WikiQueer:Office actions

Office actions are official changes made on behalf of The Aequalitas Project, by members of its office. These are removals of questionable or illegal WikiQueer content following complaints. Office actions are performed so that the end result is a legally compliant article on the subject. Neither this policy nor actions taken under it override core policies, such as neutrality.

The most common complaints are defamation, privacy violations and copyright infringement.

Short explanation
Because "official edits" may seem strange in the context of an openly editable encyclopedia, some common causes for confusion should be clarified:


 * Office actions are extremely rare.
 * Office actions only occur by formal complaint made off-wiki (e.g. postal mail, electronic mail, telephone, or personal meetings).
 * Grievances must be grounded in the law or be violations of The Aequalitas Project standards. Requests for preferential treatment or attempts at intimidation are not heeded.
 * The vast majority of cases are libel, unjustifiable invasion of personal privacy, and copyright infringement. Since these are all inappropriate on WikiQueer anyway, office actions are preventable: if you see such a violation on a wiki, correct it or delete it and there will be no cause for complaint and no need for an "office action".
 * blp, db-attack, and db-copyvio templates have been established for the correction of these problems and are useful for this.

Process
Office actions will be clearly indicated both during and after to prevent ambiguities. Office actions may be authorized by any representative or delegate of The Aequalitas Project – such as WikiQueer's lead administrator (currently Gregory Varnum), a member of the The Aequalitas Project Board of Directors, the Project's legal counsel, or a member of The Aequalitas Project staff.

When a page is modified under this policy, the template Pp-office will be placed prominently on the page and the page will be protected. An article may be reduced to a few sentences to remove questionable content, and people then invited to build it up to a more reputable state. This will be indicated by the template Pp-reset. In either case, the instructions on the template should be followed by everyone.

Administrators, who have the technical power to undo protections and deletions, are strongly cautioned against modifying these edits. Official statements and past incidents indicate that such unauthorized modifications will be actively reverted, and possibly the rights of the modifier will be revoked. When in doubt, consult the user applying the protection/template, or the The Aequalitas Project.

DMCA compliance
In some cases, the Project may be required to remove content from WikiQueer due to a Digital Millennium Copyright Act take-down notice. In order to retain safe harbor status, the Project is required to comply with validly formulated notices even if they are spurious.

The Aequalitas Project may publish the take-down request at Category:DMCA. The Project may also terminate, in appropriate circumstances, the accounts of repeat infringers as provided under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. 512).

Responding to a DMCA take down notice
In the event that material is removed due to a DMCA notice, the only recourse for restoring such material is to file a counter-notice with the Project. If you believe that a take-down notice which has been acted upon by the Project is without legal basis, please feel free to visit the following sites as a first step in learning about filing a counter-notice:
 * "Responding to a DMCA Takedown Notice Targeting Your Content" at Citizen Media Law Project
 * Chilling Effects Clearinghouse FAQ
 * Chilling Effects Clearinghouse counter-notice generator
 * newmediarights.org

Please note that filing a counter-notice may lead to legal proceedings between you and the complaining party to determine ownership of the material. The DMCA process requires that you consent to the jurisdiction of a United States court. All notices should be sent to the The Aequalitas Project via our contact page.