WMF in limbo as decision on Tretikov nears: The Board of Trustees may be deciding the direction of the Foundation.
During a papal conclave to choose a new Pope, white smoke from the Sistine Chapel indicates a decision has been made. [updated]
Guy Kawasaki, trustee, appointed April 13, 2015 – December 31, 2016
Related articles
Lila Tretikov
WMF strategy consultant brings background in crisis reputation management; Team behind popular WMF software put "on pause"
6 February 2017
Board unanimously appoints Katherine Maher as new WMF executive director; Wikimedia lawsuits in France and Germany
4 July 2016
Clarifications on status and compensation of outgoing executive directors Sue Gardner and Lila Tretikov
15 June 2016
Lila Tretikov a Young Global Leader; Wikipediocracy blog post sparks indefinite blocks
23 March 2016
Podcast #119: The Foundation and the departure of Lila Tretikov
16 March 2016
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Nice to see the tabloidification of this weekly newsletter for Wikipedia. Might we keep all this stuff on Jimbo's talk page where we are quite used to it? :) Collect (talk) 14:14, 25 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Well written and well-edited summary of the current state of affairs. MarkBernstein (talk) 17:05, 25 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Let me add a positive outlook at all these scandals: in terms of Wikipedia, WMF is "mostly harmless". During my nearly 5 years of wikipedianship, I didn't feel any disruption of my work as a wikipedian by WMF. For Wikipedia, what matters is technical support. The rest is political games. Wikipedians themselves are capable of organizing edit-a-thons, "countering systemic bias", etc. From what I see, I have an impression that WMF is less concerned with using money to improve Wikipedia, the flagship project, but with looking for ways to burn more money. Fortunately, I believe, Wikipedia reached the stage that it will not collapse as long as servers are running. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:26, 25 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Scott: : FWIW, I can assure you that various people inside the WMF have disagreed on all those points. However, it seems that WMF staff like to usually keep their disagreements internal (Which quite frankly, I've always thought was a mistake - I've often felt that the appearance of WMF being all one person with no dissenting views, gives rise to much of the strained relations with the projects, because its often non-obvious that WMF'ers are discussing and considering concerns that get raised internally. Obviously, there's a lot more than that to strained relations than that, but I feel like its a big part). Bawolff (talk) 21:05, 25 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Re: Many staffers had little information about the project
Why would staffers ever need to know more than others? If something can be said to hundreds of persons on WMF's payroll, it can as well be said on Meta-Wiki. Nemo 19:26, 25 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Now that the story's over
Would anyone care to share their thoughts about what qualities the next ED should have? One quality that I see mentioned time & again would be an ability to reach out & communicate with the communities of volunteers. An important sign a candidate might not have this ability would be if she/he spoke repeatedly about "crowdsourcing" & not about "online community". I believe not knowing why these two terms are not synonymous is why there was friction between the volunteers & the Foundation during the tenure of the last two EDs. -- llywrch (talk) 19:57, 25 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Who is in charge now?
Since this departure sounds like it is happening right away and a typical search for a capable executive director can take 6-12 months, who is left running the organization in the interim? I guess there will be some announcement about this by tomorrow (I hope). Liz Read! Talk! 20:25, 25 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Image
Can we get rid of the huge image at the top please? (I tried but was reverted) It adds nothing, is redundant since the decision is now taken, and sucks up everyone's bandwidth. Philafrenzy (talk) 23:39, 25 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Lies
Chris Troutman (talk) 01:17, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Lies. I sincerely doubt the WMF has given a damn about helping actual editors since before I got here. For those asking what Tretikov's replacement should be like, I'd respond that the ED's job is to execute the Board's directions which doesn't help us because the board sucks. If the "focus of the Wikimedia Foundation" was actually taking care of the tasks we the users indicated we wanted done this problem would sort itself out.Put the arbitrators in charge
The only people I have faith in are the arbitrators as a whole. Their collective decisions. I may disagree with individual votes at times, but their collective decisions are usually pretty good. And they self-correct later on at times.
I have rarely trusted the board as a whole because they are outsiders for the most part. The board should be strictly honorary. They are important, and their opinions should be sought. But they should not be in charge.
All the paid staff (including the executive director) should be under the control of the arbitrators as a whole.
And why did it take so many years to get a wishlist based on a survey?: meta:2015 Community Wishlist Survey/Results. I am one of the top 2500 contributors (in number of edits) to Wikipedia. These things have been desired for years. Please implement them. --Timeshifter (talk) 02:21, 29 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Lila's statement
"I am both inspired by, and proud of, the many great things we have all accomplished at the Foundation over the last two years, most significantly reversing the loss of our editorial community"
That's quite a bold statement. --NaBUru38 (talk) 20:57, 29 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]