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Ron Livingston Lawsuit Discussion, the beginning of the end? |
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tarantino |
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the Dude abides
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QUOTE(ColScott @ Sat 5th December 2009, 6:47pm) Let's discuss this lawsuit. Malicious lies intended to damage a reputation? Check. A systematic pattern of abuse- check. We'll see if WP stays clean... but for certain they will have to reveal the editor. And once one loser editor is taken down, legally, how many more will grow up and run?
The Colonel is referring to this TMZ story. Can you get a copy of the filing, Don? It looks like various non logged in editors have been inserting the same thing for over a year, and almost daily since April.
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GlassBeadGame |
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Dharma Bum
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QUOTE(tarantino @ Sat 5th December 2009, 3:05pm) QUOTE(ColScott @ Sat 5th December 2009, 6:47pm) Let's discuss this lawsuit. Malicious lies intended to damage a reputation? Check. A systematic pattern of abuse- check. We'll see if WP stays clean... but for certain they will have to reveal the editor. And once one loser editor is taken down, legally, how many more will grow up and run?
The Colonel is referring to this TMZ story. Can you get a copy of the filing, Don? It looks like various non logged in editors have been inserting the same thing for over a year, and almost daily since April. If the IP is known discovery can be directed toward the ISP (assuming the IP doesn't identify a firm etc.) If knowing the IP is not sufficient it might be possible to get information via discovery from WMF indicating if that IP has been used by any accounts, then work with that to request what other IPs those accounts have used.
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Somey |
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Can't actually moderate (or even post)
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QUOTE(tarantino @ Sat 5th December 2009, 2:05pm) The Colonel is referring to this TMZ story. Can you get a copy of the filing, Don? It looks like various non logged in editors have been inserting the same thing for over a year, and almost daily since April. The first such entry on WP is dated Oct. 10, 2008, and there's a post from a gossip site called wonfifty.com here, dated three weeks earlier (September 21st, 2008). The poster calls himself "Lee Kaay" (probably not his real name) and has a page on Facebook, where one of his friends is someone calling himself " Ram Sweet" (probably not his real name either), who appears in this revision of the article on WP. You'd think that with all the attention focused on BLP issues, they would have full-protected the article waaaaaaaay before today, but someone finally did it earlier today, possibly after seeing this thread. Of course, that person reconsidered and decided semi-protection would just fine, thanks, just a minute later.
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Somey |
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Can't actually moderate (or even post)
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I'm not seeing where Lee Dennison Associates has its own website, but there's a page on ukscreen.com which currently contains the following: QUOTE Working alongside Lee in London are Jacquie, Jamie, Will and Dean, in New York Ram, Charlie and Lucy and in Paris Claudine and Luc. We also employ a team of casting assistants for each office who work on specific projects. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WINTER 2009 UPDATE...PLEASE NOTE Lee is unable to enter into any private and personal correspondance. See casting credits for current work including THE COMPANY OF MEN, NEW YORK I LOVE YOU and DEFYING GRAVITY. Lee is now based with Ron in LA. (Livingston is (or was) one of the stars of Defying Gravity, basically a soap opera/mystery drama set on a spaceship.) So if there really is such a company (?), presumably "in New York Ram" would suggest that maybe "Ram Sweet" actually is a real name, or at least a non-internet pseudonym. If he's one of the people spreading this rumor, or even inserting this info into WP himself, then he's apparently one of Dennison's own colleagues and/or employees, assuming he (or Dennison) even exists at all.
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Daniel Brandt |
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QUOTE(tarantino @ Sat 5th December 2009, 3:25pm) 41 of the troublesome edits claiming Lee Dennison was living with Ron come from 212.22.3.8, an IP owned by the Alcohol Recovery Project AKA Foundation66 in London. All of those edits come between 800 and 1900 UTC. Before they fixated on Ron, the same IP was claiming Lee Dennison was the spouse of Danny Dyer. That's going to be a tough one. Foundation66 has 200 people on staff. They might not even keep logs of computer use.
