WMUK's reaction to the Telgraph story about Fae

[Moonage Daydream]

After the Telegraph article about Fae came out, Jon Davies made a statement which was posted on the WMUK blog and sent out to the mailing list. Some mailing list subscribers commented that a statement should be sent to all WMUK members. It was argued, of course, that this was not necessary. Richard Symonds, for example, wrote:

The board statement was sent to the mailing list and put on the blog, but I simply haven't had time (or the thought) to send out an email about it to the entire membership list. We very rarely send out emails to the entire membership list - usually only once a year, just before the AGM. It's not good practice to simply hit "email all", because it tends to swamp uninterested people, who then end up unsubscribing from the list. The majority of our communications are done through this mailing list, or on the UK wiki, as all of our active members read this list. Certainly, all our members are encouraged to join the UK Wikimedia mailing list when they join the chapter.

Davies eventually capitulated and sent out the following message:

Dear [insert name here],
There have recently been some articles in the media about our Chairman, Ashley Van Haeften. We have published a response to the articles on our blog, which you can view here<https://donate.wikimedia.org.uk/adminis ... qid=180715>.

If you have any questions or comments, please email our Chief Executive, Jon Davies, at jon.dav...@wikimedia.org.uk.

On behalf of Wikimedia UK,
Jon Davies
Chief Executive
Wikimedia UK

The Chair gets banned from the main WMF project and the story gets picked up by the press. The Chief Executive makes reference to "articles in the media", but fails to mention the ban which prompted those articles. Incidentally, this is the link to the WMUK blog post - any idea why so a convoluted link was used when communicating with the members? Tracking, perhaps?

[lilburne]

The Board of Wikimedia UK today announced the appointment of Chris Keating
as its new Chair. This appointment is effective immediately.
http://www.mail-archive.com/wikimediauk ... 05815.html

[dogbiscuit]

The Board of Wikimedia UK today announced the appointment of Chris Keating
as its new Chair. This appointment is effective immediately.
http://www.mail-archive.com/wikimediauk ... 05815.html

The Board wishes to thank Ashley Van Haeften for his excellent contributions as Chair of our charity. There is no doubt that he will continue to perform well as a Trustee and volunteer, particularly in his GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) work, where he is a leader in the field. He continues as Chair of the Wikimedia Chapters Association

The bolded section is in a different font on the email.

They really don't get it, do they? His contribution as Chair has only been since April, and in that time all he has done is embarrass Wiki UK.

How can someone who has been publicly shamed as untrustworthy allow themselves to remain a trustee?

[Retrospect]

He continues as Chair of the Wikimedia Chapters Association

So that bloody shower are even bigger wankers than WMFUK. Who'd have thought that possible?

How can someone who has been publicly shamed as untrustworthy allow themselves to remain a trustee?

Of course he can't. It's as if someone caught whitewashing some luscious Canadian broad's BLP in exchange for screwing her was allowed to stay on the WMF board. Now that would never happen, would it?

[Anroth]

He continues as Chair of the Wikimedia Chapters Association

So that bloody shower are even bigger wankers than WMFUK. Who'd have thought that possible?

How can someone who has been publicly shamed as untrustworthy allow themselves to remain a trustee?

Of course he can't. It's as if someone caught whitewashing some luscious Canadian broad's BLP in exchange for screwing her was allowed to stay on the WMF board. Now that would never happen, would it?

The WCA situation is a bit more complex. There is no reason to suspect the worldwide chapters knew anything about it. Unless they were following Arbcom on EN-WP it would have completely passed them by.

[thekohser]

The WCA situation is a bit more complex. There is no reason to suspect the worldwide chapters knew anything about it. Unless they were following Arbcom on EN-WP it would have completely passed them by.

Or, unless Ashley Van Haeften was a decent and ethical person, and disclosed to voters prior to accepting the nomination that he was currently embroiled in a highly contentious dispute about his suitability for participation in the English Wikipedia project.

[TungstenCarbide]

He continues as Chair of the Wikimedia Chapters Association

So that bloody shower are even bigger wankers than WMFUK. Who'd have thought that possible?

How can someone who has been publicly shamed as untrustworthy allow themselves to remain a trustee?

Of course he can't. It's as if someone caught whitewashing some luscious Canadian broad's BLP in exchange for screwing her was allowed to stay on the WMF board. Now that would never happen, would it?

The WCA situation is a bit more complex. There is no reason to suspect the worldwide chapters knew anything about it. Unless they were following Arbcom on EN-WP it would have completely passed them by.

Where is the WCA leadership documented? I couldn't find any record of elections or who's running it. <edit>here we go

These chapters are trouble waiting to happen -- lot's of money raising potential by small cliques of buddies with little oversight.

[eppur si muove]

The WCA situation is a bit more complex. There is no reason to suspect the worldwide chapters knew anything about it. Unless they were following Arbcom on EN-WP it would have completely passed them by.

Or, unless Ashley Van Haeften was a decent and ethical person, and disclosed to voters prior to accepting the nomination that he was currently embroiled in a highly contentious dispute about his suitability for participation in the English Wikipedia project.

The cries of "you is harassing me" when asked a simple question at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wik ... an_Haeften make it quite clear that van Haeften did not warn them.

