Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-07-16/Special report



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It's a real shame that the Signpost has chosen to conflate two unrelated stories here. There is no 'controversy' surrounding the WCA. This whole piece sounds like a troll wrote it, who is continuing the ongoing campaign of harassment against Fæ and is trying to drag the WCA into that campaign. I'm extremely disappointed with this article, and expected much better from the Signpost. :-( Mike Peel (talk) 14:08, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • I agree with Mike Peel. This article is horrible. I expected better of The Signpost. --Lizzard (talk) 18:28, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm sorry you both feel this way, but there is controversy over his selection. When coupled with the fact that the WCA has the potential to be a major shift in the traditional WMF-Chapter-community triangle, it's obviously news we need to cover to inform our readers. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 20:36, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fae should go OFF. --J (t) 14:08, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The statement "the committee's refusal to agree to conceal his previous usernames is "an ongoing security risk"" is not something I have said to any WMF staff member or Arbcom. Claims about a WMF staff member ought to at least be confirmed with that same WMF staff member before being published, even if prefixed with the classic "it appears". --Fæ (talk) 14:28, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • And ArbCom has said otherwise. Until the time that they retract that statement, they're a reliable source for this article. - Jorgath (talk) (contribs) 19:49, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • The same ArbCom that almost desysopped someone for a single offence in a 5½ year admin career in the recent Perth case until community pressure forced a couple of them to reconsider after the vote to close the case had passed? I wouldn't honestly trust anything that comes out of the present ArbCom – only certain individuals (Newyorkbrad in particular) have distinguished themselves and demonstrated they are worthy of respect and their position. Orderinchaos 05:47, 20 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well done on getting the Signpost right into hatchet jobs. You'll have the page view stats of the Register in no time. You should feel proud of yourselves - David Gerard (talk) 15:43, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I profoundly resent the attempted establishment of this administrative gravy train. €180,000 for a "secretary general", while countless programming jobs remain undone, and Bugzilla requests go unanswered? If the Foundation has money to burn, pay some extra programmers and web interface designers rather than throwing cash out the window. Unbelievable. JN466 18:44, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Erm, that's a very early draft of the budget, meant for discussion, that no-one at the WCA meeting was in support of. The costs will ultimately be substantially lower than that. Please wait for a more concrete version of the budget. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 18:51, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The very fact that someone put in charge of drafting this thought this would be appropriate rings alarm bells. When this "more concrete" version of the budget is approaching finalisation, and before it is approved, I suggest you place an article here in the Signpost. Wikimedia UK, an organisation that has a budget of about a million, has an actively voting membership of about five dozen: 61 to be precise. 7 of those voting members are themselves board members. 16, more than a quarter, were candidates for the board! These are very unhealthy ratios, creating a superlative potential for nepotism and abuse of funds. I hope that candidates will be offered a realistic remuneration and selected in a professional manner, with appropriate background checks. It's enough that the Wikimedia Foundation once had a convicted felon as its COO. JN466 21:14, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Man, I wish I could get paid that kind of money to "coordinate" a bunch of wikimedia chapters that have few clearly defined goals and little oversight beyond what they voluntarily agree to. You can't just handwave the number away as a draft- you're planning a budget here, if you didn't think it was at least close to a reasonable number the planned budget would be worthless as-is. If you guys think the best way to find a leader is to just pick someone you know and then pay them triple what a reasonable salary for the position would be, then I fully expect to see a story in the Signpost in a year describing how the WCA has burned through a ton of money and has nothing to show for it. --PresN 21:30, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It is a shame to see these two issues conflated; but only because the WCA has so many ridiculous problems that it is worth 3 or 4 articles in itself. --Errant (chat!)

