Jimmy Wales Resigns Chair at Wikipedia

user24 writes "As reported by Wikipedia's Signpost ezine, 'The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees has moved forward with a step in restructuring the organization by reorganizing itself. Following a planning retreat in Frankfurt, Jimmy Wales stepped down as Chair of the board, and Florence Nibart-Devouard was chosen to replace him ... Wales, meanwhile, will continue to serve on the board and assume the honorary title of Chairman Emeritus. He will remain active in Wikimedia projects, but chose to pass on the responsibility of heading the board, due in part to his commitments to outside projects.'"

Comments

They should get together with the Debian leaders

[QuantumG]

and work on a standardization of bureaucratic nerdiness.

Losers.

Nice change

[Salvance]

Jimmy Wales has done an EXCELLENT job creating Wikipedia, but a little change in leadership is probably a good thing right now. By stepping to the side (a little), he opens the door for more collaborative decisions and possibly some creative new direction for Wikipedia. If Jimmy Wales wasn't the chairperson, would Wikipedia have walked away from a $100 Million deal with AOL? Who knows, but I would guess they'd think longer about the offer.

Hopefully the new chairperson will help look for ways for Wikipedia to increase it's reach, accuracy, and media content. It's a great tool, but it could be so much better too ...

Re:Nice change

[Raul654]

"If Jimmy Wales wasn't the chairperson, would Wikipedia have walked away from a $100 Million deal with AOL? Who knows, but I would guess they'd think longer about the offer."

There's been a lot if idle speculation floating around about deals in the offing related to Wikipedia. Let me be clear - there is no such deal. There never was any such deal.

Re:Nice change

[anthony_dipierro]

Let me be clear - there is no such deal. There never was any such deal.

Do you really have the audacity to think you would know if there was a such deal?

Re:Nice change

[mmkkbb]

Look at his web page. He's a Wikipedia admin. (the one who scheduules featured articles for the front page, even)

Re:Nice change

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha Ha! You broke it off in that guy's ass with that one. Great job. The sad thing is, the dickhead you put in his place won't post and apologize for his stupidity. He'll just go make some more moronic posts elsewhere.

Fuck...I hate these people...

Re:Nice change

[anthony_dipierro]

Look at his web page. He's a Wikipedia admin. (the one who scheduules featured articles for the front page, even)

Just because he's a Wikipedia admin, and the one who schedules features articles for the front page, doesn't mean he'd know anything about a $100 million dollar deal between Wikimedia and AOL, before it is made public.

Re:Nice change

[Pink Tinkletini]

If Raul654 were notable for anything, it wouldn't be immodesty. Look into his posting history here, and his habits as an administrator, "arbitrator" (read: bully), and who knows what else on Wikipedia. Raul654 ain't exactly the brightest bulb in this carnival of lights.

Re:Nice change

[Raul654]

Jimbo's keeps the Foundation's press committee very well informed as to whom he is in discussions with, any deals that are in the works, 'etc.

Re:Nice change

[anthony_dipierro]

So yes, you do have the audacity to think you'd know about such a deal.

Why is this on slashdot?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this on slashdot?

The Wikimedia board only meets a couple of times a year... the chair hardly does any work. The reason for the change is that Florence whines a lot (take a look at the video from Wikimania 2006 for her childish behavior during the public board panel) at giving her a better title might just shut her up.

In any case, Wales is still a board member.. This wasn't a change of consequence to anyone outside the board. Not news.. and it doesn't matter.

Re:Why is this on slashdot?

[GerardM]

It is evident that you do not understand the functioning of the Wikimedia Foundation Board. The board is and has always been very much involved in the day to day running of Foundation and also (some) of its projects. The notion that they did not meet that often IRL is in this Internet age not really relevant. Tools like Skype and IRC are very much used.

Jimmy did and does a great job. If it were me he should (and in him the Wikimedia Foundation) get a Nobel peace price. However, the changes under way in the WMF are significant. These changes have not found their final form at all and given the enormous growth of the projects and as a consequence the need for the managing of the resulting issues it is likely that the WMF organisation is like a wiki; a work in progress.

Thanks,
          GerardM

Re:Why is this on slashdot?

[anthony_dipierro]

Why is this on slashdot?

Slashdot accepts story submissions from the public, there are lots and lots of Wikipedians who submit stories to Slashdot, and it only takes one moderator to approve a story.