What they do about it will make it clear whether the WCA is purely an excuse for chapter aparatchiks to have expenses-paid holidays and meet their foreign mates or whether they are serious about whatever they are doing. I'd be interested to hear what they are doing given that the WMF did have people to support chapters already.

[Anroth]

The WCA situation is a bit more complex. There is no reason to suspect the worldwide chapters knew anything about it. Unless they were following Arbcom on EN-WP it would have completely passed them by.

Or, unless Ashley Van Haeften was a decent and ethical person, and disclosed to voters prior to accepting the nomination that he was currently embroiled in a highly contentious dispute about his suitability for participation in the English Wikipedia project.

My bacon just flew out of the fridge and flapped around the room...

From the response from some of the chapters who were (and were not) present, it appears he said nothing at all.

[EricBarbour]

If you're going to discuss Ashley and his relationship with the WCA, why don't you ask the obvious question: Why is Ziko blindly supporting him?

Ever looked at Ziko's history? He's an Esperanto fan. A biiig fan. And despite his claim of arriving on German Wikipedia in 2003, he did almost nothing there
until January 2007, when he started gnoming like a madman. He gnomed about Esperanto, about German-Dutch relations (he's German and lives in Holland), about European politics.....
and about the Smurfs. (Gee, our old pal Fram is really, really into the Smurfs.) Conclusion, Ziko is an extreme nerd. Making his "love" for Fae all the more baffling.

Read this. I don't think I'd like to have Ziko translating anything for me -- he's not very good at it.

[SB_Johnny]

Conclusion, Ziko is an extreme nerd. Making his "love" for Fae all the more baffling.

Maybe one of Fae's sockpuppets is having a clandestine affair with one of Ziko's sockpuppets, and they're worried that Arbcom will expose them to the wikiworld?

[Moonage Daydream]

The first Telegraph story came out on July 31st, as did a couple of others. Mike Peel sent out a note on behalf of the WMUK board on July 26th noting that Fae had been banned but that he " continues to have the full support of the Board". How is this dealt with in the just-released WMUK July report? If you guessed "not mentioned at all", give yourself a prize.

[Michaeldsuarez]

The first Telegraph story came out on July 31st, as did a couple of others. Mike Peel sent out a note on behalf of the WMUK board on July 26th noting that Fae had been banned but that he " continues to have the full support of the Board". How is this dealt with in the just-released WMUK July report? If you guessed "not mentioned at all", give yourself a prize.

Although Mike peel's statement isn't mentioned, the Telegraph article is mentioned:

http://uk.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Reports%2F2012%2FJuly&diff=27228&oldid=26930

On 31 July The Daily Telegraph ran a report (online only) about Fae being banned from editing the English language Wikipedia. More details of this will follow in the [[August 2012 report]].

The real problem, however, is with Mike Peel's addition to the August 2012 report:

http://uk.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Reports/2012/August&diff=27269&oldid=27268

Wikipedia bans the chairman of the Wikimedia charity, 8 August

Look at the article they link to:

http://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2012/08/08/wikipedia-bans-the-chairman-of-the-wikimedia-charity/

It's a biased blog entry. Mike Peel knows how to select his sources. Mike Peel is clearly biased:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost/2012-07-16/Special_report&diff=502798187

Yet the WMUK allowed Mike Peel to write about Fae in the August 2012 report. His biases clearly made its way into the report, as seen by the roger-pearse.com link.

[HRIP7]

Roger Pearse is a retired Wikipedian: Roger Pearse (T-C-L). Given the statement in his blog piece that there should be nothing wrong with using multiple accounts, it is worth noting that he seems to have retired after he was blocked for sockpuppeting: diff.

The statement on his user page reads as follows:

I am now considering ceasing contributing to Wikipedia.
My recent experience is that it is becoming counter-productive for those with a bit of education to contribute, while the results of our labour will generally belong to whichever troll is most determined to end up in control of an article. The educated end up acting as research assistants for trolls, which is a role few of us would care to fill. Attempts to fight back are simply met with a storm of harassment, often in the form of brinking. The scumbag can always wear down the person who has something real to offer, and much else to do.
As far as I know, I am one of the last online scholars to attempt to contribute. I will no longer do so. In practice, it seems that educated people cannot edit Wikipedia. Until this problem is addressed by the owners of Wikipedia, it is a mistake for us to try. It should be sobering for us all to find, in gatherings online of scholars, that wikipedia is treated as "something we couldn't edit".
This humorous page on "Gaming Wikipedia" outlines precisely what people face if they do.

[thekohser]

As far as I know, I am one of the last online scholars to attempt to contribute.

Rather full of himself, is he not? No wonder he's on Fae's side.

[HRIP7]

As far as I know, I am one of the last online scholars to attempt to contribute.

Rather full of himself, is he not?

He is.

It’s understandable that a university which gets riff-raff from around the world may need to check who they are. But hardly in my case, when I am renewing. [...] Why DO libraries do these things? I wish I were a rich man. I would get my lawyers to sort these people out in short order.

[roger_pearse]

The real problem, however, is with Mike Peel's addition to the August 2012 report:

http://uk.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Reports/2012/August&diff=27269&oldid=27268

Wikipedia bans the chairman of the Wikimedia charity, 8 August

Look at the article they link to:

http://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2012/08/08/wikipedia-bans-the-chairman-of-the-wikimedia-charity/

It's a biased blog entry.

