[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Wikimedia Foundation Seeks Declaratory Relief in response to Legal Threats from Internet Brands

[FT2]

To tackle both these at once:

*@Deryck Chan, three trivial rebuttals: *

   1. WT's "mission" is stated clearly, "*Wikitravel is a project to create
   a free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide".*  I
   don't see any of the parties that are proposing or wishing to fork, not
   endorsing that goal thoroughly. They are merely stating they wish to pursue
   that goal on a different website, under different hosting behavior.
   2. The TOU you cite state that WT is a "built in collaboration by
   Wikitravellers from around the globe", not a site "built in collaboration
   with IB". The consensus policy speaks to collaboration between members of
   the public writing, and its pages show that the community did not consider
   IB to have a heightened right to declare itself "the community" or "the
   party obtaining mandatory agreement" in that collaboration. The initial
   legal agreement (I gather) says as much.  There is no evidence that WT'ers
   were not willing to collaborate with WT'ers, as the policy states. Rather,
   WT'ers did not like the hosting service IB provided, or felt they could
   obtain better, which is completely separate.
   3. At the worst to use your own logic against itself, the departing
   WTers did indeed use the service while they felt able to follow the TOU you
   cite.  When they realised they did not feel like collaborating, they did as
   it required - indeed demanded or asked they do - namely departed. And used
   their right to reinstate their CC content at the new host of their
   choosing, following discussion. Others had done so previously, and
   individuals had departed not en masse due to IB before. No WTer is forced
   to leave, or impeded in freewill.


*@Nemo:*
In fact AFAIK, this is legal
too<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_billboard>.


   1. If a supermarket, for example, unreliably stocks Hallal food,
   garnering numerous complains over the years, and a person who shops at a
   competitor contacts or is contacted by members of the local Muslim
   community, or puts members of the community in touch with that other
   vendor, on the basis they provide a wider range of Hallal food of the types
   complained about, and at a better price, and as a result a number of local
   community members agree in social discussions that many of them feel like
   switching to shop at the other store. This is completely normal and legal,
   and happens every day.
   2. A clerk is an employee with a contractual obligation of loyalty.
   Nobody is suggesting that is the case here, or an IB staffer was involved.


FT2


On Wed, Sep 12, 2012 at 11:42 AM, Deryck Chan <deryckchan at wikimedia.hk>wrote:

> One possibility lies within their terms of use:
> "If you're not interested in our goals, or if you agree with our goals but
> refuse to collaborate, compromise, reach
> consensus<http://wikitravel.org/en/Wikitravel:Consensus>or make
> concessions with other Wikitravellers, we ask that you not use this
> Web service. If you continue to use the service against our wishes, we
> reserve the right to use whatever means available -- technical or legal --
> to prevent you from disrupting our work together."
>
> The goals page (http://wikitravel.org/en/Wikitravel:Goals_and_non-goals)
> does imply the goal of making Wikitravel the travel guide, not just a
> travel guide. It is therefore possible to make a case against the
> fork-enthusiasts, and James in particular because he spent more time on
> Wikitravel preparing the fork than actually improving Wikitravel, that
> they're violating the Wikitravel terms of use in some fringe way, which is
> a form of breach of contract.
>
>
On Wed, Sep 12, 2012 at 11:47 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo)
<nemowiki at gmail.com>wrote:
>
> Actually, a fairer representation of what IB claims is that the "members
> of the public" are free to choose where to drink their beer, but someone
> with a "Pub X" cap in front of "Pub X" stopped all passing people and
> regulars that "Pub X" was renovating and to go to the new location "Pub Xb"
> across the street instead. Or that a clerk of "Y bookshop" used the list of
> all its customers and its official letter papers to mail them saying to
> send their next mail orders to the new postal address of "Yb bookshop".
> Surely it's not trivial to prove, so to say...
>