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"DonorGate" Is Latest Scandal To Hit Wikipedia
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Mar 11, 2008 05:20 PM
from the who-to-believe dept.
from the who-to-believe dept.
MSTCrow5429 writes "In the latest of a long train of scandals to hit Wikipedia, the Sydney Morning Herald reports on an accusation that founder and Wikia President Jimmy Wales traded a multi-thousand dollar donation for an article re-write. Jeff Merkey, formerly of Novell, claims that Wales approached him in 2006 and said that for a fee, Wales would personally see to it that the article on Merkey, which had cast him in a negative light, would be re-written in Merkey's favor. Merkey claims that after he donated $5,000, Wales followed through on this quid pro quo. The Wikipedia edit history does indicate that Wales wiped out the article on Merkey, and then personally re-wrote it. The SMH reports that Wales has called the allegation 'nonsense.'" Merkey filed a harassment lawsuit in 2005 against a number of people and organizations, including Slashdot. Slashdot was removed from the suit on 2005-07-20.
Update: 03/12 00:39 GMT by KD : Wikimedia Foundation spokesman Jay Walsh provided this official statement: "Current allegations relating to Jimmy Wales soliciting donations for the Wikimedia Foundation in order to protect or edit Wikipedia articles are completely false. The Wikimedia Foundation has never accepted nor solicited donations in order to protect or make edits to a Wikipedia article — nor has Jimmy Wales. This is a practice the Wikimedia Foundation would never condone."
Update: 03/12 00:39 GMT by KD : Wikimedia Foundation spokesman Jay Walsh provided this official statement: "Current allegations relating to Jimmy Wales soliciting donations for the Wikimedia Foundation in order to protect or edit Wikipedia articles are completely false. The Wikimedia Foundation has never accepted nor solicited donations in order to protect or make edits to a Wikipedia article — nor has Jimmy Wales. This is a practice the Wikimedia Foundation would never condone."
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Where there is smoke.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Where there is smoke... there is smoke & mirro (Score:5, Insightful)
Quote from the Slashdot story: "Merkey filed a harassment lawsuit in 2005 against a number of people and organizations, including Slashdot."
Maybe someday Slashdot will be important enough that there are a lot of accusations.
Parent
Re:Where there is smoke... there is smoke & mi (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing that kept running through my mind as I read the article was that [citations were needed].
Bottom line: This article is definitely not NPOV, and none of the assertions therein have been substantiated.
Wikipedia is still one of the best bargains in the world. You get an amazing amount of valuable content for no cost. Should you use it as a sole source for a PhD dissertation? Of course not. Is it the best place to go if you're not a mathematician but would like a little background into combinatorics, are looking for some quick background into the War of the Roses, or want biographical data on the "father of alkali", James Muspratt, or the structure of the Dominant 7th chord? Fuckin' Aye.
When most of the conceptually anemic Web phenomena like Twitter are forgotten, Wikipedia will still be a valuable tool for people who want to look stuff up, and will be remembered for making the most of a brilliant idea and basically changing the way people use the Internet and facts.
Naturally, you're going to find twerps like Merkey who are pissed that the world doesn't recognize their brilliance and so get pissed at someone who they believe has garnered the adulation rightfully their own. Despite his best efforts and the insatiability of a zillion web news aggregators, Merkey will continue to be nobody.
Parent
Re:Where there is smoke... there is smoke & mi (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, having an entry on Jeff Merkey sure brings new meaning to "You get what you pay for".
Parent
Re:Where there is smoke... there is smoke & mi (Score:5, Funny)
Because people might read one of his wild crazy posts about buying the Linux Kernel under a commercial license and want to know who that crackpot is :) Then they can find out that he used to work at Novell, allegedly stole trade secrets to form his own company, spent $4 million in the ensuing litigation, and founded his own Native American church in Utah so people can smoke peyote legally.
Parent
Re:Where there is smoke... there is smoke & mi (Score:5, Insightful)
No. I've never read a maths article on wikipedia that wasn't written without regard to the ability of the average reader to understand it. Any time I try to read one I see an enormous chunk of long words, pages and pages of meaningless symbols and precious little explanation - whatever level they're written for, it's above me - and I have a degree in theoretical physics!
Parent
Re:Where there is smoke.... (Score:5, Funny)
[Citation needed]
Parent
But it's Jeff Merkey (Score:5, Informative)
Good for the occasional internet soap opera though.
