Wikipedia Editors Revolt, Vote "No Confidence" In Newest Board Member (arstechnica.com) 186
An anonymous reader writes with news about an editor revolt at Wikimedia to remove Arnnon Geshuri from the foundation's board. Ars reports: "Nearly 200 Wikipedia editors have taken the unprecedented step of calling for a member of the Wikimedia Foundation board of directors to be tossed out. The Wikimedia Foundation, which governs both the massive Wikipedia online encyclopedia and related projects, appointed Arnnon Geshuri to its board earlier this month. His appointment wasn't well received by the Wikipedia community of volunteer editors, however. And last week, an editor called for a 'vote of no confidence on Arnnon Geshuri.' The voting, which has no legally binding effect on the Wikimedia Foundation, is now underway. As of press time, 187 editors had voted in favor of this proposition: 'In the best interests of the Wikimedia Foundation, Arnnon Geshuri must be removed from his appointment as a trustee of the Wikimedia Foundation Board.' Just 13 editors have voted against, including Wikimedia board member Guy Kawasaki.
Knowing Wikipedia editors ... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Thus far, the count is 187 for removing him. There is one vote from Guy Kawasaki for keeping him.
And since he's still the VP of HR at Tesla Motors, the remaining 12 votes are from editors not wanting to get blacklisted from getting a job at Tesla Motors.
Re:Knowing Wikipedia editors ... (Score:5, Funny)
They want to revert to the previous board member.
What would they expect him to do? (Score:3, Insightful)
The 'no-poaching' compact was an agreement among chief executives. I know someone will drag this down to Godwin's Law in a minute, but he was doing as he was ordered. Are people expecting him to go to Eric Schmidt and Steve Jobs and tell them that he wouldn't follow direction? If he did, he'd get the opportunity to join the keyboard punchers at Wikipedia Editorial.
Are there any other reasons that he shouldn't offer advice on a board of a non-profit company?
Re:What would they expect him to do? (Score:4, Funny)
If he can go to Steve Jobs and tell him anything, he's on to something much bigger than Wikipedia, especially if he can also get a response.
Re:What would they expect him to do? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with that statement is that HR professionals are usually required to have some knowledge of employment law. For this person, this means one of two things:
Either he saw the agreement and had no idea it could be in violation of employment law, which means he was incompetent at his own job;
or he saw the agreement, knew it could be a violation and instead decided to ignore that and willfully proceed to fire these people without reporting it.
Given the level of training most companies do these days to ensure that no one violates antitrust or other employment laws, it's likely that the second one is the case.
Re:What would they expect him to do? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry - the argument that he can't be held to account for breaking the law because he was just trying to keep his (very well paid) job is about as weak a case as you could possibly make.
A top executive position is not some office flunky who only does what he is told, an HR Vice President has the legal and fiduciary responsibility to tell his boss he is committing a crime and to cut it out - not facilitate it. If he can't stand up to Schmidt, he can't stand up to Wales.
I would say that any other reasons for not employing him are superfluous.
BTW, do we know what his salary at that "non-profit" company is?
Re:What would they expect him to do? (Score:4, Informative)
BTW, do we know what his salary at that "non-profit" company is?
Just that the Wikimedia Foundation is swimming in more money than they can spend. Part of that is due to really stupid non-profit laws that prevent setting up a trust account (which can be done by donors... just not the non-profit) to save the money for a rainy day, but also because they get a whole bunch of money flowing their direction too.
As a result, the Wikimedia Foundation has a whole bunch of make-work projects to ensure that they remain "non-profit", but that just bloats their staff size too. As can be seen, I'm not too impressed with how the money is being spent as well since I think better uses of that money could be used.
Re:What would they expect him to do? (Score:5, Insightful)
BTW, do we know what his salary at that "non-profit" company is?
Just that the Wikimedia Foundation is swimming in more money than they can spend. Part of that is due to really stupid non-profit laws that prevent setting up a trust account (which can be done by donors... just not the non-profit) to save the money for a rainy day...
Say what? Then how is that the Wikimedia Foundation is starting to set up an endowment [wikimediafoundation.org] this year if such a thing is impossible?
