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Posted by: milowent

For a few weeks now, the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choose_Your_Own_Adventure article, about the best-selling children's book series from the 80s/90s, has been stubbed down to a paragraph and put under http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:OFFICE.

Though we're not told, the problem appears to be a dispute over who should get credit for the series. Until about Oct 2010, the article credited http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Packard as the creator of the series and concept. News reports from the the early 80s are pretty clear on that http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Choose_Your_Own_Adventure&oldid=388946952http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=_nUfAAAAIBAJ&sjid=XXUFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1663,2191360. But some small amount of credit also belonged to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._A._Montgomery, owner of the small press that first published Packard's works, helped get it to the big league Bantam, and subsequently authored many titles.

Bantam let the series go out of print around 2000, and Montomery and his wife bought the trademark rights, founded "ChooseCo" and started reprinting the books. But only the ones they had rights too, i.e., mostly Montgomery's, and certainly not Packard's volumes. (The reprints are renumbered to help mask the missing volumes, I suppose.)

Back in October (and perhaps before?), the CYOA article was edited to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Choose_Your_Own_Adventure&oldid=388946952 as the creator of the series, and among other things, replace the image of the 1st and perhaps most popular book in the series (The Cave of Time) with a cover image of reprint "The Abominable Snowman" (the new #1, #13 in the original series). I and a few editors happened to notice, rolled it back and added a few sources (such as the AP and NYTimes articles cited above) to show Packard was the original creator. We disregarded the press-release fodder pieces from the reprint announcements.

Then came the stubbing and WP:OFFICE stamp, which has lasted for a few weeks now. When I expressed irriation at this, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philippe_(WMF) came by to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Milowent#Comment_on_Choose_Your_Own_Adventure me.

There's little doubt Montgomery and/or his wife is behind this. They appear to have a history. In 2007, Chooseco http://www.abcmoney.co.uk/news/29200748059.htm Chrysler over an ad that had the tagline "Choose Your Adventure"--claiming it to be too similar to their trademark, and that the ad campaign too specifically focused on the age range of young men who had grown up reading the books. In the same vein, an August 2009 http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2009/08/health-care-choose-your-own-adventure/23396/ by Marc Ambinder at The Atlantic referenced the series in its title and included the comment "With apologies to Edward Packard and Bantam Books", which was apparently later updated to include a mention of Montgomery and Chooseco.

Editor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Kaldari, also a wikimedia employee, has apparently now been tasked with helping recraft the article. So far, they've added http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Choose_Your_Own_Adventure&action=historysubmit&diff=410641510&oldid=409506755, one of which is a dead link article about the ChooseCo reprint introduction, and the 2nd a http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6555533.html in the "school library journal" that refers to Montgomery as the creator the series, just copying some press release no doubt. E.g., it claims that Chooseco's editors "editors went through the original series and “cherry picked” bestselling titles, books particularly beloved by readers, and staff favorites," instead of admitting that they "cherrypicked" the books they had rights to, and have no chance to get Packard's, whose volumes are often credited as the best. Packard, on his part, is republishing his titles as e-books under the "U-Ventures" tag.

I've never run into WP:OFFICE before, so I have no idea what triggers it, or how this will turn out. How many articles can you find that get slanted one way or another without such a drastic move being made, and then you see it morph towards the "wrong version".

Posted by: Silver seren

I've run into WP:OFFICE one time before, which then caused me to look into other cases where it had been implemented.

As such, I have yet to find a case where the Wikimedia Office actually did something right.

The http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2011/01/18/a-gift-of-visualization-on-wikipedias-birthday/ video says that the Wikimedia Foundation has no interaction with Wikipedia itself or how it is working. Maybe they should actually follow that line of BS? Oh wait, it's BS, I forgot.

Posted by: EricBarbour

It's most likely that the WMF got a very serious lawsuit from one of the commercial parties involved.
Seren is right---they have never, ever handled these disputes with any degree of competence.

Their natural tendency in the past has been to hush everything up and try to ignore the problem away.....

Since Godwin is history, they are probably still trying to find a permanent replacement, and so
Beaudette is taking on this "dirty work" until they get someone who can mollify the angry law firm.

Remember the http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=25249?
Remember Ron Livingston?
Remember the time Moeller was http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-April/044084.html?
Jack Thompson, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2006-03-13/Office_actions?
Or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2006-07-24/Skutt_suit?

(I could do this all night.) All hushed up, all "eventually" "disappeared". Far as we know.

Posted by: thekohser

Interesting how the Wikimedia Foundation adopts a CYOA (Cover Your Own Ass) policy toward anyone willing to throw what appears to be a serious legal challenge their way, no matter how flimsy said challenge actually is.

If this escalates, I would predict that Jimbo will arrive on the scene soon, counseling "everyone" to just "relax" and "remember" that this matter doesn't need to be ironed out "today, or this week, or even this month". That's his technique for shutting down an article long enough that you Wikipediots will move on to another scandal-du-jour... and hopefully one that doesn't have an outside legal threat looming over the 149 New Montgomery Street money trove.