Parent
Re:Where there is smoke.... (Score:5, Informative)
Like the "Jimbo ordered people to fix Marsden's bio" thing, this is a non-story. Jimbo has frequently taken the initiative in stubbing down crappy articles and asking editors to start afresh. Good practice. Nice of Jeff to give a donation, but stubbing down a bad biography is standard practice.
The reason for temporary protection (locking the article to stop edits by some users) is given by Wales as "an attempt to keep trolling to a minimum during an experimental rewrite" which is pretty sensible.
One thing that does look very odd is that the protection was not removed until this story broke. We're as partial to kool-aid as the next guy, so we do tend to defer to him perhaps more than he would like. :/ But this did NOT stop anybody editing the article, and I'll explain why.
There are two main modes of protection on the open source mediawiki software on which Wikipedia operates, usually called semi-protection and full protection, and in addition to that, protection applies to both editing and renaming/moving (because a common form of vandalism used to be to rename an article to something nasty). In the edit summary of Jimbo Wales' edit timestamped 20:58, 23 May 2006 , you'll see "[edit=autoconfirmed:move=autoconfirmed]". This indicates normal semiprotection ("autoconfirmed" users are those who have registered a username and waited about three days--there's nothing more to it than that--no vetting, no human intervention at all). So anybody patient enough to wait three days could edit that article.
So it's really a non-story. We protect articles against people who want to write "WEE WEE WEE JACK IS GAY!" all the time and this is precisely the mode of protection we use for, say, "George W. Bush"
Any Wikipedia editor with an account over three days old could edit that article for the whole of its post-Jimbo existence.
Parent
Could you clarify this part? (Score:3, Interesting)
So you are saying that Jeff did give a donation? And I take it that the stubbing took place right afterwards?
Can you explain why, even the negatives about Jeff that can be well documented were removed?
> So it's really a non-story. We protect articles against people who want to write "WEE WEE WEE JACK IS GAY."
Was the stuff about Merkey really of that nature? I saw the original article, and it did not look like tha
Re:Where there is smoke.... (Score:4, Insightful)
So the question is, did the previous version of the article contain BLP issues that required an oversight action to remove them from the edit history? Or did it contain properly cited claims that merely cast Merkey in a bad light?
The sheer fact that Jimbo used "eerie powers", when replacing the article text with what he wrote, at least gives the impression of impropriety, whether or not anything wrong actually happened here. Yes, any admin could have deleted the article and started it anew, but most don't, because you're not supposed to do it that way. And Jimbo isn't just any admin - his edits carry additional weight, and therefore attract additional scrutiny.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The whole smoke and fire thing is great for smearing people with scandal, but it can be terribly unfair.
Re:Where there is smoke.... (Score:4, Funny)
And unfortunately these are some articles he can't easily edit.
Parent
Re:Where there is smoke.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Likewise, the governor of New York is being called to resign because he allegedly saw a hooker. This has nothing whatsoever to do with his ability to govern the state, but sharp political rhetoric is being flung about nevertheless. The Bill Clinton affair also springs to mind.
All this means is that Jimmy Wales has some political opponents who are willing to fight dirty. He might be no saint, but Wikipedia seems to be doing pretty darn well for the most part.
The second part is devoid of any logic. If, for example, TheRegister publishes such damning accusations, then (1) that does not make them "political opponents" (Are you seriously claiming that Wales has "political opponents"? I think the editors of TheRegister just can't stand him; that has nothing to do with politics). Second, it doesn't "only mean they are willing to fight dirty". There are quite a few possibilities, and four of these possibilities are: 1. They fight dirty. Or 2. They are mistaken. Or 3. They are exaggerating. Or 4. They are exactly on the mark.
Parent
Re:Where there is smoke.... (Score:4, Informative)
Although, prostitution is still illegal and people in office (that we should be able to trust) shouldn't be doing illegal things. Next to that, the problem with Spitzer is that he embezzled money to pay for his prostitution.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Nah, it's spelled S-T-I-F-F-I-N-G T-H-E C-O-M-P-E-T-I-T-I-O-N.
Re:Where there is smoke.... (Score:4, Insightful)
If Spitzer was in an organization with a clear hierarchy of command, it wouldn't really matter what the hell he did in his free time. The general says, "jump", or "crawl" or "run at that machine gun nest". You do it, or they put you in prison. The general is mostly a manager: he makes decisions and issues orders, and you're forced to comply. A rousing speech might help, but a good battle plan is more essential.
Spitzer's position demands true leadership. Real leadership is getting people to follow you when they don't have to. I don't have it, but I know it when I see it. And if you're guilty of blatant hypocrisy, then people will question your motives. And if you're stupid enough to get caught doing illegal stuff, then people will question your judgment. So now they won't follow. If Spitzer tried to convince you to do something, would you feel inclined listen to him? Spitzer can still be an effective manager, but insofar as he needs to be a leader, things don't look very good.
