Recent turnover at the WMF

[Vigilant]

Maybe a dozen names I know still left there

Looks like wholesale slaughter/turnover was the order of the prior year.

[The Blue Newt]

Maybe a dozen names I know still left there

Looks like wholesale slaughter/turnover was the order of the prior year.

Interesting. Some (completely inexpert) observations.

There seems to be an unbelievable level of overlapped, duplicated, separated functions. If Snortling and Whacking are related activities, it’s common to see a big Snortlewhacking Department, or a decent sized Snortling Directorate with a smaller Whacking Office, or vice-versa. The WMF approach appears to be a to have three big departments, each big enough to do the whole job.

The number of these activities that could, of course, be consolidated into a much smaller - yet still bloated- Ministry of Moneygrubbing is even worse than my low expectations.

[No Ledge]

It's blatantly obvious that the Foundation is first and foremost a FUNDRAISING organization, not a technology organization. Not that much turnover among the fundraisers, and top fundraiser is #2 on the org chart.

I suppose this is typical of what happens to technology companies after their engineering founders are gone, the bean counters take over and the technology stagnates. Except that with the WMF the engineers weren't the founder. The founding engineers were always just volunteers or junior employees.

Way down at the very bottom are their least-important employees. Arturo Borrero and Bryan Davis are the only two I've seen around and come in virtual contact with at their Toolforge Kubernetes Jobs framework where I've been gradually learning how to run my bots. The pace of change/improvements there is glacially slow. A lot of volunteers just helping each other out figuring out how to get stuff done, while the employees seem out to lunch most of the time.

[tarantino]

They say "More than 700 people" are staff and contractors. I count 558. What's interesting to me, after looking at the names and photos, is that the majority of them are women.

[No Ledge]

Trust and Safety is still led by Jan Eissfeldt, Global Head of Trust and Safety. They say that "currently, the team consists of 20 people across four continents" but Eissfeldt is the only one listed in their public staff directory.

Patrick Earley is still listed on meta as the Lead Policy Manager of the Policy sub-team of Trust & Safety, but he hasn't made any edits on meta since May. I hope he's still there; he's a good person.

[Vigilant]

Notice who the General Counsel is now.

[Elinruby]

Notice who the General Counsel is now.

Can you explain the significance of that to a n00b, please?

[Vigilant]

Notice who the General Counsel is now.

Can you explain the significance of that to a n00b, please?

The former general counsel was a Tides Foundation transplant who licked Maria Sefidari Huici's taint at every opportunity.

The current general Counsel is a guy with very, very little legal experience.

[The Blue Newt]

Notice who the General Counsel is now.

Can you explain the significance of that to a n00b, please?

The former general counsel was a Tides Foundation transplant who licked Maria Sefidari Huici's taint at every opportunity.

The current general Counsel is a guy with very, very little legal experience.

Why should he need any of that? His counterpart at Tides will tell him what to do.

[Vigilant]

Notice who the General Counsel is now.

Can you explain the significance of that to a n00b, please?

The former general counsel was a Tides Foundation transplant who licked Maria Sefidari Huici's taint at every opportunity.

The current general Counsel is a guy with very, very little legal experience.

Why should he need any of that? His counterpart at Tides will tell him what to do.

Interesting that the new CEO dispensed with the direct Tides representative.

Although, she didn't cover herself in glory.

[Beeblebrox]

There's still a few people on there who actually came up through the community, Maggie Dennis and Keegan at least.

I assume they don't parade all the T&S folks names and faces around on purpose. ArbCom has a primary point of contact at T&S and it is not Jan, although we do hear from him now and then.

Only -seven- people working on the mobile apps? No wonder they suck so bad.

[iii]

Only -seven- people working on the mobile apps? No wonder they suck so bad.

@wikimedia.foundation on TikTok is a parody account. So they aren't doing so hot on the socials neither.

[Elinruby]

Notice who the General Counsel is now.

Can you explain the significance of that to a n00b, please?

The former general counsel was a Tides Foundation transplant who licked Maria Sefidari Huici's taint at every opportunity.

The current general Counsel is a guy with very, very little legal experience.

Aha, thanks for the answer.

[Elinruby]

There's still a few people on there who actually came up through the community, Maggie Dennis and Keegan at least.

I assume they don't parade all the T&S folks names and faces around on purpose. ArbCom has a primary point of contact at T&S and it is not Jan, although we do hear from him now and then.

Only -seven- people working on the mobile apps? No wonder they suck so bad.

+1` for "sucks so bad". I filed a help desk ticket about a weird preview problem I was having and pretty much got blank stares and a suggestion not to use mobile view. Which... if it is that alpha, why is it live?

[tarantino]

Trust and Safety is still led by Jan Eissfeldt, Global Head of Trust and Safety. They say that "currently, the team consists of 20 people across four continents" but Eissfeldt is the only one listed in their public staff directory.

Patrick Earley is still listed on meta as the Lead Policy Manager of the Policy sub-team of Trust & Safety, but he hasn't made any edits on meta since May. I hope he's still there; he's a good person.

The account for Patrick Earley was unceremoniously locked yesterday. He posted as recently as last moth on diff, Nominate yourself for the first committee to maintain the Universal Code of Conduct. His last post on meta was to remove himself from a list of authorized wikimedia staff members.

[No Ledge]

Trust and Safety is still led by Jan Eissfeldt, Global Head of Trust and Safety. They say that "currently, the team consists of 20 people across four continents" but Eissfeldt is the only one listed in their public staff directory.

Patrick Earley is still listed on meta as the Lead Policy Manager of the Policy sub-team of Trust & Safety, but he hasn't made any edits on meta since May. I hope he's still there; he's a good person.

The account for Patrick Earley was unceremoniously locked yesterday. He posted as recently as last moth on diff, Nominate yourself for the first committee to maintain the Universal Code of Conduct. His last post on meta was to remove himself from a list of authorized wikimedia staff members.

No longer works at foundation. Maybe, with the call for U4C candidates closed on April 1, he, or the WMF, considers his job done. The hand-off to the U4C is imminent. Though he's Canadian (Vancouver) I didn't see him in Toronto last November. He was in Columbus in 2018.

We'll find out soon enough whether or not the U4C is a big April Fools joke on the community.