WMF Board of Trustees: A Fish Rots from the Head Down

[thekohser]

...and no obvious COI - unlike Denny, who is on Google's payroll.

Suggestion: Learn more about the Google/Tesla relationship.

[Randy from Boise]

...and no obvious COI - unlike Denny, who is on Google's payroll.

Suggestion: Learn more about the Google/Tesla relationship.

There is something going on here, isn't there?

RfB

[Kelly Martin]

There is something going on here, isn't there?

Just now noticing this, are we?

[The Joy]

There is something going on here, isn't there?

Just now noticing this, are we?

Reading that makes me think...

[Poetlister]

Kelly Battles and Arnnon Geshuri join Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. A WMF blog post.

They don't aseem to have BLPs in the English site yet (though Arnnon has a Spanish article). That could be interesting. Presumably, his BLP will not mention "He's good at kowtowing to execs to carry out their illegal activities. Newly unsealed documents show Steve Jobs' brutal response after getting a Google employee fired." linkhttps://www.quora.com/How-is-Arnnon-Ges ... at-he-does[/link] linkhttps://pando.com/2014/03/25/newly-unse ... lated_test[/link]

[tarantino]

Kelly Battles and Arnnon Geshuri join Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. A WMF blog post.

There's an interesting sarcastic email from foundation employee Adam Wight on wikimedia-l:

Dear Board,

I'm deeply grateful that the past, current and new members of the Board
have dedicated the 10 hours/week and more to our cause, and both as people
and Board functionaries I wish them the best and much success in their
lives.

However, the Board as an entity which has energetically lost the trust of
both its own staff and that of the broader community who cares about such
issues does, in my opinion, owe us all a better backstory for these latest
appointees. I would love to hear more about the humanist and visionary
bubbles left in their wake, for example a loving and vibrant workplace
environment crafted by Arnnon, a scheme to charge no tuition at the
Montessori school devised by Kelly... I do believe that these stories must
lay deeper beneath the surface of these two, who appear from their CVs to
be rich, likeable personalities with impeccable, traditional business
management skills. The Board owes it to Kelly and Arnnon, if no one else,
to set them up for success by sharing the mission-aligned personal history
which makes them desirable appointments to our unique organization.

Perhaps you could request new Board members to write a personal statment,
of their vision and the goals they intend to pursue during their time on
the Board.

Warmly,
Adam Wight
Fundraising Tech "the sheepdog" Lead
Wikimedia Foundation
User:Adamw

He's also just posted an analysis of the board election on meta.

Our 2015 election was a close affair, and three seats had to be selected out of a top group of at least 15 candidates who each had the support of 20% or more of the voters. The choice of winners was difficult, but I will show here that it was also completely dependent on the tally method used (TODO: link to rules), and two of the candidates who went on to assume seats on the Board were only selected due to an obscure factor that worked to violate the One person, one vote principle of democratic elections. In the United States, adherence to this principle is a legal requirement for any election to public office.

Through unpublished personal communication with a commission member, I learned that the election commission explicitly desired a tally method that would weed out controversial candidates. We should reopen this discussion in light of the problems I bring up below. I'm assuming this was a mistake and can be corrected before any further elections.

He analyzes three methods of tallying votes.

Net support, (which is Support-Oppose):
Outcome: 1. Pundit 2. Raystorm 3. Doc James 4. Phoebe 5. Denny

Percentage of support (Support / (Support + Oppose)):
Outcome: 1. Pundit 2. Doc James 3. Denny 4. Raystorm 5. Phoebe

Counting support votes only:
Outcome: 1. Raystorm 2. Pundit 3. Phoebe 4. Doc James 5. Denny

Denny had the fewest support votes and the lowest net support, but came in third with the way the foundation tallies votes, so he's on the board.

I suspect Adam will be looking for a new job soon.

[eagle]

This is exactly the type of controversy that causes most people's brains to split open, but lawyers and Wikipedians love anyway.

If Doc James' replacement is selected from the June 2015 data instead of conducting a new election, it becomes very interesting. The most important point is that there were candidates running for re-election: linkhttps://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimed ... er_members[/link] Raystorm, Sj and Phoebe Ayres. After the 2015 election, the WMF Board amended the Bylaws to institute term limits:

Trustees selected in accordance with this Article 3(C) shall serve three-year terms and cannot serve for more than two consecutive three-year terms. After serving any six consecutive years, a Trustee is not eligible for selection under this provision for a period of 18 months.

So, Sj would not be eligible to have run in 2015 if the Bylaws term limit were in effect then. Although Phoebe Ayres had served two terms, there was a slight gap in her service, so she was not term limited.

