[WikiEN-l] And yet more fallout

Mon Dec 19 01:45:58 UTC 2005

On 18 Dec 2005 at 20:12, Michelle <jareth at crimsonblade.net> wrote:

> We're getting more and more of these emails every day to the helpdesk
> -- everyone and their brother is screaming libel and demanding we
> delete everything remotely related to them, their brother and their
> pet pig once removed.  Fun.  Think it'll die down after a while or are
> we in for constant legal threats from now on?

Some of these threats and demands are totally ridiculous... I looked 
at that actress's article, and its history, and while various "facts" 
(possibly incorrect) have been added and deleted over time, I didn't 
see a single thing that could possibly be considered libelous or 
defamatory.  Getting somebody's birthdate wrong is hardly libel.  
Nevertheless, if any fact is wrong, we should certainly fix it.  But 
demanding that all references to the person be removed is not 
something this lawyer has any business doing.

Here's my list of people, companies, and organizations I know of that 
have raised some sort of complaint or objection regarding the 
articles about themselves, presented with no value judgments as to 
whether the complaints were justified and whether the actions taken 
by these parties in furtherance of the issues and the response by 
Wikipedians were reasonable.  (The "complaint or objection" ranges 
from mild comments on the talk page about how big a pain it is to 
police one's own article, to making threats to sue everybody involved 
and/or get them arrested as terrorists; from trying to constructively 
edit one's own article to a more desirable state, to vandalizing and 
blanking it; from talking in forums about Wikipedia problems, to 
putting up an Wikipedia-critical website, to raising a ruckus in the 
mainstream media.)

* [[1.800.Vending]]
* [[Chip Berlet]]
* [[Bogdanov affair]]
* [[Jorn Barger]]
* [[Daniel Brandt]]
* [[John Byrne]]
* [[Alan Dershowitz]]
* [[Harlan Ellison]]
* [[Maria Ford]]
* [[Lucianne Goldberg]]
* [[Ashida Kim]]
* Gary LaVerne, re [[Charles Whitman]]
* [[John Lott]]
* [[Jeffrey Vernon Merkey]]
* [[Harry Palmer (Avatar)]]
* [[alt.romath]]
* [[Jack Sarfatti]]
* [[Barbara Schwarz]]
* [[John Seigenthaler Sr.]]
* [[Israel Shamir]]
* [[Sollog]]

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