Topic on User talk:Agiletek

I've just put a "verify" tag on your recent addition of the word "obsessively" to our page for Jimmy Carter and '"proof"' in quotes to our page for George W. Bush. I lived through both presidents' terms and paid attention to US news, and I don't remember any such activity on the part of the press.

Either you're going to have to provide some documentation for this claim, or the words have to come off of both pages. UK libel law is not the same as US libel law; thus, for the safety of the wiki we cannot leave this claim unchallenged.

I see that you edit here daily. Today is February 16. Please reply within two days, before February 19.

@Agiletek @Labster @Looney Toons @GethN7 @Robkelk @QuestionableSanity @Derivative @SelfCloak

" I lived through both presidents' terms and paid attention to US news, and I don't remember any such activity on the part of the press." Really? Bush's pronouncation of nuclear was obsessed over to the point The Other Wiki has a page on it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucular?useskin=vector

NBC Universal derrided it as a "bushism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhmdEq3JhoY

The New York Times had to put out an article admitting it's a relatively common pronunciation even if it is "irritating" and expresses a desire to expunge it from use that it admits is impossible. https://archive.ph/qFKKK

I also very much doubt that even in UK libel law there's anyone who has standing to claim they were libeled for someone saying "the media" obsessed over something.

Then why did you put the comment on the page for Jimmy Carter?

Really? Bush's pronouncation of nuclear was obsessed over to the point The Other Wiki has a page on it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucular?useskin=vector

Which says nothing about any obsession on the part of the press.

You still haven't defended your statement to the level that a UK court would accept as a defense.

Three separate citations to hyperanylasis of one man's pronouncation of a word doesn't show obsession? 4/5 entries in the pop culture are clear parodies of Bush's use.

You want more? Here's Slate writing a whole article questioning his pronouncation https://archive.ph/pOh8M

The Daily Show with Jon Stuart does an entire sketch mocking Bush

CNN finds it notable Bush's wife made a brief joke about her husband's pronouncation https://archive.ph/37Pzh

While addressing a later user, here's The Guardian calling the pronunciation of nuclear a "totemic touchstone in American politics" (!) and asserting only one pronunciation is correct. https://archive.ph/wip/gRcmF

I don't see how anyone can seriously argue Bush's pronunciation of "nuclear" is not one of the traits he is associated with in fictional depictions.

And again, I very much doubt that even in UK libel law there's anyone with standing to claim they are personally an unspecified "the media" or "the press", much less that they're damaged by saying they obsessed over some aspect of a major political figure.

"Then why did you put the comment on the page for Jimmy Carter?" Because Carter is a nuclear engineer? Plenty of pages note that future and previous presidents got differing responses for doing something identical to a previous/future president.

Why comment on how the press treated Bush2 on Carter's page? That's pretty clearly off-topic, and the only reason it has for being there seems to be simply some manner of Take That.

I'm not British and have no knowledge of British law, so I'm taking the Commonwealth admin's concerns seriously -- rather than expose the wiki to legal risk, I say we revert those edits and replace them with a neutral acknowledgement of both presidents' usage of a dialect pronunciation. Veiled insults have no place on either page.

There's comments about Bush on William Henry Harrison, and Rutherford B. Hayes. I don't care about preserving the edits, but I will absolutely stand by fearing of being sued for insulting non-specific "press" as completely and utterly absurd.

but I will absolutely stand by fearing of being sued for insulting non-specific "press" as completely and utterly absurd.

Are you licensed to practice law in the UK?

EDIT: No, that isn't a fair question.

It isn't "the press" that you have to worry about. It's somebody who can make a credible claim to being in the class of organisations called "the press" that can sue you.

And it's very brave to proudly declare that you aren't afraid of being sued when the ones who would be sued for your actions are the wiki and its admins, not you. We applaud your fearlessness and daring in the face of someone else's legal jeopardy.

Meanwhile, thank you for pointing out the other out-of-place comments. I'll go remove them now as inappropriate and poor precedents.

EDIT: And that was quite disingenuous of you. Both of the comments were valid historical comparisons and not blatant Take Thats such as you're trying to use them to justify. One, however, had a borderline phrasing such that I deleted it anyway. Meanwhile,

Due to the narrowness of his victory, [Rutherford B. Hayes'] picture showed up on American TV news a lot immediately after the 2000 presidential election.

is in no wise comparable in tone or purpose to the borderline-explicit "I must point out the hypocrisy of the Librul Manestreem Meedya for criticizing someone I admire" in your edits and certainly does not serve as an excuse for them.

A strict (and petty) reading of All The Tropes:How We Do Bans Around Here, All The Tropes:Content Guidelines, and All The Tropes:The Troper's Code would allow us to give you a tempban without warning for posting blatant Take Thats about Real Life people. And your actions did put us at legal risk, as @Looney Toons points out in his sarcasm above. But I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you simply didn't know that you were being prejudiced.

However, you only get one chance.

This is an Official Warning that, if you put the wiki at legal risk again, you will be tempbanned.

@Agiletek @Labster @Looney Toons @GethN7 @Robkelk @QuestionableSanity @Derivative @SelfCloak

And while Rob hands out the warning, I've gone in and gotten rid of the venom from those two pages.

Consider this me speaking with the mod hat on as well. When it comes to legal liability, we we ALWAYS err on the side of legal caution, especially since the servers that host this site are based in the UK, which has stiffer libel laws than the US and thus any legal issues would be resolved in a UK court. Just because you are an American citizen or may not be does not make you utterly immune if the case is valid, and we are under no illusions it would be wise to risk that.

Whatever your personal opinions, the official position here is to edit as if a lawyer might be looking at your words for a lawsuit later, and to deny them any justified retaliation. That is all.

I'll abide by this, but I'm going to say here that if this is an accurate assessment, that the location of Airstrip One was aptly chosen.

"This is literally 1984, guys!"

Let me just add that while both the US and UK have generally similar concepts of free speech and expression (though I'd argue the US version has more latitude in some areas, but I digress), both nations also make you legally liable for your speech, and while we have no desire to curtail speech that is both on point, within the manual of style, and not illegal by it's mere existence, we must also balance this against our ability to absorb the costs of legal expenses should we incur a lawsuit.

Ergo, we must request certain limits if only to cover our own backsides in a legal sense for speech that could be considered libelous according to the location of our server hosting.