h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

So, a member of parliament is sick of being slandered (or is it libelled... hmmm I think Libelled) in the German W*k* and has got a court injunction to have it suspended.

They have instantly launched an appeal fund and are asking for donations.

So what does the collective wisdom of hootoo think? Is it that W*k* is now getting its come-uppance, or is it some jumped up politician with an over-inflated sense of his own importance trying to stamp all over free speech?

(I've no idea what was put on there since I almost never look on W*k* - German or otherwise)

Do they need to be more accountable to their readers and instigate a bit more control over what's written there to be taken seriously?

The Wikipedia Foundation is a charitable organisation, and a quick check shows it has 21 employees. If there was a policy of moderating the site, it simply could not exist, and we would have lost a very valuable tool.

The sheer volume of traffic on the internet makes regulation seem ridiculous. I have seen proposals to remove anonymity be rewriting internet protocol to require a unique personal ID, but I'm not sure even that would work given the sheer volume of stuff.

Personally, I quite like the internet as it is: a bit wild west. I hate the idea that people are trying to sanitise it. Thank Bob for cryptography.

You made me go looking for the German wiki entry which I found here:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutz_Heilmann

then I clicked on the English version which is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutz_Heilmann

I couldn't find any of the things Heilmann is on about (according to the English version), but then it says it's last been edited not even an hour ago.

No idea what was in there before. I think you should be able to see somewhere which edits have been done and by whom, but I don't know where.

That's exactly what I'm thinking about w*k*. If you could see a record of changes - so that it was clear who had done them, it would be a lot more useful as a resource tool.

Maybe you have to be a memeber in order to do that?
Whatever, I've checked the various articles in various languages, and by the looks of it they are all permanently being edited.

Oh, and I've just read the related Focus article, now browsing the commentaries. Interesting.

oh got a link for that?

If you go to the English wiki (see link above), then click on the second link under references it will bring you there.

If a place like Wikipedia lets people write whatever they want with no peer review or similar controls, it seems reasonable they can be held legally accountable for any slandering on the site.

To me, there are two slightly different questions. Should the libel laws apply on Wiki just as they do in print media? It's hard to argue that they shouldn't, really. If a user is proven to have libelled someone, why should they not be held accountable as they would be if the libel took place in a newspaper?

The suspending is a different issue, though. To use a print parallel, it would be like Lord Archer banning the publication of Private Eye because of a perceived libel in it. I'd find it very hard to accept that.

Yes taking down the articles in question should be enough, while pending investigation or whatnot.

It really irritates me to see lots of people talking about reading something "on Wiki". "Wiki" is a type of software application (From, I think, "WikiWiki" which is Hawaiian for "Quickly") while the place most people (but not all) are talking about is "Wikipedia", one location that makes use of that software technology. Get the name right, people!

For examples of other Wikis, have a look at http://www.wetpaint.com or http://en.opensuse.org/Welcome_to_openSUSE.org or http://wherearethejoneses.wikidot.com/ ... All of these are sites that host Wikis, none are affiliated in any way with Wikipedia.

Have you thought about getting an injunction to stop people saying that?

I'm not a huge user of w*k*p*d** (seeing as we're *ing out the vowels...), but is there a way to make complaints about content? If there is, then surely he could have notified them of innacuracies and they could suspend the article or sections in question (where it's a potentially serious complaint such as libel) and researched the information therein, or in a lesser case (spelling or small inaccuracies, unclear statements and so on) suggest that the complainant writes a better/edited version and submits it?

If there isn't such a method for complaint or it has not been seriously dealt with then I suppose legal action is not entirely inappropriate, and perhaps the people who run the site need to look at how they can improve the place, seeing as it's gained such a following.

You might get away with things in small publications or small, relatively personal websites but when you're running a global website that is big enough to need actual staff as well as the community volunteers I think there's a certain amount of responsibility to be accountable that comes with the territory. It's a shame but while people will write slander, lies presented as truth and are happy to be sometimes wildly inaccurate, they will need some level of policing.

Just because there's been a bit of confusion: slander is spoken, libel is written.

Yhere is the equivalent of the "Prod a Mod" button, but all it does is lock down the article until they find time to look at it. It doesn't hide the content, so perhaps legal action was the only way to close the page down quickly.

Just that the page isn't closed down, and from what I understood, his claims are questionable.

Traveller in Times reading
" < http://www.wikipedia.de/ >
Looks closed enough to me . . . "

But you can still reah it under .org, so what's the point?

The German courts only have the authority to close down the version hosted under a German domain.