Or were you asking why this should be on Slashdot?

In any case, Wales is still a board member.. This wasn't a change of consequence to anyone outside the board. Not news.. and it doesn't matter.

There is a pending resignation from one of the 5 board members, Tim Shell. According to the bylaws he is to be replaced by a vote of the board, and in case of a tie (2 votes to 2) the Chair breaks the tie. So if you concede that the board of Wikimedia matters (considering for instance that they run one of the top trafficked websites in the world), then I think you should agree this does matter.

That said, it wasn't really news to anyone who follows this type of stuff.

Re:Why is this on slashdot?

[ArikTheRed]

That said, it wasn't really news to anyone who follows this type of stuff.

Nothing on here is ever news to anyone who follows the specific topic. Its already been published by some other source first, and fans will know already. But so what?

Re:Why is this on slashdot?

[anthony_dipierro]

True. It would have been nice if Slashdot ran this story sooner after the news came out, though. And it would have been nice if they mentioned that Jimmy wasn't resigning from the board, just that Florence was unanimously elected as the new chair. And it would have been nice if the headline wasn't incorrect. Wikipedia doesn't [yet?] have a board, the Wikimedia Foundation does.

Re:Why is this on slashdot?

[h2g2bob]

Wikimedia Foundation **Press release** (rather than some random Wikipedia edit) is here:

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases /Wikimedia_Foundation_board_reorganised

`` Jimmy Wales said: "I nominated Florence to be the Chair of the Foundation in recognition of her outstanding service for the past few years and her unsurpassed passion for our goals. Having such a trusted community representative elected as our new chair demonstrates the growth and strength of our organization." ''

Thank You

[moatra]

I hope I'm not alone in this, but I for one would like to say "Thanks" to Jimmy Wales, and all that he and Wikipedia has done to help advance the internet, modern knowledge, and in particular, the life of this college student. Thank You

Re:Thank You

[Hitto]

Seconded.
Wikipedia had brought a lot of knowledge readily accessible to myself and I'm sure a ton of other folks. It's one of the rare things that make you think "Thank you, Internet."

Or thank you, Humanity. Glad we can do something else than just kill each other and the planet.

Jimbo Wales and Wikipedia

[Gopal.V]

I met Jimbo Wales when he had visited Bangalore recently and he struck me as a very down to earth person. In his own words, "I don't do much for wikipedia. I travel to places and wikipedia makes it into the local papers". I suspect he was oversimplifying his role in wikipedia, but that is the true success of of a founder - to create a self-sutaining system which doesn't need him to stay alive.

I assume he'll be more involved in Wikia, which though probably similar to wikipedia, can probably exist orthogonally.

Re:Jimbo Wales and Wikipedia

[a.d.trick]

And this is why the wikipedia works. The world really needs more people like Jimmy. Any lesser person would have brought the thing to its knees with ridiculous politics. Separating a project from it's founder is akward even in the best of times. God Bless.

Re:Jimbo Wales and Wikipedia

[Pink Tinkletini]

Surprising you should think that. Wikipedia is mired in politics and bureaucracy, no small part of which follows the example set by Jimbo Wales. This ongoing bureaucratic clusterfuck is regrettable, and a major reason people are leaving the project in droves. Valuable contributors are being driven away by continual harassment from admins who should know better. Others lose interest when they discover the futility of correcting mistakes when those mistakes are being protected, again, by admins who should know better. The project is bleeding talent from the top, as well; Angela Beesley and Larry Sanger are just two of the better-known public faces to have recently quit in frustration.

Good

[Anonymous Coward]

While the guy was great due to creating and founding Wikipedia and all, I didn't like him. Mainly because of abusing his power.

Arbitration Committee elections

[Anonymous Coward]

Indirectly related, but the Jimmy Wales-created ArbCom (Arbitration Committee, the "Supreme Court" of Wikipedia) is undergoing their once-per-year elections at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration _Committee_Elections_December_2006

It's funny that out of the five million Wikipedians, only twelve want to take the job.

Re:Arbitration Committee elections

[Achromatic1978]

The election can't be as bad as the board elections, where Jimmy announced in his letter who he thought people should vote for and who they should not vote for: http://www.wikitruth.info/index.php?title=Board_Ga mes

As that article states, kinda stinks of interference. Well, not stinks, but is.

