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March 2

Have any legal threats on Wikipedia ever actually gone anywhere?

I hope this is isn't an inappropriate question to ask, but I've been wondering. Occasionally I'll see angry and often poorly-worded legal threats reported on ANI and though they're amusing, a body has to wonder if anything ever comes of them. Has anyone ever actually sued an editor on Wikipedia and had it make the news? Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 11 Adar 5775 05:40, 2 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sure: This one actually shut down the German language Wikipedia for three days. SteveBaker (talk) 05:52, 2 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, talk about the Streisand Effect in action. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 11 Adar 5775 06:30, 2 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification, that link says wikipedia.de went down, but that de.wikipedia.org and search engine links still worked fine. So it's not so much that the German WP went down, more like one front end did. SemanticMantis (talk) 17:14, 2 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Pierre-sur-Haute military radio station lead to an admin answering questions at the French national intelligence agency. Rmhermen (talk) 17:57, 2 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I issued a legal disclaimer with an edit summary one minute before you asked this. I hope it absolves me. InedibleHulk (talk) 06:07, 2 March 2015 (UTC) [reply]

Afraid that's between you and the Universe, good sir. However, as you are inedible, maybe there's nothing to worry about. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 11 Adar 5775 06:30, 2 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

So far, so good! InedibleHulk (talk) 06:40, 2 March 2015 (UTC) [reply]

~~How did you make your text even smaller?~~ I was an idiot and didn't put a closing tag.... Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 12 Adar 5775 06:15, 3 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't even know they stacked. Thanks. Carelessness isn't all bad. InedibleHulk (talk) 13:05, 3 March 2015 (UTC) [reply]

Size isn't EVERYTHING, so they say. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 18:22, 4 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Does anyone's monitor see that? If so, you're better than I am. InedibleHulk (talk) 19:56, 5 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If using Firefox, click on the options button, then zoom in. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 12:21, 6 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oh yeah, that works. Zooming the Mac screen doesn't. InedibleHulk (talk) 16:30, 6 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I prefer looking at smaller text, but I just zoomed in my iPad. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 16 Adar 5775 19:29, 7 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It depends what you mean by legal threats. But see also Litigation involving the Wikimedia Foundation. While that primarily covers litigation where the WMF was somehow directly involved, contributors have also face action e.g. [1] [2]. A lot of the stuff which happened didn't AFAIK involve much, if any, threat published by the aggrieved party on wikipedia. Instead they often went with more conventional means. (Anyone involed in legal action would still likely be forbidden from editing as long as the case is outstanding per policy.) Many of the cases were also unsuccessful, so it also depends what you mean by "comes of them". Nil Einne (talk) 12:42, 2 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ah yes, I saw these on the Streisand Effect article, actually. By legal threats, I guess I mean anything unpleasant involving lawyers/law enforcement/government agencies and lawsuits/arrests/extraordinary rendition. Stuff covered under NLT I guess (they really should cover extraordinary rendition if they don't...). By come of them I meant legal threats that went beyond someone's threatening edit summaries or talk page comments and resulted in landing some poor editor(s) in hot water. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 12 Adar 5775 06:15, 3 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

On a side note, I've thought of something new. I shall start handing out kitten threats to disagreeable users. Problematic users shall receive a fluffy kitten on their talk pages with the notice that should they continue to act in a disruptive way, said doe-eyed kitten will be removed. The natural human desire to always want more kittens will then kick in and they will become docile. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 12 Adar 5775 06:15, 3 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

One example I know of: A Commons user named Xanderliptak went through "proper channels" and succeeded in getting images he had uploaded deleted from Commons. He claimed copyright violation, which was a lie, but they didn't feel like bothering with him anymore, so they deleted the images. And of course banned him from Commons (he was already banned from Wikipedia by then). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:12, 2 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I dimly remember part of that. Liptak's specialty was heraldry, right? I have the impression that he was cranky because not everyone was grateful to see his works (in a style that I thought anachronistic, and signed) replacing less "professional" illustrations. —Tamfang (talk) 22:49, 2 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, except the problem was that he wanted to retain copyright control despite having uploaded them with the usual understand that they are surrendering copyright. But what really irritated him was that he wanted to retain his company logo down in the corner of each one, as free advertising. When other editors started editing his precious illustrations to remove his logo, he went ballistic. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:35, 3 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds perfectly reasonable. I mean Wikipedia is meant solely to advertise, push our own agendas and POV , edit emotionally, and remove anything we don't like, is it not? Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 12 Adar 5775 06:15, 3 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well, he thought so, anyway. And it's worth pointing out that this brouhaha went on for over a year, until things finally came to a head. Sometimes the wheels grind slowly. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:00, 3 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

What a bizarre obsession. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 16 Adar 5775 19:29, 7 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]