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Businessman, philanthropist and musician Yank Barry and the Global Village Champions Foundation are suing four Wikipedia editors for defamation, claiming they have maliciously conspired to keep Barry's Wikipedia biography unduly negative. The Daily Dot article includes a copy of the legal brief and quotes Barry as saying,"My page was so ridiculously false and made be sound like a terrible person and people believed it causing deals to fall through", says Barry. "I finally had enough".
In the case filed in Ventura County's Superior Court Barry says Richard Fife, Nate Gertler, Ethan Urbanik, and John Nagle conspired to tarnish his name. The case focuses on VitaPro foods which Barry founded in the late 1980s to create textured vegetable protein aimed at cutting down on worldwide meat consumption. All was going well until the mid-1990s, when Barry was convicted of a kickback scheme involving VitaPro and Texas prisons. At the time Associated Press said that Barry was convicted of bribery, money laundering and conspiracy. However Barry was acquitted in 2005.
One editor "Ganbarreh" states that editor Richard Fife "made a clear statement about his agenda to maintain defamatory material on the subject's page in order to cause financial harm and threaten the subjects' livelihood". Fife admits that it wasn't his "finest wikipedia moment" and that his edit was intended to "prepare for large amounts of edits biased towards the positive to the article". Barry, a philanthropist and member of the legendary band The Kingsmen of "Louie, Louie" fame, says that he tried to resolve many of the issues with his page diplomatically but was ultimately forced to take legal action. The lawsuit says that the Wikipedia editors removed "truthful and verifiable content from the Wikipedia pages pertaining to plaintiffs with the intent and purpose to downplay, minimize, attack or criticize favorable content about the plaintiffs."
(Score: 4, Informative) by evilviper on Thursday June 26 2014, @10:07AM
I've made my low opinion of Wikipedia be known many times before. I'd call it a stinking cesspool of mob-rule, massively top-heavy crippling bureaucracy, with almost no viable rules, no enforcement, and no standards:
http://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=2063&cid=48476 [soylentnews.org]
However, this isn't the case I'd want to throw my support behind. It looks like Yank Berry hired a PR firm or otherwise got a bunch of meat puppets to POV-push his page. It was turned into a fluff press-release, and everyone who merely reverted those unencyclopedic, glowingly positive PR edits to his bio page is now getting sued for doing so, and nothing more.
The short, out-of-context quotes of WP editors seem to be all about resisting the horde of sock-puppets corrupting the page, and not specifically an attempt at POV-pushing.
Highly informative comment on the subject, one month ago, from John Nagle:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:BeadCatz#Promotional_editing [wikipedia.org]
Random bits... users talking about getting their notices:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Yank_Barry&diff=prev&oldid=612570550#Legal_threat_against_editors [wikipedia.org]
I find it incredibly sad that Wikimedia makes the rules for editing, and yet will not defend against lawsuit those who followed those rules to the letter, and edited in good-faith:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal_and_Community_Advocacy/Legal_Policies#Defense_of_Contributors [wikimedia.org]
Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Thursday June 26 2014, @11:09AM
With regard to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:BeadCatz#Promotional_editing [wikipedia.org], I'm not a fan of a real names policy but it seems quite hollow for someone who joined a system under pseudonym to request more accurate information about a person who did not join a system and is not under pseudonym. The onus is on Wikipedia editors to provide a tertiary source of accurate information. It is not the responsibility of each and every individual to provide additional information to each and every party who chooses to publish. And when it starts costing money, it is no longer viable to ignore it.
1702845791×2
(Score: 3, Insightful) by evilviper on Thursday June 26 2014, @12:54PM
Wait, what? I can't make any sense of your statement. John Nagle is telling "BeadCatz" that he (or somebody else) needs to provide some good sources if he wants to the changes he previously made to the article, to persist. John is using his real name, not a pseudonym, and he even clarifies his identity on his user page. John Nagle doesn't have a bio page, but he is nearly notable enough. eg.:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagle [wikipedia.org]
Both people involved had previously joined the "system", and even without accounts, anybody editing WP, even anonymously, is part of the system.
Nobody said Yank Barry needs to do anything. Neither was John suggesting that the article will be slanted/POV until/unless somebody does something... In fact the article was fine. But anyone who believes otherwise, and wishes to modify it, needs to follow the rules and do so with proper sources, and the write-up must be encyclopedic, neutral, and fit with the article. In fact that policy is enforced quite strictly on biographies, specifically to avoid the potential for slandering an individual.
Saying "citation needed" is also a good way to brush-off an idiot who is spouting unsupportable nonsense, as they will never be able to provide sources for their claims, and perhaps they'll even learn something in the processes of trying...
If public knowledge of your criminal record or failures of your business venture(s) are "costing you money", it's your own damn problem. It's not a sign of anyone else's wrongdoing. I'm sure the Bin Laden family is furious about the article on their son Osama, and that information being out there is costing them far more money.
As long as the facts are accurate (and they do appear to be) there's absolutely no case for slander/libel in the US, no matter how much money those facts being public might be costing someone.
Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Grishnakh on Thursday June 26 2014, @03:03PM
If public knowledge of your criminal record or failures of your business venture(s) are "costing you money", it's your own damn problem.
WHAT criminal record? The article summary says he was acquitted in 2005.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 26 2014, @03:17PM
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/yank-barry-motivated-by-past-sins-becomes-unlikely-philanthropist/article15574868/ [theglobeandmail.com]
He apparently sat for this, no relation to his later legal problems.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by evilviper on Thursday June 26 2014, @03:20PM
He was acquitted after being convicted. What is the past tense form of criminal record?
Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.
(Score: 2) by evilviper on Thursday June 26 2014, @11:34PM
That one case isn't the only time he's been to trial:
"In 1982, Barry was convicted of extortion from and conspiracy against John Royden McConnell, and served 10 months of a 6-year prison term."
Older, but still makes him a convict.
Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.