"DonorGate" Is Latest Scandal To Hit Wikipedia

MSTCrow5429 writes "In the latest of a long train of scandals to hit Wikipedia, the Sydney Morning Herald reports on an accusation that founder and Wikia President Jimmy Wales traded a multi-thousand dollar donation for an article re-write. Jeff Merkey, formerly of Novell, claims that Wales approached him in 2006 and said that for a fee, Wales would personally see to it that the article on Merkey, which had cast him in a negative light, would be re-written in Merkey's favor. Merkey claims that after he donated $5,000, Wales followed through on this quid pro quo. The Wikipedia edit history does indicate that Wales wiped out the article on Merkey, and then personally re-wrote it. The SMH reports that Wales has called the allegation 'nonsense.'" Merkey filed a harassment lawsuit in 2005 against a number of people and organizations, including Slashdot. Slashdot was removed from the suit on 2005-07-20.

Update: 03/12 00:39 GMT by KD : Wikimedia Foundation spokesman Jay Walsh provided this official statement: "Current allegations relating to Jimmy Wales soliciting donations for the Wikimedia Foundation in order to protect or edit Wikipedia articles are completely false. The Wikimedia Foundation has never accepted nor solicited donations in order to protect or make edits to a Wikipedia article — nor has Jimmy Wales. This is a practice the Wikimedia Foundation would never condone."

Comments

Where there is smoke....

[sk8king]

there is fire. It seems that Mr. Jimmy Wales is the subject of a lot of news articles that don't paint him in a positive light.

Re:Where there is smoke....

[Anonymous Coward]

there is fire. It seems that Mr. Jimmy Wales is the subject of a lot of news articles that don't paint him in a positive light.

[Citation needed]

Re:Where there is smoke....

[moosesocks]

It could very well be that Jimmy Wales is being swiftboated.

Likewise, the governor of New York is being called to resign because he allegedly saw a hooker. This has nothing whatsoever to do with his ability to govern the state, but sharp political rhetoric is being flung about nevertheless. The Bill Clinton affair also springs to mind.

All this means is that Jimmy Wales has some political opponents who are willing to fight dirty. He might be no saint, but Wikipedia seems to be doing pretty darn well for the most part.

Re:Where there is smoke....

[Anonymous Coward]

Likewise, the governor of New York is being called to resign because he allegedly saw a hooker. This has nothing whatsoever to do with his ability to govern the state, but sharp political rhetoric is being flung about nevertheless. The Bill Clinton affair also springs to mind.

In both cases, the issue is hypocrisy.

The NY governor did not advocate the repeal of prostitution laws. He did not even openly flout them as an act of civil disobedience. Instead, he publicly acted like the unjust law was ok, while secretly breaking it.

The former president did not advocate courtroom reform, to keep irrelevant questions from being asked in court. Instead, he acted like the status quo was ok, and then secret lied under oath.

If the law is unjust, then say so. Don't profit from the law or declare to uphold hthe law in your public life, while breaking it when you think no one is looking. Have some balls. The NY governor and former president didn't have balls. That why they have to get off by squirting into the mouths of whores and starry-eyed fangirls. A real man wouldn't need to do that. So I say, yeah, shame and embarrass and mock them. If you can embarrass them out of office, so much the better. They earned disgrace.

Re:Where there is smoke....

[hpavc]

I would tend to agree, edits for cash is one thing, edits for donations seems to beg a lot more research before this gets anywhere near a 'gate'.

Re:Where there is smoke....

[theeddie55]

Maybe he could pay somebody to write a more positive article about him.

Re:Where there is smoke....

[ptbarnett]

Likewise, the governor of New York is being called to resign because he allegedly saw a hooker. This has nothing whatsoever to do with his ability to govern the state, but sharp political rhetoric is being flung about nevertheless. The Bill Clinton affair also springs to mind.

Ah, the "it's only sex" brigade is already out in force.

Spitzer was under investigation for "structuring" transactions to stay under the $10,000 limit for reporting them to the IRS. The bank reported them anyway, and the IRS brought in the FBI when they were concerned that he was being blackmailed. This is also a known tactic for laundering money either collected or spent for illegal purposes. Spitzer knew that as AG, and prosecuted some of his targets for doing the same thing.

Ironically, he also prosecuted the operators of a couple of escort services while AG, allegedly while he was utilizing the services of this one. That's spelled H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-T-E.

Re:Where there is smoke....

[CatherineCornelius]

This is the only Slashdot account I could remember at short notice (all the other ones are lame Ian M Banks ship names). My name is Tony Sidaway and I've been a Wikipedia editor about three years.

Like the "Jimbo ordered people to fix Marsden's bio" thing, this is a non-story. Jimbo has frequently taken the initiative in stubbing down crappy articles and asking editors to start afresh. Good practice. Nice of Jeff to give a donation, but stubbing down a bad biography is standard practice.

The reason for temporary protection (locking the article to stop edits by some users) is given by Wales as "an attempt to keep trolling to a minimum during an experimental rewrite" which is pretty sensible.

One thing that does look very odd is that the protection was not removed until this story broke. We're as partial to kool-aid as the next guy, so we do tend to defer to him perhaps more than he would like. :/ But this did NOT stop anybody editing the article, and I'll explain why.

There are two main modes of protection on the open source mediawiki software on which Wikipedia operates, usually called semi-protection and full protection, and in addition to that, protection applies to both editing and renaming/moving (because a common form of vandalism used to be to rename an article to something nasty). In the edit summary of Jimbo Wales' edit timestamped 20:58, 23 May 2006 , you'll see "[edit=autoconfirmed:move=autoconfirmed]". This indicates normal semiprotection ("autoconfirmed" users are those who have registered a username and waited about three days--there's nothing more to it than that--no vetting, no human intervention at all). So anybody patient enough to wait three days could edit that article.

So it's really a non-story. We protect articles against people who want to write "WEE WEE WEE JACK IS GAY!" all the time and this is precisely the mode of protection we use for, say, "George W. Bush"

Any Wikipedia editor with an account over three days old could edit that article for the whole of its post-Jimbo existence.

Re:Where there is smoke....

[gnasher719]

It could very well be that Jimmy Wales is being swiftboated.

Likewise, the governor of New York is being called to resign because he allegedly saw a hooker. This has nothing whatsoever to do with his ability to govern the state, but sharp political rhetoric is being flung about nevertheless. The Bill Clinton affair also springs to mind.

All this means is that Jimmy Wales has some political opponents who are willing to fight dirty. He might be no saint, but Wikipedia seems to be doing pretty darn well for the most part. Your comparison is wildly off the mark. If a politician sees a hooker, that has very little to do with his ability to govern the state. If Jimmy Wales takes money to edit an article on Wikipedia, then this goes directly to the heart of Wikipedia.

The second part is devoid of any logic. If, for example, TheRegister publishes such damning accusations, then (1) that does not make them "political opponents" (Are you seriously claiming that Wales has "political opponents"? I think the editors of TheRegister just can't stand him; that has nothing to do with politics). Second, it doesn't "only mean they are willing to fight dirty". There are quite a few possibilities, and four of these possibilities are: 1. They fight dirty. Or 2. They are mistaken. Or 3. They are exaggerating. Or 4. They are exactly on the mark.

Re:Where there is smoke....

[A nonymous Coward]

That's spelled H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-T-E

Nah, it's spelled S-T-I-F-F-I-N-G T-H-E C-O-M-P-E-T-I-T-I-O-N.

Re:Where there is smoke....

[GaryPatterson]

I can follow your Slashdot user ID around posting stuff about you, but that doesn't make it true. There'd be lots of smoke, but no fire. (I wouldn't do this, by the way!)

The whole smoke and fire thing is great for smearing people with scandal, but it can be terribly unfair.

Re:Where there is smoke....

[STrinity]

I would tend to agree, edits for cash is one thing, edits for donations seems to beg a lot more research before this gets anywhere near a 'gate'.

Why? Either way, it diminishes Wikipedia's credibility.

Re:Where there is smoke....

[Anonymous Coward]

Did it ever occur to you that none of your assertions have anything to do with the claims against Wales?

There was a bit of a hullabaloo on the article's talk page when Wales started making changes. See Talk:Jeff V. Merkey#Rewrite/deletion and Talk:Jeff V. Merkey#Nearing a restitution?

There was never any controversy over Wales semi-protecting the article. The controversy was over him disingenuously eradicating the article and its history and begging editors to rewrite it. Your own editors noticed Wales acting strangely with his treatment of the article and confronted him about it in 2006.

You're either incredibly confused or a propaganda tool for Wikipedia.


- Sherilyn

Re:Where there is smoke....

[Maxo-Texas]

The governor transported them across state lines, wired funds across state lines, muddied the transaction to hide the real purpose of the wire transfer,

oh.. and he also used hookers after building a career prosecuting them.

Wales-- we need to see more data. The IRS will probably be interested in $5k... er... donations that were not reported as income... and the rest of us will be interested in $5k donations that were reported as income at the same time as Merkey alleges.

Re:Where there is smoke....

[flyingsquid]

Spitzer was under investigation for "structuring" transactions to stay under the $10,000 limit for reporting them to the IRS. The bank reported them anyway, and the IRS brought in the FBI when they were concerned that he was being blackmailed. This is also a known tactic for laundering money either collected or spent for illegal purposes. Spitzer knew that as AG, and prosecuted some of his targets for doing the same thing. Ironically, he also prosecuted the operators of a couple of escort services while AG, allegedly while he was utilizing the services of this one. That's spelled H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-T-E.

If Spitzer was in an organization with a clear hierarchy of command, it wouldn't really matter what the hell he did in his free time. The general says, "jump", or "crawl" or "run at that machine gun nest". You do it, or they put you in prison. The general is mostly a manager: he makes decisions and issues orders, and you're forced to comply. A rousing speech might help, but a good battle plan is more essential.

Spitzer's position demands true leadership. Real leadership is getting people to follow you when they don't have to. I don't have it, but I know it when I see it. And if you're guilty of blatant hypocrisy, then people will question your motives. And if you're stupid enough to get caught doing illegal stuff, then people will question your judgment. So now they won't follow. If Spitzer tried to convince you to do something, would you feel inclined listen to him? Spitzer can still be an effective manager, but insofar as he needs to be a leader, things don't look very good.

Back on topic: these silly little scandals have little direct effect on the running of Wikipedia. But Wikipedia is entirely run by volunteers, so they can quit any time they want. If they are convinced that Wales is behaving in a way that isn't in the best interests of Wikipedia, taking bribes or using money for personal expenses, he will lose effectiveness as a leader. People will stop contributing, and Wikipedia will have a crisis.

Re:Where there is smoke....

[SeaFox]

It seems that Mr. Jimmy Wales is the subject of a lot of news articles that don't paint him in a positive light.

And unfortunately these are some articles he can't easily edit.

Re:Where there is smoke....

[UncleTogie]

Your comparison is wildly off the mark. If a politician sees a hooker, that has very little to do with his ability to govern the state.

If a guy can't be faithful to someone he's married for life, what makes you think he'd be MORE inclined to faithfully fulfill his job duties in a shorter time period?

Re:Where there is smoke....

[DerekLyons]

This is the only Slashdot account I could remember at short notice (all the other ones are lame Ian M Banks ship names). My name is Tony Sidaway and I've been a Wikipedia editor about three years.

*yawn* BFD. Anyone can be a Wikipedia editor, claiming to be one adds no weight to your claims but does lead to the suspicion that you are trying to (falsely) argue from authority.
 
 

The reason for temporary protection (locking the article to stop edits by some users) is given by Wales as "an attempt to keep trolling to a minimum during an experimental rewrite" which is pretty sensible.

It's only sensible if the article was a regular target for trolls before - otherwise it's only one article out of a million, and such protection makes no sense.
 
 

So it's really a non-story. We protect articles against people who want to write "WEE WEE WEE JACK IS GAY!" all the time and this is precisely the mode of protection we use for, say, "George W. Bush"

That's my point - unless the article is contentious or otherwise an ongoing target for trolls, then that kind of protection is unusual. Reviewing the pages history does not show it to have been such a target.

Re:Where there is smoke....

[ObiWonKanblomi]

Ironically, he also prosecuted the operators of a couple of escort services while AG, allegedly while he was utilizing the services of this one. That's spelled H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-T-E.

No.

Spitzer prosecuted operators but did not focus his efforts on the clientèle, a.k.a. "johns" in North America or "punters" in the U.K. Focusing on the supplier of any illegal product or service is typical of most law enforcement agencies.

Re:Where there is smoke....

[Dachannien]

It's not the protection that's in question here, in my opinion, although most people would just write the article in a personal sandbox and copy the content into position when they were ready. It's the fact that the edit history now starts with Jimbo's edit in May 2006, when, by his edit comment, it's pretty obvious there was an article in place there before. Any normal editor (barring a need for actual oversight, meaning uncited defamatory BLP (biography of a living person) claims) would have just replaced the article's content with their own, but the way Jimbo did it means that all previous versions of the article are in the round file now, and the only way to recover such content would be to have archived it before Jimbo's edit.

So the question is, did the previous version of the article contain BLP issues that required an oversight action to remove them from the edit history? Or did it contain properly cited claims that merely cast Merkey in a bad light?

The sheer fact that Jimbo used "eerie powers", when replacing the article text with what he wrote, at least gives the impression of impropriety, whether or not anything wrong actually happened here. Yes, any admin could have deleted the article and started it anew, but most don't, because you're not supposed to do it that way. And Jimbo isn't just any admin - his edits carry additional weight, and therefore attract additional scrutiny.