My personal favourite, after announcing who two people are and that you should "give them some of your votes" while others have "shown themselves to be untrustworthy", he then proclaims:

I invite an open discussion here of the candidates. This is your community, speak openly of who you trust and why.

Why, so we can flag ourselves as being "against", as in "If you're not with us, you're against us"?

Thanks, Jimmy!

[MaguroNigiri]

While Wales was a great chairman, no matter how well a leader leads, they still need to be switched out every once in a while. Wikipedia is one of the greatest things that has ever happened to the internet, and now that there is a new chairman to the initiative, there will be more new ideas to, hopefully, advance the wiki project even further.

Nice try at getting the Frisky Pornstar!

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, you are gay. You need to get a life. Wiki was your grandmother, and you're trying to defend it? Go away, man, go away right now. MORNON.

Re:Nice try at getting the Frisky Pornstar!

[Kingrames]

"MORNON."

If you were using Firefox 2, that word would have been underlined in red when you typed it in, and you might have avoided making such a humorous and ironic error while typing.

In short, LOL@U.

That's because

[Anonymous Coward]

it's pretty much the shittiest job on the wiki. Imagine fighting against other people's idiotic drama every single day, except that they have been given a legitimate forum to air their internet grievances. That's what the arbcom has to do.

Re:They should get together with the Debian leader

[FreeIX]

I agree. Next story please...

The only word I saw in that title was chair

[Rik Sweeney]

and I thought to myself

"Oh God, what's Ballmer done this time?"

Misread the title the first time

[iLogiK]

"Jimmy Wales Redesigns Chair at Wikipedia"...

I was expecting to see some kind of new modern chair design (which seemed a little odd given the context)...
ok, you can mod me down now....

the Chairman of the Party is replaced...

[Anonymous Coward]

...and members speak of his glorious contributions to the Union of Soviet Socialist Wikis.

The cult of personality surrounding Wikipedia is fantastic, yet Wikipedia has done more harm to the spirit of the Internet (equal peers) than any other project.

Remember, all Wikipedia editors are equal, but some are more equal than others.

Re:the Chairman of the Party is replaced...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but he unfortunately won't be remembered for his abuses of power, but as the guy who saw that encylopaedias written by experts were just too hard to organise; the truth can be determined by persistent edits and the occasional vote, no?

He's just an overgrown pornographer... yesterday he exploited women, today he exploits zealots looking for a cause; in each case, he makes all the money, and someone else does the dirty work. He executes this really well, of the order that Bill Gates courts big business: he is charming, he speaks softly and carries a big stick.

I'm glad that my small efforts, along with the greater contributions of others who see Wikipedia for what it is, have been able recently to get the attention of the media; unfortunately, we have focussed on symptoms, on practical problems, rather than on the shaky principles that form the very foundations of the project.

Re:the Chairman of the Party is replaced...

[Petronius.Scribe]

The following text is from Polar Star, by Martin Cruz Smith.

The grandsons of the Revolution spoke plodding, measured Russian, as if each word were so many centimetres that, when carefully laid end to end, would inevitably lead to consensus, and spoken politely and soberly because it was the genius of Soviet democracy that all meetings should reach comradely unanimity. Say a worker came before a factory committee and pointed out that they were turning out cars with three wheels, or told a farm committee they were turning out calves with two heads. Such news never stopped a calm, experienced committee from marching in single formation.

Sounds awfully familiar.

Re:the Chairman of the Party is replaced...

[UPi]

Sollog, is that you? :)

Re:the Chairman of the Party is replaced...

[DiamondGeezer]

How about this for familiarity?

What happened in the unseen labyrinth to which the pneumatic tubes led, he did not know in detail, but he did know in general terms. As soon as all the corrections which happened to be necessary in any particular number of The Times had been assembled and collated, that number would be reprinted, the original copy destroyed, and the corrected copy placed on the files in its stead.

        This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound-tracks, cartoons, photographs -- to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance. Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date.

        In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct, nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary. In no case would it have been possible, once the deed was done, to prove that any falsification had taken place....

        Even the written instructions which Winston received, and which he invariably got rid of as soon as he had dealt with them, never stated or implied that an act of forgery was to be committed: always the reference was to slips, errors, misprints, or misquotations which it was necessary to put right in the interests of accuracy.

