Wikipediocracy

She's got almost no wikipedia experience.
She smiles all the time and uses hipster newspeak at every opportunity.

She's starting to feel the heat with FramGate and the fallout into Maria Sefidari Huici's corruption scandal.

Vigilant wrote:She's got almost no wikipedia experience.
She smiles all the time and uses hipster newspeak at every opportunity.

She's starting to feel the heat with FramGate and the fallout into Maria Sefidari Huici's corruption scandal.

She's worthless as a CEO and as an ED and these two examples you post are just the tip of the iceburg. The only things she's good at are making donations and spending them.

I’ve been criticized for not speaking with her when I sat next to her.

She has no gravitas and no influence.

She spent a lot of time on her phone. In my hearing she spoke to nobody of note and said nothing of importance.

Maher was a lightweight in her previous role for the WMF. Sadly she is now a dandelion ball.

Zoloft wrote:I’ve been criticized for not speaking with her when I sat next to her.

She has no gravitas and no influence.

She spent a lot of time on her phone. In my hearing she spoke to nobody of note and said nothing of importance.

Maher was a lightweight in her previous role for the WMF. Sadly she is now a dandelion ball.

At the risk of violating the otherwise righteous ban on fan-fiction, I offer...

ZOLOFT: Hello, my name is Bill. I'm a moderator of the Wikipediocracy message board.

KM: (blank stare) What's your Twitter handle?

RfB

We will see her value at the Harmonization Sprint. KM will take all of the Global South input and weird recommendations, transform them into what the WMF Staff wanted all along, and then convince the people who were invited that it was their idea to change course. Once harmonized, she will get it adopted by the WMF Board, and the "unblockable old guard" of US and UK volunteers will become irrelevant and expendable, a la Fram.

People like Leigh Blackall and Laura Hale will become free to make their own knowledge, for fun and profit. Blackhall's latest paper was rejected by peer review:

The reviewers mainly pointed out that the style of the paper is very unusual. It is not written coherent with usual academic standards, e.g., it lacks a literature review, the description of theories and a clear methodology. What it does nicely is to report about the experiences from different perspectives. Therefore, reviewers suggested to rewrite the paper in a more academic way.

At this moment, another wave of hype is swelling up before us, threatening to re-energize the futurism with yet more wondrous dreams of data driven, design thinking, algorithmically convenient, autonomous robotics and augmented reality. Yet more new growth industries for transferring wealth to capital.

In my opinion, the Working Groups are advocating for similar experiments to bet $1.1 billion with a similar lack of rigor. If the WMF wants the movement to change direction, it should come up with a series of pilot programs rather than ask the ship (Titanic or Queen Mary?) to turn on a dime. The WMF is trying to crowd source its 2030 Strategy particularly from the Global South. There is no reason to expect those voices to produce a sound, coherent set of recommendations that will attract the support of either large donors or the US and UK volunteers. KM and her new Chief of Staff are in charge of mediating those differences.

The reason they're trying crowd sourcing is because they're incompetent to do the work themselves.

She's so grossly under qualified.

The uptalking, especially, makes me grind my teeth.

(bumping for a sight gag)

What's a little gravedancing?
https://twitter.com/krmaher/status/1173757440292114432

Professional way to do represent her organization... she working in an old men's home?

How much is the WMF overpaying her?

Vigilant wrote:What's a little gravedancing?
https://twitter.com/krmaher/status/1173757440292114432

A spoiled child does not know her place. Like Jesus or the Pope, she should have offered to clean the feet of Richard M. Stallman (T-H-L) (rms) --- the developer of Emacs (T-H-L), the leader of the GNU (T-H-L) project (without which, no Linux (T-H-L) [tm]), and one of the leaders of computer algebra (T-H-L) (in his battle against Symbolics (T-H-L), described in David Levy's Hackers: Heroes of the computer revolution (T-H-L) (List of computer algebra systems (T-H-L)).

Moral Hazard wrote:Like Jesus or the Pope, she should have offered to clean the feet of Richard M. Stallman (T-H-L) (rms) --- the developer of Emacs (T-H-L), the leader of the GNU (T-H-L) project (without which, no Linux (T-H-L) [tm]), and one of the leaders of free computer-algebra software (T-H-L).

Dare I ask if you're aware of the recent, ehh, situation that led to his leaving MIT...? He's a bit of a "hot potato" at the moment, I'm afraid.

