Wikipedia Editors Hit With $10 Million Defamation Suit

New submitter Andreas Kolbe writes: "Businessman, philanthropist and musician Yank Barry and the Global Village Champions Foundation are suing four Wikipedia editors for defamation, claiming they have maliciously conspired to keep Barry's Wikipedia biography unduly negative. The Daily Dot article includes a copy of the legal brief and quotes Barry as saying, "My page was so ridiculously false and made me sound like a terrible person and people believed it causing deals to fall through. I finally had enough."

Comments

Well, this won't backfire!

[Anonymous Coward]

No, not at all.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[able1234au]

Calling Barbara Streisand...

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[hax4bux]

Or that attorney who tried to sue "the oatmeal" I forget his name...

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[Jesrad]

I forget his name...

And that's the punchline.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[Mr. Somey]

I'm not sure the Streisand Effect applies in this case. He's not actually trying to hide unpleasant or embarrassing aspects of his past - what he seems to want is for the article to reflect his own version of those events, or at least to contain his version (or "spin" if you prefer) in some way. And since he's a marginal figure to begin with, he's really in one of those "any publicity is good publicity" situations.

And these days, among the people whose allegiance Barry seems to value most (i.e., former professional boxers and their fans), attacking Wikipedia is hardly seen as a bad thing to do - just the opposite in fact, and you could probably say that for a wide range of people and professions, especially celebrities. Wikipedia has always been seen by many of them as an illegitimate, irresponsible, self-appointed power-grab by anonymous nobodies - because after all, it is - and the passage of time (and the continued unctuous malfeasance of Wikipedians) has only cemented that impression in their minds.

It's all rather unfortunate, but also inevitable, given the way Wikipedians often behave.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[TheInternetGuy]

Or that attorney who tried to sue "the oatmeal" I forget his name...

You mean that carrion dude right? Witha a name like that, perhaps there is some connection to Barry's VitaPro textured protein meat replacement?

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[JosKarith]

I'm sure you can just look it up on Wikipedia.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[Rei]

"The Wikipedia page said said I was an oversensitive litigious bastard!"

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[Rei]

I really don't know enough about this case to know whether the guy has a leg to stand on or not. I mean, sometimes blatantly false stuff is added on Wikipedia - remember the John Seigenthaler incident way back when? Of course, even that had its backlash. ;)

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[khallow]

It's all rather unfortunate, but also inevitable, given the way Wikipedians often behave.

I'd characterize it more as rather irrelevant. Wikipedia won't go anywhere just because some celebrities have opinions.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I suspect that a "See also: List of Litigious Assholes" section for his page is pretty much buttoned up for the forseeable future...

I just hope that none of the poor bastards he is suing happen to live in the UK... If so, they are six flavors of screwed.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[Andreas Kolbe]

One problem is that people will typically read the Wikipedia article first, and allow it to colour their perception. Big mistake if the article is biased to begin with, and a sort of kafkaesque situation for the victim. Wikipedia has known problems in this area, see e.g. Revenge, ego and the corruption of Wikipedia by Andrew Leonard; The tale of Mr Hari and Dr Rose – A false and malicious identity is admitted by David Allen Green; the story of Taner Akcam, Any political filth or personal libel can be hurled at the innocent, by Robert Fisk (originally published in The Independent); or that of Philip Mould, Mayfair art dealer Mark Weiss in disgrace after admitting poison pen campaign against rival Philip Mould, by Gordon Rayner.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[NotDrWho]

He's not actually trying to hide unpleasant or embarrassing aspects of his past - what he seems to want is for the article to reflect his own version of those events

What's the difference?

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[rtb61]

It is not whether or not he has a crooked dogs hind leg to stand on, it is whether or not he can conspire via his lawyers to intimidate those person with the threat of court costs.

Catch is those people will be able to call on the public for assistance in the gathering of evidence to substantiate their claims, hugely reducing their costs. Where as he will have to pay his lawyers to contest that evidence, in this case the more evidence the merrier. All none digitised, all hard copy, page after page, volume after volume, the more evidence his lawyers have to review the more his costs blow out. His intent is clearly to threaten all Wikipedia contributors with threats of civil suits by the wealthy. The most effective counter is tens of thousands of pages of evidence with his lawyers being paid to review and challenge every page at say something in the vicinity of $100 per page.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[Idarubicin]

I just hope that none of the poor bastards he is suing happen to live in the UK... If so, they are six flavors of screwed.

The defamation laws and precedent which apply depend on the jurisdiction in which suit was filed, not on where the defendants live. And the second sentence of the article indicates that suit was filed in Ventura County Superior Court: in other words, California.

(Indeed, it might be preferable for a defendant to live in the UK; depending - very much - on the particular details of the case, a California court may dismiss a defamation suit against a UK defendent due to the court's lack of personal jurisdiction. Or, in the event of judgement in favour of the plaintiff against a large number of defendants, the plaintiff may decide that actually trying to extract payment from a person in another country isn't worth the time, effort, and additional billable hours.)

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[sd4f]

If he has a case, the wikipedia article would have to have lies and fabrications. I don't think it's unreasonable to go to court for defamation, when the material published isn't true. If it is true, then that's a whole different matter.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

As it happens, the US has specific legislation to the contrary. In a strikingly atypical turn of events, this so-called "SPEECH Act" (yes, 'Securing the Protection of our Enduring and Established Constitutional Heritage' is one hell of a tortured attempt to get a cute acronym; but congress loves that stuff) passed unanimously in both the house and senate, (111th congress) before being signed by Obama in 2010.

The TL;DR is that the US Will Not in any way assist in the enforcement of a foreign defamation judgement against a US citizen or alien lawfully residing in the US at the time of their allegedly defamatory speech unless the domestic court being asked to enforce the judgement finds that either the US person was convicted in a court offering protection equivalent to, or greater than, that provided by the first amendment and any other state laws and constitutional provisions that would apply to the domestic court or that, while the foreign court was not up to those standards, the accused would still have been convicted had such standards been applied. The burden of demonstrating one, the other, or both, is on the person wishing to have the foreign defamation judgement enforced in the US.

So, while you may end up reducing the number of countries you can safely vacation in or catch a connecting flight through (Looking at you, London Heathrow), you have quite broad protection, if you qualify as a US person for the purposes of the act, to tell anyone pursuing a defamation case outside the US to kiss your constitutionally protected, at least in this context, ass. In practice, the UK is basically the country we wrote this against; but it applies to any foreign defamation judgements whatsoever.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[i kan reed]

And of course, the BLP rules of wikipedia help establish that all such material is posted in good faith. If you have a reliable source that says X about the subject, it can go a long way to help establish in court that you believed, in good faith, that what you said was true.

If the editors here had been skirting that rule... well... it could work out badly for them.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[bluefoxlucid]

He'll probably have an anti-SLAPP motion filed against him, get barred from discovery, then have to pay $10 million in legal fees.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[bluefoxlucid]

Wikipedia has always been seen by many of them as an illegitimate, irresponsible, self-appointed power-grab by anonymous nobodies - because after all, it is

The best part? Any anonymous nobody can register a domain name and put up information on a Web site. Wikipedia allows others to remove your bullshit, eventually ending in an edit war and a fact finding cycle.

Encyclopedias are effectively written by anonymous nobodies, too. Who wrote the lion article for Britannica? Oh sure you could look it up, but who does that? They're anonymous outside legal process: Nobody actually cares who the Britannica writers are unless they decide to sue them.

Mostly, it's attaching a name to a thing. Most people identify that Britannica is written by Britannica--the named persons who wrote it aren't in anyone's mind--while they identify Wikipedia as Wikipedia, and have to make some further thought to claim that the writers are not named persons they can identify. If you start telling people about Brooke Allen, they'll look at you like, who is that? Tell them she writes for Britannica and has six degrees in American History and they'll assume she's credible.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[Idarubicin]

That is true, and interesting...but beside the particular point at issue here. The SPEECH Act (ugh) deals with defamation suits against U.S. citizens and residents filed in foreign courts. The case here is the mirror image situation: a case filed in the U.S. against a (hypthetical) overseas defendant.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[mellon]

It's not that simple. The problem is that dirt sells, so for any given interesting person, there is always dirt. Getting reliable sources to say anything else about the subject of the BLP is harder, because good news doesn't sell. So if you are a person who is prominent in a small community, and you get famous because of an exciting news story, you wind up with a BLP page that makes you look like a scumbag, and says absolutely nothing about whatever it was that got you prominent enough that a gossip story about you was able to make the news. I've seen this happen to a couple of prominent figures. It's unfixable, because a gossip column is more reliable than an organizational web page. Personally, I count myself lucky that I don't have a wikipedia biography.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[i kan reed]

I'm not a lawyer, I don't know the details of libel laws, but I was relatively sure that good faith belief is all that is required.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[samwichse]

"In 2014, Barry sued four Wikipedia editors for defamation for their edits to this page."

ROFL

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[jcochran]

You just might want to take a look at the comment on the edit made to Yank Barry's wikipedia entry at 9:21 25 Jun 2014... The URL is http://en.wikipedia.org/w/inde... and to save you time, here's the comment

  (Court cases: I expect we'll have better sources than TechEye sooner rather than later. And shortly after that, we can update Streisand effect.)

Unless you're willing to claim that all the editors of Wikipedia are geeks, then it looks like the Streisand effect is gonna have another edit in the near future.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[Andreas Kolbe]

"It's not that simple. The problem is that dirt sells, so for any given interesting person, there is always dirt. Getting reliable sources to say anything else about the subject of the BLP is harder, because good news doesn't sell. So if you are a person who is prominent in a small community, and you get famous because of an exciting news story, you wind up with a BLP page that makes you look like a scumbag, and says absolutely nothing about whatever it was that got you prominent enough that a gossip story about you was able to make the news. I've seen this happen to a couple of prominent figures. It's unfixable, because a gossip column is more reliable than an organizational web page. Personally, I count myself lucky that I don't have a wikipedia biography."

