Why Sue Over Wikipedia Posts?
from the seems-like-a-bad-idea dept
There's a post on Digg getting plenty of attention, about a Catholic school in Omaha, Nebraska that was upset about somethings written on the Wikipedia page about the school -- and decided to sue. While it's not clear from the Digg post, they did not sue Wikipedia, but rather went after the unidentified people who posted the comments on Wikipedia. Oddly, while it was up just a few hours ago, the news page the Digg post refers to has disappeared. Another version of the story is available at the Omaha World-Herald, but requires Bugmenot to login. The World-Herald article is quite balanced, explaining accurately why the school cannot and should not sue Wikipedia.However, a larger question may be whether or not the school should sue whoever (disgruntled students, most likely) made the original, contested, entries. The school claims that it "suffered general damages" due to the content of the postings -- though, it's difficult to see how anyone in their right mind would take the complaints as anything serious. They seemed like typical childish defacements from annoyed students, probably from a competing school: "It's (sic) tuition is ridiculously high, too. Not to mention you get an awful education there. They put more emphasis on sports than they do education. No wonder almost all kids there are complete idiots." The easiest thing to do would have just been for officials from the school to delete those statements from the Wikipedia page. However, by going the legal route, they've suddenly given those statements a lot more prominence, a la the Streisand Effect. Prior to this, very few people would have known about what Wikipedia had said about the school. Now, many more will. If the school was really upset about the "damages" these statements would cause, then why not just edit them out? Suing only calls that much more attention to them.
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15 minutes of fame, baby.
It is a simple vandalism on a Wikipedia page. Oh well, life goes on. But the school has to make a big deal out of it because they want to be melo-dramatic (seems to be a big school trend). Give it a few weeks, and the court will throw it out and the whole issue will be forgotten. The school will probably try to milk out a bit more publicity or money, but won't get very far.
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Re: 15 minutes of fame, baby.
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Re: Re: 15 minutes of fame, baby.
And who is to say the 'school' didn't put them up to it, or have something more sinister to do with it?
A little almost-free advertisement.
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Re: Re: 15 minutes of fame, baby.
It's quite clear the Wikipedia was vandalised, so everything placed in the Wiki about it sucking, would be taken as a lie. Therefore, there's no REAL damage done since I doubt a vandalised Wikipedia article would change someones mind about that school, unless they were "on the fence" about going to it.
The school didn't have to sue, so they obviously feel the need to do it for a reason. And why sue unless you're getting money or fame out of it? And since it'd probably be petty change... I don't see why they would do it outside of publicity.
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like it's been mentioned with other "negative" things against estabilished systems, it's not going to be much of an impact. those who believe it it will, and those who don't, will have something else to add to their feelings. nothing really changes
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Re: Any Media is Good Media
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WHAT PEOPLE DON'T UNDERSTAND
I and the company I work for were slandered in a small, local newsrag, a few weeks ago. I was indignant! My first reaction was to write a letter to the editor in response. But then I remembered the Streisand Effect (thanks to Mike and TD), and just left it alone. The issue died with that issue (no pun intended), and life went on.
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Re: WHAT PEOPLE DON'T UNDERSTAND
If that really worked in real life, I could sit on the couch and let the spiders take care of cleaning my house. You're an idiot. Go shoot yourself and stop taking jobs away from people who deserve them.
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IRB
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Re: IRB
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Isn't it the case that you have to be registered in Wikipedia before you can post comments? I mean yeah you could still post comments without registerations, but don't they log in your IP address if you make a comment and you are not registered?
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A little silly to me...
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The Catholic Church (for example) often gets into these things of condemning films only to give the films more publicity (sometimes a lot more) than they ever could get on their own. Thus making more people curious about checking the film out. Thus defeating the whole purpose of the condemnation.
Why? They just can't see the 'big picture.' (pun intended).
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Re:
Letting Wikipedia exist is a way of eroding our individual rights. If we can't sue them for slander, then eventually who can we sue? At that rate, pretty people will be slandered and have NO recourse whatsoever as they lose their job and house over it.
Again, Wiki-masturbators are idiots and should be put away into an insane asylum for medication that they clearly need.
