Wikipedia Editors In "Vote of No Confidence"

[engine]

There's trouble at Wikipedia as it seems over 200 editors have signed a vote of no confidence in a trustee of its governing body.

Arnnon Geshuri, a former human resources manager at Google, was appointed to the board of the Wikimedia Foundation this month.

The online encyclopaedia's editors objected because of his links to an alleged no poaching scandal. Wikipedia Editors In "Vote of No Confidence" [bbc.co.uk]

[tangor]

Wikipedia's 15th anniversary has uncovered a lot of "tensions" among the masses there and reported elsewhere. As power has been accumulated by smaller and smaller numbers/factions at Wikipedia it is not surprising that some fallout has occurred.

[engine]

In this instance, the complainants object to the addition of a particular trustee to the governing body. Allegedly, the trustee was connected to a scandal over poaching employees. The Wikipedia editors probably don't want the dots connected.

The latest news is that...

Arnnon Geshuri has stepped down as a trustee of Wikipedia's governing body, under pressure from the site's editors. Wikipedia editors make trustee resign [bbc.co.uk]

[jmccormac]

Good!

Regards...jmcc

[tangor]

More detail from the register:

While ordinary Wikipedia contributors are expected to work without cash compensation, that isn’t deemed sufficient for members of the ever-expanding Wiki nomenklatura. The $100m-cash-rich nonprofit now employs over 300 paid staff, with 19 people working in fundraising alone. The (unpaid) community is represented on the WMF board: of ten trustees, two are by elected representatives to represent “chapters, thematic organizations, and user groups”. However one was turfed out shortly before Geshuri was appointed, and the Tesla executive became a lightning rod for community dissatisfaction.

[theregister.co.uk...]

[lucy24]

But, but, isn't this something that happens every other week at wikipedia? I once blundered onto a (public) page listing former editors and people whose accesses had been revoked. There was an absolutely staggering number of guys who had at some time been high muckety-muck, upper-echelon, special-access-level types.

[tangor]

Yup, and the churn and burn continues to refine and condense the number of players for the MONEY. :)

[aristotle]

The $100m-cash-rich nonprofit now employs over 300 paid staff

Some "editors" are also apparently being paid (secretly in most cases) by politicians and big corporations to 'guard" the pages about them, deleting information about scandals or anything that would hurt their public image.

[iwrconsultancy]

"Some \"editors\" are also apparently being paid ... by politicians and big corporations "

Not always the big corporations either. Look up the William Connolley saga for one of the worst examples. Under his stewardship is it prohibited to alter any page on climate change or its brother-in-arms renewable energy. Worse, the renewables pages are more or less a straight copy of wind and solar manufacturers' advertising. Complete with the exaggerated performance claims which have got these outfits into some trouble with Advertising Standards bodies already. I hardly need add that it is a violation of Wikipedia content policies for a manufacturer to post advertising copy on the site. In this case it is not only being allowed but the content is being protected.