The endowment which they are just now creating is being funded with $5 million, after burning through almost $300 million in the last several years, and it is just 7% of their projected fundraising revenue this year. And if their problem is that they are "swimming in money" why the aggressive year-after-year fundraising goals of 10-20% growth every single year? That is the growth plan of an aggressive for-profit start-up, not a non-profit.
The fact is, Wikimedia could have easily funded an endowment long ago that would keep Wikipedia on-line forever without requiring another dollar in fundraising.
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If you want to get into the nuanced USC 501(c)3 non-profit laws, be my guest. Also pay attention to what I said: donors can send donations into a trust, which is precisely what the link said is happening too. That the fundraising could be referred instead to the trust instead of the core organization is just a bit of legal game play that sometimes happens too, but you need to keep a strong legal firewall between the trust and the non-profit corporation as well. Let's just say it gets very complicated.
The fact is, Wikimedia could have easily funded an endowment long ago that would keep Wikipedia on-line forever without requiring another dollar in fundraising.
I
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Have you actually read their financials [wikimedia.org]? [PDF link] (What you link to is their annual plan, which isn't a financial document.) They've millions of dollars in cash and short term investments on hand - far in excess of their annual costs of operation.
Re:What would they expect him to do? (Score:4, Insightful)
I have to agree with this. The Board of Directors is supposed to keep a check on the management and make sure they maintain the best interests of the corporation. If this guy can't do it in one job of responsibility, I don't see why he gets to do it in another job which is theoretically an even more responsible oversight role.
I don't know this guy from Adam, but if he did what they say he did, then he at least has some explaining to do. If he blames it all on "just following orders", then he's the type of person I wouldn't want in any position of power.
Of course, this is probably exactly why he *is* in a position of power now. He's decided to not fight the fights that exclude him from the top floor offices.
That said, I don't even get a non-binding vote on this, but if I did, I'd like to have him explain to me why this should not disqualify him.
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I think the argument isn't that he "can't be held to account for breaking the law" but rather that he hasn't been proven to have broken the law at all, and that it is very important to distinguish between an accusation and a conviction. I don't know what he did, and neither do you. Neither do the wikipedia editors. They do know that socially people said bad words next to his name. That is good enough for some people, not good enough for others. That it is good enough for wikipedia editors is no surprise to
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an HR Vice President has the legal and fiduciary responsibility to tell his boss he is committing a crime and to cut it out - not facilitate it.
I applaud your optimism and naivete.
No, there is nothing optimistic or naive about pointing out the truth. That is his responsibility.
What would be optimistic and naive is to think he would ever be punished for violating those responsibilities. Corporate crime is never punished these days, at worst there is a modest tax (a fine, or lawsuit pay-out) on part of their takings.
But Wikipedia editors sure can voice their displeasure about Jimmy rewarding him for malfeasance. No doubt Jimmy is expecting him to do the same favors he did for Schmidt.
Befehl ist Befehl (Score:4, Insightful)
Since you mentioned Godwin's Law and chief execs, simply following orders is not a justifiable. To paraphrase the exchange between Google and Apple: Wikipedia's editors needs someone to be very careful to make sure this does not happen again. Wikipedia's board needs to make a public example of this termination with the group.
Re:Befehl ist Befehl (Score:4, Informative)
This guy got hired on as one of Jimmy Wales picks. There are two members of the board who are picked by the community, but unfortunately Jimmy Wales set up the foundation in such a way that he could still control the board and do whatever he wanted to see happen. The end result is that the board can incestually (meaning being accountable from nobody but themselves) select new board members upon their own whim. That is precisely what happened here with this board appointment.
There is the right to fork as is the case with all open source projects, but that is really the only real power that the Wikipedia editors have in this situation other than to complain to the two community board members and see that their one limited voice can be heard on the next election for those positions. The Spanish Language Wikipedia did fork several years ago due to some disputes with the top leadership of Wikipedia (particularly the top admins in that language edition of Wikipedia), but that is far enough in the past that the root causes and resolution have nothing to do with the current situation.