- George Orwell, "1984"

retreat?

[SuperBanana]

Following a planning retreat in Frankfurt

OK, Frankfurt isn't exactly a luxurious destination- but why are Wikipedia people going on "retreats", and who is footing the bill? And I don't mean just airfare or accomodations...I mean meeting facilities, dinners, etc...

Re:retreat?

[Sage Gaspar]

OK, Frankfurt isn't exactly a luxurious destination- but why are Wikipedia people going on "retreats", and who is footing the bill? And I don't mean just airfare or accomodations...I mean meeting facilities, dinners, etc...

Donations and partnerships I'd imagine. If you go to their budget page there's a more detailed analysis, but I'm a little too tired and apathetic to look through all of it. It's not very uncommon though, especially in a situation like this where you have an academic project that's massive in scope, plus this one's also got a pretty big financial interest.

Re:retreat?

[Achromatic1978]

This page, although written from an inflammatory POV, raises some very interesting points, though I admit I've not dug too deep into the financials. Quite concerning, for those who want to/do donate to Wikipedia.

Re:retreat?

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the concept was to get together a range of people involved (loosely) in the management of Wikipedia, and to try to set some future direction or strategy. Whether it actually accomplished this or made the best use of the skills of the participants is another thing entirely.

ps. we paid for our own meals :-(

Re:They should get together with the Debian leader

[LuNa7ic]

and work on a standardization of bureaucratic nerdiness. Losers.

This coming from someone with 5481 comments on slashdot?

Where's the citation?

[badfish99]

Are we sure this happened? As far as I can see, the only evidence is a page on Wikipedia, and everyone knows how reliable that is.
</sarcasm>

OT: Slashdot Moderation System Problem?

[QuantumFTL]

Does anyone know why very few comments are being moderated up lately? Is this some kind of mod system bug?

Sorry for the OT post...

Re:OT: Slashdot Moderation System Problem?

[Angostura]

Not sure. But I haven't had mod points in two months or so, which is fairly unusual.

Re:OT: Slashdot Moderation System Problem?

[MMC Monster]

Same here. I've had much less chances at modding (though I have probably reading more) since the new system went up. On the plus side, I finally figured out how to use those arrows to get the right mix of comments while keeping out most of the trolls.

Re:OT: Slashdot Moderation System Problem?

[empaler]

Yeah, I have been getting very few mod points lately as well.

Re:OT: Slashdot Moderation System Problem?

[Angostura]

Ah, the new discussion system. I tried to help test it for about 3 weeks and finally gave up, flummoxed as to how to make it work. I salute your superior intelligence.

Retirement

[pipingguy]

Hey, if *my* web creation were to reach the success of Wikipedia's, I'd retire to be the executive consultant for the Bomis Babe Report, too!

Obligatory simpsons quote

[Musc]

To quote Jimbo: "Hah Hah!"

Re:Obligatory simpsons quote

[FusionDragon2099]

Nelson's the one that goes "Ha ha!". Please turn in your nerd license on the way out.

My Heart Sank

[phat_goat]

It just doesn't feel right, that bad churning feeling isn't subsiding guys, hopefully I'm wrong in assuming that Wikimedia will be run any differently, hopefully. :/

Disclaimer- I only read the headline

[way2trivial]

did he throw it?

Update to Wikipedia entry covers this in detail

[DiamondGeezer]

[[Jimbo Wales]]

In [[November]] [[2006]], Jimbo was voted from the board by a cabal of giant [[badgers]] and [[sockpuppets]] to be replaced by the leader of the [[Transformers]]. His statement[1] to the new board consisted of threats to [[see them all in court| wikilaywer]] them out of [[existence]]. Jimbo then flounced out of the room in his customary [[pink]] [[tutu]] before planting a [[French Kiss]] on the mouth of [[Ted Haggard]]. Haggard then announced that he had only received a [[massage]] from the [[Great White Turd]]

*[This biography is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by extending it]

Re:Update to Wikipedia entry covers this in detail

[Anonymous Coward]

ATTENTION!

If you came here because somebody asked you to, or you read a message on a forum, please note that this is not a vote, but rather a discussion to establish a consensus amongst slashdot editors on whether a post is suitable for this article. We have policies and guidelines to help us decide this, and deletion decisions are made on the merits of the arguments, not by counting heads (or socks).

