Ron Livingston sues vandal, disclosure of IP address ordered, brief headlines

Actor Ron Livingston is suing a Wikipedia vandal because his article incorrectly claimed that he is homosexual and in a relationship with Lee Dennison. Livingston claimed that the offending material was inserted by the vandal, and his later attempts to remove the misinformation were reverted by the same person. Livingston is suing for libel, invasion of privacy, and for the use of his name and likeness without his permission.^[1][2][3]

A judge at the High Court in London ordered the Wikimedia Foundation to disclose the IP address of an editor who had added some sensitive information to the article of a business woman, also involving the woman's young child. The information has since been removed from the article. The woman, who cannot be named in relation to this case, had previously received threatening anonymous letters.

The Wikimedia Foundation said it would reveal the IP address if it received an order to do so.^[4] Its Privacy policy restricts the disclosure of such data to some very limited circumstances, one of them being "a valid subpoena or other compulsory request from law enforcement". In a policy update last year, it had committed to notifying (if possible) community members when their personal data, such as IP addresses, has been sought by legal processes (see previous story).

In an article for The Daily Beast titled The Myth of Wikipedia Democracy, Nicholas Ciarelli asserts that "[d]espite its reputation for openness, the online encyclopedia has long been ruled by a tight clique of aggressive editors who drive out amateurs and newcomers". Among others, the article cites Jimmy Wales, User:Wikimachine (who had been banned for one year in the Liancourt Rocks arbitration case), independent physics researcher Eric Lerner (an advocate of plasma cosmology; a theory contradicting the current scientific consensus in cosmology), and Internet expert Clay Shirky (member of the Wikimedia Foundation's advisory board) who offered the following to explain the fact that Wikipedia regulars are "reflexively suspicious of everyone from watching people attack Wikipedia over all the years":

"If everyone who works at Britannica were fired, the encyclopedia would become out of date and less useful over time as new articles weren't added, and old ones weren't updated, and would become considerably less valuable over time. But if everyone who really cares about defending Wikipedia didn't log in this week, it would be gone by Thursday."

• Webdesigner Depot reviews the recent Wikipedia design updates that have been produced by Usability Initiative team, concluding that "The new design looks pretty good, but it’s not finished yet."
• The Guardian explores "Wikipedia's known unknowns" by mapping regions in the world according to the density of corresponding geocoded Wikipedia articles, noting that the Global North is much better represented on Wikipedia than the Global South.
• The Register picked up on the fallout from a hastily-worded-then-redacted statement from the Arbitration Committee (see the Discussion report for more).
• The Washington Post features Jimmy Wales in an installment of the video interview series "On Leadership".
• BBC technology commentator Jeremy Wagstaff, in response to the recent stories about Wikipedia's decline, argues the case for "Why Wikipedia will win through".

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Are we sure that Wikipedia is the entity being sued in the Livingstone case? This claim is cited to the UPI piece, which references its claim only to TMZ, whose article does not seem to support it.  Skomorokh  04:32, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's what I'd like to know too. I'm assuming someone "in the know" passed this information on, but neither of the articles cited to the Livingston blurb seem to indicate he's suing Wikipedia... the impression I get is he's suing the person stalking him, perhaps as a "john/jane doe", in order to win a judgement and force law enforcement to take action. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 08:57, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The suit appears, by news accounts, to be directed at the specific editor who made the allegations on Wikipedia. I assume that Wikipedia has been asked for any information to identify him, and I would be surprised if Wikipedia did not furnish such information to prevent being named corporately in the suit. Collect (talk) 12:11, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You can't sue an encyclopedia. At worst, he's suing the Wikimedia Foundation, not "Wikipedia". +Angr 12:51, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The skepticism is correct. See the more accurate legal coverage at Copyrights and Campaigns and THR, Esq -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 14:21, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I updated the above and added a source with the correct information. If anyone has a problem with this feel free to revert. KnightLago (talk) 15:17, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the links, Seth. The blog entry is especially helpful and interesting. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 20:03, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• The complaint says Coupleguys Inc. is the plantiff, so isn't it technically them (his publicist) that is suing, rather than Livingston himself? Shouldn't it also mention that they allege this is a continuing incident, and not just confined to Wikipedia? Grsz¹¹ 15:22, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well, technically, but it is him. They would not be doing it unless he authorized it. In the news is usually pretty brief and just focuses on Wikipedia. The sources are there if someone wants to go read about the whole incident. IMHO it is fine as is now. KnightLago (talk) 15:30, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • You know, if you're suing someone for defaming you with false claims you're in a gay relationship, is "Coupleguys" really the wisest choice to be the plaintiff? :-) Daniel Case (talk) 03:50, 10 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • I found that rathor ammusing when I noticed it ^^   «l| Promethean ™|l»  (talk) 07:24, 10 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]