On Wed, 17 Jul 2002, Jimmy Wales wrote:
But other than direct legal action, there are other
serious risks of
taking too lax an attitude about copyright violations.
Murder and theft are illegal, and there is something called "citizen's
arrest", but other than that, police work is left to the police, and a
citizen cannot sentence his neighbors to fines or confinement. This is
your country, Jimmy, you be the law. Are we wikipedians citizens or
policemen? Are sysops policemen? If I suspect that another user is
breaking the law, should I report that to you or should I take action
against the abuser? Speaking for myself, I have no interest whatsoever to
play the role of a police.
When I was new to Wikipedia, I remember it was very hard to understand who
was in charge, giving orders, and who was just giving their personal
opinion. If somebody tells me I "shouldn't" do this or that, I like to
know the authority of that statement.
--
Lars Aronsson (lars(a)aronsson.se)
tel +46-70-7891609
http://aronsson.se/ http://elektrosmog.nu/ http://susning.nu/