I nearly forked one of the sister projects a few years ago (with widespread support in that sister project), and in hindsight perhaps I should have followed through with the effort too. The really odd thing is how Jimmy Wales offered web space for the fork too. I suppose it just matters how the Wikimedia Board deals with this situation to see if enough editors are finally going to be so completely fed up with the current leadership direction to create that fork or just roll with the punches. Stuff like the Libre Office fork of Open Office is a good example of how such a fork can be successful.
Re: (Score:2)
Go ahead and fork, it isn't a threat like you make it out to be. Either fork because you want to, or don't because you don't want to. Forking from sour grapes, nobody cares, but nobody wants to stop you either. It isn't odd he offered web space. He probably understands the licensing, and means it. You kinda understand, but not completely, because you don't think they mean it.
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You make it sounds like it was so black and white and an easy decision, but like everything of that nature it was a whole lot more nuanced and got into project politics. The part I understood was that I would personally have needed to at least temporarily take on the financial burden of running the website if I had done a fork, even if it was likely that other community members were going to help contribute both with money and in other ways. Getting that organized and staying on top of that while working
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If they violate his employment rights by creating a hostile work environment and then firing him based on unproven accusation unrelated to the job and that predated his employment, then the resulting lawsuit might be one heck of a "public example" indeed.
It is one thing to wave your hands and hate on a guy whose name you saw next to some naughty words, it is a whole different thing to actually apply principles of worker rights in a real situation.
Re:What would they expect him to do? (Score:5, Insightful)
he was doing as he was ordered
Telling people what they want to hear is not "advice".
Re: (Score:2)
We don't what he did or didn't do, what advice he did or didn't give, or what people did or didn't want to hear.
All we know is, people say nasty things. All that actually teaches us is that there are nasty people in the world, and they're not going to wait for evidence or convictions before they try to apply a sentence, for example in this case they want to exile him from economic participation. They will fail spectacularly. They may or may not succeed in harming him in the way they intend in the meantime.
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We don't what he did or didn't do, what advice he did or didn't give, or what people did or didn't want to hear.
We know that he helped carry out an illegal activity and that he should have known better.
Re:What would they expect him to do? (Score:5, Insightful)
I know someone will drag this down to Godwin's Law in a minute, but he was doing as he was ordered.
So wait, you're saying "he was just following orders" and then literally quote the strongest source for why "just following orders" isn't an excuse. You literally rebutted your own argument.
Are people expecting him to go to Eric Schmidt and Steve Jobs and tell them that he wouldn't follow direction?
Are people expecting him to have a fucking backbone?
I believe the answer to that is "yes".
If he did, he'd get the opportunity to join the keyboard punchers at Wikipedia Editorial.
ooooh so he did it for *money*. Well that certainly is an excellent excuse.
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The 'no-poaching' compact was an agreement among chief executives. I know someone will drag this down to Godwin's Law in a minute, but he was doing as he was ordered. Are people expecting him to go to Eric Schmidt and Steve Jobs and tell them that he wouldn't follow direction? If he did, he'd get the opportunity to join the keyboard punchers at Wikipedia Editorial.
Arnnon Geshuri was not some low level flunky at Google, he was in charge of 900 recruiters. At that level of authority, you don't have to run to someone for approval of every decision. It was his job to know employment law and to know that Google was doing something illegal. It was his responsibility to not do illegal things, and if questioned, it was his job to tell Eric Schmidt "this is illegal and we can't be doing this".
Re: (Score:2)
There is a simple solution to this, if Arnnon Geshuri is removed. Google should just stop putting Wikipedia pages at the top of its searches when there are other sites of the original entities. If it is an obscure subject, then fine, the Wikipedia page would do, but if it is a common subject like, say, President Obama, there is no reason the Wiki page should be on pg 1.
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I can't begin to imagine any problem that could be "solved" by this solution.
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In many companies, a VP is a sort of executive assistant whose job is to listen to the P and then use the same tone and message and be the one actually talking to people all day that way.
In other companies, they're an actual executive with decision-making responsibilities.
Many companies employ both types of VP in different departments.
Almost no companies are willing to explain the actual duties of individual senior positions with the general public.