Well said. This is very true, generally speaking, and one of the systemic problems with Wikipedia, or any encyclopedia that writes biographies on the basis of gossip rags.

In this case, however, it also seems that Wikipedia contributors may actually have gone slightly overboard in excluding positive material – Barry's philanthropic endeavours have attracted quite a bit of sympathetic coverage, little of which seems to be reflected in the article.

The question is not whether some of the bad stuff was true, it's whether it was unduly emphasised (at one point for example, an editor changed the infobox format to the one used for criminals, which does seem a bit malicious), and whether balancing coverage was excluded. I think the editors may have reacted to what they perceived as somewhat promotional edits, and decided to punish the biography subject. If so, that may not have been a good idea.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[tlhIngan]

Calling Barbara Streisand...

I don't know about this... because geez, before now how many people have heard of this guy?

For little-known people the Streisand effect could be desirable (remember "there's no such thing as bad publicity"?) because it now puts you in the spotlight. For people who are stuck dealing with locals, this could put their name out there and let them be discovered. For activities that require publicity to get your name out, being at top of mind isn't a bad thing.

Everyone hopes that some pro league would come around and hire them right out of high school, but if you're a no-name going to a no-name school, it doesn't happen. Until something big puts your name on the map and gets scouts coming.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[schnell]

I'm not a lawyer, I don't know the details of libel laws, but I was relatively sure that good faith belief is all that is required.

At least in the United States, the rules for libel are different based on whether or not the libeled party is a "public figure" or not. If someone is Joe Average, the only requirement is to prove that you said something incorrect about them which caused quantifiable damages. "Public figures," however, are expected to have good and bad things said about them as part of normal discourse. (Otherwise Ke$ha could sue someone for saying her album sucked.) So for public figures, the libeled party must prove that not only is the thing you said wrong, you must also have known it was wrong and had malicious intent in doing so. It's a high bar to meet, and that's why you see so few celebrities or politicians suing for libel - there's usually only provable malice in a few cases where a tabloid is printing knowingly false information in order to boost sales, etc.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[samwichse]

What? How did this earn a mod-down? That's what's at the bottom of Barry's Wikipedia page right now and is pretty much the definition of a backfire.

Sam

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[duke_cheetah2003]

I'm not sure the Streisand Effect applies in this case. He's not actually trying to hide unpleasant or embarrassing aspects of his past - what he seems to want is for the article to reflect his own version of those events, or at least to contain his version (or "spin" if you prefer) in some way. And since he's a marginal figure to begin with, he's really in one of those "any publicity is good publicity" situations.

First off, we do have Streisand effect, I never heard of this guy until today. Now I'm among the millions who've now viewed this suspect wikipedia page. Second and more importantly, you're not permitted a 'side' or whatever you wanna call it on Wikipedia. It's just the facts man, no spin either direction, and from my review of the page, seemed to just present the facts. Or maybe I was reading something wrong, I dunno. Seemed pretty factual to me.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[Dishevel]

Yup. I do not know about this particular case, but in principle I support the ability to sue a Wikipedia editor if it can be shown that said person repeatedly edited in false information for the purpose of hurting a persons reputation.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[houghi]

At least now we can add that he is a smeghead without getting sued.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[rtb61]

Canada follows UK defamation/libel laws http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C.... Make a statement of fact and you have to be able to prove it in a civil court, give an opinion no matter how damaging or false and freedom of speech applies, you are legally entitled to give your opinion but not entitled to make a false statement of fact. Basically it means if you couch you language or include a clarifier that regardless of expression or wording used, all information remains the opinion of the authors and not to be construed as statements of facts, you are provided an out. Note as has to be covered before evidence for a civil suit is a whole lot simpler than evidence for a criminal case. Hence whilst the evidence provided for a criminal case might be insufficient to successfully prosecute it could still be more than sufficient to prove or defend a civil case.

You can of course still smoother a very public case in hard copy evidence, unbound and poorly sorted, full context and not selective, thousands upon thousands of pages and thus bog down the civil suit, for years and years, until they get sick of spending money whilst earning bad publicity and give up.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[Yakasha]

It is not whether or not he has a crooked dogs hind leg to stand on, it is whether or not he can conspire via his lawyers to intimidate those person with the threat of court costs.

Are you trying to be funny? I ask because after reading the article and some of the discussions and edits, that is exactly the kind of language that was going on his page that he is suing over. If the man is acquitted, especially because the case was "flimsy", why would you be referring to him with negative words like "crooked", "conspire", and "intimidate" and focus on that period of his life? Are you just a rich-hater? Anybody with money that tries to defend their reputation is "clearly intending to threaten all Wikipedia contributors with threats of civil suits by the wealthy"?

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Wikipedia won't go anywhere just because some celebrities have opinions.

It doesn't have to, nor should it. But to create a potentially chilling effect on future contributions to Wikipedia, all you really need is for one life-destroying lawsuit against one contributor to succeed. That would remove any doubt that contributors are still responsible for what they say and can't hide behind the Internet, and in particular that Wikipedia has to cooperate in identifying contributors who break the law.

Frankly, being subject to legal action if you illegal defame someone is what should happen, because being on the Internet is not an excuse to be a dick. Still, several legal systems in the West can and sometimes do impose severe penalties for defamation, and rather like the threats of suing people for made-up copyright infringement in the US, there is unwelcome scope for abuse here even if there is also an underlying grain of truth and the intent of the law being abused is not in itself unreasonable.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[osu-neko]

First off, we do have Streisand effect, I never heard of this guy until today.

That would imply the opposite, then. People had heard of Barbara Streisand.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[JimSadler]

In Canada does one have to show loss in order to win? In the US one needs to be able to demonstrate real financial harm to get compensation in a slander suit.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[TechyImmigrant]

First off, we do have Streisand effect, I never heard of this guy until today.

That would imply the opposite, then. People had heard of Barbara Streisand.

But not her beach house.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[slashmydots]

According to Wikipedia, he formed a band with Barbara Streisand called the Streisand Effect and they're currently on tour on the moon.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[Nethemas the Great]

*shrug* Wikipedia seems to balance things out...

Barry is the CEO of VitaPro Foods Inc. It sells textured vegetable protein soy-based meat substitutes, primarily to prisons and other institutional feeding operations.[3] According to an investigative report by the Montreal Gazette from October 1998, Global Village Market (GVM) was a venture owned by Barry through which he sold VitaPro.[5] The company’s motto was “doing well by doing good”.[5] According to a report by UPI, GVM’s shares were listed on the World Investors' Stock Exchange, which was part of an investment fraud carried out by the Caribbean-based First International Bank of Grenada.[13] Barry developed VitaPro in 1989 or 1990.[1][14] It was originally a South African venture.[3] According to the VitaPro website, the company now operates from Belize and Bulgaria.[15] When asked about VitaPro earnings, Barry said: “My company is terribly private in a bunch of countries. I’m a resident of the Bahamas. I don’t pay tax. I’m not American. Let’s say we do over a billion dollars in business. How much I earn is up to me. I give it to kids. I made a deal with God that whatever I save in tax, I give to kids.”[16] Barry also owns another venture called ProPectin, a Bulgarian company he purchased in 2009 that manufactures a pharmaceutical-grade apple pectin, which Barry credits for having cured his Type II diabetes.[3]

In 1982, Barry was convicted of extortion from and conspiracy against John Royden McConnell, and served 10 months of a 6-year prison term.[4][23] In a 1982 civil case, a separate court ruled that Barry had extorted money from McConnell in record company dealings, requiring a financial award of C$285,000.[10] In 1987 he declared bankruptcy, voiding the award.[24][1] Barry said in an October 2013 Larry King interview that he had been a cocaine-addicted, twenty-something rocker at the time and credited the extortion conviction for changing his personal life.[25] In 1998, Barry was indicted on corruption charges related to a VitaPro contract worth US$34 million with the Texas prisons.[26][27] In 1999, the Texas Supreme Court ruled the VitaPro contract with the Texas prisons was invalid.[28] After a trial in 2001, he was initially declared guilty, but the verdict was thrown out by U.S district court judge and a new trial was ordered in 2007.[26] He was then acquitted in 2008 after a bench retrial.[26] Barry said the charges were politically motivated.[24][27] In 2014, Barry sued four Wikipedia editors for defamation for their edits to this page.[29]

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[Teancum]

Because of the rules (on Wikipedia) needed for notability, you would be hard-pressed to say that anybody who has a full article saying more than a sentence or two is anything other than a public figure. Sure, you could write up an article about your 2nd grade teacher and say "Mrs. Doubtfire is a stupid dumbass", but that article would also be deleted immediately because there would be no sources at all.

If you have multiple newspaper and magazine articles about you as a person, it is very likely you are a public figure by this definition even if the judge may not have heard of you before.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[Teancum]

I don't see it as having a chilling effect. Wikipedia is supposed to have every article with a neutral point of view. If some editor is insisting upon bias, this lawsuit... assuming it is successful... will embolden admins and ArbCom to administer harsher measures or suspend accounts when people consistently start introducing deliberate biases into articles which flout the principle of NPOV.

