be an independent investigator, but rather to judge the accused based only on the evidence and testimony presented in court. This episode of excessive censorship was silly and detrimental to the project. Edison (talk) 05:32, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Here's the $64,000 question

He's got another trial for another murder coming up (unless I've missed a news report somewhere) - are we going to be blanking it again or are we going to wait for our instructions from the crown ? Shall we sort that out now or shall we all edit war and war wheel when the time comes? --Cameron Scott (talk) 16:29, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

We need a policy - if people believe it is a good idea to delete of stubify articles during court cases they should propose a policy by the standard method and we can discuss it, in the absence of such a policy we shouldn't do anything in future. AN is not the place to decide on new policy. --Tango (talk) 16:35, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

As I understand the UK sub judice rule, there have to be legal proceedings in active contemplation or progress, and we don't know whether that is the case in relation to remaining matters. Certainly it would be so difficult for Tobin to receive a fair trial that my opinion is that they would not proceed anyway. I propose we deal with that issue if and when it arises. --Rodhullandemu 16:38, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

1)we really really shouldn't be blanking it on priciple 2)The coldly cynical fact is that he is a reasonable case to find out if any claimed problems are real. He's never going to be released whatever so the effect in that area is zero.Geni 17:04, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

• I don't understand all these posts about how we need a policy for this sort of thing. We've had one for almost a decade called WP:CENSOR. Why is it because the government asks nicely is it somehow different? Why are there not more people fucking furious that we just changed content at the request of a scottish police officer? Protonk (talk) 17:25, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, had the police come to me with a similar request, even purporting to emanate from a judge, I would have declined it on the basis of lack of jurisdiction. To that extent, whereas I am (professionally) annoyed that it was done, I am not surprised. Most moderate people these days tend to do what the police say and possibly ask questions afterwards; I still think that whatever Mike Godwin said at the time, it should have been brought here for review. However I see little merit in flogging a dead horse, however warm it happens to be. --Rodhullandemu 17:38, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

You are right, there is probably a real risk of beating the dead horse. I guess I'm more surprised than anything about the number of editors who seem perfectly ok with this chain of events. Protonk (talk) 17:43, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

I have read this thread and have several issues with the intent. We seem to have some contention with Scottish law. Any policy should balance both our mission and common sense removals. That being said, it is completely contradictory to whitewash past actions as that is what we write about. I fail to see how an neutral report of past publicly available information could be a injustice to a defendant. It is not our job to sequester the jury, that is the province of the courts. If the jury cannot follow the given instructions, that is not our problem. I would therefore use a policy of a NPOV check upon recent of any further sub judice claims. We should not be deleting stuff willy nilly because it makes the Court's job easier. Also, we are not subject to Scottish law and should not be considered as such. Just my two cents. Geoff Plourde (talk) 17:33, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

As the old saying goes, it's not the point, it's the principle. I keep hearing "They asked nicely" and "We'd get bad press in the UK if we don't" and "It's only temporary". All of these are true statements which still ignore the much more important fundamental issue at hand: whether consensus supports voluntary extra-judicial abrogation of WP:CENSOR when dealing with WP:BLP issues, and if so, in what circumstances. If this is the case, then both policies need to be rewritten to reflect it, because the decision to voluntarily self-censor a BLP at the request of a non-US government agency, while supported by a limited consensus, is a Project-wide issue that currently is NOT supported by either policy (and indeed, seems to fly directly in the face of both the letter and spirit of WP:CENSOR). In the face of colossal and violent opposition, we were willing to literally risk rioting and bloodshed in the streets of the Arab world to uphold WP:CENSOR in the Depictions of Mohammed case, on a page that was getting half a million hits a month and international news coverage. It would have been just a tiny, tiny change to the article, and would have cost us essentially nothing, and all the furor would have stopped. But we held firm. I feel like it was one of our proudest hours and did a lot to prove to people we were a real, neutral Encyclopedia. It makes me sad to see how far we've fallen in the interest of public relations. We may as well call the Scotland National Police and see if they want to buy some advertising space. In for a penny, in for a pound, right? Bullzeye 17:38, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

• In an ironic turn, we were politely telling a muslim reader that we would never change the images of Mohammed upon request at the same time that we upheld the deletion of this article upon request. Maybe that will change if the Iranian government asks nicely. Protonk (talk) 17:47, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure it's an offence to display images of Mohammed in Iran? We could be causing our readers to commit criminal offences by viewing the images. Sure, you could say, they don't have to view the images - but the jury in this case was 12 people - and they didn't have to view the article either. This is actually worse as we are talking about millions of people who could be turned into criminals because of our actions. We should remove them immediately so that we do no harm --Cameron Scott (talk) 17:52, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Do you know it's an offence to view the images, even if you aren't responsible for them being there? Let's not make wild guesses about the law in a given country and then start drawing conclusions from them. --Tango (talk) 17:55, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Let's not make wild guesses about the law in a given country - hasn't that been the basis of this whole sorry mess? --Cameron Scott (talk) 17:57, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Surely you don't mean that it is an offense to view the material in scotland, not publish it in america, RIGHT? Protonk (talk) 18:01, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

I have no idea what you're trying to say there, but whatever it is is nonsense because my comment was in reply to a guess about the law in Iran, not Scotland or the US. --Tango (talk) 18:05, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

This discussion is pointless. Let's wait and see if anyone actually proposes such a policy, we only need to detail all these reasons why it's a bad idea if someone actually takes the opposite position. So far, they haven't. (I should clarify, when I said above "we need a policy" I meant "we need a policy if we're going to do anything about such requests", in the absence of policy, the default would be politely declining such requests and telling the person asking to contact the foundation if they think they have a legal right to demand it.) --Tango (talk) 17:55, 2 December 2008 (UTC)