Arnnon Geshuri, Newest Wikimedia Trustee, Forced To Resign

New submitter Mdann52 writes: Following an earlier vote of no confidence, it was announced that the recent appointee, Arnnon Geshuri, had stepped down from the board. This was following community criticism into his background. Says the announcement: The Board Governance Committee is working to improve and update our selection processes before we fill the vacancy left by Arnnonâ(TM)s departure. We are sorry for the distress and confusion this has caused to some in our community, and also to Arnnon.

Comments

Coverage in Wikipedia's community newspaper

[Andreas Kolbe]

For detailed background, see coverage in the Wikipedia Signpost, Wikipedia's community newspaper:

Geshuri steps down from board

Media coverage of the Arnnon Geshuri no-confidence vote

Also check the previous two weeks' News & Notes for how the no-confidence vote came about.

I'm surprised they actually pulled this off!

[Sowelu]

Also, new management, maybe you could make Slashdot actually support unicode or pasting in weird things so that articles don't have weird symbols like this one?

Re:I'm surprised they actually pulled this off!

[Chmarr]

Oh but Whhhhhy? Haven't _you_ always wanted your name to be a trademark?

Re:I'm surprised they actually pulled this off!

[Lunix Nutcase]

Or maybe the Slashdort web monkeys could get off their asses and just implement UTF-8 support? The standard is 24 years old by now. It's not like it's something new and unproven at this point.

Re:I'm surprised they actually pulled this off!

[KiloByte]

UTF-8 support in slashcode has been implemented since ages ago, it's purely a matter of deployment.

Re:I'm surprised they actually pulled this off!

[alvinrod]

That's small potatoes when you could be a smiling poo.

Re: I'm surprised they actually pulled this off!

[arielCo]

Maybe people with weird, non-murican (sur)names like SchÃf or LeÃñez want their (user)name to be their name.

Arnnonâ(TM)s

[Anonymous Coward]

He's so corporate he trademarked his own name.

Re: Arnnonâ(TM)s

[invictusvoyd]

The people who allowed him to trademark his own name should be asked to step down too.

Re:Had to

[Anonymous Coward]

[Cessna Citation needed]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

The whole Wikimedia Foundation needs to disband

[Anonymous Coward]

Fire the whole team and replace them with a legimate charity that bans pov pushers, deletionists, abusive admins and edit reverters.

Re:The whole Wikimedia Foundation needs to disband

[vel-ex-tech]

Where are you getting that? From the BBC:

Documents filed with a US court indicated Mr Geshuri, who now works for Tesla Motors, had been involved in enforcing a deal struck between Apple and Google not to poach each other's staff.

In a 2007 email, while he had been working at Google, he had assured his boss, Eric Schmidt, that a company employee would be "terminated within the hour" for approaching an Apple staff member, the documents indicated.

I wish they would have presented that before this, because this makes no sense otherwise:

Nearly 300 backed a vote of no confidence over allegations of involvement in a no-poaching deal while he was a Google human resources boss.

Mr Geshuri was alleged to have fired an employee who violated an agreement by approaching an Apple staff member.

I don't know about you AC, but I would not want somebody working for me that had been involved in that breach of ethics. This guy played a part in keeping IT workers' salaries down because Google and Apple do not want to pay for what their talent is actually worth to them.

And of course, you know what that makes him in my book: a gaslighting asshole manager.

Re:The whole Wikimedia Foundation needs to disband

[AuMatar]

He was breaking the law. No hire agreements are illegal constraints of trade under a variety of antitrust acts. Not wanting to work with him based on that isn't an activist position, its not wanting to hire a criminal to a position of trust.

Re:The whole Wikimedia Foundation needs to disband

[BarbaraHudson]

"I vas only followink orderz!"

Mind you, the way we're going after a 90-something-old men who was an accountant "because his work cataloging inventory aided the nazis", Wernher von Braun would have been hung because he actively worked on the V2 and other programs knowing full well that they were going to be used against civilians. And Russians would have been the first on the moon.

At some time shouldn't people say "enough is enough - the people who gave the orders are dead, either during the war, or after."

Re:The whole Wikimedia Foundation needs to disband

[packrat0x]

"Only following orders" can sometimes be a valid excuse. For example: if someone can be executed / shot immediately for not following orders. See Enlisted.
On the other hand, if they are in a position more like a Commissioned Officer, then it is not an excuse.

