Friday, March 21, 2008

The cult rolls on

It's interesting how Wikimedia's immune system works. The latest news is that Danny Wool, who of late has done a very interesting job of exposing the Foundation's tender underbelly, has had his access to the "admins-only" IRC channel revoked by James Forrester. James is the same Jimmy-cheerleader who fired me from my role as #wikipedia channel deputy contact back in December without any coherent explanation and despite the fact that nobody (other than White Cat) who actually used the channel was complaining about me. Danny is a widely respected contributor to the English Wikipedia and, of course, an admin. James claims that the removal was "implementing the will of the channel" but really represents a backroom discussion amongst the kool-aid drinkers. He also claimed that Danny "cannot be trusted" because "he leaks info".

The simple fact is that Danny, like myself, has been branded a suppressive person and must be marginalized or eliminated.

I used to like James, but in the past several months he's clearly revealed himself as one of those who have been bamboozled by Jimmy's cultish charm. Sad.

I'd like to remind all Wikipedians that you have the right to fork and the right to leave. It's time to exercise those rights, people. Your community leadership doesn't care about you.

22 comments:

  1. While there's plenty of Wikidrama all around and these have nothing directly to do with building an encyclopedia, I salute those of you who provide alternative voices and care enough about Wikipedia to talk about things that are not going right in the Wikimedia Foundation.

    I'm a Wikipedian since 2002 and still actively contributing to the encyclopedia. While I find the actions of some of the employees of the Foundation questionable, I don't let it affect how much I contribute to Wikipedia. As you've said, everyone has a right to fork Wikipedia and so whatever happens, I don't think any of my contributions will go to waste. I'll just let all the problems of the Foundation sort itself out.

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  2. Ha! Danny's come full circle. He was one of the founders of that channel which was designed to implement and reinforce 'the hive mind'. (some could sense this a mile off - even before the channel was created.)

    How does it look from the outside, Danny? You're probably better off not going there anyway (if you're more interested in building an encyclopedia than playing politics).

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  3. Speaking of IRC... did you learn how to repost IRC logs correctly?


    And by the way... here is a band aid. *sniffle*.

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  4. I don't like leaks. If you are given access to restricted information, or personal confidences whether as an employee or as a member of an IRC channel, you need damn good reasons to republish conversations and communications spoken in private. Whistle blowing is for highly exceptional circumstances.

    Does Danny have damn good reasons? Are his actions ethical? I'm not really qualified to judge, but I think there questions miss the larger point.

    Whatever ex-employee-Danny is doing with old information he has, what is evident from his posts is that a number of *current* board members and/or staff are leaking *current* info to him. That is clearly unethical, and unjustifiable.

    Board members (and staff) owe a fiduciary duty to the WMF and (as charitable trustees) to the doners. If these people don't have confidence in the direction that the foundation is going, and they don't believe their concerns can be addressed internally, then they should resign and publicly state why. Put up, or shut up; because selective leaking of bad stuff is incredibly destructive of the confidence of the community and, as Sue has rightly pointed out, that of the donners.

    To focus on Danny as the one breaking confidences, and revoke his cabal-pass, seems to me like straining on gnats. The real cowardly leakers are clearly still insiders.

    Perhaps, as a precaution, all people associated with the WMF should have their access to #admins revoked - there are clearly some disreputable people there.

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  5. Danny has already outed board members Myers-Briggs personality types. What is left for this monster to do? Out board members dogs names, so that some cyberterrorist on the payroll of Daniel Brandt can find them and feed them Ex-lax?

    Kelly, please do not keep encouraging this deranged and disgruntled monster (Danny), who is only out to spread his attack memes via his smear blog. Be a good Wikipedian and do not even read the leaks; if they were meant to be read by ordinary editors, then they would be public! It is crucial to our Wikipedian sensibilities that we ignore all leaks (WP:IAL) and the WMF should make participants enter into contracts which would make a person civilly liable for disseminating sensitive information that regular people have no business knowing about. It's for the good of the Wiki.

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  6. "The will of the channel?" HAH! If I'm recalling the timeline correctly, this was part of a misguided 'restructuring' that saw _everyone_ except him and seanw lose their op/etc access and have to beg for it back. And the implementation of new "channel guidelines" that everyone proceeded to ignore after a week (did you know you're no longer allowed to talk about the english wikipedia in #wikipedia ?)

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  7. Nope. Channel was restructured a number of days/weeks ago. Danny's access was removed less than 12 hours ago, based I am told on conversations a few hours before.

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  8. @Wikidefender
    LoL You are a good wikipedian. Does ignorance make us good wikipedians? Do you want to be a good shepherd or me being a lamb? Claiming a bovine behaviour on Nonbovine Rumiations!

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  9. Point of information: sheep are ovines, not bovines.

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  10. I can't believe I forgot The Sassy Critic from the Wikipedia Drama Playbill. I am duly sorry about that.