In any event, if the WMF Board went with the next highest percentage, Raystorm would replace Doc James, which would look terrible. Advocates of turning over the WMF Board would note that this whole affair allows her to continue serving on the Board and the 6-month gap allows her to argue that she could run again for a third term despite the new term limits.

[Anthonyhcole]

Cullen has started a little essay about new board appointee Arnnon Gashuri. linkhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cull ... on_Geshuri[/link] permalink

[Moral Hazard]

Cullen has started a little essay about new board appointee Arnnon Gashuri. linkhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cull ... on_Geshuri[/link] permalink

Jim's essay documents that Geshari was an enforcer in the Google/Apple conspiracy to reduce salaries of technical employees, who fired a woman recruiter very publicly to make an example of any Google employee that would make an offer to Apple employees, after a query by Steve Jobs.

[Randy from Boise]

Cullen has started a little essay about new board appointee Arnnon Gashuri. linkhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cull ... on_Geshuri[/link] permalink

I've asked Jim H. ("Cullen328") to take a walk on the wild side here to discuss such things. I hope he pops by, he is a very nice person and smart as hell. I'm sure Eric Barbour would hate him.

tim

[The Adversary]

The appointment of Arnon Geshuri to the WMF -board should probably have its own thread. User:Cullen328/Arnnon Geshuri (T-H-L) sums it up, in addition we have some rather interesting comments on the talk-page of User:Jimbo Wales, and on the Wikimedia-l-list, see e.g:

Optionally, you could have typed his name into Google and browse to the bottom of the first page. However, that requires super powers and it's not reasonable to require that from the Board members. Thus, sticking with the plan described above should work better.

[The Adversary]

Kelly Battles and Arnnon Geshuri join Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. A WMF blog post.

They don't aseem to have BLPs in the English site yet (though Arnnon has a Spanish article). That could be interesting. Presumably, his BLP will not mention "He's good at kowtowing to execs to carry out their illegal activities. Newly unsealed documents show Steve Jobs' brutal response after getting a Google employee fired." linkhttps://www.quora.com/How-is-Arnnon-Ges ... at-he-does[/link] linkhttps://pando.com/2014/03/25/newly-unse ... lated_test[/link]

Thanks to Mike Peel (T-C-L), Arnnon Geshuri (T-H-L) now has an article on en.wp, too.



(Hmmmpfr, I think User:Cullen328/Arnnon Geshuri (T-H-L) gives a much better over-view than the above Arnnon Geshuri (T-H-L)-article )

[tarantino]

Thanks to Mike Peel (T-C-L), Arnnon Geshuri (T-H-L) now has an article on en.wp, too.

And we learn from this some astrophysicists aren't very good biographers.

[EricBarbour]

I've asked Jim H. ("Cullen328") to take a walk on the wild side here to discuss such things. I hope he pops by, he is a very nice person and smart as hell. I'm sure Eric Barbour would hate him.

[Zoloft]

I've asked Jim H. ("Cullen328") to take a walk on the wild side here to discuss such things. I hope he pops by, he is a very nice person and smart as hell. I'm sure Eric Barbour would hate him.

Bait takes all forms, Eric.

[eagle]

Former WMF Board Chair Kat Walsh weighed in on the Arnnon Geshuri controvery on the mailing list: linkhttps://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/w ... 80854.html[/link]

The reason this bothers me so much--enough to break my list
silence--is that I think integrity is the most important and most
difficult thing for a board member of this organization. One of the
key things that distinguishes Wikimedia from other entities is that it
does not take the easy path: it does not sell the privacy of users, it
does not make restricted content deals, it does not believe influence
over content or governance should be able to be bought. If these
decisions were easy and came without tradeoffs or pressures everyone
would make them, but they don't; we see all over that Wikimedia is an
outlier, not the norm, while others make decisions that look good in
the short term but are damaging in the long term. Organizations with
tremendous reach and influence--such as Google and Wikipedia--have a
great responsibility not to take actions that systematically harm the
people that rely on them. To know that someone at such an organization
participated in something unethical in this way does not give me great
confidence in them for leadership in Wikimedia.

I don't envy the current board the problems they are faced with, and
recognize the difficulty in recruiting for it given the level of
commitment involved--and I don't doubt that the new appointee has much
to recommend him. But despite the wealth of experience he would bring,
if the situation is as it seems to be, I cannot be supportive of this
choice.

Implicit in the mail thread is that the Board should ask him to resign or remove him.

[thekohser]

Who is Raystorm in real life? I get the impression from her WP User page that she is of the LGBT, Ada Initiative, Safe Space ilk.

[Jim]

Who is Raystorm in real life?

According to the links in this section, she is María Sefidari.

