Apparently, literary agent [[Barbara Bauer]] has sued a number of people and organizations, including the Wikimedia Foundation, for defamation because of their involvement in making or publicizing allegations that Bauer's services are a scam because she insists on payment up front from authors (where normal industry practice is for agents to collect only after the author's works sell) and has apparently sold few or none of her clients' works to anything other than vanity presses. She has made it onto the Science Fiction Writers of America's "20 worst agents" list (they're another of the defendants in the suit). She has a long record of threatening suits against sites and forums that criticize her, at one point demanding a billion dollars for unauthorized use of her name as the title of a forum thread asking a question about her business practices. http://forums.writersweekly.com/viewtopic.php?p=44820
If anybody's interested, the suit is docket number L-001169-07 in Monmouth County, New Jersey, where it can be looked up here: http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/acms/disc/CV0227W0E.ASP It's one of the many court sites that make it a pain to link to their stuff because they use a form-post interface for document retrieval.
On 3/26/07, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
If anybody's interested, the suit is docket number L-001169-07 in Monmouth County, New Jersey...
Should've been in Mercer County, New Jersey.
Eugene van der Pijll wrote:
Daniel R. Tobias schreef:
Apparently, literary agent [[Barbara Bauer]] has sued a number of people and organizations, including the Wikimedia Foundation
And it worked, the article has been deleted.
Yay knee jerk BLP! Whee!
Here's the cache version so people know what we're running from:
http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:q77ZSufuJzMJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barb...
-Jeff
On 25/03/07, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
Here's the cache version so people know what we're running from:
http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:q77ZSufuJzMJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barb...
Hell hath no fury like a cabaret singer scorned.
She may have filed a suit, but she's never going to follow through with it, because if she does Writer Beware (the anti-scammer bit of the Science Fiction Writers of America) have a nice big file of people who can give evidence against her and who she still owns a lot of money. This is never going to fly.
I'd like to see her article kept with the most proper of citations, but if it stays deleted, I won't cry much. I Google search on Bauer will yield the searcher Writer Beware info if there's no Wikipedia page.
I'll await the outcome of this eagerly. Writer Beware put a scammer behind bars recently and I know they'll make the best of efforts to stop Bauer too.
Mgm
On 3/25/07, Eugene van der Pijll eugene@vanderpijll.nl wrote:
Daniel R. Tobias schreef:
Apparently, literary agent [[Barbara Bauer]] has sued a number of people and organizations, including the Wikimedia Foundation
And it worked, the article has been deleted.
# 10:56, 25 March 2007 Doc glasgow (Talk | contribs) deleted "Barbara Bauer" (per WP:BLP article is a bloody disgrace. Full of 'allegations" of who said what on message boards . No mainstream media interest.)
Correct me if I'm wrong but shouldn't that comment be in an AFD nom or is this another one of those "Danial Brandt" deletes?
I think we need some input from the Office as to how this situation should be handled on-wiki.
Newyorkbrad
On 3/25/07, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
Ron Ritzman wrote:
Correct me if I'm wrong but shouldn't that comment be in an AFD nom or is this another one of those "Danial Brandt" deletes?
Yes.
-Jeff
-- If you can read this, I'm not at home.
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I doubt you will have such information very soon. We first need to find out more details.
Ant
Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia) wrote:
I think we need some input from the Office as to how this situation should be handled on-wiki.
Newyorkbrad
On 3/25/07, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
Ron Ritzman wrote:
Correct me if I'm wrong but shouldn't that comment be in an AFD nom or is this another one of those "Danial Brandt" deletes?
Yes.
-Jeff
-- If you can read this, I'm not at home.
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Florence Devouard wrote:
Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia) wrote:
I think we need some input from the Office as to how this situation
should
be handled on-wiki.
Newyorkbrad
On 3/25/07, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com
wrote:
Ron Ritzman wrote:
Correct me if I'm wrong but shouldn't that comment be in an AFD nom or is this another one of those "Danial Brandt" deletes?
Yes.
-Jeff
-- If you can read this, I'm not at home.
I will say this much. In a cursory review of the situation, nothing should be done with regard to the restoration of this article until the Wikimedia Foundation office has had a chance to look at it in an official capacity; no matter what consensus Deletion Review may encounter. This will occur some time after 13h00 (UTC) Monday, March 26, when the office is open.
Discussion aside, without being able to discuss the matter from a legal standpoint, there's no case in restoring the article with the questionable content.
