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Wikimedia Foundation (view source)
Revision as of 07:25, December 28, 2019
, 07:25, December 28, 2019expand
The female Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Directors is married to Laura Hale. Ms. Hale has a long history, dating back to 2011 of incompetent edits and abusing male editors. A long-time male administrator, Fram, followed Ms. Hale around making corrections to her problematic edits. In turn, Ms. Hale complained to the Trust & Security staff of the Wikimedia Foundation, rather than to the volunteer-staffed complaint mechanisms on Wikipedia. Although the Trust & Security staff has previously banned a few editors for problems involving illegal conduct such as pedophilia, in June 2019, for the first time, they suspended Fram for one year for "incivility". In response, an English Wikipedia administrator lifted the block and was in turn stripped of his administratorship, and several other administrators resigned in protest.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_response_to_the_Wikimedia_Foundation%27s_ban_of_Fram|title=Wikipedia:Community response to the Wikimedia Foundation's ban of Fram|accessdate=June 24, 2019}}</ref> In response to a Buzzfeed article about the controversy,<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/wikipedia-ban-editor-culture-war|title=The Culture War Has Finally Come For Wikipedia|date=July 27, 2019|accessdate=July 28, 2019|work=Buzzfeed News}}</ref> Maher sent a tweet calling the article "s***ty.".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://twitter.com/krmaher/status/1144394019893460993|title=tweet|accessdate=June 28, 2019}}</ref> As more Wikipedia Administrators and Bureaucrats resign or go on strike, the crisis has also been reported by Breitbart.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2019/06/28/wikipedia-editors-revolt-over-sites-ban-of-veteran-administrator/|title=Wikipedia Editors Revolt over Site’s Ban of Veteran Administrator|date=July 28, 2019|work=Breitbart|accessdate=July 28, 2019}}</ref> Despite the Fram-Laura Hale scandal, on August 15, 2019, the WMF Board re-elected Laura Hale's wife to serve another year as Board chair.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2019/08/16/wikimedia-foundation-announces-shani-evenstein-sigalov-as-new-trustee-as-well-as-leadership-appointments-at-fifteenth-annual-wikimania/
The female Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Directors is married to Laura Hale. Ms. Hale has a long history, dating back to 2011 of incompetent edits and abusing male editors. A long-time male administrator, Fram, followed Ms. Hale around making corrections to her problematic edits. In turn, Ms. Hale complained to the Trust & Security staff of the Wikimedia Foundation, rather than to the volunteer-staffed complaint mechanisms on Wikipedia. Although the Trust & Security staff has previously banned a few editors for problems involving illegal conduct such as pedophilia, in June 2019, for the first time, they suspended Fram for one year for "incivility". In response, an English Wikipedia administrator lifted the block and was in turn stripped of his administratorship, and several other administrators resigned in protest.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_response_to_the_Wikimedia_Foundation%27s_ban_of_Fram|title=Wikipedia:Community response to the Wikimedia Foundation's ban of Fram|accessdate=June 24, 2019}}</ref> In response to a Buzzfeed article about the controversy,<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/wikipedia-ban-editor-culture-war|title=The Culture War Has Finally Come For Wikipedia|date=July 27, 2019|accessdate=July 28, 2019|work=Buzzfeed News}}</ref> Maher sent a tweet calling the article "s***ty.".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://twitter.com/krmaher/status/1144394019893460993|title=tweet|accessdate=June 28, 2019}}</ref> As more Wikipedia Administrators and Bureaucrats resign or go on strike, the crisis has also been reported by Breitbart.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2019/06/28/wikipedia-editors-revolt-over-sites-ban-of-veteran-administrator/|title=Wikipedia Editors Revolt over Site’s Ban of Veteran Administrator|date=July 28, 2019|work=Breitbart|accessdate=July 28, 2019}}</ref> Despite the Fram-Laura Hale scandal, on August 15, 2019, the WMF Board re-elected Laura Hale's wife to serve another year as Board chair.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2019/08/16/wikimedia-foundation-announces-shani-evenstein-sigalov-as-new-trustee-as-well-as-leadership-appointments-at-fifteenth-annual-wikimania/
|title=Wikimedia Foundation announces Shani Evenstein Sigalov as new Trustee, as well as leadership appointments at fifteenth annual Wikimania|date=August 16, 2019|accessdate=August 17, 2019}}</ref>
|title=Wikimedia Foundation announces Shani Evenstein Sigalov as new Trustee, as well as leadership appointments at fifteenth annual Wikimania|date=August 16, 2019|accessdate=August 17, 2019}}</ref>
There is a fundamental rift at Wikipedia. On the one hand, editors from the global north advocate that knowledge is produced by the scientific method, and that Wikipedia should only document verifiable facts. On the other hand, editors from the global south believe that Western civilization is the product of old or dead white men and that Wikipedia should give voice to suppressed people who have personal experiences that may not meet the accepted standards currently imposed by the traditional views of knowledge. These people advocate a "post-modernist" definition of knowledge, including folk remedies supplanting Western medicine and counteracting the historic bias that views males as holding key roles in history, when they serve as military or political leaders. This later group views the current governing structure and resource allocation of the Foundation as illegitimate and wants to rebuild both Wikipedia and the Foundation into something very different so that when internet access spreads throughout the world by 2030, people in the global south will be involved with Wikipedia instead of some other website that might become established to serve their own communities.
To assure that all views were heard, the WMF devoted millions of dollars on a strategic planning exercise that held workshops in the global south and provided very few opportunities for input from editors in Europe or the United States. The result was a large set of self-contradictory recommendations. Next, the WMF hosted a "harmonization sprint" in Tunis which was attended by Laura Hale's wife and Maher to try to unify the recommendations. Finally, a writing group was appointed to write a self-consistent set of recommendations, for which public comment will be collected in January-February 2020.
==Site shut downs==
==Site shut downs==