I hope no-one will mind if I pop in and respond to this?

I appreciate the link, by the way; and I was unaware of the "report" on Wikimedia linking to it.

I'm not aware of any bias, you know? If there is some, do let me know. But in favour of whom?

You see, I infer from this thread that there is a long and probably rather tawdry battle going on between various people, including "Fae", for power in one or another of these endless, Byzantine, wikipedia or meta-wikipedia groups, channels, lists, chapters or whatever.

But all this is quite impenetrable to an ordinary chap like myself. Indeed its existence, and the utter lack of transparency of Wikipedia (etc) administration, is one of the problems with Wikipedia, IMHO.

What I sought to do, rather, with my blog post, was to highlight the nastiness of wikipedia, and how much like a meat-grinder it has become. If even the chairman of the charity that supports it can get lynched by people manipulating its obscure 'processes' -- someone who presumably has endless allies and knows how the system works --, what on earth can any normal person hope for, should he fall afoul of a troll? (As, indeed, was my own experience, and I don't see any reason why I should not say so?)

Does anyone here feel that this is not fair comment?

I must admit that I have never heard of Wikipediocracy, but my own experience of Wikipedia mirrors much of what I have read here. I wasn't able to work out what the background of this site is.

Are people familiar with the chap who tried to edit the Acts of Paul page and found his edits being reverted by an administrator who was all of 14 years old? The chap was himself a published scholar on the subject. I wrote about this here.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

[Zoloft]

Welcome to Wikipediocracy, Roger.

Looking at your Wikipedia history, it looks as if you tried to bring some educated writing to the 'encyclopedia anyone can edit' and were set upon by trolls and juveniles.

We are glad to have you here.

[EricBarbour]

So much of what is said about Wikipedia is untrue. It is closed and unfriendly, and the mass of “policies” conceals the real practical workings of the site. The “policies” themselves are just made up, are often just PR, and are enforced, if at all, by children or other people quite unfit to do so in a manner that is capricious, arbitrary, unfair and profoundly lacking in transparency.

Welcome, Roger, it appears you're already seeing the light. Sadly, I expect that you will soon be blocked, as an "opponent".

[Peter Damian]

Welcome Roger. You’re the Tertullian guy http://www.tertullian.org/, yes? I’m the Logic Museum guy http://www.logicmuseum.com/wiki/The_Log ... gic_Museum.

On the Byzantine case you have just discussed, my take is that Fae used a position of responsibility to cover up the actions of past accounts, which were actually quite trivial. When challenged on this, he covered up the cover up, and so on. This is very common on Wikipedia. Quite trivial (although sometimes quite serious) skeletons get parked away in dusty closets. Other people find the skeletons and – rather than resolve the matter quite simply – they add another skeleton, and another. This means dragging progressively more people into the, er, conspiracy, until it all explodes in everyone’s face.

Eventually the Committee banned him for trying to persuade an official of the WMF to intervene. Rightly, in my opinion.

This http://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2012 ... ia-trolls/ was well worth reading, thanks for the link.

For those here who don’t know, Roger is a specialist in Christian writing of the Roman period. His period ends where my website takes off (Christian and scholastic writing of the whole medieval period). I think we overlap on Augustine http://www.logicmuseum.com/wiki/Authors/Augustine though. I have the highest respect for Roger's work.

[Anroth]

What I sought to do, rather, with my blog post, was to highlight the nastiness of wikipedia, and how much like a meat-grinder it has become. If even the chairman of the charity that supports it can get lynched by people manipulating its obscure 'processes' -- someone who presumably has endless allies and knows how the system works --, what on earth can any normal person hope for, should he fall afoul of a troll? (As, indeed, was my own experience, and I don't see any reason why I should not say so?)

Well Fae wasnt exactly lynched. They didnt hunt him down in a mob and administer citizen justice. It was a long affair (That pre-dated his chairmanship of the charity) of him pissing off more and more people and using those obscure 'processes' (abusing the right to vanish for example) to avoid censure. Throwing around wild accusations until he came up against someone who decided to take him through the legitimate channels to correct his behavior. At every point he tried all the tricks to avoid it, up to and including trying to use a member of the WMF to influence ARBCOM. (Akin to going to your MP to get them to lean on a judge or police investigating a case). I would say more a case of being hoist by his own petard...

[Moonage Daydream]

The first Telegraph story came out on July 31st, as did a couple of others. Mike Peel sent out a note on behalf of the WMUK board on July 26th noting that Fae had been banned but that he " continues to have the full support of the Board". How is this dealt with in the just-released WMUK July report? If you guessed "not mentioned at all", give yourself a prize.

Although Mike peel's statement isn't mentioned, the Telegraph article is mentioned:

http://uk.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Reports%2F2012%2FJuly&diff=27228&oldid=26930

On 31 July The Daily Telegraph ran a report (online only) about Fae being banned from editing the English language Wikipedia. More details of this will follow in the [[August 2012 report]].

Sorry about that. Everyone give your prizes back.

[Michaeldsuarez]

I hope no-one will mind if I pop in and respond to this?

I appreciate the link, by the way; and I was unaware of the "report" on Wikimedia linking to it.

