G'day Steven,
(Top-posting fixed. Please don't do it again.)
On 7/13/07, Mark Gallagher
<fuddlemark(a)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 ...
--
Mark Gallagher
"'Yes, sir,' said Jeeves in a low, cold voice, as if he had been bitten
in the leg by a personal friend."
- P G Wodehouse, /Carry On, Jeeves/