Back on topic: these silly little scandals have little direct effect on the running of Wikipedia. But Wikipedia is entirely run by volunteers, so they can quit any time they want. If they are convinced that Wales is behaving in a way that isn't in the best interests of Wikipedia, taking bribes or using money for personal expenses, he will lose effectiveness as a leader. People will stop contributing, and Wikipedia will have a crisis.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
thats fine (Score:4, Interesting)
Kevmar is a stand up guy. He speaks his oppinion yet heardly flames anyone, even when they do mock his spelling.
this post was brought to you by Kevmar for no charge
Dinner is on me! (Score:5, Funny)
-Rick
Re:Dinner is on me! (Score:5, Funny)
They dressed up in sailor outfits? Terrifying.
Parent
Citizendium to the rescue! (Score:5, Interesting)
Also Wikitruth [wikitruth.info] sheds a lot of light on ol' Jimbo Wales and his shenanigans
Shocking! (Score:3, Interesting)
Hopefully he'll be selling timeshares again soon.
Jeff Merkey and lawsuits (Score:5, Interesting)
Jeff mostly just wants to be listened to. He can be grandiose and can get somewhat separated from reality.
Any article about Jeff on Wikipedia that relates events around Novell, SCO, and other stuff in 2005 would be a liability problem. I am not the slightest bit surprised that Wales had to re-write it. I don't think this has to be connected to a donation.
Bruce
Sounds about right, to me. (Score:3)
Re:Sounds about right, to me. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Urk.. the resultant mental association doesn't make me feel too well, I think I need to go lie down for a while.
Re:Jeff Merkey and lawsuits (Score:4, Interesting)
Didn't strike me as a particularly balanced individual during that episode. More I can't say.
Parent
Jeff did attempt to go directly to Jimbo. (Score:3, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3ARequests_for_comment%2FJeffrey_Vernon_Merkey2&diff=133328226&oldid=133327935#Dealing_with_Major_Financial_Contributors_of_the_Foundation_who_Edit_Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]
Some editors are more equal than others (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Jeff Merkey and lawsuits (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, not a legal liability problem, except perhaps for the person who wrote an article that lied about Merkey (or somehow created other liability like violating some contract, breaching some trade secret, etc). Wikipedia is not liable for what it publishes in its site when that content is written by someone else (like practically all its content), because it doesn't moderate it. Though it could be a "frivolous lawsuit target" problem for Wikipedia, as you were. Did you stop doing what you were doing that ticked Merkey off?
OTOH, by rewriting the article, Wales became responsible for what he wrote. If he used an account that has any privileges that people not on the Wikipedia editorial staff don't have, then he was making Wikipedia responsible for what he wrote. And since he was thereby moderating the Merkey article, he was thereby making Wikipedia responsible for the article.
Now, it's by no means clear that a court would have found that editing out article parts that Merkey complained about would make Wales/Wikipedia liable for what had been deleted. Though just the act of moderating content for any other reason than something like "clear and present danger" (or technical problems) could indeed be argued that "Wikipedia does moderate, it is therefore responsible for all content". Not necessarily a winning argument, but in fact Wales' editing likely created liability that didn't exist until he edited that article.
Now, it's all moot because Wales dropped his complaint. And perhaps he dropped his complaint because Wales made those changes. But Wales did probably increase his liability (from practically zero) by doing it. And he might have even produced evidence that "Wikipedia moderates content", which could make Wikipedia liable for all content. Including later complaints by Merkey. Including if someone else changed it back to the old version. But also including any other person who wants to complain, who could now hold Wikipedia liable for all content, because it does moderate.
Again, not a clear case. But not quite a frivolous one. Therefore increasing the risk by the action, if only in the longer term. But a serious change.
The real question is why didn't Merkey just edit it himself - that's what Wikipedia is for. Conversely, why didn't Wales have someone outside the Wikipedia org edit it, so the liability would be harder to prove.
And of course the ultimate question is whether Merkey did indeed pay Wales $5000 to make the change. If there's real evidence of that, things become clearer, but not better. Probably including Wikipedia's liability for all its content, to say nothing of its credibility.
Parent
Merkey v. Perens et al. (Score:5, Informative)
Bruce Perens wrote in Slashdot comment #22722890: "Jeff Merkey filed suit against me, and against PJ, some years ago. His family eventually convinced him to withdraw the suit against me, I don't know how his suit against PJ was resolved."