Cary Bass --- ~ bastique
Cary Bass wrote:
I will say this much. In a cursory review of the situation, nothing should be done with regard to the restoration of this article until the Wikimedia Foundation office has had a chance to look at it in an official capacity; no matter what consensus Deletion Review may encounter. This will occur some time after 13h00 (UTC) Monday, March 26, when the office is open.
DRV won't conclude until Thursday, so there's no concern there of any restoration happening before then.
-Jeff
Cary Bass wrote:
I will say this much. In a cursory review of the situation, nothing should be done with regard to the restoration of this article until the Wikimedia Foundation office has had a chance to look at it in an official capacity; no matter what consensus Deletion Review may encounter. This will occur some time after 13h00 (UTC) Monday, March 26, when the office is open.
Discussion aside, without being able to discuss the matter from a legal standpoint, there's no case in restoring the article with the questionable content.
Cary Bass
~ bastique
I wanted to follow up with my email from last night. If anyone is waiting for any official word from the office, as far as we're concerned, unless something changes, there will be none.
Thanks, Cary Bass --- ~ bastique
On 3/26/07, Cary Bass cbass@wikimedia.org wrote:
Cary Bass wrote:
I will say this much. In a cursory review of the situation, nothing
should
be done with regard to the restoration of this article until the
Wikimedia
Foundation office has had a chance to look at it in an official
capacity; no
matter what consensus Deletion Review may encounter. This will occur
some
time after 13h00 (UTC) Monday, March 26, when the office is open.
Discussion aside, without being able to discuss the matter from a legal standpoint, there's no case in restoring the article with the
questionable
content.
Cary Bass
~ bastique
I wanted to follow up with my email from last night. If anyone is waiting for any official word from the office, as far as we're concerned, unless something changes, there will be none.
Thanks, Cary Bass
~ bastique
Does the lack of a final word from the office mean you will approach this the same way the Science Fiction Writers of America handle complaints by Barbara Bauer?
Mgm
On 3/26/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote: Does the lack of a final word from the office mean you will approach this the same way the Science Fiction Writers of America handle complaints by Barbara Bauer?
--- Also, I forgot to ask, does this mean the office has no opinion about the deletion of the article?
Mgm
Only the last part is problematic:
"There have been a number of complaints on internet message boards about the fees that Bauer charges. Bauer is also alleged to have made legal threats in order to suppress discussion of her business's activities, especially on web sites. Reports of this behaviour are usually found on sites maintained by people who claim to have received such threats. [7]http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:q77ZSufuJzMJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Bauer+%22Barbara+Bauer%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=8&gl=us#_note-1She is also alleged to have caused the popular website, Absolute Write, to lose its Internet hosting servicehttp://209.85.165.104/wiki/Internet_hosting_servicein May http://209.85.165.104/wiki/May, 2006 http://209.85.165.104/wiki/2006. [8]http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:q77ZSufuJzMJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Bauer+%22Barbara+Bauer%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=8&gl=us#_note-2 "
Only the last part is problematic, why are we quoting blogs making allegations about somebody? Teresa Nielsen Hayden should be specifically identified in the text of the article, who she is, what her notability is for saying this, and her page wikilinked.
We go over this all of the time in FAC, people need to included in-line information, not just notes, or wikilinks, and all the time the repsonse is that it's wikilinked so nothing else needs to be said. BS! An article should be complete and defamatory allegations are only complete if they're notable in the first place, and fully discussed, who alleges what and where, plus the quote should be ATTRIBUTED to someone else pointing Wikipedia editors to the notability of the person making the allegation, both the alleger's notability, and the notability of the alleger's allegation.
"[American Science Fiction] writer and blogger [Teresa Nielsen Hayden] ([Making Light] on where it is served up) has claimed on her blog[5] that in response to discussion of Bauer's business practices, Nielsen has been threatened with legal action by Bauer.[6 source, where the Wikipedia editor got the information about Hayden's blog, NOT sourced to the blog directly!]. [Fantasy] author, [Victoria Strauss], and science fiction writer [A. C. Crispin], who maintain a blog ([Writer Beware], on [Blogspot]), have alleged on their blog[7] that Bauer caused the popular website [Absolute Write] to lose its web hosting service[8sourced, again, to the report that editors used for this information, NOT the bloggers themselves!]."
In other words, DON'T use primary sources! Or link to them so folks can see for themselves, but they are not the information included in article, but rather we use the report of the information.
KP
On 3/25/07, Ron Ritzman ritzman@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/25/07, Eugene van der Pijll eugene@vanderpijll.nl wrote:
Daniel R. Tobias schreef:
Apparently, literary agent [[Barbara Bauer]] has sued a number of people and organizations, including the Wikimedia Foundation
And it worked, the article has been deleted.