This is also one reason I don't mind editing Wikipedia with my real name, as I stand behind my words I write there. It is unfortunate that some people hide behind supposed anonymity for the sake of doing stuff that they otherwise wouldn't do if they were standing next to you.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[Teancum]

If those lies and false statements are made by what are assumed to be reliable sources (aka published in a major newspaper or in a trade journal/magazine) the liability would be upon the original author, not somebody who put that into a tertiary publication like Wikipedia. On the other hand, the Wikipedia author should be careful and try to second source sensational information (aka "Billy Graham was homosexual in spite of his homophobic rants") to confirm if it might be true or not. You should also be careful if it is from a dubious source... like a random tweet you can't confirm even is from the person who supposedly made the statement. A Wikipedia editor who uses such material deserves to have their ass landed in a court room to defend negative statements if that is the case.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[1s44c]

If this man can prove in court that these editors are making libelous comments the Wikipedia foundation isn't going to raise a finger to help them. The wikilawyers abuse wikipedia's rules to get their biased viewpoints accepted, but they can't pull that nonsense with the court system.

This could be a good thing for wikipedia. For too long the loudest mouths and the sneakiest abuse of rules has been rewarded and truth has been treated with contempt.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[1s44c]

Sociopathic editors pick and choose rules as they see fit, everyone else gets their edits buried and endless warnings for things they never did wrong. Any information sources the sociopaths don't like they call a 'minority view' or pretend it violates any one of the many contradictory rules. I've not seen actual good faith on Wikipedia for years, only people pulling nasty tricks to enforce their own story whilst pretending good faith was involved.

I'd trust the court system about as much as Wikipedia these days.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[Mr. Somey]

The difference was mostly a matter of emphasis. Barry wants to be seen as a philanthropist first, musician second, then businessman, family man, and then somewhere way down the list, a convicted extortionist who has since reformed and grown up. I'm sure he'd have loved it if they'd left out the extortion stuff altogether, but that wasn't really what he was asking for. For a long time, the version that was on Wikipedia essentially had him as an extortionist and seller of dubious-quality vitamin supplements first, and everything else somewhere down the list. Wikipedia user accounts and AnonIPs presumed to be him (or people working for him) tried to remove the extortion conviction from the first paragraph in the article and were reverted, but they didn't try to remove information about the conviction altogether.

At one point, the transcluded template used for the handy "infobox" in the upper-right corner of the page was changed (by one of the named WP users being sued) from WP's "musician" template to their "convicted criminal" template. Presumably that made Barry rather unhappy. Apparently he (or his associates) also tried to address the negative emphasis by overwhelming it with sheer quantity of positive information, listing all of the awards he'd ever received as well as his entire discography (which seems to have included recordings he'd only been tangentially involved in). That didn't work either of course, though there were sources for most of that material.

Mind you, I don't think Barry has any chance of winning this lawsuit, and even if by some amazing happenstance he does, he won't get much in the way of damages. Suing for opportunity costs rarely works even with a really solid defamation case. But I can't really say he has no grounds for complaint or legal standing to sue, either.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[mellon]

Required for what? Fairness, or not getting sued? For not getting sued, you are right, but my point is that Wikipedia actually has a serious problem with the way it does BLP articles, one that I don't think can be readily addressed by the current BLP policies. By "problem" I mean that it's producing articles that aren't accurate or useful, not that it's going to get sued. I really don't think that suing them will work to correct this problem, for the precise reason you state. Unfortunately, it may not be possible to fix this, because as far as I can tell Wikipedia isn't taking the problem seriously. I don't expect this lawsuit will change that, because I don't expect it to succeed.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[mellon]

Nono, that's common practice. The problem is that even if the positive stuff is well-sourced, there's almost always less of it than there is of the scurrilous stuff, so WP:DUE doesn't help. (As you can see, I am a veteran of the BLP wars... :)

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[sd4f]

That will depend on jurisdiction. In Australia, where I am, it depends on who published the defamatory remarks. So in your example, both sources are liable, the ones who initially published it, and the ones who republished it.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[Teancum]

If you added the defamatory information thinking it was factual due to widespread publication by multiple reliable sources, courts would have a difficult time trying to enforce libel in this situation. Again it depends on the quality of the source (a publication like the Daily Mirror is definitely less reputable than say the BBC... in part due to the fact checking that some news organizations perform when researching somebody or something) and your role as an author in spreading that information.

I agree that you might still be liable for defamation, but it would be a strong defense in your case. I would think even in Australia that a judge & jury would be able to accept your reasoning for publishing that sort of information if you added it in good faith, but the guy who initially published falsehoods while working for a supposedly reputable news organization would not. There have been scandals in the past from people who have engaged in similar smear campaigns by very prominent reporters who were publishing stuff later proven to be a complete fabrication and falsehood. One was even the "chief reporter" for a major television network in America.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Fair enough. I should have RTFA-ed. Though, if the guy filing suit is voluntarily picking a US jurisdiction, he either thinks he has a damn strong case, or needs to go punch his lawyer, yesterday, since it's fairly difficult to find a more hostile venue for defamation cases.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[Idarubicin]

I'm assuming that he's filing suit in California because the Wikimedia Foundation headquarters is there, and it's easier to do it that way than to file fifty-four separate suits (four named editors plus 50 John Does) in 54 different jurisdictions. Further, Barry's lawyers can argue (don't know if it will work) that personal jurisdiction exists for all the defendants, as all of them were engaged in a relationship with the Foundation. Otherwise their case gets a lot messier and a lot more expensive.

Of course, not every lawsuit that is filed is followed through to trial and judgement. (Just as a general observation not related to this particular case -- not every lawsuit is filed with the expectation or intent to follow it through to trial. Lawsuits are often part of PR strategies, sometimes simply to chill public discussion on a particular topic. A big flashy statement of claim is sometimes just a route to a quiet small- or no-money settlement and a gag order.)

And heck, your original point stands. Suing U.S. defendants in a U.K. court would be pretty transparent libel tourism; it wouldn't have a beneficial PR effect, and judgements wouldn't be readily enforceable in the States.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[Mr. Somey]

Pretty much like all other encyclopedias...

It's tempting to agree, but the fact is, before the internet came along people were far less cynical about published information, authorial anonymity was extremely rare (especially in non-fiction and reference publishing), and perhaps most importantly, the whole business of producing encyclopedias for print required a lot of up-front money. Encyclopedia publishers didn't risk that kind of money just to bash people and organizations nobody had ever heard of - I'm not saying it never happened, but in comparison to what we see these days, you might as well say it never happened. So, that sort of thing ended up being the domain of pamphleteers and graffiti artists.

That, in turn, is why there's a perceived lack of legitimacy and responsibility with Wikipedia now. The fact that traditional publishers were risking something, even if it was just money, conferred a sense of seriousness to the enterprise. Wikipedia has never had that, just like it has never had pre-publication review, background checks of contributors, or even a formalized system of quality assurance.

Re:Well, this won't backfire!

[sd4f]

I would think even in Australia that a judge & jury would be able to accept your reasoning for publishing that sort of information if you added it in good faith, but the guy who initially published falsehoods while working for a supposedly reputable news organization would not.

It's still not allowed here (IANAL, but this is my vague understanding), publishers are meant to check facts, the onus is put on them not to defame, it even makes broadcasters responsible for remarks made by guests or people not on the payroll of the station. Since defamation is a civil matter, there are going to be two ways to defend it; one prove that it's true (in which case it's no longer defamatory, case closed) or fight the damages claim (which is basically admitting that defamatory remarks were published/broadcast). I'm sure if there is a plethora of publishers who have published it, then it would be easy to prove that the one in court can't be held responsible for the whole damages claim. With that said, the loser in any court case in Australia is liable for the other parties court costs, so while the damages award may be low, the legal costs probably won't be.

Falun Gong / Falun Dafa

[bumba2014]

I'm not sure about the English version, but the German version about Falun Gong / Falun Dafa contains a lot of negative lies, spread by the CCP. Every time someone corrects it, someone from china will change it back. At the end they didn't allow any changes anymore, and put half the truth and half the lies in it. Unfortunately a lot of people believe what is written in those articles. I can imagine this happening to a lot of subjects.

Re:Falun Gong / Falun Dafa

[Farmer Tim]

Perhaps the population of exploding elephants isn’t large enough to warrant a mention.

Re:Falun Gong / Falun Dafa

[Anonymous Coward]

There are problems with most of the non-English versions as outside organizations tend to take them over and restrict conflicting viewpoints.

Re:Falun Gong / Falun Dafa

[sycodon]

I would think that exploding elephants would get lots of attention. Hell, Exploding whales get millions of views on YouTube.

For that matter, where are the YouTube videos of exploding elephants?

Re:Falun Gong / Falun Dafa

[masterofthumbs]

Key point to remember, only the government has granted the right of free speech to you. Any other sort of organization that you belong to and have signed some sort of agreement with can still act against you for what you say.

Who is that?

[Opportunist]

And why does he matter?

Seriously, has anyone here even heard about this guy before today? Yank Barry sounds more like an invitation to some ribbing than a name...

And, and here's the next question, how could this lawsuit fly? Anything short of outright libel is pretty much in the "don't care" area. Last time I checked Wikipedia was a privately owned entity. So, if push comes to shove, whatever is expressed there is an opinion. And last time I checked you're entitled to one in the US, and also to saying it.

Re:Who is that?

[Anonymous Coward]

What makes you think this isn't libel?

Re:Who is that?

[TapeCutter]

I don't think it can be considered opinion, WP advertises itself as an encyclopedia, it goes out of its way to base its claims on citations. I'm a strong supporter of WP and this guys sounds like a "flim-flam man", however that doesn't mean he is wrong and it does appear that at least one editor was hell bent on causing him financial damage. OTOH $10M is a ludicrous exaggeration of any real damages, or it would be were it not happening in the US.

Re:Who is that?

[Michael Woodhams]

Oh good, I'll just print up a bunch of fliers saying you torture kittens and set fire to orphanages and post them around your home town. Because nobody has heard of you and I'm not a publicly listed company, it will be 'opinion' rather than 'libel'.