[Moral Hazard]

There is something going on here[CENSORED]

Just now noticing this, are we?

Beware

[Moral Hazard]

I don't see what the problem is.

Jimmy ran the WMF at the beginning, so it was grossly incompetent and loyal to him.

The board (and perhaps Wales) realized that the WMF was incompetent and so they brought in Lila, who was a tough manager at her CRM job, and she is getting rid of useless management and the worst staff. Most of the staff are incompetent and contribute nothing to Wikipedia, so they know they are going out the door, voluntarily or no. The WMF is so incompetent and poorly run and the staff have a history of producing bugware that they force on the community, so the staff will have difficulty doing more than "customer requirements" specifications and have to travel a lot at next jobs. Of course the staff are unhappy.

At most non-profits, the staff capture the organization, and this is the rare case where the staff's primacy over hiring and strategy is being rolled back.

This is a case where the community should express their distrust of Jimbo Wales and the WMF (including its staff) and support the changes associated with Lila---stopping the insanity at the WMF and trying to bring in competent staff.

I should hope that the WMF is preparing a second facility to which they can transfer operations and just close down San Francisco's office.

[eagle]

I don't see what the problem is.

At most non-profits, the staff capture the organization, and this is the rare case where the staff's primacy over hiring and strategy is being rolled back.

The typical non-profit has a mission and a staff and a volunteer base aligned with that mission. The mission was "build an on-line encyclopedia." In the early days, the WMF took perverse pride in how few employees it had. Progress was (and still is) measured in terms of the number of articles rather than in terms of article quality, number of copy-edited articles or reduction in the number of missing articles. The WMF stood as a symbol and guarantee that all of the editor's volunteer labors would not be commercially exploited. The WMF was not central to Wikipedia or its Community.

When Sue Gardner came (from Canadian Public Broadcasting) she unlocked the potential of a large revenue stream extracted from the user base in the form of many small donations. Over the past 6 or 7 years, the WMF has struggled to determine how to spend the money. The answer has been to grow staff size. But the roles assigned to the new staff have prevented staff-capture of the organization. More specifically, the structure of the WMF Board and the size of Mr. Wales' ego have prevented staff-capture of the organization to date. (As of August 2015, board seats are term-limited preventing anyone other than Mr. Wales to establish long-term strong influence over WMF direction and control.) To date, if anyone has captured the WMF over the past 6 years, it has been the grand poobahs of the Community.

Neither Sue, Lila nor Jimbo edit Wikipedia to any degree, so they really don't influence or control the editing community.

However, if Lila and the "Discovery" staff sought to build a new Knowledge Engine which would require little participation from the editing community and this new product became the primary connection between WMF and the end-users, then indeed the WMF would be subject to staff-capture and the Discovery staff would be able to command an ever-increasing portion of the WMF resource stream. ("Hey, more people donate from banner ads on the Knowledge Engine than on English Wikipedia, don't kill the goose that lays the golden eggs for the WMF....")

[Moral Hazard]

In general, the power is often not directly in the staff hands. However, the staff are setting the agenda.

At the WMF, before Lila the staff were aligned with the vision and practices of Erik Möller. They are resisting Lila, who has told them that they are terrible at software and community relations and should do nothing rather than continue their old ways.

[eagle]

In general, the power is often not directly in the staff hands. However, the staff are setting the agenda.

At the WMF, before Lila the staff were aligned with the vision and practices of Erik Möller. They are resisting Lila, who has told them that they are terrible at software and community relations and should do nothing rather than continue their old ways.

As the ghosts of Jack and Jacob pace the corridors of White Hall contemplating this, our analysis should be expanded to include the current controversy over the shift to Discovery, Knowledge Engine and Knight Foundation funding vs. improving or supporting the encyclopedia model. The Siri, Watson, Cortana technology is highly disruptive of the WMF mission.

[Kelly Martin]

The board (and perhaps Wales) realized that the WMF was incompetent and so they brought in Lila, who was a tough manager at her CRM job, and she is getting rid of useless management and the worst staff. Most of the staff are incompetent and contribute nothing to Wikipedia, so they know they are going out the door, voluntarily or no. The WMF is so incompetent and poorly run and the staff have a history of producing bugware that they force on the community, so the staff will have difficulty doing more than "customer requirements" specifications and have to travel a lot at next jobs. Of course the staff are unhappy.

There is no evidence that Lila is "getting rid of useless management and the worst staff". The high churn at WMF is due, from what I am hearing, to voluntary departures: people get hired, and then quit, either because they are unsatisfied or because they get a better offer elsewhere. Fairly few people are being fired. In fact, a common comment in Glassdoor reviews and elsewhere is that the ED "needs to spend less time traveling"; it seems that Lila is enjoying her travel account and is not in the office enough to actually run things.