I'm not aware of any bias, you know? If there is some, do let me know. But in favour of whom?

You see, I infer from this thread that there is a long and probably rather tawdry battle going on between various people, including "Fae", for power in one or another of these endless, Byzantine, wikipedia or meta-wikipedia groups, channels, lists, chapters or whatever.

But all this is quite impenetrable to an ordinary chap like myself. Indeed its existence, and the utter lack of transparency of Wikipedia (etc) administration, is one of the problems with Wikipedia, IMHO.

What I sought to do, rather, with my blog post, was to highlight the nastiness of wikipedia, and how much like a meat-grinder it has become. If even the chairman of the charity that supports it can get lynched by people manipulating its obscure 'processes' -- someone who presumably has endless allies and knows how the system works --, what on earth can any normal person hope for, should he fall afoul of a troll? (As, indeed, was my own experience, and I don't see any reason why I should not say so?)

Does anyone here feel that this is not fair comment?

I must admit that I have never heard of Wikipediocracy, but my own experience of Wikipedia mirrors much of what I have read here. I wasn't able to work out what the background of this site is.

Are people familiar with the chap who tried to edit the Acts of Paul page and found his edits being reverted by an administrator who was all of 14 years old? The chap was himself a published scholar on the subject. I wrote about this here.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Thanks for commenting here. I apologized for how this thread turned into a discussion about you. That wasn't my intention. I brought up how Mike Peel was using your blog in order to criticize Mike peel, not you. I believe that Mike Peel linked to your blog because he saw your blog as being pro-Fae and anti-Wikipediocracy. By "biased blog article", I meant "opinion piece". There were plenty of online news articles by journalists for Mike Peel to link to, but he didn't use any of them because he didn't see any them as being pro-Fae. As a result, Mike Peel resorted to linking to an opinion piece / blog entry.

In addition, banning Fae wasn't even on ArbCom's table until the very end. I was meant to be the only person banned at the end of that case, but then Fae did something that angered ArbCom. I don't agree with ArbCom's decision. Fae speaking to Philippe or Philippe speaking to Fae (there appear to be two different accounts of what happened) isn't criminal. Banning Fae wasn't my goal. My primary objective was to have ArbCom uphold freedom of speech. People have been banned for publishing leaked material and material that's critical of Wikipedia and its idols, and I'm presently the latest one banned for that.

As Anroth said, there wasn't a lynch mob. The pro-Fae crowd was pretty large. It was mainly ArbCom that advocated banning Fae. If anything, ArbCom was acting against the mob / popular opinion. It was Philippe who unintentionally began the process of Fae's demise, not MBisanz or any of us. ArbCom didn't even consider banning Fae until Philippe approached them.

Now that I think of it, Fae wouldn't had been banned if ArbCom hadn't declined an earlier case about Fae and MBisanz:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case&diff=490595658&oldid=490513556

What if the ArbCom case had finished before Wikimania 2012 (the event where Philippe approached Risker)? That's how essential Philippe was the results of the ArbCom case. Remove Philippe or change the timing of the case, and everything would've been different. That's how irrelevant MBisanz, Delicious carbuncle, and I were to ArbCom's decision to ban Fae.

The problem with Fae is that he wants responsibility over a charity without being responsible for his past. Earlier, Fae became a Wikipedia sysop while hiding his past activity on Wikipedia and Commons.

[roger_pearse]

Welcome to Wikipediocracy, Roger.

Thank you.

Looking at your Wikipedia history, it looks as if you tried to bring some educated writing to the 'encyclopedia anyone can edit' and were set upon by trolls and juveniles.

I did my best. I don't quite see how getting the raw facts about something to do with ancient history wrong helps most people, and most of us have limited opportunity to research such things. Perhaps my experience might be of interest.

What I found, back in 2006-ish, was that there was a great deal of crud online about the Roman deity Mithras. Over time I researched it, and found that (a) very little of what "everyone knew" was backed up by the ancient sources or the modern professional scholars and (b) that the main source of this misinformation was Wikipedia.

So I decided to contribute. I did my best to write a reliable article, looked up every existing reference, and so on, and to control the injections of nonsense. I referenced it to every possible reliable source, and linked through to book previews and the like. It took two years of hard work, evenings and weekends, as I am purely an interested amateur myself (albeit one who can find the stuff). My intention was not to put any point of view, but to state what the specialists say, and make it possible for any reader to click through and check everything.

Unfortunately there are people who prefer falsehoods, and one of them decided to hijack the article. So he turned up at the article, plus meat-puppet, and fought to gain control. I of course appealed to the admins -- it was all pretty obvious what was happening -- and got ... no support. People like me don't tend to have time for edit wars, so of course he "won". He celebrated by deleting the evidence of his misdeeds from the talk page, and then poisoned the article with stuff from out-of-date or unreliable sources, deleting any material by myself (a bit of spite, that), faked up his rubbish in the format that I had used and resequenced the article so that it was impossible to see what the differences were.

I noted that several admin users saw all this, and did nothing to stop it.

What the troll didn't realise is that people keep appearing at that article to inject nonsense, and, since he wasn't interested in Mithras, and couldn't imagine anyone but me was, he presumed all of them were me, and launched his sockpuppet claim.