    On a serious note, here we have a DFE who leaks information as part of a holy crusade or something, and while his point is right, he's being very aggressive about it. And as usual, we have the administration that is too pissy over the aggression to see the good message. Business. As. Usual.

    "Ha! Danny's come full circle."

    Wouldn't that mean he's went from a fierce cabal defender, to a fierce cabal attacker, back to a fierce cabal defender?

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  11. So why don't you go ahead and fork the project then if you feel you can do so much better. Either put up or shut up.

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  12. You can argue until the cows come home (see what I did there...) about the merits of releasing private information about the Foundation and the finances of the aforementioned Foundation, but it seems a few people have decided there is also a risk that Danny will have access to private and personal information about administrators and indeed normal users from access to the channel, and there's a suspicion that he might release that information in future.

    It's one of those lose - lose situations for James and the cabal, do they leave his access which sends out all sorts of signals - "they've not done anything, Danny must be right" through to "the cabal doesn't mind information being leaked, so I'll join in" or do they remove his access - "ooh, he must be right, it's all revenge and backstabbing" through to "oh, if I leak logs and stuff, I'll be defrocked".

    People forking the project is fine in theory, but that really would splinter the community, we would be even more at the mercy of those with money and influence than we are today. That can't be good, can it ?

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  13. I'd like to remind all Wikipedians that you have the right to fork and the right to leave. It's time to exercise those rights, people. Your community leadership doesn't care about you.

    Yeah, 'cause that's why most people get involved in Wikipedia -- the belief that Jimbo cares for them.

    I will forthwith get rid of my Hotmail address (Bill doesn't return my calls), my LiveJournal (Brad forgot Valentine's Day this year) and my YouTube account because (they don't bring me flowers any more).

    --
    WPMouse

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  14. "Ha! Danny's come full circle."

    Wouldn't that mean he's went from a fierce cabal defender, to a fierce cabal attacker, back to a fierce cabal defender?


    no, that would be a circle and a half

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  15. Yeah, 'cause that's why most people get involved in Wikipedia -- the belief that Jimbo cares for them.

    I will forthwith get rid of my Hotmail address (Bill doesn't return my calls), my LiveJournal (Brad forgot Valentine's Day this year) and my YouTube account because (they don't bring me flowers any more).


    You're confused. When people get together and build something, thoes who do a good job and work hard should become vested in the project and its leadership.

    Contrast this with wikipedia. There is an unnatural displacement of leadership, exemplified by Jimbo, whereby being a great encyclopedist and content contributer gets you nowhere. Meanwhile, all sorts of incompetent nincompoops who couldn't write their way out of a hole in the ground are admins, sashaying their fat undeserving asses across the world stage and admins irc, holding court, exerting influence and believing that they have even an ounce of wisdom.

    If you spent five years creating an encycleopedia, writing articles - including featured articles - would you want to be pushed around by GWH or Chairboy or, in her day, Kelly?

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  16. I don't think she meant that kind of "care", I think she meant "care" as in "any sort of indignation".

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  17. Well, there were others complaining about your actions as #wikipedia deputy contact, myself included, as you're well aware. You usually do a good of keeping things honest here -- don't stop now.

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  18. Yeah! We're so sick of you telling the truth on this blog, silly :-)

    When will you ever learn that it's okay to lie? :-)

    And when will you stop being such a nice person and just be horrible for once? :-)

    ...

    [The above was intended primarily for humor as sarcasm, Kelly, just in case you didn't realise]

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  19. Forking only makes sense if you think the leadership is at all relevant to the encyclopaedia. Kelly clearly does, but she's wrong.

    If you don't invite the drama in three emails or more, it doesn't find you. Give it a try.

    Cheers
    WilyD

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  20. Forking only makes sense if you think the leadership is at all relevant to the encyclopaedia.

    Leadership isn't "all" that's relevant, it is what's "most" relevant.

    Everything follows from leadership.

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  21. Anonymous

    While trying to avoid sounding condescending, I'll ask you reparse my comment. I didn't imply leadership was all that was relevant, I stated directly leadership is totally irrelevant.

    Wikipedia could've developed in a way where leadership was important, but it didn't. Mostly, I suspect, because there's simply not enough leadership to go around. But Wikipedia has grown and succeeded in spite of its leadership, not because of it, and its clear that it does best where the leadership is absent (worst too, but fine). Of course, people worry that they've no idea where things will go unless lead - I don't know either.

    Nonetheless, at the moment leadership hovers between irrelevent to and a barrier to Wikipedia's success. But I suspect the main issue is that the sparse leadership simply can't be spread over the enormous encyclopaedia, which'll do naught but what it likes on its own now.

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  22. Well for an open project the whole idea of a top secret admin channel is dreadful. As an admin I've never joined it and never wish to.

    Wikipedia as an idea works, but despite these people, not because of them.

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