It would appear that the WMF is a fully rudderless ship at this point. Money continues to pour in, and there's enough competence in what remains to keep the lights on and the donation flow going, but there's nobody actually steering the ship anywhere. You won't starve in a ship that founders in a sea of milk and honey, but you won't get anywhere either.

[Poetlister]

One of the
key things that distinguishes Wikimedia from other entities is that it
does not take the easy path: it does not sell the privacy of users, it
does not make restricted content deals, it does not believe influence
over content or governance should be able to be bought.

That's a very clever use of language. Kat is not saying that influence over content or governance is never bought, merely that Wikimedia does not believe that it should happen.

[Moral Hazard]

Lila ... is getting rid of useless management and the worst staff.

There is no evidence that Lila is "getting rid of useless management and the worst staff".

Erik Möller was publicly moved to a sideline position, and his projects were taken off undead-support, then he quit to pursue other adventures. Yeah, right.
Vigilant and Tarantino have documented new staff coming in, upgrading outgoing people.
Firings have been few, since Sarah something was terminated, I agree. Would you agree that the most infuriating WMF projects have been terminated and there have been good steps since Lila became ED?

[HRIP7]

Slashdot submission: http://slashdot.org/submission/5441793/ ... -wikipedia

As Wikipedia is about to turn 15 years old, relations between the volunteer community and the Wikimedia Foundation board have reached a new nadir. First, Dr James Heilman, an immensely popular volunteer noted for his energetic efforts to make Wikipedia's medical articles more trustworthy, was expelled from the board, causing wide-spread protests. Then it transpired that Wikimedia is working on a secretive "Knowledge Engine" project funded by a restricted grant from the Knight Foundation, leading to calls for more transparency about the project. Lastly, a few days ago the board announced the appointment of Arnnon Geshuri, former Senior Director of HR and Staffing at Google, to the Wikimedia board, provoking a further loss of confidence. The volunteers are pointing to Geshuri's past involvement in anticompetitive hiring agreements at Google, which led to a class-action lawsuit resulting in a $415 million settlement. They want Geshuri gone.

(Also posted in the Heilman thread, as it touches on both of them. Apologies to anyone inconvenienced by the duplication.)

[Zoloft]

Slashdot submission: http://slashdot.org/submission/5441793/ ... -wikipedia

As Wikipedia is about to turn 15 years old, relations between the volunteer community and the Wikimedia Foundation board have reached a new nadir. First, Dr James Heilman, an immensely popular volunteer noted for his energetic efforts to make Wikipedia's medical articles more trustworthy, was expelled from the board, causing wide-spread protests. Then it transpired that Wikimedia is working on a secretive "Knowledge Engine" project funded by a restricted grant from the Knight Foundation, leading to calls for more transparency about the project. Lastly, a few days ago the board announced the appointment of Arnnon Geshuri, former Senior Director of HR and Staffing at Google, to the Wikimedia board, provoking a further loss of confidence. The volunteers are pointing to Geshuri's past involvement in anticompetitive hiring agreements at Google, which led to a class-action lawsuit resulting in a $415 million settlement. They want Geshuri gone.

(Also posted in the Heilman thread, as it touches on both of them. Apologies to anyone inconvenienced by the duplication.)

Upvoted.

[Kelly Martin]

Lila ... is getting rid of useless management and the worst staff.

There is no evidence that Lila is "getting rid of useless management and the worst staff".

Erik Möller was publicly moved to a sideline position, and his projects were taken off undead-support, then he quit to pursue other adventures. Yeah, right.
Vigilant and Tarantino have documented new staff coming in, upgrading outgoing people.
Firings have been few, since Sarah something was terminated, I agree. Would you agree that the most infuriating WMF projects have been terminated and there have been good steps since Lila became ED?

A couple of the most egregious senior managers were sacked and replaced by people the Purple Unicorn liked (one of whom, Damon Sicore, himself has since left), but after that was accomplished, she has largely done nothing. A short sharp shock followed by only the reverberations of the sickening thud of a few bodies hitting the floor, and business as usual otherwise, is not a systematic purge.

Again, it seems that most of the middle managers that are leaving are leaving voluntarily. It's possible they're being forced out subtly, but based on the "recommendations" these people are writing for sites like Glassdoor, if it's due to being forced, it's a very subtle form of forcing indeed.

[Randy from Boise]

It seems that the inner circle of WMF decision-makers want to move from the encyclopedia model to the "fodder for Watson" model. It's not an either/or, obviously, but it feels like the money and technological initiative is chasing the latter.

