Guten Tag zusammen,

Ich bin ein contributor der englischen Wikipedia. Ich habe kuerzlich eine Reihe von zusammenhaengenden Themen auf der wikiEN-l mailing list zur Sprache gebracht. Man hat mir empfohlen, mich einerseits an die foundation-l zu wenden und andererseits die Angelegenheit an den deutschen Verein (das waeret ihr ;-) mitzuteilen.

Da ich ehrlich gesagt aber nicht den Nerv habe, jetzt den ganzen Kram auch noch mal auf Deutsch abzufassen, hoffe ich jetzt mal ganz einfach, dass die meisten hier ausreichend der englischen Sprache maechtig sind :) und leite die betreffende email einfach weiter (s.u.).

Ich wuerde mich freuen, wenn Ihr den betreffenden Kram mal durchlesen koenntet, so dass wir hier weitere Schritte besprechen koennen.

Im Falle von nachhaltigen Sprachschwierigkeiten bitte auf der Liste melden -- wir koennen dann gegenseitig sicher aushelfen und ich kann im Einzelfall auch die betreffenden Stellen erklaeren. Vielleicht haben auch andere Untenstehendes bereits berichtet (s.u.). -- Falls es schon Antworten oder Diskussionsbeitraege gab, so wuerde ich mich freuen, wenn man diese noch mal an mich weiterleiten koennte. -- Ich habe erst jetzt gerade diese mailing list abonniert.

Thanks and regards, Jens Ropers

There are two types of IT techs: The ones who watch soap operas and the ones who watch progress bars. http://www.ropersonline.com/elmo/#108681741955837683

Begin forwarded message:

From: Jens Ropers ropers@ropersonline.com Date: 11 August 2004 19:05:11 GMT+02:00 To: foundation-l@wikimedia.org Subject: Re: domain donation, cybersquatter, our copyright

Hi, this is my first mail to this list, to which I've just subscribed. I understand the below discussion has been moved here?

(from wikiEN-l to foundation-l)

The discussion in question concerns various issues I described in detail on a password-protected area of my website (as there were problems w/ list members receiving the relevant HTML file containing my writings). I would invite list members here to also read this page. From a previous email I sent:

...

I have thus now posted my "little paper" on my website, at: http://www.ropersonline.com/Area_51/wikipaedia.html

capitalization matters on the URL, btw.

...

Note that Area 51 is restricted access only. Please log on as follows: user name: guest password: 1ns4nI+y The clear text password is of course only a modest precaution -- I just don't want to give the rascal I'm exposing there easy opportunity to sue me. Please feel free to pass these account details on to other *trusted* Wikipedians.

_Please, PLEASE DO have a look at it and read it!_

Please, let's start tackling these issues! If there is a better place to take this, please tell me so! -- I am still fairly new and chances are I'm just not aware of it. I really do want these issues addressed!

In case people have commented on this issue already, I would be very grateful to be forwarded copies of any relevant emails. I would not have received them previously as I wasn't a list member till now.

In response to my email, Angela_ responded as follows:

On 11 Aug 2004, at 16:29, wikien-l-request@Wikipedia.org wrote:

...

Message: 2 Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2004 22:59:25 +0100 From: Angela_ beesley@gmail.com Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: domain donation, cybersquatter, our copyright To: foundation-l@wikimedia.org Cc: wikien-l@wikipedia.org Message-ID: 8b722b800408101459821267b@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

(moving thread from wikien-l to foundation-l. Please reply there)

Jens Ropers wrote:

...

1. I am seeking to donate the wikipaedia.net domain name (which I

have registered) to the Wikipedia Foundation.

Thank you for offering us this. My only concern is that confusion could arise if we own wikipaedia.net but not the other wikipaedia domains. If we don't own any of them, it's more obvious that wikipaedia is nothing to do with us.