# 10:56, 25 March 2007 Doc glasgow (Talk | contribs) deleted "Barbara Bauer" (per WP:BLP article is a bloody disgrace. Full of 'allegations" of who said what on message boards . No mainstream media interest.)
Correct me if I'm wrong but shouldn't that comment be in an AFD nom or is this another one of those "Danial Brandt" deletes?
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 25/03/07, K P kpbotany@gmail.com wrote:
Only the last part is problematic, why are we quoting blogs making allegations about somebody? Teresa Nielsen Hayden should be specifically identified in the text of the article, who she is, what her notability is for saying this, and her page wikilinked.
This is one of those things that is obvious if you're in the SF field - i.e., the Nielsen-Haydens are highly respected editors, and their blog is not your average blog any more than Groklaw is.
Just how far out of our way should we have to go to justify references to those ignorant of the field who still consider their proudly ignorant opinion is just as valid on AFD as that of someone who actually has half a clue what they're talking about?
- d.
I'm impressed, this is the first message I get about a possible Bauer lawsuit. Normally I get this info from writing related sites, but so far none of the ones I frequent mention it. You've got a scoop.
Mgm
On 3/25/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
This is one of those things that is obvious if you're in the SF field
- i.e., the Nielsen-Haydens are highly respected editors, and their
blog is not your average blog any more than Groklaw is.
Just how far out of our way should we have to go to justify references to those ignorant of the field who still consider their proudly ignorant opinion is just as valid on AFD as that of someone who actually has half a clue what they're talking about?
On the other hand, it never hurts to make the notability of the source clear - because some readers won't be in the field. Often, on WIkipedia, you don't have to do that much - a link would do most of it.
-Matt
On 3/25/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 25/03/07, K P kpbotany@gmail.com wrote:
Only the last part is problematic, why are we quoting blogs making allegations about somebody? Teresa Nielsen Hayden should be
specifically
identified in the text of the article, who she is, what her notability
is
for saying this, and her page wikilinked.
This is one of those things that is obvious if you're in the SF field
- i.e., the Nielsen-Haydens are highly respected editors, and their
blog is not your average blog any more than Groklaw is.
Just how far out of our way should we have to go to justify references to those ignorant of the field who still consider their proudly ignorant opinion is just as valid on AFD as that of someone who actually has half a clue what they're talking about?
- d.
Wikipedia is not a specialized encyclopedia with little subcultures limited to their own reading, it is a general encyclopedia, and as such, I should be able to read an article about a topic without knowing much about it, like who the insiders are, and who the major players are. This is, again, one of those things that folks fight against tooth and nail on FAC, but when they rewrite the articles for a general audience at my insistence (for the few unlucky ones whose articles I edit), they ALL agree the articles are better and more appropriate and more in line with Wikipedia policies and guidelines. In addition this takes care of BLP issues. It takes care of a lot, most of all it makes Wikipedia in line with its goals: being a general encyclopedia.
This article is not written FOR readers of Science Fiction. It is written for users of Wikipedia.
KP
On 3/26/07, K P kpbotany@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/25/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 25/03/07, K P kpbotany@gmail.com wrote:
Only the last part is problematic, why are we quoting blogs making allegations about somebody? Teresa Nielsen Hayden should be
specifically
identified in the text of the article, who she is, what her notability
is
for saying this, and her page wikilinked.
This is one of those things that is obvious if you're in the SF field
- i.e., the Nielsen-Haydens are highly respected editors, and their
blog is not your average blog any more than Groklaw is.
Just how far out of our way should we have to go to justify references to those ignorant of the field who still consider their proudly ignorant opinion is just as valid on AFD as that of someone who actually has half a clue what they're talking about?
- d.
Wikipedia is not a specialized encyclopedia with little subcultures limited to their own reading, it is a general encyclopedia, and as such, I should be able to read an article about a topic without knowing much about it, like who the insiders are, and who the major players are. This is, again, one of those things that folks fight against tooth and nail on FAC, but when they rewrite the articles for a general audience at my insistence (for the few unlucky ones whose articles I edit), they ALL agree the articles are better and more appropriate and more in line with Wikipedia policies and guidelines. In addition this takes care of BLP issues. It takes care of a lot, most of all it makes Wikipedia in line with its goals: being a general encyclopedia.
This article is not written FOR readers of Science Fiction. It is written for users of Wikipedia.
KP
Google is your friend. Dropping any of the names in the article into a search engine or actually reading the linked pages tells a reader all they need to know to be expert enough to understand the sources were reliable. You don't need an expert.