Re:Where there is smoke....

[radtea]

...there is sometimes an arsonist.

It's pretty clear that there's some kind of whispering campaign going on against Jimmy. Maybe started by his psycho ex-g/f, maybe by someone else.

But anyone who's had any contact with him will find these smears and innuendos less than credible.

Re:Where there is smoke....

[tomhudson]

as encyclopedists we have a moral obligation to set a very high bar [1]

Citations:
[1] Rachel Marsden

Re:Where there is smoke....

[guruevi]

If a politician sees a hooker, that has very little to do with his ability to govern the state

Although, prostitution is still illegal and people in office (that we should be able to trust) shouldn't be doing illegal things. Next to that, the problem with Spitzer is that he embezzled money to pay for his prostitution.

Re:Where there is smoke....

[TooMuchToDo]

It's easier to walk away from a job than a wife. Plus, the job doesn't take half when you leave.

Re:Where there is smoke....

[jonasj]

http://xkcd.com/285/

Re:Where there is smoke....

[Anonymous Coward]

If a guy can't be faithful to someone he's married for life, what makes you think he'd be MORE inclined to faithfully fulfill his job duties in a shorter time period? You don't know what his relationship with his wife is like, and neither does anyone else. Judging it in the absence of that knowledge is audacious. That's between him and his wife. If he's displayed hypocrisy, such as denouncing prostitution publicly, that's another matter, and one that he should be judged on. That would definitely call into question his ability to lead the government and have the respect of those who serve his administration. While this incident may end his career as governor, he did accomplish quite a bit as both governor and AG, which is a good thing. Hopefully Cuomo will be as good at prosecuting corruption and fraud as he was.

Re:Where there is smoke....

[ShakaUVM]

>>Likewise, the governor of New York is being called to resign because he allegedly saw a hooker.

You mean Eliot Spitzer, the guy the NYT called Eliot Ness, for his uncanny knowledge and ability to crack down on prostitution rings oh wait

Re:Where there is smoke....

[spasm]

A [citation needed] sticker campaign for your viewing pleasure : )

Re:Where there is smoke....

[backwardMechanic]

I think that's exactly what we're meant to think. The question is who is kicking up dust, and why? Somebody seems to be gunning for Jimmy, and the mindless press just love printing wild stories. Any idea who's behind this?

Re:Where there is smoke....

[nguy]

If Jimmy Wales takes money to edit an article on Wikipedia, then this goes directly to the heart of Wikipedia.

Not really, since anybody can take money to edit an article on Wikipedia.

Wales' control over Wikipedia content is very limited; his position is mainly as a spokesperson and general policy-setter.

If the allegations are true, it's not a good thing, but it doesn't "directly go to the heart of Wikipedia".

Re:Where there is smoke....

[HappyEngineer]

How do you know that the wife wasn't ok with it? I've always assumed that due to Bill and Hillary's hippy past that she was ok with the whole free love thing. She just can't say so without being crucified in public. Perhaps the same is true of the latest guy to be caught paying for sex.

Your comment is only valid insofar as he wasn't willing to speak out in favor of legalizing prostitution. I agree that it's irritating that he'd partake in an illegal activity without doing what he could to try to legalize it.

Re:Where there is smoke....

[Vryl]

Ha! Nice use of "Sherilyn" ...

One did some research - http://www.wikitruth.info/index.php?title=Tony_Sidaway

Re:Where there is smoke....

[KDR_11k]

Does the law really state that marriage is for life or must be faithful?

Re:Where there is smoke....

[CatherineCornelius]

It's not the protection that's in question here, in my opinion, although most people would just write the article in a personal sandbox and copy the content into position when they were ready. It's the fact that the edit history now starts with Jimbo's edit in May 2006, when, by his edit comment, it's pretty obvious there was an article in place there before. That's normal practice. When an article about a living person is compromised by defamatory, abusive and derogatory claims, we get rid of the abusive revisions. Remember that the goal is to write an encyclopedia that contains reliable, source information, not to let anybody with an axe to grind use our wiki as a toilet wall to scrawl their messages of hate on. We're an encyclopedia project first and last, not in any way an experiment in free speech or democracy.

Re:Where there is smoke....

[Reservoir Penguin]

So, in your opinion anyone who ever cheated on his spouse should be denied a job that carries any responsibility? Guess it's time to lobby for millions more h1b visas.

Re:Where there is smoke....

[irishlyrucked]

That's fine. He'll just edit his own article to paint himself in a positive light....

Re:Where there is smoke....

[Dachannien]

Yeah, I know that. But we honestly don't know whether this was an oversight/office action or something else (such as Jimbo being sloppy by deleting and recreating the article instead of replacing its content). We have no idea what was in place before, but we do know that there were legal threats being thrown around, and we do know that Jimbo took it upon himself to fix whatever was going on there by himself.

This is a fairly big hole in current practices on Wikipedia when it comes to oversight and office actions. The removal of defamatory uncited BLP claims is an important thing, but currently, these changes are handled in a way that is unduly hidden from the average editor. People who aren't in the highest echelons (or who, like me, aren't even admins) take a look at these sorts of things, try to piece together the smattering of evidence remaining, and conclude (sometimes wrongly) that there are some sort of shenanigans going on. The point of those actions isn't to hide the fact that an article was there, or even that it contained defamatory content. The object is to remove the actual defamatory content itself. Hiding related logs from the average editor only makes things look worse rather than better (the topic of TFA being a case in point).

Re:Where there is smoke....

[neoform]

I checked out wikipedia to see if your claims have any merit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Wales

I didn't see anything about criticism, therefore, you are lying.

Re:Where there is smoke....

[mdwh2]

people in office (that we should be able to trust) shouldn't be doing illegal things.

Depends - not everything that is illegal is unethical, and not everyone agrees on what should be illegal. If the politician's stance is that that thing shouldn't be illegal, I don't see it as a problem.

The problem is that some things are such a taboo that it's impossible to have any kind of rational debate about them.

Re:Where there is smoke....

[sherpajohn]

as encyclopedists we have a moral obligation to set a very high bar [1]

Citations:
[1] Rachel Marsden

Wow! They did it on gym equipment as well as every other piece of furniture they could find (and the kitchen sink!)?

I love wikipedia, its a great quick reference on lots of things - but, it appears Mr. Wales is either the target of a distributed denial of reputation attack, or has taken advantage of his position in the form of financial and sexual shenanigans. Or maybe its a mixture of both?

Re:Where there is smoke....

[randyest]

So an AG busting some illegal porn rings while using the illegal services of a different illegal porn ring isn't a problem for you? Doesn't seem hypocritical at all? Really?

Re:Where there is smoke....

[Anonymous Coward]

There's also that silly little bit about him prosecuting people for pimping and prostitution.

Re:Where there is smoke....

[Anonymous Coward]

Judd Bagley and Patrick Byrne from overstock.com.

Re:Where there is smoke....

[ObiWonKanblomi]

Doesn't seem hypocritical at all? Really?
It isn't hypocritical.

So an AG busting some illegal porn rings while using the illegal services of a different illegal porn ring isn't a problem for you?
I never commented whether I have a problem with Spitzer's actions in light of his past prosecutions as AG. I have a problem with people (as the GP said before) incorrectly calling someone a hypocrite. If Spitzer (as AG) focused his prosecution on johns at least as much as the prostitution rings, the term "hypocrite" would be valid. However, the cited articles in this thread only focus on Spitzer aiming for the rings, and not the customers.

If you or anyone else can provide a reference to when Spitzer focused on the clients, I'll gladly retract my comments.

Re:Where there is smoke....

[randyest]

OK, I see you're after a semantic point here. That's cool. Perhaps we can agree then that Spitzer is corrupt? You know, because he busted some rings while patronizing others.

Re:Where there is smoke....

[superpulpsicle]

His ex g/f? I have a theory that most of the vandalism and campaign against Jimmy derives from competitive wikipedia clones like conservpedia, christian-only-pedia. His gf probably don't give two sh*t.

Re:Where there is smoke....

[Sockatume]

Wikipedia admins can, and often do, remove versions of pages from the history when they portray the editor of those pages in a bad light, or in particularly serious examples, edits which portray the Wikipedia or the subject of the article in a bad light. For example, Merkey's rants against Wikipedia in the arbitration committee meeting that banned him in 2007 have been hidden to preserve his dignity.

Re:Where there is smoke....

[dcam]

Your comparison is wildly off the mark. If a politician sees a hooker, that has very little to do with his ability to govern the state. If Jimmy Wales takes money to edit an article on Wikipedia, then this goes directly to the heart of Wikipedia.

The importance of a politician seeing a hooker depends on their public statements. Most US politicians tend to claim to be as pure as driven snow. Hence it is a big issue as it speaks to their integrity, truthfulness and self-control.

Re:Where there is smoke....

[Antaeus Feldspar]

"Next to that, the problem with Spitzer is that he embezzled money to pay for his prostitution."

Mind citing a source on that? If Spitzer was even suspected of any financial dishonesty, it would be an even bigger news story than his involvement with prostitution. But typing "Spitzer" and "embezzle" into Google News gets exactly one result, and that result does not contain any allegations of embezzlement.

I think you may have done your news reading too hastily.

Re:Where there is smoke....

[ptbarnett]

OK, I see you're after a semantic point here. That's cool. Perhaps we can agree then that Spitzer is corrupt? You know, because he busted some rings while patronizing others.

Or at least "conflict of interest". :-)

Re:Where there is smoke....

[Anonymous Coward]

I found this interesting as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Xed

thats fine

[KevMar]

Im all for it if the details of the purchase is added to the page.

Kevmar is a stand up guy. He speaks his oppinion yet heardly flames anyone, even when they do mock his spelling.

this post was brought to you by Kevmar for no charge

Re:thats fine

[ecavalli]

New information has just surfaced detailing donations paid by Kevmar to Kevmar under the idea that he would edit his previously scathing comment about himself and replace it with a glowing commentary about the impeccable quality of his character.

Update: 03/12 00:39 GMT by ecavalli : Kevmar spokesman Kevmar provided this official statement:

"Current allegations relating to Kevmar soliciting donations for Kevmar in order to protect or edit Kevmar's comments are completely false. Kevmar has never accepted nor solicited donations in order to protect or make edits to Kevmar comment. This is a practice Kevmar would never condone."

Dinner is on me!

[RingDev]

Slashdot was removed from the suit on 2005-07-20. Turns out Taco just had to take him out for an evening of dining and dancing, followed up with a night of naval gazing.

-Rick

Re:Dinner is on me!

[displaced80]

followed up with a night of naval gazing.

They dressed up in sailor outfits? Terrifying.

Re:Dinner is on me!

[dedazo]

naval gazing

I do not think this means what you think it means.

Re:Dinner is on me!

[Anonymous Coward]

followed up with a night of naval gazing.

Is this anything like submarine races?

Re:Dinner is on me!

[popmaker]

Hope Taco had the decency to remove him from his suit first.

Re:Dinner is on me!

[Paradise Pete]

They dressed up in sailor outfits? Terrifying.

Sure, make fun. But you know where they keep spare belly buttons? In the Naval Reserve. So there.

Of all the people to trust...

[cachedout]

...I can't imagine that Jeff Merkey would be high on anybody's list. I'd like to the Wikipedia article for full details, but, well....

Re:Of all the people to trust...

[arivanov]

Ahem. Absolutely. One of the reasons why I unsubscribed from Linux kernel. Could not take any of his drivel any more. The man is a walking flamebait.

Citizendium to the rescue!

[flydpnkrtn]

Citizendium can be the answer to many of these problems...

Also Wikitruth sheds a lot of light on ol' Jimbo Wales and his shenanigans

Re:Citizendium to the rescue!

[Itninja]

Wikitruth? Isn't that the site that thinks racial genocide would be described using the same terms as a self serving Wikipedia article?
But the other site, Citizendium, sounds like an intriguing idea. You have to be an expert on the subject and you have to use your real name. That must be why there is no listing for 'pornography'.

Re:Citizendium to the rescue!

[wizardforce]

they can do no harm because they promised to do no harm... if you can create a wiki and give others the power to edit that wiki you're essentially not limited in what you can do.

Re:Citizendium to the rescue!

[Anonymous Coward]

Uggh.. the guy hooked up with Rachel Marsden? That pretty much cements it: he's a nutter.

Re:Citizendium to the rescue!

[tehniobium]

To be honest there really isn't any content on citizendium. The concept is great...but they should concentrate on quickly copying as much as possible from wikipedia...coz until they do that noones gonna think "hey, I'll look that up on citizendium"!

Also the name is too hard to spell...and not that catchy in my opinion.

Re:Citizendium to the rescue!

[Anonymous Coward]

Citizendium is shit, though. An "open meritocracy", they say. No chance for anonymous editing, and casual contributions are like toilet paper.

Fuck that shit, fuck it in the ass.

Re:Citizendium to the rescue!

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who used the internet before 1998 is an expert. There was nothing else on here before then.

Re:Citizendium to the rescue!

[cow_2001]

There are two kinds of articles: drafts and approved.
Only expert users can approve draft versions in their field of expertise, but anyone (under their real names) can edit the draft versions.

Re:Citizendium to the rescue!

