[Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedia Class Action

Tue Dec 13 14:08:37 UTC 2005

Phil Boswell wrote:

> According to the footer on that page:
> "Wikipedia image, in its distorted format © Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is 
> used pursuant the fair use doctrine"
> 
> IANAL but that sounds pretty demented to me :-)

I think it's already becoming clear to interested Wikipedians that much 
of this Class Action palaver is demented.

The Village Pump and various talk pages are painting the picture of a 
disgruntled man behind all this who seems to be involved in some dodgy 
"charity" dealings...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:QuakeAID#Whois_WikipediaClassAction.org

...and has been thoroughly called on it at Wikipedia. Though I suppose I 
ought to allow that it's possible he has been the victim of wrongful 
accusations.

What I can directly report is that I wrote to the email address on the 
Class Action web page posing as someone interested in his group (since I 
assumed there was a number of people behind it).

I simply claimed to be someone who was "concerned about accuracy within 
Wikipedia", I ain't lying, as a long term editor, I am ;o) But I hoped 
he would think I was a WP naysayer as opposed to a long time 
contributor. I asked whether any lawyers were involved and who was 
behind the group and how they planned to proceed.

Anyhow, in spite of the fact that the Class Action website says "email 
for more information", the reply I got was "who are you? Why should we 
share any information with you?"

I replied, restating that I was "concerned about accuracy in Wikipedia" 
and "hoped that we shared common ground". He went on the most peculiar 
rant saying "why should I join Wikipedia? Why should I edit it? If my 
business and my family have been lied about, why should I become 
involved? Why should I register?" I had not suggested he do any of those 
things, nor even - not even in passing - suggested he could edit pages 
he felt were wrong. I only asked for some basic information about his 
"Action". I began to suspect he may have received lots of email that day 
with those kinds of suggestions though, and was now at the end of an 
angry tether.

He also said "you don't understand the issues involved so perhaps you 
should just sit this one out?" Which seemed an odd response to someone 
who had merely asked for information about his cause.

 From this I can draw the following conclusion: this person does not 
work well with others and will have one hell of a hard time actually 
pulling together any kind of a group with which to achieve any anti-WP aims.

Of course, there is one other explanation for his hostility, and that's 
that he knows I'm a long term WP contributor. My username is the same as 
at the beginning of my email address here. It wouldn't be a great leap 
to find me. However, he gave no indication that I had indeed been rumbled.

Perhaps someone would like to make a similar approach (expressing polite 
interest and gently enquiring about his cause) with a better hidden 
identity and see what sort of response they get?

User:Bodnotbod from en.