Lila Tretikov resigns as Executive Director of WMF

[Alison]

"Thank you for our time together"

Dear fellow Wikimedians

It is with great respect that I have tendered, and the board has accepted, my resignation as Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation earlier this week. I am both inspired by, and proud of, the many great things we have all accomplished at the Foundation over the last two years, most significantly reversing the loss of our editorial community. I would like to thank our Board of Trustees and Advisors, our Foundation staff, as well as the many outstanding community members for their support and encouragement on this journey. I remain passionate about the value and potential of open knowledge and Wikimedia to change the world. My last day at the Foundation will be March 31, 2016.

Wikimedia occupies a special place in the world. It is a cultural and technological revolution. Change is necessary to keep it thriving. In bringing me in as the Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation the Board tasked me with making changes to serve the next generation and ensure our impact in the future. Driving these changes has been challenging, and I have always appreciated the open and honest discourse we have had along the way. However, I am moved by the accomplishments we have achieved during this time:

-

Strategically, we laid out our summary of the vision for united in knowledge
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php? ... df&page=50>
and future of Wikimedia last June.
-

Operationally, we have reformed our procedures and initiated key performance metrics and reviews
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/10/20/fo ... mber-2015/>.

-

Technologically we have introduced innovative approaches such as machine learning
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/11/30/ar ... ray-specs/>
and mobile
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/01/15/im ... xperience/>
applications, started improvements in search
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/12/23/se ... wikipedia/>,
grew translations
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/01/29/co ... -articles/>
and dramatically improved website performance
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/12/29/ho ... e-as-fast/>.
In 2015, we made visual editor the default for all new users on English
Wikipedia.
-

We united our community support departments and created a new community tech team to address community needs
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2015_Co ... s_report_1>.

-

Profoundly, for the first time in seven years, highly active editor numbers have increased
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/09/25/wi ... r-numbers/> and
overall editor decline has stopped.
-

Equitably, I am proud of our efforts to address the gender gap
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/03/04/in ... diversity/>,
our growing focus on site safety and anti-harassment
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/?s=harassment> initiatives and child
protection -- I believe these are essential to protecting the fundamental
principles of tolerance, open discourse and mutual respect -- our greatest
strengths.
-

We fought against censorship and surveillance
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/10/opini ... .html?_r=0>,
which pose severe existential threats to our mission of free knowledge.
-

Financially, we grew rapidly in 2014 to seed and launch the Wikimedia
Endowment <https://15.wikipedia.org/endowment.html> and secure our
future for years to come.

I move on with confidence that the Foundation can meet new challenges in a challenging environment. I believe in our ability to continue to lead through this change. At this critical juncture for the Foundation, and for the free and open knowledge movement as a whole, solidarity, creativity, adaptability and passion will continue to propel our movement forward, and empower our vision towards our future.

I will support the process of identifying our new leadership in every way that I can, and offer my assistance to the Board as they conduct their search for my successor. It has been an honor to serve and to contribute to our great movement.

With warm regards,

Lila

[Kelly Martin]

Color me somewhat surprised.

Any word as to an successor or interim head honcho?

[greybeard]

While the dysfunctional Wikipedia community will celebrate this, it indicates conclusively the extent of the disarray the WMF is in, largely because of its own Board and that very community.

[Vigilant]

I'm surprised.

I'm sure things will get better while the WMF is rudderless for the next six months.

[Beeblebrox]

I have to admit I had high hopes for her, and she did make a few positive changes, but it seems clear that the WMF has been in crisis mode for some time now and she has been unable to resolve matters.

[Lightbreather]

I predicted this yesterday and those who replied said, "I wouldn't count it," and "The Board gave her a mandate," and "It's the staff who should be worried," so I let it drop.

I am sorry to be right about this one.

[The Adversary]

I´m somewhat surprised.

Though she does not mention it, getting rid of some of the "dead meat" from WMF counts as one of her greatest achievements, IMO.

I do not envy her successor.

[lilburne]

Does this mean that Moller is coming back? Can whatsisname withdraw his resignation?

[The Adversary]

Does this mean that Moller is coming back?

No, Eloquence (T-C-L) wrote here:

There will be no triumphant return of [[User:Eloquence]] to the WMF, don't worry. Been there, done that, got the closet full of t-shirts, and it was my call to leave the org.

......besides the "tiny" fact that he is completely unqualified to lead the WMF.

Can whatsisname withdraw his resignation?

Hell, no. Ironholds (T-C-L) is out the door, next month.