[Mutant321]

Yeah, definitely agree with you on the name thing. I've tried to explain the concept to a few people, and they just stare at me blankly when I tell them what it's called. Still, I think a project like Citizendium (if not Citizendium itself) will one day surpass Wikipedia.

Re:Citizendium to the rescue!

[stdarg]

The reason there's no article for pornography is that Citizendium has a policy of only allowing "family friendly" content. Whose family? Who knows.

Re:Citizendium to the rescue!

[looseSpark]

The reason there's no article for pornography is that Citizendium has a policy of only allowing "family friendly" content. Whose family? Who knows. Not strictly true!

Anyone can write an article on pornography, it just needs to be the sort of article you would expect to find in an encyclopaedia on a high school library or family bookshelf rather than hidden under a mattress in your parents bedroom.

When writing articles for Citizendium, in terms of content think "Encyclopaedia Britannica" rather than "Wikipedia".

The reason it isn't there is simply because no one has got around to writing it yet and there are hundreds of other articles people would rather be working on. If you really want to see an article on pornography, feel free to sign up and write it. I suspect many members are just not really interested in an article on pornography. Perhaps people are also put off starting this article by having to use their real names and having people draw wrong conclusions.

donorgate...

[Elsapotk421]

am I the only one who's getting annoyed at any sort of unsavory behaviour being referred to as something-gate

Re:donorgate...

[georgewilliamherbert]

It's a conspiracy by gate manufacturers to get everyone so sick of it that we stop using it.

Gate-gate!

Re:donorgate...

[SoupGuru]

Uh oh, looks like someone is going to start a gategate!

Re:donorgate...

[insertwackynamehere]

What like Bill-Gates? Watch the positive moderation flow...

Re:donorgate...

[Elsapotk421]

if only I could use my mod points on this article I would've moderted this already

Where there is smoke... there is smoke & mirro

[Futurepower(R)]

Perhaps the news articles reflect the increasing importance of WikiPedia, and the desires of some people to control it.

Quote from the Slashdot story: "Merkey filed a harassment lawsuit in 2005 against a number of people and organizations, including Slashdot."

Maybe someday Slashdot will be important enough that there are a lot of accusations.

Shocking!

[duffbeer703]

So this guy is a power-hungry freak. Wow... did anyone not see this like a year ago, when Jimmy Wales was basically telling the world that he was here to save us all?

Hopefully he'll be selling timeshares again soon.

Re:Shocking!

[FooAtWFU]

So this guy is a power-hungry freak. Wow... did anyone not see this like a year ago, when Jimmy Wales was basically telling the world that he was here to save us all?

Hopefully he'll be selling timeshares again soon. Feeding the troll, I guess, but just FYI: Wales never sold timeshares. He founded Wikipedia with part of the small fortune from his online pornography business. (well, "search portal" business with advertising.... especially for pornography... and some regular pornography serving as well, sure)

Jeff Merkey and lawsuits

[Bruce Perens]

Jeff Merkey filed suit against me, and against PJ, some years ago. His family eventually convinced him to withdraw the suit against me, I don't know how his suit against PJ was resolved. The legal opinion I had at the time was that the suit would never see a hearing, but it was still a nuisance.

Jeff mostly just wants to be listened to. He can be grandiose and can get somewhat separated from reality.

Any article about Jeff on Wikipedia that relates events around Novell, SCO, and other stuff in 2005 would be a liability problem. I am not the slightest bit surprised that Wales had to re-write it. I don't think this has to be connected to a donation.

Bruce

Re:Jeff Merkey and lawsuits

[MadMidnightBomber]

Wasn't there a big Merkey-related blow-up on linux-kernel way back? Oh yeah, "On October 4, 2004, Merkey offered US$50,000 on LKML, the Linux kernel mailing list, to anyone able to provide him a version of the Linux kernel that was not licensed under the GPL for his project". Well, you can imagine how well that went down- and of course he would have needed the explicit permission of every single contributor.

Didn't strike me as a particularly balanced individual during that episode. More I can't say.

Re:Jeff Merkey and lawsuits

[Doc Ruby]

Any article about Jeff on Wikipedia that relates events around Novell, SCO, and other stuff in 2005 would be a liability problem. I am not the slightest bit surprised that Wales had to re-write it. I don't think this has to be connected to a donation.

Actually, not a legal liability problem, except perhaps for the person who wrote an article that lied about Merkey (or somehow created other liability like violating some contract, breaching some trade secret, etc). Wikipedia is not liable for what it publishes in its site when that content is written by someone else (like practically all its content), because it doesn't moderate it. Though it could be a "frivolous lawsuit target" problem for Wikipedia, as you were. Did you stop doing what you were doing that ticked Merkey off?

OTOH, by rewriting the article, Wales became responsible for what he wrote. If he used an account that has any privileges that people not on the Wikipedia editorial staff don't have, then he was making Wikipedia responsible for what he wrote. And since he was thereby moderating the Merkey article, he was thereby making Wikipedia responsible for the article.

Now, it's by no means clear that a court would have found that editing out article parts that Merkey complained about would make Wales/Wikipedia liable for what had been deleted. Though just the act of moderating content for any other reason than something like "clear and present danger" (or technical problems) could indeed be argued that "Wikipedia does moderate, it is therefore responsible for all content". Not necessarily a winning argument, but in fact Wales' editing likely created liability that didn't exist until he edited that article.

Now, it's all moot because Wales dropped his complaint. And perhaps he dropped his complaint because Wales made those changes. But Wales did probably increase his liability (from practically zero) by doing it. And he might have even produced evidence that "Wikipedia moderates content", which could make Wikipedia liable for all content. Including later complaints by Merkey. Including if someone else changed it back to the old version. But also including any other person who wants to complain, who could now hold Wikipedia liable for all content, because it does moderate.

Again, not a clear case. But not quite a frivolous one. Therefore increasing the risk by the action, if only in the longer term. But a serious change.

The real question is why didn't Merkey just edit it himself - that's what Wikipedia is for. Conversely, why didn't Wales have someone outside the Wikipedia org edit it, so the liability would be harder to prove.

And of course the ultimate question is whether Merkey did indeed pay Wales $5000 to make the change. If there's real evidence of that, things become clearer, but not better. Probably including Wikipedia's liability for all its content, to say nothing of its credibility.

Re:Jeff Merkey and lawsuits

[rahvin112]

Wikipedia shouldn't have to edit anything. As they don't create anything (everything being publicly generated) they are only responsible in an order to remove, not for any sort liability for statements made.

It's not good to say they would be liable, the MOST he could do is get a court order to force removal of certain phrases, not a rewrite to a positive light and then he has to prove it's defamatory and NOT opinion (when the every wikipedia page includes a note that this it everything is generated by the public.

Re:Jeff Merkey and lawsuits

[Alascom]

Riiiiight...

Re:Jeff Merkey and lawsuits

[Breakfast Pants]

What is PJ?

Re:Jeff Merkey and lawsuits

[Panoramix]

In that suit Merkey also named Slashdot as a defendant, along with a number of posters from several SCO-related public forums. One of those was Al Petrofsky, the guy who runs SCOfacts.org and right now, bless his heart, is making himself a pain in the ass for SCO in their bankruptcy case. The Merkey suit is thoroughly documented at SCOfacts, under Jeff Merkey, Litigious Lunatic.

The Encyclopædia Dramatica has an, ahem, interesting entry on this Merkey character.

Merkey is a kook AND an asshat. Being sued by him seems to actually be a voucher for one's credibility. Sad, really.

Re:Jeff Merkey and lawsuits

[tomhudson]

What is PJ?

Pamela Jones, creator and editor groklaw.net.

The MoGTroll - aka Maureen O'Gara - a SCO shill masquerading as a writer, asked the same question. So did SOC's Minister of MisInformation - Darl McBride, again in an attempt to discredit PJ by intimating she was (among other allegations) a bunch of people from IBM.

Re:Jeff Merkey and lawsuits

[xouumalperxe]

At least publicly (I won't go into internal politics issues when I'm not sure how those pan out) Wikipedia has a strong NPOV stance. Assuming they're liable for the content (and from my understanding, the moment Jimbo makes edits and then uses his standing in the foundation to keep the edits, that's a pretty strong case for moderation, hence liability), their own portrayal of their contents as being of a neutral, encyclopaedic nature seals the deal on articles being considered opinion pieces.

Re:Jeff Merkey and lawsuits

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot the "IANAL" part...although it should be obvious, given the fact that most of your post is wrong.

Re:Jeff Merkey and lawsuits

[Doc Ruby]

You forgot to back up anything you just said, which is almost entirely obviously wrong. Though you did sign it "Anonymous Coward", which is shorthand for IANSAI: "I Am Not Saying Anything Important"

Re:Jeff Merkey and lawsuits

[ShakaUVM]

You can't edit articles on yourself - it's against Wikipedia policy on autobiography.

Yes, this is both serious and a bit tongue-in-cheek. =)

Re:Jeff Merkey and lawsuits

[Doc Ruby]

I don't think there'd be any problems if Merkey just paid a "researcher" to rewrite it for what it cost just one hour of his team of lawyers to sue, to say nothing of the claimed $5K bribe.

Re:Jeff Merkey and lawsuits

[drew]

The real question is why didn't Merkey just edit it himself - that's what Wikipedia is for.

He probably can't, because he has been (repeatedly) banned from Wikipedia for making both veiled and overt threats of legal action against people who revert his mods or make mods he disagrees with. It also seems that, due to his... unique... view of reality, he has gathered a something of a "following" of editors who spend the majority of their time on Wikipedia tracking and undoing his changes.

Re:Jeff Merkey and lawsuits

[Doc Ruby]

Well, why not pay a proxy "researcher" to edit his page according to his "accurate data"? It would have been cheaper than paying his lawyers, or the alleged $5K bribe. Though if he's really nuts, the process would have been as meaningful as the results, especially if it could have crippled Wikipedia and established some new liability for it and equivalent sites.

On the other hand, Wales' editing it either for a bribe or blackmailed by a lawsuit is counterproductive either way.

Can you blame him?

[Farakin]

He can't get enough money! IMHO, I don't think individuals that are unimportant need to have a WIKI. Leave it to historical figures, world leaders, sports figures and the like. Some asshat wannabe CEO doesn't deserve the time or effort.

Re:Can you blame him?

[ScentCone]

Leave it to historical figures, world leaders, sports figures and the like

Well, mister, I see that you're the author of this Wiki entry , so I think you need to better define your criteria.

Re:wikipedia not a wiki?

[Herschel Cohen]

Not if it is locked, as stated at the end of the article.

Following his decision to erase Merkey's entry and start over, Wales placed it under his "special protection". Protected entries can only be edited by Wikipedia administrators.

hmmm

[nickname29]

Wikipedia definition: a public forum for slander and copyright infringement.

Since anonymity is guaranteed, you can not sue anyone.

Do not tell me that people with slanderous profiles should remove itself. This is not how the world works. The same with copyright infringement - copyright holders should not have to search Wikipedia to see where there copyright was infringed.

I am all for Wiki's where the author's name is known. Three examples - Citizendium, Scholarpedia (excellent articles on some subjects) and Knoll.

Sounds about right, to me.

[Futurepower(R)]

MOD PARENT UP, of course.

Re:Sounds about right, to me.

[rucs_hack]

Oh you are so sucking up.

This message was brought to you by 'someone who wasn't jealous at all, no really....'

Re:Sounds about right, to me.

[Bruce Perens]

So, instead of hearing from the horse's mouth, you'd rather hear from the other end of the horse?

Re:Sounds about right, to me.

[gnutoo]

rucs_hack is the other end of the horse.

Re:Sounds about right, to me.

[rucs_hack]

I mentioned sucking, and you retort with 'the other end of a horse'.

Urk.. the resultant mental association doesn't make me feel too well, I think I need to go lie down for a while.

Re:wikipedia not a wiki?

[rucs_hack]

The locking of the article for editing by senior editors only is a tad odd.

However, I don't know how common this is. If we are to assume innocence, then it might be that wikipedia was just trying to avoid being a location for mud slinging.
If not, then yup, it's a bit odd.

However, merkey has long been associated with wacko behaviour, so in this light his accusation could b viewed as no more than yet another attempt to keep his name in internet headlines.

Given the absurdity of his previous claims, I'm tended to lean towards this last possibility.

Should we even worry for Wikipedia?

[TheLazySci-FiAuthor]

I mean, how could wikipedia possibly die? Even when the founder turns out to be a hypocritical individual with character flaws, isn't the software and the ideal all that matters?

I'm just not that concerned, should I be?

Re:Should we even worry for Wikipedia?

[petermgreen]

no what really matters is the community.

The software is free software and there are plenty of alternatives anyway. The main data is freely downloadable (the images aren't downloadable en-masse anymore unfortunately due to thier huge size but I doubt a serious fork operator would have that much trouble getting hold of them all) and released under a free license..

but without a community of users large enough to effectively maintain it you just have a huge body of mostly static information that is getting steadilly more and more outdated. Think of the problems of forking a large peice of open source software and getting a sufficiant team that the fork doesn't rot. Now understand that the number of contributors to wikipedia is huge compared to even very large open source software.

Re:Should we even worry for Wikipedia?

[MutantEnemy]

Even when the founder turns out to be a hypocritical individual

It's regrettable that so many people just believe unsubstantiated allegations without question.