I have no idea whether this guy's claims are justified, but neither do you. My liking Wikipedia does not therefore mean that the facts or the law are on the side of Wikipedia.

Re: Who is that?

[osiaq]

He's suing an editor, not Wikipedia, you know...

Re:Who is that?

[Urkki]

The news is about Wikipedia editors getting sued, not about the person who sues them. So it doesn't matter if he matters or not.

If Wikipedia editors getting sued is "Stuff that matters" in /. or not, I don't know, but it sounds like it might fit.

Re:Who is that?

[Opportunist]

Go ahead. Those that know me will know better and the rest can kiss my shiny metal ass.

Re:Who is that?

[Anonymous Coward]

That attitude will work so well when you try and get a job and they only thing they know about you are that you are the kitten killing peado. Defamation laws serve a real purpose, sure you friends might know that you kill kids and fuck kittens and not vice versa but that is only a very small subset of the world you need to interact with.

PRO TIP TIME! Free speech is not 100% free, nor should it be. It becomes grey when my freedom to speak interferes with your freedom (that said I should be free to speak the truth about you).

Re:Who is that?

[FatLittleMonkey]

Who is that?

Yank Barry? He's a convicted extortionist who worked for the Mafia in Montreal in the '80s. After being released from prison, he founded a company that sells fake food to (sometimes fake) clients, through which he conned celebrity endorsements by promising to donate food via his fake charities.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/04/15/yank-barry/

Re:Who is that?

[Oligonicella]

From day one I've said that WIkipedia is a fools' encyc. With the ability for any jerk to edit, it is inevitable that this happens. The worst articles involve persons, beliefs and governments. Even the scientific articles are not immune. It's only good for a jumping off place.

Re:Who is that?

[thegarbz]

So, if push comes to shove, whatever is expressed there is an opinion. And last time I checked you're entitled to one in the US, and also to saying it.

Actually you're not. That's the whole basis of libel laws. If you spread false or misleading information that could tarnish the reputation of another person you are most definitely not entitled to an opinion as far as the law is concerned.

Re:Who is that?

[thegarbz]

I'm interested if you still think this would be the case if you were on the verge of a multi-million dollar deal which suddenly fell through because the other party thought that you actually do kill kittens.

See complacency depends only on how much you have to lose. Now what if the lie cost you your reputation, and your job, and damaged your standing with other people?
Doesn't happen? Just look at how peoples lives are absolutely ruined by an accusation of being a sex offender even if they are subsequently found innocent.

To say that your horrible kitten massacre won't come back to hurt you is incredibly naive.

Re:Who is that?

[higuita]

and now slashdot will be sued too!! :)

Re:Who is that?

[Lumpy]

Mix the two.

He set's fire to kitten orphanages! and goes on a yearly baby seal clubbing expedition!

Re:Who is that?

[Lumpy]

"If you spread false or misleading information that could tarnish the reputation of another person you are most definitely not entitled to an opinion as far as the law is concerned."

I think you do not understand what "OPINION" means.

"I think thegarbs is killing kittens in blenders" That is opinion and you can not be sued for it and I am entitled to that opinion as far as the law is concerned.
"thegarbs is killing kittens in blenders" That is not opinion and therefore not protected speech.

If it is not conveyed as a personal opinion, then you can sick your lawyer dogs on the person. If it is conveyed clearly that it is personal opinion, you can still sick your dogs, but all you will do is lose horribly in court over two words.

Re:Who is that?

[Smallpond]

Wikipedia makes no guarantee of validity

Re:Who is that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wikipedia makes no guarantee of validity

Except hes not suing Wikipedia, hes suing the editiors of the page alleging a conspiracy to make him look bad.

Wikipedia's disclaimer about accuracy is irrelavent, where the content is, is less important than what the content is, as far as the suit is concerned.

What the suit is though should worry you a lot. This has potential chilling effects for a lot of online sites.

Re:Who is that?

[Smallpond]

There were no US scientists who believed in the Medeival Warm Period at the time (800 - 1300).

Re:Who is that?

[Smallpond]

I won't believe it unless you link to the Wikipedia article.

Re:Who is that?

[oobayly]

What was more interesting was reading the comments for that article. Out of the 9 comments, one commented on the Nobel Peace Prize, one commented on show business (I didn't really understand the comment). The remaining 7 were scathing about the journalism, used the standard "well what have you done" argument and questioned the journalists motives. Interestingly enough, all 7 users have only made a single comment each. Clearly that article hit a nerve.

Re:Who is that?

[Smallpond]

I gues you missed the fact that I was replying to a post that Wikipedia claims to be accurate, when in fact they claim the opposite.

Re:Who is that?

[Hognoxious]

There wasn't a US at that time. It's almost 200 years before Columbus even set off.

Re:Who is that?

[Anonymous Coward]

You jealous bro?

Wait I take that back. I'm the jealous one. I stupidly post irrelevant comments in 3 words just to be a pain in the ass. I really wish I was one of those guys who had a wiki article and it makes me sad.

Re:Who is that?

[Entrope]

Just because lawyers make them say a thing does not mean they believe it, or want us to believe it. In fact, Wikipedia would not really work (and maybe it already doesn't?) if its editors generally believed it is unreliable or inaccurate, and would not get traffic if the public believed that.

Re:Who is that?

[Entrope]

A statement like "I think thegarbs is killing kittens in blenders" implies the existence of undisclosed defamatory facts that form the basis of that conclusion, and this makes it usually actionable (in the US) as defamation. A statement like "I think Lumpy is an alcoholic because I see him drinking beers on his porch for hours at a time and he frequently leaves for work at 11 AM" discloses the facts that underlie the conclusion "Lumpy is an alcoholic", and is therefore not actionable (in the US) because it allows a listener to decide for themselves whether the conclusion is warranted.

Re:Who is that?

[thegarbz]

You're right, you are entitled to your opinion as long as you don't share it.

Now if you print those thoughts on a poster and post it in a public place and someone picks it up and it effects my life as a result (say I lose a contract because someone doesn't want to do business with someone who others think kills kittens), then that's libel and would put you on the receiving end of a lawsuit.

But hey you don't need to take my word for it. Just go look up a book on legal cases and their outcomes. Plenty of people have been sued into the ground because they share their thoughts regardless if those thoughts are true or not.

Re:Who is that?

[Ol Olsoc]

A statement like "I think thegarbs is killing kittens in blenders" implies the existence of undisclosed defamatory facts that form the basis of that conclusion, and this makes it usually actionable (in the US) as defamation.

Just add "Some people believe" or "Some scientist's doubt" to the beginning of the sentence, and you are home free.

Then you're only teaching the controversy.

Re:Who is that?

[EvilJoker]

Simply adding "I think" does not protect it from any claims of libel/slander. Nor does phrasing it as a question, etc.

To recover in a libel or slander suit, the plaintiff must show evidence of four elements: that the defendant conveyed a defamatory message; that the material was published, meaning that it was conveyed to someone other than the plaintiff; that the plaintiff could be identified as the person referred to in the defamatory material; and that the plaintiff suffered some injury to his or her reputation as a result of the communication.

To prove that the material was defamatory, the plaintiff must show that at least one other person who saw or heard it understood it as having defamatory meaning. It is necessary to show not that all who heard or read the statement understood it to be defamatory, but only that one person other than the plaintiff did so. Therefore, even if the defendant contends that the communication was a joke, if one person other than the plaintiff took it seriously, the communication is considered defamatory.

Source:

Re:Who is that?

[Idarubicin]

Kind of like how climate change activists erased the Medieval Warm Period off of Wikipedia a few years ago.

[citation needed].

Here's the current article: Medieval Warm Period. It has a couple of pages of detailed text, a pair of graphs of temperature records, and three photographs of locations or artifacts relevant to the MWP's effect on human history. The article has 41 footnotes, mostly to peer-reviewed journal articles.

Five years ago: 2009 version. A little over a page, one graph, one photo. 25 footnotes.

For fun, ten years ago: 2004 version. Six paragraphs (three of which are a single sentence). Zero figures, zero photographs. Just 4 inline references.

Scrolling through the article's editing history I don't find any period where anyone "erased" the MWP, aside from some short-lived vandalism. At no point is there any intimation in the article that the MWP didn't occur or was otherwise not a real thing. The article appears to have grown steadily in length, quality, and detail over the last decade, but its central points appear to have remained essentially unchanged. Your comment, however, appears quite typical of climate change deniers--boldly stating things that are patently untrue in order to gain the emotional support of people who don't fact-check you, while wasting the time of the people who do.

Re:Who is that?

[aNonnyMouseCowered]

"From day one I've said that WIkipedia is a fools' encyc. With the ability for any jerk to edit, it is inevitable that this happens. The worst articles involve persons, beliefs and governments."

It's precisely because any jerk can edit it that Wikipedia works. Wikipedia works for the same reason that DNA works, through an evolutionary system of error correction. You might point to a "freak" of nature as proof that DNA is nothing but fools' code, while simply shrugging at all the normal looking creatures around.

Wikipedia articles invariably get corrected over time, unless they're too trivial or unimportant for anybody but the editor that "created" the article. For evey hater, there's a fanboy editor that will correct or wrong the wrong to make it right.

Re:Who is that?

[nbauman]

So, if push comes to shove, whatever is expressed there is an opinion. And last time I checked you're entitled to one in the US, and also to saying it.

Actually you're not. That's the whole basis of libel laws. If you spread false or misleading information that could tarnish the reputation of another person you are most definitely not entitled to an opinion as far as the law is concerned.

Actually, under U.S. libel law, you are entitled to spread false and misleading information that can tarnish the reputation of another person, if that person is a public figure.

That was the ruling in Times vs. Sullivan, which you can look up in, oh, I don't know, somewhere on the Internet.

