Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Lawrence Cohen (talk | contribs) at 19:39, 29 November 2007 (→Public posting on Misplaced Pages: grammar). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The following is a proposed Misplaced Pages policy, guideline, or process. The proposal may still be in development, under discussion, or in the process of gathering consensus for adoption.

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Private correspondence in relation to Misplaced Pages may be e-mails, IRC logs, postal mail, text messages (Online, or by phone), or any other recorded conversation or ideas that was not originally posted on Misplaced Pages. All content that is posted on Misplaced Pages generally must be GFDL compliant. However, upon review, some senior Arbitration Committee members have stated that copyright should not be used as a crutch to suppress criticism. At no time is it acceptable to suppress legitimate criticism from users in good standing. If there are concerns about the method of delivery for the message, it should not reflect on the messenger or the message's value.

Private correspondence may be required for Misplaced Pages's dispute resolution system. Alternately, an editor may feel the need to disclose such information to the Misplaced Pages community, on their assumption that the benefit from such disclosure or possible whistle blowing may outweigh possible negatives, and could improve Misplaced Pages in the end. There are right and wrong ways to do this.

Forward to ArbCom

At any time, evidence materials can be forwarded to the Arbitration Committee. Unless there is a legitimate need to not send evidence to the entire Committee, evidence should be sent to their mail list directly, rather than to individuals.

Public posting on Misplaced Pages

As there is contention even in legal circles over who holds copyright on materials such as e-mail (the sender, versus the recipient), it is in Misplaced Pages's best interests to err on the side of caution and in general not allow direct and pure reposting. In light of that, you can refactor the email or private correspondence in question and repost a summary of what it says at WP:ANI, or WP:AN, if you like. Post an exact copy on your own blog. Forward the email to a famous blogger, and then Slashdot and Digg the resulting post where they flame roast the sender. All of the above are fine.

The only thing you can't do is post the original directly, in its original form on Misplaced Pages, unless you have the author's permission, or if the correspondence is clearly in the public domain (in which case, obviously, no permission is required).

See also

• Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Durova and Jehochman
• Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Durova and Jehochman/Evidence#What was in that damning report?

• Misplaced Pages proposals