phpwiki-talk

[Phpwiki-talk] Disclaimers and responsibility

[John K. <jo...@ke...>]

Hi,

I recently set up a wiki-based community web site for our local area 
community group, Burley Green (www.burleygreen.com). I was wondering 
what happens if someone writes something defamatory etc on the site, 
so I asked a friend. He said (and this is in the UK - YMMV):

>I have been speaking to my sister about the issue of disclaimers
>on websites. She is into web law, in fact she is doing a masters in
>it.
>
>You as webmaster are legally responsible for the content of the
>website. No disclaimer gets around this.
>
>If you don't provide usernames and passwords then you are not
>taking enough precautions (and still may not be taking enough!) to
>stop mis-use of the website. If someone did write something
>offensive, misleading etc then it will look like you set up a site for
>them to do this.

Anyone have thoughts on this?

John.
-- 

---------------------------------------------------------
email:  jo...@ke...         phone:      07944 755613
web:     www.kershaw.org    AOL: johnkershaw
---------------------------------------------------------

Re: [Phpwiki-talk] Disclaimers and responsibility

[Carsten K. <car...@ma...>]

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiCopyRights

talks about wiki copyright issues, somewhat related to disclaimers.

Carsten

On Monday, March 25, 2002, at 07:48  am, John Kershaw wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I recently set up a wiki-based community web site for our local area 
> community group, Burley Green (www.burleygreen.com). I was wondering what 
> happens if someone writes something defamatory etc on the site, so I 
> asked a friend. He said (and this is in the UK - YMMV):
>
>> I have been speaking to my sister about the issue of disclaimers
>> on websites. She is into web law, in fact she is doing a masters in
>> it.
>>
>> You as webmaster are legally responsible for the content of the
>> website. No disclaimer gets around this.
>>
>> If you don't provide usernames and passwords then you are not
>> taking enough precautions (and still may not be taking enough!) to
>> stop mis-use of the website. If someone did write something
>> offensive, misleading etc then it will look like you set up a site for
>> them to do this.
>
> Anyone have thoughts on this?
>
> John.
> --
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> email:  jo...@ke...         phone:      07944 755613
> web:     www.kershaw.org    AOL: johnkershaw
> ---------------------------------------------------------

Re: [Phpwiki-talk] Disclaimers and responsibility

[Reini U. <ru...@x-...>]

John Kershaw schrieb:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I recently set up a wiki-based community web site for our local area
> community group, Burley Green (www.burleygreen.com). I was wondering
> what happens if someone writes something defamatory etc on the site,
> so I asked a friend. He said (and this is in the UK - YMMV):
> 
> >I have been speaking to my sister about the issue of disclaimers
> >on websites. She is into web law, in fact she is doing a masters in
> >it.
> >
> >You as webmaster are legally responsible for the content of the
> >website. No disclaimer gets around this.
> >
> >If you don't provide usernames and passwords then you are not
> >taking enough precautions (and still may not be taking enough!) to
> >stop mis-use of the website. If someone did write something
> >offensive, misleading etc then it will look like you set up a site for
> >them to do this.
> 
> Anyone have thoughts on this?

yes. use authentication, so that each entry is named in the RecentChanges 
list and check about monthly for illegal content to be removed. 
this depends on the court. in germany/austria they typically decide reasonable
in such cases.
passwords are not needed.
or set up a simple email notification to the admin as someone earlier posted.
-- 
Reini Urban
http://xarch.tu-graz.ac.at/home/rurban/