Re: (Score:2)
if your boss told you to jump off a bridge, would you do it?
http://xkcd.com/1170/ [xkcd.com]
Seriously, you shouldn't follow orders blindly and you should be responsible, but xkcd is funny.
Wikipedia has many problems this one is minor (Score:2, Interesting)
The fact that they don't clean their own house and have become an ego trip for the editors
http://www.theguardian.com/boo... [theguardian.com]
or the fact that they are useless for any topic with even a whiff of controversy
Re:Wikipedia has many problems this one is minor (Score:5, Insightful)
...the fact that they are useless for any topic with even a whiff of controversy
Is Britannica better? Wall Street Journal? People Magazine? Please advise.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Is Britannica better? Wall Street Journal?
Yes, and yes, when it comes to controversial topics (though Britannica isn't as up-to-date and has a different focus). You might add that the New York Times is better, too.
The Hipster Comparison Misdirection Fallacy. (Score:3, Interesting)
You've committed the Hipster Comparison Misdirection Fallacy.
This is a fallacy we typically see employed by hipsters/Millennials in discussions like this.
Here's how it works:
1. Somebody points out a real problem with an idea, a product, a person, etc.
2. Some hipster comes along, ignores the actual problem being discussed, and instead says, "But is $SOME_OTHER_IRRELEVANT_THING any better?"
3. The comparison is totally irrelevant, because we aren't talking about $SOME_OTHER_IRRELEVANT_THING.
4. Discussion of th
Not Hipster Specific (Score:3)
This comparison is not hipster-specific. Almost everyone makes it. The truth is comparisons are useful when looking for ways to innovate and when making to sure that you are doing *comparatively* well, but they are not useful when looking for ways to see if you are doing *what you should be doing*. This is because a field as a whole can be taking the wrong approach. For example, a school can have students with better standardized test scores than everybody else and still not be teaching the students wel
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I think you maybe miss the point this type of comparison is intended to raise. That is, there are no perfect things of any type in this world. Defining and understanding the limits imposed by those imperfections makes it possible to recognize in what ways the flawed tools available may still be useful. IOW, if we throw away all imperfect tools, we would be left with none.
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If Wikipedia is imperfect, and the response is 'neither is Britannia, or Merriam-Webster, or whatever,' then I think the point is, indeed, being missed completely.
The response *should* be 'You're right. But unlike Britannia, or Merriam-Webster, or whatever, we can, indeed, improve Wikipedia.'
silence is not golden (Score:5, Insightful)
Without a personal statement from Mr Geshuri about how he views the ethics of his own past behaviour on which to base my judgement, I can't see how this appointment can reasonably move forward.
I sure hope the employee severed for failing to break the law as directed worked this into a fat severance settlement.
The Law Of Success-Driven Failure (Score:2)
It got so big, it couldn't help but fail. Sadly this is seen in many large groups, commercial and non-commercial.
I don't have much sympathy... (Score:2)
... for people who earn 5 or 10 times as much as me, complaining that they don't get even more.
Re: (Score:2)
who actually wants that job? (Score:2)
I find it hard to imagine that any sane person would actually want that job.
Grounds? (Score:3)
What exactly are the grounds for this?
The vote of no-confidence includes no info and the news link is particularly vague allegations of poaching.
Wikipedia editors revolt. (Score:2)
Why yes. Yes they do.
teenage mind (Score:2)
The problem with wikipedia admins remains the immature teenage mind - emotional, irrational, quick to judge and slow to alter a judgement despite new evidence.
The comments of the Florence Devouard, a former chair of the foundation and someone whose career I have watched exemplifies this in some respects. I struggle to find the logic in her statement of "Please take my vote as a respectful record of my perplexity." FFS.
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Do you have a page on Wikipedia about your experiment?
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<sarcasm>
It's been reverted by some deletionist editor.
</sarcasm>
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Got deleted.
Violates WP:NOR and WP:PRIMARY
Re:No Context (Score:5, Insightful)
No-poach agreements only hurt employees.