Midsize Jake wrote:

Moral Hazard wrote:Like Jesus or the Pope, she should have offered to clean the feet of Richard M. Stallman (T-H-L) (rms) --- the developer of Emacs (T-H-L), the leader of the GNU (T-H-L) project (without which, no Linux (T-H-L) [tm]), and one of the leaders of free computer-algebra software (T-H-L).

Dare I ask if you're aware of the recent, ehh, situation that led to his leaving MIT...? He's a bit of a "hot potato" at the moment, I'm afraid.

To bring people up to date, kinda: linkhttps://thenextweb.com/dd/2019/09/13/fr ... edophilia/[/link]

I read the links, and the linked document of SAIL emails.

In 2014, as an MIT director of donations, rms warned MIT about the crimes of Epstein and of further allegations against Epstein.

In 2019, rms discussed the evidence against Marvin Minsky (one of the founders of MIT AI), revisiting the 17 or 18 year old threshold of consent in three jurisdictions (as we have discussed here) and whether Minsky knew that the woman had been told to have sex with him. His email discussion is what one would expect from an anarchist or libertarian, rather than from a politician.

Obviously, as anybody who has read our discussions should know, my position is different, and only slightly less quick to discuss teeth extraction, grinding, and dissolution than Vigilant's frequent discussion of shovels and body-bags.

Updated for clarity: Zoloft linked a new article, which was not in the Katherine Maher twitter thread, that quotes from his 2004 email discussion of a Dutch party that would lower the age of consent (enabling pedaphilia). Again, his naive position is common in European anarchist and libertarian and even liberal political discussions. Again, my position is obviously different, as has been made clear many times (and would be even more clear if moderators had not removed my clearest statements on the exploitation of children).

Moral Hazard wrote:Updated for clarity: Zoloft linked a new article, which was not in the Katherine Maher twitter thread, that quotes from his 2004 email discussion of a Dutch party that would lower the age of consent (enabling pedaphilia). Again, his naive position is common in European anarchist and libertarian and even liberal political discussions. Again, my position is obviously different, as has been made clear many times (and would be even more clear if moderators had not removed my clearest statements on the exploitation of children).

Don't worry, nobody was suggesting anything nefarious about you - it's just that while "gravedancing" really is an unprofessional reaction, even under these circumstances, what you were suggesting Ms. Maher should do (or rather, should have done) would actually have been "professional suicide."

I mean, sure, that might solve a few problems in itself, but it's just not a very realistic suggestion.

Comparing the WMF's Katherine Maher to Jesus or the Pope was not enough of a clue that I was using "wash his feet" for "to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly"....

Midsize Jake wrote:

Moral Hazard wrote:Updated for clarity: Zoloft linked a new article, which was not in the Katherine Maher twitter thread, that quotes from his 2004 email discussion of a Dutch party that would lower the age of consent (enabling pedaphilia). Again, his naive position is common in European anarchist and libertarian and even liberal political discussions. Again, my position is obviously different, as has been made clear many times (and would be even more clear if moderators had not removed my clearest statements on the exploitation of children).

Don't worry, nobody was suggesting anything nefarious about you - it's just that while "gravedancing" really is an unprofessional reaction, even under these circumstances, what you were suggesting Ms. Maher should do (or rather, should have done) would actually have been "professional suicide."

I mean, sure, that might solve a few problems in itself, but it's just not a very realistic suggestion.

She would have been vastly more professional had she just said nothing.

There was a guy at my work who regularly took his shoes and socks off in the canteen to rub his feet. It took at least 3 meetings with HR and a 'stop doing that or you're fired' final letter. He then left the business of his own accord.

Just saying, keep your feet covered is a valid position to take in a professional situation.

Anroth wrote:There was a guy at my work who regularly took his shoes and socks off in the canteen to rub his feet. It took at least 3 meetings with HR and a 'stop doing that or you're fired' final letter. He then left the business of his own accord.

Just saying, keep your feet covered is a valid position to take in a professional situation.

Pants are also highly desirable.

RfB

Randy from Boise wrote:

Anroth wrote:There was a guy at my work who regularly took his shoes and socks off in the canteen to rub his feet. It took at least 3 meetings with HR and a 'stop doing that or you're fired' final letter. He then left the business of his own accord.

Just saying, keep your feet covered is a valid position to take in a professional situation.

Pants are also highly desirable.

RfB

But I need to air my boys out!

Randy from Boise wrote:

Anroth wrote:There was a guy at my work who regularly took his shoes and socks off in the canteen to rub his feet. It took at least 3 meetings with HR and a 'stop doing that or you're fired' final letter. He then left the business of his own accord.

Just saying, keep your feet covered is a valid position to take in a professional situation.

Pants are also highly desirable.

