[WikiEN-l] Irismeister's legal threat

[KNOTT, T]

Advice noted. I'm sorry that I have let this guy get to me. I will refrain from speaking to him in the future, because I can't control my anger when he is around. 

What happens now ? I can't go through mediation with him, he winds me up too much. Is anyone else prepared to go through that stage of conflict resolution ? 

Theresa


-----Original Message-----
From: Jimmy Wales [mailto:jwales at bomis.com] 
Sent: 20 February 2004 01:10
To: English Wikipedia
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Irismeister's legal threat

The course of action I recommend to everyone is to leave a crystal
clean paper trail so that the arbitration committee can ban this guy
with a clean conscience if he misbehaves.

His "lawyer" contacted me (from France, so I'm not really worried
about it), but made no specific legal threats other than the typical
lawyerly hints and tone.

It's very important, as a matter of justice and transparency, that we
not ban Irismeister for behavior that others commit against him.  This
is one of the biggest reasons why Usenet-style flaming is so bad
around here -- it deprives us of one of the cleanest reasons we have
for getting rid of bad apples.

In a real anarchy like Usenet, where getting someone else kicked out
is impossible, the only known solution to jerks is to yell at them in
the hopes that they get some sense.  (This solution doesn't work at
all, but that doesn't keep people from trying it.)  Around here, the
solution is to greet them with respect, love, and sincere attempts to
help them achieve whatever rational goals they may have.  And this
leaves us a nice clean and simple paper trail for banning if they just
can't behave.

--Jimbo

James Rosenzweig wrote:

> I have been talking with Irismeister for several days
> now, partly (I admit) in an effort to get him to talk
> to me instead of insulting Theresa, and partly because
> his edits to [[Iridology]] were POVing that page again
> (and his comments in the article's talk page seemed to
> be false).  After he made comments which seemed
> contradictory, I admit I said that he either needed to
> admit he didn't mean his 2nd statement, or else admit
> that he had been a liar in making his original
> statement.  My patience was wearing thin, I admit. 
> You may judge whether I have acted wrongly.
> 
> At any rate, he just posted this at [[Talk:Iridology]]
> -- "His Quackness is back and will let gentle,
> knowledgeable lawyers deal with the libel and slander
> off Wiki, having gathered all necessary material,
> addresses, and hard evidence, thank you :-) Nobody
> calls a doctor a lier without some very serious
> consequences, trust me !"  I have to assume I am being
> implicitly threatened with legal action.  I thought
> that I should notify this mailing list of the threat
> for information's sake, to warn others who attempt to
> converse with Irismeister, and to announce to those
> who care that I won't be talking to him anymore.  I
> would ask that the matter be forwarded to the
> Arbitration Committee, but fear that doing so might
> constitute legal evidence of harassment (IANAL).  You
> can assure me he's making the whole thing up, but I
> don't have the money or time to risk it.
> 
> James Rosenzweig (Jwrosenzweig)
> 
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