[thekohser]

I predicted this yesterday and those who replied said, "I wouldn't count it," and "The Board gave her a mandate," and "It's the staff who should be worried," so I let it drop.

I am sorry to be right about this one.

I posted in another thread that Jimbo's defense of Lila's objectives would be a counter-indicator of her survivability. Also, my dear friend Randy from Boise gave her about 6 months, tops, if I recall correctly.

So, congrats on being right, but you weren't exactly alone.

[thekohser]

I'm sure things will get better while the WMF is rudderless for the next six months.

There's something to be said for that. Wikipedia is hardly any different now than it was in 2007, when a mostly rudderless WMF puttered along with a couple of employees. The only major missteps then were Jimbo trying to submit for reimbursement a subway ticket used to travel to a massage parlor, and the WMF hiring a multi-count felon to be their Chief Operating Officer.

Really, it's probably worse now. Jimbo takes huge sums of money from autocratic human rights abusers (which is far worse than popping into a massage parlor), and on the WMF board recently sat one of the key players in a multi-million-dollar anticompetitive hiring scandal (which many would probably say is worse than some lady who occasionally got caught driving drunk and once shot a gun at the father of her child).

[Poetlister]

I'm surprised.

I'm sure things will get better while the WMF is rudderless for the next six months.

They're not very likely to get worse.

......besides the "tiny" fact that he is completely unqualified to lead the WMF.

When have little things like competence ever bothered the WMF?

The WMF is so dysfunctional that nobody serious would take the position.

Yes, I expect they'll get some clown.

[tarantino]

This is going to put a damper on Lila and Guy Kawasaki's panel at South By Southwest, "Wikipedia: Beyond the Encyclopedia", scheduled for March 13.

[Randy from Boise]

Color me somewhat surprised.

Any word as to an successor or interim head honcho?

Me, less so...

I thought she would survive this current crisis, but the clock was clearly running out on her regime.

I'll call Sue Gardner as interim ED, just making up wild shit because it sounds plausible...

RfB

[Randy from Boise]

I predicted this yesterday and those who replied said, "I wouldn't count it," and "The Board gave her a mandate," and "It's the staff who should be worried," so I let it drop.

I am sorry to be right about this one.

I posted in another thread that Jimbo's defense of Lila's objectives would be a counter-indicator of her survivability. Also, my dear friend Randy from Boise gave her about 6 months, tops, if I recall correctly.

So, congrats on being right, but you weren't exactly alone.

I'm happy to share the glory with you, even if you are a Michigander...

RfB

[Poetlister]

We want Jimbo!
We want Jimbo!
We want Jimbo!
We want Jimbo!

Presumably, he's not doing anything useful at TPO.

[Anroth]

I predict the replacement will be a current or former google employee.

[Vigilant]

Never fear! The great white mope is coming to SF!
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2016-February/082487.html

That post reminded me so much of this clip. Edit:
I wonder what the general feeling towards Jimbo is, given the calling out for being a liar that happened on this page.
Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost/2016-02-17/Special_report

[Hex]

Maybe she just thought, "To hell with this nonsense!"

She could be forgiven for doing so.

[thekohser]

Question: If the board of trustees had not expelled Dr. Heilman and rather just put up with his advocacy on behalf of the WMF staff, outvoting him on any contentious issues, do you think Lila Tretikov would have continued to lead the Wikimedia Foundation at least through 2016?

I have a hunch so. I think the board bringing this internal squabble into public view by dismissing Heilman, and in such mystery-shrouded fashion, is what brought to public/community attention the rift between Lila and her staff. And once the public/community knew about it, it spiraled out of control.

Right now, I'll bet that the majority of the board regrets that it ever made so much as a public peep about Doc James.

[Randy from Boise]

Question: If the board of trustees had not expelled Dr. Heilman and rather just put up with his advocacy on behalf of the WMF staff, outvoting him on any contentious issues, do you think Lila Tretikov would have continued to lead the Wikimedia Foundation at least through 2016?

I have a hunch so. I think the board bringing this internal squabble into public view by dismissing Heilman, and in such mystery-shrouded fashion, is what brought to public/community attention the rift between Lila and her staff. And once the public/community knew about it, it spiraled out of control.

Right now, I'll bet that the majority of the board regrets that it ever made so much as a public peep about Doc James.

Excellent post (typing with one hand as I snork Salsa Verde Doritos)...

(mops delicious spicy residue...)

Heilman said: "I got canned over transparency issues and the Knowledge Engine by Wikipedia™ coverup."

