Talk:Robertson v. McGraw-Hill Co.

Article name
Filings from this case would be cited bluebook style with only the first named defendant. Therefore, I've dropped the other defendants from the title. Cool Hand Luke 22:12, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I should add that the full name in the box is almost undoubtedly correct. It's just that legal cases are normally linked by the title that would be used in legal citations, which include only the first of each party name. Cool Hand Luke 22:57, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you for correcting the article title. Cla68 (talk) 22:59, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Article issues
This article has multiple issues. Apart from the obvious one of notability, it is unbalanced by detailing minutae of trivial, dismissed lawsuit, submerging the important details, which is that the suit was dismissed and the predictions in the article actually turned out to be true. The hedge fund did indeed go out of business shortly after the suit was settled. One has to comb through tons of muck to get at that point. So I am reinstating the NPOV tag. Please don't remove it until this issue is resolved.

The lead section has the same issue and presents the same NPOV problem, front loading the article with the machinations of this dismissed suit, burying the only important details. Ordinarily I'd leave it in, but since I think this presents a POV issue as well, I'm cutting back on the size of the lead as I did earlier.

Lastly I see that a paragraph on testimony by a McGraw Hill official was reinstated. As I indicated in the edit summary removing the paragraph, this testimony took place some months before the lawsuit was filed, and perhaps even before the article was written! Obviously it does not belong in the "aftermath" section, and it doesn't belong in the article at all. It is pure padding, so I'm removing it again. --JohnnyB256 (talk) 03:03, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * You're right. That paragraph should go in the Background section, not the Aftermath.  I'll add it later unless you disagree or get to it first.  Cla68 (talk) 04:47, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * It has no connection with the lawsuit, so it should not be added. --JohnnyB256 (talk) 04:54, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I disagree. It is related to the fact that McGraw-Hill was publishing its magazines online, including BusinessWeek, which was later an issue in the lawsuit.  Also, I disagree that the intro was too long.  It appropriately summarized the article, giving both sides.  Why don't you believe that it was significant that BusinessWeek admitted to two errors, but it is significant that the Tiger Fund went out of business two years after the settlement? Cla68 (talk) 04:56, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Because there is a difference between two trivial errors being acknowledged in an editor's note, in conjunction with a suit being dismissed, and the entire point of the underlying article being born out by the hedge fund going out of business. Evidently it went out of business because of poor performance that commenced the moment the settlement was made. The testimony is "background" to nothing, as it is entirely unconnected with the lawsuit, and to insert that is to imply that there is a connection. All publishers were online by then, presumably all took the same position, and the law in question was not even passed. It's less than trivial. The original lead section didn't summarized, it rehashed. --JohnnyB256 (talk) 05:06, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * What you say may or may not be true. If an investor in the Tiger fund pulled-out in April '96 based on Weiss' prediction that the fund was on its way irreversibly down, but another investor ignored Weiss and stayed until the end of 1997, then cashed out, which one made the right decision?  It all depends on various factors, doesn't it?  You see, it's very subjective, and that's why we simply report what the sources say.  The sources report that BusinessWeek admitted to two errors in its part of the settlement agreement, so that's what we say in the lede.  The terms of the settlement are a major part of the article, and should be stated in the lede.  Also, why have you been removing wikilinks to this article?  What's the matter with this article being linked to subjects, such as McGraw-Hill, which are related to this topic? Cla68 (talk) 08:09, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * We're talking about two different things. I'm not trying to read the minds of investors. I'm using common sense to distinguish between the trivial and the nontrivial. The same issue arises in your adding wikilinks to Robertson filing an intent to suit to "today in history," and other articles. At least two other editors have been removing the wikilinks that you've been inserting, because 1) this suit is trivial, and 2), in the case of wikilinking to dates, the date Robertson filed an intent to sue is not on a par with the sinking of the Lusitania.. It's all about our trying to use our common sense as well as applying policy. --JohnnyB256 (talk) 13:46, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

My view is that we need to go back to the last version before JohnnyB256 appeared and started hacking away at this to reduce the "Gary Weiss-ness" of it, and then restore those changes that there is a clear consensus on the talk page for. I intend to do just that. ++Lar: t/c 14:16, 26 December 2009 (UTC)