Of course I paid no attention -- I never pay any attention to anonymous accusations online, and I certainly never allow myself to be "put on trial" online -- so I was mildly amused by this. And of course I knew that I had never sock-puppeted in my life -- I don't have time for such things --, and I still supposed that Wikipedia processes were honest.

But then checkuser "revealed" that I had experimented on another article a month or so earlier with using an anonymous account myself. As far as I knew, that was OK. After all, everyone else was anonymous, and the troll was taking advantage of the fact that I was not to try to injure my reputation (amusing to see him try; what a weasel). But in fact I felt very uncomfortable not using my own name and went back to editing as me after a couple of edits.

As using a different account is allowed under the fake policies, I put a message on the talk page of the investigating anonymous admin so that I could tell him what I had done. My message was ignored. At that point I smelt a rat. And, sure enough, I was blocked for "sock puppeting" (!).

The troll promptly posted abuse on my user page (breach of wiki policy, of course), and was ... merely reverted by another admin with a polite message to the troll that this wasn't OK. One rule for those they like, one rule for the rest.

This was the point at which I lost any interest in contributing to Wikipedia.

I was considering leaving anyway -- for what is the point in working to research something, if it just gets deleted, and, worse, your research is used to back up a position you know is wrong? It's just futile.

But when I find that the admins in *any* forum are corrupt, I bail. For what's the point in contributing in such a situation?

I suppose Wikipedia is, in law, defaming me. I don't know if one could sue Wikipedia, and of course I have been a little tempted. I very much doubt that they would care to defend Mr Troll's claims in a real court, for one thing. But does Wikipedia have a UK presence? And ... I am really reluctant to encourage the process of litigating about things online. It's not a trend that will work in *our* favour, I'm sure. I'd rather endure such abuse myself, than be obliged to pass my blog posts online in front of lawyers.

It's a bit sad. I came to wikipedia to contribute, to improve articles, to help others. I come away from it, having wasted part of my life, and achieved the opposite. And ... I suspect that my story is not that uncommon.

And the troll? Oh, he abandoned using one of the accounts as soon as it had served his purpose, and was last seen modifying the "verifiability" policy to justify his vandalism.

Never mind. Worse things happen at sea.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

[roger_pearse]

I hope no-one will mind if I pop in and respond to this?

I appreciate the link, by the way; and I was unaware of the "report" on Wikimedia linking to it.

I'm not aware of any bias, you know? If there is some, do let me know. But in favour of whom?

Thanks for commenting here. I apologized for how this thread turned into a discussion about you. That wasn't my intention. I brought up how Mike Peel was using your blog in order to criticize Mike peel, not you. I believe that Mike Peel linked to your blog because he saw your blog as being pro-Fae and anti-Wikipediocracy. By "biased blog article", I meant "opinion piece". There were plenty of online news articles by journalists for Mike Peel to link to, but he didn't use any of them because he didn't see any them as being pro-Fae. As a result, Mike Peel resorted to linking to an opinion piece / blog entry.

No hassle, and thank you, everyone, for the welcome.

Something needs to be done about Wikipedia, and it is good to find a forum of people who know about it.

I did wonder why I was linked by Wikipedia. No-one can suppose that it was a pro-Wikipedia piece, after all. But that makes sense of it -- thank you. It was probably the only piece on the subject on the web that didn't simply repeate the shriek "Fae=pornographer". I don't know who Mike Peel is, tho.

I enjoyed reading about the secret mailing lists; I was pretty sure that there were some backstairs conversations going on. And isn't it funny that, while there are endless obscure cubbyholes in which debate takes place, which google won't find, that one could be banned for talking openly here?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

[roger_pearse]

Welcome Roger. You’re the Tertullian guy http://www.tertullian.org/, yes? I’m the Logic Museum guy http://www.logicmuseum.com/wiki/The_Log ... gic_Museum.

For those here who don’t know, Roger is a specialist in Christian writing of the Roman period. His period ends where my website takes off (Christian and scholastic writing of the whole medieval period). I think we overlap on Augustine http://www.logicmuseum.com/wiki/Authors/Augustine though. I have the highest respect for Roger's work.

Thank you very much for the welcome, and yes, Tertullian is me. Most of my projects are linke from here and I blog here (rather technical in the main; sorry). My interests are largely about ancient texts and about getting them on the web, and, inevitably, about free speech online. I do a certain amount of debunking modern misunderstandings where I believe that these are simply matters of fact which could be looked up by anyone, and where no-one is served by getting it wrong.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

[HRIP7]

Welcome to Wikipediocracy, Roger.

Thank you.

Looking at your Wikipedia history, it looks as if you tried to bring some educated writing to the 'encyclopedia anyone can edit' and were set upon by trolls and juveniles.

I did my best. I don't quite see how getting the raw facts about something to do with ancient history wrong helps most people, and most of us have limited opportunity to research such things. Perhaps my experience might be of interest.

[...]

Likewise, welcome. One thing that unquestionably weighed against you was that you inserted references to your own blog. This is frowned upon in Wikipedia even if the insertion is made by someone other than the blog author himself, and even if the blog is that of a published expert on the topic. In your case, you were both the blog post's author and the inserting editor, and are not a published expert on the topic. In Wikipedia culture, this would have instantly cast you in the light of a self-promoter.

