Slimvirgin gets slashdotted, No place to hide... Options

[JohnA]

Link to slashdot[

"International Humanitarian Law professor Ludwig Braeckeleer thinks so. In an article published yesterday in the Korean newspaper OhMyNews, he reveals a discovery he made while researching a story on the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland. It turns out that a Wikipedia administrator named SlimVirgin is actually Linda Mack, a woman who as a young graduate in the 1980s was hired by investigative reporter Pierre Salinger of ABC News to help with the investigation. Salinger later came to believe that Mack was actually working for Britain's MI5 on a mission to investigate the bombing and to infiltrate and monitor the news agency. Shortly after her Wikipedia identity was uncovered, many of her edits to articles related to the bombing were permanently removed from the database in an attempt to conceal her identity. This discovery comes only months after another Wikipedia admin was caught lying about his credentials to the press. What can Wikipedia do about those who would use it for their own purposes?"

Bring popcorn. This one could get interesting.

[Somey]

I think it was perfectly proper of for Ludwig Braeckeleer to do this. He has his insert inside of brackets, which every literate person understands is separate from the quotation. What the hell was he supposed to do?

Fair question... I guess I don't assume that everyone browsing the web is "literate," though that's probably the elitist in me. Still, this is how it reads here on WR:

Salinger came to believe that (first name redacted) was working for (name of intelligence agency redacted) and had been from the beginning; assigned genuinely to investigate Pan Am 103, but also to infiltrate and monitor us.

And this is how it reads on OhMyNews:

Salinger came to believe that [first name redacted but known to be Linda] was working for [name of intelligence agency redacted but known to be Britain's MI5] and had been from the beginning; assigned genuinely to investigate Pan Am 103, but also to infiltrate and monitor us.

I guess what I'm saying is that the post here, in spite of the redactions, still manages to make its point about Salinger's suspicions without specifically mentioning Slimmy's name or the name of the intelligence agency. The OhMyNews version could have referred to the names outside of the quoted material, like in the next (non-quoted) paragraph, but De Braeckeleer didn't do that - he put them inline, so that people coming here to check out the story would see something different, and wonder why it's different. Of course, your own idea of linking the words "name redacted" to an explanatory page somewhere is probably what I should have done in the first place, except that I was just lazy, busy, and/or couldn't be bothered.

If you are pissed at Ludwig for doing this, then Cooley has the right to be pissed at you for editing his quote. (That's just an abstract comment...

Of course he does. And if he sent us a note saying "put the name back in," I'd probably do it, or somebody would...

All we end up accomplishing by doing this is to risk making ourselves irrelevant in the real world.

And don't worry, I'm definitely starting to agree with you on that one!

I meant Wikipedia hiding several months of contributions just to hide stuff from SlimVirgin (of course obviously it's Jayjg who oversighted it, but Wikipedia still has to bear the responsibility, too, and not just Jayjg). Not something here.

Ahh, sorry, I misunderstood. Actually, that would technically be a GFDL violation, except that the violation is mostly against User:SlimV, who presumably isn't going to object to it. One might also say that by oversighting all those edits on Pan Am Flight 103, they violated the IP rights of User:81.152.209.34 by effectively assigning all of SlimV's edits to him/her - but I suspect that this was deliberate, since an AnonIP isn't going to come back two years later and press a claim to that effect.

[LamontStormstar]

I meant Wikipedia hiding several months of contributions just to hide stuff from SlimVirgin (of course obviously it's Jayjg who oversighted it, but Wikipedia still has to bear the responsibility, too, and not just Jayjg). Not something here.

Ahh, sorry, I misunderstood. Actually, that would technically be a GFDL violation, except that the violation is mostly against User:SlimV, who presumably isn't going to object to it. One might also say that by oversighting all those edits on Pan Am Flight 103, they violated the IP rights of User:81.152.209.34 by effectively assigning all of SlimV's edits to him/her - but I suspect that this was deliberate, since an AnonIP isn't going to come back two years later and press a claim to that effect.

I'm not sure suing over a GDFL violation is possible unless someone tries to claim GDFL as their own copyrighted work and make money off it. GDFL violations, though, I think would invalidate the GDFL claim so GDFL wouldn't count and people then could copy GDFL content without attributing it.