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Jimmy Wales Faces Allegations of Corruption
eldavojohn writes "The SFGate site has up an article noting that Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, is facing allegations from multiple quarters accusing him of abusing his power. Several people apparently claim he used the foundation to pay for personal expenses, including reimbursement for a $1,300 dinner for four at a Florida steakhouse. Accusations have also been made indicating that he edited the Wikipedia entry of political commentator Rachel Marsden, a woman he was seeing, at her request. In the case of that allegation, Wales replied that 'I acted completely consistently with Wikipedia policy. I did the right thing: I passed along my work to date for other editors to deal with, and I recused myself from the case.'"
http://xkcd.com/250/
"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
It can be go tiem now plees?
Well, Chris Benoit's wife's death was reported on Wikipedia before it was reported to police. A "lucky" guess.
What percentage of the Slashdot populace has donated to Wikipedia?
What percentage of them would like to know that their donations went to unapproved steak dinners that we know of, and god know what else that we don't?
Sorry, if you make it your business to solicit money from me, then you make things like this my business.
And no, I don't consider the willingness to steal a small sum any different than the willingness to steal a large one.
At some point I picked up in slashdot comments about the whole antisocialmedia.net/Gary Weiss/Judd Bagley/Overstock.com mess and decided I was interested enough to spend the time (several hours) reading everything I could about it and trying to figure out what the heck was going on. I haven't got the several hours more it would take to try to recreate and document my findings here in a slashdot post, but I came into this with no preconceived notions, and if I had any leanings, I really like wikipedia and wanted it to be in the right. But I mostly concluded otherwise. Yes, Judd Bagley took many inappropriate actions- but who cares, he's just some guy. It looks like Wikipedia took many more incorrect actions, and it's a foundation that is supposed to behave appropriately.
I found the documentation of rampant editorial abuse to pursue personal agendas, going all the way up the support of Jimbo, to be very convincing. Read anitsocialmedia.net, examine the documentation, look at attempts to counter Bagley's arguments on the web, and draw your own conclusions, but I came off extremely disappointed in Wikipedia, and will be even more suspicious of its content in the future. I already was prepared to take Wikipedia content with a grain of salt because it can be edited by anyone, but it's much worse to know that an editor can have their own petty dictatorial custodianship of an article where they deliberately delete well documented and referenced relevant facts, perpetuate falsehoods, don't let anyone else edit it or even discuss it on the discussion page, ban even extremely well-established editors with good reputations if they try to touch these articles, and even delete the history of the article and the history of their own edits and contributions. I still think wikipedia's valuable, because most articles aren't run this way, but I always have to keep in mind that some are, and I don't really know if I'm looking at something people were free to edit and debate on the talk page and try to work towards a consensus on, or the biased opinions of a single dictatorial editor.
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
Speeding, by itself, isn't right or wrong. The law "don't speed" is for saftey of all, under most circumstances. However, there are exceptions to the "law" due to the fact of extenuating circumstances. In this case the siren and lights on emergency vehicles are indications of the exception in progress. So, your analogy is wrong on many levels.
A Hypocrite says "don't steal", which is wrong, and then gets caught taking something that is someone else's. The Hypocrite says "I did nothing wrong" and makes excuses as why what he did isn't wrong. A person with a momentary lapse of judgment will say "Oh shit, Sorry. How do I fix this". Generally speaking Hypocrites don't believe the rule(s) apply to them. Hypocrisy usually becomes clearer over time, and not always apparent at first glance.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Those are firing offenses at Microsoft. Plus they mark you down as "do not hire again".
How can it stay objective with their funding coming from big biz?
I have noticed all the 'Spam entries' like Chipotle's restaurant.
When I added a bit on their prices , it was quickly removed.
Same with AT&T. We have a department called "Asset Protection" that puts out a very Cops-like newsletter every quarter. Everytime there's some story about some guy with like 29 working here that gets fired after using his corporate card to pay for personal stuff. These guys lose their pensions, their benefits, everything... They take it very seriously.
"Life's short and hard, like a body building elf." -- The Bloodhound Gang
Actually, Hitler told Ferdinand Porsche he wanted a car like a certain model that the Czech company Tatra made, and Porsche obliged him from stealing the design, from the rear mounted air cooled engine down to the distinctive look of the body. Tatra sued, and Porsche was going to settle, but Hitler told him that he would take care of it, which he did by invading Czechoslovakia. Decades later VW payed Tatra millions of DM to settle the suit.
... well at least it'd be a better story, but still not up to committing genocide.
No sense giving Corporal Schickelgruber more credit than he deserves.
In any case, as you say a steakhouse bacchanalia does not necessarily qualify somebody to be compared to the author of the Final Solution. If you've ever worked for a non-profit, a lot what the top brass does is suck up to rich people. It's not very attractive or (once you strip the gold plating off) dignified, but that's how things roll. 1,300 is not an eye popping amount of money in the scheme of things if it results in a $100,000 donation. Now if it turned out it was really a visit to one of those cat houses where they make your credit card charge look like a vist you to an expensive restaurant
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
That's a bit mean. Wikipedia has obvious problems, but the fact that it is probably the world's largest book and is more or less accurate is an astonishing achievement. What it loses in accuracy or polish it makes up for in sheer breadth.
The problems it has occur largely because the management, and Wales in particular, are incompetent. Many of the obvious problems with Wikipedia could be solved by having professional administrators (at least at the top of the tree) who are barred from creating content, but merely enforce the rules. When those who create the content may also enforce the rules, it is obvious that there is the potential for conflict of interest. It is even worse when not only are those who create the content able to enforce the rules, but are able to themselves make the rules.
As it stands, Wikipedia's open structure encourages obsessives with major personality disorders. It's no surprise that the most influential admins tend to be obsessive, manipulative, vindictive scum, because the structure of the organization is such that obsessive, manipulative, vindictive scum will rise to the top. If you aren't an obsessive, you simply won't be able to match the work rate of people who are, and if you aren't Machiavellian, you will be beaten out by people who are. Communities need separation between those who make the rules, those who interpret them, and those who enforce them. Wikipedia doesn't have that, so the rules are simply interpreted according to the interests of the ruling clique.
It's all turned out rather like "Animal Farm" (with Wales as the swine in chief). Secret email lists, administrators who are seemingly able to break the rules, yet never be punished, while good faith editors whose agenda conflicts with those of the ruling clique are blocked based on the most trivial evidence. Mindless groupthink among the cabal. Rules continue to multiply like rabbits, many of them based on the weird personal agendas of admins. The Israel/Palestine articles are a shameful mess, etc.
Jimbo Wales has to go. Wikipedia is now one of the most important and influential sites on the net. It needs, competent and professional management.
"by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots" DECS