Hookers and eBay, shares and cops. If Craig Newmark and Jim Buckmaster, had an attorney on staff with them, would that have prevented questionable legal moves by the founder and CEO of the world's most reliable housemates and hookups platform?
A perpetual dilettante, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has a habit of flitting in and out of his many projects. It's hard to say whether they suffer more from his neglect or from his attention. Wikinews, a news site operated similarly to Wikipedia and run by the same nonprofit parent, the Wikimedia Foundation, has seen Wales suddenly return asking for administrative privileges suspended in his absence to be restored. But why? Wales didn't specify which story he wanted to intervene in, but one tipster suggests that an article about a copyright-infringement claim by the Mormon Church — over a story posted on Wikinews itself — was the proximate cause.
At an offshoot of Wikipedia, the users are revolting. Administrators of Wikinews, a site where volunteers collaboratively write news articles have voted to strip Jimmy Wales of his administrative privileges. He has protested the decision: "Due to recent developments, I am here more often and anticipate being here more often." Wales is not just a Wikinews user, however; he is a board member of the site's nonprofit parent, the Wikimedia Foundation, with a guaranteed seat, thanks to a recent reshuffling of the board. As such, his participation on the site may put it at legal risk.
Jimmy Wales's clandestine editing of a girlfriend's Wikipedia entry has done more than just bring the online encyclopedia into disrepute. It may well put the site's nonprofit parent, the Wikimedia Foundation, in legal jeopardy. Wikipedia has thrived in part thanks to a protection granted by the Communications Decency Act, which spares websites which merely host users' content from liability for what they say. But what if one of the website's officials moves to have that content edited? Then the protection vanishes. That is the legal argument advanced by Wales's ex, Rachel Marsden, in a series of emails with Mike Godwin, Wikimedia's general counsel, that she has posted to Valleywag.
Mike Godwin does not practice what he preaches. The general counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikipedia's nonprofit parent, once told the New York Times that "the best answer for bad speech is more speech." But in the face of a groundswell of criticism of Wikipedia — that its frontman, Jimmy Wales, is corrupt; that its executive director, Sue Gardner, is power-mad; and that its deputy director, Erik Möller, is dangerously out of touch with potential donors' views — Godwin has remained silent. That will not change anytime soon, it seems. Godwin was due to speak this Thursday at Santa Clara University on "The World that Wikipedia Made: The Ethics and Values of Public Knowledge." But Valleywag has learned that Godwin today backed out of the talk, with two days' notice, and that the foundation has refused to supply another Wikipedia official in his place. Could it be that in this case, the voluble Godwin really has nothing worth saying? So much for advancing the sum of all human knowledge. (Photo by Alice Lipowicz)
