All this talk about responsibility responsibility and Wikipedia has confused me. The situation seems like a house of mirrors with all these people making conflicting claims about the chain of responsibility or lack there of.

Maybe we need to look for legal precedents in similar mediums?

The most similar medium of a mass participation system is usenet. There is the significant difference that there is no central foundation behind usenet, but in terms of individual responsibility and the problem of anonymity and slander, I think there are similarities.

Have there been any legal precedents with regards to postings, slander or anonymity with regards to usenet? If so, do these precedents have any bearing on the current Wikipedia situation? How costly or complex where these usenet-related legal cases?

Barret vs. Clark

The only other ones I can think of are the Scientology suits against various people, but those were for copyright infringement.

Also Grace v.eBay Inc., 16 Cal. Rptr. 3d 192 (Ct. App. 2004)

both cases are discussed in the Law Review Article: Wikimmunity: Fitting the Communications Decency Act to Wikipedia, Ken S. Myers, Harvard Journal of Law & Technology,Volume 20, Number 1 Fall 2006 which is available at Daniel's site

i will read the cases above later

not sure if this is on topic, but here is a link i posted in another thread where someone exams the issue http://www.ssrn.com/update/lsn/cyberspace/...ons/libe07.html this has to do with libeling a pseudonym

Civil Procedure Exam Question

Educational Use Only -- Not Legal Advice

It is often a hardship for a Plaintiffs to get an attorney and drag their butts down to Florida, to sue WP. My understanding is that subject matter jurisdiction is no problem (diversity and $50,000 or go to state court) and personal jurisdiction based on "minimum contacts" is probably everywhere for the 10th most popular web site in the world. The problem is one of venue. Jurisdiction where all plaintiff reside is no longer available for venue. Place where substantial events occur is hard to say in virtual land. This means Defendant's residence is the usual choice. But what if Admins where also named as Defendant's? They might not be subject to constitutionally required personal jurisdiction in Fla. (no minimum contacts). Their place of residence would be the best choice for venue. Does this mean that a Plaintiff could find a convenient forum by carefully choosing the right Admin co-defendants?

With respect to both you and Larry Lessig, this is Larry jawboning about new law in cyberspace. There is no precedent about defaming an anonymous character, much less in the way he uses as an example. So really what this post says is "maybe, someday, in the brave new world of cyberlaw that I am creating, my 'nym can sue you for defamation". We'll see about that.

But let's be clear: you can absolutely commit defamation as a pseudonym (or anonymously). If you can be tracked down, you can be sued. There are numerous situations (mostly in European jurisdictions) were this has happened.

Now suppose you have been defamed, or that your privacy has been invaded. You need to ask a an admin to take certain actions. Block editors, protect the article, etc. Why just ask any admin? Why not select an admin from your desired forum? When traveling on vacations I hate to have work done on my car. If there is problem with the work its such a pain to get taken care of from a distance. Sometimes it is better to shop locally.

There are many books that have been written pseudo-anonymously. Have any of these unidentified authors been libeled yet? I can't find any discussion on this matter: everything is about how, when writing under a pen-name, you shouldn't libel people. (Duh!)

Look at this tripod site from a Marquette assist law prof:

cases

It hasn't been updated since the guy got a real domain in 2005. The new site looks nice but the information there does not seem to be as good.

to be clear, i personally don't think it is possible to libel an internet handle...which is really what we are talking about here. a pseudonym used for a professional service or holds some kind of weight i could understand a libel case. libeling an "internet handle" does not make sense to me.