Only may link to official LL wiki content - can't copy, distribute, translate etc ...

Ok I find this a bit bizarre. LL has recently introduced a Community Partnership Program in this blog posting with additional information on the wiki:
https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/community/blog/2009/09/30/community-partnership-program-is-now-open
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Community_Partnership_Program

I didn't get a chance to really read it in detail, but essentially they are opening up this partnership program to the rest of the grid in a similar relationship they currently have with the United Sailing Sims and The Blake Sea. Sounds reasonable so far ...

However, this is where the bizarre part comes in, which I've never seen before. The wiki page has a statement at the beginning stating that this is official Linden Lab information and you may only access it directly or link to it and you are explicitly NOT allowed to distribute, modify, adapt, or translate any content on the page. At the bottom of SL wiki pages, it does state "Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 unless otherwise noted", but in this instance the warning explicitly states that this page does not fall under the Creative Commons or any other license and the content is subject to the TOS. Other official LL wiki pages seem to have this statement as well.

Now doesn't this seem a bit a strict and bizarre? What about instances of fair use, for instance if someone wanted to blog about it and quote passages from it, cut and paste a chunk of information in order to answer a question or translate the information to a non-English speaking community?! Oh LL you're so bizarre sometimes.

Is this something new that I've missed before or is it part of their revamp of the knowledge base and wiki?

I glanced over the disclaimer the first couple of times I've seen it. First time I actually went back and read it. But it is a reasonable request. The don't want their words misrepresented.
If someone want to blog about it, they can paraphrase and put the link back to the original article.

I can understand their need to protect official LL wiki pages by restricting modification to only Linden Lab employees for instance and to take reasonable precautions to ensure the integrity and interpretation of official policy pages on a wiki, but it just seems overly restrictive imho. Maybe I just never noticed these official pages before but the notice kinda stuck out like sore thumb to me.

I would assume fair use still applies, as it does to any copyrighted material. They just need some disclaimer to establish that it is more proprietary than the usual wiki-free-for-all.

Seems to me they are far more likely to be misinterpreted by a paraphrase, than by a direct quotation that can easily be checked against the original for accuracy. A paraphrase, on the other hand, can easily reinterpret or misrepresent by subtly shifting the emphasis of the original.

And yes, it should still be accessible for "fair use"; pretty much everything is, and all of the warnings and prohibitions you might want to add won't overrule that.

Linden Lab does not like to eat their words. In the old days when they updated the wiki they kept the original content and noted that the new statements were updates. But that became a problem for them - perhaps even a legal issue.

I, for one, keep copies and dates of all of Linden Lab's policy and wiki changes. In 2006 they defined a mainland one-sim welcome area one way and then updated the definition in 2007. Then in 2008 they completely removed all of the original information and updated the definition once again. They really do not want anyone to say 'but you said this'.

Maybe now you cannot find the posting where Robin Linden officially approved of copybot. After the grid was closed down because of the riots - another linden re-posted and stated that cobypot was illegal.

I wonder how much CleansingHistory Linden makes annually.

As of right now copybot is completely within the rules to use. So it must have changed yet again at some point.

Actually I don't think it is an issue of them changing the rules in most cases. It's more that a lot of statements are made by Lindens that just don't know, and are basing it on there own opinions.