This is why Google is so interested in WP; they realize that it's big, big money to them to expand their little knowledge box shit with some sort of Siri-like capability. "Ask Google Anything." The wave of the future......

The board majority is playing this game hard.

RfB

[Anthonyhcole]

It seems that the inner circle of WMF decision-makers want to move from the encyclopedia model to the "fodder for Watson" model. It's not an either/or, obviously, but it feels like the money and technological initiative is chasing the latter.

This is why Google is so interested in WP; they realize that it's big, big money to them to expand their little knowledge box shit with some sort of Siri-like capability. "Ask Google Anything." The wave of the future......

The board majority is playing this game hard.

RfB

We should step right back from Google. They should be coming to us as supplicants, not sitting on the fucking board. Why am I the only one whining about Denny, the trustee actually on Google's payroll, not recusing himself from from WikiData and Knowledge Engine discussions and decisions? Compared to this, Roger Bamkin's little business while on WMUK's board was nothing. I've raised it in a Signpost comment to crickets, a wikimedia-l thread where one person asked if I was suggesting Denny should step down and another said but but the community annointed him, and on Jimmy's talk page where one person mocked me, Jimmy couldn't see any conflict and someone pointed to us developing a search engine.

I suspect everyone's just a bit embarrassed that nobody raised the glaring classic financial conflict of interest in the lead-up to the election. Pffft.

Really, Denny should step down because there is potential for our and Google's interests to clash in many more domains than just WikiData and KE. It's untenable. Fox guarding the hen-house stuff.

[Zoloft]

It seems that the inner circle of WMF decision-makers want to move from the encyclopedia model to the "fodder for Watson" model. It's not an either/or, obviously, but it feels like the money and technological initiative is chasing the latter.

This is why Google is so interested in WP; they realize that it's big, big money to them to expand their little knowledge box shit with some sort of Siri-like capability. "Ask Google Anything." The wave of the future......

The board majority is playing this game hard.

RfB

We should step right back from Google. They should be coming to us as supplicants, not sitting on the fucking board. Why am I the only one whining about Denny, the trustee actually on Google's payroll, not recusing himself from from WikiData and Knowledge Engine discussions and decisions? Compared to this, Roger Bamkin's little business while on WMUK's board was nothing. I've raised it in a Signpost comment to crickets, a wikimedia-l thread where one person asked if I was suggesting Denny should step down and another said but but the community annointed him, and on Jimmy's talk page where one person mocked me, Jimmy couldn't see any conflict and someone pointed to us developing a search engine.

I suspect everyone's just a bit embarrassed that nobody raised the glaring classic financial conflict of interest in the lead-up to the election. Pffft.

Really, Denny should step down because there is potential for our and Google's interests to clash in many more domains than just WikiData and KE. It's untenable. Fox guarding the hen-house stuff.

One of our members is a SignPost writer. What odds would you give that all this won't be in the next issue?

[HRIP7]

One of our members is a SignPost writer. What odds would you give that all this won't be in the next issue?

I can't speak for the next issue, but two recent Signpost issues touched on this:

2 Dec. 2015, Whither Wikidata? (last paragraph)

6 Jan. 2016, The WMF's age of discontent (section "New Board-appointed trustees have ties to Silicon Valley")

[Anthonyhcole]

One of our members is a SignPost writer. What odds would you give that all this won't be in the next issue?

I can't speak for the next issue, but two recent Signpost issues touched on this:

2 Dec. 2015, Whither Wikidata? (last paragraph)

6 Jan. 2016, The WMF's age of discontent (section "New Board-appointed trustees have ties to Silicon Valley")

I had read those. (Your article was what set me off.)

My point is, the WMF can shrug off complaints about Jimmy's, Guy's and Kelly's connections as tenuous or historical. They shouldn't but they can and will. They can't do that with "on their damn payroll, now." This is the very definition of a financial conflict of interest. Yet it has hardly garnerered any discussion or commentary, compared with that generated around Doc James and Arnnon.

Ok. This just now on wikimedia-l from Dariusz(linkhttps://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/w ... 80943.html[/link])

10.01.2016 05:04 "Fæ" <faewik@gmail.com> napisał(a):
>
> To help debunk conspiracy theorists, it would be interesting to find
> out how many of the board of trustees have shares in Google, a useful
> way of finding out who is part of the Googleplex.

While I don't have, and never had (nor expect to have in the future) any
shares in Google, I have to make a full disclosure that I do use Google for
my internet searches (Google.pl, to be exact, which may also be
occasionally relevant).