Sullivan was actually right in his complaint. He was indeed defamed. The Supreme Court decided that if a newspaper was requited to be right all the time, we couldn't have newspapers. They're immune from damages for their mistakes as long as they didn't publish it knowing that it was false, or published it without regard to whether it was true or false. That's what they mean by "malice." The New York Times got off, even though they printed false, defamatory statements about Sullivan.

Yank Barry is probably a public figure, since he hired a pr agency, calls himself a philanthropist, and got people to nominate him for the Nobel peace prize. In addition, there have been a lot of articles exposing him in established newspapers. He was in jail.

Re:Who is that?

[frank_adrian314159]

To say that your horrible kitten massacre won't come back to hurt you is incredibly naive.

Well, what did he expect? Anyone who kills 37 (IIRC) kittens is probably not going to be looked upon favorably. I was amazed there were only the few criminal charges that were handed out. And the jail time was pretty minimal for the charges (to be fair).

Re:Who is that?

[Talderas]

If you have a shiny metal ass, I can only assume that torturing kittens and setting fire to orphanages is something you would do.

Re:Who is that?

[Talderas]

goes on a yearly baby seal clubbing expedition!

There's people that don't?

Re:Who is that?

[gsslay]

To be fair, it's not just climate change deniers who do this. All manner of nutters have the same tactic.

Make a fact up because it feels right and in line with their particular agenda, state it, hope no-one notices they made it up, keep stating it, forget that they made it up, continue stating it, hey! it's almost as good as true now!

I think they work to the tactic that if they keep saying something, it gradually becomes true through repetition.

Re:Who is that?

[cellocgw]

Just add "Some people believe" or "Some scientist's doubt" to the beginning of the sentence, and you are home free.

I always preferred the political speech (aka prosecutor's question) version: "I challenge Mr. [name] to deny that he kills kittens while setting baby seals on fire."

Re:Who is that?

[Teancum]

I chuckle inside when I see somebody post in an article or webiste the phrase "Wikipedia says....." like is sometimes done for the Oxford English Dictionary.

It is amazing that in spite of the process, so much is accurate on Wikipedia and even far more up to date than any paper publication could ever be.

Re:Who is that?

[Lumpy]

It's not beer, it's cheap whiskey, and it's for health reasons.

Re:Who is that?

[radarskiy]

"I don't find any period where anyone "erased" the MWP"

Obviously the climate change activists also erased the edit history. That's shows you just how far the conspiracy goes!

Re:Who is that?

[david_thornley]

It's not for the seals. It's that there's young women out there who are fascinated by baby seals. You find the clubs they hang out in, and then you go baby seal clubbing.

But is it false?

[mark-t]

I know that defamation suits can be filed (and sometimes even won) even if the information being published is true (if it's false, then one could further sue for libel) but it's my understanding that in the case where the published information is true, the onus is on the person who is suing to show that the *intent* of the publishers was to actually defame them... which of course is quite difficult to do in court. They would have to, using factual evidence, show how it was somehow considerably more probable that there was actually any malicious intent on the publisher's part than any claim the publisher the might make to contrary being true. Unless the publishers actually confess that this is the case, this will not be easy... no matter how good their lawyers are.

Re:But is it false?

[BeerCat]

I know that defamation suits can be filed (and sometimes even won) even if the information being published is true... but it's my understanding that in the case where the published information is true, the onus is on the person who is suing to show that the *intent* of the publishers was to actually defame them... which of course is quite difficult to do in court. They would have to, using factual evidence, show how it was somehow considerably more probable that there was actually any malicious intent on the publisher's part than any claim the publisher the might make to contrary being true.

Or, in short, to prove defamation, [citation needed]

Re:But is it false?

[lucm]

I know that defamation suits can be filed (and sometimes even won) even if the information being published is true (if it's false, then one could further sue for libel) but it's my understanding that in the case where the published information is true, the onus is on the person who is suing to show that the *intent* of the publishers was to actually defame them... which of course is quite difficult to do in court. They would have to, using factual evidence, show how it was somehow considerably more probable that there was actually any malicious intent on the publisher's part than any claim the publisher the might make to contrary being true. Unless the publishers actually confess that this is the case, this will not be easy... no matter how good their lawyers are.

All wrong. Defamation means that the information is false. Libel means written defamation (it's slander when spoken). And since this is civil law, intent is not relevant, only alleged damages.

I didn't noticed if the lawsuit takes place in US or Canadian jurisdiction but it's basically the same rules in both countries on this kind of civil matter.

Re:But is it false?

[BrookHarty]

If he tried to use the wikipedia procedures to correct some information and the editors would put the false facts back in, sounds like text book libel. If someone keeps fighting him on corrected information that sounds malicious to me...

Anything to make wikipedia factual and not opinion of a few editors is good, sad it takes a lawsuit. Too many editors are using wikipedia as a political tool and not an encyclopedia. I have no love lost for the shenanigans going on over there by some editors.

Re:But is it false?

[sg_oneill]

Defamation means that the information is false.

No, it refers to speech that unfairly harms the reputation of someone. Truth is a *defence*, but its not the same thing.

In most countries a statement being true is usually enough for the complaint not to stick but often a truth being used in a deceptive way can also qualify as defamation. Conversely often "Genuinely held belief" can be a defence for it (although often couple with an injunction to fix the error)

Heres an example. Lets say Barack Obama has Asthma. I dont know if he does, but lets just pretend for the sake of this example. Lets also say that he really doesn't listen to his doctor and instead of using a preventitive he instead huffs on a ventolin puffer all day. Its something doctors consider poor asthma management and even counterproductive.

Now heres a defamatory statement: Barack Obama abuses drugs. Assuming the "puffs ventolin all day" fact is true, then this statement is true.

But its also defamatory, because a "reasonable person" (the usual standard in law) would deduce from the he's smoking blunts and blowing lines of coke. In other words I've unfairly hurt his reputation and created a false representation by telling the truth. And in Britain, and many other countries that would be defamation. But in the US? Judge probably won't even hear the case.

Re:But is it false?

[FatLittleMonkey]

There's nothing in the Wikipedia article that hasn't been printed in the press about Barry. And the page is actually pretty tame compared to what they could add. (Putting fake clients on the website for his fake-meat company, for example. His phony "nominations" for a Nobel Peace Prize. Etc. None of those things are mentioned in the article, yet they meet Wikipedia citation standards.)

Re:But is it false?

[crossmr]

They should be glad they aren't in South Korea.
After moving here and giving the laws a good read, it's quite interesting.

Truth isn't a defense here. Simply saying something negative about someone is sufficient for defamation, and the only defense is "public interest". If you can prove it was in the public's best interest to know that information you're okay.

Further defamation is part of criminal law here. 2 years for defaming someone with a true statement, 5 years for a false statement. There is a separate law for defaming the dead with a false statement.

Korea also has public insult laws on the books. So if you insult someone publicly so that others can hear it, that's also a criminal offence.

To a certain extent, the laws are somewhat interesting. they have a "keep your nose in your own business" kind of quality about them. I'm not sure what would happen to a thing like wikipedia if it was hosted here.

Re:But is it false?

[Lennie]

If you think where it is hosted makes any difference, then you would be wrong.

The person that starts the lawsuit can basically pick any country he likes out of at least these jurisdictions and more:
- where it is hosted
- where the domainname was registered
- where the domainname is hosted
- the country of the country top level domain: .to anyone ?
- the country of the person or company being sued
- the country of the person or company that is suing
- whatever ever else you can think off.

These can all be different countries.

And a judge makes a the decision if he will or will not take the case.

Re:But is it false?

[bsolar]

It' not something that uncommon, Italy has basically the same situation: truth can be used as defense only in very specific cases. The idea is protecting "honourability", so whether you are telling the truth or not doesn't matter. The fundamental question is whether your main intent is to harm someone's honourability, no matter the validity of your claims.

Re:But is it false?

[oobayly]

Fake celebrity endorsements - using Celine Dion's photo on his website after she supported "...what she believed to be a philanthropic cause..." even though she's stated that she has no involvement with him. Though in that case, I'm not sure who I should feel sorry for!

Re:But is it false?

[crossmr]

For the most part that wouldn't involve Korea or Koreans on the vast majority of topics. Other than the Japanese/Korean editors who constantly war on there.
Sure they can be all different countries, but we know that the hosting/registration/etc doesn't have anything to do with Korea.

It would really only end up in the courts here if the subject and editor were both in Korea. Koreans don't seem to do a lot of suing of foreign nationals who aren't here to defend themselves in the courts, at least nothing that really makes the news.

Re:But is it false?

[AmiMoJo]

Truth isn't a defense here. Simply saying something negative about someone is sufficient for defamation, and the only defense is "public interest". If you can prove it was in the public's best interest to know that information you're okay.

That's not actually dissimilar to how things are in many other countries. Say a newspaper had poor sales in one area so they decided to pick someone living there at random and do a full investigation of their life, publishing endless articles about every negative thing they could find. That kind of behaviour would be stopped by a court because there would be no public interest, beyond generating sales for the paper from neighbours wanting to read about the intimate details of the victim's life.

Truth would be no defence, the lack of public interest makes the invasion of privacy unacceptable.

Re:But is it false?

[crossmr]

That's not what it means by public interest.

It means that it's something that is crucial for people to know.

The fact that some random guy had an affair isn't really in the public's interest. It really doesn't make any difference to anyone except him and his wife if he's had an affair. However, if the guy was doing something bad that affected many people like say touching little kids or selling tainted food, that would be in the public's interest to know. Essentially the person would need to give cause as to why people would need to know the information that was said or written in order to defend against the charge.

Re:But is it false?

[AthanasiusKircher]

There's nothing in the Wikipedia article that hasn't been printed in the press about Barry.