You can participate and give your opinion. Please sign your posts on this page by adding ~~~~ at the end. Happy editing!

Re:They should get together with the Debian leader

[ari wins]

Wikipedia just fixed the article. Turns out, Florence Nibart-Devouard was drunk and decided to post some slanderous material on Wales' personal wikipage.

Wales...

[Anonymous Coward]

When I think of Wales, I think of the fish with the biggest dick...

--
http://www.sex.ie

Not surprised...

[Ingolfke]

Not only has Jimmy been under attack for the last 10 to 11 months for the increasing inaccuracy of the Wikipedia he's been publically lamenting the low pay. Sort of reminds me of Daniel Robbins leaving Gentoo. Anyways I hear he may go back to running some adult erotic modeling sites on the side to help cover his expenses. Anyone else know anything about this?

DING DONG

[Anonymous Coward]

The witch is dead.

Kudos to Jimmy Wales

[guanxi]

He always tries to do the right thing, AFAICT, whether that means telling the truth about Wikipedia (it's inaccurate in many ways and has room to improve*), or stepping aside as chairman. I don't know why he stepped aside, but many (I'd say most) people would put their egos first and resist with all their might. Many organizations fail, or underperform, because founders can't let go.

(* Those are Jimmy's criticisms, not mine: He's judges it more harshly than I do.)

Thank you Jimmy Wales. Whatever its flaws, we are far, far better off with Wikipedia than without it.

Re:Kudos to Jimmy Wales

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Showing up on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell me is hardly the right thing. ;)

Re:Kudos to Jimmy Wales

[anthony_dipierro]

I don't know why he stepped aside, but many (I'd say most) people would put their egos first and resist with all their might.

It's not so much that he resigned as that he chose to support someone else rather than have the others vote whether or not to retain him. Under the Wikimedia bylaws the Chair is elected for a one year term.

Many organizations fail, or underperform, because founders can't let go.

Had Wales not decided to support someone other than himself, I doubt it would have been a unanimous vote. Whether or not it would have caused enough of a ruckous to cause the organization to fail, I really don't know.

Nope

[christurkel]

If you really think Jimbo is giving up power, you are wrong. This is a man who directly manipulate elections at Wikipedia.
http://www.wikitruth.info/index.php?title=Board_Ga mes

if he truly goes, then Wikipedia truly benefits but he wont give up the platform tht elevated him from soft porn purveyor to respected internet mind.

Re:Nope

[Apotsy]

If he wants something done, he'll just sit back and wonder if it should be done. He doesn't need to be on the board for that.

Will the "Everywhere Girl" get restored

[BroncoInCalifornia]

The Everywhere Girl has been deleted from Wikipedia. Will she get restored?

Re:Will the "Everywhere Girl" get restored

[DavidHOzAu]

The Everywhere Girl has been deleted from Wikipedia. Will she get restored?

First, why would we want to restore a one-word article?

Second, it's quicker to start the article yourself than to request undeletion, buddy.

Third, that's an interesting question! When you feel something needs clarity, please feel free to look it up on a variety of sources before asking about whatever questions you feel need to be answered. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...)

Fourth, sources you might want to look up first include but are not limited to:

• www.google.com
• www.yahoo.com
• en.wikipedia.org
• Columbia Encyclopedia

This post was brought to you by the Slashdot Automatic Posting Service

Re:Will the "Everywhere Girl" get restored

[BroncoInCalifornia]

But the Everywhere Girl is permanently banned from Wikipedia. The article used to be several paragraphs long.

Re:Will the "Everywhere Girl" get restored

[DavidHOzAu]

But the Everywhere Girl is permanently banned from Wikipedia. The article used to be several paragraphs long.

Really? Then it should show up in a deletion log somewhere. As far as I can tell that article was only deleted once.

To me this sounds like an internet meme or pop-culture article; if so then it sounds like it relied on primary sources and was thus Original Research. My advice is that you should wait until Wikipedia:Attribution gets accepted as a guideline; now for an important caveat: although it should be a bit more understanding than what we have at the moment, this should not be seen as an open-slather green light to so-called pop-culture articles where primary sources are the only available sources—reliable are still preferred if available. In this case however, I have never heard of Everywhere Girl outside of the source you provided, nor have I read the original article you are talking about, so you might want to take this advice with a pinch of salt.

Cheers,
DavidHOzAu