On the topic of admins: one thing the public do not understand is that Wikipedia admins are volunteers like everyone else. Most of them are anonymous, and the Wikimedia Foundation knows nothing whatsoever about their age, name, qualifications etc. Some have been as young as 12 years old. Wikipedia is the website anyone can edit, and almost anyone can become an admin, provided they are popular enough, not disliked by a significant number of people, and trusted by their peers not to engage in any malicious activity, based on a track record of reasonable edits over a period of a year or so. Absolutely no one asks that they should have any knowledge or understanding of any encyclopedic topic whatsoever.

As for suing: another thing that the public do not understand is that Wikipedia is essentially a social networking service like Facebook, where anyone can register an account, giving any name they please, and everyone remains solely responsible for what they say and put up on the service. For example, if a Facebook user writes something defamatory on Facebook, you cannot sue Facebook, any more than you can sue Wikipedia. You can only sue the Facebook user in question. (You may be able to ask Facebook to remove the defamation, and sue them if they refuse, but that is a separate matter from editorial responsibility for the initial post.)

So the thing to be understood is that neither the Wikimedia Foundation nor Wikimedia UK have or accept any responsibility for the content anonymous users of their service post on their site. They are protected by the "safe harbour" provided by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which underlies the entire Wikipedia concept.

To quote Wikipedia,

Section 230(c)(1) provides immunity from liability for providers and users of an "interactive computer service" who publish information provided by others:

No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

The Wikimedia Foundation only becomes responsible when they receive a request to take something down: for example because the material infringes a copyright, or when child pornography is posted. At that point, they have a legal responsibility to respond to the request, but not before then; and there is no onus on them to seek out infringing or defamatory material themselves, nor are they engaged in such efforts.

Indeed, it would not be in their interest to do so, as any active interest in the site's content would weaken the Foundation's legal status as the mere provider of an interactive computer service who cannot be held responsible for site content.

[Zoloft]

With all respect, Roger, it would be hilarious to have you send in your five quid or whatever it is and become a member of Wikimedia UK.

But you probably have more scholarly things that would be a better use of your time.

Did you keep a copy of the Mithras Wikipedia article you created anywhere? I would like to preserve it.

[roger_pearse]

Welcome to Wikipediocracy, Roger.

Thank you.

Looking at your Wikipedia history, it looks as if you tried to bring some educated writing to the 'encyclopedia anyone can edit' and were set upon by trolls and juveniles.

I did my best. I don't quite see how getting the raw facts about something to do with ancient history wrong helps most people, and most of us have limited opportunity to research such things.

[...]

One thing that unquestionably weighed against you was that you inserted references to your own blog....

Not really: no-one objected to the links (until, of course, the troll came along) since it was obvious what they were for, and how they benefited the reader.

For instance, one of the theories about Mithraic origins relies on a passage in Servius' "Commentary on the Aenied". This work has never been translated. So I found the relevant section, and I myself translated the appropriate bits, and put it on my blog with suitable biblio. I linked the Mithras article to that, since anyone wanting to know what Servius said would need that information. Who on earth would NOT want that information? What kind of fool would write, as the troll did, "we don't need that translating into English"? (One of the other contributors, who has since left in disgust, did manage to find a translation of that one sentence in the end, which of course is preferable).

Like many appeals to "policies", the objection was merely a pretext for an edit desired on other grounds.

As for self-promotion ... I feel no need to do that. I'm nobody. I do what I do to make information available. Use it or don't; not my concern.

On the topic of admins: one thing the public do not understand is that Wikipedia admins are volunteers ... children ...

I certainly understand it. But this is probably the key bit of Wikipedia that is broken, from which all the resentment against Wikipedia flows. One can't have volunteers, anonymous unknown nobodies aged 12, adjudicating disputes. Unless the Lord of the Flies is one's chosen model of justice, of course.

As for suing: another thing that the public do not understand is that Wikipedia is essentially a social networking service like Facebook, where anyone can register an account, giving any name they please, and everyone remains solely responsible for what they say and put up on the service. ...

So the thing to be understood is that neither the Wikimedia Foundation nor Wikimedia UK have or accept any responsibility for the content anonymous users of their service post on their site. They are protected by the "safe harbour" provided by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which underlies the entire Wikipedia concept.

This is an interesting legal opinion - thank you. On matters of law an amateur like myself can have only a limited opinion, of course.

Two obvious questions, if I may?

1. Whose opinion is this? I'd be interested to know which lawyer gives this as his opinion, or whether it is merely supposition by some one?

2. Just out of interest, is there case law underlying this claim to immunity by Wikipedia?

The argument that Wikipedia is not publishing an encyclopedia sounds rather curious to me, as a legally uneducated amateur, you know; and it can hardly be reasonably claimed (under common sense) that Wikipedia is just a chat room or a forum or social network like Facebook (!). The nature of the enterprise is different.

But of course a professional lawyer could say that it is true in law, regardless of reason. It may be that legally this claim is true. It would be interesting to know.

The Wikimedia Foundation only becomes responsible when they receive a request to take something down

Interesting. I didn't know this.

All the best,

Roger Pearse
UPDATE: I find this link on Wikipedia to litigation. Clearly there is some case law, then, but it looks rather sketchy.

[roger_pearse]

With all respect, Roger, it would be hilarious to have you send in your five quid or whatever it is and become a member of Wikimedia UK.