Jeff Merkey is banned from Wikipedia

[adam613]

Jeff Merkey got banned from Wikipedia for making legal threats. I'm not terribly surprised to hear he's making accusations like this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Jeffrey_Vernon_Merkey&oldid=148079940

Jeffrey Vernon Merkey: Whackaloon

[SirFozzie]

Let's not forget this was the person who wanted to buy Linux because the GPL would be its doom, so he could re-issue it under a Cherokee license.

This is the person who demanded that all homosexuals recuse themselves from dealing with the ArbCom case the last time he was banned from Wikipedia.

He demanded special treatment the last time he was on there, because he was such a big donor. (didn't get it mind you, but he wanted it, real bad).

This is a person who:"In 1998, the Fourth Judicial District Court of Utah found that Merkey "regularly exaggerates or lies in his comments to others about events happening around him. It is as though he is creating his own separate reality" (From SCOFacts)

JVM is a smart guy, no one denies that.

But he's also nuttier then a fruitcake.

Re:Jeffrey Vernon Merkey: Whackaloon

[nyet]

But he's also nuttier then a fruitcake

According to the WP:Cabal, only anti-Merkey SPAs feel this way :)

Re:Jeffrey Vernon Merkey: Whackaloon

[SirFozzie]

Oh, a lot of people feel the same way.. They're just too polite to use the same words I did. Most of the pages dealing with the whole situation have been courtesy blanked, to avoid being picked up by Google Spiders and the like. ;)

Re:Jeffrey Vernon Merkey: Whackaloon

[nyet]

Oh, a lot of people feel the same way.. They're just too polite to use the same words I did. Most of the pages dealing with the whole situation have been courtesy blanked, to avoid being picked up by Google Spiders and the like. ;) FWIW I was very impressed with your handling of the situation. In retrospect, I should have done much more observing, and a lot less commenting.

I know better now; I've forsworn the WP RPG entirely. Any edits I do are from anon-ips and are generally anti-vandalism or minor grammatical fixing.

Re:Jeffrey Vernon Merkey: Whackaloon

[JoshuaZ]

SirFozzie's obersvations are absolutely correct. If anyone cares, here is a link to where Merkey claimed he was being subject to persecution because he was heterosexual and demanded that any gay ArbCom members recuse themselves from the case: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Jeffrey_Vernon_Merkey/Workshop&oldid=147695621#Motion_to_Recuse_Self-identified_Gay_Arbitrators . Merkey made repeated legal threats against the English Wikipedia and editors there. When he was blocked repeatedly for such threats he then switch his tact to claiming that unnamed other individual associated with the Cherokee tribe would sue Wikipedia if Wikipedia did not conform to his definition of who counted as Native American. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Jeffrey_Vernon_Merkey/Proposed_decision#Jeffrey_Vernon_Merkey as well as http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Cherokee&diff=prev&oldid=131420490 , http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Cherokee&diff=prev&oldid=136934917 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Cherokee&diff=prev&oldid=136932731 . He went so far as as to make his own template (now deleted) to place at the top of article See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2007_July_12#Template:NativeWarn http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Cherokee&diff=prev&oldid=131434937 The claim that he is making in this case is particularly interesting because he tried repeatedly to claim earlier in a (now deleted) essay that if Wikipedia blocked any user or IP addresses for making personal attacks, legal threats, or any other behavior that that would result in any donor being able to sue the Foundation. He made other related claims about donors having special rights (I don't remember the precise details. I'll try to see if I can track down a copy of the essay). Thus, the claim that he is making now is well within the unique way that Merkey views Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation. That by itself is strong evidence against Merkey's viewpoint. There is the serious additional issue that frankly $5000 isn't that much to the Foundation nor is it that much to Jimbo Wales who is independently wealthy. The idea that the Foundation or Jimbo would be influenced by a donation of that size is laughable. Overall, Merkey is crazy and is once again making claims that are divorced from reality.

Re:Jeffrey Vernon Merkey: Whackaloon

[petrofsky]

SirFozzie: "[Jeff Merkey is] nuttier then a fruitcake"

Nyet: "According to the WP:Cabal, only anti-Merkey SPAs feel this way :)"

SirFozzie: "Oh, a lot of people feel the same way."

Whatever you want to call the collection of forces that determines Wikipedia content (the "WP:Cabal", the "wisdom of crowds", cosmic background radiation, whatever), the bottom line is that the Wikipedia article on Jeff Merkey, despite being over 1,000 words long, fails to inform the reader of the one fact about Merkey that is most important to know, which is that you shouldn't believe a word he says.

Here's what I wrote about that failure last year on the Talk page for the Merkey article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Jeff_V._Merkey&oldid=145259751&diff=145526635

Will Beback wrote on WP:ANI that "the subject is clearly litigious and we should note that fact in the article". I agree. I would say that the subject is, just as clearly, someone who makes a prodigious amount of extraordinary and false statements, and that any article about him should note that fact too. There's a good reliable source for that fact: Judge Anthony Schofield's finding that Merkey "deliberately describes his own separate reality." ( Novell v. Timpanogas Research Group, 46 USPQ.2d 1197, 1204 (Utah 1998)). Some people seem to think that that ruling is a primary source, but it is clearly a secondary source: it was written by a neutral party (the judge) after considering extensive writings, evidence, and argument from all sides (which he enumerates at the start of the ruling) and analyzing the credibility of those various sources. Does anyone seriously think that judges are not at least as competent, neutral, and careful in their evaluations as are journalists, who are routinely relied on by Wikipedia as secondary sources?
... Al Petrofsky 21:36, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

These were the three responses:

Al Petrofsky, this biography will definitely not characterize its living subject as "someone who makes a prodigious amount of extraordinary and false statements." Proabivouac 22:01, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Will's comment is fair while Proabivouac is correct that we have to take great care of living people who are subject to a bio here, see WP:BLP. This is simple respect for people's privacy, SqueakBox 22:05, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I was asked to comment here. Just glancing at the suggestions posted above, they seem to include violations of BLP, NOR, COI, and UNDUE (and the shorter version currently on the page may also be a violation, depending on how it's sourced). Specifically (1) it would be best if people involved in the case didn't edit the article, per COI; (2) we shouldn't use self-published material as a source, per BLP; (3) we shouldn't use primary-source material, including trial documents, that secondary sources haven't commented on, per BLP and NOR; (4) we shouldn't highlight the case more than reliable, mainstream, secondary sources have highlighted it, per UNDUE. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 00:36, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Re:Jeffrey Vernon Merkey: Whackaloon

[nomadic]

SirFozzie's obersvations are absolutely correct. If anyone cares, here is a link to where Merkey claimed he was being subject to persecution because he was heterosexual and demanded that any gay ArbCom members recuse themselves from the case:

Damn it, society is always trying to keep the straight, white males down.

Re:Jeffrey Vernon Merkey: Whackaloon

[nyet]

Ah yes, the usual Merkey meatpuppet suspects. Well, except for SlimVirgin, who proab went forum shopping for shortly before this response from her.

What's amusing about that is that right after proab forum shopped her but before SV responded in that thread, SV was busily updating WP:BLP to apply to the Merkey article (i.e. excluding trial documents).

For an organization that doesn't exist, WP:Cabal certainly is a group of very busy bees.

Inside Edition

[rumblin'rabbit]

Wales had a brief relationship with Rachel Marsden, aka "the scariest women alive".

This does not speak well to his judgement. Guilty as sin, I say.

Re:Inside Edition

[lantastik]

Damn, she's only 33? That picture on her wiki makes her look like she's 53. I'm not even half way kidding about that.

Re:Inside Edition

[rumblin'rabbit]

Well she's had a hard life, bouncing from job to job and man to man. Actually that's a poor picture of her. She's kinda hot, at least on television. Check this out.

This was about 10 years ago. She had it taken as she was charging her swim coach with sexual harassement, which says something about her mindset.

It's interesting that Wales got involved with her when she approached him about "correcting" her Wikipedia entry, much the same theme as the current story. Except rather than an exchange of money, there was perhaps an exchange of bodily fluids.

He also tried to buy Linux, didn't he?

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't he also offer to pay $50,000 if they'd BSD-license Linux or something? I remember some crazy scheme mentioned, but I thought he mostly vanished after the suit against PJ went away. I'm reasonably sure that Groklaw was dismissed from the suit, but PJ quit talking about it once it was filed except for one update which I think was the suit being settled.

I think he also filed an anti-GPL lawsuit alleging anti-trust concerns that was dismissed for, IIRC, failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted (i.e. even if everything he'd claimed was true, there was nothing wrong with the GPL). So, the lawsuit actually did unintentional good by having a judge who was an expert in anti-trust law vet the GPL and rule that there was nothing wrong with it.

In other words, while I'm not sure about his motives, his antics have been mostly harmless except for some nuisance lawsuits that in one case actually did a little good.

Re:He also tried to buy Linux, didn't he?

[Bruce Perens]

Didn't he also offer to pay $50,000 if they'd BSD-license Linux or something?

Uh-huh. He vastly underestimated the value of the code and the difficulty of getting that kind of license change done. Most folks took the offer as an insult.

I think he also filed an anti-GPL lawsuit

That was Daniel Wallace.

Re:He also tried to buy Linux, didn't he?

[moderatorrater]

He vastly underestimated the value of the code It's a common mistake. They are giving it out for free, after all.

Re:He also tried to buy Linux, didn't he?

[Bruce Perens]

It's a common mistake. They are giving it out for free, after all.

You mean they were sharing it with rules. BSD is a gift, GPL is sharing with rules.

Re:He also tried to buy Linux, didn't he?

[QuantumG]

Hehe, $50k eh. That's about 2000 man hours. Ohloh estimates the cost of the Linux project at $172,788,619.

Re:He also tried to buy Linux, didn't he?

[moderatorrater]

No, I mean giving it away for free. "Sharing it with rules and no cost" is a form of giving it away for free.

Re:He also tried to buy Linux, didn't he?

[Bruce Perens]

Consider that a good deal of the value of MySQL was the code. 172 Million seems a bit low for the kernel.

Re:He also tried to buy Linux, didn't he?

[QuantumG]

cost != value.

Beware populists

[MikeRT]

I learned a long time ago that you can almost always count on someone who talks about the "little guy" or the "wisdom of crowds" or some other populist crap to be trying to angle for something in the process. Populists are almost always out to manipulate someone and get something.

Hence I am not surprised in the least by this. The warning signs about Wikipedia have been there for a while now.

The fundamental rub here

[metalman]

This of course adds more light to the question posted earlier today about advertising on Wiki.

Regardless of whether or not the allegations are true, the problem in general is how to maintain the integrity of such a community-centered project in light of funding needs and greedy hands. Unfortunately the answer seems to be that anytime money-making concerns creep into the picture democratic, community-oriented organizations are threatened.

How can this fundamental rub be resolved? Organizations such as Wiki strive to put informational democracy over money, but is that even possible? What sort of oversight could be put in place to keep a project like Wiki from being steered off the cliff by overly self-interested editors? I don't know if this sort of abuse can be prevented.

Re:The fundamental rub here

[maxume]

Money is only one of any number of threats to the integrity of such an organization. People inside the organization subverting resources to their own ends, building little zones of control, and so on. You deal with them all the same way -- by operating as openly as possible. If people can see where the money is coming from, they can make up their own minds about its influence.

Re:The fundamental rub here

[aleph42]

What sort of oversight could be put in place What sort? What about meta-moderation, like here on slashdot?

Currently, Wikipedia lacks a proper meta-moderation for things like deleting articles, banning account and everything that touches accounts with special privileges. The worst thing being that (on the english wiki), some get privileges for undetermined time, without the possibility of an "impeachment".

But it wouldn't be hard to make it right: simply add "jury duty" like meta moderation, and demote moderators when they have a low score. Important votes (like banning account or electing moderators) could stay active for a week or more before closing.

Wikipedia itself claims that it does not want to be a democracy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_democracy ,
and that it uses "consensus" to determine what action to take. When I first saw that, I thought "well, the all thing isn't very transparent, but it still works okay". But the fact is, simply being suspected of scandals like this one, or the more serious one a while ago ( http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/07/12/07/1434221.shtml ) is reason enough to become more transparent.

Wikipedia CAN and SHOULD be a democracy.

On a side note, meta-moderation wouldn't be entirely enough; you would also need a way to prove to anyone that the website respected the procedure (with hashs, and only pseudo randomness so that it can be checked); for example, on slashdot, you can't be sure that the owners of the website don't cheat with the way karma or modpoints are given.

Since anonymity is guaranteed?

[Itninja]

Most peoples' edits are anonymous on Wikipedia only to the most surface of observations. Even minimal digging can reveal an IP, and then the Virgil scanner can do the rest. Of course, there are a some folks out there that can purposefully hide their IP identity. But still, I wouldn't call Wikipedia edits "anonymity guaranteed"

Jeff did attempt to go directly to Jimbo.

[nyet]

Look no further than this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3ARequests_for_comment%2FJeffrey_Vernon_Merkey2&diff=133328226&oldid=133327935#Dealing_with_Major_Financial_Contributors_of_the_Foundation_who_Edit_Wikipedia

Re:I'll bet Rachel Marsden is kicking yourself now

[Anonymous Coward]

She isn't kicking me about getting screwed.

I repeat:

[urcreepyneighbor]

To repeat what I said in the previous Wikiwhatever article (Jimmy Wales Faces Allegations of Corruption), which was modded offtopic and troll:

Welcome to the Real World, fuckers. Ha! I think I'm going to keep this comment handy, since it seems to apply every time there's a news item about Jimbo and/or Wikiwhatever.

