My email to SlimVirgin, my guess is that nothing will happen Options

[Daniel Brandt]

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

[Somey]

Nobs, I'm sure your heart's in the right place, but I'm not sure this necessarily helps. As I understand it, it isn't so much that Brandt considers portions of the article defamatory - though I suppose he does, generally speaking - it's more that he objects to the inclusion of that page on the website as a matter of principle, given the attendant usurpation of control over his personal reputation and image by anonymous, non-accountable wikithugs.

Moreover, it's wrong, if not ridiculous, to suggest that Brandt should have to stipulate "no more legal threats." Even if they do delete the thing, what will they do afterwards? Reinstate the article two days later, and say "nyaah, nyaah, nyaah, you agreed not to sue, so now we can do whatever we want?" The point is that they're behaving maliciously, spitefully, and vengefully, over an issue that they both created and (initially, at least) escalated.

As for Brandt's being banned, they couldn't follow their own self-serving "rules" and lift that ban as long as the hivemind pages remain available on his website. Meanwhile, does he really care about being banned? I doubt it! Other than the fact that it strengthens his case, from a legal perspective.

Once again, this is a problem that Wikipedia could solve easily, cheaply, and quickly, by enacting a simple change in policy. Most judges are fairly sensible, even in Florida, and will see that immediately - and in all likelihood, will instantly dismiss the case in Brandt's favor, based on the sheer simplicity of the solution. US judges don't want to make extra work for themselves any more than anyone else does... given the choice between getting themselves and their courtrooms involved in a long-term legal morass that could take months or even years to iron out, vs. ordering Wikipedia to delete one little article out of 1.6 million on the website, what do you think they're gonna do?

To me, the issue at this point isn't whether or not Brandt can get the article deleted. Once the case reaches the courts, that's a foregone conclusion, IMO... the big question now is how much he can make in terms of monetary damages, should he wish to push it that far.

[the fieryangel]

I think that the main problem with Nobs' solution is that he's thinking through this in terms of Wikipedia....um...."law", even citing ARB-COM (too bad that Philip K. Dick is dead; he woulda loved that one) cases and policy.

The point is: Wikipedia policy is not binding, nor is it law. It's just the same as the TOS on pretty much every website. In other words, it just says "if you do these things, you can keep coming back here and play with the other kids". It is not "law".

The point of taking the case to court is to make Wikipedia accountable under the laws of the State of Florida, which they seem to think don't apply to them because of the GREAT PROJECT that they're undertaking. It seems to me that the solution would involve refusing to discuss anything according to Wikipedia policy and only discuss things in terms of the REAL laws, not something dreamt up on IRC one night.

....and since Madame the Chairperson lives in France, where privacy laws are much more protective of individuals and since she is ultimately responsable under French law for this organisation, and since you can see Mr. Brandt's biography in France from the web, I'm wondering if this might be an interesting avenue for Mr. Brandt to explore....

hmm....seems like other people are thinking along these lines too...

This post has been edited by the fieryangel:

[Nathan]

This reminds me of something a lawyer told me "If the content is available in Canada, you can sue under Canadian law" (that's about my own ..uhm..issues..and if I had the money to do that, it'd be done..)

So if the content is available in France and he had a good enough reason to sue in France, he could do it.
(But I'd tend to lean more toward American law in this case, whereever Wikimedia is really based in)

[guy]

This reminds me of something a lawyer told me "If the content is available in Canada, you can sue under Canadian law" (that's about my own ..uhm..issues..and if I had the money to do that, it'd be done..)

So if the content is available in France and he had a good enough reason to sue in France, he could do it.
(But I'd tend to lean more toward American law in this case, whereever Wikimedia is really based in)

Yes, it's a question of enforceability. Sue me in Canada and win - what can you do? I have no assets there and no plans to visit. Try enforcing a Canadian judgment against me in England.