In contrast to the comments above, I just want to say thanks for having the guts to publish this brave piece of journalism, and not holding back from criticising the Wikimedia Chapters Association. I'm only vaguely aware of the Fae case and don't know the specifics, but from the sound of it the WCA made a spectacularly bad decision here. Anyone who has been banned by ArbCom (or is on the brink of being banned) should not in a million years have any kind of formal position representing Wikipedia. How did the WCA get it so wrong, and how can we protest these developments? Robofish (talk) 19:37, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Food for thought/devil's advocate: yes, he will be banned on en.wp, but he also represents all the other projects, like Commons. We on Wikipedia can't make the mistake that we're the only WMF website out there. :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 20:36, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
But we can make the point that we're arguably the biggest and most important. And it doesn't make a lot of sense for the foundation to give someone a position of authority and a ton of money while they're simultaneously being pressured to resign adminship in one of the biggest projects and on the verge of being banned- and then not even mention or talk about it. If what goes on in en.wiki or anything.wiki doesn't matter at the chapter level or WCA level, then what's the point of all the people involved being editors? Why not actually have a hiring process for the position open to outsiders? You can't have it focused on Wikipedia insiders and then ignore everything that happens inside. --PresN 21:37, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
With respect to being given "a ton of money", I am a volunteer, I get paid nothing for contributing to the board of Wikimedia UK or for my work with the Wikimedia Chapters Association. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 21:41, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You're right, I got it mixed up with the secretary general position. My apologies. --PresN 21:47, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
With respect to Foundation giving someone a position of authority, it should be outlined that it did not. Fae was made chair by representants of chapters, not by Foundation. Foundation has no specific authority over the WCA. Most representants did not know about the arbcom issue until after Fae was made chair. I would note that the arbcom has not yet given its decision on the matter. Anthere (talk) 22:25, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Especially since it seems the initial information stated by Arbcom members regarding Fae's recent actions may have been mistaken or blown out of proportion. Philippe will have to clarify what exactly was said to him by Fae. If they were just having a conversation and Fae asked if he could see about mentioning how he would like his privacy in certain matters respected, then it's really not as bad as telling Philippe to convince Arbcom to stop looking into his alt accounts. Context is important. SilverserenC 04:12, 18 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Never going to happen. Especially when, i'm quite sure, WMUK doesn't care what Arbcom thinks. (And considering cases over the past year, they would have a point.) Indeed, though, this Signpost is a pretty good hatchet job. Tabloid news all the way, with all the speculation and unfounded accusations therein. SilverserenC 22:06, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why? A lot of people start from the mistaken assumption that the English Wikipedia website and the worldwide Wikimedia movement are the same thing. Having been involved in both, they are two almost unrelated groups of people. When people do happen to hold two roles - an admin here and a board member at home - their roles require different things of them and rarely intersect. Orderinchaos 05:43, 20 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I enjoyed reading this article! I am sure you really do need to pay someone an executive salary for chapter coordination, because one of the main requirements is actually reading all of the internal mailing lists on chapters, movement roles, fundraising, grant applications, etc. That is guaranteed to shave years off of anyone's life expectancy. This story reveals a lot about the state of Wikipedia internal politics today, and Arbcom in particular. Are you sure that banning Fae from the en.wp isn't the result of Wikimania lobbying on the part of WMUK to get Fae to spend more time on chapter matters? Jane (talk) 06:06, 18 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Wikimedia Indonesia also didn't know. The election of the Chair, procedure-wise, we believe is rushed and happened between very limited people who are present. We don't have representative present and we are not warned in advance that an election is going to happened. We are still considering our position in this matter and we're growing very uncomfortable as it develop. Official position is yet to be issued. We feel it is important that The Chair of Wikimedia Chapter Association is reputable, this is an association of highly motivated people, it is not a difficult task since it is a volunteer position and SG is present for other task and election shouldn't be rushed. We didn't sign up for this back in Berlin. Also FYI Derryck Chan is HK but I think he is also a member of Wikimedia UK. Please correct me if I'm wrong Siska.Doviana (talk) 07:38, 18 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Good grief, what a mess. Indonesia, I hope you and some of the other chapters can take the initiative and provide some credible leadership to resolve this situation. Be prepared to be accused of "harrassment" for your efforts, as some of the comments in this very thread illustrate. Cla68 (talk) 08:33, 18 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
All chapters knew, or should have known, that there was going to be a meeting. Without a chair to direct discussions Wikipedians are notorious for endlessly talking around an issue, and accomplishing bugger all. It's absurd to think that a meeting would not elect a chair until it had the consent of those who weren't there. The chair also needs to marshal several tasks over the next few months, notably receiving the recommendations of two committees and distributing them so that they can be approved by the council. How could that be accomplished without a chair? I'm confident that Fæ can handle the job.