I encourage, for maximum drama, that you fighters for the truth (the actual truth, not the wikified truth) keep badgering at this article until it reads at least 2x more emphatically in favor of Packard and in deprecation of Montgomery. Let me know if you need an Examiner.com news article to help with your sourcing. I could reach out to Packard for some juicy quotes. Examiner news articles are de facto "reliable sources", based on the http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:LinkSearch&limit=2000&offset=0&target=http%3A%2F%2F*.examiner.com from Wikipedia main space articles.

Posted by: thekohser

Note, also... Beaudette does seem to be http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Texas_Instruments_signing_key_controversy&diff=406244090&oldid=401331913, at least on these "WP:OFFICE" content matters.

Posted by: thekohser

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_talk:Crosstar.png that took 23 months of patiently waiting for the Wikimedia Foundation to get its act together.

Posted by: tarantino

Beaudette has begun a collection of DMCA takedown requests. There is only three in it so far.

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Category:DMCA

Posted by: milowent

lol. i have emailed packard, doubt he'll respond, you can find him at http://www.edwardpackard.com/

i had assumed examiner.com was blacklisted, i guess its not. for a short period of time it used to come up high in google news results, I believe, then i realized it was just a blogging platform parading around like an independent alt. weekly website.

getting some quotes about montgomery "choosing" his 25 years-younger 2nd wife would be amusing though.

Posted by: thekohser

Yes, because (as we've seen) the mainstream media online is so much more investigative and hard-hitting than your average blogger. The mainstream online media would never just regurgitate the PR pablum handed it by various organizations who want to appear newsworthy.

Posted by: EricBarbour

Apparently, 60 Minutes now http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504803_162-20029950-10391709.html?tag=contentMain;contentBody Julian Assange to be a journalist.

Posted by: Kelly Martin

WP:OFFICE is used whenever the Foundation is threatened with legal process and wants to draw as much attention as possible to it without actually saying "We've been threatened with a lawsuit". If they don't want to draw attention to it, they have other ways to deal with it; WP:OFFICE is specifically a red flag being waved over the town square at high noon.

At least it was; Baudette may well be too stupid to have figured this out yet (he is, as we have noted before, quite the silly little chicken). Certainly most of the stuff I did when I was working with Brad was subject to the same degree of protection as an "office action" would have been, but very little of it was labeled as "WP:OFFICE".

Posted by: Doc glasgow

Yes, the normal way in the past was a confidential e-mail from Brad/Danny/Jimbo etc to the OTRS mailing list. Then someone simply dealt with it quietly, muttering something about OTRS if absolutely necessary. Any regular editor stumbling in after that got a flattering e-mail inviting them to join the conspiracy of silence, and was expected to be suitably sycophantic and complicit (unless, of course, it was Erik grandstanding).

Posted by: Cla68

I looked in Infotrac, found a few sources, and was going to go edit the article because I don't like officious bullying. I discovered, however, that WP:OFFICE evidently means the article is locked-down indefinitely. The article's editors probably already know of this source:

- Bosman, Julie. "Children's Series Updated." New York Times 26 July 2010: B4(L)

It's a good source because it briefly explains that Packard was one of the original book authors, but Montgomery now owns the trademark.


- "'Choose Your Own Adventure' Gets An iMakeover." Talk of the Nation 16 Aug. 2010

This is an interview with Packard. There are more, but I don't have time to list them all right now.

There appear to be plenty of sources to add text to the article to show the real story of what happened with ownership of those books' trademark. The fact that the Foundation simply deleted all the content and locked the article down makes them look like utter buffoons.

Posted by: Silver seren

I left a message on Kaldari's talk page two days ago, directing him to the CYOA talk page section I made. But I guess he hasn't been around since then, since he's made no edits in the interim. I guess i'll wait until he does start editing again and, if he ignores my message, i'll keep bugging him. OFFICE actions are the one thing that I will tenaciously stick to trying to fix until the Foundation realizes its being idiotic.

Posted by: Silver seren

For some reason, I feel as if I don't trust FloNight's response. Hmm...I wonder why...

Posted by: thekohser

I often wonder why some people leave comments like this on public message boards, expecting/assuming that everyone else will know exactly what they're talking about and where to go to learn more.

Posted by: Silver seren

The talk page, where this has been going on the entire time. I didn't think it was that much of a mental leap after the previous comment I had made about leaving a section on the talk page.

Talk:Choose Your Own Adventure (T-H-L-K-D).

Posted by: Gruntled

You know what your problem is, Mr Seren? You go around assuming everyone is as clever as you are. Whereas of course nobody else is.

Incidentally, today's the anniversary of my joining, so http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/20090911_GDJ2009_Lisarlena06.jpg and http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/Beauty_pageant_7March2009.jpg for Horsey.