But then a little later from Dariusz

On Sun, Jan 10, 2016 at 10:22 AM, Fæ <faewik@gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks for talking about it Dariusz.
>
> Could you please make a serious declaration of interests as is being
> discussed at [1]. This will help set a ethical model for the rest of
> the WMF board to follow without needing a year to think about it. If
> you want to check some best practice examples of meaningful and frank
> declarations, take a look at WMUK's.[2]
>

I have no problem with that. You've provided links from WMUK, so until
there is something similar for WMF, I don't think we can expect all Board
members to make declarations (but I also think it would be a good practice
to develop a similar model for WMF board, just observing that I don't know
of one yet; I will ask).

I terms of shares, I am a major shareholder in Druid Multimedia sp. z o. o.
(Polish abbreviation for LLC), which developed the largest online
dictionary in Poland. If there are any discussions related to Wiktionary or
other dictionary services (e.g. within Wikidata) and the dictionary is
still published by the company, I am going to recuse myself. I also own a
significant number of shares in Insta.Ling sp. z o. o., which is a startup
oriented at online flashcard language acquisition (currently with about
50,000 users in Poland and Germany). If there is ever a language
acquisition project discussed, and I'm still in, I'm going to recuse
myself.

I've also had a number of academic affiliations, but these can hardly be
considered a potential COI, I think.

I'm glad the conversation is back to more civilized - I have to admit that
I don't quite enjoy being called a clown (while I have a healthy respect
and awe for clowns, and I don't consider myself to be suffering from
coulrophobia).

cheers,

dj

It looks like a 21st century notion of COI best practice is just beginning to dawn on them.

Fae is doing excellent work on this.

[Vigilant]

It's pretty funny but kind of sad that the WMF has had sooooo many poor appointments that should have been roundfiled after a minimal google search.

[eagle]

Fae asked Dariusz Jemielniak to make a financial disclosure as a WMF Board Member: linkhttps://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/w ... 80944.html[/link]

Could you please make a serious declaration of interests as is being
discussed at [1]. This will help set a ethical model for the rest of
the WMF board to follow without needing a year to think about it. If
you want to check some best practice examples of meaningful and frank
declarations, take a look at WMUK's.

In response Dariusz disclosed his ownership holdings (which involved a Polish software company).linkhttps://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/w ... 80945.html[/link]

Of course, it would would be far more interesting to see the disclosures of Jimbo Wales and Guy Kawasaki.

Although Fae (T-C-L) seeks disclosure to the entire Community, Florida law requires disclosure only to the other directors:linkhttp://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/ind ... .0832.html[/link]

(1) No contract or other transaction between a corporation and one or more of its directors or any other corporation, firm, association, or entity in which one or more of its directors are directors or officers or are financially interested shall be either void or voidable because of such relationship or interest, because such director or directors are present at the meeting of the board of directors or a committee thereof which authorizes, approves, or ratifies such contract or transaction, or because his or her or their votes are counted for such purpose, if:
(a) The fact of such relationship or interest is disclosed or known to the board of directors or committee which authorizes, approves, or ratifies the contract or transaction by a vote or consent sufficient for the purpose without counting the votes or consents of such interested directors;
(b) The fact of such relationship or interest is disclosed or known to the members entitled to vote on such contract or transaction, if any, and they authorize, approve, or ratify it by vote or written consent; or
(c) The contract or transaction is fair and reasonable as to the corporation at the time it is authorized by the board, a committee, or the members.
(2) For purposes of paragraph (1)(a) only, a conflict-of-interest transaction is authorized, approved, or ratified if it receives the affirmative vote of a majority of the directors on the board of directors, or on the committee, who have no relationship or interest in the transaction described in subsection (1), but a transaction may not be authorized, approved, or ratified under this section by a single director. If a majority of the directors who have no relationship or interest in the transaction vote to authorize, approve, or ratify the transaction, a quorum is present for the purpose of taking action under this section. The presence of, or a vote cast by, a director having a relationship or interest in the transaction does not affect the validity of any action taken under paragraph (1)(a) if the transaction is otherwise authorized, approved, or ratified as provided in subsection (1), but such presence or vote of such a director may be counted for purposes of determining whether the transaction is approved under other sections of this chapter.
(3) For purposes of paragraph (1)(b), a conflict-of-interest transaction is authorized, approved, or ratified if it receives the vote of a majority in interest of the members entitled to vote under this subsection. A director who has a relationship or interest in the transaction described in subsection (1) may not vote to determine whether to authorize, approve, or ratify a conflict-of-interest transaction under paragraph (1)(b). However, the vote of that director is counted in determining whether the transaction is approved under other sections of this chapter. A majority in interest of the members entitled to vote on the transaction under this subsection constitutes a quorum for the purpose of taking action under this section. As used in this subsection, the term “majority in interest” refers to a majority of the voting shares or other voting units allotted to the members

Florida does not set a minimum threshold for "financial interest."