Re:The whole Wikimedia Foundation needs to disband

[taustin]

I wish I had mod points. California is pretty strict on both sides of its "right to work" laws, and what Google and Apple did should have resulted in prison sentences for executives at every company involved. Not morally "should have," but legally "should have." They committed serious crimes.

Unfortunately, in California, you can't put rich people in prison, especially if they're also famous.

Re:The whole Wikimedia Foundation needs to disband

[rudy_wayne]

"Only following orders" can sometimes be a valid excuse.

Maybe. But that is not the case here.

Arnnonâ(TM) Geshuri was no flunky. He was an executive in charge of 900 recruiters. It was his job to know the law, and more importantly, it was his job to tell Eric Schmidt (or anyone else) "this is illegal and we shouldn't be doing it".

Re:The whole Wikimedia Foundation needs to disband

[alvinrod]

I don't think it would have mattered or gone anywhere, even if the state had the stones to pursue a case against the companies' leadership. If it came to a legal battle, Jobs would have probably fallen on that sword knowing he was dying or that he'd be dead before the legal proceedings could finish. What would they do then, dig up his corpse and put it in jail?

Re:The whole Wikimedia Foundation needs to disband

[BarbaraHudson]

Your link says nothing about lack of liability for following orders.

Also, international law is clear on this - following orders is not an excuse.

Nuremberg principals

Principle IV

"The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him".

This principle could be paraphrased as follows: "It is not an acceptable excuse to say 'I was just following my superior's orders'".

Previous to the time of the Nuremberg Trials, this excuse was known in common parlance as "Superior Orders". After the prominent, high profile event of the Nuremberg Trials, that excuse is now referred to by many as the "Nuremberg Defense". In recent times, a third term, "lawful orders" has become common parlance for some people. All three terms are in use today, and they all have slightly different nuances of meaning, depending on the context in which they are used.

Nuremberg Principle IV is legally supported by the jurisprudence found in certain articles in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which deal indirectly with conscientious objection. It is also supported by the principles found in paragraph 171 of the Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status which was issued by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Those principles deal with the conditions under which conscientious objectors can apply for refugee status in another country if they face persecution in their own country for refusing to participate in an illegal war.

The ucmj, article 92, also only requires you to obey lawful orders. An order to participate in a massacre of civilians, as often happened in viet nam, is unlawful, and should be disobeyed.

Re:The whole Wikimedia Foundation needs to disband

[dissy]

"Only following orders" can sometimes be a valid excuse.

That is less so a "valid excuse" than it is simply a "really Really fucked up position to be in"

It clearly isn't an excuse since legally it excuses nothing.
But it IS really fucked up. If you disobey illegal orders you will be shot. If you follow illegal orders you will be held 100% responsible for your actions and can be anything from imprisoned to executed.

Fucked either way, but the point is you ARE fucked either way - claiming "I was just following orders" will NOT in any way reduce your punishment for following them.

Re:The whole Wikimedia Foundation needs to disband

[Lunix Nutcase]

Geshuri did not create the no-hire policy that was agreed upon by Google, Apple and the other Silicon Valley companies. He was just an HR guy who followed his company's policies

Which is no excuse for breaking the law. As an HR guy he should not have been following illegal policies.

Re:The whole Wikimedia Foundation needs to disband

[PopeRatzo]

He was just an HR guy

He wasn't just "an HR guy". He was the HR guy. He was in charge of recruiters. At his level, he was well aware that the policies he was implementing were utterly illegal.

Don't try to make it sound like he just worked in the HR department handing out benefit information to new hires.

Re:The whole Wikimedia Foundation needs to disband

[AuMatar]

The fact he wasn't charged doesn't mean he didn't break the law. The fact that they lost the civil lawsuit, and in fact lost it so badly that the judge rejected the initial settlement for not being big enough, proves that they did.

Re:The whole Wikimedia Foundation needs to disband

[crow_t_robot]

He was just an HR guy who followed his company's policies

Jawohl!

Seriously, though, it sounds like he is a huge pussy that was cowed into doing what he was told instead of doing what is right.

Re:The whole Wikimedia Foundation needs to disband

[ooloorie]

AFAIK, all that existed was a "no poaching" agreement; that is, the companies agreed not to cold-call each others' employees. Plenty of people have moved between Apple and Google.

