JoshuaZ looks at Section 230, and gives me an idea... Options

From WikiEN-l:

> "Had the Foundation formally notified a stalker that he or she was
> denied permission to access Wikipedia, the Foundation could then press
> charges for computer trespass against the stalker when he or she
> subsequently accessed the site. Such charges would give the
> authorities leverage to put the perp away; proving that case is far
> easier than proving the much harder stalking or harassment case --
> especially when the victim refuses to personally identify himself or
> herself to authorities."
>
> (The rest of the post is definitely worth reading. It can be found at
> http://nonbovine-ruminations.blogspot.com/...a-al-qaeda.html
> It is, of course, in Ms. Martin's inimitable style; but she's not
> wrong on this.)

Well, I'm not generally a fan of Kelly but this makes an excellent point. My only concern is that having the Foundation get that involved could intertwine the Foundation with the individual projects more than we want. The Foundation is more important than any one editor and we must make sure that it is not liable. That said, this might work. Has anyone discussed it with Foundation higher ups.

The top of this quotation is someone quoting Kelly Martin. The last paragraph is from JoshuaZ commenting on Kelly's words.

At the same time that JoshuaZ is making this astute legal observation, he is also attempting to restore the redirect on Daniel_Brandt to reverse Doc's deletion of same. JoshuaZ is working at cross-purposes here. If that redirect gets restored I intend to try harder to isolate Wikipedia in the court of public opinion.

Why would I want to do this? Because if I try harder, Slim and others will interpret this as "stalking," and then maybe they will convince the Foundation to send me a cease and desist. Already Jimbo is on record as generally sympathetic with the "cyberstalking" point of view. At that point I'll have a piece of paper from the Foundation that pretty much signs away their presumed Section 230 immunity in my case, and I'll be ready to go to court.

Right now my feeling is that I don't have a case because:
1. my Wikipedia presence in the search engines has been greatly diminished since the redirect was deleted on December 1, and
2. the 2,600 history versions of Daniel_Brandt are difficult to find, thanks to Doc's more recent maneuver that nuked JoshuaZ's GFDL silliness.

If the redirect is restored, I believe that I have a case once again. Also, I sense that the statute of limitations is reset for defamation and invasion of privacy under Florida law. My next step will be to work harder to enlighten the public about the true nature of Wikipedia, and hope that someday the Foundation will see fit to send me a cease and desist. Then I'll sue them.

My instincts tell me that their presumed Section 230 immunity will be much weaker once I receive a cease and desist from the Foundation. The only boring part is that I'll have to create a bunch of socks and try to edit Wikipedia directly, so that I'm worthy of a C&D of this nature. Fortunately, I think there are enough mentions of me on various Talk pages that are sock-accessible, which means all I have to do is go in and delete them every place they're found. That's just to earn the C&D. The more effective part will be my escalating efforts to interest mainstream media in exposing the true nature of Wikipedia. As effective as that may be, it's not C&D-worthy, unless and until Mike Godwin loses his judgement.

I could sue JoshuaZ for stalking me on Wikipedia, I suppose, but that's useless. There are dozens of wikifascist stalkers ready and willing to take his place.

From WikiEN-l:

> "Had the Foundation formally notified a stalker that he or she was
> denied permission to access Wikipedia, the Foundation could then press
> charges for computer trespass against the stalker when he or she
> subsequently accessed the site. Such charges would give the
> authorities leverage to put the perp away; proving that case is far
> easier than proving the much harder stalking or harassment case --
> especially when the victim refuses to personally identify himself or
> herself to authorities."
>
> (The rest of the post is definitely worth reading. It can be found at
> http://nonbovine-ruminations.blogspot.com/...a-al-qaeda.html
> It is, of course, in Ms. Martin's inimitable style; but she's not
> wrong on this.)

Well, I'm not generally a fan of Kelly but this makes an excellent point. My only concern is that having the Foundation get that involved could intertwine the Foundation with the individual projects more than we want. The Foundation is more important than any one editor and we must make sure that it is not liable. That said, this might work. Has anyone discussed it with Foundation higher ups.

The top of this quotation is someone quoting Kelly Martin. The last paragraph is from JoshuaZ commenting on Kelly's words.

