Re:The Hofmann Wobble: Wikipedia and the problem of historic...
by trompe-le-monde on Saturday December 23, 2023 @12:13PM
(#38745854)
It's a piece of short fiction written like a straightforward account of one fellow's history manipulating Wikipedia, which I suppose is easy to miss if you aren't familiar with the sort of stuff that Harper's tends to put out (which admittedly is sometimes insufferable). I think anybody looking for practical or technical insights in the piece will probably come up short, but I was impressed by its thematic depth w/r/t truth, personal integrity, etc.
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Re:The Hofmann Wobble: Wikipedia and the problem of historic...
by gwern on Saturday December 23, 2023 @06:39PM
(#38749413)
It is not actually 'short fiction' in the sense of 'nothing like that happened'. He did do much of the stuff described, and it's not even that hard to figure out who he was working for and some of his sock puppets: https://old.reddit.com/r/media_criticism/comments/17zqwgb/th...
Re:The Hofmann Wobble: Wikipedia and the problem of historic...
by elicksaur on Saturday December 23, 2023 @11:47PM
(#38751221)
Thank you for this context!
>violation of multiple WP policies, repeat ban evasion, sockpuppeting, and IP hopping are all clearcut violation of the CFAA, which is a federal criminal act
Is there legal precedent that each and every one of these actions, individually, is a criminal violation of the CFAA? That seems like a bold claim.
The DC Circuit, at least, has specifically ruled violating TOS is not a CFAA violation.[1] So, it seems fairly inaccurate to say violating “WP policies” is a “clearcut violation of the CFAA”. I’m not sure about legal precedent for the other actions, but I’d be skeptical.
[1] https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/sand...