True, but that confusion is already there. People /are/ accessing wikipAEdia domains. I did. Also, as I observed in my wikipaedia.html paper above, Dr. Schlabeck is actively furthering that confusion by impersonating us and linking to us in a confusing (non-working) way. (See Gripe #1, #3 and #4.) We're not helping ourselves by avoiding the battle and "yielding ground". We should claim and hold what ground is rightfully ours and systematically pursue our claims on the domains Dr. Schlabeck currently controls. (Sorry about the militaristic lingo. Couldn't think of a clearer way to put it.) I would also suggest that things get implemented as follows as far as DNS servers:

1. Make wikipaedia.net /redirect/ to wikipedia.org, so that users

hitting wikipaedia.net will find themselves looking at the Wikipedia, /with/ a wikipedia.org URL in the address bar. (And let's /not/ put in one of those silly 5-second-delay-to-redirect, "please change your bookmarks" pages. Those are pretty friggin useless anyway. 2. Configure the DNS boxen in such a fashion that, say, a URL of http://en.wikipaedia.net/wiki/Charlie_Muffin will automatically redirect to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Muffin. This may be slightly controversial in that there's the downside that such a "forgiving" behaviour might encourage people to keep using the "wrong" URL. On the other hand, as long as it fully redirects to the correct .org address, there shouldn't be much to worry about as people will realize very quickly that our "main" URL is wikipedia.org. And it's not as if we had to fear loosing wikipaedia.net anytime soon.

I've also email Jimmy on this -- no reply yet -- because I wanted to do the actual turning over of the domain directly to him, to avoid any possible issues, say, with someone untrustworthy reading this list, grabbing the domain and sodding off with it.

In the meantime, the suggested DNS changes could already be implemented! :) I don't have a DNS server and I don't have the option to directly enter a redirection URL with my domain name registrar (i.e. they're not offering DNS services for this domain-name-only account). What I can enter are DNS server addresses. So if the appropriate Wikipedia admins (Jimmy?) were to include the appropriate records with their name servers (possibly zwinger.wikipedia.org and gunther.bomis.com?), I could then enter these server addresses into the wikipaedia.net domain control panel and things should be working, even before the actual domain ownership gets formally transferred to the WP Foundation.

...

...

2. A particularly bad serial cybersquatter is controlling

wikipaedia.org, wikipaedia.com and wikipaedia.de. We really should get these domains off him (and would be able to do so).

I asked in the German IRC channel about this. Maybe I'm assuming too much good faith, but I think we ought to approach that site owner in a friendly way at first before we get too heavy handed. Sansculotte is going to take this to the VereinDE-l mailing list and discuss it there. Hopefully someone who speaks German can contact the site about this. We might well get no reply, but at least we can say we tried before taking this any further. It is worth noting that Akl was successful in getting the wikipedia.ch and wikipedia.at domains back, so perhaps this can be successful too.

Angela.

True, it can't hurt to ask -- and it's The Right Thing™. However, I still have my doubts, because Dr. Schlabeck is not only cybersquatting on us but also impersonating us and infringing our copyrights (see Gripe #1, #2, #3 and #4). To top things off, he seems to be a truly "remarkable" serial cybersqatter (see Gripe #5). I think what'll happen is this:

1. He'll claim ignorance on the content copyright infringement and

impersonation issues ("I thought it was free!"). 2. He'll demand cash, and not only cash but extortionate sums for the wikipaedia domains he currently controls. But -- true enough -- it can't hurt to ask. It actually strengthens our case.

As regards the VereinDE-l mailing list, well, actually, I happen to speak German. So I'll join the VereinDE-l ML (any minute now...) and see what can be done there. (I was actually hoping others to take over the baton from me with these things, because I've already spent quite a bit of time on this. ;-) Anyhoo, the wikipaedia.de and content infringement issues are probably better dealt with by the German Verein (because the domain and content in question are German).

BUT: I would still suggest tackling the wikipaedia.com and wikipaedia.org issues from our end, because these issues concern us more than our German Verein. Plus, we don't even have to sue: It is /perfectly sufficient/ to pursue our claims on these gTLD domains under the ICANN UDRP! (And, IANAL, but the way I read the UDRP we're pretty much /guaranteed/ to win there. The only semi-legitimate "claim" Dr. Schlabeck could put to the domain is to say the -paedia bit stood for Paediater (German for pediatrician) --- but he's a psychiatrist, not a pediatrician!) Anyways, if needed I could translate agreed-upon Schlabeck-addressed correspondence to German (if it's not too long.) Besides, IMHO we needn't necessarily worry about a language barrier from our end. -- It is quite reasonable to expect holders of gTLDs to respond to related correspondence in English.

Thanks and regards, Jens Ropers

There are two types of IT techs: The ones who watch soap operas and the ones who watch progress bars. http://www.ropersonline.com/elmo/#108681741955837683