I (Al Petrofsky) was also a defendant in that case, Merkey v. Perense, et al., No. 2:05-cv-521-DAK, D. Utah, filed June 21, 2005. You can find full details here: http://scofacts.org/merkey [scofacts.org]
Merkey voluntarily dismissed his case against Pamela Jones. In the written dismissal notice he filed with the Court [scofacts.org], he said that he was dropping it in favor of "pursuing criminal prosecution in the various states these offenses occurred". Needless to say, I am not aware of any such criminal prosecutions ever taking place.
The above comment, that Merkey's "family eventually convinced him to wihdraw the suit against" Perens, is the first I've heard of there being any involvement by Merkey's family in Merkey's decision-making in the case. At the time, Merkey wrote an entry on his website, which he later filed with the court, stating that he was dropping the action against Perens in exchange for Perens having allegedly made a written statement about "a large number of written attacks with violent connotations made against [Merkey]":
Parent
Re:Merkey v. Perens et al. (Score:5, Informative)
It looks like I owe you an apology. FYI, my phone number is 510-984-1055, it's on my web site too. You are welcome to call any time if you have questions or complaints, as are all in the community. It rings in my home and office. It doesn't accept calls when we would be asleep.
I am surprised that the thing actually got one hearing. I never knew. Obviously the fact that you were involved at all is absurd, that a Magistrate would suggest that sort of judgement against you is highly absurd.
That looks like the statement I made. I haven't run "diff".
At the time the lawsuit was filed, I asked Slashdot's company and Novell for help. No help was forthcoming from either company. This worried me more than anything about the case, not because I needed help that much, but because those companies were willing to let their community down that way.
I had some advice from Larry Rosen, who felt that the case was bull, and that nobody was really threatened. If I had known that you would be threatened to the extent you were by the Magistrate's statement, I might have acted differently. But in the end, Larry was right - nothing came of the case.
My main reason for getting out of the case was that in a fight as stupid as that, everybody looks stupid. Walking away was the only respectable action, in my opinion at the time.
Jeff Merkey's family thought it was stupid too, and pressured him to stop, and he approached me and settled. I gave him a statement that did not compliment him and did discourage the folks on Slashdot who really did talk about physical violence. Remember, this was at the hight of the SCO stuff, and tempers were high. Sure, the talk about physical violence was inflated and taken advantage of by anyone who wanted us to look bad in the press. But the reality is that if you don't want to look bad for that sort of stuff, you have to make sure that you and your friends are not doing any of it at all. My comment was effective at stopping that stuff.
Jimbo Wales problems now stem from the Wikipedia's growing pains, the mistakes that any leader makes when going from nothing to high visibility, the fact that various entities would like to see Wikipedia tarnished, and just the fact that his and Wikipedia's profile is high enough that gossip about him gets web hits for news sites. I've been there. IMO, his worst problem is nothing to do with this, it's the fact that Google looks as if they might do their best to screw Wikipedia and get something that they own, and that carries their ads, in its place. We've never really seen Google turn against an Open Source project before, this will be interesting if it really happens. IMO, Google would lose.
So, you must be angry about all of this. I'm sorry. I didn't know.
Bruce
Parent
Re:He also tried to buy Linux, didn't he? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:It wasn't the value of Linux, but legal hurdles (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think a change to BSD is anything the kernel team would seriously consider, though.
Parent
Re:It wasn't the value of Linux, but legal hurdles (Score:4, Informative)
Well, people say this but the reality is that Linux has has two significant license modifications, Wikipedia has had one, and not all parties were contacted when these things happened. Many Open Source projects go through similar changes. Until you get a court case, it's not going to be 100% sure, but as far as I can tell right now, the absent, dead, etc. can't hold up the majority of the Open Source developers if they decide to make a change to their collective work.
Parent
Jeff Merkey is banned from Wikipedia (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Jeffrey_Vernon_Merkey&oldid=148079940 [wikipedia.org]
Jeffrey Vernon Merkey: Whackaloon (Score:5, Informative)
This is the person who demanded that all homosexuals recuse themselves from dealing with the ArbCom case the last time he was banned from Wikipedia.
He demanded special treatment the last time he was on there, because he was such a big donor. (didn't get it mind you, but he wanted it, real bad).
This is a person who:"In 1998, the Fourth Judicial District Court of Utah found that Merkey "regularly exaggerates or lies in his comments to others about events happening around him. It is as though he is creating his own separate reality" (From SCOFacts)
JVM is a smart guy, no one denies that.
But he's also nuttier then a fruitcake.
