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Daniel Brandt |
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#1
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Postmaster ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Regulars Posts: 2,473 Joined: Member No.: 77 ![]() |
slimvirgin AT gmail.com
cc: info AT wikimedia.org December 24, 2006 Dear Sarah: I am looking for a Florida-based attorney to negotiate with the Wikimedia Foundation to take down my biography. If this fails, I plan to file an invasion-of-privacy lawsuit against the Foundation. Considering the fact that all the Talk pages are also made available to the search engines, I may include a defamation-of-character complaint in the suit. My main interest in litigation is to establish in a Florida court that Section 230 of the U.S. Communications Decency Act does not provide immunity to the Foundation, due to the fact that the Foundation's entire structure is designed to moderate the content on Wikipedia. I will argue that because of this, the Foundation functions as a publisher rather than a service provider. Only service providers are immune under Section 230. I appreciate the fact that you supported my request to delete the article in October 2005, after we worked on it for a week and were unable to reach agreement. You warned me that you lacked the power to make the deletion stick, if some other administrators disagreed. This is exactly what happened. I also appreciate your support of Linuxbeak's effort in December 2005 to move the content into other relevant articles on Wikipedia, so that most of the content would still exist, but not be featured in one Wikipedia article under my name. This effort was one that Linuxbeak and I agreed to at the time, but which failed due to a lack of support. I deleted hivemind.html as Linuxbeak made his effort, but then restored it when his effort failed. As you can see, the hivemind.html page is much larger now and also has small photos of most of the perpetrators. The last meaningful AfD on my bio was concluded on April 9, 2006. Now I am asking you to initiate another AfD. This is something only a major administrator can do, because minor administrators will intervene on the grounds of "Speedy Keep." I believe that one last meaningful AfD for my biography is warranted before this issue escalates further, and I hope you agree with me. If the article gets deleted, I will take down the hivemind.html page on www.wikipedia-watch.org (but not the hive2.html page), and will also take down the findchat.html page, the 1,545 chat log files that are linked from there, and the chat search engine. Thank you, Daniel Brandt |
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Daniel Brandt |
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#2
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Postmaster ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Regulars Posts: 2,473 Joined: Member No.: 77 ![]() |
Thanks, I agree that this is a reasonable compromise. I thought so a year ago, and I still think so.
However, I predict that an AfD, regardless of who starts it, will result in a KEEP. The reason is that when I sue the Foundation, the editors and admins who have been persecuting me over the last 14 months will feel relieved. I will be arguing in court that the Foundation is responsible, more than the individual editors and admins. All of a sudden these individuals have absolutely nothing to lose. My biography becomes more of a spectator sport for them at this point, and the video game (or cock fight) becomes more amusing for them. None of these editors or admins care about the future of Wikipedia; they're interested in playing games. That's always been the case at Wikipedia, from what I've seen. My attempt at a final AfD is what lawyers call "exhausting your administrative remedies." I expect that a jury will be interested to know that I availed myself of every opportunity to correct the situation within the Foundation's own procedures and structure, and still got no relief from the Foundation. In fact, the biography got longer, and the "published" (i.e., available to the search engines) Talk pages got more libelous, as the Foundation failed to respond to my situation. My letters and faxes to Jimmy Wales, Brad Patrick, and Danny Wool were ignored. So be it. I'm pretty close to convincing a competent Florida-based attorney to take this case on a contingency basis. I believe a jury will be sympathetic to my case based on the recorded facts. I also believe that a judge will be sympathetic to a plaintiff who makes a competent case that the Foundation is not immune under Section 230. (The judge decides questions of law, whereas the jury decides facts and awards damages.) Personally, I'm more interested in the Section 230 aspect of the case. If I got the judge to let the case go forward, but the jury didn't think I was as compelling as Jimmy, I'd still feel that something was accomplished. If I end up with the sort of attorney that I'm currently looking for, then it will probably be on a contingency basis. Once I agree to let him represent me, it will primarily be his decision about when to negotiate, when to settle, when to file a lawsuit, and how to proceed in court. |
thebainer |
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#3
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Junior Member ![]() ![]() Group: Contributors Posts: 81 Joined: Member No.: 13 ![]() |
So be it. I'm pretty close to convincing a competent Florida-based attorney to take this case on a contingency basis. I believe a jury will be sympathetic to my case based on the recorded facts. I also believe that a judge will be sympathetic to a plaintiff who makes a competent case that the Foundation is not immune under Section 230. (The judge decides questions of law, whereas the jury decides facts and awards damages.) I for one would very much welcome a test case on Section 230 and other pertinent questions in the same vein, so hopefully you're actually serious this time and you'll actually go hire a lawyer and construct yourself a real case. I'm being completely serious, this is a very interesting area of law and there would be no better precedent in the area than a case against Wikimedia. I don't understand why you're linking to that Guardian piece though, the case described there is really very dissimilar to any potential case you would be making (I am presuming of course that you plan to sue the Foundation for whatever cause of action you choose, and not the individual users who wrote your article). |
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