G'day Steven,
(Top-posting fixed. Please don't do it again.)
On 7/13/07, Mark Gallagher fuddlemark@gmail.com wrote:
G'day Guy,
A good idea, flawed in execution. Now taken down due to legal threats.
If it's true --- and I'd like a lot more detail before I concede such a point --- then this is Terrible. What slimy coward thought it appropriate to threaten WA?
Oh, I dunno, some slimy coward who's good intentioned works on wikipedia, and possibly their actual person, was being slandered by anonymous blowhards accountable to no one.
Strikes me that the same argument has been made by WR and WA fans, notably including Daniel Brandt[0]. It was a poorly-thought and inappropriate argument then, and it's a poorly-thought and inappropriate argument now.
Did you actually read WA at all? It attempted to be a kindler, gentler attack site. It gave me the willies, being run by a known dickhead, but it was easy to see that: a) it was doing no harm, and b) if its stated intentions were genuine[1], it could actually be a Force For Good.
What on WA was lawsuit-worthy, and why are we not to know who was involved? I can think of two possibilities, but perhaps there are more. One is that Joe is lying about the lawsuit, a distinct possibility (but one that doesn't excuse your defence of such a suit). The other is that whoever threatened him also insisted that he not name them, hence: that party is a "slimy coward".
[0] If you talk about slanderous anonymous blowhards, there are people out there --- more than you'd think --- who would assume the phrase best refers to Wikipedians. They wouldn't always be wrong, either.
[1] I've yet to see an anti-Wikipedia site actually tell the truth about its intentions, but I'm willing to accept that maybe, just maybe, Joe was genuine here. He never got the chance to show us ...