Re:Jeffrey Vernon Merkey: Whackaloon (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
DonorGate? (Score:3, Funny)
Who comes up w/ these buzzwords, anyhow?
Re:donorgate... (Score:5, Funny)
Gate-gate!
Parent
Re:donorgate... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:wikipedia not a wiki? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:wikipedia not a wiki? (Score:5, Insightful)
However, I don't know how common this is. If we are to assume innocence, then it might be that wikipedia was just trying to avoid being a location for mud slinging.
If not, then yup, it's a bit odd.
However, merkey has long been associated with wacko behaviour, so in this light his accusation could b viewed as no more than yet another attempt to keep his name in internet headlines.
Given the absurdity of his previous claims, I'm tended to lean towards this last possibility.
Parent
Re: wikipedia not a wiki? (Score:3, Informative)
However, I don't know how common this is. If we are to assume innocence, then it might be that wikipedia was just trying to avoid being a location for mud slinging.
If not, then yup, it's a bit odd.
Re:wikipedia not a wiki? (Score:5, Informative)
There's two types of protection:
Semi-Protection: Where all anonymous editors (those without accounts), and those whose accounts are less then four days old (I believe) are kept from editing these articles. This is to prevent someone from registering a new account, and going on a vandalism spree.
Full-Protection: What the JVM article was for a while. That means only administrators can edit the article. This is GENERALLY used only for short periods, where vandalism/edit-wars are too great. This is generally to make the folks take it to the articles talk page and hash things out. In GENERAL (not saying every circumstance, or what have you), when an article is full-protected, the only edits that are done, even by administrators, are either to remove vandalism, material that violates Wikipedia's policies on the Biographies of Living People (Libelous material, etcetera), or things that have full consensus on the talk page.
Once tempers cool down, the article is unprotected. The problem is: There's a great amount of people who take great pleasure in poking Mr. Merkey with sticks, just so they can get a reaction out of him (the Yahoo SCO Message Board took great pleasure in trying to drive him insane, for example). In the ArbCom case that Mr. Merkey was banned from Wikipedia (again), three of his main annoyances, were also banished.
In this specific case, I can understand why the page was full-locked for a while, because these people were taking great pleasure in their attempts to make JVM lose the plot.
Parent
Re:Did you have to white-wash everything negative? (Score:5, Informative)
That's because I have no particular knowledge whether Merkey is a donor to the Wikimedia Foundation, other than JVM's words. I am an administrator, but last I checked, there was, I want to say, about 2,000 of us (administrators) on the project. So, there's people who are in the know about various things, but I'm not one of them.
I did comment on JVM on some of the previous steps prior to the Arbitration Committee(as I said, there's no doubt that there is a bunch of folks who travel around trying to troll JVM into losing his cool, but to be quite honest, it doesn't take much prompting, as you can see from some of the other posts that have surfaced.
And as for the whitewashing, well, first off I didn't do it, or review it at the time, but the rules in general, are that on BLP (Biography of Living Persons) articles, if information is contested, or controversial, and it's not highly sourced, it comes out of the article, and should not be added back in unless it's properly sourced. While usually a request doesn't get Jimbo's attention straight out, it's not uncommon for intense scrutiny to be focused on an BLP article by a cadre of volunteer editors who answer complaints by people or companies via email about their article (it's called the OTRS system), where they consider information to be incorrect. Sometimes, when a vast majority of the information in the article is either incorrect, or presented in a biased manner, it requires a total re-write of the article, which may have happened here.
Again, I'm not trying to say what did, or did not happen, I'm just trying to explain how things should work. Whether it is how it works in practice, as well as it does in theory, is something I won't venture to guess on.
Parent
Re:wikipedia not a wiki? (Score:4, Insightful)
The same problems of moderation, rewrites, bitching, whining, favouratism and hidden motives and agendas... all go on on Wikipedia, just as they do on lesser boards. The problem is, Wikipedia involves "real-world" problems, and affects people in very concrete ways.
I was recently involved in a tussle on a board regarding a female member being stalked by another board member. Through-out, the arguments were wide and ranging, but almost invariably involved the "virtual" world vs. the "real" one.
If people understood the implications of having such a widely-[mis]regarded source cited as a credible fount of information, and the impact that could have on the real world, I think we'd all be better off, and relegate this misbegotten site to its real impact: a forum that has blown to momentusly dangerous proportions, and taken its adolescent behaviour to the masses.
Let's not fool ourselves. It could be porn reviews, or celebrity photos. No... it's Wikipedia.
Parent
Since anonymity is guaranteed? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent