Wikipedia Sued?
December 12th, 2005 by Christopher HarrisA fascinating item showed up on the front page of Digg this morning: Wikipedia Class Action Lawsuit.
On the surface, the website http://www.wikipediaclassaction.org appears to be a well-intentioned response to “growing problem with Wikipedia’s methods” (i.e. Seigenthaler) whereby the authors of the lawsuit intend to “Recover substantial monetary damages, on behalf of those who have suffered as a direct result of Wikimedia’s flaw business model.” Okay…but the Infomancer in me wonders why they are starting early with a GoogleAds sidebar?
So being an Infomancer, I couldn’t help but dig a little bit deeper. Let’s run a quick WhoIs on the site. The address and phone numbers match the site, but not much more information is provided. Okay, now we Google the address. Hmm. Busy little PO box: JustVolunteers, CrewElite, OfficialWire, QuakeAID, Greg Lloyd Smith, and…Greece? Why is a Greek realty company using the same PO box as this lawsuit? And why do all of these lead back to a baou.com?
QuakeAID caught my attention. Why would a charity also be connected with a class-action lawsuit? So I did a bit of looking at the site, which did little to alleviate my concerns. A short Google later, brought me to a very interesting Wikipedia article on QuakeAid. Amazing how things come full circle in the digital world, isn’t it? The “company” suing Wikipedia just happens to have a less than positive Wikipedia article about it. Only since this is the Web 2.0 world, the Wikipedia article already has an update from today about the lawsuit.
“UPDATE: DECEMBER 12, 2005 Posing as a separate entity, the owners of QuakeAID are attempting to set up a class action lawsuit against wikipedia at www.wikipediaclassaction.org. Both QuakeAID and the class action lawsuit website display the same PO Box and 1-800 phone number in their contact information, as well as the contact information of their subsidiary, Just Volunteers. Some speculate that this could be an attempt to attack Wikipedia because of the QuakeAID encyclopedia entry. (Wikipedia).”
The discussion page for the article goes in to additional details about the person(s) behind the whole incident.
Does Wikipedia have some issues they need to deal with? Yes. But a lot of it comes down to educating people about Web 2.0 and the information communities being built. Brian Chase, the person who wrote the now infamous Seigenthaler article, did so as a joke because he didn’t understand Web 2.0.
“It wasn’t too long after that I told him that it was a joke, that I found this crazy Web site that anyone can put anything on, and that’s all it was,” Chase said. “I had no idea that anybody ever relied on that for truthful information, considering the way that anybody in the world with a computer can put anything on it at any time” (The Tennessean).
I just hope that the knee-jerk response isn’t to block Wikipedia. If we don’t have the resource to talk about and share, then how can we have a conversation with students about Wikipedia. How can we help them understand that yes, “anybody in the world with a computer can put anything on it at any time” and that this is a GOOD THING.
December 13th, 2005 at 2:06 am
I agree some, and disagree some. More here: http://www.quietvoice.org/index.php/2005/12/12/wikipedia-class-action-suit/
-k-
December 13th, 2005 at 1:07 pm
Thanks for the comments Ken.
December 13th, 2005 at 3:58 pm
This is the United States of America, so nothing gets very big without being sued. It’s a testament to the broad appeal of Wikipedia that the person coming to sue is someone so petty and clueless. At this point it’s all part of the conversation. It’s not like the 90s when there was a serious chance that the US federal government would try to make the net their personal “decent” wading pool and hold us back for a decade. The technology and the culture is in place, so realistically we just can’t lose.
I’ve corresponded a little bit with these class action folks– or rather, this guy (he definitely gives me the vibe of a lone bedroom crusader): http://mungojelly.blogspot.com/2005/12/my-correspondence-with.html
December 14th, 2005 at 1:04 pm
[...]
There has been a lot going on with the whole wikipedia thing. Will and Christopher are just two of many who have a thought on the whole situation. One good thing that has come o [...]
December 20th, 2005 at 9:09 pm
There’s also been a personal attack on Jimmy Wales – which is quite strange. Incidentally, if you search Wikipedia for Jennifer Monroe, you’ll be surprised what you find.
I’ve disabled trackbacks on my site, but I’ll point to this article on the comments I made here.
December 21st, 2005 at 6:49 am
Hi from LATVIA!
December 21st, 2005 at 12:02 pm
Hello Juris. Not sure what the site that I reach from the link in your name says, but the pictures are multilingual. I love the top border!
December 21st, 2005 at 3:23 pm
Christopher,
If you click on the EN link, the site is in english.