Jimmy Wales: "Total fucking bullshit."

What a close reading of the publicly available evidence indicated is that Doc James got embroiled in SF politics and helped expedite staff's concerns about their aloof, jet-setting ED to the Board. The Board assigned Lila a (well-connected) mentor, whom she blew off, continuing more or less as before. Doc James got canned for his trouble, which was just gasoline on the barbeque... The resignations moved from the functional to the dysfunctional and well-respected voices began speaking out, despite risk to their employment by WMF's very unfriendly rules towards in-house dissidents...

Lila T. made a last ditch effort to reframe the debate, taking credit for things like an uptick in editor numbers that she actually had no real influence over, painting a happy, smiley face on a bad situation. The Board had hit the end of the road, however, and LT walked the plank.

That's more or less the way it went down.

RfB

[SB_Johnny]

Wow.

And Jimmy coming home to the rescue, now that that pesky Möller is gone.

[DanMurphy]

I hope and pray they appoint yet another silicon valley mope who knows nothing about the humanities, or education, or research, or writing, or editing.

Why did they fire their latest failure? Got worried the bad press she's been generating would compromise fund raising. The donations must flow.

[Vigilant]

I hope and pray they appoint yet another silicon valley mope who knows nothing about the humanities, or education, or research, or writing, or editing.

Why did they fire their latest failure? Got worried the bad press she's been generating would compromise fund raising. The donations must flow.

They got rid of Lila to avoid the contagion spreading to the rest of the board.

[Poetlister]

I predict the replacement will be a current or former google employee.

Maybe it will be a senior Wikipedia editor, say a former Arbcom member, someone who knows the place inside out. (Well, they've done similar things in the past.)

[Zoloft]

They need to hire a publisher and a managing editor and an editorial staff — with years of experience.
A change in direction is in order, not just another body in the same chair.

[lilburne]

Who with any competence would be stupid enough to apply?

The place is ungovernable. And publicly so.

[Moral Hazard]

Who with any competence would be stupid enough to apply?

The place is ungovernable. And publicly so.

Who would work as a Dean in a faculty of Melissa Clicks?

[LynnWysong]

Who with any competence would be stupid enough to apply?

The place is ungovernable. And publicly so.

Take the headquarters out of San Francisco and put it in a nice moderate area like Denver. You'd attract better candidates.

[lilburne]

Who with any competence would be stupid enough to apply?

The place is ungovernable. And publicly so.

Take the headquarters out of San Francisco and put it in a nice moderate area like Denver. You'd attract better candidates.

It isn't the location on the building, it is the the incompetent engineering staff, the spineless senior management, the supine nature of the BoT, and the batshit crazy community.

[LynnWysong]

Who with any competence would be stupid enough to apply?

The place is ungovernable. And publicly so.

Take the headquarters out of San Francisco and put it in a nice moderate area like Denver. You'd attract better candidates.

It isn't the location on the building, it is the the incompetent engineering staff, the spineless senior management, the supine nature of the BoT, and the batshit crazy community.

I get that. My point is, most pragmatic (i.e. competent) people avoid California, especially San Francisco.

California.jpg

[Poetlister]

I don't think that the location of the HQ will make much difference, other than possibly making it harder to recruit programmers. WMF has employed people from other countries (Ironholds, James Forrester). The Board is international, as is the Community. and Jimbo is all over the place.

[Midsize Jake]

I don't think that the location of the HQ will make much difference, other than possibly making it harder to recruit programmers.

Mr. Vigilant is essentially correct, though. You can get away with having maybe half of your coders, and maybe even one or two of your project people, along with, say, 75 percent of your customer-facing tech support people working out of other cities. There's also a big difference between having someone work remotely from a location 100 miles away and someone working remotely 1,000 miles away. Regardless, it effects how you compartmentalize and parcel out your workload, and some projects are more conducive to that than others. Personally, I'd tend to assume that much of what the WMF does is less conducive to compartmentalization, not more, despite it basically being mostly web development. There's too much of an interoperability requirement, and they can't afford mistakes that might lead to significant amounts of downtime, so presumably they enforce their version control and testing procedures fairly rigorously - and that usually means direct supervision, more so than the average software company.

That said, the location of the HQ isn't a question of "what's the nicest town," it's "do we want to be in a high-tech hotbed or not." The conventional wisdom is that all good coders flock to specific towns like SF where there are lots of high-paying jobs and what-not, but even if that's true, the WMF isn't paying top dollar, and any reputation they may have had as a good working environment is shot to hell at this point (though I don't think they never really had one). So, if they're competing with the big players for good programmers, they'll probably lose out pretty often.