But it's Jeff Merkey

[Anonymous Coward]

He's long since lost any semblance of credibility.

Good for the occasional internet soap opera though.

Re:But it's Jeff Merkey

[SL Baur]

He's long since lost any semblance of credibility. Jeff Merkey never had any credibility to begin with. He's always been a kooky guy who sometimes like to post drunk. Oh and that was his own admission on lkml after a particularly bizaare rant. That was around 1996 or 1997.

Re: wikipedia not a wiki?

[Black Parrot]

The locking of the article for editing by senior editors only is a tad odd.

However, I don't know how common this is. If we are to assume innocence, then it might be that wikipedia was just trying to avoid being a location for mud slinging.
If not, then yup, it's a bit odd. I don't have time to follow wikipedia closely anymore, but AIUI article locking has become fairly common over the past few years, as a way of stamping out edit wars.

Don't confuse allegations for fact.

[gnutoo]

This story does not add up, except as a part of a smear. If Merkey had the emails, he would have posted them. You just can't do some people a favor.

Some editors are more equal than others

[nyet]

For the sake of posterity (these things do tend to disappear quietly from WP quite often). Key points are in bold. They often occur right next to a statement saying the exact opposite. i.e. "treat everybody equal" but in the same breath "some people are more equal than others"

Dealing with Major Financial Contributors of the Foundation who Edit Wikipedia (by Jeff V. Merkey)

In general, major financial contributors who edit Wikipedia should be treated the same way and with the same level of courtesy as anyone else who edits Wikipedia and they should be required to follow the same rules. These rules also apply to admins, who, by ARBCOM precedence are expected to adhere to the highest standards of civility. Financial contributors to the Foundation contribute more than their time to the project. Some of them donate or invest in Wikipedia Projects each year many times the life savings of an ordinary person. Saying this does not matter is inaccurate and a breach of fiduciary duty owed to the Foundation by those who have been granted administrative or other privileges. It DOES matter. Not ony do these people donate their time, they pay for hosting costs, personnel costs, equipment, and other critical areas where the Foundation needs support, and not everyone is equal in this regard, their contributions are important as well. This does not entitle them to claim special treatment, but it does entitle them to the same high level of conduct and professional stewardship expected from any admin involved with the project. They should not be subjected to the same treatment the project reserves for troll or vandal accounts.

If you find yourself in a situation with a major contributor editing Wikipedia who is problematic, do not threaten them, argue with them, or debate with them about who is helping Wikipedia more -- from the Foundations point of view, both parties are contributors, and more so of a person donating both time and money. Some serious problems for the project may be created if an admin threatens, argues, or attempts to ban a major financial contributor from editing. These situations are best handled by more mature members of the community or of the Foundation, without ever resorting to threats or implied threats of action. It is said you cannot argue with a customer in a business setting and the same is true of a major financial contributor. Be polite. Ask polite questions about their concerns and try to listen to them, without loosing your temper. Some of the problems mishandling contributors are:

        * The contributor may feel they are funding a usenet project or trolling site and discontinue support.
        * The contributor may have significant contacts or influence in the public sector, and either intentionally or unintentionally influence other groups to withdraw support.
        * The contributor may have business interests or projects the Foundation has time or financial investment into that the general community is unaware of, the you may damage or destroy months or years of important relationships with a thoughtless act.
        * If a contributor is also in the same business space as the foundation, banning a Financial contributor or posting ban notices may interfere and harm not only their business enterprises, but the Foundation and Wikipedia Projects as a whole, with negative results for everyone involved.

If you have strong feelings about the editing of a major financial contributor, be polite, do not threaten them. Many of these people will take great offense at being threatened by admins or users since they may feel you are doing so on servers and equipment they purchased to support the project.

In summation, they should be treated the same way everyone else is treated who edits. With the same high level of civility and stewardship expected from an Admin when dealing with any editor or member of the project. And certainly not subjected to threatening language.

Re:Some editors are more equal than others

[seaturnip]

You must be Jeff Merkey himself, am I right? I don't know anyone else who has the gall to forge documents out of whole cloth like you just did there.

Oh now you'll tell me the reason the only place on the web a google search for any phrase in the document turns up is this slashdot page is because the wikipedia cabal made it disappear. Riiiiight. Also, protip for your next forgery: it's spelled "lose", not "loose", which does kind of give your game away since a mistake like that wouldn't last long on a wiki. Go elsewhere with your Protocols of the Elders of Zion tactics.

Re:Some editors are more equal than others

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the post. This is not a Wikipedia policy document, this a *proposal* for a policy, written by, you guessed it, Jeff Merkey. As you can see if you scroll down just a little bit, most comments were vehemently in opposition.

Re:Some editors are more equal than others

[randyest]

Are you kidding? That document is on wikipedia.com right now! At the link in the GP post. Now go read it and understand the context, then feel stupid and ashamed. You wiki apologists really need to take a breath or two before you lash out at anything you perceive as anti-wiki (especially when it's incorrectly, in this case.)

Ehm...confusing?

[tehniobium]

Go to mr. Wales' blog, scroll right to the bottom and press the "powered by wordpress" link.

I get "therightpills.com" (tested on 2 computers, so i doubt its adware). Has the self proclaimed dictator of history been hacked?

:P

Re:Ehm...confusing?

[the-amazing-blob]

I get it too. Confirmed hacking or he's getting something out of it.

Re:Ehm...confusing?

[tehniobium]

He's probably thought of a new project which more closely resembles his thought about where wikipedia should be going:

A Pharmacy Articles Directory written by experts with links to loads of cool "partners" on the internet.

...or something along those lines.

Re:Ehm...confusing?

[ShaunC]

therightpills.com expired in November and was re-registered barely two months ago. My guess is that it used to point to something slightly more legitimate - say, an academic discussion about The Matrix - and Jimmy was trying to boost its pagerank with the stealth link. Alas, the Wayback Machine has no dirt.

Then again, WordPress has had its share of holes over the years...

Re:Ehm...confusing?

[Dachannien]

Lots of Wordpress blogs are getting hacked these days because people never update their software, and the favorite thing to do seems to be add invisible spam links for SEO purposes. Hacking other parts of the site for similar purposes wouldn't be surprising, either.

Re:Ehm...confusing?

[ral315]

Surely the founder of Wikipedia has better things to do than add a spam link to his own blog in an attempt to boost its page rank? He's had his share of controversy, but there are better ways he could accomplish such a thing (like, for example, spamming via Wikipedia -- while "nofollow" is enabled on Wikipedia, Wales was the one who had it enabled in the first place).

Re:wikipedia not a wiki?

[SirFozzie]

(fair notice: I am an administrator on Wikipedia, same nick)

There's two types of protection:

Semi-Protection: Where all anonymous editors (those without accounts), and those whose accounts are less then four days old (I believe) are kept from editing these articles. This is to prevent someone from registering a new account, and going on a vandalism spree.

Full-Protection: What the JVM article was for a while. That means only administrators can edit the article. This is GENERALLY used only for short periods, where vandalism/edit-wars are too great. This is generally to make the folks take it to the articles talk page and hash things out. In GENERAL (not saying every circumstance, or what have you), when an article is full-protected, the only edits that are done, even by administrators, are either to remove vandalism, material that violates Wikipedia's policies on the Biographies of Living People (Libelous material, etcetera), or things that have full consensus on the talk page.

Once tempers cool down, the article is unprotected. The problem is: There's a great amount of people who take great pleasure in poking Mr. Merkey with sticks, just so they can get a reaction out of him (the Yahoo SCO Message Board took great pleasure in trying to drive him insane, for example). In the ArbCom case that Mr. Merkey was banned from Wikipedia (again), three of his main annoyances, were also banished.

In this specific case, I can understand why the page was full-locked for a while, because these people were taking great pleasure in their attempts to make JVM lose the plot.

Re:Where there is smoke... there is smoke & mi

[PopeRatzo]

If you read the article closely, you'll see there really isn't a whole lot of fact, merely a bunch of accusations.

The thing that kept running through my mind as I read the article was that [citations were needed].

Bottom line: This article is definitely not NPOV, and none of the assertions therein have been substantiated.

Wikipedia is still one of the best bargains in the world. You get an amazing amount of valuable content for no cost. Should you use it as a sole source for a PhD dissertation? Of course not. Is it the best place to go if you're not a mathematician but would like a little background into combinatorics, are looking for some quick background into the War of the Roses, or want biographical data on the "father of alkali", James Muspratt, or the structure of the Dominant 7th chord? Fuckin' Aye.

When most of the conceptually anemic Web phenomena like Twitter are forgotten, Wikipedia will still be a valuable tool for people who want to look stuff up, and will be remembered for making the most of a brilliant idea and basically changing the way people use the Internet and facts.

Naturally, you're going to find twerps like Merkey who are pissed that the world doesn't recognize their brilliance and so get pissed at someone who they believe has garnered the adulation rightfully their own. Despite his best efforts and the insatiability of a zillion web news aggregators, Merkey will continue to be nobody.

Incomplete post

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot the conspiracy theory involving conservatives. Or preservatives.

Re:Incomplete post

[Doc Ruby]

No, AC, all you have to do is look at the simple display of basic logic, and you can infer any "Conservative" conspiracies you want. Since there are so many real "Conservative" conspiracies, you'd probably be right.

Re:Incomplete post

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, so it was preservatives. My bad.

Re:Incomplete post

[Anonymous Coward]

all you have to do is look at the simple display of basic logic

Where?

Worrisome

[melted]

I've been donating a few hundred bucks to Wikimedia Foundation each year (with my employer matching my donation dollar for dollar). I won't be donating this year unless I am sure beyond a shadow of doubt that my money is being properly spent. Sorry folks, if I wanted to burn the cash, I'd do it myself.

It wasn't the value of Linux, but legal hurdles

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Re-licensing Linux as BSD has the same hurdles as trying to relicense Linux under GPL3. It cannot be done without the permission of all the contributors (of whom there are thousands). Linus only owns 10% or so of the code and the rest of the code is owned by its authors (or designated owners). Only those code owners can change the license. In theory it is possible to hunt down all the contributors but in practice this is impossible. I saw a very small project (less than 10 contributors) try to change its licensing and that was challenging enough.

Re:It wasn't the value of Linux, but legal hurdles

[Bruce Perens]

MySQL is under the same license, and look what it sold for. $50,000 was a silly offer. Needing to locate all contributors is oft-repeated, but IMO not necessarily true. I think that a change to GPL3 could be done with just a public call for opposition and a note directed to the last known email address of all known contributors. Anyone who opposes has their code pulled and replaced. Anyone asleep at the switch during such a widely-publicized event is going to have trouble convincing a court about their rights later on.

I don't think a change to BSD is anything the kernel team would seriously consider, though.

Re:It wasn't the value of Linux, but legal hurdles

[EmbeddedJanitor]

A public call for opposion is hardly enough unless that was part of the legalses that included the contribution.

People have contributed to Linux under GPL2 and nobody can take that away from them (ie the GPL2-ness was a condition of the ofer they made). Any switch to GPL3, say, would be groundless and pointless. If this was done to prevent TiVo/Google style issues, then the Tivo/Google lawyers would have a field day being able to dispute the validity of the GPL3 switch. All up, a pointless exercise.

Re:It wasn't the value of Linux, but legal hurdles

[Bruce Perens]

A public call for opposion is hardly enough unless that was part of the legalses that included the contribution.

Well, people say this but the reality is that Linux has has two significant license modifications, Wikipedia has had one, and not all parties were contacted when these things happened. Many Open Source projects go through similar changes. Until you get a court case, it's not going to be 100% sure, but as far as I can tell right now, the absent, dead, etc. can't hold up the majority of the Open Source developers if they decide to make a change to their collective work.

Re:Where there is smoke... there is smoke & mi

[SL Baur]

Wikipedia is still one of the best bargains in the world. Could you explain this to me? Never mind the editing part. Why does Jeff Merkey rate a Wikipedia page at all? I know him as a guy who makes wild drunken posts to lkml from time to time.

Anyway, having an entry on Jeff Merkey sure brings new meaning to "You get what you pay for".

Re:wikipedia not a wiki?

[B3ryllium]

Even when an article is fully-locked, the history is still available, correct? If so, the pre-rewrite history should still be accessible, so I don't really see what everyone is making a fuss about. There's no impact on transparency, in that instance, it just takes a little more effort to see if anything is amiss.

DonorGate?

[v3xt0r]

Is this a sperm-bank conspiracy?

Who comes up w/ these buzzwords, anyhow?

Weekly World News = more truthful than Jeff Merkey

[Antaeus Feldspar]

I made the mistake of thinking from the headline that this was an actual story. But if only the Sydney Morning Herald had done due diligence and checked out who Jeff Vernon Merkey is, they'd realize that it's no more of a story than "Homeless man pushing shopping cart insists that Vatican implanted electrodes in his pancreas for mind control." The SMH story mentions at the very end of the article that Merkey has been in several lawsuits; one wishes they'd looked more closely at the Novell v. Timpanogos Research Group, Inc. suit where Merkey was a primary defendant. The judge's findings of fact include that Merkey had "copied whole cloth ... the work of Novell" (71) and falsely represented it as "prepared "starting from 'a clean piece of paper'"" (81); had "spent two hours describing the Tapestry technology and ... explained how Novell had invested $15 million in their new company ... all aspects of this presentation were essentially dishonest as the technology was Novell's Wolf Mountain technology not TRG's and Novell had not invested any money in the new company" (84); had falsely represented to an investor that "70 senior architects and developers at Novell had resigned to join TRG" when the truth was "it only hired a handful" (100); had offered contradictory testimony as to the location of a laptop computer whose hard drive was believed to show evidence of Merkey's misappropriation of trade secrets (112); had offered no less than four different explanations of how the hard drive of that computer came to have been smashed to bits (116); and concluded as a Finding of Fact that "Merkey is not just prone to exaggeration, he also is and can be deceptive, not only to his adversaries, but also to his own partners, his business associates and to the court. He deliberately describes his own, separate reality." (124). I highly suggest reading the whole thing to get a good feel for just how readily Merkey lies, and how little anything he says can be expected to reflect the truth.