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GlassBeadGame |
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Dharma Bum
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QUOTE(Daniel Brandt @ Sat 5th December 2009, 5:08pm) QUOTE(tarantino @ Sat 5th December 2009, 3:25pm) 41 of the troublesome edits claiming Lee Dennison was living with Ron come from 212.22.3.8, an IP owned by the Alcohol Recovery Project AKA Foundation66 in London. All of those edits come between 800 and 1900 UTC. Before they fixated on Ron, the same IP was claiming Lee Dennison was the spouse of Danny Dyer. That's going to be a tough one. Foundation66 has 200 people on staff. They might not even keep logs of computer use. Still it is a good start. Remember the wiki software gives exact times of edits which can be compared against schedules to weed out most employees very quickly. Might be a client, I suppose. Confidentiality might make problems then.
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Somey |
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Can't actually moderate (or even post)
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Let's dig a little deeper: If we look at the AfD for the BLP on Lee Dennison, we can see that several WP'ers actually did suggest at the time that "Lee Dennison" is a complete hoax. On that page, the author of that article, the appropriately named Leedennison (T-C-L-K-R-D)
, had this to say: QUOTE Vanity? Hoax? It would suggest a little reasearch is done befoire casting doubts. The etiquette still states do not "bite" and "assume good faith" which the majority of you have not. Some of you who have commented have displayed a touch of vanity on your own pages and some are rather self indulgent to say the least. He has a point, but it's pretty clear that "Lee Dennison" is either not a real person at all, or a self-promoting hoaxster/spammer at best. Moreover, the contents of the AfD will probably come in handy for Livingston's legal team in establishing that WP did virtually nothing resembling "due diligence" in allowing the offending piece of info to be repeatedly added to Livingston's BLP article, not even going so far as to search their own archives. They'll probably want the contents of the deleted article on "Dennison" himself too, I would imagine... (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/ermm.gif)
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Daniel Brandt |
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QUOTE(GlassBeadGame @ Sat 5th December 2009, 4:15pm) Still it is a good start. Remember the wiki software gives exact times of edits which can be compared against schedules to weed out most employees very quickly. Might be a client, I suppose. Confidentiality might make problems then.
Foundation66 has had that IP for a while now; at least three different domains that they own have pointed to it: 8.3.22.212.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer mailserver.foundation66.org.uk. 8.3.22.212.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer mailserver.rharp.org.uk. 8.3.22.212.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer dickens.arp-uk.org. I don't think confidentiality plays much of a role here, because it's most likely an employee. Most companies have policies about improper use of computers by employees. The company might feel that revealing the name of the perp (if they know who it is) will get the company off the hook. Otherwise the question becomes, "Is the company liable for employees who use company resources in a manner that is actionable, and also against company policy?" If the company was in the U.S., and especially if it was in Florida, the plaintiff could get a judge to order the company to check it's computers for evidence. That happened in the Fuzzy Zoeller case. But this cross-jurisdictional stuff is so messy.
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Daniel Brandt |
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QUOTE(Somey @ Sat 5th December 2009, 4:16pm) He has a point, but it's pretty clear that "Lee Dennison" is either not a real person at all, or a self-promoting hoaxster/spammer at best. Moreover, the contents of the AfD will probably come in handy for Livingston's legal team in establishing that WP did virtually nothing resembling "due diligence" in allowing the offending piece of info to be repeatedly added to Livingston's BLP article, not even going so far as to search their own archives. They'll probably want the contents of the deleted article on "Dennison" himself too, I would imagine... (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/ermm.gif) Lee Dennison Associates, casting director, producer in London LATER: Oops, sorry, Somey already found this.
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victim of censorship |
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Not all thugs are Wikipediots, but all Wikipediots are thugs.
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victim of censorship |
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Not all thugs are Wikipediots, but all Wikipediots are thugs.
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QUOTE(Daniel Brandt @ Sat 5th December 2009, 11:26pm) A good-faith effort by the Foundation is better late than never, perhaps... (IMG: smilys0b23ax56/default/laugh.gif) This is what wikipeida is all about... NLT.. or wiki telling the world to "F" off..I wonder if Ron tried to find resolution to this, only to have the wikileet jack him around for months/years on end? I would love to see the court filings.