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If I go seek out better employment, and the potential new employer can't hire me because it would be 'poaching', then it hurts me. Oh, you thought that it meant that they could not seek me out? No, you are wrong. They can't hire me at all. It's a way of companies locking up employees by keeping them from working for other potential companies in their field. It is company-enforced non-compete.
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And how would you do so if the companies in your area all colluded not to hire each others' employees?
Re:No Context (Score:5, Interesting)
I wouldn't want to have someone complicit in illegal anti-trust activities put in a leadership role in an organization I had anything to do with either. I don't put this in the category of "butthurt", which is a word, if I must call it that, typically reserved for petty, squabbling nonsense. Not that this doesn't apply to Wikipedia editors in general, at least from what I've heard, but this appears to have some merit at first blush.
Re:No Context (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:No Context (Score:5, Insightful)
Our society is supposed to believe that people can improve themselves and we should (eventually) forgive people.
Sure. They guy who just got out of jail for mass-murder can cut my lawn. He can manage the local Wal-Mart. He can teach English-as-a-Second-Language classes to orphan refugees. Just... maybe let's all agree that "passenger airline pilot" isn't the job for him.
Point I'm trying to make is that while second chances are a Good Thing, it's also very reasonable that some bridges are forever burned, and a different way to cross the gorge needs be found.
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Sure. They guy who just got out of jail for mass-murder can cut my lawn. He can manage the local Wal-Mart. He can teach English-as-a-Second-Language classes to orphan refugees. Just... maybe let's all agree that "passenger airline pilot" isn't the job for him.
So you're agreeing its fine that he's a member of the Wikipedia board because he wouldn't be in charge of hiring?
Re:No Context (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the issue is more about trust. He has been shown to be complicit in immoral decision making when put into a position of power.
As a member of a Board of Trustees he'd be in a position of power involving potential moral decisions and the vote shows that he has yet to regain that trust.
It's not like the guy will be out of a day job and I'm sure there are plenty of other people that the Wikipedia editors would support.
It doesn't hurt that it's just deserts without any lives actually being harmed. From what I have read, he has disrupted other lives far more significantly than this will impact his own.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
No, we won't agree to that. If there isn't a clear condition of his release that prohibits him from flying an airplane, and you're worried about it, the thing to do would be to agree to make a new rule that people convicted of that crime can't be airline pilots.
Society spent thousands of years reaching the current consensus that it is not appropriate for a mob to "maybe let's[sic] all agree" to ban people from jobs we don't want them to have.
Point being, nobody made you bridge-keeper.
Re: (Score:2)
Pretty sure some jobs are categorically out-of-reach for anyone with a criminal record.
Police officer and prison officer, for a start.
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No, we won't agree to that.
I'm sorry. I don't believe you. I'm sure you mean well, but I don't buy it.
You're trying to tell us you'd put a surgeon convicted of gross negligence back at the operating table.
You're trying to tell us you'd put someone convicted of elder-abuse back as a care-giver in a resting-home.
You're trying to tell us you'd put a convicted pedo back at the principal's desk in a grade-school.
You're trying to tell us you'd put a convicted terrorist back at the chemical research lab.
Yes, there are edge-cases, w
Nobody forgives! (Score:2, Funny)
Are you kidding? We live in a CHRISTIAN society, and forgiveness has no place in Christianity!
Re: (Score:2)
Reducing a nuanced point of view down to a fatuous one-liner is generally a display of bigotry.
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Reducing a nuanced point of view down to a fatuous one-liner is generally a display of bigotry.
While I support your general statement, in this special case "forgiveness has no place in Christianity" might have given you a clue as to the seriousness of said "fatuous one-liner". At least I hope he wasn't serious.
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Tell that to the employee that have been "terminated within the hour" to use the Arnnon Geshuri words against him.
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What makes it petty squabbling nonsense is that it has nothing to do with his role at wikipedia. It is just base attack on an employee because people dislike them personally.
If what he did was illegal, they should be writing letters to the government, not trying to prevent him from ever working again.
Wikipedia needs to ban all these editors, because it is illegal to try to blackball somebody from an industry because you don't like what they did in a prior job somewhere else. They're attempting to overstep t
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They're attempting to overstep the authority of their roles in a way that violates the rights of the person they're trying to have cast out.