Calling this claim "the most damning [against Wales] yet," as the SMH does, ignores the fact that it is coming from a thoroughly untrustworthy source.

What a Scam!

[STrinity]

$5000 to rewrite an article? I'll do it for $.10/word.

Re:wikipedia not a wiki?

[Patchw0rk F0g]

Gimme a break. Let's face it: Wikipedia is a forum board that's gone "legit", and out of control, with a proprietary fancy interface that doesn't happen to look like VBulletin.

The same problems of moderation, rewrites, bitching, whining, favouratism and hidden motives and agendas... all go on on Wikipedia, just as they do on lesser boards. The problem is, Wikipedia involves "real-world" problems, and affects people in very concrete ways.

I was recently involved in a tussle on a board regarding a female member being stalked by another board member. Through-out, the arguments were wide and ranging, but almost invariably involved the "virtual" world vs. the "real" one.

If people understood the implications of having such a widely-[mis]regarded source cited as a credible fount of information, and the impact that could have on the real world, I think we'd all be better off, and relegate this misbegotten site to its real impact: a forum that has blown to momentusly dangerous proportions, and taken its adolescent behaviour to the masses.

Let's not fool ourselves. It could be porn reviews, or celebrity photos. No... it's Wikipedia.

The Merkey article *was* white-washed

[walterbyrd]

That much I know for certain. I saw the Merkey article, and I saw the white-washed article.

Somebody on the yahoo scox message boards, who claimed to Merkey, and certainly seemed to be Merkey; bragged about having the negative information removed, in exchange for a "donation" and for Merkey dropping his harassment lawsuit.

Re:The Merkey article *was* white-washed

[PopeRatzo]

Somebody on the yahoo scox message boards, who claimed to Merkey, and certainly seemed to be Merkey;

If it was on the Yahoo message boards, it must be true.

Re:The Merkey article *was* white-washed

[rblancarte]

just like if it's on wikipedia it must be true?

Did you have to white-wash everything negative?

[walterbyrd]

As I remember, some of the negative stuff about Merkey did not have any evidence behind it, but there was a lot of negative stuff about Merkey that *did* have real evidence behind it.

Wikipedia (after accepting a donation?) white-washed everything.

BTW: you never mentioned whether wikipedia accepted a donation from Merkey - or one of Merkey's sponsors.

Note: I personally never entered anything in wikipedia about Merkey.

Re:Did you have to white-wash everything negative?

[SirFozzie]

"BTW: you never mentioned whether wikipedia accepted a donation from Merkey - or one of Merkey's sponsors."

That's because I have no particular knowledge whether Merkey is a donor to the Wikimedia Foundation, other than JVM's words. I am an administrator, but last I checked, there was, I want to say, about 2,000 of us (administrators) on the project. So, there's people who are in the know about various things, but I'm not one of them.

I did comment on JVM on some of the previous steps prior to the Arbitration Committee(as I said, there's no doubt that there is a bunch of folks who travel around trying to troll JVM into losing his cool, but to be quite honest, it doesn't take much prompting, as you can see from some of the other posts that have surfaced.

And as for the whitewashing, well, first off I didn't do it, or review it at the time, but the rules in general, are that on BLP (Biography of Living Persons) articles, if information is contested, or controversial, and it's not highly sourced, it comes out of the article, and should not be added back in unless it's properly sourced. While usually a request doesn't get Jimbo's attention straight out, it's not uncommon for intense scrutiny to be focused on an BLP article by a cadre of volunteer editors who answer complaints by people or companies via email about their article (it's called the OTRS system), where they consider information to be incorrect. Sometimes, when a vast majority of the information in the article is either incorrect, or presented in a biased manner, it requires a total re-write of the article, which may have happened here.

Again, I'm not trying to say what did, or did not happen, I'm just trying to explain how things should work. Whether it is how it works in practice, as well as it does in theory, is something I won't venture to guess on.

Re:Did you have to white-wash everything negative?

[Anonymous Coward]

"And as for the whitewashing, well, first off I didn't do it, or review it at the time...Sometimes, when a vast majority of the information in the article is either incorrect, or presented in a biased manner, it requires a total re-write of the article, which may have happened here."

That is not what happened here and you know it. You cannot cover up or evade the situation -- shortly after JVM made a public (not contested by wiki admins) "donation" the existing article was deleted and it's history of edits and discussion removed. That article wasn't kind to JVM, but it used well-sourced public documents and JVM's own public statements to document his behavior.

Re:Where there is smoke... there is smoke & mi

[Anonymous Cowpat]

"Is it the best place to go if you're not a mathematician but would like a little background into combinatorics"

No. I've never read a maths article on wikipedia that wasn't written without regard to the ability of the average reader to understand it. Any time I try to read one I see an enormous chunk of long words, pages and pages of meaningless symbols and precious little explanation - whatever level they're written for, it's above me - and I have a degree in theoretical physics!

Re:Where there is smoke... there is smoke & mi

[max born]

Perhaps the news articles reflect the increasing importance of WikiPedia, and the desires of some people to control it.

Indeed. What would be the point of paying someone to change an entry unless that person could keep it locked forever?

Jeff Merkey's entry isn't locked now. I just edited it.

You got that right.

[John Hasler]

Any allegations from that source do not deserve the attention of responsible media. Or even Slashdot.

And look at who wrote the story...

[Anonymous Coward]

Some background that may help you to asses the credibility of the story, http://tinfinger.blogspot.com/2006/11/asher-moses-debacle.html

Could you clarify this part?

[walterbyrd]

> Nice of Jeff to give a donation, but stubbing down a bad biography is standard practice.

So you are saying that Jeff did give a donation? And I take it that the stubbing took place right afterwards?

Can you explain why, even the negatives about Jeff that can be well documented were removed?

> So it's really a non-story. We protect articles against people who want to write "WEE WEE WEE JACK IS GAY."

Was the stuff about Merkey really of that nature? I saw the original article, and it did not look like that to me.

Re:Could you clarify this part?

[CatherineCornelius]

So you are saying that Jeff did give a donation? No, sorry. I nothing of any donation, although Jeff's claim that he had paid for his article to be fixed sounds familiar. We will fix anybody's article if it contains distortions, absolutely free, and if it's enough of a mess we'll have to stub it down (reduce it to a basic one or two sentence description) and start again from scratch.

Can you explain why, even the negatives about Jeff that can be well documented were removed? Policy. It's called the "Biographies of living persons" policy, BLP for short, and it says that anything even slightly questionable that is unsupported can be removed, and only restored when it passes all Wikipedia's content policies. I might look at the article and think, to myself "sure, that can be documented, leave it in" but somebody else may not have read the relevant documentation, and that creates uncertainty which we resolve by requiring that whoever puts it back put in enough reference to documentation to ensure that it's verifiable from what we consider reliable external sources. Footnotes, basically. We follow this procedure with content related to living people, because we've found that it's the only way to keep our articles reasonably free of rubbish and unsupported rumors.

> So it's really a non-story. We protect articles against people who want to write "WEE WEE WEE JACK IS GAY."

Was the stuff about Merkey really of that nature? I saw the original article, and it did not look like that to me.
I did not see the original article. My point is that the kind of protection Jimbo used was nothing special. Every ordinary Wikipedia editor with an account (you don't even need an email address to set up an account, just make up a unique username and a password) that is more than about three days old can edit that article any time he wants.

It doesn't matter if it it's true....

[Eskarel]

the problem is that it could be true.

This was and is the fundamental flaw with wikipedia. Whether you believe that a collaborative encyclopaedia can really work or not, Wikipedia is set up in such a way that the integrity, reliability, and accuracy of any controversial data on the site can come down the the integrity, reliability, and honesty of one man.

Whether Jimmy Wales did or didn't take money, sex, or anything else in exchange for modifying wikipedia articles doesn't realy matter. The problem is that there's nothing in place to prevent him from doing so or even to show that he did it.

Wikipedia has no oversight policy(there doesn't even seem to be a requirement for the involvement of more than one administrator in controversial decisions), and includes the ability to permanently delete content so that not only has the article been changed or removed, but there is no way of knowing that it was ever there.

Any encyclopaedia is a bad reference source, simply because it's an encyclopaedia. But an encyclopaedia that can be rewritten at will by a single person with no oversight is a largely worthless encylopaedia.

Personally I use wikipedia quite often, but I don't bother with it for anything controversial.

Re:wikipedia not a wiki?

[kesuki]

If an article is deleted, all history, both of article edits, and discussion are fully deleted. so no, the past version wouldn't be in the history, if the article was deleted then rewritten.

Non-Denial Denial

[MSTCrow5429]

"Current allegations relating to Jimmy Wales soliciting donations for the Wikimedia Foundation in order to protect or edit Wikipedia articles are completely false. The Wikimedia Foundation has never accepted nor solicited donations in order to protect or make edits to a Wikipedia article - nor has Jimmy Wales. This is a practice the Wikimedia Foundation would never condone."

Notice the scope shift from "Jimmy Wales" to "Wikimedia Foundation," and then stating that the Wikipedia Foundation "has never accepted nor solicited donations in order to protect or make edits to a Wikipedia article," not Jimmy Wales.

Re:Non-Denial Denial

[elysiana]

"The Wikimedia Foundation has never accepted nor solicited donations in order to protect or make edits to a Wikipedia article - nor has Jimmy Wales." (emphasis mine)
I believe that's what you were looking for?

Re:Non-Denial Denial

[MSTCrow5429]

The Wikimedia Foundation is not Jimmy Wale's personal spokesman, even if it is his personal expense fund. I don't even see how the Wikimedia Foundation would be in a position to assert that Jimmy Wales is innocent; this is the same Wikimedia Foundation that a temp worker, quickly elevated her to COO, and then later found out she was a felon. The 2006 Wikimedia Budget is still missing, by the way.

Re:Non-Denial Denial

[MSTCrow5429]

Admittedly, I did not pay close enough attention to the tacked on denial, by proxy, on behalf of Jimmy Wales.

Re:Non-Denial Denial

[Anonymous Coward]

Just shut your pie hole. You're an idiot for believing an idiot.

Re:Non-Denial Denial

[CatherineCornelius]

"Current allegations relating to Jimmy Wales soliciting donations for the Wikimedia Foundation in order to protect or edit Wikipedia articles are completely false. The Wikimedia Foundation has never accepted nor solicited donations in order to protect or make edits to a Wikipedia article - nor has Jimmy Wales. This is a practice the Wikimedia Foundation would never condone."

Notice the scope shift from "Jimmy Wales" to "Wikimedia Foundation," and then stating that the Wikipedia Foundation "has never accepted nor solicited donations in order to protect or make edits to a Wikipedia article," not Jimmy Wales. You just accused somebody of accepting a bribe. What evidence do you have to support this accusation?

Re:Non-Denial Denial

[MSTCrow5429]

I think you're displaying an inability to distinguish the source from the messenger.

Re:Non-Denial Denial

[Apotsy]

"The 2006 budget is still missing." "Shut your pie hole."

Lovely. Don't think I'll be donating any time soon.

Re:Non-Denial Denial

[Antaeus Feldspar]

That's changing the subject. Explaining why you do not believe the Wikimedia Foundation's statement does not answer the question of why you misrepresented the Wikimedia Foundation's statement.

Re:Non-Denial Denial

[Antaeus Feldspar]

Admittedly, I did not pay close enough attention to the tacked on denial, by proxy, on behalf of Jimmy Wales. Whether it was "tacked on" is irrelevant.

Whether it was "by proxy" is irrelevant.

What is relevant is that you misrepresented it.

If you make an entire post whose whole point is "Hey, if you look really carefully, you'll see that the Foundation used some slippery wording to make it sound like they denied Merkey's allegations, but they didn't actually deny Merkey's allegations!" and it turns out that the 'slippery wording' is entirely in your imagination and your entire analysis is based on your failure to look 'really carefully', then I don't see why you should get any attention when you follow up your blatantly non-factual misrepresentations with ad hominem arguments attempting to push the same ideas.

Re:Non-Denial Denial

[MSTCrow5429]

You're a sloppy lawyer. I admitted I made a mistake in reading the statement. So you're misrepresenting my statement by stating it was a purposeful misrepresentation.

Stop giving me attention. I insist. Otherwise, I'll go over my quota.

Donnergate

[zip_000]

I'm guessing that I'm the only one that read "DonnerGate" rather than "DonorGate." Is Jimmy Wales eating people now?! Jeez, things really have gone down hill at wikipedia!

Re:Where there is smoke... there is smoke & mi

[jgoemat]

Why does Jeff Merkey rate a Wikipedia page at all? I know him as a guy who makes wild drunken posts to lkml from time to time.

