Trouble with the Polish Wikimedia foundation, the body which promotes the Polish wikipedia, as it has been taken to court over accusations of libellous posts.

The case is being presided over in a court in the Silesian city of Wrocław. Businessman Arnold Budzgan took the foundation to court after a post on his person claimed that he was a 'troll':

"I had no other option," the businessman said, "I had look after my reputation, if they write lies about me, someone has to be responsible or simply get rid of the article. I have been going to their meetings for the past two years for them to get rid of the post, and it simply hasn't worked."

Tomasz Ganicz, the chairman of the Polish Wikimedia foundation appeared in court today to defend himself and the foundation that he represents, saying that the foundation has no direct control over the content that appears on the Wikipedia website: "As soon as the foundation was set up there was a rule that it would not interfere with the writing of the Wikipedia posts, that is only going along the lines of the original owner of Wikipedia, that is the Wikimedia Foundation in the United States, which is registered in the state of Florida."

The next hearings will take place next month, when the case will also be finally closed.

Polish Wikipedia is one of the biggest languages of Wikipedia as a whole, with almost 600,000 separate entries, as opposed to the English version, which has just under 2.9 million entries.

(jb)