Re:The whole Wikimedia Foundation needs to disband

[ooloorie]

This guy played a part in keeping IT workers' salaries down because Google and Apple do not want to pay for what their talent is actually worth to them.

There is no basis for those statements. Apple and Google pay quite well, and there are thousands of other companies in Silicon Valley where people can work (and that pay even better than either). And the reason companies like Apple and Google do this is not to keep salaries down, it is to avoid disrupting their teams and deadlines.

I don't know about you AC, but I would not want somebody working for me that had been involved in that breach of ethics.

I don't consider it a breach of ethics, and probably lots of other people don't either.

Re:The whole Wikimedia Foundation needs to disband

[taustin]

I think you just concluded the exact opposite of what I wrote. But I'm not sure, because you're fairly incoherent.

Re:The whole Wikimedia Foundation needs to disband

[ooloorie]

It is far from clear that what they were doing was actually illegal. After all, they didn't have "no hire" agreements, but rather just a "no cold call" agreement.

"In order to maintain a good working relationship with these companies, in 2005 we decided not to "cold call" employees at a few of our partner companies. Our policy only impacted cold calling, and we continued to recruit from these companies through LinkedIn, job fairs, employee referrals, or when candidates approached Google directly. In fact, we hired hundreds of employees from the companies involved during this time period."

Re:The whole Wikimedia Foundation needs to disband

[klui]

Regardless, I'm glad the judge who ruled on the case thought what they did was illegal.

Re:The whole Wikimedia Foundation needs to disband

[PopeRatzo]

Geshuri was senior enough to know the difference between right and wrong, legal and illegal.

Re:The whole Wikimedia Foundation needs to disband

[ooloorie]

Both the DOJ case and the civil case were resolved by settlement.

And the reason the companies were quick to settle was that a protracted lawsuit would have been expensive and bad PR, not because the lawsuits were justified.

Re:The whole Wikimedia Foundation needs to disband

[Razed By TV]

People who stand on the line of "technically this isn't illegal" enable abusive practices to flourish.

Re:The whole Wikimedia Foundation needs to disband

[ooloorie]

People who stand on the line of "technically this isn't illegal" enable abusive practices to flourish.

It's people like you who are responsible for the massive abuse of power by our legal system and by police.

In any case, I didn't even make the argument that it was "technically not illegal", I'm saying that what they did was actually reasonable and perfectly alright.

Re:The whole Wikimedia Foundation needs to disband

[KGIII]

Let me first state that I know nothing of this case. I kind of remember reading something about it a few times but I did not keep up with it.

That said, there's big difference between a civil and criminal matter. A conviction in the former does not mean a conviction in the latter. You are not a criminal if you're found guilty in civil court. You're a criminal when you're found guilty in a criminal proceeding.

The burden of proof for a conviction in a civil matter is only that the defendant, more likely than not, committed the alleged offense. The burden of proof for a criminal matter is that the person was proven, beyond reasonable doubt, to have committed the alleged offense.

This person may be a scumbag, a dick, and even an unlawful actor. Unless there's something that I have missed, this person is not actually a criminal.

It should be also noted that I'm not suggesting that this person belonged on the board - but I don't donate to the foundation at all or even use any of their sites on a regular basis. I don't really have a strong opinion except to say that this person seems to have worked for a company who was later convicted of a civil offense. As near as I can tell, this person was never charged with a criminal or civil crime.

To be clear, this person isn't convicted of anything (as far as I know). Not even at a civil level are they convicted.

While I'd still not want them seated on the board - if I gave a shit, that is, I'm kind of partial until that innocent until proven guilty thing. I know, it's quaint and antiquated and outdated but I think we should keep the idea around for a keepsake, if nothing else. Unless I'm missing something, this person hasn't ever been convicted of anything. Ever. They've never even been charged with anything.

They probably should not be on the board. They are not convicted of anything and haven't even been tried for anything. If they had been (and they were not) convicted of a civil offense, they'd still not be criminals really. They'd just be scumbags. This has not only never happened (again, unless I'm missing something) they've never even been charged in a civil matter, never mind that they've also never been charged in a criminal matter.

Unless you want to go with that being guilty until proven innocent thing then you might want to rethink your views. It's a rather important legal concept that guilt must be proven (to some level of proof) but I can understand why it is unappealing to some.

Re:The whole Wikimedia Foundation needs to disband

[serviscope_minor]

Not wanting to work with him based on that isn't an activist position

I'm really failing to see why what's wrong with it being an activist position, except for the fact that the GP seems to be using it as an insult. It's not illegal for him to be on the board, so anything beyond that is essentially activist as it's based on opinions.