So Wikipedia editors of all people are doing this? This is my surprised face.
Re:No Context (Score:5, Insightful)
Wikipedia needs to ban all these editors, because it is illegal to try to blackball somebody from an industry because you don't like what they did in a prior job somewhere else.
And how are they trying to blackball someone from an entire industry? From what I can tell they're just trying to get him removed from what is essentially an executive board. The guy still holds a job at Tesla Motors anyway.
They're attempting to overstep the authority of their roles in a way that violates the rights of the person they're trying to have cast out.
Do what now? What rights are being violated? Had you read anything and not jumped to a knee jerk reaction, you'd see that they clearly understand what they're doing has zero legal weight. If you had a "bad" boss and the "majority" of the "workforce" got together to go above his head to have him removed, or at the very least their concerns heard, I'd say that's a great thing. This doesn't mean anyone has to do as they ask, you know.
Maybe the guy is a [bad person], I don't know.
Yes, that much is obvious. You just don't know anything.
I do know in this case that other [bad people] are attempting to violate his rights.
Do you know that? It seems to me that it's already been pointed out that they have no power to violate his rights in this context. I also wonder why you feel that people shouldn't be allowed to voice their opinion of dissent uniformly.
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Sure people can voice their opinion of dissent but other people can also voice their own differing opinions and do anything they can in support of their opinion. Maybe those asking for this guy to be removed should have their work histories scrutinized to see if they should remain in their current positions. If they really despise the guy in question they are free to resign their own position in protest.
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Well, it's a vote, so those entitled to vote can vote either way. So they *are* allowed to voice their opinions. And you are voicing your opinion.
Were I a Wikipedia Editor, I'd probably vote to ask for his removal. He sounds like someone with an established history of anti-employee actions, and even if Wikipedia Editors aren't employees (I think it's volunteer work), there is substantial similarity.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The guy was involved with big money and for big corporations. He might not have the best mindset sit at the board of a charity. Some time ago the Mozilla foundation sold itself to the advertisers. Nobody wants another disaster like that with the WMF, which is so much more relevant to everybody. I have no opinion on the guy but I find it great that the editors check that the board of trustees is actually composed of people who can be trusted.
Re:No Context (Score:5, Insightful)
The guy was involved with big money and for big corporations. He might not have the best mindset sit at the board of a charity. Some time ago the Mozilla foundation sold itself to the advertisers. Nobody wants another disaster like that with the WMF, which is so much more relevant to everybody. I have no opinion on the guy but I find it great that the editors check that the board of trustees is actually composed of people who can be trusted.
I used to try to contribute edits to Wikipedia complete with sources only to find that people that spend an inordinate amount of time on the site roll-back my edits for reasons that were never justified. So while on the one hand I may not like people that look at no-poach agreements favorably, on the other hand, screw those involved with Wikipedia that have overinflated opinions of themselves and their position.
Re:No Context (Score:5, Informative)
Same here. I also found that articles not being squatted on, I don't need to add references to make a simple edit; nobody checks them anyways.
It is vastly more likely that an edit is rolled back because somebody wants to control an article's message than that it is rolled back for being incorrect, biased, etc. Those all do also happen, no mistake about it. But they're less common than just mindless "no, I already re-wrote that section last year you can't reword it so that it matches the more authoritative article."
So now my policy is, I check the talk page; if there is any discussion in the last couple years, I put in my two cents there (or not) and don't try to actually edit anything. If an article is such a backwater that there is little or no talk text, then I just boldly correct whatever it is, and that correction will likely persist for years.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Id guess that:
A - A lot of wiki-bureaucrats and wiki-lawyers are of the tech-professional persuasion
B - This guy masterminded a deal that probably had the net effect of suppressing high tier tech-professional wages significantly.
I imagine there's significant core of senior editors who have yet to succumb to the temptations of paid and / or political editing and are still operating under the delusion that wikimedia should be operated as a non-profit for the benefit of all mankind. Appointing a certified corp
Re:No Context (Score:5, Insightful)
So people are a little butt hurt. I don't see what this has to do at all with anything.
