Forum Moderators: rogerd
[wikipedia.de...]
So I would find it good, when wikipedia would have one AdLink per page. This would be enough money to fight in this case with the best lawyers available.
Sounds like an interesting followup to our last Wikipedia discussion: Preventing Anarchy in Wiki Communities [webmasterworld.com].
As noted earlier, the crux of the case was privacy. Parents of a deceased individual sued to keep his name from being published on Wikipedia, and a judge ordered the site be taken down until the name was removed. (Of course, now his name will be published thousands of times more as this story circulates, and there won't be judicial recourse.)
It's a bit scary that an entire community could get shut down because of one name being exposed. For sites that rely on user-contributed content, this is a real nightmare. Fortunately, this seems like an isolated, and rather goofy, ruling that is likely to be overturned or ignored in the long run.
"However, the site and original article are still accessible through de.wikipedia.org."
So who cares. I don`t think this'll last long, that judge is going to get a lot of trouble. The media'll pick this up the next days and wiki germany is going to raise a lot of funds. Bet? Its easier to burn books than to shup up a website, particularly one like wiki (plus the ones scraping it, lol).
If they wanted to keep Tron's real name off the Web, this is the absolute worst thing they could have done.
The blogosphere will eat this one up...
They couldn't have gotten more exposure for the kid's real name if they spent $25K on PR.
Rather that worry about his/her fee, he should have informed the family about the consequences, of going to court.
The family's lawyer should be sued for total imcompetence.
The family should rather file a report on him to whatever law society or bar equivalent they have in Germany.
On the other hand, this decision will hopefully not have the impact it might have had in the US (with binding precedent), as precedent here in Germany is not legally binding, but acts only as an orientation-line for future decisions. Hopefully, the next judge will have a more sensitive hand for issues like these.
It is even more disturbing that a court would play along with this and shut down an entire site. We are talking maybe a handful of article with his name out of 341,000 in the German edition.
People can bash America all they want but it would not happen here thankfully because of our 1st Amendment rights.
The family's lawyer should be sued for total imcompetence.The family should rather file a report on him to whatever law society or bar equivalent they have in Germany.
Why? Wasn’t it the family that started this by wanting his name removed? It seems as if the lawyer was only doing what was requested of him or her. The lawyer might have informed the family this could happen, but the family might not have cared.
They could have deleted the page again and again or just blocked that page, why shutting down the whole German wiki?
Funny, the first thing I thought was that if there was something I wanted to keep out of a wiki I'd run a cron job to delete all article contents every minute...
but the family might not have cared.
They couldn't have gotten more exposure for the kid's real name if they spent $25K on PR
The irony is almost painful.
We know that you can not undertand these type of things. Here the persons are first.
And yes, I do agree on the points about publicity. I guess the court system in Germany is just as big a circus as here in the states.
I wonder why the family wanted thr name removed - could it be that they wanted to disassociate themselves and protect their family name from hacker(ism)? If that were the case then they really should have asked wiki direct to remove it - but then again what would stop someone else from editing it - which brings to light what might be a fundamental flaw with the wikipedia theory; it's editable by anyone and none of the information in this "encyclopedia".
I do like wikipedia though - I've printed a lot of stuff from there and read it, and it was very helpful - I'm not entirely certain that it's accurate - but it does seem to be.
Maybe wikipedia should keep their topics restricted to objects and figures/people in the public domain as oppsoed to private familes and individuals?!
Maybe wikipedia should keep their topics restricted to objects and figures/people in the public domain as oppsoed to private familes and individuals?!
This is what it's all about. The family claim that the hacker tron is a private individual and that his name should not be mentioned. Wikipeda says he is an absolute person of contemporary history.
Which something you can hardly deny. After all he received some fame for a breaking the security of German phonecards and was in the media even before his death. And his real name is mentioned on hundreds of pages in the internet outside wikipedia.
Like in this Wired article dating back to 1998
[wired.com...]
Three cheers for a sensible German judge.
Matt Probert
The issue is not quality of Wikipedia here but personality rights. The same could happen to the Encyclopidia Britannica or any other encyclopedia.
[nature.com...]
naivety...
I only wish the other areas of its content were quite so reliable, because it's not the coverage of science that's been getting Wikipedia into trouble :)
Thats not to say many years down the road our rights slowly erobe as globalists Judges look to the EU to set precedent.
I do not know what is more disturbing the Judge actions or many in this thread that approve the ruling. The implications of this ruling alone.
Now, if one individual or organization violated the privacy of another individual, that latter individual could try to sue them over it. Whether their claim will stand depends on a lot of factors.
Oh, and one more note. Germany has freedom of speech too. It's been a democracy for quite some time now ;-) Whether it was the right thing for the judge to shut down the entire site is another question. I personally don't think so.
