Jimbo & Rachel Marsden : Scandalous, can you say WP:COItus? Options

[Castle Rock]

In case you were wondering why Rachel Marsden got such special treatment on Wikipedia the secret is now out in the Valleywag. They also link here too!

Jimmy Wales loves to talk about "transparency" and "a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge." Unless it's about his scandal-prone girlfriend. Wales, who is divorcing his second wife Christine, has been secretly seeing conservative TV commentator Rachel Marsden since last fall, friends say.

And something for JzG: a steamy chat log is included.

These chats turned my "stub" into a full wiki page

[Daniel Brandt]

http://web.archive.org/web/20060526202300/.../Rachel_Marsden

The article is here, but not on Wikipedia? I am confused.

Allow me to explain. The Wikimedia Foundation has employed in the past, and continues to employ to this day, irresponsible and/or incompetent software developers.

1. All it would take is a simple robots.txt line in a single Wikipedia file to remove the Wayback Machine (www.archive.org) from Wikipedia. I have experience with this on my sites. By failing to implement this simple precaution, the Wikimedia Foundation may be liable for the damage caused by its employees.

2. These same software developers do not install a "redirect" when the Wikipedia community decides on a redirect. Instead their software does a 100 percent substitution. This instantly transfers the Google juice from the redirected URL to the targeted URL, because the automated search engines have no way of knowing that it is a redirect. In this case too, the Wikimedia Foundation may be liable for the damage caused by its employees.

There are about nine copies of my old bio in the Wayback Machine also. Perhaps a lawsuit is in order. Just like a hospital is liable for a technician employee who, through lack of training or competence, causes injury or death to a patient, the Foundation itself is liable for the nonfeasance or incompetence of its employees.

[thekohser]

Perhaps a lawsuit is in order. Just like a hospital is liable for a technician employee who, through lack of training or competence, causes injury or death to a patient, the Foundation itself is liable for the nonfeasance or incompetence of its employees.

Please, Daniel -- just sue the Foundation already. If money is the problem, I imagine that Alex Roshuk would help you pro bono, and I would gladly contribute monetarily to your legal fund and promote it far and wide. But, if you're not going to actually sue, then these mentions of lawsuits just diminish your reputation.

[AB]

Perhaps a lawsuit is in order. Just like a hospital is liable for a technician employee who, through lack of training or competence, causes injury or death to a patient, the Foundation itself is liable for the nonfeasance or incompetence of its employees.

Please, Daniel -- just sue the Foundation already. If money is the problem, I imagine that Alex Roshuk would help you pro bono, and I would gladly contribute monetarily to your legal fund and promote it far and wide. But, if you're not going to actually sue, then these mentions of lawsuits just diminish your reputation.

As much as I'd love to see the WMF get successfully sued
already, I don't have the stomach for court battles.

Who put him in charge of their sites?

This isn't about being 'in charge'. It's about wanting
them to stop hurting him and others.

[Daniel Brandt]

As much as I'd love to see the WMF get successfully sued already, I don't have the stomach for court battles.

I agree. Today is the first time that the Wayback Machine entered my radar as a possible way for someone to sue the Wikimedia Foundation without getting hung up on Section 230. Anyone who sues the Foundation and doesn't want to spend five years in federal court, should try to avoid Section 230 arguments until Congress gets its act together. Going after the nonfeasance of Foundation employees is one way. Donating a substantial sum and then suing the Foundation for fraudulent misuse of funds and abuse of its responsibilities as a nonprofit public charity is another.

The reason the Wayback Machine issue is interesting is because there is case law on this issue already. The folks at Archive.org have an opt-out through robots.txt, and they are also responsive if you fax them and request a take-down of something if you own the copyright. It's clear that the Wayback Machine is off the hook because they are responsible. That means the Foundation's failure to utilize its administrative remedies in dealing with BLP articles that have been purged makes them liable. If the Foundation fails to take obvious steps, such as using robots.txt to keep the Wayback Machine's crawlers away from the site, then a BLP victim who can prove damages is in a position to hold the Foundation accountable without getting dragged into federal court by Mike Godwin over Section 230 immunity. That's my impression — I am not a lawyer.

The facts of the case would be important, however. You'd have to be a BLP victim who had their biography purged or deleted, and then was damaged subsequent to that because it was still on the Wayback Machine. If you don't have the right set of facts, and/or cannot show damages, it's not worth pursuing in court.

However, it's still worth needling the Foundation about the issue. There are technical measures it could and should take to decrease the exposure of BLP victims who had their articles purged or deleted, and the Foundation has yet to even consider this issue.