And there's nothing at all wrong with that.

Much like with Eich, if you act like an utter raging douchenozzle then people aren't going to want to work with you whether or not your specific act of douchnozzelery has much to do with the job at hand or not.

Re:The whole Wikimedia Foundation needs to disband

[serviscope_minor]

Geshuri was senior enough to know the difference between right and wrong, legal and illegal./em.

And if he wasn't senior enough to know the difference between right and wrong, why on earth would anyone want someone who can't tell right from wrong on the board?

Re:The whole Wikimedia Foundation needs to disband

[N1AK]

In that circumstance if you follow the order you're only going to get shot if the people who gave you the orders lose; which is exactly why that circumstance is so wrong. Even knowing that you'll be held accountable if your side loses isn't a disincentive, so you're you're punishing people whose only alternative was execution. You can bet that if the Japanese had somehow won WWII they'd have had everyone involved in the nuclear bombing executed for war crimes, so the lesson appears to be don't be born on the side that might lose a major conflict...

In this case it however that all seems rather irrelevant. The worst thing that could have happened here if Arnnon had some principles is he'd have had to have found a high paying job somewhere else instead.

Re:The whole Wikimedia Foundation needs to disband

[N1AK]

You don't half come across as an apologist for these firms. Unless you were intimately involved in the case then you don't know why they settled so quickly, and frankly settling doesn't seem to have saved them much in terms of PR so if you think that was their intent then you clearly don't think they're that smart. The companies could easily have afforded the lawsuit so the expense issue is a non-excuse to begin with, and if what they were doing was in no way holding back pay then why bother? Why would someone from Google who was being paid fairly for their job be tempted to move to Apple based on an approach if Apple were going to pay them the same amount? There's no answer that makes sense (and before you say maybe they wanted to work for Apple; it should be pretty obvious that if they did then they'd contact Apple rather than waiting to see if Apple contacted them).

Re:The whole Wikimedia Foundation needs to disband

[Razed By TV]

In any case, I didn't even make the argument that it was "technically not illegal", I'm saying that what they did was actually reasonable and perfectly alright.

Right, my point is that suppressing worker wages is never alright.

Re:The whole Wikimedia Foundation needs to disband

[kwbauer]

Making cold calls or not making cold calls does nothing to suppress wages. Why is any company not free to decide how, when and where to recruit. Normally, people get all fired up about preventing cold calls from being made and now we are defending the practice. An agreement to not hire from a competitor/partner or to not offer increased compensation, would actually be an agreement that would suppress wages.

Re:The whole Wikimedia Foundation needs to disband

[ooloorie]

Right, my point is that suppressing worker wages is never alright.

The idea that a policy of no cold calling "suppresses worker wages" is absurd.

And who are we talking about? These "workers" are people in the top few percent of the US income distribution, many of them in "the 1%". These are the kinds of people the Democrats want to greatly expand taxes on. You don't want to "suppress their wages"? Don't vote for people who want to "raise taxes on the wealthy".

Re:The whole Wikimedia Foundation needs to disband

[Razed By TV]

The idea that a policy of no cold calling "suppresses worker wages" is absurd.

Nope.

Re:The whole Wikimedia Foundation needs to disband

[Grishnakh]

Unfortunately, in the United States, you can't put rich people in prison, especially if they're also famous.

FTFY.

Off-topic

[coldmist]

I just hate how the 'related links' at the bottom of the page, about Wikipedia, for a site that is about tech "stuff" are:

1165 - 10 Confirmed Dead In Shooting at Oregon's Umpqua Community College
1094 - Los Angeles Raises Minimum Wage To $15 an Hour
1081 - How To Execute People In the 21st Century
1032 - Writer: "Why I Defaulted On My Student Loans"
  965 - Explosions and Multiple Shootings In Paris, Possible Hostages

How are stories that are better suited to USA Today the most 'related' stories?

Slashdot, how the mighty have fallen.

Re:Off-topic

[Ol Olsoc]

How are stories that are better suited to USA Today the most 'related' stories?

Slashdot, how the mighty have fallen.

If you look at the top of the page, you can select only the stories that won't give you booboo feelings They have Devices, Build, Entertainment, Technology, Open Source, Science, and YRO.

