James Alexander

[CrowsNest]

Grar, I'm not arguing that what the WMF do is competent or justifiable, only that Kumi is wrong to make out James is some kind of lone actor who can do what he wants. Their incompetence is institutional, he Kumi (and you) were expelled by a corporation doing what it thinks is their corporate duty. No correctness is implied in that statement, including by the lawyers btw, in the same way "The WMF corporation is the designated legal owner of Wikipedia" doesn't imply any competence in that duty either.

A bunch of WMF staff are involved in things like the Monkie selfie case, they still ended up coming up with a response that is legally questionable and motivated solely by their desire to be a campaigning organisation that pushes the envelope on what it means to be a rights holder, far over to the free kulture position. And that's probably being unfair to the quite competent and equally passionate folks at Creative Commons etc.

By all means, build up James into a powerful figure to hate on if you want, it's not really helping your cases, as people like me can't really be seen to be going along with it. James just happens to be the guy whose name is on the Order, because yes, it's his job, but I think everyone here knows that unless there was a marked turnaround in the culture and competence in the whole of the WMF, then sooner or later the same outcome would have resulted from the same volunteers sending them the same complaints with the same so called evidence.

Even if James had never joined the WMF, something functionally equivalent to the super secret unappealable list of shame Global WMF Ban list was going to be invented. It a logical extension of their need to have a vaguely worded catch all ToU, their dislike of external scrutiny, and their aversion to being sued. Something like it would have already been invented by and for local volunteers to use, if certain volunteer Administrators were given veto powers over community policy.

That is why I asked Kumi what he would do it James ever left. If he really believed what he is saying, it leads me to think he might just try to persuade his replacement that he is owed something, in the name of justice. He can ask, but they'd give him nothing but static. Only then would he likely realise the truth of what I am saying. Then again, maybe he wouldn't, and the narrative would seek to explain how the dear departed James still has some kind of power and influence over paid corporate officers.

[Graaf Statler]

I think, and I don't know the legal system where Kum is living here is a difference in legal interpretation. Because, in our legal system is the one who takes the decision is responsible and supposed to be a professional. Always! Also in clubs, private enterprises, the government, doesn't matter where. I can open tomorrow a legal office in Holland, calling myself een jurist, give legal advices, but if thinks are going out of hands, I will be judged by the judge as if i was a professional lawyer, even if I am a greengrocer! If I start a moonlight garage, and someone crashes whit his car because of a blunder of me, it's the same story, the judge will judge me as a professional mechanic, doesn't matter if I am. Doesn't matter who advised me. I am responsible, I can never hide myself behind someone else!
I am suppose to be a professional, doesn't matter if I am and I am always responsible in our European legal system. At least in Germany it's the same, about other country's I don't know for sure. Is it possible here is the misunderstanding between the two of you?

[CrowsNest]

Well, my experience is British (or to be technical, the England and Wales legal jurisdiction), and here we hold that a corporate officer is both liable personally and as a company representative for any laws they break in pursuit of their properly declared corporate activities (i.e. stealing money from the safe is not one of his duties, banning people is). There is a difference however, between a corporate officer doing an assigned task, and a corporate officer who also holds a professional status regulated by an external institution (lawyer, doctor, engineer, etc). A corporate officer who isn't a recognised professional and isn't given the right training or support to do an assigned task, can quite easily argue (if, say, either of you ever prove in court your bans were defamatory or otherwise materially damaging somehow) that he isn't liable at all, it is solely the corporation. As far as I know, this is the US practice too.

Therefore, the minute it becomes clear that a corporate officer has done something which involved consultation with corporate lawyers and other staff, as part of their assigned role and within the power of their office, then you pretty much lose all ability to argue that the corporation has no control over their actions and can somehow be divorced of their responsibility. Unless of course you are arguing that the entire corporation is incompetent from top to bottom. In which case, why the focus on James? He cleary isn't a criminal mastermind who somehow pulled the wool over everyone in his organisation to further his personal agande. Neither is he the stupidest fool in a ship of fools. Arguably that would be whoever hired him or oversees his work.

