Talk:Jeff V. Merkey

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Good article Jeff V. Merkey was one of the Engineering and technology good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
News On 12 March 2008, Jeff V. Merkey was linked from Slashdot, a high-traffic website.
All prior and subsequent edits to the article are noted in its revision history.
Wikipedian The subject of this article, Jeff V. Merkey, has edited Wikipedia as Gadugi (talk · contribs) and Jeffrey Vernon Merkey (talk · contribs).
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.
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Contents

[edit] I have deleted the old discussion because of the unpleasantness of it.

I have deleted the old discussion because of the unpleasantness of it. Please be extra careful here to be courteous and assume good faith. We are nearing a resolution of this longstanding conflict. Play nice, everyone.--Jimbo Wales 02:51, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Previous version of article deleted

After a careful reading of the previous version of the article, I decided that the best thing is for us to engage in a completely fresh start on the subject. The previous version had some really bad errors in it... for example, the very first substantive statement in the article had a citation... but the citation had absolutely no information which would confirm or disconfirm the statement.

But what is worse about the article is that it contained large swaths of original historical research, which is a very firm no-no for Wikipedia.

In this experimental rewrite, I would like to ask people to stick very firmly ONLY to published sources. If you want to do original historical research or news reporting, do it elsewhere. Published sources only.

Keep in mind that Mr. Merkey is a controversial figure, and that many of the sites about him on the Internet were specifically set up to mock or ridicule him. No matter how you may feel about Mr. Merkey yourself, as encyclopedists we have a moral obligation to set a very high bar of factuality for our sources.

Please, dig in and edit. But let's make this a good article this time.--Jimbo Wales 20:57, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

What constitutes "original historical research" ? This charge was levelled previously during one of the ill-fated arbcoms. Is this a reference to Jeff's utterings on LKML? Or what? ThreeVryl 23:25, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Holy cow - thats a lot of history lost. Would you be opposed to me moving the old history to a subpage or something so all that work isn't lost? RN 09:13, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nearing a restitution?

Huh? And there was me thinking that the problem was more or less solved, in that Jeff had gone away and left everyone alone. Have you been making secret dealings behind everyone's back? So much for Wikipedia's openness --Aim Here 21:19, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Secret dealings? What on earth are you talking about? Let me quote myself: "The previous version had some really bad errors in it... for example, the very first substantive statement in the article had a citation... but the citation had absolutely no information which would confirm or disconfirm the statement." If that sounds like 'more or less solved' then you seriously need to find a new hobby my friend, writing an encyclopedia means taking facts and citations seriously. The article violated many of our longstanding policies, including most prominently policies against original research. A rewrite is in order. --Jimbo Wales 21:57, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Whether or not the original article was a mess, you did use the phrase 'nearing a restitution of this longstanding conflict', which suggests, despite the complete lack of evidence available in public, that there is an actual conflict going on, as opposed to one which had been completely dormant for ages now. After all, suddeny and with no warning, wiping out an article and ordering everyone to start again over some sourcing problems is rather heavy-handed and drastic. The normal WP procedure is to stick some tags on it and telling everyone to change the bad bits. The 'secret deals' phrase was of course total speculation, and sorry about that, but I'd be very surprised if there wasn't something happening in private that sparked off this wholesale deletion of yours, either a deal or a threatened lawsuit. After all, pretty much the last thing Merkey said on this whole stupid subject was that he had been trying, in private, to throw $2 million at you and/or Wikipedia and threatening his usual bag of lawsuits. Well, whatever...--Aim Here 22:18, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
I did not write "nearing a restitution of this longstanding conflict". Please read more carefully before making wild accusations. For the record, I have never been offered any money by Jeff Merkey. There is currently no pending lawsuit regarding this article, nor was this action taken in order to settle or avoid any such lawsuit. The issue here is the quality of Wikipedia, a quality that is not helped by paranoid ravings in defense of bad articles. --Jimbo Wales 22:31, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
resolution, restitution, just a typo. I'm still none the wiser as to the nature or existence of this phantom conflict that you seem to think we're all happily nearing a resOLUtion of. --Aim Here 22:39, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
The conflict has continued unabated, I have no idea why on earth you would think that it had stopped. The article was, on the face of it, badly written, containing transparent errors, and very dubious claims. Do you really imagine that the conflict ended? That the article was satisfactory?--Jimbo Wales 18:46, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sources

search at news.com - several stories here
http://opensource.sys-con.com/read/47716.htm - not sure if 100% reliable, but could help fill in some holes
http://www.itworld.com/Career/1882/ITW2341/pfindex.html - another 1997-oriented one... reliability looks decent...

[edit] Rewrite/deletion

Look, Jimbo, to rewrite something doesn't require deleting all the history. Nor is there any need to start completely from scratch—the old version may have had problems, but I have a definite distaste for that kind of disregard for people's work, and I think article improvement would be more effectively done by collaboratively re-developing the old article. Everyking 09:53, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

The old article was in violation of policy. Months of complaints about the article did not bring about a successful result. It was high time for a sharp break with the past and an absolute insistence that nothing goes in the article without a proper source. The issue here is that there actually are people who hate Jeff Merkey and who have manipulated our process in order to write a one-sided highly biased article based on original research. The result was a bad article that contained virtually nothing worth saving. (The bits worth saving can be brought back easily enough, and they are being brought back.) It looks to me so far that this experiment is working quite well. --Jimbo Wales 13:24, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

....."sharp break with the past and an absolute insistence that nothing goes in the article without a proper source"....Now if we could ONLY do the same for EVERY Wiki article :) j/k. Jimbo, let me say I have a love/hate relationship with your/our project. To use a quote about a famous band "you aren't the best at what you do but you are the ONLY ones who do what you do" or to that effect. You will NEVER please all the people all the time in here, that's pretty clear. I haven't done a scientific survey but I get the feeling that like 90%, really that high, of articles are NOT sourced. I am not saying they are wrong, its more that its HARD WORK to source EVERY statement on this site. My current favorite is Jacqueline Susann and from my VERY limited work here I would say there are 1,000s if not 10s of 1,000s of other articles like that out there. Anyways, enough of my rambling and again I REALLY enjoy your/our project and wish it much success. --Tom 18:25, 27 May 2006 (UTC)


The same could be said of the Juan Cole article, but your response to that couldn't have been more different. - Xed 13:28, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
I have just reviewed that article, and I would say that my response to that conflict is the same as in this one. In that particular case, the conflict and complaints to me about the article are relatively new, and so there is hope that it will sort itself soon enough. If no progress is made in due course, as was the case in this article, then nuking it and insisting on a total rewrite will be the right thing to do. At the moment, I think some brave editor ought to go into that article and make a stub of it and insist on rigorous sourcing and "no original research" throughout. Will you take on that challenge? --Jimbo Wales 18:41, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
In one way it's good that you are relatively open about your biases, such as your support of the racist Ann Coulter - (ragheads, camel jockeys, jihad monkeys etc). But I think they are a detriment to the project when all the cronies follow you. Remember Jimbo, I know more about your integrity than most people. You're no Linus Torvalds. As for your suggestion about making a stub of Juan Cole - if you had reviewed the article as you stated, you would have seen it was locked. - Xed 19:18, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
In what way have I supported Ann Coulter? That is an absurd accusation. I have supported that the article about her be well-sourced and accurate.--Jimbo Wales 20:31, 25 May 2006 (UTC)


I'm becoming increasingly disenchanted with Wikipedia. The lockstep adherence to the requirement of published sources will eventually be the downfall of this whole enterprise. There are too many subjects, in which there are no published sources, that deserve a place in this or any other encyclopedia. See my article on SP&S #700, which required a lot of original research because there are no published sources on the subject. Should this article be deleted? If so it's Wikipedia's loss, not mine. --Jerry (Talk) 06:04, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
I am sorry you feel that having high standards is detrimental to Wikipedia. --Jimbo Wales 20:32, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Errrr... your seem to have a problem with categorisation. It is not neccessarily a 'high standard' that you are imposing, but an arbitrary rule, created, iirc, to stop all the netkooks and their 'suppressed research' claims etc. I recall an interview somewhere where you said as much. In that realm, it may have served you well, but there are circumstances where, as Jerryg points out, where it can be to your detriment. And it seems to have interesting consequences, such as in this article, where it is deemed to be 'original research' to link to primary sources, such as LKML. C'est la vie... ThreeVryl 07:47, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
High Standards? Is that what you call it? You know Jimbo, it's your site, and your rules. I think I'll go play in someone else's backyard for a while. --Jerry (Talk) 07:01, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What constitutes original historical research?

Google still has the old version: http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:Uar19J0WrFMJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Vernon_Merkey Get it while you can.

Can anyone tell me what Jimbo's problem with this is? And it was so bad it neccessitated blanking the whole page and the discussions?

Jeff made himself famous round about the time that SCO decided to claim that they "owned" Linux. Jeff rushed into the fray and attempted to "buy" a licence for Linux for the sum of $50,000. Now, the primary sources for this are the archives of the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML). Jeff's claims and more are all there. Sources are in the old article.

Any article on Jeff that does not include this is unencylopedic.

Then there is the peyote stuff, all a matter of public record.

The old article also had links to the various patents Jeff holds, and they should go back in as well.

ThreeVryl 11:02, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Jimbo has decided that you have to redo all that work. However, parts of the old article could be posted here, reviewed, and then restored if they have met with everyone's satisfaction. Everyking 11:21, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
yeah, fine, but what is verboten and what isn't? Not lifting a finger till I understand his objection. ThreeVryl 12:07, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Let me give an example, although I consider it to be an act of supreme "Assume Good Faith" on my part to have to explain this. "Merkey had copied and distributed on his website copies of an email he allegedly sent to Jimbo Wales stating Merkey's intent to seek damages from Wikimedia Foundation for libel and invasion of privacy, although this email is currently unavailable."
This is just one example of a horribly unencyclopedic claim. Not only does this not state any credible reference, it actually admits that there IS no reference. Wikipedia is not a tabloid newspaper, trading in innuendo and rumor. You need to cite legitimate sources here.--Jimbo Wales 13:28, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
True, however, citing something like an LKML post should be perfectly fine when it is unambiguous and undisputed.--Eloquence* 15:20, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes. But in this case, the relevant LKML posts are hotly disputed. Merkey was apparently the victim (no surprise) of trolls who posted fake messages to LKML purporting to be from him. Those are hotly disputed and in fact bring the reliability of the archives into serious question.--Jimbo Wales 18:36, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Maybe. I do think this speaks for itself, though.--Eloquence* 19:23, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
I wonder if we could find a more neutral source than that site, though.--Jimbo Wales 23:08, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Come on Jimbo.. It's a mirror of Jeff's constantly changing website. How neutral do you want. Are you saying that the John Collins site is somehow biased because he mirrors what Jeff publishes? Give me a break. --Jerry (Talk) 06:13, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
The issue is that the mirroring is selective, and that there have been accusations that some of the materials in the mirror are altered. Archive.org is a neutral third party which does content-neutral mirroring, and so citing it is significantly better. Archive.org may be incomplete in some ways, of course.--Jimbo Wales 17:03, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
What basis do you have for making such a claim? The site software automatically mirrored each change made by Merkey as the change was detected. There was absolutely nothing selective about it. Multiple people can attest to the accuracy and completeness of that mirroring, since they observed both the original postings and the mirrored copies. A few people can even provide their own independent mirrors. I have never seen any accusations from Merkey or anyone else that the material was altered in any way from his original. --MediaMangler 21:10, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
OK, this is dragging this thread OT a bit, but it would be useful if WP's 'Upload File' page allowed you to upload a URL as well as local files. This would give WP some selective archiving ability to cover these situations. (Ie., archive.org isn't frequent enough or selective either.) Fair use would surely cover reproduction of some notorious pages. Fair use should cover WP as much as it covers archive.org. Otherwise, is there a neutral way to include screenshots of JVM's pages? Canberran 02:38, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More sources

Several stories at newsforge about Merkey's linux exploits: [1] [2]. Also a couple of mentions on theregister.co.uk: [3] [4]

Morwen - Talk 14:51, 24 May 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Buying the Kernel

lwn.net:
http://lwn.net/Articles/106353/

Groklaw article:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20041011220545598

Slashdot article in all its 376 comment glory:
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/13/159216


[edit] That "Gadugi" Thang!

Enterprise Opensource Magazine:
http://opensource.sys-con.com/read/47773.htm

Newsforge:
http://trends.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/01/17/2021230&from=rss

IT-Director.com
http://www.it-director.com/article.php?page=1&id=12782

Now this is a funny one, an "official" blog at ZDnet:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=109


[edit] Jeff sues 200+ people, websites and namesakes

Linux Electrons:
http://www.linuxelectrons.com/article.php/20050619080217333

Electronic Freedom Foundation:
http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/merkey_v_yahooscox/

YASA (yet another /. article)
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/01/0456243

[edit] Proposal again

What about my proposal for moving it to a subpage from above? Maybe the same for the old talk page history and there is like 1000 edits there and GFDL concerns as well. RN 18:40, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I would advise you against deliberately reposting libel. There are no GFDL concerns at all if we delete the article and write it again from scratch. There will be GFDL concerns if you post the old version and people blindly copy from it. :) --Jimbo Wales 18:49, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

"I would advise you against deliberately reposting libel" - *sigh* a warning/threat in response to a question/proposal, not my day I guess :\. Also, for future reference, you could have asked someone like me with at least a decent track record in related subjects to help clean the article up, rather then deleting a year's worth of work. Anyway, I'm moving on to other articles, lest I find myself on the receiving end of another "piece of advise" - cheers :). RN 20:15, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

This was neither a warning nor a threat. It was advice, meant sincerely and with good will. I think that reposting the history of the article should be avoided precisely because it was such a mess.--Jimbo Wales 22:52, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

That article history represented an awful lot of work—700+ revisions. Don't you think about things like that? I mean, I think deleting all the history could be a valid option, but that should be decided by the people who are working on the article. You just came in and wiped the slate clean with no deliberation and no process involved. Everyking 01:26, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Actually, Danny and Brad Patrick did start a somewhat covert deliberation process. In response to my query on his talk page about Danny's deletion of material, they both sent emails to me. Brad Patrick also spoke to me via phone. As a result of that phone conversation, I more or less understand what they were attempting to do and appreciate why they felt it was needed. I made it clear that I did not agree with the "wink and a nod" approach of discussing their changes off-line with individual editors, although I don't think that opinion was given much weight. Jimbo seems to have pulled the rug out from under their efforts in any event. --MediaMangler 02:56, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Wow, that is a very strange interpretation of events. Danny, and Brad, and me, have talked to a lot of people about this article, both on the talk page, through email, in person, etc. I dispute strongly that there is anything wrong at all in doing that sort of thing. It is not 'covert' if I get a puzzling email about an article that I do not know a lot about, and then as a result I ask good editors to take a look at it and see if they can help.
As to Everyking's beef, well, I don't know what to tell you. Those 700+ revisions contained a lot of good stuff, a lot of vicious smears, some outsiders committing libel, some hate speech, etc. Deleting individual revisions can be possible, but it gives rise to a lot of very complex questions about attribution and the GNU FDL. And the article, as it was at the end of those 700+ revisions, was riddled with unsourced claims, original research, and blatant errors of fact. I make no apologies for saying that we were much better off starting over from scratch.--Jimbo Wales 17:01, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Is that how it works now? No wonder valuable contributors are leaving in droves. There is far too much power-tripping and behind-the-scenes plotting going on. - Xed 12:54, 25 May 2006 (UTC)#
Xed, you are wrong. --Jimbo Wales 17:01, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Jimbo, I don't understand why you feel I presented a strange interpretation of events. If you prefer to replace the phrase "somewhat covert" with "private" or "discrete", it really doesn't change the meaning. The phrase "wink and a nod" was Brad's own description of the process and I would think that description would be far more objectionable. --MediaMangler 19:23, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
I am concerned that people may misinterpret what has happened based on this description. I am committed to us having an accurate, neutral, well-sourced article here. We have had trouble achieving this, in no small part because some people who hate Merkey have enjoyed messing around with him by using Wikipedia to provoke him. That is a waste of time for all of us. Having discussed this issue with Brad at great length, I can assure you that he wants the same thing. I fear that his intention may have been some misunderstanding between you and him in this phone conversation. In any event, it looks like the current experiment is going well, as the article continues to grow and improve each day.--Jimbo Wales 20:29, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Unfortunately, most of the "problems" that I saw in the old article (and discussion) seemed to come from the mysterious "friends" of Merkey who insisted that there was a conspiracy to ruin Merkey's name. Of course, the fact that said users would neither confirm nor deny that they were Merkey (or not, as the case may be), only continued the acrimony. Docrailgun 18:23, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
Merkey doesn't deserve an entry in any encyclopedia, online or otherwise. This watered-down pap just proves my point. And this is good article material? Whether Jimbo intended or not, Jeff Merkey wins. --Jerry (Talk) 00:15, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
This isn't a war, nor is it a contest. Anyone trying to declare a 'winner' is really missing the point. --InShaneee 02:37, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Of course this isn't a war. I didn't imply that. Jeff got kicked off wikipedia 4 or 5 times trying to water down this article. In the end, Jimbo deletes the many months of work and discussion of many editors leaving what..? Oh my gosh.. Just what Jeff got kicked off for. A watered down puff piece. And you guys wonder why you get no respect. Whatever.. You've lost another editor. --Jerry (Talk) 06:03, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New intro

Ok, here we go, I've been working on a proper intro for this:

Jeff Vernon Merkey is a computer scientist and entrepreneur. After working as chief scientist for Novell Inc.[1], Merkey left to create his own company, Wolf Mountain Group, to develop a set of clustering technologies[2]. Later renamed Timpanogas Research Group (or simply TRG)[3], Merkey and his company would become involved in a legal dispute with Novell over intellectual property, with resulting legal fees running into the millions of dollars[1]. When the legal battle with Novell was over with, TRG would go on to develop various open source projects, including a NetWare-compatable operating system[4].
After a brief spat with Microsoft over the NTFS source code TRG licensed from the company in 2000[5], Merkey would once again go on to develop slightly different projects. Much like before, Merkey set out to develop an open source, Netware-compatable operating system, only this time it would run the Linux kernel atop its Netware microkernel called GaDuGi[6]. However, due to Merkey attempting to use a different license then the GPL, the license of the Linux kernel, along with other actions, he would become embroiled in controversy with the free software community. Wolf Mountain Group later created its own file system for Linux, called the Wolf Mountain File System[7].
  1. ^ a b Essex, David (2000-08-30). Protect yourself against an inevitable-disclosure lawsuit. ITworld.com. Retrieved on 2006-05-25.
  2. ^ CNET News.com Staff (1997-04-29). Confusion reigns on Wolf Mountain. CNET News.com. Retrieved on 2006-05-23.
  3. ^ CNET News.com Staff (1997-05-13). Short Take: Wolf Mountain Group now Timpanogas Research Group. CNET News.com. Retrieved on 2006-05-23.
  4. ^ Geralds, John (2000-08-22). Open source NetWare compatible OS unveiled. vnunet.com. Retrieved on 2006-05-24.
  5. ^ Thurrott, Paul (February 2001). NTFS Licensee Reports Microsoft Threat, Apology. Windows IT Pro. Retrieved on 2006-05-25.
  6. ^ O'Gara, Maureen (2005-01-17). GaDuGi To Rewrite its Linux Side, Says Merkey. Enterprise Open Source Magazine. Retrieved on 2006-05-25.
  7. ^ Wolf Mountain Group L.L.C. Announces Wolf Mountain File System for Windows and Linux. Wolf Mountain Group (2006-04-13). Retrieved on 2006-05-25.

Hopefully that's correct. I'll need to expand the article accordingly, of course. RN 09:15, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

That's quite a nice start, but I see a couple of problems. First, it seems that the Netware-compatible OS and the Wolf Mountain File System were announced in the sources you site, but that is quite different from being completed or released. I am not aware of these products ever reaching the market yet, for whatever reason. Also, the "millions of dollars" figure might not be something we want to state as fact, but rather to say more directly, "according to so-and-so, the fees reached $4 million" or whatever like that.
But, as I say, it is quite a nice start.--Jimbo Wales 23:50, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! I acted upon your comments for the new version, I believe :) RN 04:14, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reliability of the LKML

Jimbo says: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AJeffrey_Vernon_Merkey&diff=54926523&oldid=54900356

"Yes. But in this case, the relevant LKML posts are hotly disputed. Merkey was apparently the victim (no surprise) of trolls who posted fake messages to LKML purporting to be from him. Those are hotly disputed and in fact bring the reliability of the archives into serious question."

Is there anyone besides the subject of this article who 'hotly disputes' the reliability of LKML postings?

Is there anyone besides the subject of this article who thinks that faked messages were sent to LKML? Can this be verified? Is there a reputable source to back it up?

Is there even a suggestion of HOW this could be true? Has it ever happened to anyone else? ThreeVryl 04:08, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

What we can do, as always in such cases, is report the controversy. Briefly summarize the LKML posts and add a cited comment that Merkey disputes their authenticity. Where has he disputed them?--Eloquence* 17:03, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what exactly he is disputing, but I tried to only use them indirectly - I.E. not using the e-mails as a source directly and instead rely on other reliable sources. RN 17:56, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

There is the additional question of relevance and original research. If a flame war happens on a mailing list, and it had no impact elsewhere, and no reputable media reported on it, it is very hard in my mind to justify the inclusion of the flame war in an article about one of the participants in a flame war. This I think holds true generally. Some of Jeff's LKML posts were important, received media attention, and are not thought by anyone to be forgeries. Others are denied by Jeff to be from him, did not make news, and are dredged up only by enemies seeking even more ways to troll him and make him look bad. I should think that the verifiable facts in reputable news sources are enough. Even reporting on some of these alleged controversies strikes me as highly POV.--Jimbo Wales 23:08, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Relevance: The use of peyote is relevant to this article. http://tv.ksl.com/index.php?nid=39&sid=214297 Without going further into the Mooney saga, and Jeff's role in it, somewhere in this article it should mention Jeff's "utah native american church". Generally, it seems, that you can't legally use peyote if you aren't a member of a recognised NAC.
I note also that none of the information regarding Jeff's patents that was in the original article made it into this one.
As for being "dredged up only by enemies", they were unchallenged by Jeff for years, and returned to prominence after he testified in the Mooney trial in 2005. Drawing conclusions from that I suppose is "original research". ThreeVryl 01:05, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Unrelated to the Code offer, this post to the LKML is relevant to the TRG section of the article, and provides a closure to that period of history

[edit] Source request

"However, due to Merkey attempting to use a different license than the GPL, the license of the Linux kernel, along with other actions, he would become embroiled in controversy with the free software community." This sentence seems to be unsourced at the moment. Did Merkey "attempt" that, or did he "announce" that he would? Did Merkey announce, or did Wolf Mountain? (There is a difference between a person and a corporate entity.) etc. I am just trying to make sure that everything is *perfect* with this article.--Jimbo Wales 23:19, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

OK, this is a hard one, and I'm not much of a bio writer, and it is going to be messy :). I thought about it for hours, and I decided to basically simply restate what another NewsForge article said - that he was a controversial figure on the kernel's mailing list. The company vs. Merkey part is difficult as well; since he was the one who announced it on the mailing list, and the articles refer to it as simply Merkey, I'm assuming it is Merkey himself and not the company that made the offer to buy the kernel. Anyway, if have any suggestions or want to change anything, go right ahead :). RN 06:10, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA passed

The lead section is a bit long for the length of the article but the article is fine and easy to read. Lincher 05:39, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Citation needed?

Please, permit no speculation in this article. It needs to be kept highly accurate and extremely well sourced.

I do not have time at the moment to remove the claim which is currently listed as "citation needed" but I hope someone will do it quickly.--Jimbo Wales 19:06, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I initially removed the statement, but the servers are currently announced on the WMG website, so I re-added it, with a reference. I couldn't find anything about these things replacing the other plans, so I left that out. Kind regards, --JoanneB 19:27, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Well done Joanne :). RN 19:33, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] vs. Linux proponents lawsuit

From Todo: RN 19:37, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Note: Explain events before the vs. Linux proponents lawsuit. The lawsuit didn't just come out of nowhere, and the reasons for the lawsuit were many and varied.

The difficulty with this is trying to source these to reliable sources... if anyone has a lead that would be awesome :)! 67.185.132.50 20:35, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
Due to the tight restrictions on what are considered reliable sources for this article, I'm not sure how to provide that. But I don't think this article is complete until there is some coverage of those events (in fact that is the only reason I know about this person). I don't think the article would really meet item 3 of the good article guidelines, though I'm not going to fail it. Has all interest in this article been lost? 71.145.142.207 08:43, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

No :) - its really pretty close to the featured status I've been going for - I just can't find the usual good sources for this part :\. Right now I've been trying to gleam what I can from sources 7 and 16 as well as the lawsuit itself. I have to put it in rather surgically though due to the subject matter... RN 19:40, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Novell award

While I was at the Novell cafeteria I saw that he won an award there (his name is on a plaque or whatever) around 1992 for innovation or some other thing - I'll try to dig up a source if I can. RN 19:42, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merkey's public postings

Posting from his verified Yahoo! account, we have the latest diatribe from Jeff Merkey. [[5]] [[6]] [[7]] [[8]] [[9]]

Irony [[10]]

Nobody made Jeff say these things. It's a public forum and his account was verified by asking the holder of the jeff_merkey_neptune_rules account to modify www.merkeylaw.net .

There is no doubt that Jeff penned these 'interesting' views.

[edit] Most ridiculous 'what links here' list ever

At the moment I am writing this, there are 138 links to this article. All, but one, are cross-namespace links. · Naive cynic · 21:04, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New lawsuits

Due to the past history on this article, I want us to proceed slowly and very, very carefully with news of new lawsuits. To be clear: we know for a fact that there are people on the Internet who intensely dislike Mr. Merkey and have used every opportunity in the past to make him look bad. Wikipedia, as a matter of official policy, is neutral, which means that we do not like Mr. Merkey, we do not dislike Mr. Merkey, we are not a forum to praise him, we are not a forum to curse him. We simply report, very very carefully, on the actual facts.

No original research. Be absolutely certain that anyone mentioned in any media report is actually the right person. Make sure not to come to any conclusions beyond what is actually stated in the news reports, and attribute every statement to the original source. Period.

I have semi-protected the article so that good Wikipedians can look after this article without the distraction of trolls. I have reverted the edits of an anon, not because I think the material can not be included, but so that people who are known and trusted by the community can carefully check it.

We are Wikipedians. If we take pride in what that means, this is a chance to live up to what we mean by that. Proceed with objectivity and kindness, find the truth, and go no further.--Jimbo Wales 03:06, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm really supposed to show "kindness" for a guy who, at one point on his own Web site, called me a "cyberstalker" and hinted at pedophilia and other illegal activity on my part, based solely on the fact that I had happened to be among the people who had edited his article in the past? *Dan T.* 18:17, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes, actually. That's what it means to be a Wikipedian. We ought to hold ourselves to the highest possible standards, write clearly and neutrally, with love and respect for everyone. Detailing the facts is fine, but get them right, write without bias, and refrain from personal attacks. There is zero cost to us in being kind.--Jimbo Wales 15:02, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Agreed, it is more important to be kind than truly neutral anyway. If the subject of a biography wants facts ommited or changed, or their history revised, that should be the goal. Merkey should definitely have the final say over what is true and what isn't. If he says he isn't Waya, that means he isn't Waya, especially if everybody else thinks he is Waya, or if it is patently obvious that he is Waya. That is what neutrality (and kindness) is all about. If he says that there is a conspiracy to forge 10 year old email list postings as him, that conspiracy obviously exists, since he is the only one who really knows. Again, that is neutrality (and kindness). Any obvious Merkey sock-puppets are obviously not Merkey sock-puppets if he says they aren't, kindness and neutrality dictates that everything Merkey says about himself is fact. -- Nyet 21:00, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
Merkey made even more odious charges against Jimbo. If he can find it within himself to show kindness to Merkey, then surely others can as well. I am having some difficulty understanding why the information about the latest lawsuits was removed, since I don't think there was anything in the material other than what Merkey himself has sought to publicize. Removing the material doesn't seem to be an act of kindness towards Merkey, rather the opposite. --MediaMangler 20:27, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
I fail to see any problem whatsoever with these edits. They're obviously the same Jeff Merkey - the scofacts page backing up the Petrofsky lawsuit info contains just another court filing relating to the same lawsuit as before. Jeff's wikimedia page not only has a mention of a son of the same (unusual) name as the alleged poison victim, we have the exact same picture as on some of the source URLs. This is hypersensitivity to the point of absurdity. Revert Jimbo! --Aim Here 21:21, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
I have no objection to the text being reinstated, although I think that rather than a simple reinstatement, the section should be carefully vetted and reviewed and expanded.--Jimbo Wales 15:02, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
"After Jeffrey and Margit Merkey’s two-year-old son Alexej consumed spinach tainted with E. Coli bacteria, he became so ill that he needed emergency surgery." [11] Not that I think this will make a difference; I understand Jimbo's new requirement that the subject of a biographical entry should be in full control of its content.--Nyet 19:18, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Nyet, you can troll all you want, but Wikipedians who have known me for years will see exactly what's wrong with what you are saying. It doesn't help to make Wikipedia better for you to behave in this way. I want the article to be neutral and fully referenced to appropriate sources. --Jimbo Wales 01:09, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why no Novell/Netware articles have links to this person?

Is there some Novell employees out there making sure that doesn't happen? Took me an hour to find this article trying to research this somewhat famous case of a former employee trapped in a sort of "non-compete" clause. I forgot his name but I knew he worked at "Novell" on "clustering" software. This case is probably more famous than the actual software. --MarsRover 05:21, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Well Jeff's claim to fame isn't really the software he's written, but all the bizarre trouble and nonsense he's been getting himself into, starting with his trade secrets fiasco with Novell, his attempts to 'buy Linux', and the numerous silly lawsuits and attempts to censor everyone on the internet who's ever mentioned his name. If the article puts undue weight on his software authorship, that's probably something to do with editwarring over it by Jeff himself and Jimbo Wales' subsequent interventions. --Aim Here 06:22, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Birth date, education?

Do we have any information about his date of birth and his education? AxelBoldt 21:57, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Any attempt to add such information runs into WP:OR and WP:V. At one point I made the mistake of adding information about his date and place of birth as well as about his military service, as provided by Merkey himself. I argued that he was surely a reliable source for such personal information. He later made statements which flatly contradicted the information he had provided. MediaMangler 12:00, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Well aren't military records public? -- Zanimum 21:59, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
Certainly not. That would violate privacy rights. Such records contain information which would be very useful for identity theft. They might also contain embarrassing information. -- MediaMangler 23:03, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
I thought the public could ask for any most government document to be released publicly. -- Zanimum 02:08, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
But how does that help us with WP:OR and WP:V? Even if Merkey requested the release of his records and someone obtained a copy, that information would need to be published in some reputable source before we could use it. -- MediaMangler 09:11, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Explanation of edits

As usual, people seem very eager in this case to do original research that speculates or draws conclusions beyond those which can be sourced. "Assuming that this is the post to which Merkey's complaint refers" is speculation. "This claim would seem to imply" is speculation. If you can find a reputable source that makes these speculations, then cite it. Otherwise, Wikipedia is not a place for people to exercise their hatred for Jeff Merkey.--Jimbo Wales 01:06, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't hate Merkey; I've never even met him, nor corresponded with him. I'll address your two edits separately. Pfagerburg 18:35, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
"Assuming that this is the post ..." leaves open the possibility that there was another post that was the basis of Merkey's complaint. I'll come back to this one, since it's more difficult. Pfagerburg 18:35, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
I found an external reference that associates the claim "file of people to be killed" with the statement "he belongs in everyone's kill file." Therefore, I'm not claiming it any more, just pointing to someone else who claimed it. I'm revising the article to point this out, since Merkey made the claim in his lawsuit, but I was not able to find where he actually provided any proof the Bruce Perens made this statement. (Not that it doesn't exist, just I wasn't able to find it.) Many of Merkey's other filings attach printouts of e-mails and web pages as evidence to back up his claims. Pfagerburg 19:13, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
For the spinach lawsuit, I will change the content to simply say that NSFoods was founded under that name in 1995, eleven years before they were accused of using their corporate name to inflict emotional distress. It's factual and NPOV. Pfagerburg 18:35, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
No, it isn't. If a third-party commentator has mentioned this, it is citeable, if you personally found a fact and connected it to the lawsuit, it's original research. --Delirium 10:46, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
Please explain how it is original research to note that 1. Natural Selection Foods was founded under that name in 1995 (cite archive.org), 2. The press releases from NSF discussing the outbreak included the company name (don't have a cite on hand, but I could find one easily), 3. Merkey is claiming that the company intended to emotionally distress him through the use of their corporate name (cite Merkey's own filings), 4. the corporate name predates the claim of infliction of emotional distress by 11 years (cite a calendar).
I wouldn't mock his claim if the press releases had said, "in accordance with Darwin's theory of Natural Selection, some people are dying due to E. Coli infections. Oh well, that's survival of the fittest for you. Sucks to be one of the weak ones that gets weeded out." However, the only use of "natural selection" I found in a press release was to state the company name.
I've attempted to connect the dots very explicitly so that no-one is fooled. The same goes for the Perens lawsuit; I saw kill file comment, I saw the lawsuit, and I was unsurprised when it was finally dropped.
In the same way as the kill file incident, it is my opinion that Merkey is trying to play it up (excessively) as the sympathetic defendant. Bringing up Darwin looks to me like an attempt to improve his chances with a Utah jury. You can imagine the statement that might be made to the jury: "not only was my son harmed, the company responsible is EEEEVIL because they believe in Charles Darwin. Please award me 50 bazillion dollars." Highly distasteful.
This is the unvarnished truth, assembled from very public sources - Merkey's own court filings, public press releases, and companies' web pages. He put the claim out there, he invited the scrutiny and subsequent mockery of said claim. Pfagerburg 19:22, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
I haven't yet updated the article, and I thought maybe we could work it out here. Assuming that everyone agrees that the "Natural Selection equals Emotional Distress" claim is ludicrous, how best to put this?
"The lawsuit does not fully explain why the use of the company's name, dating back to 1995, is an actionable tort."
"The company's press releases (insert cite here) relating to the outbreak use the words "Natural Selection" only to identify the company issuing the press release; the phrase does not appear in any other context in the press releases. Natural Selection Foods was founded under that name in 1995 (insert cite to archive.org here)."
Thoughts and comments? Pfagerburg 19:31, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
It seems to me that there is no need to "connect the dots" by pointing out that 1995 is 11 years before the suit was filed or by explicitly drawing the reader's attention to the strangeness of Merkey's claim. There certainly is no need to ridicule Merkey in the article by adding a statement that his claim is ludicrous, even if everyone were to agree with that statement. Please allow the reader to draw his own conclusions from the facts without any editorial comment. If Merkey's claim is so obviously ludicrous, then the reader can see that for himself without having it pointed out. By the way, thanks for making the effort to add these facts. I was tempted to make the attempt on several occasions, but was too timid. My past experience with this article makes me very leery of editing it. — MediaMangler 12:11, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, MediaMangler. I recognize you from the history logs of the older article, wayyyy back when. Like the killfile episode, I could not find a copy of the "offending" statement in Merkey's claim. Read on its face, the killfile comment sounds actionable, until one sees the original source. The "natural selection" claim is more likely to make the reader go "huh?" but I think it's still useful to include a link to the "offending" document so that the reader may compare that document to the claims in the lawsuit. How about my second suggestion, noting that "Natural Selection" only appears as the company's name, and let the reader conclude from there? I think there's no such thing as too much ridicule for such a claim. BUT we have to keep it NPOV, so even if I'm snickering as I point out the dates, or cite the supposed "list of people to be killed," I'll try to keep it strictly to the facts. Pfagerburg 03:58, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
As soon as you depart from what is directly citable from reliable, verifiable sources, you strsy into original research. Unless you can find some press report which notes that Natural Selection only appears as the company's name, I don't think you can point that out. Remember that the purpose of Wikipedia is to inform, not to provide a forum for ridicule. Providing the bare facts in Merkey's complaint, as reported by the press, is informative. Providing our own evaluation or interpretation of the merits of that complaint strays from that purpose. But that's just my opinion, which is probably not worth a lot. It still seems to me that Wikipedia policy is interpretated and enforced in a very arbitrary and capricious manner. — MediaMangler 21:11, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Help me untangle semantics here; you say "find some press report which notes that Natural Selection only appears as the company's name" is not OR. But to link to a press release from Natural Selection and state the simple and verifiable fact that Natural Selection only appears as the company name, that's original research? Pfagerburg 23:03, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Like you, I smell arbitrary enforcement of standards, probably due to legal threats from the subject of the article, see Notice of court order to Jimmy Wales and Wikimedia Foundation and Wikipedia What happened to WP:NLT? Pfagerburg 23:03, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Go to Xenu and read in the section "Xenu in Scientology doctrine," where it says: "OT III also deals with Incident I, set four quadrillion years ago (roughly 300,000 times longer than current scientific consensus holds the age of the universe to be)." Is that OR? Fact 1 is that OT III says it happened 4 quadrillion years ago. The cite is missing, but could surely be found, as the OT III documents are all over the internet. Fact 2 is the current scientific consensus about the age of the universe. Again, a missing cite, and not taking into account the strict-creationist view, but could be easily cited. But here the article istelf takes the two facts and contrasts them, and that doesn't seem to be OR in my book, just a careful association of a claim with a fact. Likewise, the founding of NSFoods in 1995 is a fact, the use of "natural selection" only as the company name in press releases is a fact, and Merkey's lawsuit makes a claim that does not seem to withstand those two facts. Pfagerburg 19:04, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
You are asserting that the sole basis of Merkey's claim is the use of "natural selection" as the company name. Your assertion is not backed by the current scientific consensus, it is based upon your personal reading of his court filing and of the news reports. I'm fairly sure that Merkey himself has a somewhat different interpretation. I have read the court filing and the news reports and came to the same conclusion as you, but who the hell are we? We're just two anonymous voices on the Internet. The whole point is not about what is true, no matter how obvious it may seem, but what reliable source can we cite. Sorry I've been so poor at arguing in favor of Wiki's policies. I'm a somewhat reluctant convert to them. — MediaMangler 20:54, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
While I can't find a press release right now, I'm sure that if I could, we would all see that the words "Natural Selection" only occur as the name of the company. This would point out the far-fetchedness (is that a real word?) of that portion of the claim. While searching for press releases from NSFoods relating to the outbreak, I had a bit of a revelation: I'm wasting my time and everybody else's time, too. Assuming that their son did suffer from contaminated spinach (poor kid, I feel sorry for him), and NSFoods has apparently owned up to it, they will probably pay out. If/when they do, it is possible that Merkey could see this as an admission of the entire claim, including the "Darwin" portion. I think you're probably right about truth vs. reliable cite, though it drives me up a wall sometimes that essentially, "you can't say it unless you're quoting someone else." Pfagerburg 01:35, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
I think the problem here is that Merkey is prone to making really off-the-wall claims in his lawsuits, often without any attempt at explanation, clarification, or justification, leaving others to do the "original research" of trying to connect the dots and figure out what he apparently really means by them and just what real words or actions by the defendant were responsible for triggering such a claim. *Dan T.* 13:19, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merkey now main admin of Cherokee Wikipedia

chr:User:Jeffrey V. Merkey is the most active administrator on the Cherokee Wikipedia. He already blocked a user who complained about his attitude, and that user complained to a steward (see meta:User talk:Jon Harald Søby and meta:User:Va Shlyay 78). He also somehow gained admin privelages on the Navajo Wikipedia (nv:User:Jmerkey), where he hasn't exactly been nice to me (nv:User talk:Jmerkey, which he tried to delete in the wake of a vandal attack, but I restored).

I'm not sure how it is that a user such as this with a self-professed hatred of Wikipedia and Wikipedians is allowed to be in control of two of our projects. --Node 09:36, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

This talk page is really only for discussing Merkey's English language biography. Any problems you may have encountered with him on various Wikis should be discussed following the normal dispute resolution process of those Wikis, on Meta, or else be taken up with the Foundation. Since Merkey has promised not to edit on the English Wiki, he will be unable to answer you in this forum and complaining here can serve no useful purpose. — MediaMangler 12:48, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm not complaining about him. However, I do think it is relevant to this page. It is, after all, about Jeff. Besides, he has registered again as User:CherokeeWiki. --Node 06:55, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Is there any concrete evidence that Merkey was ever Chief Scientist at Novell?

A search for "Novell Chief Scientist" turns up Drew Major, aka the Father of Netware, who seems to have held that position the whole time Merkey worked for Novell. If this fact cannot be verified with NPOV sources, it should be removed from the article.

The reference cited in the article [[12]] does state that Merkey "had been Novell's chief scientist". In the absence of any source disputing that statement, I think we have to accept it since it was made by a reputable journalist, especially since other sources make the same claim. At the risk of violating WP:OR, I will note that there is a finding of fact from a judge in one of Merkey's lawsuits [[13]] which states that "Merkey was a chief scientist at Novell" and "Merkey remained the chief scientist on the project". While those quotations lead me to suspect that Merkey was really the chief scientist for one or more specific projects rather than chief scientist for all of Novell, that requires interpretation of a primary source. — MediaMangler 10:21, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
Are you saying that if someone in the print media screws up their research, that the resulting conclusions, however obviously flawed, must be enshrined in an article?! Please say that we haven't reached this level of logical fallacy... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 207.179.5.39 (talk) 21:42, 28 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] "E. Coli Spinach Lawsuit (2006-present)"

I trimmed the "E. Coli Spinach Lawsuit (2006-present)" section. The heading implied that it's his sole occupation. The details of the suit, such as the founding date of a defendant, are really not necessary. Some schmo's kid gets sick or has an accident and he sues the guys he thinks are responsible. It happens every day and is no big deal. There must be thousands of spinach suits these days. Let's leave it at a line or two with the bare facts until it becomes famous. The article is overly concerned with lawsuits and disputes, and not enough with the actual businesses and products. The subject's involvement with cultural and political could use a little more attention too, for balance, along with any personal details that are public. (The article never says if he belongs to the Cherokee Nation, for example.) -Will Beback · † · 08:24, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, lawsuits happen every day. But how many lawsuits claim that "Natural Selection" is a deliberate infliction of emotional distress? That's the name of the company, and Merkey's lawsuit attempts to twist it around, presumably in hopes of a bigger payoff.
The details of when the company was founded are very relevant; they are accused of using two words, Natural Selection, as a way of causing emotional distress. However, the verifiable date of when they named their company such directly refutes the claim.
You replaced a very detailed (and accurate!) section with one sentence: "The suit also accuses Natural Selection Foods of deliberately causing emotional distress." HOW does the suit say such emotional distress was caused? That's a very important detail that you sanitized right out of the article.
The article is overly concerned with lawsuits, because that does seem to be Merkey's main occupation, and the more ludicrous, the better, it would seem. See the section about a 'killfile' (a standard unix term for decades) somehow became 'a list of people to be killed' in a federal lawsuit.
If Merkey didn't want this claim discussed in public, he shouldn't have put it in a lawsuit. Pfagerburg 14:34, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
Every lawsuit is unique. I don't see that this is a notable lawsuit. The source for it is a minor legal-industry newsletter. Giving the material so much attention conveyes several impressions, and it appears from your remarks that you are trying to conduct original research. Everybody makes vclaims in lawsuits, but I don't see any indication, besides the opinion of one editor, that this especially noteworthy. -Will Beback · † · 17:05, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
There's absolutely no reason to include the date. Trying to refute a claim is not our job. If any of the articles (just the one?) about this case mention it then we might include it. Otherwise it's original research. -Will Beback · † · 17:19, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree with changing the title of the section discussing Merkey v. Perens. The title you wrote is 100% NPOV. In fact, I will change the title of the second lawsuit to the actual title under which it was filed, not the subject matter of the suit. Pfagerburg 18:32, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
I disagree with removing the date of NSFoods' founding, and don't feel that is Original Research so much as just stating a fact. However, I'll defer to your edit, provided we keep the quote from the lawsuit text that explains why there is a claim of infliction of emotional distress. Pfagerburg 18:32, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
I notice that on this page two other editors previously questioned the inclusion of the date. I'll wait until we get the input of other editors to decide on the long quote from a minor legal magazine. -Will Beback · † · 07:09, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
I trimmed the heading, which was simply too long to be practical. -Will Beback · † · 07:10, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm very uncertain about how much detail to include about the NSFoods lawsuit. I tend to believe that the most notable fact about that suit is Merkey's outrageous allegation of Darwinian overtones and removing that fact from the article may do a disservice to the reader. On the other hand, the media seems not to have taken much notice of his allegation, which argues that my opinion of its noteworthiness is incorrect. Indeed the whole lawsuit seems to have completely dropped off the radar. Much as I dislike saying it, I believe that mention of this lawsuit should be trimmed to just the single first sentence of the paragraph. I would prefer to retain both references, so that an interested reader can still judge for himself the merits of the suit. --MediaMangler 11:31, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
I was the person (sorry, still no user account) who added the original spinach lawsuit section that was reverted by Jimbo Wales (IIRC), despite being (so I thought) quite carefully edited and providing links to media reports. Glad to see it's made it at last, and you've even found some better links. Anyway, I have to laugh at the amount of discussion Merkey creates at WP; what a sad waste of time. Is it not obvious that you could stop wasting that time? Face it, Merkey *doesn't actually merit* a WP biography.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.177.206.71 (talk • contribs).

It has been reported that this case has been dismissed! Pacer, Utah federal district civil case number 2:06 CV 00839. Merkey's lawyer today filed a STIPULATION FOR DISMISSAL WITHOUT PREJUDICE, dated June 4. It reads, "Plaintiffs, by and through counsel, Randall K. Spencer, hereby move the Court to dismiss the above entitled action without prejudice with all parties to be responsible for their own costs and attorney fees." posted here because huggle deleted the edit on the article page. Hope the information is useful. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.105.241.214 (talk) 07:30, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Link to Utah Native American Church

The administrator of the Utah NAC website in October of 2005 claimed that a link from Wikipedia was creating a denial of service attack against his site. He claimed "I only have limited bandwidth on this server for web access, and I cannot have it overloaded like it has been." He eventually went so far as to change the root page of the site to be a diatribe against "web spamming" and threatened to send a bill to Wikipedia for bandwidth usage. He made it very clear that he did not want any links to his site from Wikipedia. The record of this request is in the deleted talk page archives for this article. Since there is absolutely no mention of Merkey anywhere on the Utah NAC site, I don't think the link adds anything to the article and should be removed. --MediaMangler 11:19, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I've removd it. The material isn't contentious so it doesn't need three sources. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 11:48, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
I was unaware of the contentious nature of linking to the public web site of the church. Most public web sites of organizations enjoy additional attention. I did search this talk page for any comments about the church before the edit. Thanks for removing the link.
The reason I used three sources is because it appears that pretty much any edit by or about Mr. Merkey receives a lot of scrutiny. I figured supporting the edit is particularly important here because Mr. Merkey's religious involvement raises WP:COI and WP:NPOV questions about his LDS edits. --Janolder 16:01, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merkey v. Perens et al.

Here's a proposed rewrite of the Merkey v. Perens et al. section that corrects a couple errors and adds some details and citations:

On June 21, 2005, Merkey filed a lawsuit against three defendants well-known in the field of open source software (Bruce Perens, Pamela Jones, and Slashdot), plus five other named defendants and 200 unidentified John Does.[1][2][3][4] Merkey's 43-page complaint alleged that the defendants were "conspiring to murder and/or threatening to murder Plaintiff, enlisting and/or soliciting others to murder plaintiff,"[1][5] and also engaging in several less serious offenses.
One of the attachments to Merkey's complaint was a copy of a 1998 confidential settlement agreement between Novell and Merkey. He intended for this to be filed under seal, but the court clerk initially made the document publicly available. Among the people to whom the clerk provided copies of the document was Al Petrofsky, who then made it available on his website, scofacts.org. On June 22, 2005, one day after Merkey had filed the document, Judge Dale Kimball ordered the clerk to seal it.[6] In July, Merkey amended his complaint to add Petrofsky and three other people to the list of defendants.[7] He simultaneously dropped two of the original defendants, Bruce Perens and Slashdot.[7]
Just two months later, in Septemper 2005, Merkey voluntarily dismissed his case, but it was reopened the next month, at Merkey's request, to address Petrofsky's continuing distribution of the old settlement agreement.[8]
Almost a year later, on September 21, 2006, Judge Kimball issued a ruling[9] that: (1) ordered Petrofsky to "cease dissemination and/or publication" of the settlement agreement; (2) denied a motion by Merkey to amend his complaint to seek $22 million in damages from Petrofsky[10]; and (3) reclosed the case.

The description of the complaint in the current version of the article, which mentions "harassment" while ignoring the "murder ... murder ... murder" that Merkey prominently placed on the second of his forty-three pages, seems like a serious case of burying the lede. Similarly, it doesn't make sense to mention the trivial matter of costs (which were less than $50 for me and less than $500 for Merkey), but not mention the $22,000,000 damages figure.

(I won't edit the article myself, on account of there being 22 million reasons for people to doubt my objectivity about the case.) Al Petrofsky 09:11, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your input, Al. I do think that "harassment and other charges" seriously understates the nature of the case. Did you see the part where Linux is somehow responsible for the beheadings in Iraq, because terrorists used F/OSS to encode the video? Funny, because the videos that I saw were in WMV format. But I won't put that in the article since that would be Original Research.
Every time I try to add more factual detail, including citations, it gets slapped down. The latest is from one editor/admin saying that court filings should not be relied upon, because they haven't been vetted by the courts yet, while ignoring the fact that the court filings were written by the subject of this article, and the facts being stated are "subject of this article claimed that XXX, YYY, ZZZ." So the court document is not only the proof of the claim, it is the claim itself. I've discussed it briefly with that person, and it hasn't gone anywhere, so for the present, I will put "less controversial" facts into the article.
I do think your explanation of what the document was and how it was mistakenly made available to the public is better than the section I wrote, and so I will try to fold in those changes later.
Without the added detail, nobody can understand why the lawsuit is notable. And yet when I try to add the factual detail, from the movant's own words, I'm accused of POV, COI, trolling and wikistalking (which isn't a word as far as I can tell).
Please do understand that I cannot at present time include any links (or perhaps even any mention) of scofacts.org, as this has triggered other editors to remove large amounts of content (much of it not from scofacts.org, but tainted by association) from the article on the basis of NPOV. Pfagerburg 15:04, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I have re-written several sections of the Merkey v. Perens lawsuit section, including references to the court documents. About a week previous, I had some debate with another editor as to whether court documents are reliable sources, given that they have not yet been weighed by the courts. I certainly agree that the complaints filed by Mr. Merkey are not reliable sources for a wikipedia article, except that they are documentation of claims that Mr. Merkey made.

For example, Mr. Merkey's claim that Bruce Perens solicited Mr. Merkey's murder does not belong in Mr. Perens' WP bio.

Bruce Perens is a former Debian GNU/Linux Project Leader, the primary author of the Open Source Definition, a founder of Software in the Public Interest, founder and first project leader of the Linux Standard Base project, the initial author of BusyBox, a founder of the UserLinux project, and co-founder of the Open Source Initiative (OSI). Mr. Perens has also advocated the murder of several people, having referred to his "file of people to be killed" on at least one occasion. Only one targeted person has been named so far, one Jeff V. Merkey, a former Chief Scientist at Novell.

However, the fact that Merkey made a claim that Mr. Perens solicited Mr. Merkey's murder can be part of Mr. Merkey's bio, since Mr. Merkey wrote that himself.

Similarly, Mr. Merkey's claim that OSS is partly responsible for the beheading videos would not belong in the OSS article:

Open source software is computer software whose source code is available under a license (or arrangement such as the public domain) that permits users to use, change, and improve the software, and to redistribute it in modified or unmodified form. It is often developed in a public, collaborative manner. It is the most prominent example of open source development and often compared to user generated content. Open source software is also used by various terrorist groups to spread terror by providing a means for terrorists to digitize and distribute videos of the murder of United States citizens.

However, the fact the Mr. Merkey has claimed that OSS is used by terrorists can be put in an article about Mr. Merkey.

And it is fact that such claims was made, since Mr. Merkey wrote it, signed it, filed it with a court, and even put up the merkeylaw.com website. Pfagerburg 01:19, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Certainly the lawsuit documents are reliable sources for Merkey's lawsuit claims, but they're primary sources, so to select which parts of them to use here would be original research. You'll want to find reliable secondary sources that document the bizarre claims in Merkey's lawsuit, or the chances are Jimbo or someone will come along and scrub the article again. Googling for a news or law website that documents some of the oddities in the lawsuit would probably be your best hope.--Aim Here 07:29, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
It woudn't be appropriate to write a biography by searching the writings of the subject for text we think worthy of quotation and commentary. This is but one lawsuit out of many, and the subject has also done other notable things. NPOV requires maintianing some balance in the material. As Aim Here says above, it'd be better to stick to summarizing reliable sources. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 08:12, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
Every secondary source I've used in this article has been scrubbed for being "polemic and not the least bit scholarly," or "not a notable journal." Somebody needs to make up their minds whether they want primary or secondary sources, and then quit whitewashing the article when I use the sort of source they want. Pfagerburg 14:26, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
What we need are good secondary sources. I don't think there's ever been a debate about that. But the fact is that Wikipedia editors should be verifiably summarizing reliable sources using the neutral point of view, not scrounging for unreliable sources to prove points. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 20:21, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
Will, please see my post below, and respond. The legal documents do appear to be reliable sources per WP:PSTS. However, I will spend some time later to find some secondary sources to back these up.
If a secondary source says "X claimed Y did Z," isn't it appropriate to cite the primary source to show that it did indeed happen that way? I have verifiably summarized these primary sources; anyone can get a copy from PACER or from the mirrors on tuxrocks.com or other sites to see that I did summarize them properly.
As for POV, as the WP policy says, we're all biased, but the key is to keep our biases out of the writing and avoid using POV language. Did I include anything with commentary, i.e. "makes the ridiculous claim that ..." or "deliberately misquoted Mr. Perens, who actually said ..."? No, I did not. Pfagerburg 21:10, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
The topic of this article is Jeff V. Merkey, not Merkey v. Perens et al. I think we can summarize this case in a couple of paragraphs. Giving it excessive attention appears to distort the balance in this article. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 23:59, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
I will try in the next few days to cut down the length, but I disagree with removing sources. It's all about information, and the more information, the better. Pfagerburg 03:02, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Aim Here, in response to your statement, "they're primary sources, so to select which parts of them to use here would be original research," I offer this direct quote from WP:PSTS, with emphasis added:

Original research that creates primary sources is not allowed. However, research that consists of collecting and organizing material from existing primary or secondary sources within the provisions of this policy is, of course, encouraged: this is "source-based research," and it is fundamental to writing an encyclopedia.

Although most articles should rely predominantly on secondary sources, there are rare occasions when they may rely on primary sources (for example, legal cases). An article or section of an article that relies on a primary source should (1) only make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge, and (2) make no analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims. Contributors drawing on primary sources should be careful to comply with both conditions.

Quoting some paragraphs from the lawsuit that Mr. Merkey filed as proof of claims that Mr. Merkey made seems to be "source based research." The next paragraph specifically mentions legal cases. For the quote provided, I have also linked to some secondary sources which comment directly on those claims. I submit that condition 1 in the second paragraph I quoted is easily met; anyone can read the documents and see that the various claims quoted in the article are in fact claimed in the court document. However, my edits may fail condition 2, as some editors may feel that simply pointing to the secondary sources which are critical of the claim would count as making an evaluative claim.

I believe that condition #2 is the point of contention here, and invite discussion from all interested parties. Pfagerburg 17:36, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

This was a lawsuit that was dismissed fairly promptly. while it's amusing that Merkey mistook the meaning of "killfile", it is not the only thing that ever happened. The case itself didn't set any precedents. I think it's a case of piling on material to make the subject look bad. We don't need to go into every legal maneuver, such as the adding and subtracting of defendats. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 23:59, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
I respectfully disagree. The case is notable precisely because of the scope of its accusations - vast conspiracies to murder Mr. Merkey, OSS being used by terrorists and other enemies of the United States, wholesale theft of intellectual property, etc. Many of the people or entities accused - Bruce Perens, Pamela Jones/Groklaw, Slashdot - are quite notable and have their own articles on Wikipedia. Pfagerburg 03:02, 17 July 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Ongoing discussion at AN/I regarding supposed BLP issues

There's a discussion regarding this article at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Merkey_bio, regarding an apparent WP:BLP issue. I did try to copy and paste part of it in here so that the issues, if any, could be addressed, but that was reverted, so you'll have to go over there to talk about it. --Aim Here 09:37, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

My mistake - I'd mistaken Talk:Jeffrey Vernon Merkey on WP:ANI (which redirects) for User talk:Jeffrey Vernon Merkey. This is a good place to bring this material.Proabivouac 09:46, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] References

Parts of this talk page that propose sections for the article page use the Cite.php mechanism, which causes footnotes to show up here:

  1. ^ a b Bloor, Robin (2005-06-28). The GPL and the Litigious Cherokee. IT-Director.com. IT Analysis Communications Ltd. Retrieved on 2007-07-09.
  2. ^ Corbet, Jonathan (2005-06-21). The next chapter in the Merkey saga. lwn.net. Eklektix, Inc.. Retrieved on 2007-07-09.
  3. ^ Causey, Jeff. Jeffrey V. Merkey v. The Internet et al. ip-wars.net. Retrieved on 2007-07-09.
  4. ^ Sandburg, Brenda (2005-09-09). Lawyers Flock to Mystery Web Site's Coverage of SCO-IBM Suit. law.com. ALM Properties, Inc. Retrieved on 2007-07-09.
  5. ^ Merkey, Jeffrey (2005-06-21), “VERIFIED COMPLAINT (Doc. #1)”, Merkey vs. Perens et al. (Case No. 2:05-cv-521), U.S. District Court, District of Utah, pp. 2 . (copy at scofacts.org, Retrieved on 2007-07-09)
  6. ^ Kimball, Dale (2005-06-22), “ORDER (Doc. #2)”, Merkey vs. Perens et al. (Case No. 2:05-cv-521), U.S. District Court, District of Utah . (copy at sco.tuxrocks.com, Retrieved on 2007-07-09)
  7. ^ a b Merkey, Jeffrey (2005-07-18), “AMMENDED [sic] COMPLAINT (Doc. #7)”, Merkey vs. Perens et al. (Case No. 2:05-cv-521), U.S. District Court, District of Utah . (copy at sco.tuxrocks.com, Retrieved on 2007-07-09)
  8. ^ Kimball, Dale (2005-10-27), “ORDER REOPENING CASE (Doc. #34)”, Merkey vs. Perens et al. (Case No. 2:05-cv-521), U.S. District Court, District of Utah . (copy at sco.tuxrocks.com, Retrieved on 2007-07-09)
  9. ^ Kimball, Dale (2006-09-21), “ORDER MODIFYING REPORT & RECOMMENDATION (Doc. #46)”, Merkey vs. Perens et al. (Case No. 2:05-cv-521), U.S. District Court, District of Utah . (copy at sco.tuxrocks.com, Retrieved on 2007-07-09)
  10. ^ Merkey, Jeffrey (2006-01-19), “MOTION TO AMMEND [sic] COMPLAINT FOR DAMAGES (Doc. #40)”, Merkey vs. Perens et al. (Case No. 2:05-cv-521), U.S. District Court, District of Utah . (copy at sco.tuxrocks.com, Retrieved on 2007-07-09)

[edit] Bad grammar

{{editprotected}}

Merkey and his company were sued by Novell, alleging misappropriation of trade secrets.[1]

should be changed to:

Merkey and his company were sued by Novell, who alleged misappropriation of trade secrets.[1] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.115.58.152 (talk • contribs)

Y Done. Sandstein 05:49, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unprotected

I have unprotected this page.

  1. It was semi-protected only, and whoever was vandalizing it 18 months ago in October 2006, has quite likely moved on. At the least we should check if there is a current vandalism concern rather than eternal semiprotection. We can always handle (better tools now than 2006) or reprotect if an issue.
  2. The reason given was due to investigation; this is obviously long over now.

If problems resume to the point that as of 2008 we would protect, then it may need reprotecting. FT2 (Talk | email) 04:16, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't necessarily disagree with your action but the timing could have been better. Unprotecting the article immediately after Merkey made his accusations on the Foundation-I mailing list may give some people the wrong impression. --MediaMangler (talk) 23:00, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
For clarification, I wasn't aware of the external issue, or of the mailing list one (though obviously since it was in the papers on the 11th I became aware fairly soon after). This unprotect crossed my desk (so to speak) as a simple "should this be unprotected" to which my response was to look at it, look at the block log, decide "yes" and do it. A semi-protection running for 18 months for IP vandalism and an "Investigation" is self-evidently unneeded. I don't think i would have done differently had I known; still the right thing. FT2 (Talk | email) 02:31, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Note protection of this page and its edit history has been discussed in the Australian press:
Moses, Asher. "More woes for Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales", Sydney Morning Herald, March 11 2008. Retrieved on 2008-03-11. 
The newspaper article contains hyperlinks to the article revision history to illustrate the point. --Matilda talk 03:37, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Accusations of edits in return for donations

To clarify - the Sydney Morning Herald article and User:MediaMangler's comments refer to the Wikia mailing list where Merkey posted that I am notifying the foundation I was approached on Friday by the Associated Press regarding statements attributed to me which are in some way, perceived to be related to Mr. Wales private affairs which seem to have gotten a great deal of press coverage ... he then follows with a statement to Associated Press which includes the assertion: According to Merkey, in 2006, Wales agreed that in exchange for a substantial donation and other financial support of the Wikimedia Foundation projects, Wales would use his influence to make Merkey's article adhere to Wikipedia's stated policies with regard to internet libel "as a courtesty" and place Merkey under his "special protection" as an editor. --Matilda talk 05:26, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Has this type of accusation ever been made before with regard to other articles on Wikipedia? Cirt (talk) 05:43, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
Not against Mr. Wales as far as I know. Other organizations have offered to pay an editor to edit an article favorable towards the subject. Not sure about donating to Wikimedia to edit an article favorably. This is a serious allegation against Mr. Wales.↔NMajdan•talk 13:17, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
Is there some reason that there's no mention of the controversy in the article? I was going to add something, but then wondered why nothing is there already. Rjhatl (talk) 13:30, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
Would it be more appropriate in this article of Mr. Wales's article?↔NMajdan•talk 14:03, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
Jim Wales has officially denied these accusations, and it's basically Merkey's word versus Wales word. It appears Merkey has sent evidence to AP at their request (it's in the same link I provided). I'd say let's wait and see what happens if the story actually catches on before including. If AP doesn't publish it, it may be a "no story" deal. But anyway, if you do want to include it, be sure to add both sides of the issue, including Wales' denial. - Mtmelendez (Talk) 15:00, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
I have added the story to the article. I never even heard about Mr. Merkey before and I came across the story independently on a Google News search of Wikipedia. It was the first thing that came up.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 20:14, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
  • I would have thought the mention in the article is self-reference but maybe not ... I note that despite Merkey claiming in his post to have provided a press release to Associated Press, AP has not picked it up. As well as SMH, the article as at this morning has only been picked up in a couple of British sites. --Matilda talk 20:22, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
That's what I meant by possibly being a "no story" matter. :) - Mtmelendez (Talk) 20:54, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
It's been picked up by the Sidney Morning Herald (Australia), so it's a story. Wjhonson (talk) 23:13, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
Yep, definitely concur. The BBC has picked it up. - Mtmelendez (Talk) 14:41, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Now in the UK's Daily Telegraph:
"Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales in donations row", The Daily Telegraph, 12 March 2008. 
This story includes a refutation by Jay Walsh, a spokesman for Wikipedia. --Matilda talk 04:18, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] List of sources

Here is a list of related sources, will update. Cirt (talk) 08:35, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

  1. Moses, Asher. "More woes for Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales", Sydney Morning Herald, March 11 2008. Retrieved on 2008-03-11. 
  2. Staff. "Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales in donations row", Telegraph.co.uk, Telegraph Media Group Limited, March 12, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-03-12. 
  3. Collins, Barry. "Wales in "Wiki bribes" scandal", PC Pro News, Dennis Publishing Limited, March 12, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-03-13. 
  4. Staff. "Wiki boss 'edited for donation': Wikipedia creator Jimmy Wales has been accused of agreeing to edit a page on the online encyclopaedia in exchange for a donation.", BBC News, BBC, March 12, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-03-13. 
  5. Staff. "Wikipedia struggles with funding", United Press International, United Press International, Inc., March 12, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-03-12. 
  6. Staff. "Wikipedia founder accused of agreeing to alter page: report", CBC News, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, March 12, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-03-12. 
  7. Thomson, Iain. "Jimmy Wales in cash for articles allegation: Wikipedia co-founder in trouble again", VNUnet.com, Incisive Media, March 13, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-03-13. 
  8. Nickson, Christopher. "Wiki Boss In Money For Edit Furor: Wikipedia boss Jimmy Wales is accused of editing a page in the online encyclopedia in exchange for a $5,000 donation", Digital Trends News, Digital Trends, March 13, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-03-13. 

No matter how many news sources reprint the same rumours it doesn't make them more true. It's all nonsense, and, even if it isn't, it's all in the past. One way or another, we have an okay article, with the exception of that stupid "Wikipedia accusations" section. Ugh. • Anakin (talk) 14:24, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but... the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. If information is notable, we can include it as long as there's proper relevance and it maintains a neutral point of view. The section does appear to be a self-reference, but it cites the news source adequately and think it complies. - Mtmelendez (Talk) 14:55, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, I guess so. It's a bit strange though, that we can include rumours if the media capitalise on them. I can't imagine Britannica including a section like this. • Anakin (talk) 12:45, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Slashdot Warning

The Sydney Morning Herald coverage has made on Slashdot's mainpage. Just a little Heads-up, expect the influx of the usual crop (i.e. lots of new editors and a perhaps handful with possibly less-than-good intentions) CharonX/talk 22:32, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

There will likely be edit-warring over the recently added section. I put a "{{for}}" redirect on Donorgate - if the end result of the edit war is that this section is deleted, that section should be deleted also. However, the redirect should stay until this is settled, as people will likely be searching "DonorGate" since that is what the Australian newspaper called it. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 23:20, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
Changed the {{for}} to a {{otheruses4}} to keep the italics unified. Also, should DonorGate redirect here since that's the spelling /. is using? I havn't seen Donorgate called that using CamelCase yet. ffm 23:48, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm inclined to have DonorGate redirect to Donorgate only because they are the same word and should point to the same place. I see that's what you've done already. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 13:26, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Good article reassessment

This article was listed almost two years ago at WP:GA, so I think it's time for a reassessment. Here is the listing. Dr. Cash (talk) 00:21, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Location of previous pre-2006-05 version

The edit history only goes back to the May 2006 recreation of this article, to a version containing a single sentence. The second to last edit, (adding the semi-protect) implies that there may have been a move involved. What's the location of the previous version of the article, with its corresponding edit history (pre-May 2006)? Was this deleted wholesale or just moved out of article space? —Sladen (talk) 11:33, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