At the same time that JoshuaZ is making this astute legal observation, he is also attempting to restore the redirect on Daniel_Brandt to reverse Doc's deletion of same. JoshuaZ is working at cross-purposes here. If that redirect gets restored I intend to try harder to isolate Wikipedia in the court of public opinion.

Why would I want to do this? Because if I try harder, Slim and others will interpret this as "stalking," and then maybe they will convince the Foundation to send me a cease and desist. Already Jimbo is on record as generally sympathetic with the "cyberstalking" point of view. At that point I'll have a piece of paper from the Foundation that pretty much signs away their presumed Section 230 immunity in my case, and I'll be ready to go to court.

Right now my feeling is that I don't have a case because:
1. my Wikipedia presence in the search engines has been greatly diminished since the redirect was deleted on December 1, and
2. the 2,600 history versions of Daniel_Brandt are difficult to find, thanks to Doc's more recent maneuver that nuked JoshuaZ's GFDL silliness.

If the redirect is restored, I believe that I have a case once again. Also, I sense that the statute of limitations is reset for defamation and invasion of privacy under Florida law. My next step will be to work harder to enlighten the public about the true nature of Wikipedia, and hope that someday the Foundation will see fit to send me a cease and desist. Then I'll sue them.

My instincts tell me that their presumed Section 230 immunity will be much weaker once I receive a cease and desist from the Foundation. The only boring part is that I'll have to create a bunch of socks and try to edit Wikipedia directly, so that I'm worthy of a C&D of this nature. Fortunately, I think there are enough mentions of me on various Talk pages that are sock-accessible, which means all I have to do is go in and delete them every place they're found. That's just to earn the C&D. The more effective part will be my escalating efforts to interest mainstream media in exposing the true nature of Wikipedia. As effective as that may be, it's not C&D-worthy, unless and until Mike Godwin loses his judgement.

I could sue JoshuaZ for stalking me on Wikipedia, I suppose, but that's useless. There are dozens of wikifascist stalkers ready and willing to take his place.

I seems to me everyone is making a salad of DMCA, C&D, CDA, Section 230 Immunity, Sec 1030 Computer Intrusion, and ordinary stalking. In such a mix all anyone can do is hope their intuition is good.

I seems to me everyone is making a salad of DMCA, C&D, CDA, Section 230 Immunity, Sec 1030 Computer Intrusion, and ordinary stalking. In such a mix all anyone can do is hope their intuition is good.

In such a mix, one's only recourse is the court of public opinion — unless you think it's fun to make lawyers even richer. There is no reasonable appeal process within Wikipedia that allows people like me to get a fair hearing.

I read some of those posts where some admins were suggesting taking legal action against users, the sort of thing that would get any other user banned immediately.

I cannot wait for the day that any official entity of Wikipedia initiates a civil action against any of its users. There will be decade-long feeding frenzy that will make Jaws look like a bowl full of dead guppies.

Jonny (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/cool.gif)

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache:

There is no reasonable appeal process within Wikipedia that allows people like me to get a fair hearing.

There is no reasonable appeal process within Wikipedia that allows any aggrieved party to get a fair hearing.

There is no reasonable appeal process within Wikipedia that allows any aggrieved party to get a fair hearing.

True, but the situation with biographies is especially outrageous.

(IMG:http://www.wikipedia-watch.org/gifs/wfas4.gif)

"You do not get to choose whether or not an article on you appears in Wikipedia, and you have no veto power over its contents. The article can cast you as a genius or an imbecile, a respected scientist or a crackpot... A vandal could replace a page, any page, with total gibberish. The page on Einstein might have a statement inserted to the effect that he was a Nazi collaborator, or that his theories have been totally discredited, or that he was a silicon-based life form from Proxima Centauri... Wikipedia does not operate by your rules but by its own conventions; I suggest you learn to accept it... I can assure you resistance is futile." —Wikifascist KSmrq reads the riot act to Bernard Haisch, subject of a disputed biography, as quoted in the Los Angeles Times, July 24, 2006.

What's a guy to do? He appeals to public opinion. This will be the well-deserved death of Wikipedia, and sooner rather than later.