RfB

In Britain, we keep our pants discreetly under our trousers. In the US, people wear them on top for everyone to see.

Anroth wrote:There was a guy at my work who regularly took his shoes and socks off in the canteen to rub his feet. It took at least 3 meetings with HR and a 'stop doing that or you're fired' final letter. He then left the business of his own accord.

Just saying, keep your feet covered is a valid position to take in a professional situation.

I agree.

Most CEOs don't tweet about it either.

Stallman is in many ways an asshole. But Katherine Maher should realize that without him, the free software, copyleft licensing, and even the operating systems on which Wikipedia runs, would not exist.

Mocking Stallman for his hygiene, kicking him while he's down, there's only one word to describe this behavior: Bullying.

Katherine Maher is a pretentious bully.

So no one has an answer to my question about how much $$$ she is sucking from the WMF? All of this smiling must be expensive

Earthy Astringent wrote:So no one has an answer to my question about how much $$$ she is sucking from the WMF? All of this smiling must be expensive

Wikimedia Foundation salaries

The last figures are for 2017, and at the rate of increase we've seen during recent years it's probably well over $400K by now. You originally used the word "overpaying," which seems like a more specific term than "sucking," but if you add in all the travel expenses, the total could easily reach $1M annually. They say the WMF staff always fly coach, including her, so that helps... but that's still a lot when you're on the road 200 days a year. Also, I obviously don't keep track of whether she goes to most of these appearances alone, or with an assistant or entourage of some sort. Entourages aren't cheap.

Especially with California labor law.

Midsize Jake wrote:

Earthy Astringent wrote:So no one has an answer to my question about how much $$$ she is sucking from the WMF? All of this smiling must be expensive

Wikimedia Foundation salaries

The last figures are for 2017, and at the rate of increase we've seen during recent years it's probably well over $400K by now. You originally used the word "overpaying," which seems like a more specific term than "sucking," but if you add in all the travel expenses, the total could easily reach $1M annually. They say the WMF staff always fly coach, including her, so that helps... but that's still a lot when you're on the road 200 days a year. Also, I obviously don't keep track of whether she goes to most of these appearances alone, or with an assistant or entourage of some sort. Entourages aren't cheap.

400k? She’s essentially a figurehead. A figurehead has to be smart enough to realize that’s their value proposition and will demand a salary worthy of the tittle. I don’t think she negotiated very well this time, that or the board of directors are taking their fiduciary responsibilities seriously. How much value does her gender add to the position? In other words, is having a female ED any help at all with respect to fundraising and quelling critics of the gender gap?

Midsize Jake wrote:

Earthy Astringent wrote:So no one has an answer to my question about how much $$$ she is sucking from the WMF? All of this smiling must be expensive

Wikimedia Foundation salaries

The last figures are for 2017, and at the rate of increase we've seen during recent years it's probably well over $400K by now. You originally used the word "overpaying," which seems like a more specific term than "sucking," but if you add in all the travel expenses, the total could easily reach $1M annually. They say the WMF staff always fly coach, including her, so that helps... but that's still a lot when you're on the road 200 days a year. Also, I obviously don't keep track of whether she goes to most of these appearances alone, or with an assistant or entourage of some sort. Entourages aren't cheap.

On top of that salary are frequent flyer miles and hotel rewards, which could easily be worth tens of thousands of dollars per year.

Slate Money Travel calls her "it’s most traveled guest to date", and there's a similar story from NatGeo.

Katherine Maher's gravatar user name is aerhart, lol.

Here's a 2010 blog post comment.

Katherine Maher wrote:learn from the business travelers and be your own travel class. pack a small kit for the plane, with a sleeping mask, inflatable neck pillow, earphones, earplugs, travel socks, cabin booties (bathroom floors are gross and feet swell), aspirin/advil, a mini toothpaste/toothbrush, lipbalm, and a pen for landing cards. i’m sure there are other things to add, but those are exactly what i want within reach when on those 17 hour economy class flights. leave it stocked and in the suitcase.

and i second the full 3oz kit in the suitcase and a set of rubber flipflops to get you across the sketchiest floors.

finally, as someone who seems to have trouble with sharp knives and cutting myself – a tiny tube of superglue in the medical kit along with tampons, condoms, etc. does wonders for keeping small cuts closed and sealed from bacteria.

If she’s flying that much, she’s flying in first/biz. Even at coach prices.

