DaWikiTruth wrote: ↑Sun Mar 06, 2022 6:54 pm
Is there section (and it should be) of history of lawsuits against shitty wmf?
There is only one legal action filed against the WMF anyone who wants to destroy Wikipedia needs to be aware of. A man named Lomax (who goes by Abd) wanted to know the reason why he is Globally Banned from Wikipedia.
A Global Ban is their highest sanction, and allegedly results from an internal investigation by staff of their "Trust and Safety" department, and is usually (but not always) reserved for people who have had prior extensive dealings with Wikipedia's volunteer run governance apparatus.
It is widely understood, based on the WMF's own policy, that while the specific reasons for a Global Ban are never released, either publicly or privately, these things are reserved for the most serious behaviour. Think danger to children or hatred of Jews, that sort of stuff. They are permanent, apply to online and real world activity, and cannot be appealed.
Understandably therefore, people can get mightily pissed off if they end up getting Globally Banned and they haven't actually done anything as serious as be a danger to children or advance Nazi ideology. This might not be an issue if you only ever engaged with Wikipedia as a pseudonym, but it obviously has serious implications for those who engage under their real names, which is the case for Lomax.
It has long been suspected that in practice, over time, the WMF has become more willing to issue Global Bans for lesser crimes, such as harassment. It is generally understood by most fair and reasonable people, people without skin in the game, that Lomax probably got banned for the mere crime of being a serial annoyance to multiple people, staff and volunteers, over email.
That is bad, perhaps, but it isn't pedophilia or racism. And it is pertinent that the nature of the annoyance was likely based on a genuine belief he had been mistreated by the governance apparatus, and this was their way of continuing to appeal (albeit likely in defiance of their statements that he was all out of appeals, and should give it a rest for a year, the standard waiting period).
This is perhaps all speculation, but it's reasonable based on what is publicly known of Lomax's very long period of interaction with Wikipedia.
And so Lomax took the WMF to court, with the not unreasonable case that people out here in the wider world being led to believe he is a pedophile or a racist, is defamatory, and he had suffered material harm.
Rather than stand up in court and let the world know the precise reasons why Lomax had been Globally Banned, and therefore lay out before the court all the evidence and procedures that would presumably in their eyes show they had, as has been often claimed, been more than fair and reasonable, they went an entirely different route.
The WMF clearly saw the threat of having their internal processes exposed to the scrutiny of a court, and likely be found wanting in either the facts or the process, and so they hired a bunch of seriously expensive lawyers to fight to get the case dismissed before it even got that far.
The fact nobody out there in the real world seems to realise this is what a significant proportion of their "price of a cup of coffee" goes towards (even those who are vaguely aware the WMF budget has ballooned to epic proportions, far beyond what would be minimally necessary to keep the lights on and edits flowing), is a big reason why people should hate Wikipedia and want to see it destroyed.
And this is where it gets fucked up. Their sole, complete argument, was to refer the Court to Wikipedia's little known but always there, Terms of Use. A legal contract that Lomax had agreed to simply by virtue of signing up. Didn't even need to tick a box, let alone one marked "are you an idiot, tick yes if you are". Buried in there was an obscure article which essentially says, Wikipedia is just a private corporation and so they can remove their service from you for any reason, including no reason at all.
And so quite literally, before the Californian Judge appointed to hear arguments, the WMF successfully argued the case be dismissed as groundless. That Lomax doesn't need to know the reson for his ban, because legally speaking, people can be Globally Banned from Wikipedia for "any reason", including "no reason at all".
Ergo, it's not actually defamatory to publicly say Lomax is Globally Banned, because that doesn't state he touches kids or is a fan of back uniforms. Nor does it say he is a serial email pest. It says nothing.
Note that this includes the fact it also doesn't say, apart from being buried down in the Terms, people on this list might have been banned for "any reason", including "no reason".
The WMF doesn't owe Lomax a dime, much less his day in court, because he hasn't been "harmed" in the legal sense.
Regardless of his own actions, Lomax has been fucked over by the Wikipedia cult, many times, that much is clear. But his reward for funding his own legal action to figure out why and get some restitution, or at the very least have his name removed from the public wall of shame that is the List of Globally Banned users, was to simply get the biggest, royalest, fucking over of his life.
That legal judgement can be summarised thusly, in the eyes of the victorious WMF:
HA HA FUCK YOU THANKS FOR PLAYING THIS RIGGED GAME BUH BYE NOW LOOOZER!?!?!?1
This is Wikipedia.
Not a great look for an organisation that in other contexts, through PR guff mainly, the stuff lazily passed on by clueless journalists, is trying to convince people it is more than just a wierd little hobby. That it is the collective effort of a small kind charity which manages the technical and fund raising side of what a group of well meaning volunteers has built out of the goodness of their hearts of pure gold. Bless their little cotton socks.
That it is more than this, allegedly. That it is an essential human service/utility, that it should be "ubiquitous", indeed, that it should become and perhaps already is, a "fundamental human right" to be able to not just read, but participate in, the Wikipedia movement.
That Wikipedia is freedom itself.
Uh huh.
