While I was researching my latest article for akahele (an expansion on my mp3.com experience that I've already touched on here), I turned up a little tidbit which might be interesting to discuss:

A man named Cyrus Sullivan (apparently no relation to the mp3.com...um...star and creator of "21 and Legal" and "Sex Worker") has started a site to out people with STDs. He started this site as a means of getting back at a woman who gave him herpes (except that he's not on the list...but nevermind...). Anyone can add information to this list, apparently.

There are a great many people on this list. (thanks to Lara for pointing this out...)

The source for much of this information?: Wikipedia, of course.

Privacy? What privacy?

There are 386 people on the list. See the numbered list above and below? 1-27.

Man, I didn't go past the first page. Names, cities, pictures. This thing is a disaster waiting to happen...

Anyway, if we needed another reason as to why adding any private information to WP needs to be handled with great care, this site is it.

I thought this was going to be about Standard Deviations — I should have known that none of Wikipedia's deviations would be standard.

Nevermind …

Jon

This is a good analogy for BLP's on Wikipedia. Information about who might give you a STD is at least as socially valuable as a routine biography on Wikipedia. The potential for abuse is much more obvious here as revenge is manifestly motivating the "content provider" while on Wikipedia the potential for this type abuse, while often present is more latent or even unknowable.

This raises in crystal clear fashion the question, "Should a provider of internet services and resources permitting others to publish their own content be immune from liability when it foreseable by all that this will lead to rampant abuse and defamation?" Once the argument is made here the task become to show the non-obvious but true, that the potential for abuse just as great for Wikipedia's BLP subjects as the person identified as having STDs by this site.

The site is certainly twisted and irresponsible, but its peculiar form of misanthropic satire is not entirely devoid of literary merit.

"She engaged in sexual activity with a heavily intoxicated person and did not inform him that she had prior knowledge of her condition until days later.
Her behavior also contributed to the structural damage of a wooden framed futon that collapsed 2 weeks later with 3 very heavy people sitting on it." [emphasis added]

That's funny stuff.

If you read the first entry (as quoted by Obesity above, thanks!), which is supposedly how the "site author" was exposed to herpes, the information is awfully over the top. The man was in a drunken stupor. The woman weighs 255 pounds and because of this incident, a futon was broken several weeks later.

The fact that this information is attached to the name of the one artist who was "possibly the most reviled artist on mp3.com" and the fact that googling his name now gives you a nest of blogs, ezines and other web 2.0 structures that all say "Cyrus Sullivan wants to out STD carriers" makes me wonder if this wasn't a classical "googlebomb" operation.

The point is, the existence of this website is being picked up by things which are starting to look like "reliable sources".

I wonder if there are enough of them for this site to get it's own WP article? It's almost there...

You have to be in on the "Cyrus Sullivan" business (which happened on a website which no longer exists as it did back then) to get the joke, if that's what is happening.

Is there another man named "Cyrus Sullivan" who really wants people to know that he got herpes like this? Do we believe this?

I don't think so...

So, what are the 359 other names? Jokes? Revenge? Anons playing jokes on another anons?

What is happening here?

I don't understand why people keep adding minor and major celebrities to this site.

To me, a forum like this works best as a quasi-public service and petty revenge mechanism where you can publicly humiliate that girl who gave you genital warts.

There's a site called dontdatehimgirl that performs a somewhat similar function.

This one is being diluted by unimaginative, uninsipred people cluttering the resource with WP-gleaned celeb gossip. As far as I'm concerned, they are ruining the (admittedly mean) joke.

Don't miss the legal page. With gems like "As a person wrongfully posted may have the right to sue the perpetrator for liable and could file criminal harassment charges depending on your area." (emphasis mine)

Well, let's go on the hypothesis that my "elaborate joke" on Cyrus Sullivan is what's happening.

The site doesn't say that "Cyrus Sullivan" has herpes. The site pretends to out a 255 lb girl who supposedly gave him herpes, but it never says that he has it. Does this 255 lb girl exist? Well, there's certainly a picture...but wasn't there also a picture of those nice girls in London living there in a similar way?

In order for the site to take hold, they have to have other information. And since they don't want the real "Cyrus Sullivan" suing them, they use a "reliable source" to name other people who are documented as having STDs. What is this reliable source? Wikipedia, of course.

The rest are just people who think that this site is serious....or maybe it's more jokes?

Blogs mirroring wikis. Wikis mirroring blogs. Discussion forums picking up items in blogs and wikis. Links spread by facebook, twitter, etc etc... The reflections bouncing off of newspapers, by reporters who don't check sources. It's happening over and over.

In any case, I smell a rat here...