Or if you want, make a real statermentg and put "Why is this even on Slashdot?" as your tagline. There are some folks that jhave been here for years, with their only contribution "Why is this even on Slashdot?

TL;DR version is not everyone is a programmer.

no winners here

[epine]

Lost in all of this is that he might actually have been a strong appointment and done a good job in this role. Capable people with a golden Rolodex who are willing to work for quasi non-profits don't grow on trees.

What I couldn't stomach was his having made no public statement about where he now stands on his past behaviour, and that's how I registered my own opinion in the Wikipedia straw poll. This was for me 90% communication failure. I guess I kind of take it for granted that unethical behaviour among the upper echelons of the minions of the captains of industry goes with the territory.

No doubt there's a good reason the invisible hand won't show its face. Shame, mainly, it seems to me.

Re:no winners here

[AmiMoJo]

That's basically what got Eich as well. The job also requires a certain amount of moral credibility from someone in a leadership role. Because they never expressed regret over their actions, people were unwilling to support or follow them. In both cases their organisations needed community support, so their positions became untenable.

Before someone says it, yes, it is a freedom of speech issue. People are free to express their discontent and free to withdraw their free labour and support.

Re:no winners here

[cardpuncher]

>Capable people with a golden Rolodex .. don't grow on trees

Exactly what was he supposed to do with that golden Rolodex? Presumably not recruit subject specialists to contribute accurate and well-researched content as it is unlikely his Rolodex contains many such names.

It is more likely he was recruited because his "golden" contacts were the kind of people who could big-up Wikipedia and raise the profile of other board members to the point they warranted inclusion in the Rolodex too.

Wikipedia doesn't need a higher profile or more money - it's well enough known and well enough resourced. What it needs is more good people contributing, not more Valley luminaries taking the credit for other people's work.

Re:Had to

[lucm]

[Cessna Citation needed]

You sir made the worst joke of 2016 so far. And I'm saying that just following a GOP presidential candidate debate that didn't include Trump, so that's quite an achievement.

suspicious

[PopeRatzo]

Say, what kind of name is "Arnnon Geshuri" anyway?

Re:suspicious

[crow_t_robot]

Jewish, I'm guessing, which makes the comments earlier in the thread about him just be an HR guy that was following orders darkly hilarious.

Re:stupid

[Lunix Nutcase]

But the CEO making 100s of times more in salary and stock options is clearly well-deserved. *rolls eyes*

Re: Had to

[lucm]

Not OP here, but I actually thought it was funny. o.o

Maybe your sense of humor is poorly calibrated. Here's a quick test. Do you find this joke funny?

I wondered why the frisbee was getting bigger, and then it hit me.

Re:Why no mention of the role of social "justice"?

[BarbaraHudson]

Yep - check late Thursday's stories :-)

Re:Why no mention of the role of social "justice"?

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Somebody does something that's actually quite minor.

Well, no. He actually did something that was pretty major, affecting tens or even hundreds of thousands of workers.

What's actually going on here is that he was a big-time human resources manager, but it turns out that many of those human resources don't like they way they were managed. Also, they just plain object to someone that demonstrably unethical being appointed to the Wikimedia board.

I got news for you

[rsilvergun]

it's like that everywhere else, too. You don't spill the blood of kings.

Re: Had to

[Prune]

This post makes me worried, since I can't tell if it's socially acceptable to find that joke funny, or one needs to be a sperglord to do so

Now under new ownership

[Eunuchswear]

Slashdot, now you're under new ownership -- fix your fucking UTF8 support already.

The Board Governance Committee is working to improve and update our selection processes before we fill the vacancy left by Arnnonâ(TM)s departure

Not even a funny foreign character, just a crappy "smart quote" FFS.

Re: Had to

[lucm]

This post makes me worried, since I can't tell if it's socially acceptable to find that joke funny, or one needs to be a sperglord to do so

Learn to march to the beat of your own drum.

"If you have enough push, you don't have to worry about the pull".
      - Zig Ziglar

Re:Unicode test

[cwsumner]

ÂBaño prÃstino! ÂVerdad? SÃlo me cuesta â3 por dÃa.
âoeDanke schÃn, Ob... er, Slashdot®â

Well, that was interesting!
When I hit the Quote Parent button it was different than in the parent message, at least in the edut screen.
So what is it Supposed to look like? It did look better then last week, I think...

P.S., When I hit Preview it does look the same as parent.