Difference between revisions of "Wikimedia Foundation"

[[File:Wikimania 2016 - Board discussions 1 Transparency & Communication 03.jpg|thumb|right|This rag tag group is the Wikimedia Foundation Board that met in 2016 in a small town in Italy to discuss transparency and communication.  The Foundation funded all Board members' travel to Italy.]]'''Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.''' (WMF) is a not-for-profit Florida corporation with its principle place of business in [[San Francisco, California]]. It operates several online collaborative wiki projects including [[Wikipedia]], [[Wiktionary]], [[Wikiquote]], [[Wikibooks]], [[Wikisource]], [[Wikimedia Commons]], [[Wikispecies]], [[Wikinews]], [[Wikiversity]], Wikimedia Incubator, Meta-Wiki, [[Wikidata]], [[Wikivoyage]], and owns the now-defunct Nupedia online encyclopedia.  Its Executive Director is Katherine Maher.

The creation of the foundation was officially announced on June 20, 2003, by the [[atheism|atheist]] and Wikipedia co-founder [[Jimmy Wales]],<ref name="Rupert Neate">{{cite news | first = Rupert | last = Neate | title = Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales goes bananas | url = http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/3399843/Wikipedia-founder-Jimmy-Wales-goes-bananas.html |work=The Daily Telegraph  | date= October 7, 2008 | accessdate =October 25, 2009 | quote = The encyclopedia's huge fan base became such a drain on Bomis's resources that Mr Wales, and co-founder Larry Sanger, thought of a radical new funding model&nbsp;– charity.}}</ref> who had been operating Wikipedia within his adult entertainment company [[Bomis]].<ref>{{cite web | url = http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2003-June/010743.html | title = Wikipedia English mailing list message | date = June 20, 2003 | first = Jimmy | last = Wales | authorlink = Jimmy Wales}}</ref> At the time, Wikipedia was operating out of Bomis' offices in St. Petersburg, Florida.

On September 25, 2007, the foundation's board decided to move to the [[San Francisco Bay Area]]. The Board said its major reasons for choosing San Francisco were proximity to like-minded organizations and potential partners as well as cheaper and more convenient international travel than is available from St. Petersburg, Florida.<ref name="MoncadaWikimoveTribune">{{cite web | url = http://www2.tbo.com/content/2007/sep/25/wikimedia-foundation-moving-another-bay-area/?news-breaking | title= Wikimedia Foundation Moving To Another Bay Area | author = Carlos Moncada | work = [[The Tampa Tribune]] |date = September 25, 2007 | quote = }}</ref><ref name="MullinsWikimoveTribune">{{cite web | url= http://www.tbo.com/news/money/MGBNF5F517F.html | title = Online Encyclopedia To Leave St. Petersburg For San Francisco | author = Richard Mullins | work = The Tampa Tribune |date = September 26, 2007 | quote = }}</ref><ref name="KimWikimoveSFChronicle">{{cite web | url= http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/10/BU69SNMQ2.DTL&tsp=1 | title = Wikipedia team plans move to San Francisco | first = Ryan | last = Kim |work=San Francisco Chronicle | date = October 10, 2007 | quote = }}</ref>

In August 2009, Matt Halprin, Partner of the Omidyar Network, was asked to join the Wikimedia Foundation board of trustees. Halprin was responsible for an Omidyar team that “pursues investments in Social Media”, and Omidyar invested part of $4 million into Wikia, Inc. in 2006. So, his company would succeed if Wikia made a nice return on investment, yet of all of the available competent Silcon Valley experts, the WMF selected Halprin to serve on the Board that is entrusted to ensure that the WMF treats Wikia on an arms-length bais.

In 2006, Wikia received a major round of venture capital funding from Amazon.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2006/12/04/daily16.html?jst=b_ln_hl|title=Amazon invests in Wikia|work=Puget Sound Business Journal|date=December 6, 2006|accessdate=February 4, 2013}}</ref>  Although a large number of payment processors are available, as of 2013, the WMF uses Amazon to process donation payments.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28policy%29&diff=526220744&oldid=526213000#Wikipedia_is_now_enriching_itself_by_contributing_to_the_destruction_of_small_businesses|title=Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)|date=December 3, 2012|accessdate=February 4, 2013}}</ref>

===Doran scandal===

===2014 Staffing controversies===

In March 2014,  Ryan Kaldari, who has been working for the WMF for almost four years and is a Wikipedia administrator, got into an editing battle with another editor. Kaldari then made complaining comments about that editor under a second assumed name.  For that policy violation, Kaldari lost his administrator privileges.  However, the dispute caused Wikipedia users to research Kaldari's background and discovered that for years he has been the owner and operator of several other websites including "Snuffster.com", which was intended as a parody of Friendster, but soon became a haven for Internet trolls to mock murdered children and to glorify the butchering and burning of women.  Kaldari has been paying for the site for 10 years and has actively added comments to various threads on the site that evidence poor moral character, to say the least.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.examiner.com/article/wikimedia-foundation-employee-caught-sockpuppeting-and-loses-admin-rights|first=Gregory|last=Kohs|title=Wikimedia Foundation employee caught sockpuppeting and loses admin rights |date=March 8, 204|accessdate=March 12, 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.dailydot.com/news/wikipedia-sockpuppet-ryan-kaldari/|title=Wikipedia staffer at center of latest sockpuppet scandal|first=Rob|last=Price|work=Daily Dot|date= March 12, 2014|accessdate=March 16, 2014}}</ref>  Kaldari poor judgment in owning and operating this site was called to the attention of Jimbo Wales, who dismissed it out of hand.<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&oldid=599304349</ref>