That isn't the standard for determining libel. In the U.S., the standard (for public figures, presumably would apply to Wikipedia entries) is that the information is published with actual malice, which, contrary to the term's name, does not legally require malicious intent. Instead, it only requires that those who published the information knew the information was false OR published it "with reckless disregard" for whether the information was true or false.

In other words, if a media story appeared in the past that accidentally included false or misleading information (which was later corrected or clarified), but Wikipedia's editors insisted on RE-publishing the false information without regard to whether it was true or false (and did so in a reckless or deliberate fashion), they could be guilty of libel... even if the information had previously appeared in another source.

Further, even if the information is TRUE, it is also possible for a suit to be brought under a false light tort, particularly if true information is taken out of context to make it deliberately misleading. (Also, the implications must be "highly offensive" to a reasonable person.) Many courts look less kindly on false light suits than in the past, but it still can be relevant in some cases.

I don't know whether either of these is likely in this particular case, but just because someone else has said something about someone in the past doesn't mean you can always publish it without any consequences in the future.

Re:But is it false?

[nbauman]

That's right. I read the legal papers and the talk archives of the Yank Barry article. It all seems to be well-documented with reliable sources like the Globe & Mail. It meets the Wikipedia Biographies of Living Persons standards. If it didn't Yank Barry could have complained and some admin would have come along and deleted it.

I didn't even see anything on the Talk pages saying, "I'm Yank Barry and you got this wrong." I did see a lot of apparent sock puppets and Yank Barry fanboys arguing that the article is giving too much weight to all the negative stuff.

In fact in the Talk pages I saw stuff that was even more negative and well-sourced that should have gone into the article, like the details of his blackmailing or extorting his partner, or the prosecution that he was acquitted for.

I also didn't see anything to indicate that Yank Barry had complained to the Wikipedia foundation under the BLP complaint process. Maybe he did complain and Wikipedia's lawyers decided that it wasn't libelous.

IANAL but it didn't look like a very good case. California has an anti-SLAPP law so if Wikipedia defends it he'll have to pay their legal fees. http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guid... He's a celebrity, he's raising investment money in his businesses, he has a criminal record. He's a public figure.

 

Re:But is it false?

[flopsquad]

Mod this up! My kingdom for mod points... this is both the correct U.S. rule and the correct application of the rule in the context of public figure defamation.

Re:But is it false?

[FatLittleMonkey]

I was replying to a comment that strongly implied that the four editors were violating Wikipedia's own policies, and "it took a lawsuit" to expose them. On the contrary, everything the tried to put in the article seems to meet Wiki guidelines. And rather than malicious intent, they seem to have been "fighting the good fight" against attempts by sockpuppets to whitewash the article on behalf of Yank Barry.

As for the libel case itself, can you point to anything that suggests the editors "insisted on RE-publishing the false information", "took information out of context", and/or deleted or blocked attempts to correct it? It seems to be Yank Barry who is trying to create a "false light" about himself, and to slander the editors.

Re:But is it false?

[sg_oneill]

The person that starts the lawsuit can basically pick any country he likes out of at least these jurisdictions and more:

Yep, thats more or less an outcome of Guttnick vs Dow Jones(2002) in Australia where a judge found that if a user reads a page in australia that defames him thats hosted in the US , the place of publication is pretty much the users desktop.

In defamation law if a newspaper defames you, you can sue
1) The author of the article
2) The editor of the article
3) The newspaper
4) The publisher
5) The news-agent who sold you the newspaper
6) And probably his dog too.

So the entire chain of custody of the information from the author to your eyeballs is sueable. Combined with the guttnick ruling (And remember judges internationally tend to read each others rulings and incorporate them when it comes to issues of juristiction, you can pretty much sue the crap out of everyone.

Sucks to be a journalist.

Re:But is it false?

[AthanasiusKircher]

I was replying to a comment that strongly implied that the four editors were violating Wikipedia's own policies, and "it took a lawsuit" to expose them.

Just to be clear, I wasn't at all arguing with you or implying that anything libelous has taken place on Wikipedia. I don't know anything about the case; I was merely clarifying what the law is. I explicitly said that I don't know whether or how the law would apply to this case, merely that just because information had been previously published does NOT always mean it's okay legally to republish it.

On the contrary, everything the tried to put in the article seems to meet Wiki guidelines.

If anything, what I'm pointing out is that Wiki guidelines wouldn't necessarily protect editors if they didn't do due diligence in vetting their sources. A media source's internal guidelines can't override the law. If a newspaper doesn't vet sources properly, and publishes libelous materials, it does not matter if they followed some internal newspaper source guidelines correctly.

I have no idea about this particular case, but I have certainly seen situations on Wikipedia where editors have resorted to bad tactics like citing misleading sources, or citing bad sources (which still meet Wikipedia guidelines) when other better ones are available with better information, or only citing the few sources that agree with them while omitting the majority that disagree, etc.

And rather than malicious intent, they seem to have been "fighting the good fight" against attempts by sockpuppets to whitewash the article on behalf of Yank Barry.

I explicitly said that despite the name, the legal standard DOES NOT require malicious intent. Rather, "actual malice" does not require proof of intent. It only requires that the someone published something they knew was false, or showed "reckless disregard" for whether the information was true or false.

All I'm saying is that I have definitely seen instances on Wikipedia where editors have certainly shown what I would call "reckless disregard" when seeking out any source that would support their viewpoint, regardless of whether the information they find is true or false or whether the source is actually reliable (not "reliable" according to Wiki standards, but *actually* reliable).

I don't know whether any of this might or might not have happened in this case. I don't care enough to investigate it. But we should be clear about what the legal standards are.

Is what he's saying really true?

[BlkRb0t]

Because to find about him, I'd naturally go to his Wiki page, which he alleges paints a wrong picture of him. I don't know anything about this person, so it would be good to hear from experienced commentators what the fuss is all about.

Re:Is what he's saying really true?

[SeaFox]

I suspect he isn't half as famous as he thinks he is, and wants to blame Wikipedia for the lack of business opportunities banging down his door.

Re:Is what he's saying really true?

[Panoptes]

My first reaction to this Wikipedia entry is that it's well (and very carefully) written; the content is supported by 29 detailed references to mostly legal and media sources. I cannot see any reasonable peg for Barry or his legal advisors to hang a lawsuit on. An accusation of bias would, I think, be problematic - several celebrities who like and respect him are mentioned (and quoted) at the beginning of the entry, without editorial comment.

Re:Is what he's saying really true?

[freeze128]

Plus, this should revoke his philanthropist status.

Re:Is what he's saying really true?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what it looks like today -- after months of editwarring, followed by 2+ weeks of people trying to "fix" it, because of the bad publicity brought by the lawsuit.

On 7 May, it looked like this.
On 15 March, this is how it looked.
All because of the four people Barry is now suing.

Re:Is what he's saying really true?

[Raumkraut]

He's famous enough to have a Wikipedia page, which IME is a reasonably high bar for someone who isn't an anime character.

Re:Is what he's saying really true?

[Anonymous Coward]

I see nothing in those prior versions that justifies a lawsuit either. The current version is certainly better written, and contains a few more of the accusations against him (such as conning celebrities), but there's nothing in any of the three that justifies a lawsuit.

Given what's written in some of those cited newspaper articles, the WP article (and the two you link to) is quite tame.

Re:Is what he's saying really true?

[nbauman]

All the information in those two entries is well-sourced and legitimate comment.

According to the Texas Supreme Court, "VitaPro did not fare well with the TDCJ staff or inmates. In its motion for summary judgment, TDCJ presented evidence that the frequent serving of VitaPro demoralized the staff and inmates and led to adverse health effects, including rampant flatulence."[

That seems like legitimate information, sourced to a Texas Supreme Court decision.

A prime example

[Anonymous Coward]

Of why all the lawyers should be shot. And then a stake to their heart, and heads cut, just in case...

Re:A prime example

[meerling]

Don't forget to cremate the remains, and mix the ashes with concrete and use it to make blocks that are then dumped into several different deep ocean trenches.

Re:A prime example

[Lumpy]

Desecration of those remains BEFORE they are cremated are not only important but also good for the soul.

The addition of Urea to the remains is good for you.

RTFA

[mwvdlee]

Reading the Wikipedia article, it doesn't seem all that negative.
There are some negative details in there, but these are simple facts, stated in a short and factual manner.
If you don't want people to know of your extortion practices, then either don't extort people or do a better job at it so you don't get convicted for it in a public court.

Re:RTFA

[lucm]

If you don't want people to know of your extortion practices, then either don't extort people or do a better job at it so you don't get convicted for it in a public court.

Maybe you should have posted that as an AC...

Re:RTFA

[gavron]

...don't get convicted for it...

If you read the original article... the daily dot says "Collins and Barry were acquitted in 2005, the AP added."
If you read the AP article the headline "Former Prisons Chief, Viapro Exec Acquitted" gives you a clue that
the content includes "A federal judge acquitted a former Texas prisons chief and a Canadian businessman..."

Acquitted is LIKE convicted only just the exact opposite.

E

Re:RTFA

[kactusotp]

Well digging through some of the other pages I image it is stuff like this that he objects to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/inde...

Re:RTFA

[Anonymous Coward]

Try again. He was convicted then acquitted of bribery . He was convicted and served time for extortion . Two different cases.

Reading comprehension is like stupidity, only just the exact opposite.

Re:RTFA

[quantaman]

I heard about a guy who went through multiple marriages and divorces, did multiple stints in prison, and eventually got some political offices.

I'm naturally talking about Nelson Mandela.

Even if the facts are true and presented impartially the selection of which facts to present or emphasize can give an inaccurate total picture.