The earliest version of the current article was edited by Jimbo Wales. I think there's a good bet that he removed all previous versions from the database. Dr. Cash (talk) 13:11, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
It's not been removed from the database, as that would require him to have used oversight. It is probably viewable by admins, but they should restore the history. ffm 13:15, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
Upon closer inspection, there seems to be no record of the page's deletion, which is odd. ffm 13:17, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
Not odd at all. IANAWikipediaAdmin, but I think admins can selectively "delete" edits without deleting the article. I think this is routinely used to hide slander and other harmful edits without involving oversight. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 13:24, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
The article must be deleted for slander and etc. to be removed, they simply delete the page and restore all the edits but that one. See [14] for the prior deletion log of the page, which contains Jimbo's deletion. ffm 13:28, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
I found a copy of the old article content from Way back machine. Not sure of the content tough.

link waybackmachine Tommi (talk) 13:30, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Remember that we should only include information from outside sources, to avoid slipping into OR. - Mtmelendez (Talk) 14:58, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Great. So only now that we have the press on this issue do we figure out that we don't have the previous article? Even though this may be standard procedure, I doubt that the press will see it that way. Any way we could get it back? I just don't want this going crazy, which it will if someone notices that it is missing. - ђαίгснгм таιќ 17:54, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
Jeff Merkey was the target of sustained trolling by a group from Usenet that he referred to as "the SCOX trolls". Deleting such crap from the article history is SOP where any article subject complains to the Foundation. It's not controversial at all, and it would be silly to pretend it is. Guy (Help!) 18:27, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
SCOX is not on the Usenet, it is a Yahoo bulletin board associated with the SCOX stock (now SCOXQ.PK). Merkey was harassed on that bulletin board in exactly the same way he has been harassed on Wiki: he was banned from Yahoo multiple times for his violations of the Yahoo terms of service. MediaMangler (talk) 01:38, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Whatever. Merkey is a combative sort, and is also easily riled. That has been exploited by those who do not like him. Guy (Help!) 08:07, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Several of those who post to SCOX are combative sorts and easily riled. Merkey continues to exploit that (he still posts on SCOX under a number of nyms). Of course that does not excuse any bad actions by those he attacks. Every adult is responsible for their own actions, regardless of provocation. --MediaMangler (talk) 11:44, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Internal cites unsuitable?

Without (alas, internal and rather vulnerable) citations to the relevant discussions, Markey's Wikipedia editing history is unverifiable, so either the cites go back in or the section goes. 137.195.68.169 (talk) 15:46, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm completely against citing our own internal links and diffs, it's basically self-refencing and original research. If the section includes verifiable info from reliable outside sources then the info cited can stay, I don't follow your argument on how it's necessary to delete the section when it meets WP:RS. - Mtmelendez (Talk) 15:54, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
The thing is, though, it doesn't meet WP:RS if it's not cited. There's no RS (except the arbcom case, logs, etc) saying either that he was banned or why. I don't see why it can't be cited as a primary source, though. —Random832 15:58, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
I suppose we could wait for somebody in the legitimate press to read the logs, and say the same thing, which we could then cite. Alternatively it's possible that this will come out in a press release. You're right, though, self-referencing is a no-no by the verifiability guidelines, and the call of whether to mention his block history or not is inherently OR. 137.195.68.169 (talk) 16:05, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
So let me get this straight: You can't cite this site till someone else sights it and cites it on their site. Then once you have sighted their cite on their site you can cite from their site, their cite of this site? Have I got it right? SixVryl (talk) 13:54, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

For completeness, here's the last version with the internal citations intact. 137.195.68.169 (talk) 16:34, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

The stuff about banning and whatnot has not been reported, so it's not germane to the article. If and when the Foundation rebuts Merkey's allegations, we'll put it in, but meanwhile there's no need to manufacture one. We'll get there in the end, and it's okay for the article to report Merkey's allegations as-is if the Foundation hasn't published its rebuttal. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 16:41, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia logs etc are not reliable sources and neither should they be included in the article, hence my removal of them. We need to be careful to balance NPOV with only including verifiable sources. Thanks, SqueakBox 16:47, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

The editing history in relation to this article was cited in the Sydney Morning Herald article already referenced thus aligning with Merkey's accusations. The foundation's defence is that the edits were not bought by donations. That defence is in teh Telegraph's article--Matilda talk 21:49, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

In that case the logs are indeed refable. Thanks, SqueakBox 21:47, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] ban?

His ban in the recent arbcom case was for one year - when does that run from? The decision is dated 30 July; the article implies he was banned in May, and that it expires in June. —Random832 15:56, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

The logs and the arbcom decision don't line up completely, but I think this was just me confusing myself. 137.195.68.169 (talk) 16:07, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Protection

What the sources say:

Following his decision to erase Merkey's entry and start over, Wales placed it under his "special protection". Protected entries can only be edited by Wikipedia administrators.
The edit history of the page does show changes made by Jimmy Wales and that the page was "protected", so that no further edits can be made by the public.

What is actually true:

Administrators are not allowed to edit protected articles except for technical fixes, consensus on stuff not related to the dispute, special circumstances, etc.
The article was in fact only semi-protected, and anyone with a registered account over four days old could edit it. It was fully protected briefly in 2005, but that is clearly not the incident being referred to in the sources.

So do we stick to WP:ASR, WP:RS, WP:NOR, etc, and report what the sources say even when we know it's not an accurate account of what actually happened? My two "actually true" points could be sourced to the protection policy and the logs, respectively, but that would be a "self-reference" by some people's definition and people seem to think it's OR. —Random832 16:10, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

  • Well, the sources are an accurate reflection of what Merkey thinks, but as anyone who's ever had any dealings with him will know, what Merkey thinks and what really happened do not always align perfectly. I think Jeff is actually self-aware enough that he recognises this. He is a really great guy, though. Guy (Help!) 16:13, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
This is a pretty sticky situation. As it stands none of his accusations are actually true (he's been banned from editing for most of the past 3 years, which rules out any sort of special treatment for him as an editor, and the page was only ever as protected as the Xbox 360 article) and he's got a well-documented grudge against the Wikimedia Foundation in general and Wikipedia in particular. Yet there's f-all we can do about it, short of trying to talk Jimbo into making a more definitive press statement than "nonsense".137.195.68.169 (talk) 16:19, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
I wouldn't go as far as calling it a grudge, he seemed to understand that the foundation was not the SCOX trolls and didn't have much hope of stopping them. It's the SCOX trolls that were always the problem. Guy (Help!) 17:38, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
While I mostly agree with you, a troll is a troll, regardless of where they come from. While there were several people who trolled Jeff initially, he did troll the SCOX board under a pile of nyms which brought even more of them over here to both rile him up and to question the unsourced proclamations he was making. To blame all of the shenanigans on only the "SCOX Trolls" is pretty weak...many people (myself included) only became involved with Jeff's wikipedia lunacy when he became belligerant on the SCOX board. My posts over here (which were on topic and non-inflamatory) got me temporarily banned within minutes of posting. Jeff was playing both sides to a T: He was a victim over here because he was an instigator over there. His behavior seemed to indicate that he didn't want the trolling to stop since it would undermine his role as the victim here. 129.79.35.119 (talk) 18:37, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

The article was only put under semi-protection, not full protection. All registered editors (with an account more than about three days old) could edit the article during that period. There are absolutely no other constraints on such articles. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 16:23, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I think this misunderstanding arises from the fact that the log says "protected" and then the obscure code "[edit=autoconfirmed:move=autoconfirmed]" rather than saying "semi-protected". I've sent in a comment to the sydney morning herald; I'm having trouble with the BBC website feedback form so if someone else could do that? —Random832 16:40, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
I asked them to consider a follow-up, bearing in mind the content of this talk page. 137.195.68.169 (talk) 16:42, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
It'll all come out in the wash. I hope the Communications COmmittee will issue a press release putting the facts into the public domain so we don't have a conflict between what some sources are reporting and what we know, from long experience of the software interface, to be true. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 16:48, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I've filed Bug #13333 based on this. —Random832 16:56, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] An attorney?

Mr. Merkey has claimed to be an attorney, which would certainly deserve a mention in the article. Does anyone have any information on what law school he attended and to which state bars he has been admitted? Thanks. --Sean 16:14, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think you'll find anything other than his self-representation as a litigant. He has denied authorship of a number of posts bearing his name and IP address, including some in the exact kernel forum you're looking at, so any research into this subject is likely to end up as a contested mess. 69.108.205.246 (talk) 21:22, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Lead section

I've removed a {{tooshort}} tag recently added to the article. The lead section is just fine in my opinion. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 01:42, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Per WP:LEAD: The lead should be able to stand alone as a concise overview of the article. It should establish context, summarize the most important points, explain why the subject is interesting or notable, and briefly describe its notable controversies, if there are any. At present, the Intro/Lead does not do this. Cirt (talk) 02:38, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Could you add whatever you think needs to be added to the lead and remove the tag, then? --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 18:13, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Article was "erased"

What is this supposed to mean? Did Wales delete the article, or simply remove a large section of it, or what? скоморохъ 11:43, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Wale's explanation starts above at Talk:Jeff_V._Merkey#Previous_version_of_article_deleted. --MediaMangler (talk) 12:08, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Deleted as in: it is no longer possible for a normal editor to see versions of the article prior to the deletion. They are in the database and administrators can see them, but they were bad enough that they were thought to be best hidden from view. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 18:15, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Dead links

I have removed both references from the "religion" section, as they are dead links. (They are: http://tv.ksl.com/index.php?sid=214265&nid=5&template=print and http://old.heraldextra.com/print.php?sid=58443) Updated references are needed. The statement is currently noted as needed citation. Cheers! Vassyana (talk) 07:26, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Would Merkey's own article in the Lindon Daily Herald be an acceptable reference? I will restore the section using that article as a citation. Please feel free to revert if this is not acceptable. --MediaMangler (talk) 14:44, 16 March 2008 (UTC)