[HRIP7]

Interestingly, at the time of writing there seems to be no mention at all of the illegal no-poaching agreement in the Eric Schmidt (T-H-L) biography, the Google (T-H-L) article or the Criticism of Google (T-H-L) article.

There is a dedicated article on it though at High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation (T-H-L), linked to in the newly created Arnnon Geshuri (T-H-L) biography.

Given that this was a $415 million lawsuit, that's quite an oversight, isn't it?

[Poetlister]

Fae is doing excellent work on this.

Hmm. Is it time to apologise to Fae for all the nasty things that have been said here about him?

[thekohser]

Fae is doing excellent work on this.

Hmm. Is it time to apologise to Fae for all the nasty things that have been said here about him?

Has he apologized for all the nasty things that he said about us here?

[Vigilant]

Here's an interesting article.
http://thewikipedian.net/2016/01/11/the ... ry-street/

Made even better by an interesting comment.

With the admitted understanding that I’m doing this anonymously (I’m sure you understand why) I feel obligated to point out an important clarifier: While there is certainly anger with WMF Staff (both those who originated from the community and those who didn’t) and we all have disagreements with specific c-level decisions etc (especially Engineering who has had a lot of turn over and conflict there) there is significantly more support of the C-levels then with Lila and the Board. In fact the c-suite is in a horrible position because they ALL told Lila (and the board) that they felt she had to go and were turned down and so are stuck trying to do their job (whether it be legally protecting the foundation, supporting the communications work & how the board is heard [even if the board ignores them], supporting the staff, keeping the community and engineering teams going etc) while having a Board and ED who refuse to listen to them.

The vast vast majority of the “confidence in Senior Leadership” scores were about Lila and the Board, and ONLY Lila and the Board. The other stat which the Signpost released is also important in context: “The Signpost has been informed that among the “C-levels” (members of the executive), only one has confidence in senior leadership.” is even more striking when you realize that the “Executive” group released in the survey was 7 people, there are only 6 C-levels (+Lila), which means that only Lila had confidence in herself. (and the direction in the foundation, which was also 1/7 for that group)


WMF Staffer
11 January 2016 at 4pm

Senior management went to the WMF board and said Lila needed to go and were rebuffed.

Clear your browser history, kiddos.

[thekohser]

Staffer doesn't know the difference between 'then' and 'than'.

[Randy from Boise]

Here's an interesting article.
http://thewikipedian.net/2016/01/11/the ... ry-street/

Made even better by an interesting comment.

With the admitted understanding that I’m doing this anonymously (I’m sure you understand why) I feel obligated to point out an important clarifier: While there is certainly anger with WMF Staff (both those who originated from the community and those who didn’t) and we all have disagreements with specific c-level decisions etc (especially Engineering who has had a lot of turn over and conflict there) there is significantly more support of the C-levels then with Lila and the Board. In fact the c-suite is in a horrible position because they ALL told Lila (and the board) that they felt she had to go and were turned down and so are stuck trying to do their job (whether it be legally protecting the foundation, supporting the communications work & how the board is heard [even if the board ignores them], supporting the staff, keeping the community and engineering teams going etc) while having a Board and ED who refuse to listen to them.

The vast vast majority of the “confidence in Senior Leadership” scores were about Lila and the Board, and ONLY Lila and the Board. The other stat which the Signpost released is also important in context: “The Signpost has been informed that among the “C-levels” (members of the executive), only one has confidence in senior leadership.” is even more striking when you realize that the “Executive” group released in the survey was 7 people, there are only 6 C-levels (+Lila), which means that only Lila had confidence in herself. (and the direction in the foundation, which was also 1/7 for that group)


WMF Staffer
11 January 2016 at 4pm

Senior management went to the WMF board and said Lila needed to go and were rebuffed.

Clear your browser history, kiddos.

............. And this is the conflict that James Heilman inserted himself into. Clearly he talked to the anti-Lila staffers and supported their complaints (or at least expedited the process of making their complaints known to the Board); Lila is a protected patron of the Board majority. Lila won the vote of confidence and Heilman was pushed off the pier — in a rush because Jan-Bart and one other oldtimer were scheduled to be rotated out. If they had waited, the moment to slash him would have been lost...

There's the full story.

RfB

[Zoloft]

Next blog post title should be:

Wikipedia is Burning from the Inside

[Randy from Boise]

Next blog post title should be:

Wikipedia is Burning from the Inside

[eagle]

Since the WMF Board has just had two Board members leave the Board, it is a wake-up call to review the expectations placed on WMF Board members. This topic might be worthy of an on-wiki RFC or a WO blogpost.

