Act of Congress Wiki Vandalism Act

[Rorroh]

CONGRESS OF THE
COMMONWEALTH OF REDMONT
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A BILL TO
PROTECT THE INTEGRITY OF THE WIKI
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The people of the Commonwealth of Redmont, through their elected Representatives in the Congress and the force of law ordained to that Congress by the people through the constitution, do hereby enact the following provisions into law:
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PART I — PRELIMINARIES​

1. Short Title and Enactment

(1) This Act may be cited as the "Wiki Vandalism Act".
(2) This Act shall be enacted immediately upon its signage.
(3) This Act has been authored by Representative Sophie Frostshade with guidance from DoE Archives Manager Mr_Blox and DSoE Fishy Fish.
(4) This Act has been co-sponsored by Representative Fishy Fish.
(5) This Act has been reviewed and approved by DoE leadership.
(6) This Act amends the following acts:
(a) Redmont Civil Code Act

2. Reasons and Intent

(1) To establish punitive recourse for wiki related matters
(2) To disincentivise bad faith actors from the destruction of information and the spread of misinformation, and from disrupting wiki operations.
(3) To protect the Wiki Revitalisation Project, and ensure ratings remain the job of archivists alone.

3. Definitions

(1) For the purposes of this Act, the following definitions shall apply:
(a) Wiki refers to the official DemocracyCraft wiki owned directly by Minecraft Cities Network.
(b) Wiki Article refers to an editable page within the Wiki.
(c) Wiki Content refers to any information presented on a public-facing page within the Wiki.
(d) Wiki Management refers to the Secretary, Deputy Secretary, and Archivist Managers of the DoE.

PART II — Amendments and Enforcement​

1. Wiki Vandalism

(1) The following shall be inserted under Part XIII: MISCELLANEOUS of the Redmont Civil Code Act:

11. Wiki Vandalism
Violation Type: Administrative
Remedy:
(a) First violation - Up to 10 Civil Penalty Units;
(b) Second violation - Up to 20 Civil Penalty Units;
(c) Subsequent violations - Up to 40 Civil Penalty Units
A person commits a violation if the person:
(a) adds, alters, or removes wiki content in order to misrepresent information; or
(b) removes significant amounts of wiki content or a wiki article without reason; or
(c) adds wiki content that is irrelevant or uses inappropriate or abusive language; or
d) adds, alters, or removes wiki content that require privileged access as granted by the DoE
This violation shall not occur where:
(a) the person can reasonably be assumed to have been acting in good faith or by genuine accident; or
(b) where reason for removal of wiki content is reasonably apparent; or
(c) removal of wiki content was performed by the Wiki Management; or
(d) removal of wiki content was performed with authorisation from Wiki Management.

2. Enforcement

(1) The Department of Education shall retain full jurisdiction and discretionary power over the enforcement of this act, including but not limited to determining whether a violation occurred and the remedial amount of Penalty Units that are justified for compensation.
(2) Determinations shall be based on a bona fide evaluation of the damages.

 

[xXTheoryXx]

Presidential Assent

PRESIDENTIAL ASSENT​

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This Act inserts a new violation, Wiki Vandalism, as Part XIII §11 of the Redmont Civil Code Act, classified as Administrative and carrying up to 10 civil penalty units for a first violation, 20 for a second, and 40 for subsequent violations, being $1,200, $2,400 and $4,800 at the current unit value.

I grant assent for three reasons.

First, the gap is real and the harm is public. The wiki is where new players go to learn how this country works before they know anyone in it, and someone who quietly falsifies an article does more damage to that than a great many things we already fine people for. Until now the Commonwealth has had nothing to say about it. A country that maintains a public record and provides no recourse when it is corrupted is not maintaining it.

Second, the Act fits the framework it is being inserted into rather than working around it. Classifying the violation as Administrative puts it squarely within Part II §9(5) of the Code, which permits direct enforcement by a government entity and sets the burden at clear and convincing evidence. The Department of Education already administers Academic Misconduct and Breach of Academic Integrity on the same footing, so this asks nothing new of it institutionally.