That doesn't necessarily mean they should move their operation to Podunk, or even Chicago or Denver, but it also doesn't mean they shouldn't. They'll suck no matter where they are, but an inspired choice of location could ameliorate the suckage somewhat.

[LynnWysong]

I don't think that the location of the HQ will make much difference, other than possibly making it harder to recruit programmers. WMF has employed people from other countries (Ironholds, James Forrester). The Board is international, as is the Community. and Jimbo is all over the place.

Again, programmers can work remotely. WP does not need to have its HQ at Programming Central (and, I am not convinced that that is Silicon Valley anyway). BUT, putting HQ at Liberal Central, is basically saying that it wants to attract management with idealistic, instead of realistic, outlooks. Such as that a highly diverse community can self-police itself. That might work in Norway, but not globally.

[Poetlister]

they can't afford mistakes that might lead to significant amounts of downtime, so presumably they enforce their version control and testing procedures fairly rigorously

I don't know about their version control, but their testing procedures on say VE don't seem to be very good.

[Zoloft]

The end of March is going to seem like it's a long way away.

[Moral Hazard]

Again, programmers can work remotely. WP does not need to have its HQ at Programming Central (and, I am not convinced that that is Silicon Valley anyway).
BUT, putting HQ at Liberal Central, is basically saying that it wants to attract management with idealistic, instead of realistic, outlooks. Such as that a highly diverse community can self-police itself. That might work in Norway, but not globally.

Please do not assume such statements went unchallenged.

Lynn's statement provoked many comments, now in the thread "Vigilant and Lynn duel", which was closed by moderator Zoloft.

[LynnWysong]

Again, programmers can work remotely. WP does not need to have its HQ at Programming Central (and, I am not convinced that that is Silicon Valley anyway).
BUT, putting HQ at Liberal Central, is basically saying that it wants to attract management with idealistic, instead of realistic, outlooks. Such as that a highly diverse community can self-police itself. That might work in Norway, but not globally.

Please do not assume such statements went unchallenged.

Lynn's statement provoked many comments, now in the thread "Vigilant and Lynn duel", which was closed by moderator Zoloft.

Well, lets put it this way...they went unproductively challenged. Care to try again in civil tone?

[Vigilant]

Again, programmers can work remotely. WP does not need to have its HQ at Programming Central (and, I am not convinced that that is Silicon Valley anyway).
BUT, putting HQ at Liberal Central, is basically saying that it wants to attract management with idealistic, instead of realistic, outlooks. Such as that a highly diverse community can self-police itself. That might work in Norway, but not globally.

Please do not assume such statements went unchallenged.

Lynn's statement provoked many comments, now in the thread "Vigilant and Lynn duel", which was closed by moderator Zoloft.

Well, lets put it this way...they went unproductively challenged. Care to try again in civil tone?

Edit:
Just saw the other thread.

Allow me to moderate.
I have been in engineering for over 30 years.
During that time, I have managed hundreds of employees and contractors.
I have over a million lines of code in the wild.

You could not be more wrong about this topic.

[LynnWysong]

Again, programmers can work remotely. WP does not need to have its HQ at Programming Central (and, I am not convinced that that is Silicon Valley anyway).
BUT, putting HQ at Liberal Central, is basically saying that it wants to attract management with idealistic, instead of realistic, outlooks. Such as that a highly diverse community can self-police itself. That might work in Norway, but not globally.

Please do not assume such statements went unchallenged.

Lynn's statement provoked many comments, now in the thread "Vigilant and Lynn duel", which was closed by moderator Zoloft.

Well, lets put it this way...they went unproductively challenged. Care to try again in civil tone?

Edit:
Just saw the other thread.

Allow me to moderate.
I have been in engineering for over 30 years.
During that time, I have managed hundreds of employees and contractors.
I have over a million lines of code in the wild.

You could not be more wrong about this topic.

Well, actually, we're getting off topic. If someone wants to start a thread about why WP HQ must be located in S.F. (where I happened to live as a child back in the '60s) feel free to do so and make your point. And, just so you know, if you've been in the business for over 30 years, you ain't that much younger than I am.

[Vigilant]

Again, programmers can work remotely. WP does not need to have its HQ at Programming Central (and, I am not convinced that that is Silicon Valley anyway).
BUT, putting HQ at Liberal Central, is basically saying that it wants to attract management with idealistic, instead of realistic, outlooks. Such as that a highly diverse community can self-police itself. That might work in Norway, but not globally.

