If you’re a local budding Tasmania history buff, you want to help make sure that the 2010 Election here will be recorded for posterity on that quintessential tome of online knowledge known as Wikipedia. Thankfully, someone’s started the effort for you. But you hear something that’s should be recorded and feel like jotting it down. Be warned, though, as from 6PM Friday 19th February 2010 you’re in for some very nasty requirements. If you follow them to the letter of the law, you’ll probably get your account banned by the WP Admins. If you don’t you could end up with a $10,000 fine or spend 3 months at Her Majesty’s pleasure inside Risdon.
Following on from my other posts describing S191 of the Tasmanian Electoral Act, it stands to reason that some, if not many, edits to WP will fall under the guise of an Electoral Matter. If one’s to follow the letter of the act, we could easily end up a complete mess with names and addresses interspersed in the middle of sentences and paragraphs.
I’m fairly certain such behaviour would be against WP rules. But then, if the Electoral Commissioner’s telling people to put one’s name and contact address in the About box on Facebook, maybe we could create an Infobox on WP inside the articles about Tasmania’s 2010 election? Somehow, don’t think that’d fly with WP’s admins, but nothing ventured I guess. Anyone willing to volunteer to propose it to WP and try to get it through by close of business today?
I guess then we should have a backup plan. How about just putting the old address in the User page. But it wouldn’t seem to satisfy the Commissioner who’s indicating that the address and Electoral Matter have to exist on the same page as each other. Gouge my eye out with a spork, please. Then there’s the entire issue that, unlike printed matter, the address and the article will never degrade over time. Forever the Tasmanian names and street addresses will out there well past the 6 month limit that’s required for printed material as the Commissioner cannot force WP to remove the data at any future stage.
My recommendation: No Tasmanian should edit WP articles that may be considered to remotely contain an Electoral Matter during the Tasmanian election. It’s the only way to be sure.
With the way WP works, you need to cite your sources. Therefore what you put onto WP would in most cases be a regurgitation of say a news story, or something from one of the pollie’s own websites or electoral material…
Therefore, while this is an electoral matter, it couldn’t possibility be able to ‘change people’s votes’ as the information was not originally your opinion. My understanding of this law is when you publish your own opinion on electoral matters, not just citing something from another person’s opinion.
It’s not about publishing one’s opinion, it’s material that may affect the way someone will vote. It’s also about ‘permits to publish’. By editing the content in to the story, one’s permitting it to be published.
You know, I specifically got rid of my sporks, just to get rid of the eye gouging temptation. So if you want your eyes gouged, you need to provide your own spork.
I’ve got a handy brick wall for banging my head against though.
I shared this via FB – hope you don’t mind.
Oh! And I just noticed my link in the sidebar. Hehe, thankyou.
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