In response to an article in the style of The National Enquirer, the trolls came out in force, determined to prove that they were clueless. That the contents of a budget are ridiculous should not mean that its drafter should be prevented from presenting it; the Council reserves the right to not accept it. To presume that the Council delegates, all operating with the consent of their respective chapters, are going to suddenly abandon all common sense in order to accept a budget devoid of reality is an abject failure on the part of the trolls to assume good faith. Too many of us have sufficient life experience to prevent any such thing from happening. Remember too that the exorbitant salary in part reflected payroll taxes that would be mandatory if the Secretary General and offices were to be based in Belgium. That is certainly one reason why we chose to have the committee consider alternative places for incorporation.
And no, the WCA should not give greater weight to en-wp just because it has an Arbcom, and it is bigger. That would be to allow a schoolyard bully to dictate terms to the Association. Eclecticology (talk) 09:01, 18 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well evidently they did not, as Siska's post above clearly illustrates. Fæ actively avoided listing all his accounts and attempted to curb due process during the proceedings. He failed to respond to good-faith criticism and his continual crying "wolf" did not help his cause, either. The fact that he had that many accounts is both perplexing and troubling; surely if he had good intentions he'd have no problem in disclosing said accounts and responding to good-faith criticism. James (Talk • Contribs) • 7:22pm • 09:22, 18 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • My first reaction as I read the above report was to consider to posting a request at WP:BLPN. As I continued to read, it reminded me of the same opinionated "news reporting" that appears on page one of top newspapers, so it's hard to blame the signpost for doing what today's great newspapers are doing. One area that wasn't explored was why would someone (Fæ) continue pursuing non-paid positions in an organization that at one of its highest levels (ArbCom) said it doesn't want him instead of applying that resilience in business to make money? -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 11:56, 18 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • And your response would have been incorrect since all of the article has a reliable source. And that's assuming WP:BLP applies to the Signpost (and it does, actually, because it applies to everything; although things like WP:N and WP:RS don't except insofar as they relate to BLP). - Jorgath (talk) (contribs) 13:00, 18 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree with Mike Peel. «This strong vote was despite the controversies that have surrounded Fæ on the English Wikipedia and Commons» is ridiculous: why should anyone care? It's completely unrelated, unless of course one considers that if banned he might have more time for (probably more fruitful) activities than en.wiki. Nemo 10:31, 19 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I also agree with Mike Peel. The tone and quality of this story was more The Sun than The Guardian - it's not the role of the Signpost to run campaigns on behalf of the disgruntled and engage in character assassination, the Register does that just fine. Also, given the story was basically about him, there doesn't seem to have been any effort to get his side of the story for a "right of reply". It was not clearly mentioned that the ArbCom case also finds that he has been harassed for some time and that it has sitebanned one of his opponents, and harassment does put people under a type of pressure where some crack and do funny things. And I agree about the conflation of issues. Orderinchaos 05:40, 20 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The ArbCom did what they are not supposed to do, i.e. ban someone based on issues that are irrelevant as far as actually editing Wikipedia is concerned. Remedies are supposed to be focussed on purely the editing and maintaining of Wikipedia. Evidence of bad conduct, harassment, personal attacks etc. etc. should always be evaluated in this narrow context. At the end of the day Wikipedia is just another website, it's not some company with the ArbCom members being the senior managers who can decide in some meeting that some employee (an editor) should be fired for not interacting well with them. By doing that, one actually makes Wikipedia a lot more vulnerable to the social dynamics that is causing all these problems involving harassment. Count Iblis (talk) 23:58, 20 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am happy that the Signpost dedicates bits and bytes to the Council meeting in Washington. However, I would have liked to see more accuracy. Others have already noticed some errors. Here what I have to say:

  • The author fails to use the proper terms. There are no "representatives", but Council Members. The WMNL board, which appointed me, expects from me to give feedback to the Dutch chapter members and to listen. But I would find it poor if a Council Member would see his / her task only in "representing" a chapter. The Council Members should consider the Wikimedia movement as a whole. Nothing can be achieved without cooperation and compromises.
  • There is no "WCA chair", only a chair of the Council.
  • It is definitely not true that I called an e-mail on the chapters list "harassment".
  • It is definitely not true that my election was "well discussed". There were two candidates, both presented themselves shortly, and then there was a vote. No discussion at all.
  • The author finds it notable that Fae's election was not accompanied by a "substantive discussion". In the parliamentary systems that I know about, it would be very unusual to have a discussion before electing a chair.

Ziko (talk) 05:53, 21 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]