Because people might read one of his wild crazy posts about buying the Linux Kernel under a commercial license and want to know who that crackpot is :) Then they can find out that he used to work at Novell, allegedly stole trade secrets to form his own company, spent $4 million in the ensuing litigation, and founded his own Native American church in Utah so people can smoke peyote legally.

That has me laughing.

[Futurepower(R)]

Funny. LOL. Good point. If he paid $5,000 he didn't get much for his money.

Re:wikipedia not a wiki?

[the saltydog]

"Once tempers cool down, the article is unprotected. The problem is: There's a great amount of people who take great pleasure in poking Mr. Merkey with sticks, just so they can get a reaction out of him (the Yahoo SCO Message Board took great pleasure in trying to drive him insane, for example). In the ArbCom case that Mr. Merkey was banned from Wikipedia (again), three of his main annoyances, were also banished."

No, he was already insane - we just got tired of his attention whoring.

(Yes, I was one of his frivolous lawsuit targets, but a timely e-mail to the EFF kind of fucked up that whole ridiculous charade; of course, the idiot blamed it on P.J., but I have the messages to prove him wrong.)

One other thing; is Wikipedia a cult? It sure seems like it. To me, it sounds like an endless meeting of Golgafrinchams...

WikiPedia: Something good happening.

[Futurepower(R)]

First, I have an ENORMOUS appreciation of wikiPedia. It's an excellent starting point for research, in my experience. Thanks to you and everyone who make it so wonderful.

Second, thanks for your informative explanations.

Re:WikiPedia: Something good happening.

[ben0207]

+5, Brown-nosing.

Re:wikipedia not a wiki?

[D'Sphitz]

Funny thing i noticed today, despite the loads of criticism in the news as of late Jimmy Wales has an absolutely glowing wikipedia page, that is conveniently fully protected and uneditable. So much for the neutral point of view.

Re:wikipedia not a wiki?

[larry bagina]

Hillary Clinton, when pressed about the comments from Ferraro stated "Well, I do agree with that and I think its important that we try to stay focused on issues that matter to the American people, and I do hate black people just like Ferraro"

-- from Wikipedia.

Re:wikipedia not a wiki?

[MutantEnemy]

Jimmy Wales has an absolutely glowing wikipedia page, that is conveniently fully protected and uneditable.

So many lies, so little time. The page is semi-protected, not fully protected. The log reveals this has been the case since March 6.

Why even pay to edit?

[CSMatt]

Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia. Just edit the article yourself using a proxy server.

Fork it already

[RiotingPacifist]

The power problem has plauged wikipedia for a while, as the english wikipedia is the biggest (And most american friendly), it has affected en.wikipedia.org first but will spread to other, spanish>german>etc. This is why on every wikipedia post i bring up the idea of a 'modular wikipedia, a multi-wiki, unfortunatly i got drunk protesting against the SOCPA zone today so if youcare look up my other wikipedia posts.

Oh, FCOL...

[Tastecicles]

Get a grip! If the truth hurts, you know what to do. STAY CLEAN. PEOPLE FIND THIS SHIT OUT! This is the Information Age, where anyone can find out anything on anyone else! There's no such thing as anonymity any more! Big Brother doesn't HAVE to watch you, because EVERYBODY ELSE IS!

What really fucks things up for the overwhelming majority is the few who litigate at the drop of a hat. For some, it doesn't even need the release of a headpiece to start the ball rolling. This is for YOU: YOU ARE SHALLOW, WEAK INDIVIDUALS. It would give me no greater pleasure than to remove you from the gene pool, as you offer NOTHING for the furtherment of Humanity. The only thing you do is remind us of our own failings and we laugh our arses off at you because you lack the intestinal fortitude to deal with life without Mommy there to hold your hands. Unlike the rest of us who can and do deal with whatever life hurls at us on a daily basis because we have no choice in the matter.

Merkey

[magus_melchior]

Although he's far from stupid, "there's nothing more dangerous than a resourceful idiot." (Dilbert)

I'm quite certan Merkey's telling the truth

[WriterJudd]

Jeff Merkey may very well be litigious, but in my experience, he's not a liar. Let's be sure to separate the two issues. Jeff first told me about being shaken down by Jimbo Wales for Wiki-protection money in November of 2007. We discussed it multiple times in the interim, until I first wrote about this situation last week on my blog, AntiSocialMedia.net. Over the months, Jeff's story has remained consistent and the facts as he describes them to me are easy to correlate with the historical record. That, combined with the recent revelations of Jimbo trading favorable article treatment for "female companionship", convinced me that I could confidently blog about this situation. It's my hope that now others, similarly extorted, will find ways to tell their stories.

Re:wikipedia not a wiki?

[D'Sphitz]

Ah my bad, I wonder where that darn "Criticism" section keeps going?

fully deleted?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fully deleted from wikipedia, or the internets in general? Is it deleted from google cache?

Re:fully deleted?

[Anonymous Coward]

the google cache tends to update whenever it updates, so it's not like the wayback machine or something like that obviously wikipedia editors can only delete the content on wikipedia

Re:Where there is smoke... there is smoke & mi

[hey!]

Why does Jeff Merkey rate a Wikipedia page at all?

Because "Jeff Vernon Merkey" is an anagram for "Re: Jerk off envy men." Not that I'd dream of putting that in his Wikipedia entry.

Re:Where there is smoke... there is smoke & mi

[AmericanInKiev]

foolish post period.

No one is suggesting that Wikipedia isn't a cool collection of link, and abstracts on mundane and sterile topics such as the canard you've trotted out here.

What people are suggesting is that Wikipedia is not what it claims to be, a neutral collection of verifiable facts, and is rather a collection of facts highly selected and censored, whitewashed, and otherwise secretly dictated by a few individuals for personal and pecuniary interests.

Rat poison is less than .01% arsenic, I suspect Wikipedia may be a mixture of bait (the article you mention) and payload - a few key facts buried, hidden, censored, whitewashed, etc ...

Been There, got the teeshirt.

AIK

Re:Where there is smoke... there is smoke & mi

[Aluvus]

I'm not clear on why it is relevant whether or not Wikipedia is a "bargain". In fact, most of your comment seems to have nothing to do with these accusations. I'm also confused that you would criticize an article as failing to be NPOV, then go on to refer to one of its subjects as a "twerp" and "nobody".

If these accusations are true, then that is a serious problem. Not just because it would be a severe breach of the project's ideals, but because this sort of bribery would be fundamentally unacceptable. From TFA it appears to be entirely a matter of Merkey's word and a possible coincidence right now, which is not exactly convincing. But certainly there is enough there to warrant a touch of suspicion, and that suspicion should be addressed in a fair and even-handed way.

Certainly the smart thing for the Wikimedia Foundation to do at this point would be to investigate whether anything untoward did in fact happen. No matter how good a "bargain" Wikipedia may be, the Foundation must be vigilant against any possible corruption. If Wales is shown to be innocent, great; life goes on. If he is shown to be guilty, then we will see how much backbone the Foundation really has. If it were to choose to tolerate corruption in its midst, then no, Wikipedia as we know it very well might not outlive the Twitters of the world. But hopefully Wales did nothing unethical, and the project can rumble onward.

I wish I would have known

[mrgodzilla]

I made a personal donation of $10,000 to wikipedia only to have my personal wikipedia entry removed shortly afterward!

Not that it was a bad thing to remove the entry.. it did say I was a fashion designer that lived in Ohio or some such nonsense. I just wish I would have known that Jimmy could have rewritten my page to say that Chuck Norris was my Protege.

Re:Where there is smoke... there is smoke & mi

[kocsonya]

Agreed. Wikipedia's math pages are seemingly written by mathematicians to be read by other mathematicians. I've been taught enough math to falsely believe that I could follow a mathematical explanation but Wikipedia proved me wrong in no time at all. Wikipedia, in general, is a fast way to access information and follow information chains but in the particular case of maths it seems that dusting off an old uni book about the subject is both faster and way more productive.

Re:wikipedia not a wiki?

[poopdeville]

This is exactly why pornographers and masturbators shouldn't be allowed to found anything.

Merkey v. Perens et al.

[petrofsky]

Bruce Perens wrote in Slashdot comment #22722890: "Jeff Merkey filed suit against me, and against PJ, some years ago. His family eventually convinced him to withdraw the suit against me, I don't know how his suit against PJ was resolved."

I (Al Petrofsky) was also a defendant in that case, Merkey v. Perense, et al., No. 2:05-cv-521-DAK, D. Utah, filed June 21, 2005. You can find full details here: http://scofacts.org/merkey

Merkey voluntarily dismissed his case against Pamela Jones. In the written dismissal notice he filed with the Court, he said that he was dropping it in favor of "pursuing criminal prosecution in the various states these offenses occurred". Needless to say, I am not aware of any such criminal prosecutions ever taking place.

The above comment, that Merkey's "family eventually convinced him to wihdraw the suit against" Perens, is the first I've heard of there being any involvement by Merkey's family in Merkey's decision-making in the case. At the time, Merkey wrote an entry on his website, which he later filed with the court, stating that he was dropping the action against Perens in exchange for Perens having allegedly made a written statement about "a large number of written attacks with violent connotations made against [Merkey]":

PLAINTIFF JEFFREY VERNON MERKEY'S EX-PARTE MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO CONDUCT EXPEDITED DISCOVERY

... 11. Bruce Perens approached Plaintiff and negotiated setttlement of his claims in exchange for withdrawing his false and libelous comments, and adminishing Linux and OSS members for posting death threats on the public Internet, and was dismissed from the complaint without prejudice. (Exhibit 4)

... DATED this __20___ day of July, 2005.

... Exhibit 4

Bruce Perens Dismissed without Prejudice from Federal Action 2:05-CV-521-DAK

Wednesday, July 06 2005 @ 06:30 PM MDT

Contributed by: Admin

We are pleased to announce settlement has been reached between Mr. Bruce Perens and Mr. Merkey relative all claims and causes of action arising from Federal Lawsuit 2:05-cv-521-DAK filed in US District Court in Utah. All claims and causes of action have been dismissed relative to Mr. Perens as of this date.

On a personal note, Mr. Merkey applauds Mr. Perens courage, candor, and demonstrated leadership in addressing these issues.

Mr. Perens has issued the following public statement regarding the litigation and this statmeent is posted here pursuant to an agreement between the parties.

STATEMENT OF BRUCE PERENS

"You may have noticed that Mr. Jeff Merkey has filed suit against a number of net entities and I. Mr. Merkey subsequently offered to withdraw his claims against me if I would issue a short statement. Of course I was concerned that his request could be an attempt to suppress my right to free speech on the net, but it turns out that the statement that Mr. Merkey asked for contains nothing I would not want to say.

Several people who have my sympathy are still being sued. I feel that my removal from the case will only hasten its demise, and I need to spend my time on important fights rather than this silly one.

I have made some statements regarding Mr. Merkey's relationship to SCO and Canopy Group that he would like me to clarify. He sold certain assets of his company to Canopy Group some time ago, but did not go to work for Canopy or SCO. Mr. Merkey has expressed a very strong disdain for both companies.

I subsequently suggested in public statements that Mr. Merkey work to cultivate his people skills in engaging and interacting with others, which is something he himself has admitted needs improvement. Subsequent to making these public comments, I oberserved

Re:Merkey v. Perens et al.

[Bruce Perens]

Hi Al,

It looks like I owe you an apology. FYI, my phone number is 510-984-1055, it's on my web site too. You are welcome to call any time if you have questions or complaints, as are all in the community. It rings in my home and office. It doesn't accept calls when we would be asleep.

I am surprised that the thing actually got one hearing. I never knew. Obviously the fact that you were involved at all is absurd, that a Magistrate would suggest that sort of judgement against you is highly absurd.

That looks like the statement I made. I haven't run "diff".

At the time the lawsuit was filed, I asked Slashdot's company and Novell for help. No help was forthcoming from either company. This worried me more than anything about the case, not because I needed help that much, but because those companies were willing to let their community down that way.

I had some advice from Larry Rosen, who felt that the case was bull, and that nobody was really threatened. If I had known that you would be threatened to the extent you were by the Magistrate's statement, I might have acted differently. But in the end, Larry was right - nothing came of the case.

My main reason for getting out of the case was that in a fight as stupid as that, everybody looks stupid. Walking away was the only respectable action, in my opinion at the time.

Jeff Merkey's family thought it was stupid too, and pressured him to stop, and he approached me and settled. I gave him a statement that did not compliment him and did discourage the folks on Slashdot who really did talk about physical violence. Remember, this was at the hight of the SCO stuff, and tempers were high. Sure, the talk about physical violence was inflated and taken advantage of by anyone who wanted us to look bad in the press. But the reality is that if you don't want to look bad for that sort of stuff, you have to make sure that you and your friends are not doing any of it at all. My comment was effective at stopping that stuff.

Jimbo Wales problems now stem from the Wikipedia's growing pains, the mistakes that any leader makes when going from nothing to high visibility, the fact that various entities would like to see Wikipedia tarnished, and just the fact that his and Wikipedia's profile is high enough that gossip about him gets web hits for news sites. I've been there. IMO, his worst problem is nothing to do with this, it's the fact that Google looks as if they might do their best to screw Wikipedia and get something that they own, and that carries their ads, in its place. We've never really seen Google turn against an Open Source project before, this will be interesting if it really happens. IMO, Google would lose.

So, you must be angry about all of this. I'm sorry. I didn't know.