Posted by: thekohser

Dang, I missed my anniversary yesterday!

Posted by: thekohser

I find http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Choose_Your_Own_Adventure&diff=411602945&oldid=411596752 from FloNight absolutely amusing:

In other words, the Foundation and FloNight have a particular POV that they want to express, but now they just need to hunt and dig for sources that will portray that predetermined perspective.

It is too amusing.

Is lady FloNight's technique the sort of work the Foundation is hoping to garner from the forthcoming flood of female manipulators?

Posted by: Milton Roe

Well, Steve Croft says that in passing, but he then immediately says that Assange is primarily a publisher. I don't really know what Croft means in using the word "journalist" for Assange. Assange has edited some of what he's published-- that does make him a journalist? Or just an editor? What defines a "journalist" anyway? It's very MUCH the essential difference in WP:NOR, and Assange clearly is on the non-original-research part of that divide. If he wasn't, he'd be more vulnerable to accusatations of espionage.

Posted by: thekohser

Mods, could you split Milton's important, but no less derailing content to another thread about the Baghdad incident? It really has very, very, very little to do with "Choose Your Own Adventures", and such drastic and obvious derailments should be rebuked.

I mean, how hard is it to "Reply", then copy the code and text that comes up in the window, then go open another thread in the Politics forum, saying that something said in another thread inspired you to discuss another topic?

Come on, Milton. Good stuff, but try to organize it, please?

Posted by: Silver seren

I never actually saw the Collateral Murder video before. Geez, that's horrifying.

Posted by: Milton Roe

The thread was actually derailed by YOUR comments about the RS value of the Examiner (and this is relevent to the top post, how?), followed by Eric's comment on Assange. I just helped it go further once the train was off the track already.

Anyway, in interest of nonduplication and so on, I have deleted all the Baghdad stuff in THIS thread. My decision to repost it to start another thread was made somewhat after the fact anyway, and that's why I didn't do it at the time in THIS thread.

Posted by: EricBarbour

Damn, that talkpage is starting to look like stream-of-consciousness babbling -- by arrogant nerds.

He doesn't care about the "legal stuff". Ha ha. Twit.

Posted by: thekohser

Milton, don't be a nitwit when you're wrong. My comment about Examiner was specifically to offer TO WRITE AN ARTICLE THERE ABOUT THE CYOA INCIDENT ON WIKIPEDIA. It is entirely relevant to the top post, thus influencing the course of the Wikipedia article about Choose Your Own Adventure.

You've been watching too much Bill O'Reilly.

Posted by: Silver seren

Okay, i'm getting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Choose_Your_Own_Adventure#Still_no_explanation_given_-_Extreme_bias_still_in_article now. I am not going to give this up.

Posted by: thekohser

Keep at it, tiger. I'm rooting for you on this one. Let truth and justice prevail!

Posted by: Silver seren

It just really pisses me off because it is so transparent that they are trying to ignore those of us voicing objections so that we'll end up forgetting about it.

What I don't understand is that, from some things that FloNight has stated, there appears to have been a DMCA request sent to Wikipedia?

If so, I am utterly perplexed on how it could have been worded because, as far as I know, the article did not contain any secret information and it wasn't really biased at all based on its content.

Can you really have a legitimate DMCA request based on just the existence of information about you?

And the article is currently way more biased than it was before, with that reference and EL.

Posted by: Kelly Martin

There probably was. This sort of thing is exactly the sort of nonsense about which people try to use the DMCA abusively, and this guy seems like about the right sort to do it. In my opinion the WMF should simply deny and publish the DMCA complaint (that being the proper response to people who try to abuse process), but the WMF is too cowardly to do this. Instead, they pretend to the DMCA complainant that they're complying, and at the same time agitate the community (that is, you) to be uncooperative, so that the complainant will end up unsatisfied but the WMF appears blameless (and thus is unlikely to be sued). Basically a form of institutional passive-aggressiveness, one of Jimbo's many traits that shines through quite clearly into the monster he created.

As to why they don't simply state that a DMCA request was made, well, you know how information is power, right? Those in the know (e.g. FloNight and the other High Friends of Jimmy) aren't going to just tell anyone, because if they did the value of that information would go down just like that. No, they only tell people who have a "need to know" (which is to say, people who can be trusted not to devalue information by spreading it about nilly-willy); by so doing they score favor points with whomever they do tell, and perpetuate their own little power-boners. Wikipedia's internal politics are mired in secret-keeping, strategic promise-breaking, and backstabbings, all driven by this pathetic information economy.

Posted by: Tarc

I see what you did there.

Posted by: Silver seren

Yes, nice pun, Kohser. Though i'm not a tiger, but whatever.

Hopefully we'll be making some progress at reconstructing this article.

At least FloNight explained what's going on. Finally. Though, again, it's kinda in a roundabout, confusing way, but whatever.