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.

In regards to suing individual editors, is it any coincidence that Checkuser expires in 30 days?

Gee, I wonder how long a supoena would take to clear?

And actually, "outing" the proper street address of the WMF office would be a valuable service in case someone wanted to file suit. There is no right to privacy of physical locations in business, nor the expectation of the same.

This should be a new top priority project.

This post has been edited by Rootology: Sun 16th December 2007, 11:17pm

In regards to suing individual editors, is it any coincidence that Checkuser expires in 30 days?

Gee, I wonder how long a supoena would take to clear?

And actually, "outing" the proper street address of the WMF office would be a valuable service in case someone wanted to file suit. There is no right to privacy of physical locations in business, nor the expectation of the same.

This should be a new top priority project.

Willful destruction of evidence is a crime and Jimbo and company could be charged with
contempt if unable to produce evidence required in a lawful motion of discovery.

In regards to suing individual editors, is it any coincidence that Checkuser expires in 30 days?

Gee, I wonder how long a supoena would take to clear?

And actually, "outing" the proper street address of the WMF office would be a valuable service in case someone wanted to file suit. There is no right to privacy of physical locations in business, nor the expectation of the same.

This should be a new top priority project.

Willful destruction of evidence is a crime and Jimbo and company could be charged with
contempt if unable to produce evidence required in a lawful motion of discovery.

Exactly one of the reasons (hypothetically!) that public revelation of the street address is important.

Note we've already found the Wikia address here:

http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showt...aded&show=&st=&

In regards to suing individual editors, is it any coincidence that Checkuser expires in 30 days?
82&mode=threaded&show=&st=&]http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showt...aded&show=&st=&[/url]

If checkuser expires, then they re in contravention of French law that requires them (as a so-called ISP) to keep one year's worth of records to qualify to meet French Law on Everyday Security (LSQ) which was rushed through parliament on 15 November 2001 with virtually no discussion and approved almost unanimously, extended to a year the minimum period ISPs must keep a record of their customers’ Internet activity and e-mail messages.

Nevertheless, this cannot be anymore considered as good news since we don’t know what are exactly how the “traffic data”, the “identification data”, and the “communication data” are defined. These data should not reveal the content of communication, be it e-mail content or the content of the visited web site. The penalty for ISPs who don’t comply whit these provisions are high : one year jail and 75,000 Euros fine.(link discussing "loi sur la sécurité quotidienne" (LSQ,) 2001)

In regards to suing individual editors, is it any coincidence that Checkuser expires in 30 days?
82&mode=threaded&show=&st=&]http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showt...aded&show=&st=&[/url]

If checkuser expires, then they re in contravention of French law that requires them (as a so-called ISP) to keep one year's worth of records to qualify to meet French Law on Everyday Security (LSQ) which was rushed through parliament on 15 November 2001 with virtually no discussion and approved almost unanimously, extended to a year the minimum period ISPs must keep a record of their customers’ Internet activity and e-mail messages.

Nevertheless, this cannot be anymore considered as good news since we don’t know what are exactly how the “traffic data”, the “identification data”, and the “communication data” are defined. These data should not reveal the content of communication, be it e-mail content or the content of the visited web site. The penalty for ISPs who don’t comply whit these provisions are high : one year jail and 75,000 Euros fine.(link discussing "loi sur la sécurité quotidienne" (LSQ,) 2001)

Checkuser most certainly does expire after either 30 or 31 days, and always has. It's the worst-kept secret out there. Does this French law apply to the WMF?

Checkuser most certainly does expire after either 30 or 31 days, and always has. It's the worst-kept secret out there. Does this French law apply to the WMF?

Guh - uh - yeah. That was only half my post.

YES.

Can you provide evidence - tangible evidence - that it only lasts 30 days?
Please do.

French law applies to Wikipedia and Wikimedia in the US. The fact that they have servers in France makes it easier to enforce, but French law would apply in any event. [/b] I've told you guys a billion times this, but you haven't paid much mind....

In the recent French case, where Wikipedia won, they won mostly because the plantiffs screwed up and only communicated by email, and didn't allow time for response. But nonetheless.
Wikimedia claimed in this case that they could provide this per statutes of the law (which requires one year of data retention - which is not true.).

How do we know it is not true? Anyone know specifically with a link?

Here is the court decision they won with, Ordonnance de référé du Tribunal de grande instance de Paris, 29 octobre 2007

Page 6, para 1: mentions this law (law of June 21 2004, article 6.1.8), where the judicial decision asserts that Wikimedia can produce the IP addresses of anyone that edits Wikipedia for one year after they do. Wikipedia reassured the court of this, and it is in the judgement. I don't think this is correct. Again - can someone tell me if Wikimedia keeps checkuser accessability for all logins (not just IPs) for one year? If not, they fibbed. This is important - or will be.


Page four, para 1, tells how they lost the case, because the aggrieved parties sent an email to the Foundation, not a registered letter, which is the legally recognized means of communication in France - they don't accept faxes either for legal documents. There is mention of how difficult it is to reach the staff members, when the President doesn't work in the office, and the legal counsel doesn't work in the Foundation office either - but they didnt' seem to do more than mention it - the main point was that the guys who held the case made an error, and therefore lost the case.

This post has been edited by Disillusioned Lackey: Mon 17th December 2007, 12:55am