At the end of the day, if you had the means, who are you suing here? James, or the WMF? If it is James alone, then you need to convince me how he got away with it. If James and the WMF, you need to explain why the hate is reserved exclusively for James, and not spread around in due proportion to Legal and the Board. If James ever left the WMF, are you done with pursuing the WMF? Are you going to focus only on using the law to deprive James of his luxury cardboard box and precious antique cans? If not, why not?

If it were me, if I were on that wall of shame and I had the means to fight back, my legal letters are addressed to Legal@WMF, not James@WMF, and I'm certainly not wasting my lawyer's fees trying to argue James didn't do exaclty as he was told, or at least what he understood was his job. If Legal want to throw him under the bus on the orders of the Board, who find out only too late what was really going on (Legal not covering the Board's ass like they're meant to while James went off reservation as part of a personal vendetta, and none of his underlings or peers raised the alarm), I'm fine with that, but it is certainly not the most likely scenario in my strategic plan, nor my goal. I go into that courtroom with almost complete certainly that the WMF position is to defend James as it he were the Virgin Mary herself.

The money is always in proving corporate negligence. Be satisfied with collateral damage caused by such an award, when it comes to exacting revenge on James.

Take Abd for example. As far as I can tell, his strategy is to go after the WMF and their volunteer informants, even though he is in the same position as you guys, being shafted by James.

[AndrewForson]

In terms of tactics, it might be better to go for the individual that for the corporation. The Foundation has a legal staff and pays outside lawyers about $1M a year. If you sue them, they are clearly entitled to use their staff and their funds to defend the case. If you sue an employee, or a volunteer, then the Foundation may choose to use their resources to support that other person, but they are not compelled to, and should only be using their resources to do so if they can make a reasonable argument that it is in the interests of the Foundation to do so.

In the case of Alexander, if he were sued for carrying out what is clearly a Foundation function, then I imagine the Foundation would indeed support him. This would still give scope for leverage as it makes yet another distinction between staff and volunteers.

It would be even more dramatic if the Foundation were to cut Alexander loose. That would, I believe, alienate the staff and the volunteers: indeed, I could imagine it precipitating quite an exodus in both camps.

[Kumioko]

Well to be fair, at the end of the day none of this or what I think really matters because there are several aspects that aren't going to change. James is not going to unban me, the WMF isn't either and I am not going to stop fighting or evading the ban as long as its in place.

[AndrewForson]

Well to be fair, at the end of the day none of this or what I think really matters because there are several aspects that aren't going to change. James is not going to unban me, the WMF isn't either and I am not going to stop fighting or evading the ban as long as its in place.

So the question is, how best to use the present situation in the cause of the destruction of the WMF and all its works?

[Graaf Statler]

Well to be fair, at the end of the day none of this or what I think really matters because there are several aspects that aren't going to change. James is not going to unban me, the WMF isn't either and I am not going to stop fighting or evading the ban as long as its in place.

So the question is, how best to use the present situation in the cause of the destruction of the WMF and all its works?

Without any doubt me. Because I can let WMF collaps trough the "Europe route". In the first place I did nothing wrong, they mixed me up with someone else. And because of that they didn't know who I really was, they thought I was some typical wiki troll.. But I have absolute and the connections and the resources to take successful legal action against them. In the third place I can use the very cheap Europe legal system. Because If you want to let WMF collaps you must do that in small parts. Like someone once said to me how do you eat a mammoth? In small slices.
And there will never be any trail, because before even has started a trail complete WMF has collapse. Imagine, the eccentric son of a professor old English language and old English literature who wrote some nice articles, did nothing wrong who is SanFanBanned by a bunch of internet trolls subsidised by WMF. For years and years. The press will love my story! Even the announcement of such a trail is enough to trigger every newspaper in Holland. And after that a complete shit storm will start. Because when you go down, you will meet the same people who you met when you were going up.