 * No, an attack on my character is not adequate basis for the edits you describe.--JohnnyB256 (talk) 14:35, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * It's not an attack on your character to describe your edits and the effect they have had. Nice try, though. ++Lar: t/c 14:56, 26 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Whatever. I'm just awaiting more substantive comments, comments directed at the content and not the editor, and so far they're not coming.--JohnnyB256 (talk) 15:01, 26 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I've solicited editing help from Wikiproject Law, which seems the most closely related to this article, and I'll do the same with some of the other projects. --JohnnyB256 (talk) 15:32, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, it's been 24-hours, and no one else has agreed that your radical shortening of the lede was appropriate. So, we have consensus to revert it back (2-1; 66%).  I'll revert it. Cla68 (talk) 22:49, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Lar weighing in with an insult does not a consensus make. But if you want to puff up the article to WP:MASK its total absence of notability, I'm not going to edit war over it during an AfD. --JohnnyB256 (talk) 00:24, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Comment about notability
I will look into this some more, but it seems likely to me that this lawsuit is not particularly notable. It seems that there may have been several lawsuits against financial writers in the lat 1990s because of the surprising MMAR verdict. For example, although this suit resulted in no actual judicial opinions as the parties stipulated a settlement with no recovery for plaintiff, the same defendants were involved in two cases which were published. See Schuler v. McGraw-Hill Cos., 989 F. Supp. 1377 (D.N.M. 1998); Printron Inc. v. McGraw-Hill, Inc., 35 F. Supp. 2d 1325 (D.N.M. 1997). Both of these related suits were sweeping dismissals for the defendants. This leads me to believe that there might have been a lot of spurious libel lawsuits going on at this time. I hope to look into it a bit more.

If this is right, we probably need to have an article on the MMAR case. Coverage of these cases would perhaps be treated briefly in that article, but I'm not currently convinced that this should be its own article. Cool Hand Luke 11:00, 26 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I vaguely recall a lengthy article in, I think, the Texas Monthly or some other publication on the MMAR case. I think the case may later have been reversed on appeal, but there may have been lasting effects per WP:EFFECT, and a significant duration of coverage per WP:PERSISTENCE, of which by comparison this case was a nonevent on both points. --JohnnyB256 (talk) 13:59, 26 December 2009 (UTC)


 * The surprising number of sources I found on this case when I searched in InfoTrac and NewsStand convinced me that this topic was notable. Not only did the publishing industry take notice of the damages demanded, the finance industry (Wall Street Journal and New York Times business section) did also apparently because it involved one of the biggest hedge funds on the Street, as well as the fact that one of the big three business magazines admitted that one of its reporters had erred in his reporting. Cla68 (talk) 22:55, 26 December 2009 (UTC)


 * This piece has so many issues I don't know where to start. Among other things it implies a link between the allegations in the Business Week piece and the closing of this hedge fund, which over the life of the fund had an average annual return of roughly 25 percent over 20 years -- including the mixed record towards the end. This piece, long on opinion and short on facts, seeks to puff up itself by legalities, but is lacking in substance. MarmadukePercy (talk) 04:10, 27 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, the alleged damages were large, but it settled for $0 before any rulings. Based on this, the underlying merits of the suit were probably quite poor. A lot of meritless lawsuits get this sort of coverage. Cool Hand Luke 12:11, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I guess my point is, and media observers also, is that the courts serve as the foundation for changes in societal attitudes, whether or not the cases are decided by judicial resolve. Cla68 (talk) 16:31, 27 December 2009 (UTC)


 * What does that mean exactly? MarmadukePercy (talk) 05:49, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Notability of motion filing
The following was removed from the main article, citing the self-created essay WP:LARD:


 * The motion appears to have been the first time that the issue of electronic versus print publishing had arisen in the courts of the United States. Commenting on the motion, Edward Cavazos, general counsel of Interliant, a Houston-based network service provider, said, “I think that they [BusinessWeek] have a good argument that it was published the day it hit the web.”[1] Added Floyd Adams, a First Amendment lawyer representing BusinessWeek, “This will be the first case in which the courts address the impact of a publication appearing on the Net rather than on paper.”[2]


 * [1]Pogrebin.
 * [2]Associated Press.

