In the news
Lawsuit over Nazi symbols
Wikipedia sued for 'aiding neo-Nazis' - Katina Schubert, a German politician, filed charges against Wikipedia, on the basis that the German language site contains too much Nazi symbolism (see related story).
Naked short selling articles attract controversy
Wikipedia black helicopters circle Utah's Traverse Mountain - Judd Bagley, head of communications at Overstock.com, had discovered that an anonymous user was making edits about naked short selling on Wikipedia. These edits, in his opinion, were biased and removed reference to a presentation by Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock.com. Bagley believed that the edits were due to Gary Weiss, who is a strong critic of Byrne, Overstock.com and naked shorting, but who denies making the edits. Bagley tried to prove his claims to Wikipedia administrators, and at one point, sent spyware to track the opening of files that he claimed as evidence. Ultimately, the IP address ranges used by Bagley and Overstock.com were blocked, a ban justified, according to UK press officer David Gerard, by Bagley's "abuse of the wiki".
Other mentions
Other recent mentions in the online press include:
- Wikipedia ban for disruptive professor - Carl Hewitt, a prominent computer scientist, has been banned (from 2006) from editing articles related to himself or his work, after the Arbitration Committee found that he had been engaging in self-promotion on Wikipedia.
- Here's why teachers who ban Wikipedia are misguided - The writer argues that Wikipedia's depth and speed-to-entry are, for students, advantageous over traditional textbooks and encyclopedias, especially when researching obscure topics.
- Leopard: Dictionary's Wikipedia Search - Mac OS X v10.5 (Leopard) has a dictionary tool that can search Wikipedia.
Discuss this story
"the charges have been dropped" is an inaccurate description, as it is apparently not legally possible to withdraw this kind of criminal complaint, and there hasn't been a statement from the prosecutor yet. See my remarks at User talk:Michael Snow/German Wikipedia. And to imply a causal connection to "some of the symbols are being removed" is a bit too much Schubert's POV - instead, many people attributed her withdrawal to the stiff opposition that she had to face, including from several members of her own party, and to the legal futility of the complaint. Regards, High on a tree (talk) 02:52, 12 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I wonder why is there no mention that Polish Wikipedia was sued that week too.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 04:59, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]