At least 37% of the WMF's carbon footprint is due to the Air Mile Mafia's penchant for unnecessary travel.

https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/w ... 93519.html
https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/20 ... -go-green/

The sustainability report we’ve published today details that the Foundation caused approximately 2.1 kilotonnes of CO₂-equivalent impact in the calendar year 2018:

56% was due to electricity usage (data centers and other facilities)
26% was due to global air travel
11% was due to hotel stays
7% other

This impact is approximately the same as the emissions of 251 average US homes’ energy use for one year

An average car emits 4.6 metric tons of carbon annually, so indulging the WMF travel fetish gang is about the same as running 500 cars for a year...

This of course takes no account of the CO2 produced by people editing Wikipedia and the other sites. They must be using electricity to run their PCs, and presumably this generstes extra work for the WMF servers and the Google servers for people doing online research.

I think I've suggested this before, but in case I didn't, I actually suspect that Ms. Maher's heavy travel schedule is part of a larger effort to make someone other than Jimbo Wales the "face of the organization." She's clearly a better "people person" than Jimbo or either of her two predecessors, and Jimbo's also getting old and still refuses to shave, whereas Maher is still fairly young and doesn't have to, so all in all she seems like a sensible choice. I forget how multi-lingual Lila Tretikov was/is - I think she could speak a few languages, but they were all European languages, whereas Maher speaks some non-European ones, so that could be another factor.

If there's anything to this, you really can't blame them for wanting a different front-person than Jimbo, IMO. The added carbon emissions from the air travel are certainly a downside, but it's a drop in the ocean compared to the environmental damage caused by electing guys like Trump and Bolsinaro into leadership positions, so it's not likely to gain much traction as a counter-issue against them.

Midsize Jake wrote:I think I've suggested this before, but in case I didn't, I actually suspect that Ms. Maher's heavy travel schedule is part of a larger effort to make someone other than Jimbo Wales the "face of the organization." She's clearly a better "people person" than Jimbo or either of her two predecessors, and Jimbo's also getting old and still refuses to shave, whereas Maher is still fairly young and doesn't have to, so all in all she seems like a sensible choice.

Sounds good in theory, but all she does is jet around speaking to little grouplets of wikibureaucrats. She's just a new version of terrible.

RfB

Midsize Jake wrote:I think I've suggested this before, but in case I didn't, I actually suspect that Ms. Maher's heavy travel schedule is part of a larger effort to make someone other than Jimbo Wales the "face of the organization." She's clearly a better "people person" than Jimbo or either of her two predecessors, and Jimbo's also getting old and still refuses to shave, whereas Maher is still fairly young and doesn't have to, so all in all she seems like a sensible choice. I forget how multi-lingual Lila Tretikov was/is - I think she could speak a few languages, but they were all European languages, whereas Maher speaks some non-European ones, so that could be another factor.

If there's anything to this, you really can't blame them for wanting a different front-person than Jimbo, IMO. The added carbon emissions from the air travel are certainly a downside, but it's a drop in the ocean compared to the environmental damage caused by electing guys like Trump and Bolsinaro into leadership positions, so it's not likely to gain much traction as a counter-issue against them.

Even if she's not a benefit to wikipedia, she's a a better face, then the old, fat and controversial Jimbo.

He's not fat by most standards applying to out of shape middle aged men. Besides I thought we had agreed to tone down the personal attacks on people's appearances? Plenty of legitimate reasons to criticise without picking on weight.

Anroth wrote:Besides I thought we had agreed to tone down the personal attacks on people's appearances?

Hmmm, ok. It wasn't intended as PA, let's see a more positive take: he looked good, was in good shape and handsome years ago. He should take better care of his body to retain his charm.
You know... that's like... my opinion, man.

Osborne wrote:Even if she's not a benefit to wikipedia, she's a a better face, then the old, fat and controversial Jimbo.

Nor is he very old. He's 53. And it could even be argued that at his best his face looks cheerful and avuncular, which might be no bad thing.

[

The sustainability report we’ve published today details that the Foundation caused approximately 2.1 kilotonnes of CO₂-equivalent impact in the calendar year 2018:

56% was due to electricity usage (data centers and other facilities)
26% was due to global air travel
11% was due to hotel stays
7% other

We estimate that more than 5% was attributed to Framgate. Totally avoidable, yet still ongoing.

eagle wrote: We estimate that more than 5% was attributed to Framgate. Totally avoidable, yet still ongoing.

While it's disturbing that it's still ongoing, it was hardly avoidable. The community is full of tension, and Fram's ban was the spark that ignited the fire. If Fram's not banned, than the next sanctioned admin would be the spark.

Osborne wrote:

eagle wrote: We estimate that more than 5% was attributed to Framgate. Totally avoidable, yet still ongoing.