Ikip 17:28, 27 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I fixed the refs in the text. --Enric Naval (talk) 15:00, 28 December 2009 (UTC)


 * It is WP:LARD. Discussion about a motion that was filed but not heard or considered, much less decided in a precedential published opinion, is not notable, notwithstanding the inaccurate crystal ball quotes of the time.  This is an article about a legal case without any historical significance, and the paragraph is added to falsely claim that there was historical significance, the very epitome of WP:LARD. THF (talk) 12:57, 2 January 2010 (UTC)


 * This article seems to be notable 1) because of the players involved 2) because of the outcome of the players involved 3) because, as mentioned above, it is the first lawsuit involving the libel of a major on-line news publication... I also, don't see why it should be merged with the Tiger article although, they should be cross-listed (as may already be done - I haven't checked)... Stevenmitchell (talk) 17:58, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

WP:SYN in "Aftermath" section
The "electronic publishing" section of the "aftermath" section is absurd. It consists of one paragraph describing testimony from a McGraw Hill official before the suit was filed and a description of a law that was past twelve years later. Cla68 agreed with me that the testimony wasn't part of the "aftermath" but then he or someone else reinserted it back into the article. There is no way that either the testimony or the law could have any conceivable connection with the Robertson litigation, and as a matter of fact, none is claimed. This is sheer padding and is typical of the atrocious writing and WP:LARDing of this article. It is, at the very least, blatant synthesis. --JohnnyB256 (talk) 22:08, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
 * By the way, JohnnyB256 has been indef blocked. In my opinion, Johnny was not a good faith contributor to this article.  I'm going to restore all the text he/she removed from this article, and the rest of us can take it from there. Cla68 (talk) 05:57, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

The true issue here
Let's call a spade a spade.

This article is the subject of an intense discussion at Wikipedia Review involving Judd Bagley of Overstock.com, so the issue at heart seems to be not "judicial resolve" citeed above, but an ongoing battle between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. Which is light and which is dark depends upon which side one is rooting for. This article has no merit, and anyone reading it coming in cold would think that Wikipedia has lost its marbles. AmishPete (talk) 23:02, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Conflict of interest disclosure: I was recently told that it is necessary to disclose one's conflict of interest in articles of this kind. I was a short seller of Overstock.com shares two years ago. I occasionally post on message boards on the Weiss-Overstock conflict. I am not acquainted personally with Mr. Weiss, but admire his journalism. I don't believe that any of this constitutes a bona fide conflict of interest, but the disclosure requirement appears to be broad. AmishPete (talk) 23:14, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

— AmishPete (talk&#32;• contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. Ikip 22:07, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Speaking as someone who just stumbled across this thing, has never owned or sold shares in anything other than his own small company, and isn't American, I have to say that I agree totally. Most contributors to this "debate", on both sides, have totally lost touch with reality as embodied in the very simple and straightforward rules of wikipedia. The article and indeed the entire debate is totally without merit. Spend your time instead chasing the vandals who try to trash bona fide articles every minute of every day and who are little by little sapping the strength of wikipedia. Fewer and fewer genuine folk want to be editors and is it any wonder why? Get a grip. Get out more! andy (talk) 00:44, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Andy, you might want to check AmishPete's contribution history before readily accepting his opinion on this topic. Cla68 (talk) 00:58, 30 December 2009 (UTC)