Mgm
On 25/03/07, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
Apparently, literary agent [[Barbara Bauer]] has sued a number of people and organizations, including the Wikimedia Foundation, for defamation because of their involvement in making or publicizing allegations that Bauer's services are a scam because she insists on payment up front from authors (where normal industry practice is for agents to collect only after the author's works sell) and has apparently sold few or none of her clients' works to anything other than vanity presses. She has made it onto the Science Fiction Writers of America's "20 worst agents" list (they're another of the defendants in the suit). She has a long record of threatening suits against sites and forums that criticize her, at one point demanding a billion dollars for unauthorized use of her name as the title of a forum thread asking a question about her business practices. http://forums.writersweekly.com/viewtopic.php?p=44820
If anybody's interested, the suit is docket number L-001169-07 in Monmouth County, New Jersey, where it can be looked up here: http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/acms/disc/CV0227W0E.ASP It's one of the many court sites that make it a pain to link to their stuff because they use a form-post interface for document retrieval.
The "notification" we got (I assume formal will follow later) was someone posting the following to [[Barbara Bauer]]:
----
On March 23, 2007, Bauer filed a suit with the Superior Court of Monmoth, New Jersey, asserting claims for defamation and interference with prospective business advantage. Wikipedia is among the 15 defendants named in the suit. Docket Number L-001169-07 Bauer etal vs Glatzer etal, http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/acms/disc/CV0227W0E.ASP
----
Note the details of the allegations aren't available, just the bare facts of the docket. We're in good company - the other fourteen named defendants include the two Nielsen-Haydens, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (membership 1500), and various other people working in the field of "anti-scammer activism" (as it were). As far as I can tell, we're the only ones to simply report on it who are listed. I don't envisage the suit being successful.
[Bauer's page has since been deleted as "a bloody disgrace. Full of 'allegations" of who said what on message boards", a viewpoint which certainly has some merit.]
On 3/25/07, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
If anybody's interested, the suit is docket number L-001169-07 in Monmouth County, New Jersey, where it can be looked up here: http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/acms/disc/CV0227W0E.ASP It's one of the many court sites that make it a pain to link to their stuff because they use a form-post interface for document retrieval.
And on top of that, the docket number has to be pasted in 3 parts. My guess is that this is to reduce server load. If it can't be directly linked then it can't be "Slashdotted".
Probably a bit out-of-place humour, but...
Too bad it wasn't in Trenton, New Jersey.
On 3/26/07, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
Apparently, literary agent [[Barbara Bauer]] has sued a number of people and organizations, including the Wikimedia Foundation, for
Is this the first time the WMF has actually been sued? I know there are a lot of threats, but how often does it actually eventuate?
Steve
On 3/26/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
Is this the first time the WMF has actually been sued?
If memory serves me correctly, yes.
There have been actions related to the projects (the current Zoeller suit, for example) and there has been an action involving the German chapter (the Tron suit) but this is the first time that the Foundation has been named as a party in an action that has got so far as to have been filed.
On 3/25/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/26/07, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
Apparently, literary agent [[Barbara Bauer]] has sued a number of people and organizations, including the Wikimedia Foundation, for
Is this the first time the WMF has actually been sued? I know there are a lot of threats, but how often does it actually eventuate?
I believe this is the first time the foundation itself has been sued. There was the injunction against the German chapter, and someone (Brandt?) once filed a suit that included 200 "John Doe" Wikipedia editors but very quickly dropped it.
We're lucky.
Why? Because the plaintiff is a known troll.
If a competent, well-respected media darling like Seigenthaler had sued we'd be in big trouble.
But in this case the public is on our side.
The US legal system is a game of picking battles. A lawsuit against WMF is inevitable so it would be great to have an easy first battle that sets a favorable precedent.
Karl Chen wrote:
We're lucky.
Why? Because the plaintiff is a known troll.
If a competent, well-respected media darling like Seigenthaler had sued we'd be in big trouble.
Seigenthaler would likely have been more circumspect in his choice of battles. He began with an honest attempt to settle the problem, and that worked, though he did find the process more difficult with the mirrors I wonder how he feels about having become a virtual eponym for this kind of situation.
But in this case the public is on our side.
The public does not rule in the courts; judges do.
The US legal system is a game of picking battles. A lawsuit against WMF is inevitable so it would be great to have an easy first battle that sets a favorable precedent.
It is absolutely inevitable, but a case that is too easy is not the best scenario. If the plaintiff chooses to capitulate out of court there is no precedent.
Ec