5 ms·
Some background here: http://mollywhite.net/wikimedia-timeline/ http://mollywhite.net/wikimedia-timeline/ The above conflates a lot of highly unrelated events
by ptest1 11y ago
Some background here:
http://mollywhite.net/wikimedia-timeline/ http://mollywhite.net/wikimedia-timeline/
The above conflates a lot of highly unrelated events, but it's a cool visualization.
But the reality is that she lost the support of senior staff, and wasn't able to regain it. It's impossible to recover from something like that, so it's a good sign she stepped down.
- aikah 11y agoSo there is a crisis at the WM foundation? could you explain for those who are not in the loop? is it about their search engine project?
- ptest1 11y agoThe crux of it is that she just lost the faith of senior staff. The cause of that probably can't be known by outsiders. But the issue blew up in the wider community when the grant was posted.
- chris_wot 11y agoActually, it is known by outsiders. In the end the staff were very open about their concerns. It was the secrecy, dissembling and frankly bastardry that caused good people like James Heilman to be removed from the BoT over the fiasco that was the Knowledge Engine.
- codezero 11y agoDo you think she was written off from the start on account of her low edit count?
- chris_wot 11y agoI've written a few comments, they might be helpful. One I just posted here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11177401 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11177401 But the original story on HN has some comments from me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11101164 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11101164 My take at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11101262 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11101262 For an excellent backgrounder, then Liam awyatt's b;oh sets things put the clearest: http://wittylama.com/2016/01/08/strategy-and-controversy/ http://wittylama.com/2016/01/08/strategy-and-controversy/ And: http://wittylama.com/2016/01/30/strategy-controversy-part-2/ http://wittylama.com/2016/01/30/strategy-controversy-part-2/
- aikah 11y agoThank you.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- filbertkm 11y agoI don't think the community necessarily rejects the idea of a "search engine" project, but the way it was communicated (or lack of) is the main problem. As well, the foundation has no current strategic plan at the moment. Once there is a plan (formed with community involvement) and it's decided some search project should be a priority, then I think most people would have no problem with such grant funding.
- randomname2 11y agoGreat backgrounder. The degree of chaos and dysfunction it illustrates truly is astonishing, it seems they had an utter lack of competent, experienced managers. Very sad situation. Is Wikipedia itself severely affected by this?
- ptest1 11y agoIt's not just competent management: the WMF is a weird beast. Most savvy managers haven't worked in at nonprofit before, much less a nearly 100% transparent, community-driven nonprofit. Processes are very different, and I think this is what tripped up Lila.
- ghaff 11y agoI'm sure. Without having a real opinion on WMF, I've known multiple people who found themselves in non-profits and basically got out in a relative hurry. And, with some exceptions, I've had many of the same experiences with many volunteer organizations that I've been involved with.
- chris_wot 11y agoWikipedia is still running as per normal. But this has caused a great deal of reputation so damage to the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation. I think until everything comes out in the open, I'd be very leery about giving them any fundraising money.
- HarryHirsch 11y agoIt's not about small-time donors - Wikipedia solicits these only as a PR measure, the real money invariably comes in form of large grants, such as the Knight Foundation grant, and it's inevitably with strings attached. Think Obama's 2008 campaign.
- chris_wot 11y agoI know. My comment also applies to large donors.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- protomyth 11y agoNice visualization. Something caught my eye looking at it "Signpost reveals that the Wikimedia Foundation initially requested $6 million from the Knight Foundation". That's pretty common actually when dealing with private foundations. They don't have the budget for a big request this funding period, but are interested so they drop a smaller amount of funding. This might lead to a bigger funding event or the interest of other foundations (a good thing). This seems like it was characterized as bad, but it actually is normal and often very good. I remember a couple projects that got a regional grant to give seed money which developed into a very large grant from a national foundation. The angel investing pattern is not limited to startups. Looking at what happened and given the demonizing of the Knight Foundation, I would imagine no private foundation will do a follow-up or even be inclined to give money for other projects.
- chris_wot 11y agoThat's not what issue with that was. The issue is that it wasn't discussed within the BoT, it was someone's pet project and it is clear that the discovery team was ramped up before discussions even took place properly, which meant funding allocations, IMO, we're done in a decidedly underhanded way. They also made that grant application so vague that it looked like they wanted to compete with Google. Read the document. Heck, read the article that is now on Wikipedia! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_Engine_(Wikimedia_Foundation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_Engine_(Wikimedia_Fo...
- protomyth 11y ago> That's not what issue with that was Ok, the lower funding number might not be the issue, but it certainly seems like the timeline and article regarded it as a bad thing. > The issue is that it wasn't discussed within the BoT Ok, well, I would expect that will probably end the likelihood of further grants from Knight Foundation or many other reputable grant givers. Poor procedure inside an grantee is frowned upon, and having their name shown in a negative light is a warning to everyone else. > They also made that grant application so vague that it looked like they wanted to compete with Google. Read the document. Heck, read the article that is now on Wikipedia! Looking at this: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/a/a7/Knowledge_engine_grant_agreement.pdf https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/a/a7/Knowl... It looks pretty normal for how you write up a project. You really only put high level stuff in for some of these organizations.
- Mark222 11y agoReading this, I can't help but notice that none of the people they are hiring comes from a non-profit background, doesn't it surprise anybody?