Employees of those major companies were blacklisted from seeking work at other major companies.
They would still get through the hiring and interviewing process, but then they would get automatically and systematically rejected with no reason given.
The least we can do is to blacklist him from positions of importance. This guy is a criminal. You don't put criminals in charge of organizations that you care about.
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If he hasn't been convicted of a crime, it violates his employment rights to try to blackball him based on unproven accusations.
Doesn't it bother you that you're proposing to clearly violate employment rights in order to punish unproven accusations of violating employment rights?
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It's a right to work country, he can be fired for no good reason, up to and including being hated by the majority of your workforce..
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If he is a criminal, let a court of law decide —unless you want a drumhead instead.
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Have they really got blacklisted? I was under impression that just cold-calls were forbidden (so Google cannot call Apple employee without invitation, to ask him if he would like to switch jobs), but there was nothing against getting people if THEY have shown interest first (and certainly not about automatically failing them later).
Can you point to the link which clearly documents that late rejection with no reason given in case it was the employee looking to switch jobs?
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I can't find the exact example I remembered, but I did find this.
See second page, section 1.
http://www.lieffcabraser.com/c... [lieffcabraser.com]
In other words, yes, there were "no cold calls", but some of these agreements went much further than that.
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the board of directors at an organization (public, private, nonprofit) have an enormous impact. They do things like:
1) hire and fire the CEO.
2) Approve budgets, including layoffs
3) approve 5 year plans that detail where the company will be growing. Is it getting out of the wiki industry? doubling down on wiki? hiring a lot? changing editorial policies?
BOD does all of this, and a director has mucho powero.
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In this case, the primary power of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Directors is really to administer the funds needed to operate the servers and to hire and fire the staff that runs those servers. There is a whole bunch of other staff doing what I think to be mostly make work projects to spend their donation money.
They gave unto themselves the authority to run roughshod over the editors and to arbitrarily change user privileges as well as to arbitrarily (at their discretion or due to a lawsuit) remove co
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nice words, but i only need one: wrongsies!
Re: (Score:2)
How is it wrong?
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They gave unto themselves the authority
Yes. this is what boards do. this is why they are so powerful and why appointments matter.
nor is there really any CEO like you might find even with other non-profit groups
Yes there is [wikipedia.org].
Editorial policies on the other hand are usually decided by community consensus
That could change at any time based on board decision. This is why boards are so powerful.
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That could change at any time based on board decision.
Not really. The decisions are made by the community except when specific legal issues have shown up which might shut the project down. One such example was the license change, and another was the specific policy requirement that each sub-project adopt a policy with regards to fair-use content or the lack thereof. Even in those cases, it was the community which made the final call with a whole lot of deliberation.
If they arbitrarily tried to change editorial policies on a whim, Wikipedia would simply die.
Re:but... (Score:5, Informative)
Duty of care: Board members are expected to actively participate in organizational planning and decision-making and to make sound and informed judgments.
Duty of loyalty: When acting on behalf of the organization, board members must put the interests of the nonprofit before any personal or professional concerns and avoid potential conflicts of interest.
Duty of obedience: Board members must ensure that the organization complies with all applicable federal, state, and local laws and regulations, and that it remains committed to its established mission.
(Source [grantspace.org])
In this particular case, the "duty of obedience" is a real concern given the new board memeber's history of violating anti-trust laws through non-poaching policies. For example, while those tech companies involved in the non-compete scandle had enough cash on hand to pay for the settlement, the impact to Wikipedia could have been much more substantial.
In the tradition of Ronald Reagan (Score:2)
"You're all fired."
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More like "You've been reverted." Pretty ironic it's happening to Wikipedia itself.
Just the social "justice" mentality at work. (Score:4, Insightful)
This fits all of the traits of a typical social "justice" angerfest:
1. Somebody does something that's actually quite minor. (Somebody gets appointed to a position of power. Or somebody mentions the word "dongle" to a friend. Or a police officer defends himself against a violent attacker who happens to have a different skin color.)