Bruce

Re:Where there is smoke... there is smoke & mi

[Jason Earl]

Here's the thing, if Jimmy Wales wanted to sell out with Wikipedia he could sell out BIG. He controls Wikipedia for crying out loud.

Jeff Merkey, on the other hand, is a complete crackpot and a liar. He's the sort of imbecile that starts his own church because he believes that it provides him with a loophole so he can smoke peyote legally. Take a look at the supposedly clean version of his Wikipedia page and you will see what I mean. Better yet, read the crap he has written to the Linux Kernel Mailing List and other public forums over the years.

I wouldn't trust Merkey if he told me the sun was going to come up tomorrow, and it is essentially his word against Jimmy's.

Complete Irony

[AntwoneFisher]

The best part about that article is that it runs an American Express add that features Wales. Here's a screenshot. http://img80.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ironyam1.jpg

Re:wikipedia not a wiki?

[Maserati]

At one point I was following the Yahoo SCOX message board and I can conclusively state that at no time did anyone ever try and drive Mr. Merkey insane. There was a clear consensus on the board that such activity would have been redundant. Mr. Merkey is, by all accounts, including his own statements, patently insane and a toad-licking freakazoid. An analysis of his public record will show, beyond a doubt, that he lives in his own reality (not looking up which judge put that in a ruling, but I've read it straight offa PACER).

Re:Where there is smoke... there is smoke & mi

[Maserati]

Because anyone who worked for years in the tech industry and managed to confuse a kill file with an assassination list, in a lawsuit on the topic is a legend in his own mind^h^h^h^h time.

or maybe

[nguy]

Or maybe Wikipedia simply is becoming a nuisance to some people and they want to discredit and get rid of it any way they can.

Scandals "erupt" when someone makes enough of a nuisance of themselves so that others dig up the dirt on them. And it's effective because of knee-jerk reactions like yours.

this stinks

[nguy]

So, let's get this straight. Merkey is a guy who files lawsuits against people for saying bad things about them. Now he says that he paid Wales to edit the article about him in exchange for money for the foundation. Wales receives the money and supposedly complies. Then Merkey goes public and tells the world that Wikipedia is not trustworthy.

Whether Wales acted improperly is unclear. We don't know whether Merkey's sequence of events is correct. We don't know whether Wales edited the article because of a promise of money or because he really thought that it was unfair.

What we do know is that Merkey is out to hurt Wikipedia and Wales, because if this had merely been about getting positive press, he would simply have shut up after he got what he wanted. So, did Merkey plan this all along? Did Merkey merely make it appear that the donations and the editing were linked?

We don't know whether Wales is guilty, merely naive and stupid, or innocent.

But this looks like Merkey has been out to deliberately hurt Wikipedia, probably because he couldn't get to them any other way.

Makes no sense.

[ctusch]

Why should one spend 5000$ to let someone else edit his wikipedia entry when he can do it on his own for free?

Re:Where there is smoke... there is smoke & mi

[PopeRatzo]

and founded his own Native American church in Utah so people can smoke peyote legally.

So, he's not all bad...

Re:wikipedia not a wiki?

[ardin,mcallister]

well, there goes anyone on slashdot not being able to found a company.

Us slashdotters masturbate more that anyone on the planet. In fact, without us, I think the porn industry would grind to a halt.

Re:wikipedia not a wiki?

[ghyd]

All message boards happen in a void except Wikipedia.

Besides, not only Wikipedia but Internet, you're right, is a large message board.

Who's delusional enough to be surprised ?

Wikipedia is like other Encyclopedias a large message board, we got it. Now what, the Earth is just a large planet ? your brain is just a watery mass ?

Just more Internet drama

[LocalH]

The net's full of it. I've been a mod or admin in the Sonic the Hedgehog scene for damn near 10 years now, and we've seen more drama than you can shake a stick at. This is just more of the same. Ignore it, and it'll go away.

Re:Where there is smoke... there is smoke & mi

[KDR_11k]

However selling out big might compromise the site's reputation and thereby value, offering secret deals to improve someone's reputation is much more effective as long as people don't know it's being sponsored.

Re:wikipedia not a wiki?

[Thanshin]

This is exactly why pornographers and masturbators shouldn't be allowed to found anything. Commie!

Re:wikipedia not a wiki?

[EasyTarget]

Woosh!
Buried in the article, and shuffled into other articles. In particular his farcical attempts to pretend others had no input to the creation of Wikipedia.
It's not this laughing-stock of a showman who worries me though, it's the muppet uber-wikipedians who mindlessly humour and support him. They're scary.

Re:wikipedia not a wiki?

[budgenator]

I just read the article, and if the the "good press" that $5000 buys on Wikipedia, I'd recommend that people just not spend the money because he didn't seem to get much bang for the buck there.

Re:Where there is smoke... there is smoke & mi

[CatherineCornelius]

Maybe someday Slashdot will be important enough that there are a lot of accusations. A whole beowulf cluster of them.

Re:wikipedia not a wiki?

[ajs]

Not if it is locked, as stated at the end of the article. Of course, Wales has done this more than once, whenever an article was the subject of clear vandalism. The question is: was it the subject of clear vandalism at the time?

Creidibility: Merkey vs. wikipedia

[Vexorian]

Sorry, but I have to go with wikipedia on this one. And wtf is up with "In the latest of a long train of scandals to hit Wikipedia" Is the story submitter one of those wacko guys obsessed against wikipedia or something?

Re:wikipedia not a wiki?

[ajs]

Gimme a break. Let's face it: Wikipedia is a forum board that's gone "legit", and out of control, with a proprietary fancy interface that doesn't happen to look like VBulletin. 1) Not proprietary
2) I suppose anything that can be edited by more than one person could be compared to a "forum board"
3) What's your point?

I think it's always been a question of organization. If Wikipedia is able to organize, source and create a context within which more information can be placed than in any other source, it has tremendous value. If it falls down on those criteria, then it's just the Internet's stream of consciousness (which isn't valueless, but not nearly as valuable).

You, of course, get to decide how it's measuring up.

WTF?

[SatanicPuppy]

Just because a guy occasionally thinks with his dick doesn't make him bad at his job. We're all human; expecting someone to have no human flaws is idiotic and unrealistic.

Re:WTF?

[randyest]

Hello. This guy prosecuted people for prostitution. And then he's caught seeing hookers. You have no problem with such hypocrisy?

Re:WTF?

[SatanicPuppy]

Fact of life. Most people persecute most thoroughly the vices they hate themselves for having. I don't really see anything wrong with the sex trade; like a lot of things I think it's a hell of a lot worse when it's illegal and unregulated. So him being anti-sex trade doesn't endear him to me.

At the same time, his patronizing hookers doesn't really interest me (because I don't care about the sex trade) though his hypocrisy is somewhat amusing. I'd be happy if he just apologized to everyone, sought psychiatric help for his latent sex issues, and loosened up a little bit.

What will happen though, is he'll be railroaded out of office. Not because he's a hypocrite, mind you, but because he screwed some pricey hookers.

Re:Where there is smoke... there is smoke & mi

[JohnFluxx]

Heh. I have a Master's in physics and a PhD in engineering, and I have exactly the same problem. The math articles are just unreadable.

That's why everything2 rocks

[Noodlenose]

NPOV. A completely and utterly useless goal. Everybody has a point of view and one's literary output reflects this. That's why I prefer E2: NPOV is not a necessity if it's well written.

Re:That's why everything2 rocks

[Teancum]

NPOV is a tool to help decide between edits when there is an edit war in progress. I have seen some incredible POV fights that have broken out on some articles where there is wholesale revisions going on between several camps of editors, and the article switching between the various POVs. NPOV, if used properly, can help to bring together the various warring parties into common ground that they can all agree upon, and bring some stability to the article.

Yes, as an ultimate goal, I would have to agree that NPOV is a nearly impossible goal to reach. But projects like Everything2 don't allow you to edit a remarkably well written article that has a few minor factual errors in it either...without looking like a weasel who has mostly copied somebody else's node.

Jimbo, you tit

[Sockatume]

Anyone who looks in my comment history will realise that I'm a big defender of Wikipedia, but this is just ludicrous. Even if he's innocent of the charge, the man should've realised by now that he's got to stop editing in the damn project if Wikipedia's to avoid these sorts of accusations.

Re:Where there is smoke... there is smoke & mi

[Teancum]

Here's the thing, if Jimmy Wales wanted to sell out with Wikipedia he could sell out BIG. He controls Wikipedia for crying out loud.

This may have been true once upon a time, but it really isn't the case any more. While Mr. Wales does still have a big voice in what is happening in terms of a whole bunch of fans in high places, and he still has nearly unlimited editorial authority on all of the Wikimedia projects (he still maintains "steward" access, can and has created "administrator" authority on individual projects without "community" approval), he is increasingly becoming irrelevant in terms of actual day to day operations of Wikipedia and the rest of the Wikimedia sister projects.

Much of this is self-imposed, so far as he has become more "distant" from the community and hasn't been nearly so active in community forii. I have strongly disagreed with some of his actions in the past, and sometimes it hasn't been very beneficial to the community when he acted either. But I still admire what he has done in terms of promoting the projects and getting into doors to discuss Wikipedia that others likely wouldn't have been able to accomplish without his background.

Wikipedia started out more or less as Jimmy's private little playtoy, and there has been a transition from him "owning" Wikipedia to "giving it to the community" in terms of overall governance. Actual governance and legal control over the servers now rests with the Wikimedia Foundation, which is elected by editors of the various Wikimedia projects. In fact, an election for this board is coming up... the only franchise requirement is a certain number of "edits" on one project (I think a couple hundred edits... to keep somebody from voting who doesn't know the issues involved). I've even voted in the past couple of elections.

There are a couple "appointed" board members, but community elected representatives now comprise the majority of the board. This is different than what the board first started off as being Jimmy Wales as chair and the majority being his employees/partners. Jimmy Wales is still a member of this board, but is no longer chair... arguments about Florance being his "puppet" notwithstanding. BTW, I do like the job that Florance has been doing, and is trying to stay apolitical on most of the issues... as a chair should. She also doesn't get into the individual project minutae nearly so often as Jimmy Wales did during his tenure as chair, which IMHO is a good thing as well.

**IF** Mr. Wales would "sell out" now, I am certain that a majority of the Wikipedia community would move over to a whole new server and cut their ties to Mr. Wales completely. There really isn't much that he can do right now other than turn over what little he still controls over to the "community" completely.

As far as Jeff Merkey is concerned... I guess he is getting his 15 minutes of fame right now. He used to be a fairly regular poster to the "Foundation-l" mailing list, and was noted as a bit of a gadfly in terms of his posts on that list. The some of the conversations he clams to have had with Mr. Wales rings true so far as my own involvement with Mr. Wales is concerned, but it does seem to be a little bit odd. Clearly Jimbo did protect the Merkey article, and his individual involvement in this article seems quite unusual. Merkey was also a Wikipedia editor, but I can't seem to find his user account name at the moment.

I do know that some discussions of paying people to edit Wikipedia have happened in the past on Foundation-l, but to the best of my knowledge it was more in the form of a prize or scholarship type program, that would hire a group of students to work over the summer and pay them on a per-word basis to help improve some articles with bonafide research. The money to pay for these "paid volunteers" was to come from outside contributors and be in

Re:Where there is smoke... there is smoke & mi

[Sockatume]

You're damn right that none of the assertions have been substantiated. Here's the timeline:
October 15, 2005: Merkey has been involved in a massive edit dispute over the contents of his page, and has been making legal threats left, right, and centre. Following an arbitration commitee discussion, he gets banned indefinitely for his behavior.
May 2006: Merkey makes a donation. Jimbo Wales semi-protects the article and scrubs it, calling for a fresh start and an end to Merkey-Wikipedia hostilities. That's SEMI-PROTECTS. The Merkey article was as restricted as the one on the Xbox 360. Established ditors could, and did, begin rewriting. Merkey is still banned.
January, 2007: Merkey asks nicely and gets unbanned by the admins.
May, 2007: Another edit dispute, and Merkey finds himself before the ArbCom again. He makes all sorts of legal threats, demands to be made a sysop so he can get articles to express his "right" view more accurately, and gives the general impression that if he goes down, he's taking the Wikimedia Foundation with him. Banned, for a year.
10 March, 2008: A passing admin removes the semi-protection. Now anonymous, as well as registered, users can edit the page.
Now:Merkey, still banned, comes out of the woodworks claiming that he paid money and therefore got special treatment, a Jimbo-only version of his page, etc. etc. He's spent most of the time since his donation banned from editing!

Re:Where there is smoke... there is smoke & mi

[retzkek]

Try MathWorld instead. Okay, some of it's still pretty hard to understand (it IS mathematics, after all), but at least it's authoritative.

MOD PARENT UP to correct FALSE GRANDPARENT

[Antaeus Feldspar]

This post makes the false claim that the statement from the Wikimedia Foundation was in a carefully worded form that did not deny the allegations against Jimmy Wales.

This post corrects the falsehood of the parent, pointing out that in fact the statement did quite definitely deny the allegations against Wales.

Why is the post making the false claim rated more highly than the post telling the truth? Anyone can look at the statement of the Wikimedia Foundation and see that MSTCrow5429's interpretation of it is entirely false.

Re:Where there is smoke... there is smoke & mi

[jcast]

I have a Master's in physics

Well, there's your problem right there.

jeff merkey? stef murky?

[mattsqz]

im seeing a similarity between this jeff merkey character and stef murky of userfriendly.org..