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Omaha is a very Catholic town and Skutt is a relatively new school, in the scheme of things. That the Archdiocese itself runs it speaks volumes to those of us who came up in the Catholic school system there. Most of the Catholic high schools in town are run by orders (Creighton Prep, for example, is run by the Jesuits as an adjunct to Creighton University) and have built up large endowments and extremely loyal followings over the years. The archdiocese has several large failures at running high schools under its belt and Skutt is just its most recent attempt. They placed the school in a growing section of town and they've made it co-ed, which should be in its favor. Yet, there's a lot of competition for the same pool of students---and yes, the tuition at any of these schools is more expensive than it would be to attend the University of Nebraska or any other state run university---and Skutt is the low man on the totem pole. Combined with the potential damage to the Skutt name, I could see where they would see it as extremely damaging to have someone complaining about the cost of tuition and the level of scholarship in a Wikipedia page, even if in reality it isn't.
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Lame
Does the school really think that a town of ~400,000 people doesn't know which schools are good or bad?
If the school's good, it's not that big of a deal...if they're bad they have something to fight about.
It's quite simple really...the school knows they suck and are trying to minimize that knowledge. The higher ideal (if they were any good) would be to ignore the slander and continue to produce a quality Catholic education that may include...I don't know...maybe..."turning the other cheek."
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Ummm...???
I forgive them for making this school and church look like any other corporation, I pray they can find a way to recover some faith and move on.
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The Truth is worse than the accusation
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TECHDIRT HAS JUMPED THE SHARK!
Your "corporate intelligence" is weak and fluffed.
Mike,
YOU NEED TO FIND A NEW HOBBY.
If your claim to fame is the STREISAND EFFECT, then you need to spend more time doing something more productive, like masturbating.
I'm dropping you from my RSS feeds.
I'll have to tell everyone that I originally recommended your site to that YOU JUMPED THE SHARK.
Anyone else have any other _WORTHWHILE_ independent tech news sites they'd like to recommend?
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Techdirt has Jumped the Shark.
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Kiss my pucker!
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Because some of us dont want to spend every hour on Wikipedia trying to correct the misinformation of others.
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Re:
Because some of us dont want to spend every hour on Wikipedia trying to correct the misinformation of others.
Wait, let me get this straight... you'd rather waste countless hours and dollars *suing* than simply deleting the false statements?
No one says you need to "spend every hour." In fact, that's a silly pointless strawman argument that makes no sense. The point is that *if* you do discover something that's wrong, just correct it. Don't sue.
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vandalism?
I don't see how any of these statements can be considered libel anyway. Each are unverifiable opinions that use unquantifiable adjectives. Besides, the allegedly libeled school IS a Catholic school--it's not far fetched to assume that the student body consists of "complete idiots." They do after all, believe that some imaginary supreme being created the universe 6,000 years ago, and that preventing disease and unwanted pregnacies with condoms is "wrong."
That's completely idiotic if you ask me.
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Re: vandalism?
Actually, as I sit in my expensively appointed Office, courtesy of a great Catholic education,..Perhaps I will. God knows , as wealthy as I am, I have ample free time to do so.
1. Catholics NEVER said the Universe (Or Earth) is @ 6,000 years old.
2.Forget Condoms (A broken one of which undoubtedly explains your existance-limited gene selection), only "complete idiots" have sex with ANYONE they aren't intimately familiar with
3. Premarital sex produces the social ills of our day-to wit; Poverty and crime from the single Parent home, and a lack of respect for life due to Abortion (Although perhaps YOUR Mother should've received special dispensation)
4. That "Imaginary Being" is alot more believable than your belief in a Universe without cause (Over your head, I know)
5. The first, and still the BEST schools all have their beginnings as religious schools.
6. Trade Libel is the unauthorized printing of statements made with a reasonably demonstrable understanding that a person or entity would be offended or harmed financially thereby, without PROOF of the veracity of such statements validity
7. In your case, Double-Dope, I wouldn't worry, the Church is too large a class to be covered under this law, which, of course, is why slanderous people like you (Also too large a class) commit these Cowardly assaults.
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Why Sue Over Wikipedia Posts?
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