And there is the problem. Because I have seen what can happen with unknown blogs (or a critical forum, that's the same.). The blog of Varoufakis, that Greek professor who became a minister. One day whole world saw Athens in flames on there television, and that crazy blog of Varoufakis with 5 participance at it's best was quoted in every newspaper in the world. Thank god I was only one the sideline there. Every newspaper was looking for news and the only thing they found was our blog. It was something like sucks. Well, imagine I wake up on a rainy morning and think what shall I do today. Well, let me collapse WMF.

First the Dutch press will start to search for information, and for sure they find very soon the wiki-celabrty SanFanBan winner Graaf Statler. Then they will find the critical fora, and in no time Graaf Stater is world famous! And that is a nightmare for me! Being in the spotlights. And that is the main reason I will not be the one who let WMF collaps. At least, I am trying not to be.

[Kumioko]

Well to be fair, at the end of the day none of this or what I think really matters because there are several aspects that aren't going to change. James is not going to unban me, the WMF isn't either and I am not going to stop fighting or evading the ban as long as its in place.

So the question is, how best to use the present situation in the cause of the destruction of the WMF and all its works?

Well I think the answer to that question is complicated. First, the WMF has a surplus of cash and they are good at conning people out of money, so the first thing that would need to happen would be to interrupt that cash flow. That could happen a lot of ways, but my guess would be that if people were to start suing over copyright violations and libel on BLP's, the lawsuits would drain the finances and if they were public enough, could erode public confidence and start affecting the donations as well. We also need to start eroding things from within. Communications are vital for the success of the projects so things like the Signpost collapsing and portals being considered for deletion are signs of the breakdown there already. That could also be exploited.

We are already seeing a problem with retention and backlogs. So I think as more people leave and less edits are done we'll start seeing vandalism start lasting longer and that will start to erode confidence in the information as well.

So there are lots of ways to do it, not any one individually will work and they need to be addressed simultaneously, from multiple directions. It's difficult to fight a war on multiple fronts, the same holds true here.

[Graaf Statler]

Well to be fair, at the end of the day none of this or what I think really matters because there are several aspects that aren't going to change. James is not going to unban me, the WMF isn't either and I am not going to stop fighting or evading the ban as long as its in place.

So the question is, how best to use the present situation in the cause of the destruction of the WMF and all its works?

Well I think the answer to that question is complicated. First, the WMF has a surplus of cash and they are good at conning people out of money, so the first thing that would need to happen would be to interrupt that cash flow. That could happen a lot of ways, but my guess would be that if people were to start suing over copyright violations and libel on BLP's, the lawsuits would drain the finances and if they were public enough, could erode public confidence and start affecting the donations as well. We also need to start eroding things from within. Communications are vital for the success of the projects so things like the Signpost collapsing and portals being considered for deletion are signs of the breakdown there already. That could also be exploited.

We are already seeing a problem with retention and backlogs. So I think as more people leave and less edits are done we'll start seeing vandalism start lasting longer and that will start to erode confidence in the information as well.

So there are lots of ways to do it, not any one individually will work and they need to be addressed simultaneously, from multiple directions. It's difficult to fight a war on multiple fronts, the same holds true here.

Exactly, as far is your goal is to get WMF down. For me personally they can fuck themself (or each other), but it's true. After the first huge scandal the money machine stops, and like I said before, you always meet the same people twice. Once when you are going up, and again when you are going down. So, if someone lights one, only one small corner of the fire pyre, that whole dammed balefire burns down at once! And I simply don't want to be the one who has lightened that corner, I leave the honour to someone else. A SanFanBan is more than enough honour for me!

[Graaf Statler]

Just to let our best paid troll ever topranking:


"You are a child of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies"

John 8:44