During the debate surrounding Doc James' conduct, there were many references to the "Board Handbook." A search of the WMF Board Minutes show that the Board never adopted the handbook, and it appears that it is merely a collection of various other individual policies that was adopted by the Board. The Community should certainly expect that the Board handbook or any other statement of expectation of Board members (such as the solicitation letter sent to prospective members) should be shared on-wiki.

Expectations can also be sourced from experts that provide general advice to non-profit Boards and from principles of Florida law governing non-profits. One popular resource is https://www.boardsource.org/ Obviously, the Community contains a number of lawyers and people with experience in serving on the Board of Directors of non-profits. So, there may be resources internal to the Community regarding best practices as well.

A major obstacle to accountability and the adoption of best practices has been that the Community is accustomed to operating on-wiki, while the WMF Board, its committees and advisory councils have operated off-wiki and largely in private. Many community members monitor English Wikipedia policy development or other events with passionate inspection of watchlists, while the number of Community members who carefully watch WMF governance is minimal. This gap should be easy to bridge.

The two ultimate constraints on the WMF have been accountability to contributors and the freedom to fork. Both of these constraints are being eroded through recent trends because if the WMF has a stream of small donors unsophisticated in non-profit governance and if the WMF imposes API access fees, there is no effective constraint that would otherwise be imposed by large grant-making foundations. Similarly, as the WMF develops products other than Mediawiki based wikis, the freedom to fork rapidly disappears. This adds urgency to the need to clarify governance expectations quickly.

The Community could develop a set of expectations regarding the WMF Board members. The areas to be addressed could be:
* The mission and scope of the Wikimedia movement
* Transparency and accountability
* Best practices on corporate governance
* Metrics for assuring that the WMF staff delivers effective and efficient support to the mission
* Strategic thinking
* Communication
* A Board committee structure that integrates participation with members of the broader community
* Funding strategy that assures that the WMF remains aligned with the community (e.g., annoucement and approval of large grants and grant restrictions; endowment solicitation)

The WMF has become a multi-million dollar venture with a community that spans the globe. This is too big to be run out of a founder's hip pocket or by ten well-meaning people operating in a vacuum. We can do much better.

[NativeForeigner]

Given what seems to be a pretty substantial collapse of the wikkan empire (not funny, but I'm quite under the weather, give me a berak), and its close relevance to the thread, the gorillawarfare created timeline of events is a pretty good (and pretty good looking, I wonder what library she used) timeline of events.

http://mollywhite.net/wikimedia-timeline/

Also, this is something which I fairly regularly rant about, but I think the foundation has mixed up "code" with value. IMO many startups are of the mentality "well if we have top notch programmers writing top notch code we'll be successful". No, if you have a successful business model you'll be successful. If this requires writing code (google), then yes, code adds value. If it requires cooking really good carne asada fries (do go to lolita's, if in san diego), hiring a recently graduated Computer Science major (or two or three or fifty) out of Stanford won't make them more profitable. It'll just lead to real confusion as to whether the business model is Fries, and California burritos, or in disrupting construct of carne asada fry california burrito consumption.

Ie, it would have been better to just focus on strengths. Make more burritos.

[GorillaWarfare]

Thanks! Regarding libraries, I used normalize.css, but everything else is my own. It's all on Github.

And why would you mention carne asada fry burritos? I'm so hungry, and burritos are certainly one thing on which the East Coast cannot compete with the West Coast.

[NativeForeigner]

Thanks! Regarding libraries, I used normalize.css, but everything else is my own. It's all on Github.

And why would you mention carne asada fry burritos? I'm so hungry, and burritos are certainly one thing on which the East Coast cannot compete with the West Coast.

Trying to persuade Zoloft to share any secrets he may have, as well as console myself, as I may well be on the east coast post graduation.

And yeah, that's a pretty nifty design. I looked through the github and thought you were doing some include shenanigans, (and I had to run off before I could fully examine it) but that's a cool setup you have. I neither have the css proficiency nor the design acument to do something like that.

[GorillaWarfare]

Trying to persuade Zoloft to share any secrets he may have, as well as console myself, as I may well be on the east coast post graduation.

Don't get me wrong, I am fully convinced the East Coast is the place to be... despite our burrito failings.

[thekohser]

Trying to persuade Zoloft to share any secrets he may have, as well as console myself, as I may well be on the east coast post graduation.

Don't get me wrong, I am fully convinced the East Coast is the place to be... despite our burrito failings.

I'm on the East Coast, and so it follows that it's better than the West Coast.

Gorilla, that is a beautiful timeline. It tells the trainwreck story, blow by factual blow.