2. A small number of vocal opponents from the social "justice" movement object for whatever reason.
3. This small handful of vocal opponents from the social "justice" movement starts some non-binding petition or other useless bureaucratic construction.
4. Social media is used to rile up a bunch of other people who normally wouldn't give a fuck about what's going on, but who still want to feel that they're "making a difference" or "changing the world".
5. Despite claiming that it's wrong to single out a person and direct animosity toward this person, since doing so would be bullying, we see these social "justice" supporters single out the person and direct animosity toward them repeatedly. Yet they pretend it's not the bullying they're supposedly so very much against.
6. Typically within a few days, some new minor and pointless incident will catch the attention of the social "justice" supporters. They'll forget about everything they were angry about in the past, and they'll focus on this new issue for a day or two, until the next outrage comes along.
7. Their petition has no impact at all.
8. Slashdot reports on this pathetically irrelevant issue that nobody sensible actually cares about, well after the people who were originally outraged have forgotten that they were angry.
Re:Just the social "justice" mentality at work. (Score:5, Informative)
This fits all of the traits of a typical social "justice" angerfest:
1. Somebody does something that's actually quite minor. (Somebody gets appointed to a position of power. Or somebody mentions the word "dongle" to a friend. Or a police officer defends himself against a violent attacker who happens to have a different skin color.)
The no-poaching agreement in which he was complicit cost me, personally, > $480,000.
There are about 20,000 members of the class in the recently settled class action suit.
You do the math, and tell me how again "quite minor" fits into it... Hint: it comes out to just under $10B, if my claim was about median.
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The no-poaching agreement in which he was complicit cost me, personally, > $480,000.
Was it actual money you had to pay out of your savings, not-realized-gains you would be guaranteed to get if it has not happened, or not-realized-gains you think you would most probably get assuming there was no-poaching agreement?
$480K? I smell BS (Score:2)
You've just pull that figure out of your backside. Its a wild guess at the extra you MIGHT have made IF someone had cold called you AND you had an interview AND you got the job at a much larger salary than you're on now.
Hey - you are allowed to approach companies yourself you know or go via an agency. So get off your cross, you're not a victim here, you're a loser.
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I think GP just hates anybody who is part of the 1%. Not the 1.01%, or the 3.14159%, because they're part of the 99%. He just hates the 1%.
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I think GP just hates anybody who is part of the 1%. Not the 1.01%, or the 3.14159%, because they're part of the 99%. He just hates the 1%.
Barron's Definition of the One Percent: "they have median annual household income of $750,000, median assets of $7.5 million, and there are 1.2 million of them across the country."
Well, that definitely lets me out. It also lets out almost everyone else I know who was cheated out of higher wages due to wage-fixing. The lawsuit was, in fact, all about the cheating harming people who were *not* in the 1%.
If he'd looked at my posting history, he'd know that I'm sympathetic with blue collar unemployment, but i
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
wikipedia is already failing big time due to bias of entrenched editors from west.
So start a project to cover the history of the world from an eastern perspective, ideally in the english language, so I can read it, for another perspective. Or if its simply a better run more neutral wiki overall it'll pick up all the disgruntled editors over at wikipedia too past and present, and quickly send wikipedia to a footnotes of history.
Fixing the organization from the inside seems neither requisite nor even particularly desirable. The internet is a big place, if you don't like the 'governing body
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Or perhaps people like you will come to their senses and start taking a more nuanced view of history. According to modern standards, the British Empire committed horrible crimes against humanity, but not judged within its historical context. Furthermore, no matter how you view what the British Empire did, the fact is that it played an enormous role in shaping the modern world. Arguably, humanity, even the peopl
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Yes, that was a service to humanity: most human cultures are simply not worth preserving. The Roman empire destroyed the culture of my ancestors, and I'm glad they did.
I disagree with the premise. Wikipedia lists the actions of all those regimes, including the British Empire, so the charge of "whitewas
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That's a mischaracterization. There is plenty of informat
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You mean this [wikipedia.org]? Or this [wikipedia.org]?
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Oh, you mean you want a propaganda-platform for everybody? That will turn out well, I am sure...