But you probably have more scholarly things that would be a better use of your time.

'Fraid so. I'm not really a political person; my interest is making factual data available (opinions we can all do for ourselves, and mine are no more useful than anyone else's).

Did you keep a copy of the Mithras Wikipedia article you created anywhere? I would like to preserve it.

I do have a copy offline myself. But the version as of 15th January 2011 is, I think, the last before the vandalism began. I don't know if these archived versions will stay around indefinitely tho. I did not write most of the iconography section, note, although I did look up all the references that I could and check. Generally by the end I tried to give a verbatim quote in references by me, and a link to Google books preview if possible. But of course "my" version was by no means a finished thing, and anyone was welcome to contribute more.

The main thing that needed doing next was to do something about the corpus of images and inscriptions and to introduce stuff connected with that. But of course that will never happen now.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

[lilburne]

As for suing: another thing that the public do not understand is that Wikipedia is essentially a social networking service like Facebook, where anyone can register an account, giving any name they please, and everyone remains solely responsible for what they say and put up on the service. ...

So the thing to be understood is that neither the Wikimedia Foundation nor Wikimedia UK have or accept any responsibility for the content anonymous users of their service post on their site. They are protected by the "safe harbour" provided by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which underlies the entire Wikipedia concept.

This is an interesting legal opinion - thank you. On matters of law an amateur like myself can have only a limited opinion, of course.

Two obvious questions, if I may?

1. Whose opinion is this? I'd be interested to know which lawyer gives this as his opinion, or whether it is merely supposition by some one?

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_tal ... editors.3F

2. Just out of interest, is there case law underlying this claim to immunity by Wikipedia?

It is most likely wishful thinking but they did setup the Foundation to be at arms length from the product. IE that they just sick the 50p in the slot to keep the servers running. Its what I like to call the "Hide behind the sofa and pretend no one's home policy"

[Vigilant]

If anyone wanted to get serious about taking wikipedia to court, they'd fold like a house of cards.
The talk about how impressive their fundraising is ($37M?) is strange to me.
I've been in several startups who raised more than that in third round financing.
It's 'nothing' money for a corporation with this much potential exposure.

Seriously suing Jimbo and the board, severally and collectively, in a federal district court would cause as much pandemonium as a cougar in a puppy mill.
Their pet lawyers have been the feeblest of excuses for legal minds.
They don't have the money for a protracted effort.
The PR nightmare of having "wikipedia sued for [defamation, libel, misappropriation of funds, violation of 503(c) status, etc (pick one or pick them all)] in the news for 2-3 years would be devastating to fundraising and image.

They want nothing to do with the judicial route and would settle at the very first opportunity, regardless of terms.

[EricBarbour]

If anyone wanted to get serious about taking wikipedia to court, they'd fold like a house of cards.

As yet, I haven't seen any serious legal challenges to them. Ever since the Barbara Bauer case was settled in WMF's favor, they've been acting as if they were "invulnerable".
The rich people who are often attacked in WP articles seem to prefer either ignoring them, or attempting to curry favor with Wales. Successful propaganda campaign, so far.

[HRIP7]

Not really: no-one objected to the links (until, of course, the troll came along) since it was obvious what they were for, and how they benefited the reader.

No one objecting means nothing. Wikipedia contains articles on non-existing cities and other hoaxes, and no one objects.

For instance, one of the theories about Mithraic origins relies on a passage in Servius' "Commentary on the Aenied". This work has never been translated. So I found the relevant section, and I myself translated the appropriate bits, and put it on my blog with suitable biblio. I linked the Mithras article to that, since anyone wanting to know what Servius said would need that information. Who on earth would NOT want that information? What kind of fool would write, as the troll did, "we don't need that translating into English"? (One of the other contributors, who has since left in disgust, did manage to find a translation of that one sentence in the end, which of course is preferable).

A published translation of the passage with the same point you made in your blog would have been available here.

I'm only saying: if you'd used that, no one would have been able to make capital out of your citing your own blog. Using your own blog is bad strategy, because Wikipedians can point to countless examples where cranks have tried to cite their own blogs.

I certainly understand it. But this is probably the key bit of Wikipedia that is broken, from which all the resentment against Wikipedia flows. One can't have volunteers, anonymous unknown nobodies aged 12, adjudicating disputes. Unless the Lord of the Flies is one's chosen model of justice, of course.

Yes, lord of the flies indeed. You got it in one.

As for suing: another thing that the public do not understand is that Wikipedia is essentially a social networking service like Facebook, where anyone can register an account, giving any name they please, and everyone remains solely responsible for what they say and put up on the service. ...

So the thing to be understood is that neither the Wikimedia Foundation nor Wikimedia UK have or accept any responsibility for the content anonymous users of their service post on their site. They are protected by the "safe harbour" provided by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which underlies the entire Wikipedia concept.

This is an interesting legal opinion - thank you. On matters of law an amateur like myself can have only a limited opinion, of course.

Two obvious questions, if I may?

1. Whose opinion is this? I'd be interested to know which lawyer gives this as his opinion, or whether it is merely supposition by some one?