 * So why don't you flag him as an spa, puppet, whatever? The real point is that the article is not worth keeping - you lot can argue among yourselves as much as you like but I think it's a poor, overwritten article which does not merit anything like this insane level of attention. When I said "fewer and fewer genuine folk want to be editors" I included myself. andy (talk) 01:12, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
 * This link might be helpful too... I'm starting to come round (as more time goes by and I don't find evidence of long term effects from this lawsuit, just at the time coverage) to deletion or merging for the article. But I think you miss the point, Andy... there IS something odd going on here. Some reason that JohnnyB256 (and Mantanmoreland before him) worked so hard to try to shape this topic area to keep it slanted a certain way. I am not a big high finance guy, I've never shorted anything in my life, so I have no idea why exactly it is so important to keep it spun a certain way, but I can recognize POV pushing when I see it. This article is but one tiny battlefield, and you ARE right, the article itself doesn't merit the insane level of attention. If it's notable, it should stay, and if not, it should go, but the war doesn't make sense if it's about the article alone. And it's wars like this that drive folk away. ++Lar: t/c 01:46, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, blow me down, Lar, you found me out! I'm am very very interested in naked short selling and the Overstock controversy!!! My carefully hidden secret is exposed. To your question: if Weiss is the two accounts you mention, and I have no idea one way or the other, perhaps he is simply attempting to protect himself from being trashed by somebody who has a clear axe to grind? See Let's not be children about this. We're talking major, major dislike here, and by someone who is very honest about it. Let's not be hypocrites about this and recognize what is happening. AmishPete (talk) 03:52, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
 * AmishPete, for an editor with only 23 edits before you came to this page, you sure know a lot about wikipedia. AmishPete's very first edit was on Lehman Brothers, adding a edit reference. same with your 3rd, 4th edit.
 * Seventh edit was adding a tag, (Tag: possible BLP issue or vandalism) Something I don't even know how to do after 4 years.
 * Ikip 22:10, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Me neither. I didn't do the tagging. I responded to your other questions on my talk page. AmishPete (talk) 23:27, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
 * "Well, blow me down, Lar, you found me out!" Not yet. But your explanations don't hold water. The spin cycle you're trying won't work either. Sometimes the best thing to do with socks and WP:SPAs is throw them away instead of trying to wash them clean. ++Lar: t/c 15:17, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Discussion of Aftermath section in the aftermath...
I'm not even wearing socks right now, so I'm going to run through a list of problems I see in this section: Cla68 has mooted the idea of renaming the article "Fall of the Wizard". This may have been in jest, but to me it would make sense to retitle and repurpose the article around those lines. I could grasp the whole of this article much more easily if it was titled as a long-running and notable dispute between parties, rather than as a lawsuit article, which I kind of expect will be about, well, the lawsuit. Franamax (talk) 21:02, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Electronic publication:
 * (para. 1) March 1996 of course is the "beforemath", so all this is doing right now is stating that the concept of "publication date" vis-a-vis electronic publishing was in the air at the time and McGraw-Hill was aware of it (and later chose to force the issue before a court).
 * (para. 2) I too was confused as to how something that happened 12 years later would be aftermath, then I realized that Cla was off by one entire millenium, so it makes a bit more sense now.
 * And a minor issue with wording, it seems that the DMCA was enacted by Congress on 12 Oct, then enacted by the President on 28 Oct. No big deal, but change "enacted" to "vetoed" and you see my point?
 * But my problem here is that neither paragraph constitutes an "aftermath" ensuing as a direct result of this lawsuit. Congress taking years to get around to psasing a law is nothing new, and I see no evidence that this suit itself prompted the passage of the DMCA. It was in the works before the lawsuit and got done after the suit, is all.
 * Closing of the Tiger funds
 * (para. 1) I can't read all the sources, does one of them directly support "Nevertheless, apparently as a result of its high returns...? If so, could that sentence be footnoted directly?
 * (para. 2) How is this aftermath? Of the lawsuit that is. It shows that Weiss was still after Robertson, for sure, but is that appropriate if the article is about the lawsuit? If it's to stay, perhaps it should be expanded to note that The Economist said the long-term investors had "nothing to complain about", since the Jaguar fund produced 17% annual returns from its creation. This would balance Weiss' criticism.
 * (para. 3) This one has me baffled. If Shepard doesn't mention the "Fall of the Wizard" article, then what possible significance accrues to his words (for the purpose of this article)? If the suit had gone ahead and BW lost for a billion dollars, then yeah, "reel back in seven or eight over the years" would be relevant ( ! :) but as it is, this paragraph tells us nothing.
 * And the last sentence, M-H selling BW to Bloomberg, has absolutely no significance that I can see, companies get bought and sold all the time.
 * I wasn't joking when I suggested renaming the article "Fall of the Wizard" and reorienting it being more about Weiss' article and response to it, instead of presenting it as a legal case article. Cla68 (talk) 23:18, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
 * You'll have a tough case to make. The fact is that the runup in values that soured the last couple of years of Tiger's performance prefigured the extraordinary rise -- and subsequent collapse -- of the market mania beginning at the end of the 1990s and which lasted into the current century. Robertson admitted that he did not understand the new methods of valuation, and in the face of the runup, his old 'value picking' strategy was somewhat obsolete, which accounted for the poor returns of the last few years of Tiger. However, keep in mind that his longterm record, as vouched for by The Economist (and any number of other articles and books) remains one of the best in the business. His longterm investors fared very well. And indeed, even amidst the turmoil of the past couple of years, Robertson has done extraordinarily well for his main investor: himself. (See recent Forbes story on the Forbes 400) I have recused myself from editing here, but I wanted to make this comment. MarmadukePercy (talk) 23:30, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Sounds like you have some valuable insight for developing the Robertson and Tiger Management articles. Cla68 (talk) 23:40, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
 * If Cla68 does anything as daft as try to rename it "Fall of the Wizard" I will start a whole new AfD all over again. Just FYI, you know. IMHO a WP article should state clearly on the tin what it's about and it should be about what it says on the tin, if you follow me. Cla68 and his friends make me feel unwell - go start your own nasty wiki encyclopaedia somewhere else, why don't you? andy (talk) 23:42, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
 * You certainly can bring serial AFD's, but I'd suggest that the "A" in AFD means the content of the article rather than the title. Perhaps you're thinking of a rename request? I wouldn't suggest [Fall of the Wizard] myself, I can see all kinds of problems with that. What about [Robertson-Weiss controversy] (I know, no RS have used the term) or [Tiger Management-BusinessWeek controversy]? In any event, a repurposed and appropriately renamed article that serves its sources better will only be better-placed to fare at AFD. The notability of "first known court consideration of electronic publication date" (in US law) will persist (whether a decision was rendered or not, RS commentary notes it); the lesser notability of size of claimed damages, press coverage, and court action within a milieu of changing attitudes toward hyperspace will likely carry the day at AFD. Of course you never know what's going to happen in any wiki-week. :) Franamax (talk) 01:07, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
 * This article is a grudge being transported onto Wikipedia. Here are the policies that this article violates, and I am not the first to cite them in this context: WP:BATTLE, WP:SOAPBOX, WP:COI, WP:NPOV, and WP:UNDUE. AmishPete (talk) 14:09, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
 * AmishPete, I think this situation will be more productively resolved without the participation of borderline single-purpose accounts. Your presence here is perhaps clouding things. Take this as you will. Cool Hand Luke 01:52, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