I don't know enough about libel law or the guy in question to know if the case is legit, but you seem to have already formed an opinion of him as a scam artist based on the Wikipedia article which may not be a reliable source.

Re:RTFA

[Shag]

Try again. He was convicted then acquitted of bribery . He was convicted and served time for extortion . Two different cases.

I was a little baffled by the "convicted then acquitted" construct at first - I presume this means convicted, then acquitted on appeal?

/IANAL (thank $deity)

Re:RTFA

[Smallpond]

Good find. It's hard to call that an objective article. Both IP addresses in the edits belong to Bell Canada. Sounds like he may have a case.

Re:RTFA

[drinkypoo]

Well digging through some of the other pages I image it is stuff like this that he objects to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/inde...

I'm sure it is. But does he really want those claims to be tested in court? *gets popcorn*

Re:RTFA

[nbauman]

Well digging through some of the other pages I image it is stuff like this that he objects to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/inde...

Which was immediately deleted.

Re:RTFA

[Anonymous Coward]

good find. that edit seems to have been tried three times but only lasted a few minutes before reversion(history). if anything, this shows that wikipedia has helped protect him from damage.

the history also shows, unsurprisingly, that an inarticulate doofus with a chip on his shoulder will abuse any outlet in effort to be heard.

APK, are you there? have you gone into hiding yet?

Obvious campaign slogan for his pursuit

[Alef]

Obvious campaign slogan for his pursuit: "Yank Barry from Wikipedia!"

booo

[lucm]

Obvious campaign slogan for his pursuit: "Yank Barry from Wikipedia!"

Don't quit your day job... unless you're a comedian!

Re:booo

[Alef]

Don't worry, this is my night job.

If it is true, is it defamation?

[Camembert]

In principle, I can imagine that wilfully wrong wikipedia information can ruin someone's business and career opportunities, and in that case a defamation suit seems appropriate, very similar to spreading defamation through other publication channels. Wikipedia, as much as I love it, should not be above the standards by which books or magazines are judged.
However, in this case, if the negative information checks out true (and there are plenty of references), such as the convictions he received, then there is no good reason for him to sue. If he weren't convicted, it would not be in the article. As others have mentioned he should rather look up "Streisand Effect" before sueing.

Re:If it is true, is it defamation?

[Camembert]

Never heard about Mr Lee. I am a smelly cheese from Normandy that gained consciousness.

Re:If it is true, is it defamation?

[Camembert]

I didn t know. In that case the man has a point sueing.

Re:If it is true, is it defamation?

[mark-t]

Being true doesn't make something not defamation, it just makes it *exponentially* harder to win a suit on the grounds of alleged defamation. Basically, when the information is factual, the person being published about would have to show that either it was somehow more likely that the publisher was providing that information solely from sense of malice (eg, the information is relatively confidential and does not serve any kind of public interest, such as publishing that a person had cheated on their spouse), or else the factual information is provided in a way that a reasonable person might come to an unfactual wrong conclusion about the matter, usually because although the provided information is true, relevant facts are unstated which could significantly alter the kind of conclusion a reasonable person would come to. For example, suppose that a person has a legitimate medical reason to have a prescription for morphine, and they are required to be consuming fairly high dosages of it regularly, and then someone goes and publishes that this person appears to have a morphine addiction (which can be reasonably argued to be true, since they are only publishing that is how things *appear*) because of how often they (factually) use it, then even though the information can be considered factual, that person might reasonably be sued for defamation, but even then, since the person being published about was actually taking high dosages of morphine, the publisher of such information could probably claim genuine belief on their part as a defense and the defamation suit would likely fail. The onus would be on the person suing to show that the publisher had somehow deliberately framed the facts that they published in such a manner as to create an impression that is *not* factually true. This is not necessarily always impossible to do, but it would also probably not be a remotely easy thing for the person being published about to accomplish, no matter how much money they spent on lawyers.

This is brilliant!!

[snero3]

" I made a deal with God that whatever I save in tax, I give to kids.”[16]" I nearly chocked when I read that.

Re:This is brilliant!!

[oobayly]

Sounds a bit like Kent "there's no fucking carbon in it" Hovind's ethics - lie, cheat and commit fraud as long as it's for God.

For anyone who doesn't get the reference - Potholer54: "Carbon dating doesn't work -- debunked". I'd normally link to the actual time-stamp (4:51), but the video is good enough to watch on it's own. I go back to that clip whenever I need a laugh.

Say it ain't so.

[steeleyeball]

So, are you saying that the Wikipedia article on Metal Alloys is all Lies too? Say it ain't so...

RTFA

[Anonymous Coward]

Once again......

That's what it looks like today -- after months of editwarring, followed by 2+ weeks of people trying to "fix" it, because of the bad publicity brought by the lawsuit.

Use the "History" tab yourself. It was an ugly war, and no one else noticed it until Barry made legal threats.

And oh, BTW, Wikipediocracy people discovered that a couple of the guys trying to attack Barry had also been doing COI editing of other Wikipedia articles. In addition, UC Berkeley's "official Wikipedian-In-Residence" Kevin Gorman has been taunting Barry on Twitter. All petty, small-minded bullshit. But typical Wikipedia.

Progress

[Bazman]

He's suing the editors, the people who wrote the stuff. A few years back, people would have sued wikipedia for showing the page, the hosting company for hosting the page, the company that maintain the DNS record for WIkipedia and Dell (or whoever) for running the site on their servers.

Not really news.

Re:Progress

[retroworks]

Agreed. I have no problem with Wikipedia editors being sued. I recently ran across a Wikipedia biography of El Salvador ex-presidente Jose Napolean Duarte which was written atrociously, basically accusing him of being a dictator behind a military coup. I corrected the article, noting he was actually popularly elected (a mayor of San Salvador, not a military coup leader), ousted in a coup, and then brought back in a counter coup, and then again popularly elected. Had to repost it twice, it kept getting "reverted" (it did get fixed but someone has since added "His military regime is noted for large-scale human rights abuses and massacres amongst the civilian population, supported by the Reagan Administration and the Central Intelligence Agency" to the first paragraph). Sure, Duarte was criticized for accepting the invitation of the second coup, but most people feel the human rights abuses were the work of the first junta and those opposed to the Salvadoran land reforms proposed by Duarte. But who has time to fight an idiot editor?

This could get modded "off topic", I guess, but IMHO Wikipedia should encourage defamation lawsuits against its volunteer editors. The main problem is that people with extremely hostile views edit more perniciously, and moderate editors don't have time to fight about it. Unfortunately, that's a remedy of the rich, not for people who don't have the means to sue for defamation.

If it is true, is it defamation?

[metasonix]

Well, well, well, I don't suppose you're really Lee "Camembert" Pilich, one of Wikipedia's earliest administrators and arbitrators, are you?

If so, why did you more-or-less give up on Wikipedia in 2010? Did you finally realize that Jimbo Wales wasn't an "Internet Hero" or some bullshit like that, and that he had installed some very dishonest people in the admin ranks, and thence at the WMF? When did it dawn upon you that Wikipedia was declining?

Move to Europe

[uberbrainchild8437]

Maybe he should move to Europe and ask Google to remove his wikipedia entry from the search results (Right to be forgotten)

Re:Move to Europe

[crossmr]

Doesn't that only apply to old irrelevant information?

Re:Articles about Catholicism are even worse

[Anonymous Coward]

Wikipedia is a MMORPG where the guy with most free time always wins. Anybody who takes it seriously is a victim of either ignorance or zeal.

Wikipedia Editors

[gantry]

I have given up contributing to Wikipedia. My contributions are invariably reversed by an editor. Collectively, editors seem to spend their time annotating pages with [who?], [reference needed], etc, but then they revert any attempt to fill in the missing information.

Re:Wikipedia Editors

[david_thornley]

I've seen complaints, but in some cases I have to wonder if the contributors were adhering to Wikipedia rules. I changed the page on battleships several years ago, had my edit reverted, was given reasons, and eventually my contribution wound up on the page in satisfactorily modified form. (At least in the less controversial pages; my experience with putting sourced contemporary casualty estimates into the Hiroshima and Nagasaki article didn't go nearly as well.)

Legit suit or not?

[quantaman]

I'm really curious if this guy is a legitimate businessman with a valid suit or some shady character trying to whitewash his reputation.

*goes to check his bio on Wikipedia*

Whoa! That guy looks pretty shady! The lawsuit must be a scam!!

If it is true, is it defamation?

[lilburne]

You do know that he was acquitted on appeal in 2005 don't you? Or did you read the WP page and get a false impression. There maybe 100 links to references about legal issues, but if you keep deleting the final outcome ...

Well, one thing is sure ...

[aaaaaaargh!]

Yank Barry is a fucking asshole, and the "Global Village Champions Foundation" is a bunch of retarded morons.

You may quote this entry on Wikipedia in case you need a citation.

Re:Articles about Catholicism are even worse

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not free time. It's just that these organizations already have a PR department.
If Wikipedia starts to generate what they consider bad publicity it becomes a priority and suddenly they have several 8 hour/day positions available to maintain the page.
In between the forum posting and Wikipedia editing they can continue to write press releases and other things that doesn't require immediate response.

The Truth?

[Anonymous Coward]

Problem is, Wikipedia isn't trying to portray the truth. Instead, it just repeats what "credible sources" report. So if this was 1984 and all the sources reported 2+2=5, Wikipedia would have no choice but to do the same, citing the sources, no matter how obvious it is that it's wrong. Fortunately though, the Western world generally has freedom of the press, so going by credible sources generally comes pretty close to the truth.

Of course, determining which sources are credible is a challenge, especially on controversial issues like global warming or for things like urban myths that are often reported by "credible" sources without doing research.

Re:The Truth?