Third, the penalties are proportionate. Ten units for a first violation sits above Academic Misconduct and below Breach of Academic Integrity, and the escalation to forty for repeat conduct answers the deliberate vandal without punishing the careless editor. The good faith and genuine accident defence carries most of the weight it needs to carry.

I record the following for Congress, for the Department of Education, and for the Office of Congressional Affairs.

I record my interpretation of Part II §2(1), which vests "full jurisdiction and discretionary power" over enforcement in the Department and includes the power to determine whether a violation occurred. I do not read that as making the Department's determination final. Part II §7(5) of the Civil Code defines an Administrative Violation as one enforced without a formal trial which "can be contested before a judicial officer after enforcement," and Part II §4(1) provides that the Code prevails over any conflicting Act. A player fined under this section retains the right to contest that fine before a judicial officer, and Section 13 of the Constitution would require as much in any event. I would prefer the Act said so on its face.

The element at Part II §1(d) reads that a person commits a violation if they add, alter, or remove wiki content "that require privileged access as granted by the DoE." It does not say that the person must have acted without that access. Read literally it describes an archivist doing their job. The defences do not cure this, because paragraphs (c) and (d) of the defences excuse only the removal of content by or with the authorisation of Wiki Management, while the elements reach adding and altering as well. The good faith defence will protect an authorised archivist in practice, but the section should read "without authorisation from Wiki Management" and the defences should be extended to additions and alterations. That is a two word repair.

The definitions of Wiki, Wiki Article, Wiki Content and Wiki Management sit in Part I §3 of this Act and are not carried into the Civil Code. Part XIII §11 of the Code will therefore use four terms the Code does not define, in an instrument whose stated purpose at its own Section 2(2) is to be "a single source of truth." These definitions belong in Part II §7 of the Code and a future amendment should move them there.

Paragraph (c) of the elements reaches content that is "irrelevant" or uses "inappropriate" language, neither of which is defined and both of which are judged in the first instance by the Department that will levy the fine. I ask the Department to publish written criteria for what it treats as irrelevant or inappropriate before it issues its first penalty under this section. Freedom of political communication is protected by Section 35(6) of the Constitution, and an unflattering entry about a public figure that is accurate is not vandalism.

On Section 1(5), which records that this Act was reviewed and approved by DoE leadership, I have spoken with the Secretary of Education and the Act did not come to him before it was introduced. He supports it on its merits and the Department had been considering how to address wiki vandalism independently, so nothing turns on it here. I record it because a statement of departmental approval on the face of a bill is relied upon by both chambers, and it should be made only where the Secretary has in fact seen the bill.

The Secretary has also advised me that the Department no longer holds the wiki modification detector that previously alerted it to changes, that instrument having been privately hosted by earlier departmental leadership. A penalty is only as good as the detection behind it, and I would rather this section were enforced by a record of edits than by whoever happens to notice. I support the Department approaching Network Leadership for a replacement and will back that request. I also ask the Department to coordinate with Network Leadership so that a player is not separately punished by staff and fined by the government for the same edit, the wiki being owned by Minecraft Cities Network rather than by the Commonwealth.

The Secretary has proposed that this conduct also be codified in the Criminal Code. Part II §4(3) of the Civil Code already permits a plaintiff to pursue both a civil violation and civil damages arising from a crime, so the two would sit alongside one another rather than in conflict. I would want to see how this section performs first. If the administrative penalty proves insufficient against determined bad actors, I will consider a criminal counterpart on the evidence of that, and I would want any such proposal to reach a considerably higher threshold of intent than paragraph (c) of this section sets.

One smaller matter. The Code contains no general rule for how a first, second or subsequent violation is counted, and nothing here says whether a prior wiki violation ever falls away. Congress should settle that once for the whole Code rather than violation by violation.

My thanks to Representative Sophie Frostshade for authoring this Act, to Representative Fishy Fish for co-sponsoring it, and to Archives Manager Mr_Blox for his guidance on it. The Wiki Revitalisation Project is worth protecting and the people doing that work deserve to know the Commonwealth stands behind it.

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This bill has been granted assent and is hereby signed into law.

Theory Fontaine
30th President of the Commonwealth of Redmont​