For what it's worth, I thought we should gather together a list of people, each with one or two relevant explanatory links, who have been harmed in real-life specifically by content appearing on Wikipedia.

Once the thread has expanded sufficiently, I'll be happy to wikify it over on Centiare.

Essentially, the people who appear on this list should theoretically have a legal claim against either the Wikimedia Foundation or the Wikipedia editor who libeled them, if only it were that easy to pursue a lawsuit.

The format I'd like to see:

1. Taner Akçam - a Turkish historian, sociologist and author. He is one of the first Turkish academics to acknowledge and discuss openly the Armenian Genocide by the Ottoman Turkish government in 1915.

• Harmed by Wikipedia when he was detained by Canadian authorities basing their decision on vandalized information found in Akçam's Wikipedia biography.
• Story according to Wikipedia.
• Story according to Akçam, at Informed Comment.

2. Fuzzy Zoeller - an American professional golfer. He is one of three golfers to have won The Masters in his first appearance in the event. He also won the 1984 U.S. Open.

• Harmed by Wikipedia when a vandal modified Zoeller's Wikipedia biography to say he had committed acts of alcohol, drug, and domestic abuse. Zoeller is suing Josef Silny & Associates, the office where the vandalism was determined to take place.
• Story according to Wikipedia.
• Story according to circuit court complaint, at The Smoking Gun.

I'm not going to take the time to do all of these, but if anyone else would like to take some of them, short summaries ought to be written for:

3. John Seigenthaler, Sr.
4. Daniel Brandt
5. Gregory Kohs (?)
6. Michael Moore
7. Lee Nysted
8. Don Murphy
9. Ashida Kim
10. Jack Sarfatti
11. Jeff Merkey
12. Jens Stoltenberg
13. Chuck Morse
14. and beyond?? Please add more if you can think of others.

Some of these are admittedly weak cases. I feel that Seigenthaler, Brandt, Akçam, and Zoeller provide the most compelling cases.

Greg

Great plan Greg.

We should continue to collect extracts of really damaging vandalism, defamation that has stayed on the site for a significant period - more than a couple of hours - to turn into a study. I'm sure there are many examples yet to be explored out there. So if the sleuths at WR want to get to work checking diffs to find this stuff, then Fly my pretties! Fly!

I'd suggest stickying this. And for future people to keep comments to a minimum, just add numbers to the list, and if possible a one line explanation as to why you are adding them.

Zounds Goot, Greg, but I think that everyone tends to forget all the little people, the cast of 5½ Million castaways in the Wikiwhirlpool, a very large %age of whom fall into the Class (Action! Suit!) of the Harassed Individual Volunteer Editor (HIVE), harassed by none other than that puny but pretentious portion of the 5½ Million who pretend so pretentiously to speak for the Community.

Let's start listing them.

1. Jon Awbrey
2. …

Didn't WP have an attack BLP on Seth Finkelstein at one point? If so, he should be added.

My page has some entries that might fit in your category, though it also has some with no credible claim to being actually hurt by Wikipedia but just like to whine a lot.

Didn't your dust-up with Der Jimbo/WP eventually end up helping you, not hurting you? It certainly got you some press, and now you've moved up to bigger and better things?

That philosophy would be why I added the question mark after my name. Agreed, my dust-ups have probably brought me a degree of fame, fortune, and moral support (overall from the "outside" world) which would apparently outweigh the negative impact of the Wikipediots.

I swear, though, were it not for the Wikipedia Review, I would not so easily feel that way.





Lots of good stuff there, Daniel. I forgot about that page. Thanks.

Greg

See, this is just the problem that we always have.

Here we are thinking like normal people, and it always puts us at a disadvantage when dealing with Wikipediots.

We habitually use terms like actionable libel, bearing false witness, distress, harm, invasion of privacy, mental anguish, pain and suffering, etc. in ways that maintain some semblance of connection with their customary meanings in the real world.

What does that do? It sets the bar of severity for judging offenses at a comparatively high level, that is, compared to the threshold at which Wikipediots always start howling about how much others distress them.

Meanwhile, Wikipediot Whiners like SlimVirgin, who never have to suffer so much as a defamatory user page being maintained at the top of Google's Ten Most Wanted List, wimper on and on endlessly about how sad it makes them feel — for what? — that some people might actually dare to complain in some out of the way site about her pathological conduct toward them.

Boo Hooey !!!

Jonny