"Removed from". Whoa.

Vague statement of the WMF Board:



link


Sounds like a dissident got crushed.

If there's an election, I'm running...

RfB

I've reached out to Dr. Heilman and asked him to comment here.

tim

I remember back in late March 2015, Heilman was contemplating interfering with other people's livelihoods, by "reporting" them to sites like Elance and Fiverr. I doubt that had anything to do with his dismissal from the WMF board, but it did showcase for me how much Heilman imagined himself some sort of "volunteer police officer" when it came to Wikipedia, which is rather idiotic.

I wonder who will be the first to scramble together a comment to the mailing list? Oh, heavens... I should have known.

Where there's drama, there's Kevin.......

RfB

P.S. I wonder if this means he's back from his internet-free holiday month visit to the uninhabited hinterlands or whatever it was that required a postponement of his ArbCom case...

I'm waiting for an email from the board that uses our favorite piece of California newspeak, "culture fit".

I suppose the 'community' could always select Heilman again. For lulz.

Salient:

I couldn't think of any better way to summarize this whole affair.

The Doc is out

Nothing says transparency and openness more than the unexplained removal of a board member from a major 501c3.

You guys couldn't have done more to undermine confidence in the WMF's governance had you sat down and tried to work it out in advance.

Bra-vo!

Vote him in again and send them a big F.U.

That would be funny. It also says quite a lot that they vote out the only (as far as I know) member of the board with a Doctoral degree.

The fact that he would feel it necessary to declare that "there was not any COI or legal impropriety on [his] part" suggests to me that the incident(s) leading to his removal would, most likely, lead some people to assume there was some COI or legal impropriety involved.

I see no reason not to take him at his word, but regardless, Heilman, aka User:Doc James (T-C-L), is best known for being quite outspoken on the subject of pharmaceutical companies and their efforts to influence various Wikipedia drug-related articles in their favor. As everyone knows, pharmaceutical companies are extremely litigious (not to mention their having just about the deepest pockets imaginable). If I had to guess, this action probably has something to do with that - it's conceivable that Heilman tried to use his position on the WMF board to intimidate a pharma company into backing off on some activity he deemed objectionable, and after reading the inevitable C&D letter that would have resulted, the rest of the WMF board didn't think that was such a good thing for him to be doing.

Again, this is pure guesswork on my part and should not be used as the basis for an actual cash wager or any sort of formal odds-making activity.

A medical doctor is a professional degree, like a law degree, which does not require or involve research (apart from joint M.D./Ph.D.).

In the U.S., medical doctors in have had scientific courses on the level of B.S.E. or B.S. courses, and they usually are smart.
In Sweden, medical students have had straight A's in gymnasium, so they are quite smart (and good at short-term memorization).

Doc James has been discussed before, and I don't trust him.

Usually, unexpected/sudden removals are associated with wrongdoing so it's not surprising he clarified that those weren't the reason. i'd be inclined to agree with him at this point as Boards would not remove without an investigation and we would, quite frankly, have heard about a decision to investigate malfeasance of any sort. The Board wouldn't allege and investigate wrongdoing by themselves and, short of an arrest, indictment or conviction, would not remove immediately for an allegation.

Since there was no such investigative announcement, I think it's more simple. I don't think the WMF is as en-wp centric as this trustee. e.g. a number of recent arbcom candidates talked about getting grants for professional assistance with dispute resolution and harassment on en.wp. I don't know the exact makeup of WMF trustees but a clash of priorities (such as solving 1st world en-wp problems vs. 3rd world global problems outside the bubble) seems more likely. If it was anything with legal ramifications, it would have been the announcement of hiring an outside firm to investigate and make recommendations.

Or we could put up someone from here. Greg has experience and could do some coaching.

James's brain-child meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Project_Med is incorporated in New York State as a non-profit charity—specifically as a 501(c)(3) organization (T-H-L), which so is barred from many political activities (c.f., 501(c)(3) organization#Lobbying (T-H-L)). Nonethless, it lobbies governments: It does its own fund-raising, disbursements, and contractual relations with partner organizations

Jimbo has cleared up why there hasn't been a more detailed explanation of the removal.

It's all Heilman's fault.

Good choice of avatar, KW!


Yes, that pretty much irrevocably damaged my trust in him, as well. Atrocious reasoning on all points.

Huh.

Translation: we need time to get our story straight in order to cover our asses.

James is as terrible a categorizer as the Chinese encyclopediast of Borges who was quoted at the beginning of Michel Foucault's Les mots et les choses / The Order of things.

Doc James's first protector, Kevin Gorman (T-C-L), wrote Wikipedia's article on Immunoglobulin therapy (T-H-L) while complaining about impaired cognition following sepsis.

Parents:
Tell your children not to pop their pimples! Blood from the face flows to the brain.
A colleague of my mother got an (essentially incurable) flesh-eating bacterial infection, likely because she had a pimple on her butt.

That's how I interpreted that too. I think this has a very real chance of exploding in the WMF's face.

Reminded me of this clip.

I think I'd make an excellent board member.

