"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

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.

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:donorgate...

[georgewilliamherbert]

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

Gate-gate!

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.

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.

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]

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

[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:donorgate...

[insertwackynamehere]

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

But it's Jeff Merkey

[Anonymous Coward]

He's long since lost any semblance of credibility.

Good for the occasional internet soap opera though.

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: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.

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!

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