merge to Tiger Management
I see no basis for making the material here an article independent of Tiger Management. The court case, which was settled for $0 and resulted in no legal precedent, was not independently notable; all of the press coverage is actually about Tiger or the article about Tiger, with the exception of some inaccurate crystal-ball predictions about how important the case would be if it actually got decided--which it didn't. Add a "Fall of the Wizard" section to Tiger Management--it's ridiculous that there is more discussion of Tiger's history in this article than in the Tiger article. THF (talk) 13:03, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I've restored and reworded the bits about first time publication date came before a court. We have multiple sources commenting on that aspect and is a key part of the notability of this article. Without it, yes, this is mostly just about a bun-fight where they ran out of buns. Franamax (talk) 19:56, 2 January 2010 (UTC)


 * WP:PUFF. It wasn't the first time publication date came before a court, because it never came before the court.  It's not even trivia that a couple of sources speculated incorrectly about the significance of the case.  THF (talk) 20:06, 2 January 2010 (UTC)


 * See my response below. Stetsonharry (talk) 20:51, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Didn't we just have an AfD about this? The arguments I'm seeing for the merge seem more suited to arguing for deletion. What exactly is being proposed for retention if there were to be a merge? ++Lar: t/c 23:48, 2 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Most of the article is about Tiger Management, as are the sources. Isn't it odd to have more coverage of Tiger under this heading than the intuitively-named Tiger Management? See also the closing statement at Articles for deletion/Robertson v. McGraw-Hill Co., Weiss, and Shepard. An AfD to "keep" does not forbid sensible merges. Cool Hand Luke 00:34, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I have no objection to a "sensible" merge... BUT... That this article is fatter than the article about the company isn't a reason to cut the coverage of this topic back, though, rather it's a reason to put more coverage into that article so we avoid undue weight issues there. But my point stands, without some discussion of what exactly is proposed to be merged, my suspicion is that the same voices (that align so closely with Mantanmoreland's POV) that argued for deletion are now arguing for a merge to get the same outcome. So I'll ask them, what are they proposing be retained? ++Lar: t/c 01:00, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I think I have some credibility when I say that I am not Mantanmoreland, yes? THF has been editing here for years, and he's also certainly not Mantanmoreland. Even assuming bad faith, as you are, we still have three people here citing policy. Remember WP:NPA&mdash;content, not contributors.
 * I'm proposing that the article be completely merged into Tiger Management. Some may need to be cut for weight, and the WP:SYN needs to be cut wherever it winds up, but it's honestly mostly about the fund anyway. Cool Hand Luke 01:48, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Ha, yes, I'd say you have some credibility as not being MM. :) But I was asking Stetson and Amish, not you or THF what they would keep. You may characterise me as assuming bad faith with them, but not you or THF. Still I think it's nevertheless a valid concern that if only enough of the topic is kept in Tiger (without a big expansion) to avoid undue weight there, not much will remain. ++Lar: t/c 03:04, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
 * With the recent blocks of Stetsonharry and AmishPete as sockpuppets of banned editor Mantanmoreland, I'm not sure on the current consensus to merge this article with Tiger Management. I personally have no objection as long as all of the relevant material is added to the Tiger Management article, which is currently a very short article.  I'm going to try to improve it and add information from this article over the next few days.  Other editors are invited to help out. Cla68 (talk) 23:13, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

coatrack issues
There are two separate things happening in this article. One is the purely legal stuff: the argument is that this is a notable case because a couple of contemporary sources incorrectly predicted that it would be a landmark decision. The other is the coatrack, which is lengthy discussion of the back-and-forth of Gary Weiss's reporting and the allegations about it and his allegations about Tiger Management, which has nothing to do with the argument why this case is notable, and barely has anything to do with the case (as opposed to about Tiger Management).