Are you guys following the ridiculous bullshit discussion on the merge-vs-delete of Brandt's article?

Daniel, why don't you just sue Joshua Zelinsky already? Maybe he'd finally learn something about the law.

Yale Law School apparently has failed him.

Yale Law School apparently has failed him.

Yale is not doing very well by the USA at all these days. That bush legacy situation was not helpful, and is much too late to refactor.

Daniel, why don't you just sue Joshua Zelinsky already? Maybe he'd finally learn something about the law.

I think JoshuaZ is taking it out on me because of what his brother did to him the womb. I cannot decide whether to cut him some slack or challenge him to a boxing match.

The Yale Herald, 2003-11-14:

IT IS HARD TO MAKE GENERALIZATIONS ABOUT TWINS at Yale because they come in all shapes and sizes — literally. Take the Zelinsky twins, for example. Aaron and Joshua Zelinsky, DC '06, and TC '07, respectively, are fraternal twins who don't look anything alike. In fact, Aaron is five-foot-ten 160 lbs. and Joshua is five-foot-two 100 lbs. "I stole his food in the womb," Aaron explained, "I had veins going from my placenta into his. I like to say that I bled him dry." Not only are they different looking, but they are in different class years—they've been a year apart since kindergarten. So why did they both decide to attend Yale? "I'm from New Haven and was convinced that it was the last place on earth I wanted to go to school — but then I fell in love. And the same thing happened to Josh," Aaron said.

Aaron and Josh have carved out different niches for themselves at Yale; while Aaron is on the debate team and hangs out with his FOOT buddies, Josh is very involved in the Slifka Center. Aaron explained, "We're very, very close, in some respects, but in terms of other stuff, we're very, very different." "Actually, people are often shocked when I tell them I have a twin," he added.

Apparently brother Aaron's placenta-food-theft stole something crucial which supplied neo-natal brain development.

That boy behaves as if he's in constant need of a vitamin-B shot. Not to mention a basic course in Dialogico-Rhetorical Normativity, and remedial charm school training.

This post has been edited by Disillusioned Lackey:

I added this comment to the WP:DRV discussion:

I appreciate Doc's efforts to solve the problems I mentioned on the WP:BLP/Noticeboard on December 1. In the event that the redirect deletion currently under consideration here results in the restoration of the Daniel_Brandt redirect, I plan to petition the Foundation to install a change in the Wikipedia software.

When Wikipedia deletes a page, the software does not return a 404 "not found" in the headers. And when it redirects a page, it does not return a 301 or 302 "redirect" in the headers. In both cases it still returns a 200 "OK" in the headers. In the first case the little page says that a file does not exist by this name. In the second case, the file is the complete page of the target to which it was redirected.

In terms of search engine behavior, the reason why a deleted page quickly wipes out the search engine juice that previously built up for that page, is because a single one-line header is added to that page: meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow". On the redirected page, this header is absent.

I contend that this is a programming error that violates my privacy. The proper way to handle a redirect on Wikipedia is to use a five second refresh to the target page, with a note on the instant page that it will be redirected in a few seconds, and if it doesn't, then click on this new URL. Then at the same time, you can include the "noindex,nofollow" in the headers. The effect of this would be to deny search-engine juice to the target page, for any and all juice that built up for the instant page before the redirect was installed. The juice for the target page will have to be derived on the basis of its own independent merits.

Since this is a matter of correcting a programming bug that has privacy implications, I will request that the Foundation instruct their employee software developers to install this change. I feel that in this situation, there is little chance that the Foundation can presume Section 230 immunity as an excuse to ignore my request. —Daniel Brandt

I think JoshuaZ is so stupid that he's inadvertently on my side. I attempted to notify the Wikipedia "community" in good faith about my plans to take up the matter with the Foundation if the redirect is re-installed, and JoshuaZ deleted my comment and blocked my IP. This clearly establishes that I attempted to exhaust my administrative remedies with the "community" and was rebuffed. In turn, this means that any attempt by the Foundation's counsel to claim that my petition is a matter that I should have introduced to the community, will be unconvincing.

I'll try to stick it on Doc's talk page. Maybe he'll revert JoshuaZ.