In March 2013, Executive Director Sue Gardner announced that she would leave,<ref name=bizinsider/><ref>http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/The_search_for_our_next_Executive_Director Retrieved June 16, 2014.</ref> and an extensive search did not produce a satisfactory candidate.  After a second search, Russian-born Lila Tretikov was selected as Gardner's replacement, and she took office on June 2, 2014.  The WMF appointed a transition team to assist her in learning her new role, and there was a three-week transition period following the announcement of her selection.  Tretikov and Will Sinclair are raising a child together, out of wedlock.  Both Tretikov and Sinclair attempted to become emersed in Wikipedia culture, and Sinclair quickly found his way to the noted criticism website [[Wikipediocracy]], where he registered an account.  On May 30-June 1, 2014, the WMF sponsored a conference called "WikiConference USA" at the [[New York Law School]] which welcomed everyone to attend including "the curious, the skeptical, and others wishing to engage in meaningful conversation about the Wikimedia movement in the United States."<ref>http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/WikiCon_USA_2014_Press_Release_v1.pdf Retrieved June 16, 2014</ref>  However, the afternoon before the conference began, Greg Kohs who had proposed to give a presentation on "paid editing" had his registration cancelled and was told not to attend.<ref>http://wikipediocracy.com/2014/06/02/wikiconference-usa-bans-critic-from-open-meeting/ Retrieved June 16, 2014</ref> Sinclair defended Kohs' right to attend and started a [http://wllm.com/ blog] and an [http://www.change.org/petitions/wikipedia-make-wikipedia-conferences-truly-open-to-all-by-allowing-greg-kohs-to-attend online petition] to advocate these views.  He also expressed his views on a WMF listserv.  In response, the WMF insiders turned vicious and openly suggested that Tretikov should break up their family and leave Sinclair because of his support for Kohs.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo#Regarding_the_nauseating_and_cowardly_remarks_made_by_Wikiconference_USA_attendees</ref>  On June 15, Sinclair announced on Mr. Wales talk page that he would no longer participate on Wikipediocracy.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=612984072&oldid=612983354 June 15, 2014.</ref>  Efforts to get Mr. Wales to clarify why Kohs was banned from the conference were met with censorship.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=613156950&oldid=613156824 June 16, 2014.</ref>

As Executive Director, Tretikov gave speeches and participated in meetings and conferences around the world.  Her travels may have made her less accessible to the WMF staff.  One important initiative that Tretikov started was improving the WMF's efforts in child protection.  Previously, the WMF left the decision to take disciplinary action against users was left to untrained volunteers on individual projects.  The project leaders complained that they were not properly trained to handle allegations that a user was a child predator.  Under Tretikov, the WMF legal staff began handling such complaints and banned a number of users from all WMF projects.

In 2015, Tretikov reorganized the staff and launched a secret project to develop a "Knowledge Engine" which some planning documents said would compete with [[Google]] as a means of searching sources beyond the WMF projects by automating the process of evaluating what information on the Internet was reliable. Considering Jimbo's long practice of denouncing as "unreliable" any web site that appeared to be in competition to his project or not following his exact personal style of "God-King" monarchy, such as NNDB, presumably, Jimbo and his entourage of paid females and eunuchs would be free to fiddle with the "reliability scores" as they saw fit based on their emotional reactions to the source. Tretikov applied for a grant of $2 million per year over three years from the Knight Foundation, but only received a one-time $250,000 grant to explore the concept. In November 2015, the WMF Board reaffirmed its support of Tretikov's leadership and retained a management consultant to mentor her. In addition, a number of senior WMF staff (including Deputy Director Erik Möller) departed, some making critical public remarks as they left.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://wikipediocracy.com/2016/02/26/unicorns-are-a-myth-lila-tretikov-resigns-as-wikimedia-foundation-executive-director/#comment-44801|title=Unicorns are a Myth: Lila Tretikov resigns as Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director|date=Feb. 26, 2016|accessdate=Feb. 26, 2016}}</ref>

[[File:James Heilman.png|thumb|left|200px|James Heilman, M.D. was removed from the Board]] In July 2015, James Heilman, MD was elected to the WMF Board by the editing community after starting working at WP in 2008 and being a very active and highly-qualified non-anonymous editor and later administrator. He made many mass media presentations promoting the project and worked to improve its reliability especially for those seeking medical information. He attempted to recruit other physicians to help in the effort. Heilman brought staff dissatisfaction with Tretikov's leadership to the Board and pressed for more information on the Knowledge Engine and the Knight Foundation grant. On December 28, 2015, on the eve of two members leaving the Board, the Board held an emergency meeting and removed Heilman from the WMF Board by a vote of 8 to 2 without any explicitly stated justification. The Community responded to his dismissal by pressing for the release of the Knowledge Engine grant application resulting in a public apology from Tretikov for pushing the project without first gaining consensus. Heilman continues to spend many hours a day contributing to WP as an editor and an admin and continues to make media appearances promoting the WP project.