The back-and-forth about Gary Weiss's reporting about Tiger Management belongs in Tiger Management and maybe Gary Weiss, not here. This article should focus on the notable legal issues about the lawsuit, just like the Erie Railroad v. Tompkins article focuses on the important technical legal implications of that case rather than the safety record of the Erie Railroad, which, while no doubt interesting, is not encyclopedic, and is kept to a couple of sentences in that article.

The problem is that there are no notable legal implications of this case: it settled before the court did anything, so there's no precedent, and the case is not even a footnote in the memory bin of law, though it might be a footnote or a subsection in the Tiger article. It's not notable to the history of Business Week. If Gary Weiss had to make an apology, it's notable to Gary Weiss. The underlying FotW article is probably notable to Tiger Management, and there's enough coverage about that article and the back-and-forth allegations for a subsection to that article, subject of course to UNDUE issues.

I have no idea what "Mantmoreland's POV" is, or who Mantmoreland is, or whether he's pro- or anti-Gary Weiss; I'm only barely aware that there's some Wikipedia controversy regarding Gary Weiss as a human being. I'm here because this article was put in the law-related AFD sorting bin, and a number of editors are making wildly incorrect legal arguments in support of keeping the article (and adding WP:PUFF in the process), thus making the encyclopedia look silly, as Wikipedia tends to do with law-related articles. There are literally hundreds of coatracks masquerading as neutral articles about various insignificant lawsuits, when major precedents and historical legal figures are red-links, and I speak out about those coatracks when I see them. I don't care about the Gary Weiss WP:BATTLE: fight it out on Tiger Management and/or Gary Weiss using the RS in this article. But there's really no reason for a standalone article about this lawsuit, and nothing in this article demonstrates a need for a standalone article about this lawsuit. I'm just trying to improve the abysmal quality of the encyclopedia when it comes to legal articles. THF (talk) 01:26, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
 * agreed, the encyclopedic portion is about the dispute and should be moved to the page about the company, with a redirect.  There will   be nothing left appropriate for a separate article on the legal aspects. As it set no precedents--as it was never even brought to trial--it is of no importance by itself.  DGG ( talk ) 20:14, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

"come before the court"
It is technically factually true that "The New York Times noted that the motion appeared to be the first time that the issue of electronic versus print publication date had come before a US court." But does it matter at least a little bit that the New York Times was wrong, because the issue didn't come before the court, because the case settled before the court decided the issue?

For example, if I file in court Monday morning demanding that the health care bill be declared unconstitutional, it will be the first time someone "raises the issue" of the notable question of the health care bill's constitutionality. But the court won't reach the issue, because it will throw my lawsuit out on Article III grounds. It certainly doesn't mean that my lawsuit will be notable for Wikipedia purposes, even though I imagine I could get a couple of dozen newspapers that aren't legally savvy to cover the fact that I brought the lawsuit.

The use of the sentence from the New York Times is the epitome of WP:PUFF--taking something out of context to exaggerate notability. It hurts the quality of the encyclopedia. THF (talk) 20:04, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually no, it doesn't matter whether the Times was wrong or not. We're not in the business of determining what is right or wrong, we report on the world around us, as described in reliable sources. If you can get a couple of well-respected newspapers to report on your health-care suit, you might have a case for that article you want. :) These are high-quality sources. Franamax (talk) 20:14, 2 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Oh, well, by all means, please do up In re: Bluetooth Headset Product Liability Litigation, Case No. 2:07-ML-01822-DSF-E (C.D. Cal.) as my involvement in that case was covered by the well-respected Forbes and National Law Journal, and with more substantive (as opposed to speculative) legal coverage than the case in this article has had, plus an actual written opinion by the court. Forbes even did a photoshoot.  Of course, such an article would flunk WP:EFFECT and WP:PERSISTENCE (unless the Ninth Circuit publishes a notably substantive opinion in 2011, but then the article would need to be renamed).  Then again, so does this article.