I award Joshua Z this barnstar (IMG:http://s237.photobucket.com/albums/ff167/DisillusionedLackey/th_whinerbarnstar.jpg)

Wow, I placed a "thank you" on Doc's page and JoshuaZ, Cberlet, jpgordon, and FeloniousMonk went bananas because I'm banned. Viridae (an admin) tried to restore my "thank you" and Cla68, FeloniousMonk, and MONGO threatened to burn him at the stake on his own talk page.

I must be doing something right! This is just like the good ol' days on Wikipedia. They haven't learned a thing in the last two years.


LATER EDIT: Cla68 deleted; he was only informing Viridae of the situation. Wikifascist jpgordon implies to Viridae that banned users have no BLP rights.

Wow, I placed a "thank you" on Doc's page and JoshuaZ, Cberlet, jpgordon, and FeloniousMonk went bananas because I'm banned. Viridae (an admin) tried to restore my "thank you" and Cla68, FeloniousMonk, and MONGO threatened to burn him at the stake on his own talk page.

I must be doing something right! This is just like the good ol' days on Wikipedia. They haven't learned a thing in the last two years.

Well, think about it. If they admitted that banned editors saying "thank you" probably wasn't part of an evil plot, they'd have to admit that people aren't banned becasue they are evil demons. And then people might start wanting to actually treat you guys as human beings!

I must be doing something right! This is just like the good ol' days on Wikipedia. They haven't learned a thing in the last two years.

They don't want to stop playing with you. You are a human XBOX to them. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/sad.gif)

This post has been edited by Disillusioned Lackey:

I filed an OTRS via email with a copy to Brion Vibber. My experience with OTRS is that they just throw stuff from me in the trash. And now they're in the middle of moving to sexy San Francisco, which gives them an excuse to "lose" anything I send to the office. Whoever reads my OTRS will probably be afraid to verify to me that it was received. Does anyone have an address where Mike Godwin would get a registered letter? I think Godwin hangs out in Washington, DC.

As that case in France showed, you have to make sure that they cannot deny that they received your communication. I don't know if the Foundation office is sneaky or just plain incompetent.

I intend to pursue the "software bug on Wikipedia redirects" issue. It's not a redirect by any definition used by webmasters. It's a 100 percent substitution, which means that all search-engine juice accumulated from the past history of the redirected page is instantly added to the target page — making the target page hyper-sensitive to the name of the person that used to have the bio, whenever that name is used as the search term on any search engine. This is a serious privacy issue, now that AfDs increasingly use the merge and "redirect" option on difficult cases.

From the perspective of the hapless BLP victim, it means that now he has to watch the target page after the redirect, because all the wikifascists will migrate to that page to insert their defamatory and/or privacy-invading edits. If the target page was buried in the search engine results in a search for that person's name, he wouldn't have to check it every day.

If the deletion of the redirect on my bio that Doc did survives the current DRV, I won't have a case to pursue. But it doesn't look good and I think Doc might lose this one.

There is no reasonable appeal process within Wikipedia that allows people like me to get a fair hearing.

There is no reasonable appeal process within Wikipedia that allows any aggrieved party to get a fair hearing.

You are correct.

It is not like a real live court system, where anyone is guaranteed a hearing.

At WP a group of kids may decide to listen and learn, or they may just look away.

Please do not talk about "due process" at a place like Wikipedia, because it does not exist.

This post has been edited by WhispersOfWisdom:

The absence of due process at Wikipedia is a scientific discovery that nonetheless requires evidence. I now have good evidence for the absence of due process.

Are you guys following the ridiculous bullshit discussion on the merge-vs-delete of Brandt's article?

Daniel, why don't you just sue Joshua Zelinsky already? Maybe he'd finally learn something about the law.

Yale Law School apparently has failed him.

That's because they don't really teach anything at YLS. Somehow it keeps ranking as a T4 school, based mostly on prestige, but they don't really have a curriculum there. Considering they don't even have grades at all for first years and honors/pass/lowpass/fail for everyone else....

The personal statement on their essay is 250 words long. What can you say with 250 words?

Oh, and they don't have required courses after the first semester, so you can be glad to know that when you graduate from there with your courses in "virtual economies in second life" you'll be well prepared for the real world.