WikipediaClassaction.org: The pot calling the kattle…

Monday, December 12th, 2005

Someone is trying to start a class action lawsuit against Wikipedia.org. For those who are unaware of what a class action lawsuit is; it’s a lawsuit filed by one party that represents a group of people or companies. In this case people who feel “they’ve been defamed and or who have been or are the subject of anonymous and malicious postings to the popular online encyclopedia WikiPedia. Somehow, this lawsuit sounds like some vindictive action against WikiPedia by either someone that got his poor little pride hurt or a traditional encyclopedia that’s feeling threatened in his business.

The strange thing is, they’re doing just about the same themselves, in my oppinion. From the wikipediaclassaction.org website:

the Trustees of Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., nor any of the volunteers who are connected with Wikipedia, consider themselves responsible and therefore accountable for the content.

First of all, this is untrue. If I’d post information to Wikipedia, I’d feel responsible for that content just as I do with everything I post to the internet. Second of all, who cares if they don’t consider themselves accountable? Since when does the law require the accused to consider themselves accountable?

They believe themselves to be above the law.

This is nothing more than a sneer remark ment to sound dramatic.

OfficialWire

Now, let’s take a little closer look to some of the things on wikipediaclassaction.org. For instance, the link to the “Recent news articles have exposed the growing problem with Wikipedia’s methods.“. The link points to the OfficialWire ‘news’ site. A very reputable *cough cough* news site if I do say so myself. A closer look at one of their articles (One Man’s Personal Quest Against Earthquake Charity):

“While many tens of thousands of people are busy helping the victims of the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunamis, one man has chosen to spend his time and energies in other ways. This is the tale of how Christian Wirth (shown here) has contributed.”

Wow! Impartial news reporting at it’s best. And this for a site that calls itself ‘Officialwire’.

Anyway, the story is about some guy/girl who added a link to QuakeAID.org to the Tsunami-relief page on Wikipedia. Christian Wirth did not consider this a correct Tsunami-relief organisation, since it is not listed as a non-profit organisation in the US. A valid claim, if you ask me, since the main articles in Wikipedia are targeted at the US. QuakeAID started fighting back (instead of helping the victims of the tsunami, I suppose?). But guess what. This so called ‘news article’ on OfficialWire says this:

At this stage, let me explain that Baou Trust, parent of OfficialWire, provides considerable funding for QuakeAID.

Gee, who would’ve guessed?! The news articles about Wikipedia on OfficialWire (all negative naturally) are nothing more than a (see if you can spot the irony in this) personal crusade against Christian Wirth and Wikipedia!

Oh, also make sure to check the products sold by the same parent company (Baou) of OfficialWire: http://www.cafepress.com/baou/457250. “BOMBING for PEACE is like FUCKING for VIRGINITY“. Sounds like someone a fourteen year old would come up with.

Accountability

Back to the wikipediaclassaction.org website. They claim they have problems with Wikipedia because the organisation nor the contributors can be held accountable, right? So, where is the name, address and e-mail address of the person behind wikipediaclassaction.org? There’s only the wikipediaClassaction.org address with a PO-box and some useless telephone numbers. What person, organisation or lawfirm is behind this lawsuit? How credible are they? My guess would be OfficialWire or someone working there, and they are hardly credible.

Recap-time

Claim: Wikipedia spreads lies and can’t be held accountable, so they should be sued.

Claimed by: An faceless organisation (protecting some indivual or other organisation; presumably OfficialWire (they link back to wikipediaclassaction.org), perhaps John Seigenthaler) that spreads lies (“ They believe themselves to be above the law.“) and links to news articles that are nothing more than slander and baseless claims against Mr. Wirth and wikipedia because he/they, for good reasons, went against an organisation with close ties to OfficialWire.

Sounds like a winner to me!