"Crisis" over Wikimedia Germany's palace revolution
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Governance terminology for following German-language sources:
Vorstand = the executive director
Präsidium = the board
Vorsitzende = the chair
Geschäftsstelle (also Büro) = the office (including all employees)
Mitgliederversammlung (MV) = the annual general assembly of chapter members
Chapter members elect 10 board members for one-year terms each November [since the MV, now two-year terms], with direct elections for the chair, two deputy chairs, the treasurer, and six ordinary members. Each member takes on a portfolio.
Last Sunday the board of Wikimedia Germany almost unanimously passed a vote of no confidence in the chapter's executive director, Pavel Richter, who has held the position since 2009. The only one of the 10 board members not to support the vote was the chair, Nikolas Becker, who abstained. With more than 50 employees, an annual budget approaching $10 million, and the right to conduct its own fundraising through the Wikimedia Foundation's site banners, Wikimedia Germany is the second-largest organisation in the movement after the WMF itself.
The decision was announced on the Wikimedia mailing list by the chair of the board, Nikolas Becker, who wrote that "for quite some time the Supervisory Board has been striving for a different strategic course for Wikimedia Deutschland, [and] has come to the conclusion that it will not be able to implement this paper with the current Executive Director. Thus, the Supervisory Board and the Executive Director have agreed on jointly shaping a well-ordered transition. ... I would like to thank Pavel for his very good work and for both the professionalism and passion with which he has shaped the development of Wikimedia Deutschland."
With all the drama of a Mozart opera, support for or opposition to Pavel Richter's leadership has become the flashpoint on a battleground of ideological dimensions that has been coming to a head over the past two years. This struggle, to determine what the chapter's role should be, has now engulfed the board itself. A day before what amounted to a dismissal of the executive director, two rival petitions had landed at the board's doorstep arguing for or against the action; each, the Signpost understands, was aligned with one of the two sides in this struggle.