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Wikipedia Editors Revolt, Vote "No Confidence" In Newest Board Member (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader writes with news about an editor revolt at Wikimedia to remove Arnnon Geshuri from the foundation's board. Ars reports: "Nearly 200 Wikipedia editors have taken the unprecedented step of calling for a member of the Wikimedia Foundation board of directors to be tossed out. The Wikimedia Foundation, which governs both the massive Wikipedia online encyclopedia and related projects, appointed Arnnon Geshuri to its board earlier this month. His appointment wasn't well received by the Wikipedia community of volunteer editors, however. And last week, an editor called for a 'vote of no confidence on Arnnon Geshuri.' The voting, which has no legally binding effect on the Wikimedia Foundation, is now underway. As of press time, 187 editors had voted in favor of this proposition: 'In the best interests of the Wikimedia Foundation, Arnnon Geshuri must be removed from his appointment as a trustee of the Wikimedia Foundation Board.' Just 13 editors have voted against, including Wikimedia board member Guy Kawasaki.
No-poach agreements only hurt employees.
The 'no-poaching' compact was an agreement among chief executives. I know someone will drag this down to Godwin's Law in a minute, but he was doing as he was ordered. Are people expecting him to go to Eric Schmidt and Steve Jobs and tell them that he wouldn't follow direction? If he did, he'd get the opportunity to join the keyboard punchers at Wikipedia Editorial.
Are there any other reasons that he shouldn't offer advice on a board of a non-profit company?
"Who are you?" "No one of consequence." "I must know." "Get used to disappointment."
Id guess that:
A - A lot of wiki-bureaucrats and wiki-lawyers are of the tech-professional persuasion
B - This guy masterminded a deal that probably had the net effect of suppressing high tier tech-professional wages significantly.
I imagine there's significant core of senior editors who have yet to succumb to the temptations of paid and / or political editing and are still operating under the delusion that wikimedia should be operated as a non-profit for the benefit of all mankind. Appointing a certified corporate slimeball to the board is going to make maintaining that fantasy through the medium of selective ignorance just a little bit harder.
The guy was involved with big money and for big corporations. He might not have the best mindset sit at the board of a charity. Some time ago the Mozilla foundation sold itself to the advertisers. Nobody wants another disaster like that with the WMF, which is so much more relevant to everybody. I have no opinion on the guy but I find it great that the editors check that the board of trustees is actually composed of people who can be trusted.
I used to try to contribute edits to Wikipedia complete with sources only to find that people that spend an inordinate amount of time on the site roll-back my edits for reasons that were never justified. So while on the one hand I may not like people that look at no-poach agreements favorably, on the other hand, screw those involved with Wikipedia that have overinflated opinions of themselves and their position.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Since you mentioned Godwin's Law and chief execs, simply following orders is not a justifiable. To paraphrase the exchange between Google and Apple: Wikipedia's editors needs someone to be very careful to make sure this does not happen again. Wikipedia's board needs to make a public example of this termination with the group.
...the fact that they are useless for any topic with even a whiff of controversy
Is Britannica better? Wall Street Journal? People Magazine? Please advise.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
I have mixed feelings. Our society is supposed to believe that people can improve themselves and we should (eventually) forgive people. More importantly the people responsible for this are really Steve Jobs and Eric Schmidt, how many of these wikipedia voters are running macs and iphones?
So people are a little butt hurt. I don't see what this has to do at all with anything.
Employees of those major companies were blacklisted from seeking work at other major companies.
They would still get through the hiring and interviewing process, but then they would get automatically and systematically rejected with no reason given.
The least we can do is to blacklist him from positions of importance. This guy is a criminal. You don't put criminals in charge of organizations that you care about.
This fits all of the traits of a typical social "justice" angerfest:
1. Somebody does something that's actually quite minor. (Somebody gets appointed to a position of power. Or somebody mentions the word "dongle" to a friend. Or a police officer defends himself against a violent attacker who happens to have a different skin color.)
2. A small number of vocal opponents from the social "justice" movement object for whatever reason.
3. This small handful of vocal opponents from the social "justice" movement starts some non-binding petition or other useless bureaucratic construction.
4. Social media is used to rile up a bunch of other people who normally wouldn't give a fuck about what's going on, but who still want to feel that they're "making a difference" or "changing the world".
5. Despite claiming that it's wrong to single out a person and direct animosity toward this person, since doing so would be bullying, we see these social "justice" supporters single out the person and direct animosity toward them repeatedly. Yet they pretend it's not the bullying they're supposedly so very much against.
6. Typically within a few days, some new minor and pointless incident will catch the attention of the social "justice" supporters. They'll forget about everything they were angry about in the past, and they'll focus on this new issue for a day or two, until the next outrage comes along.
7. Their petition has no impact at all.
8. Slashdot reports on this pathetically irrelevant issue that nobody sensible actually cares about, well after the people who were originally outraged have forgotten that they were angry.
Our society is supposed to believe that people can improve themselves and we should (eventually) forgive people.
Sure. They guy who just got out of jail for mass-murder can cut my lawn. He can manage the local Wal-Mart. He can teach English-as-a-Second-Language classes to orphan refugees. Just... maybe let's all agree that "passenger airline pilot" isn't the job for him.
Point I'm trying to make is that while second chances are a Good Thing, it's also very reasonable that some bridges are forever burned, and a different way to cross the gorge needs be found.
"Oh no... he found the
Without a personal statement from Mr Geshuri about how he views the ethics of his own past behaviour on which to base my judgement, I can't see how this appointment can reasonably move forward.
I sure hope the employee severed for failing to break the law as directed worked this into a fat severance settlement.
What makes it petty squabbling nonsense is that it has nothing to do with his role at wikipedia. It is just base attack on an employee because people dislike them personally.
If what he did was illegal, they should be writing letters to the government, not trying to prevent him from ever working again.
Wikipedia needs to ban all these editors, because it is illegal to try to blackball somebody from an industry because you don't like what they did in a prior job somewhere else. They're attempting to overstep the authority of their roles in a way that violates the rights of the person they're trying to have cast out. Their removal is necessary to restore wikipedias reputation, because their actions are blatantly biased in a way that is caustic to open participation.
Maybe the guy is a [bad person], I don't know. I do know in this case that other [bad people] are attempting to violate his rights.
Wikipedia needs to ban all these editors, because it is illegal to try to blackball somebody from an industry because you don't like what they did in a prior job somewhere else.
And how are they trying to blackball someone from an entire industry? From what I can tell they're just trying to get him removed from what is essentially an executive board. The guy still holds a job at Tesla Motors anyway.
They're attempting to overstep the authority of their roles in a way that violates the rights of the person they're trying to have cast out.
Do what now? What rights are being violated? Had you read anything and not jumped to a knee jerk reaction, you'd see that they clearly understand what they're doing has zero legal weight. If you had a "bad" boss and the "majority" of the "workforce" got together to go above his head to have him removed, or at the very least their concerns heard, I'd say that's a great thing. This doesn't mean anyone has to do as they ask, you know.
Maybe the guy is a [bad person], I don't know.
Yes, that much is obvious. You just don't know anything.
I do know in this case that other [bad people] are attempting to violate his rights.
Do you know that? It seems to me that it's already been pointed out that they have no power to violate his rights in this context. I also wonder why you feel that people shouldn't be allowed to voice their opinion of dissent uniformly.