Here's an interesting post on the mailing list.

https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/w ... 80530.html

The relevant bits


I wonder if WMF legal is about to have their hands full...

This could lead to hilariously awkward board meetings if Heilman is forcibly reinstated by state law.

It's really amateur half-hour to handle something like this. it is straightforward, on any Board, to sideline a member without actually removing him/her. You strip them of committee assignments, appoint an Executive Committee of everyone else except the sidelined member, and then hold perfunctory full Board meetings, ratifying the actions of the EC and any other committees. The full Board meeting can then be accomplished in about 1/2 hour.

That they decided to eject a community board member before the end of his term is hilariously inappropriate and unnecessary. However, don't expect an explanation from the WMF -- to do so could expose them to litigation if Dr. Heilman were so inclined.

Doc James (T-C-L) / James Heilman (T-H-L)'s outing of editors and his negative editing of articles, e.g., biasing articles about Medtronic products was discussed by The Atlantic Monthly.



Medtronic is one of my favorite companies. They made the IV-nutrition pump that extended my mother's life 6 months. They also were collaborating with Swedish control-theorists to develop a real-time alarm system, so parents would not have to worry that their kid would die from diabetes during the night (and adults with diabetes would not feel a need to eat a meal just before sleeping only to reduce the risk of dying asleep).

Heilman and many other Wikipedians seem to adhere to the 1875 Gotha Programme: The state is pure and should solve all problems, while private firms taint everything they touch. Policies like NPOV and RS (as well as prohibitions against "opposition research" and outing) are ignored, and articles are biased against their subjects. (Similarly, BLP articles, particularly about politicians, are often overly negative.)

If he did stand and were re-elected, that would be a vote of no confidence in the eight trustees who voted to dismiss him. Would their position be tenable?

As much fun as either alternative might be, speaking entirely for myself I don't dislike either of you enough to submit you to such an indignity.

They have no shame.
It would be just slightly more awkward that it is already.

Think Thanksgiving with the newly 'out' nephew.

Perfect timing!

https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/w ... 80563.html

Anybody want to bet that the two new board members are "go along, get along" type of appointments?

Here's an interesting email on the list.
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/w ... 80566.html

Yes but I dislike almost everyone else enough to inflict Vigilant on them...

So, what I'm piecing together from all this is that Heilman was ejected because he objected to sub rosa editing of medical topics by representatives of the pharmaceutical, surgical supply, and medical device industries, in a manner that the Board found objectionable. Just how much money did the WMF receive in donations from the pharmaceutical, surgical supply, and medical device industries in the past five years?

This seems like a topic ripe for some seriously bad PR for Wikipedia.

I'm not sure what we can say the cause was. The anti-paid editing zealot Smallbones (T-H-L) is the #1 flag-bearer in Dr. Heilman's army, but it doesn't necessarily follow that differences over WMF-set Terms Of Service regarding paid editing was necessarily the cause of the purge. JW has indicated that a statement is forthcoming, which we all know means very little in terms of what will actually follow.

I suppose that what we need is one of the Trustees to leak information. Go ahead and PM me on this site, I am discreet...

Dr. Heilman also needs to make his statement — here, there, or anywhere.

This is a disturbing precedent in which the clique has purged an elected board member and we really must keep up a drumbeat for more information.

RfB

I think that once the Board has worked out a statement with Legal, their explanation can be debated, dissected, defended or refuted. Right now, the only folks who know what happened at this meeting aren't talking and all we can do is speculate.

I'm surprised at how definitive this action was. This makes me think either a) this was an emergency measure or b) there have been problems for a while that the Board tried to resolve through dialogue and discussion which were unsuccessful and which we were unaware of that led to this action. The statement that "This was not a decision the Board took lightly" makes me think it is the latter.

The mainstream media has weighed in on the matter.

Gold stars to any WPO regulars who leave a comment on that story.

You have a comment now.

Can someone explain to someone like me who doesn't really understand how the WMF board is comprised, and what their role is in guiding the foundation, how this removal is significant? Was Hellman the only "elected" representative? If so, how did the other board members gain their seats?

Kind of puts Gorman's "I'm too sick, Christmas blah blah blah" excuse for having his Arbcom case postponed as just that; an excuse. Every restaraunt worker has heard the old adage from their manager "If you have time to lean, you have time to clean."

Try this: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Board_of_Trustees

And this: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimed ... es#History

And this: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Hi ... _the_Board

That may be legal, but it sure is a cruel way to deal with a fellow colleague. I would hope there would be public and private discussions with the individual trying to find ways at compromise before going to The Outcasts of Poker Flat (T-H-L) strategy.

I volunteer at a non-profit with a board that gets very divisive about issues and compromise (or just plain dropping the subject for eternity) is the only way forward. Sidelining is just not an option. You'd have a civil war and the place would collapse.

I'm sure the Foundation is very much hoping that this won't become "newsworthy" and that it fades off into the distance without being adequately addressed.

Given how they folded like a house of cards when Gerard made fainting noises at them, I'd bet Heilman can make them all dance a tune if he chooses.

The plantation owners have dispensed with the slaves uppity spokesperson. What more is there to say?

That is a completely tasteless comment.