[WikiEN-l] One the Virtues of protecting one's pseudonymity, WAS: More legal threats from Brandt

Tue Apr 25 19:56:14 UTC 2006

On 4/25/06, Rob <gamaliel8 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Just got this charming missive. If we're not going to do anything
> about Brandt, I'll just stop editing the article like he wants because
> I don't need to spend the rest of my life being hounded by a crazy
> man.
>
> Just one more edit from Jokestress on my bio article, or just one more
> edit from you on my bio article <b>OR</b> on any of the two Talk pages
> or my User page, regardless of the nature of the edit -- even if it is
> ostensibly friendly -- and you and Jokestress are both going into a
> Google-Watch sidebar with your real names and pictures. I may throw in
> Sir William Reierson Arbuthnot, 2nd Baronet of Kittybrewster, into the
> mix as well, since he is part of the Google Groups episode as of today
> (which makes it relevant to Google-Watch.org). I don't know about him
> yet because I'm not sure he knew what he was doing. By the way, this
> is not a threat. It's a promise. Also, I'd advise you to put your real
> name on your user page, because all of your harassment (please learn
> to spell this word) from January 5, 2006 until now has been done
> "without disclosing his identity," which makes you potentially liable
> for criminal penalties under that new law that you deleted from my
> user page. It doesn't matter that I've identified you, because you are
> still operating on Wikipedia as someone whose identity is not
> disclosed. Yes, please take this to Brad Patrick, Wikipedia's lawyer,
> in Tampa. My position is that he should be reporting you to the U.S.
> Attorney in Tampa as part of his legal obligation to protect
> Wikipedia. If he doesn't, I can raise the issue with the Florida bar.
> In other words, it would be a conflict of interest for Mr. Patrick to
> give you any advice on this. Jokestress is off the hook in terms of
> the criminal statute because she identifies herself on her user page.
> I'm sending a copy of this to Jokestress by external email. --Daniel
> Brandt [[User:68.93.142.243|68.93.142.243]] 18:35, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Good grief. I'm starting to wonder whether we should have a group of
editors who haven't been foolish enough to break their pseudonymity
assigned to articles like this (the idea being that if they haven't
been foolish enough to give out their names and pictures for people
like Brandt to abuse, they'll be less liable to be threatened by
"exposure"; for instance, if Brandt were to make any threats against
me, they would be completely hollow: no one on the wiki or the web
knows who I am, where I live, or what I look like; the data just isn't
there.)

~maru