 * Speaking of which, I got to get back to writing my brief. THF (talk) 02:57, 3 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree with THF. We mustn't use a journalistic paraphrase, to frame the notability of an article. Actually the reporter used different wording in the article I'm looking at: "This appears to be the first case in which the publication rule has been applied to a magazine that was initially published electronically." The phrase "come before the court" is not in the article, at least not this article. But even if it was, that has to be viewed as a journalistic, layman's colloquial way of expressing himself. As an encyclopedia we require more precision in writing about a court case, and I think that THF is correct in applying a stricter standard. She's right that the rule was "applied," but it was applied by attorneys in the case. If we take that quotation out of context, we give an incorrect impression of what happened. Stetsonharry (talk) 20:48, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, I'd changed the wording from "examined" to "came before a court" to try to recognize the fact that the court didn't examine, pronounce, decide, decree nuthin'. Maybe the wording could be further improved? It was "before the court" the minute the motion was filed and the article goes on to say that no decision was rendered, so I don't think the current wording is misleading in any way, but if there's a way to add more precision, all the better. Franamax (talk) 21:39, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
 * We can change the wording, but at the end of the day we are left with what happened, and THF's objection remains valid. One is left with an unresolved legal issue, the "bun fight where they ran out of buns." Stetsonharry (talk) 22:49, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
 * This was an argument that the suit was barred because of the statute of limitations due to a prior online publication. This would be trivia even if it had been examined&mdash;which it was not. Cool Hand Luke 00:41, 3 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't go that far; Erie Railroad v. Tompkins, an otherwise unremarkable personal-injury case, was decided on an arguably trivial technicality, but created a substantive precedent that easily meets WP:N, WP:EFFECT, and WP:PERSISTENCE. If Robertson was litigated, there was a (small) possibility it might have created a substantive precedent in cyberlaw, especially given the systemic bias that media law issues are more likely to get press coverage that is readily accessible on Google News. It wasn't, and it didn't, so speculation is pointless and we end up agreeing on the end result, but I just want to clarify where we disagree. An additional problem here is that the article includes a lot of material that has nothing to do with the supposed reason that the case is notable. THF (talk) 03:08, 3 January 2010 (UTC)


 * What makes the argument non-trivial is that it appears to be the first time such a tactic was tried at all. The fact that no decision was rendered doesn't change that the commentary was that this was the first known use of the line of argument. I'm only speculating, but I'd bet knowledge of just that motion being filed would cause a lot of other lawyers to look at their own cases-in-progress. Now if there's a source that shows where these sorts of motion were already known at the time, that would be much different. I'm only going by the sources already here. Franamax (talk) 22:43, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Do you have a source that shows this? By the sources, no one seems to have cared about this lawsuit at all after it was settled. No one recounts it changing the course of litigation or inspiring new law. When the New York Times published a detailed postmortem on Tiger Management just two years later, it devoted all of two sentences to this supposedly noteworthy lawsuit. WP:PERSISTENCE is dead on point.
 * You need sources to assert the kind of notability claimed. Lawyers make marginally novel arguments more often than you might believe, and our job is not to look into the crystal ball to determine which ones might have been important. Cool Hand Luke 00:59, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
 * You mean a source for the part where I say "I'm only speculating"? Of course I do, the well-known Int. J. Because I Said So. ;) (And if you mean novel arguments like "even though your independent courier has a signature from our law office, we never got that notice in time", no I wouldn't be surprised at all)
 * I'm relying solely on the sources already here, which I've not seen disproved. In my view, they answer the encyclopedic question of "when was electronic publication date first raised as an issue in a US court?". You may say that's trivial, but trivia is in the eye of the beholder. It was notable enough for the NY Times. I'm not claiming a landmark decision or comparing to the many more important lawsuit articles yet to be written. General notability was judged to be there by consensus at the AFD, I only contend that this is a contribution to that notability. Franamax (talk) 23:46, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

see also links in related pages
Since the article was kept, there needs to be, in addition to the Tiger Management article, links to this article from the Gary Weiss and Julian Robertson articles. All interested editors are invited to participate in discussions on the respective talk pages. Cla68 (talk) 23:16, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
 * considering the likelihood of it being merged, it might be better to wait a while before starting those discussions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DGG (talk • contribs)
 * For now, I've included this in the See Also sections for the two aforementioned BLP articles.— DMCer ™  20:34, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
 * No consensus has been reached on that point, either here or on the two article talk pages, and I agree with DGG that it is premature to even discuss it in the articles while this merger discussion is underway. Stetsonharry (talk) 20:48, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not worth fighting over. There will be consensus on the larger merger question shortly, and if the smaller edits on the other pages are inconsistent with that decision, they can be fixed quickly and painlessly. WP:DONTPANIC, WP:CHILL, WP:WRONG. THF (talk) 20:55, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
 * My thoughts exactly. That is why I didn't attempt to detailed documentation about the case in either of the bio articles above. Because they're both the main subjects of this article, yet it is not mentioned once in either of theirs, it makes sense to me to include this as WP:ALSO.— DMCer ™  01:09, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Speculation about Watching
There is surely a problem with articles that say things like this: "Media response to the suit noted the unusually high damages demanded for a libel suit and speculated that the case would be watched with concern by the publishing industry."

