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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.
And thus begins Wikipedia burning itself to the ground. Good job, deletionists!
I wouldn't want to have someone complicit in illegal anti-trust activities put in a leadership role in an organization I had anything to do with either. I don't put this in the category of "butthurt", which is a word, if I must call it that, typically reserved for petty, squabbling nonsense. Not that this doesn't apply to Wikipedia editors in general, at least from what I've heard, but this appears to have some merit at first blush.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
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.
The fact that they don't clean their own house and have become an ego trip for the editors
http://www.theguardian.com/boo...
or the fact that they are useless for any topic with even a whiff of controversy
I stopped editing after a long time editor rolled back my removal of the word "lesbian" used to describe LCD technology.
You've committed the Hipster Comparison Misdirection Fallacy.
This is a fallacy we typically see employed by hipsters/Millennials in discussions like this.
Here's how it works:
1. Somebody points out a real problem with an idea, a product, a person, etc.
2. Some hipster comes along, ignores the actual problem being discussed, and instead says, "But is $SOME_OTHER_IRRELEVANT_THING any better?"
3. The comparison is totally irrelevant, because we aren't talking about $SOME_OTHER_IRRELEVANT_THING.
4. Discussion of the actual problem at hand is derailed because now other people feel the need to point out that $SOME_OTHER_IRRELEVANT_THING is in fact better.
No, we won't agree to that. If there isn't a clear condition of his release that prohibits him from flying an airplane, and you're worried about it, the thing to do would be to agree to make a new rule that people convicted of that crime can't be airline pilots.
Society spent thousands of years reaching the current consensus that it is not appropriate for a mob to "maybe let's[sic] all agree" to ban people from jobs we don't want them to have.
Point being, nobody made you bridge-keeper.
wikipedia is already failing big time due to bias of entrenched editors from west.
So start a project to cover the history of the world from an eastern perspective, ideally in the english language, so I can read it, for another perspective. Or if its simply a better run more neutral wiki overall it'll pick up all the disgruntled editors over at wikipedia too past and present, and quickly send wikipedia to a footnotes of history.
Fixing the organization from the inside seems neither requisite nor even particularly desirable. The internet is a big place, if you don't like the 'governing body of an internet site' go and carve another site out and build it anew.
I think the issue is more about trust. He has been shown to be complicit in immoral decision making when put into a position of power.
As a member of a Board of Trustees he'd be in a position of power involving potential moral decisions and the vote shows that he has yet to regain that trust.
It's not like the guy will be out of a day job and I'm sure there are plenty of other people that the Wikipedia editors would support.
It doesn't hurt that it's just deserts without any lives actually being harmed. From what I have read, he has disrupted other lives far more significantly than this will impact his own.