[Idarubicin]

There is, however, an expectation that Wikipedia editors will present information about a person (or any topic, for that matter) in a way that is proportionate to its relevance and importance. Under- or (especially) over-stating the importance of particular facts to give a coloured perspective isn't on; see the section of Wikipedia's neutral-point-of-view policy on Due and undue weight.

In other words, if George W. Bush's biography opened with

George W. Bush was a fighter pilot with the Texas Air National Guard, serving without particular distinction from 1968 to 1974.

It would be an undeniably true statement that nevertheless failed to comply with Wikipedia policy.

Similarly, Wikipedia's policy against using Wikipedia as a venue to publish original research specifically forbids "synthesis of published material". That is, you can't cherry-pick a bunch of sources (or parts of sources) and use them to state - or imply - a particular novel conclusion that hasn't been presented by a reliable, independent source. I could go on at length, but suffice it to say that Wikipedia content is ruled by far more than "It appeared in the newspaper so we have to put in Wikipedia".

Re: Old and irrelevant

[Shag]

Seems appropriate.

Re:Articles about Catholicism are even worse

[AmiMoJo]

The only people with enough time to "win" at Wikipedia are zealots and trolls. Anyone well intentioned just gets fed up after the 5th revert and bout of rule lawyering.

Shade of things to come

[Andover Chick]

Non-profits are being used more and more as to either promote for-profit causes or enrich non-profit executives. This is why major non-profits and college presidents are earning million dollar plus compensation. Global Village Champions sounds like a perfect example of this. Separately, Yank Barry is a convict who did prison time for extortion, now he's trying to use his muscle on Wiki volunteers. How pretty of a picture does he expect?

jumping off FTW

[epine]

It's only good for a jumping off place.

So totally true. But once you allow that 99% of modern life is jumping off, I'm not sure what you're griping about.

Just as one comparison, take every organization prominent enough to have it's own article in en.Wikipedia, go to their own websites (the vast majority will have one) and scrape all of the "about us" web pages these organizations authored about themselves, and imagine these as a collective "About Us"-apedia.

This "About Us"-apedia would make MySpace's worst year look like an exercise in design consistency. I for one can live without the metric fuckton of Flash-based incoherence as my standard point of departure on the agencies of the world.

It seems to me that all the people who hated Wikipedia on first sight share an underlying belief in knowledge as an authority network. The reason Wikipedia succeeded is that knowledge isn't what we thought it was. For the vast majority of purposes, authority is a boundary condition, not the thing itself.

The first step in assimilating a new body of knowledge is to survey the field's lexicon: What words are used and roughly how are they linked together? This cognitive process takes place long before factual assertions amount to a hill of beans. When the facts do begin to matter, most smart people are well aware that in this world we're all fed baloney 24 hours a day. Wikipedia is one of the places where it becomes especially clear how the baloney is made. That doesn't make it worse baloney than Superbowl Sunday—America's national slick-baloney celebration day. Is iOS somehow less Orwellian than the IBM PC? So we were told through a non-linguistic medium.

On Wikipedia, when I spot baloney, I click the magic button called "History" where I scan for edit wars and substantial discards. For the vast majority of articles, it's all there in plain view. The mythical, Orwellian-smashing parentage of iOS is harder to trace.

In the upcoming era of Deep Watson, those Wikipedia crumb trails of sturm und churn will suddenly become interesting resources to expose to automated data mining. Perhaps then the present surface form of the articles will begin to fade in importance. There's nothing stopping this, except for the will to go there, which is depressingly thin in the general public for the 99% of the time they're merely jumping off.

Re:Articles about Catholicism are even worse

[sandbagger]

Bingo.

I remember once working on a Wiki article about a film that was increasingly in depth and cited various written original scorches, interviews et cetera. A lot of work went into it. One day a kid replaced it all with his undergraduate essay.

The whole thing.

Of course we tried a revert but his buddies —all students — have a lot more time to spend on this than others did so naturally they "won". The fanboys basically win at Wikipedia and an MMORPG is an excellent way of summarizing it.

Not just time

[UpnAtom]

Willingness to employ sock/meat puppets seems to be the main one.

Convicted Criminal Yank Barry is Lying Scum

[McGruber]

An April 15, 2012 National Post newspaper article by Joe O'Connor:

The world according to Yank: Montrealer with checkered past gets Nobel nod, or does he?

Mr. Barry is never far from the spotlight. He was the focus of a 4,000-word investigative report by the Montreal Gazette in October 1998.

The front page article delved into Global Village Market, a company through which he was selling VitaPro, and one he marketed to potential investors with the help of the motto: “doing well by doing good.”

Mr. Barry’s pitch, backed by some celebrity punch, reportedly sold investors on the notion that the more money the company made the more food he would distribute to the needy.

Celine Dion was one of the celebrities involved. She was led to believe that she was endorsing a humanitarian mission to Africa led by Mr. Ali, and engineered by Yank Barry. She taped a message trumpeting her support for a purely philanthropic cause. Said message, in audiotape form was then, unbeknownst to Ms. Dion, reportedly used by Mr. Barry as part of his promotional material selling investment units in Global Village Market, a for-profit business.

Cracks appeared early in the enterprise. Promises of philanthropy dried up. Investors lost everything and several lodged complaints against Mr. Barry with the Quebec Securities Commission. The securities regulator did not sanction Mr. Barry, though the entire episode lingers as a sore spot for many, including Celine Dion.

Her image still appears on the Global Village Champions Foundation website, a presence that irks Paul-Andre Martel, the Montreal lawyer representing the famous singer and husband, Rene Angelil.

“My clients have absolutely no involvement with Mr. Barry or his organization,” Mr. Martel said. “What we think is that Mr. Barry is using the name and the fame of people that have spent time with Mr. Ali over the years.”

So...

[Kierthos]

Is it completely a coincidence that Wikipedia is doing another fundraising drive right now?

Not a good sign

[EmperorOfCanada]

It generally isn't a positive indication of how wholesome and wonderful a person you are when you sue one of the greatest achievements of the internet. If twitter, facebook, yelp, and even slashdot went away, there would be a loss but the loss of Wikipedia would be an epic loss for the internet.

Also it is not the threat of a win that is a problem but Wikipedia's budget could be trashed by even just fighting a suit like this. So I hope that this guy gets horrifically Barbara Streisand'd to show that the cost to his reputation for suing Wikipedia will far exceed whatever gains he hopes to have.

Re:Articles about Catholicism are even worse

[Anonymous Coward]

Citation needed.

Re:Articles about Catholicism are even worse

[ArhcAngel]

You should have called their mommies and told them they were seen out partying on a school night.

He's done this before

[Anonymous Coward]

He filed a lawsuit before to try to shut someone up and lost (in Canada even). He's trying to hide his conviction and trying to show off all his nominations for Nobel Peace Prize (which can't be independently confirmed). Just another whitewash attempt. {Citation Needed}, which is the same thing as actual facts these days. Yeah, I read the ANI postings about him before and when this was filed.

"I'm Not a Bad Person" -- Don Sterling

[LifesABeach]

If this issue had been one of Lible, then a lawsuit of $1.00, not $10Million would raise eye brows. Instead we have a person trying to make bank on the flimsyest of social issues.

Re:Articles about Catholicism are even worse

[mythosaz]

Wikipedia is a MMORPG where the guy with most free time always wins. Anybody who takes it seriously is a victim of either ignorance or zeal.

Well, duh.

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

...the page there is interesting, in that it exists to diffuse the real problem that it is an MMORPG, where the highest level players can kill low level players with impunity. There's zero reason to start editing Wikipedia articles now, since a high level editor will just revert your changes until you submit, and then publish them as his own, further raising his status while destroying noobs...

Re:Articles about Catholicism are even worse

[bitt3n]

cited various written original scorches

Was the movie Fahrenheit 451?

$$ -> lawyers

[CauseBy]

He'll lose this suit and in the end some of his money will transfer to lawyers. That's not ideal but it's better than this douchebag from keeping it. The lawyers have a small chance of being good people.

Yank... *who*???

[klek]

Never heard of him before this, but he sure sounds like a dick if he's suing Wikipedia.

Re:Articles about Catholicism are even worse

[Teancum]

Well, duh.

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

...the page there is interesting, in that it exists to diffuse the real problem that it is an MMORPG, where the highest level players can kill low level players with impunity. There's zero reason to start editing Wikipedia articles now, since a high level editor will just revert your changes until you submit, and then publish them as his own, further raising his status while destroying noobs...

I dare you to show an actual case of this happening where the "higher level" editor is not already under some sort of substantial ArbCom restriction or had it in the recent past.

Seriously.

No doubt some new contributors are discouraged from participation by overzealous editors, but abuse should be reported and it is usually dealt with rather harshly when pointed out.

This should also not be an excuse for not participating on Wikipedia with bona fide edits with new information. I would recommend avoiding popular articles (like George W. Bush or Barack Obama), as a new user mainly because of the churn rate on those articles, but irresponsible behavior by bullies is just that and can be dealt with. I wouldn't mind dealing with a specific example myself.

Another "who cares" article

[marcgvky]

Greate pick Soulskill... a real yawner.

No Problem

[Air-conditioned cowh]

If someone sued me for defamation as a Wikipedia editor I'd just distort the article about the court case to make them and the judge look like ogres. That would fix them!

At Last!

[s1sfx]

Thank you, God! At long last someone has the time and money to stand up to the terrorism of the Wikipedia nerd squad. So now to break out the champagne and celebrate this awesome news, and then I shall go and donate to his organisation. Fantastic news and so, so, so long in finally coming.

...people believed it...

[fustakrakich]

There's the problem right there. You are supposed to target the believers. They are the ones at fault and should be sanctioned.

Defamation suit against wiki...

[Meski]

1 million Slashdot readers go and peruse the diffs for shits and giggles.