While it's disturbing that it's still ongoing, it was hardly avoidable. The community is full of tension, and Fram's ban was the spark that ignited the fire. If Fram's not banned, than the next sanctioned admin would be the spark.

The problem was the relationship between the "community" and the WMF. The WMF ought to have had more sense than it did, but few here would have been surprised by a lack of sense in San Francisco.

Osborne wrote: Professional way to do represent her organization... she working in an old men's home?

When I challenged Katherine on comments she made on Twitter she said her Twitter account was not in any way representative of WMF. That it was her personal account.

I obviously disagree. It’s a convenient excuse to play both sides of being WMF or not.

And as I have mentioned before, I did some heavy lifting to update Maher’s Wikipedia page. She is political and networks like crazy but the actual skills knowledge and abilities are not there.

I have publicly called for Maher’s resignation. Enough is enough. She is not up to the job.

Wikipedia is in crisis, has been for years. Giving a rah rah rah presentation and focusing on fundraising isn’t going to impact the very critical problems.

BrillLyle wrote:I have publicly called for Maher’s resignation. Enough is enough. She is not up to the job.

Wikipedia is in crisis, has been for years. Giving a rah rah rah presentation and focusing on fundraising isn’t going to impact the very critical problems.

The most relevant data is what did she do or say in Tunis at the Harmonization Sprint? Did Maher and Raystorm bring harmony with everyone singing from the same page or are there still ICBMs launched and aimed at San Francisco and the rest of the Global North? If the latter, there may not be a WMF from which to resign.

Following the Munich conference in 1938, Arthur Neville Chamberlain made public statements promising us "peace in our time." As best that I can tell, Maher has made no post-Tunis comment of a similar nature.

Katherine Maher wrote: finally, as someone who seems to have trouble with sharp knives and cutting myself – a tiny tube of superglue in the medical kit along with tampons, condoms, etc. does wonders for keeping small cuts closed and sealed from bacteria.

She uses tampons and condoms and superglue to keep small cuts closed?!?!?

That must cause some talk among the airline staff after she hands them her boarding pass and gets on the plane...

I prefer band-aids...


RfB



Hey, I'm just here to write jokes...

Maybe she is a Girlscout, and feels that she should be prepared to be a good Samaritan?

Until recently, one of the Arbitrators had given advice to young men about how to masturbate. So there is a tradition to be continued....

Ben Stiller, Seth Rogan, et alia (The Watch) wrote: Maybe he's jacking-off too much. Like, the well is dry by the time you get home.

Ew. Stop.

Have you noticed any abrasions or signs of stress on his penis?

Abrasions? No.

Like, he's pulling on it too hard?

I'm sterile.

Play safe, kids.

Randy from Boise wrote: She uses tampons and condoms and superglue to keep small cuts closed?!?!?

Millenial
Although these do tick the practicality checkboxes:
- takes up small space
- always available (substitute tampon with napkin for males, maybe superglue with electrical tape )
- does the job

P.s. kind of awkward, that she usually tweets about fringe subjects. Like a teenager being proud of what she discovered of the world today.

Vigilant wrote:What's a little gravedancing?
https://twitter.com/krmaher/status/1173757440292114432

@chowbok
·
Sep 18
Replying to
@krmaher
Why do you have time to gloat on Twitter but no time to respond to WP editors?


====

For the same reason she had time to take shots at a guy for writing an article about the Fram scandal* but no time to actually respond to the community.

Recurring theme with her.

Completely unprofessional. Spends all her time on Twitter (or so it seems) and is clueless on how to act like the executive director of anything whatsoever.

*I assume most know about this, but in case anyone doesn't

BrillLyle wrote:I have publicly called for Maher’s resignation. Enough is enough. She is not up to the job.

Has any ED of WMF been up to the job? Why can't they attract the right sort of person? Maybe they do get good candidates but reject them; we may never know.

Randy from Boise wrote:

Katherine Maher wrote: finally, as someone who seems to have trouble with sharp knives and cutting myself – a tiny tube of superglue in the medical kit along with tampons, condoms, etc. does wonders for keeping small cuts closed and sealed from bacteria.

She uses tampons and condoms and superglue to keep small cuts closed?!?!?

That must cause some talk among the airline staff after she hands them her boarding pass and gets on the plane...

I prefer band-aids...


RfB



Hey, I'm just here to write jokes...

Anyone who uses ordinary superglue to seal up a serious cut is absolutely daft.

I'd like to see an instructional video of Maher attempting to seal a small cut.

Does she start with condoms or with tampons?