Please do not assume such statements went unchallenged.

Lynn's statement provoked many comments, now in the thread "Vigilant and Lynn duel", which was closed by moderator Zoloft.

Well, lets put it this way...they went unproductively challenged. Care to try again in civil tone?

Edit:
Just saw the other thread.

Allow me to moderate.
I have been in engineering for over 30 years.
During that time, I have managed hundreds of employees and contractors.
I have over a million lines of code in the wild.

You could not be more wrong about this topic.

Well, actually, we're getting off topic. If someone wants to start a thread about why WP HQ must be located in S.F. (where I happened to live as a child back in the '60s) feel free to do so and make your point. And, just so you know, if you've been in the business for over 30 years, you ain't that much younger than I am.

Uh huh.
I see nothing in your experience that might make you qualified to opine on core software engineering.

It appears that your favorite programming language is probably PowerPoint.

[Midsize Jake]

I think the problem here is that technically you're both right - programmers can work remotely, they just can't always be managed and intergrated into teams remotely, at least not to the extent necessary to get things working properly within a limited amount of time.

Also, some programmers work remotely better than others - in fact some can't really do it at all, unless they're the only one working on a particular module or whatever.

[LynnWysong]

I think the problem here is that technically you're both right - programmers can work remotely, they just can't always be managed and intergrated into teams remotely, at least not to the extent necessary to get things working properly within a limited amount of time.

Also, some programmers work remotely better than others - in fact some can't really do it at all, unless they're the only one working on a particular module or whatever.

Thank you MJ. I knew this wasn't a cut and dried issue.

[turnedworm]

I predict the replacement will be a current or former google employee.

Maybe it will be a senior Wikipedia editor, say a former Arbcom member, someone who knows the place inside out. (Well, they've done similar things in the past.)

I guess I'm not that busy at the moment... I wonder if they'll call?

[Moral Hazard]

What is John Stamos doing?

[Poetlister]

I think the problem here is that technically you're both right - programmers can work remotely, they just can't always be managed and intergrated into teams remotely, at least not to the extent necessary to get things working properly within a limited amount of time.

Also, some programmers work remotely better than others - in fact some can't really do it at all, unless they're the only one working on a particular module or whatever.

In a project I'm advising on at the moment, the work is split between London and India. They're 5½ hours ahead of us so most of the time there's no overlap.

[thekohser]

This is going to put a damper on Lila and Guy Kawasaki's panel at South By Southwest, "Wikipedia: Beyond the Encyclopedia", scheduled for March 13.

Hey, to make an omelette, you have to break some eggs.

[tarantino]

This is going to put a damper on Lila and Guy Kawasaki's panel at South By Southwest, "Wikipedia: Beyond the Encyclopedia", scheduled for March 13.

Hey, to make an omelette, you have to break some eggs.

https://twitter.com/GuyKawasaki/status/ ... 7790860288

Jimmy's now replaced Lila.

Guy Kawasaki, chief evangelist of Canva, will interview Jimmy Wales, founder of the Wikimedia Foundation, about the future of everyone’s favorite real-life guide to the galaxy.

[eagle]

Fae weighs in to remind us that axing LT does not end the community's inquiries:linkhttps://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/w ... 82979.html[/link]

It is true that a change of CEO, means a convenient scapegoat so that
issues that had absolutely nothing to do with Lila, such as Jimmy
Wales' "utter fucking bullshit" attacks,[4] can be spun away and might
be forgotten by the community. The trouble is, that many of these
problems have not vanished just because Lila will be moving on. The
deep rooted problems must be faced by the current board of trustees,
and they can rely on the fact that after 15 years of organic growth of
the community, there are too many passionate WMF observers, tech
journalists and long serving Wikimedia volunteers who have memories
stretching back longer than most trustees have been around.

[thekohser]

This is going to put a damper on Lila and Guy Kawasaki's panel at South By Southwest, "Wikipedia: Beyond the Encyclopedia", scheduled for March 13.

Hey, to make an omelette, you have to break some eggs.

https://twitter.com/GuyKawasaki/status/ ... 7790860288

Jimmy's now replaced Lila.

Guy Kawasaki, chief evangelist of Canva, will interview Jimmy Wales, founder of the Wikimedia Foundation, about the future of everyone’s favorite real-life guide to the galaxy.

Eeesh... that's uncomfortable.

At least Commons has Jimbo's pre-trip planning covered.