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One |
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Postmaster General
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QUOTE(Sarcasticidealist @ Sun 6th December 2009, 12:16am) QUOTE(GlassBeadGame @ Sat 5th December 2009, 8:14pm) Still ,more likely they will stick with user defendant(s). At risk of disgracing law students everywhere...the article says that the lawsuit's been filed. How is that possible if he's sticking with user defendant(s) and doesn't know who those are? (In my defense, I don't take civil procedure until next semester.) John Doe defendants. I guess law students in Canada aren't familiar with autoadmit.com aka xoxohth, and the suits resulting from that "law school discussion" forum? That might be to your credit, or perhaps it's a generational thing. Good for you. Degenerate forum. This post has been edited by One:
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Sarcasticidealist |
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Head exploded.
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QUOTE(One @ Sat 5th December 2009, 8:17pm) I guess law students in Canada aren't familiar with xoxohth? That might be to your credit, or perhaps it's a generational thing. Good for you. Degenerate forum. I can't imagine it's worse than lawstudents.ca, which consists mostly of people bragging about their LSAT scores while denigrating everybody else's approach to everything. I haven't been there in a while, so I'm not sure if they've finally added a forum where people can post pictures of their penises next to rulers, but that would really save a lot of words. Anyway, I'll stop now, lest I be the cause of two thread splits in one week. Moderator's note: TOO LATE! Posts involving the Section 230 ramifications of the Livingston lawsuit were split to this thread, for the sake of clarity. Also, because we like pie.
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Somey |
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Can't actually moderate (or even post)
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Moderator's note: This was posted prior to the thread split.I fear that Mr. Victim's enthusiasm for the idea of a major celebrity lawsuit against Wikipedia/WMF has shifted the focus of this thread away from where it should be. The fact is, if this story breaks out into the mainstream media, it could be at least as big and embarrassing as the Siegenthaler incident, and will essentially bear out the futility of WP users in their (somewhat) tireless efforts to enforce BLP policy, which will effectively be proven to be simply not good enough.I understand that not all of us here wish to see WP embarrassed in this regard, but it seems fairly clear that what happened here was a lack of central oversight, a complete failure to flag an ongoing problem for what it actually was, and an almost ludicrous failure, if not refusal, to fully (or even "semi-") protect an article that obviously needed it, for a ridiculously long period of time. I fully expect to see WP'ers (on WP itself) try to hush the whole thing up, minimize it, and/or blame the victim, but like I said before, I don't think we've seen a better example of how the WP system fails due to lack of preventative controls in a long while. And it's almost Christmas, too!
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taiwopanfob |
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QUOTE(Random832 @ Sat 5th December 2009, 8:35pm) If whoever is inserting it isn't logged in, then WP doesn't really have anything to reveal - the IP address is out in the open already, so they'll have to go after the ISPs (unfortunately probably open proxies).
Well, no. If I was the lawyer, my demand to the WMF would include the IP numbers making the edits, as well as any links they have to established users or any other identifying data WMF has, plus some kind of certification that the data is accurate and complete (that is, includes any and all edits, including those not currently visible), and all this under penalty of perjury, blah blah. The next letter would be about removing all the libel completely from view. I'd simply demand the actual edits be physically removed from the databases -- not just a "delete" flag being set, but gone as in gone for good. QUOTE It's semi-protected now, anyway. Yeah! So I can bury a bunch of anti-personnel mines in your front yard, and when you complain, I'll just put a sign up that says "warning! mine field!". Problem solved! (Not.)
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Wiki Witch of the West |
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QUOTE(Sarcasticidealist @ Sun 6th December 2009, 6:48am) QUOTE(Somey @ Sun 6th December 2009, 12:49am) I understand that not all of us here wish to see WP embarrassed in this regard... Who do you suppose doesn't? I'm clearly pro-Wikipedia, and I don't want to see section 230 immunity pierced in a way that would jeopardize the WMF's viability, but I would love to see the Foundation get embarrassed enough (during fundraising season, no less!) that it takes action on the BLP front of the kind that The Community is too ponderous and unwieldy to take. I suspect that most of the pro-Wikipedians here agree with me on that, though I stand open to correction. Let's hope this opens the community's eyes to the fact that not all BLP vandalism is drive-by. The community has been resistant to implementing safeguards against the long term stuff--sometimes angrily so. Maybe this would bring new life to dead trees. A generous opt-out really would be a step in the right direction.
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