Maybe Russian freedom, perhaps. Or any place where the decision of who is and is not a citizen is decided solely by the citizenry, via their duly elected representatives, and there doesn't need to be a reason if the powers that be choose to destroy your passport, without any of that fancy stuff, like due process and separation of powers.
The primary purpose of a Global Ban being, the permanent and irreversible removal of your ability to participate in said movement.
Granted, there is a small pro-independence faction within Wikipedia that aspires to see the movement have a divorce, to see the volunteers throw off the shackles of their corporate masters, and become something different. Something better. But I have seen no variation of this proposal that seeks to have decisions the WMF currently makes, such as Global Bans, be passed to truly independent actors with care for evidence and due process. And in truth, it is long passed time when even tbe most ardent of separatists has seemingly realised that Wikipedia is now too dominant, too massive, too complex, for a notional "fork" to be viable.
Wikipedia is, and probably forever will be, what it legally is.
A private club.
You are either in or out, and that is at the sole and complete discretion of those who are in. Self organising, self policing, legally limited only to the extent of the actual law, which for all private clubs, necessarily avoids matters of membership.
I guess many people sort of already understood this is what Wikipedia is, it being rather obvious to anyone who dips more than a toe in, but I don't think they truly understood it. I don't think they knew that it is something so crucial to Wikipedia's very existence, they would hire expensive lawyers to make it a settled legal precedent. Just as crucial, if not more so, than this idea they are a platform not a publisher.
The law cannot force a private club to accept you as a member. Which is perhaps how it should be.
But that is also why it isn't left to private clubs to educate your children, offer public health messaging, much less deliver what anyone would define what is and is not a fundamental human right or essential service (except in such cases where the government contracts such services, like water and power).
It is also why, in most civilised countries anyway (but notably not America, the home of Wikipedia), you can't call yourself a newspaper or a broadcaster if you don't have due regard for truth and bias, and that is duly regulated by an independent party.
And argument can already be made that Wikipedia is indeed essential and should be ubiquitous, even a human right. If so, then bring it under government regulation. Make sure that people like Lomax, or indeed anyone, can't ever realistically say they have been treated unfairly much less excluded without due care for his rights, because the people would know what their crimes were.
Civilised society can and rightly does remove certain rights for certain crimes.
This is what governments do. Transparency and due process. And where they do not, this is where the Courts step in.
Wikipedia, not so much.
I am assuming people here accept that whatever Lomax is, he was not a terrorist, or any other type of unusal case which would merit the sort of closed proceedings you can sometimes see in a civilised society.
It is clear from this one startling but little known decision, what Wikipedia is, and what it is not.
This wasn't a surprise to me, I'd noticed that obscure Term many years ago, and had appreciated the implications well before it had become a legal tested reality. But the way the Lomax case went down, with this "no reason" clause being key, was apparently a surprise even to some so called allegedly experienced Wikipedia critics. Most of whom are sadly useless fucking idiots working against serious critics, including the illustrious Administrator of this forum, Eric Barbour.
For context, there are some out there who claim I am Globally Banned, and poor Eric seems to think he knows what that says about little old me; my wants, my desires, my truth. Fucking prick that he is.
I have never confirmed or denied this, and one of the many supremely fun reasons why I take that position, is the knowledge that the WMF have no way of convincing anyone if this is true or not.
It could even be said that the timing of the Ban, post Lomax, shows that I'm a devious bastard who decided to get Globally Banned just for shits and giggles, the hilarious amusement of being able to say to anyone who thinks they know who I allegedly am and what I've allegedly done in the eyes of Wikipedia, that in the eyes of Californian law, something the WMF paid serious money to defend in court, the reason I might be banned could be no more thought out than they don't like the cut of my jib. That perhaps I was Banned simply because they have the power to do so and there doesn't need to be a reason. That I was Banned perhaps because I write posts like this on external forums.
And as we know from all the press reports and other testimony, the Wikipedia community are a pretty racist bunch. Getting Globally Banned because your face doesn't fit, is totally believable. Mother fucking Martin Luther King himself could probably quite easily get a Global Ban from Wikipedia, simply by being himself.
Is this my truth? I couldn't possibly comment.
All I know is, this is serious shit. You show this post to anyone who the WMF or Wikipedia volunteers try to "partner" with, and they will be left wondering, quite rightly, who the fuck are we dealing with here?
This is no Mom and Pop encyclopedia store. These people are fucking fascists.
Admittedly they might not be trying to kill Jews or annex Poland, but your ability to stop them if they wanted to, from the position of being one without the True Blood, is realy quite limited. Your options are basically, writing mean stuff on the interwebs, or violent resistance.
Hence why everyone in the Wikipedia movement wants to make sure that this is the one legal action involving the WMF that NOBODY EVER FINDS OUT ABOUT.
Given that, why would you want or need to know of any other actions, which are all merely boring variations of the whole Section 230 tedium.
Hence why anyone who tries to make light of this one case, or even takes the WMF's side, which is unsurprisingly what the sell out forum Wikipediocracy did, and anyone who doesn't have the time or intelligence to understand it, cannot legitimate be called a Wikipedia critic.
They can be called what they are.
Uncle Fucking Toms. Neville Fucking Chamberlains.
Collaborators.
Enemies of the people.
HTD.
Where do you stand, badmachine?
Tom or Not Tom.....that is the question.
