Gracenote Founder Rewriting History At Wikipedia

An anonymous reader writes "Gracenote founder Steve Scherf is busy again in his attempts to rewrite history after his recent interview at Wired. This time around he is aggressively deleting or seeking removal of any content on Wikipedia that discusses the controversy behind the commercialization of the formerly GPL'd cddb. Slashdotters may remember when cddb joined the Bad Patent Club back in 2000. Gracenote followed up by filing lawsuits against its customers for trying to switch to freedb and for alleged patent violations. Are there any Slashdotters out there who know the facts about Gracenote — its history, its business practices, its lawsuits? Wikipedia needs your help."

Comments

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[Anonymous Coward]

let them know how you feel by contacting them directly

Re:Interesting guilt plea

[Anonymous Coward]

Because many people think that everything on Wikipedia is The Truth (tm)?

What a loaded question

[Timesprout]

Are there any Slashdotters out there who know the facts about Gracenote its history, its business practices, its lawsuits? Wikipedia needs your help."

Since when have the facts ever stopped slashdotters from throwing in their 2 cents on any subject?

Re:What a loaded question

[Mike1024]

Since when have the facts ever stopped slashdotters from throwing in their 2 cents on any subject?

That may be true for you, but I can cite an established authority: wikipedia. Did you know, for example, that:

Gracenote founder Steve Scherf has come a long way from his younder days of meth-fueled llama sodomizing. While once it looked like he'd soon die in a gutter, that six months he spent in the federal pen for killing a bussload of nuns while drunk (which he coyly refers to as "Happy happy shower butt fun time") cleaned him up, allowing him to become the ruthless corporate asshat we know today.

If Wikipedia says it, it must be true.

Double-edges sword, there

[pla]

Are there any Slashdotters out there who know the facts about Gracenote -- its history, its business practices, its lawsuits? Wikipedia needs your help.

Who needs facts? If Scherf wants to change history, let's damn well change it!

I think the new entry should start, "Gracenote founder Steve Scherf has come a long way from his younder days of meth-fueled llama sodomizing. While once it looked like he'd soon die in a gutter, that six months he spent in the federal pen for killing a bussload of nuns while drunk (which he coyly refers to as "Happy happy shower butt fun time") cleaned him up, allowing him to become the ruthless corporate asshat we know today."

Revisionist history works both ways, Steve. Don't fuck with the geek masses - We can "fix" your entries MUCH faster than you can.

Re:Nope. Not going to work on Wikipedia

[pla]

Lets give him a legit reason for him to sue us. Yay.

Parody remains one of our few frequently-upheld forms of free speech. The more over-the-top, the less grounds he has to sue.

As for the side effect of damaging a valuable source of information, well, I will admit I have that as my sole reason for not editing quite a few entries on folks like Scherf, McBride, or Thompson. I respect the truth, if not the men.

But when someone like Scherf throws down the gauntlet and takes away the factual content aspect, well, not much point remains in exercising restraint, at least until someone really does fix the entry. So as a placeholder, why not let such asses suffer an entry on llama-buggery for a few weeks?

Re:Interesting guilt plea

[rednip]

Wikipedia should really have a disclaimer at the top of every page warning and reminding users that there's a good chance that the page below may contain absolutely no facts whatsoever. That really would solve a lot of issues, and is honest. It's a good idea, but why limit it to Wikipedia, it should just be built into the browser itself. For that matter the TV could print a such a warning when one changes the channel to Fox News. Seriously, part of being a 'responsible consumer of knowledge' from any source is knowing that the facts may be different than presented.

Re:My 0 cents

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the best way to Fight Shitnote.

In Windows at least. "replace '-' with a space"

Add the following settings to the hosts file Located at \WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc

212.91.252.38-----------cddb.cddb.com
212.91.252.38-----------cddb.cddb.org
212.91.252.38-----------cddb.cddb.net
212.91.252.38-----------us.cddb.com
212.91.252.38-----------sc.ca.us.cddb.com
212.91.252.38-----------sc2.ca.us.cddb.com
212.91.252.38-----------sj.ca.us.cddb.com
212.91.252.38-----------sj2.ca.us.cddb.com

You can also download an appropriate hosts file and put it in your Windows-directory, if you don't want to add the entries by hand. You can test if this works by directing your browser e.g. to cddb.cddb.com. You should see the freedb-website instead. Instead of using 212.91.252.38 as IP-address (which is the address of us.freedb.org), you can of course use the IP-address of any of our mirrors.