Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-12-27/News and notes


 * On December 23, the Wikimedia Foundation revealed the hiring... - why "revealed"? Was it hitherto a secret? Why not "announced"? – ukexpat (talk) 14:35, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Changed it. Regards, Res Mar 22:06, 28 December 2010 (UTC)


 * The South Korean suit worries me. The country has always had a rather authoritarian set of restrictions against free speech, although usually only in regards to North Korea. However the way the laws are written, if my understanding is correct, just because this case has nothing to do with the North, does not mean that the laws are any less stacked against these four editors. On a related but separate note, I have long believed that the WMF needs to pull all their assets from South Korea, and relocate them to countries that have less restrictive laws on speech and written content. Any attempt, in the long term, to cover the current situation in the Korean peninsula in a truly neutral manner will inevitably run into issues with the South Korean government. You just wait. More and more, the South's definition of pro-North speech/content is in reality "anything that is not clearly pro-South."  S ven M anguard   Wha?  04:33, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
 * About withdrawing assets from South Korea, read the article more carefully: South Korea, where the Wikimedia Foundation used to operate a server cluster donated by Yahoo! (emphasis mine). IIRC the Korea servers have been history for quite some time, and AFAIK WMF don't have any other assets in South Korea. --Catrope (talk) 11:14, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
 * 31-December-2010: Charges of sexual misconduct are extremely volatile, perhaps because most people don't want to discuss publicly the actual evidence of uncomfortable topics. Hence, the unrefuted charges are often quietly accepted as possible. We've had a rough time with the Amanda Knox case trying to downplay the unfounded accusations of "s..ual assault" of her flatmate. Some editors wanted the lead to say the 2009 conviction was totally refuted on appeal with a new trial started in November 2010. (In Italy, 50% of convictions are typically overturned on appeal, but in the U.S. or UK, "guilty" is almost always final: as if they really did the crime.) There were big misperceptions at risk: it's almost as if in Italy, a verdict of "colpevole" initially means "suspected" or "maybe sorta guilty", so some editors wanted to clearly emphasize: "Despite the claims of a "sex game" (Italian: gioco erotico), investigators found no evidence of it, no sexual items in the room, no photos, no restraints, no potions, no drugs, not even Italian wine was involved in the house. The concept of such a game was completely unfounded. Famous U.S. TV producer, millionaire Donald Trump so totally opposed the conviction of Knox, he announced to boycott purchase of products from Italy." Perhaps such a total denial, total refutation of claims of sexual misconduct should be a policy in English Wikipedia, especially where unanswered rumors, or misperceptions might lead people to think it happened, despite all evidence to the contrary. One rogue editor even wrote in the lead that a distraught Knox had committed suicide ("breaking news") as a false story for Italy. We should probably study an expert translation of the Korean text, along with cultural biases (such as the U.S. or UK meaning of "guilty"), to judge how damning the accusations seemed in the mayor's article. That could also help craft a policy to over-deny claims of misconduct by publishing every aspect from WP:RS denials. Once the term "misconduct" or "assault" is used, then require the text to fully state the denials, and not allow a group of 7 editors to remove such text. -Wikid77 (talk) 09:42, 31 December 2010 (UTC)