So, an old lawsuit, that was quickly settled, yet here we are at wikipedia discussing old speculation about how the case might have been "watched" had it gone forward at all??? Who watches the speculators about the watchers? This article is a mess, that needs to be cut back and then merged. --Christofurio (talk) 15:47, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Sockpuppets blocked
Both StetsonHarry and AmishPete have been blocked as sockpuppets of Mantanmoreland, a sockpuppeteer and bad faith editor who has been banned from Wikipedia. Cla68 (talk) 23:15, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Aftermath?
Lots here about the 'aftermath' re: Robertson and Tiger, but no mention of the sale of BusinessWeek, which was seen as something of a bust. The magazine staggered through its final days, with advertising falling off a cliff, and some speculated it might not even find a buyer. Ultimately it was purchased by Bloomberg LP for a meager sum – estimated at $2–5 million – and the assumption of liabilities. Certainly if the article is going to mention the fate of Tiger, journalistic fairness demands that mention be made of the fate of BusinessWeek as well.MarmadukePercy (talk) 23:42, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure we actually do "journalistic fairness" here. We prefer WP:NPOV. The Aftermath section has multiple problems, see Discussion of Aftermath above. The fate of BW has already been removed as part of cleanup. Franamax (talk) 23:54, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay, hadn't seen the removal of that content, thanks. Nevertheless, including both sides is not only journalistic fairness, but in the interests of any publication (including an encyclopedia) aiming at a balanced point of view. MarmadukePercy (talk) 00:13, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
 * It's already in BusinessWeek. THF (talk) 03:19, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Merger
There does not appear to be much drive for additional merger with the tiger mgmt article. I'm removing the tag from the page. I'm not removing other tags, as the tone is still a question. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 20:22, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I still think there should be a merger, and haven't heard a persuasive reason why there shouldn't be one. Excluding Stetsonharry, I see 2 3 people for merger, you apparently against, and 1 person insisting against all evidence that the case has independent legal notability. I've restored the tag and will merge the articles unless someone can provide a persuasive reason why this case is independently notable. THF (talk) 20:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
 * On the chance that the "1 person insisting against all evidence" might be me, I'll comment here. THF, as your userpage states "I'm a legal academic and attorney". That gives you a certain (extremely well-educated and knowledgable) viewpoint on notability. I look at it from the POV of a layman who has enough knowledge of civil suits to know that avoiding them is a good idea. For me, this article answers an encyclopedic question: when was this e-publication date argument first used?. That's part of the history of the emergence of "cyber-law", would you agree that cyber-law has been a somewhat major development in the field of law over the past two decades? I just think I might be closer to the "average reader" than you, and certainly I have a completely different perspective. Now if you show me evidence that it was not the first such case where the argument was used and the NY Times was verifiably wrong, that's a whole different kettle of lawyers. :) Franamax (talk) 23:21, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
 * First, I fail to see how "when was this e-publication date argument first used?" is an encyclopedic question when the issue of e-publication date isn't even mentioned in cyberlaw or in Legal aspects of computing or in statute of limitations or in Template:Computing law, as best I can tell, anywhere in Wikipedia except this article. Maybe the fact that this was the first time someone mentioned it might merit a mention in the non-existent article statute of limitations and cyberlaw.  That hardly implies it merits its own separate article when the case isn't independently legally notable and the underlying issue has yet to generate its own article.
 * Second, we have already established above that the New York Times was verifiably wrong. The court never considered the issue. THF (talk) 02:12, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

For the record, I too am in favor of the merger and, if we can't accomplish that right away,  definitely in favor of keeping the tag. I don't know if I was included in the rocksanddirt headcount above, so I'm piping up here. --Christofurio (talk) 17:59, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't agree with the merge proposal. I think this article is comprehensive and well-sourced, and would overshadow the combined article. I prefer it remain on its own.— DMCer ™  22:05, 24 January 2010 (UTC)