2. Just out of interest, is there case law underlying this claim to immunity by Wikipedia?

The argument that Wikipedia is not publishing an encyclopedia sounds rather curious to me, as a legally uneducated amateur, you know; and it can hardly be reasonably claimed (under common sense) that Wikipedia is just a chat room or a forum or social network like Facebook (!). The nature of the enterprise is different.

But of course a professional lawyer could say that it is true in law, regardless of reason. It may be that legally this claim is true. It would be interesting to know.

This has always been central to Jimmy Wales' thinking. It's why he has campaigned for O'Dwyer, for example:

One of the important moral principles that has made everything we relish about the internet possible, from Wikipedia to YouTube, is that internet service providers need to have a safe harbour from what their users do.

Note the interesting use of the word "moral" here. You always want to watch out when Jimmy uses "moral". To Jimmy, "moral" means "in my interest". That's probably something to do with his objectivist background; according to Ayn Rand,

The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.

UPDATE: I find this link on Wikipedia to litigation. Clearly there is some case law, then, but it looks rather sketchy.

Yes. Section 230 is part of the Communications Decency Act, which provides safe harbour for providers of internet services like Facebook, AOL, Yahoo or Wikipedia. Just like Yahoo is not responsible for what users post in Yahoo groups, Wikimedia is not responsible for what users post on Wikipedia. This is a fact that is very widely unknown, and everybody who hears it at first reacts with disbelief. But it's essential to Wikipedia's survival – if they could be sued for all the defamatory rubbish anonymous users might post on the site, God help them.

A side effect of this is that Wikimedia does not exactly put itself out to tell its users that they, rather than Wikimedia, may be at the receiving end of a lawsuit. Most users think that if they post rubbish on Wikipedia, the police will knock on Wikimedia's door rather than their own. That is quite wrong, as the recent pornography case in Germany for example illustrated.

Regards,

[Vigilant]

If anyone wanted to get serious about taking wikipedia to court, they'd fold like a house of cards.

As yet, I haven't seen any serious legal challenges to them. Ever since the Barbara Bauer case was settled in WMF's favor, they've been acting as if they were "invulnerable".
The rich people who are often attacked in WP articles seem to prefer either ignoring them, or attempting to curry favor with Wales. Successful propaganda campaign, so far.

It hasn't hit someone litigious enough yet.

[Sweet Revenge]

If anyone wanted to get serious about taking wikipedia to court, they'd fold like a house of cards.

As yet, I haven't seen any serious legal challenges to them. Ever since the Barbara Bauer case was settled in WMF's favor, they've been acting as if they were "invulnerable".
The rich people who are often attacked in WP articles seem to prefer either ignoring them, or attempting to curry favor with Wales. Successful propaganda campaign, so far.

It hasn't hit someone litigious enough yet.

Start editing here: Charles Carreon (T-H-L)

[EricBarbour]

Start editing here: Charles Carreon (T-H-L)

Heh heh heh. Good choice. Originally created by one of his clients,
tripled in length and obsessively watched by Jokestress.....

[roger_pearse]

If anyone wanted to get serious about taking wikipedia to court, they'd fold like a house of cards.

As yet, I haven't seen any serious legal challenges to them. Ever since the Barbara Bauer case was settled in WMF's favor, they've been acting as if they were "invulnerable".
The rich people who are often attacked in WP articles seem to prefer either ignoring them, or attempting to curry favor with Wales. Successful propaganda campaign, so far.

It hasn't hit someone litigious enough yet.

I don't quite understand why there hasn't been a class action?

[roger_pearse]

Not really: no-one objected to the links (until, of course, the troll came along) since it was obvious what they were for, and how they benefited the reader.

For instance, one of the theories about Mithraic origins relies on a passage in Servius' "Commentary on the Aenied". This work has never been translated. So I found the relevant section, and I myself translated the appropriate bits, and put it on my blog with suitable biblio. I linked the Mithras article to that, since anyone wanting to know what Servius said would need that information. Who on earth would NOT want that information? What kind of fool would write, as the troll did, "we don't need that translating into English"? (One of the other contributors, who has since left in disgust, did manage to find a translation of that one sentence in the end, which of course is preferable).

A published translation of the passage with the same point you made in your blog would have been available here.

I was unable to locate a translation into English there. Could you supply page number and line number, so that I can find it? I believe that the text only paraphrases?

I'm only saying: if you'd used that, no one would have been able to make capital out of your citing your own blog.

Doubtless so.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

[Anroth]

I don't quite understand why there hasn't been a class action?

Class action requires at least a minimal amount of evidence that the company is taking actions that affect a group of people. Commanality across all the plaintiffs. I believe there is also some sort of monetary requirement.

[ErrantX]

If anyone wanted to get serious about taking wikipedia to court, they'd fold like a house of cards.

As yet, I haven't seen any serious legal challenges to them. Ever since the Barbara Bauer case was settled in WMF's favor, they've been acting as if they were "invulnerable".
The rich people who are often attacked in WP articles seem to prefer either ignoring them, or attempting to curry favor with Wales. Successful propaganda campaign, so far.

It hasn't hit someone litigious enough yet.

That's hardly true

Plenty of complaints by people who's biographies mostly amount to lists of their past litigation against others.

[HRIP7]

I believe that the text only paraphrases?

Indeed, mea culpa. I was referring to footnote 316, which makes exactly the same point as your blog post.