3 ms·

Wikimedia community ratifies Movement Charter; Wikimedia Foundation vetoes it

38 points by akolbe 2y ago

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
I definitely do not understand the internal structure, process, and politics of Wikimedia (either the community or foundation). But my feeling as a long time user and donor is that Wikipedia should remain a neutral and apolitical resource if it is to be the world’s encyclopedia. However, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend over the years with Wikipedia’s English content becoming more skewed. Various articles have significant biases, mostly leaning towards the American political left, and you can see how the edits and discussions in talk pages got things to that point. Wikipedia seems to be heavily influenced and controlled by a small set of highly active and powerful users who seem to treat control of Wikipedia as a personal mission. I see shades of that even here in this movement charter. For example, in https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter#Responsibilities_3 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter#Responsibil... it looks like the Movement Charter proposes responsibilities like this which seem very politically biased: > facilitating inclusion, equity, and diversity within their community; It also seems like it is biased towards highly active and engaged users - from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2024-07-22/News_and_notes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2...: > "'The quorum' is only 2% (!) of the eligible voters, and who know how many of them are the affiliates members"
- nubinetwork 2y ago
  > Wikipedia seems to be heavily influenced and controlled by a small set of highly active and powerful users who seem to treat control of Wikipedia as a personal mission. It's been like that for decades, contributing edits is a waste of time, because they will just get reverted.
- StimDeck 2y ago
  Well I can’t know what you’re talking about precisely because you didn’t give any examples, but my sense is that people involved in things like Wikipedia are going to lean (American) left because Wikipedia is socialism and it embraces progress. Most of the rest of the world is left of the American left and Wikipedia is also international, so that would exacerbate things to some degree.
  - add-sub-mul-div 2y ago
    Also in the US the right is just generally less popular. It hasn't won the popular vote in 20 years.
    - onetokeoverthe 2y ago
      [dead]
- panja 2y ago
  Being inclusive and having diverse input is now a left wing bias lol
- Am4TIfIsER0ppos 2y ago
  Wikipedia isn't apolitical because it is controlled and edited by people who don't have jobs
- bdjsiqoocwk 2y ago
  > facilitating inclusion, equity, and diversity within their community; Would you prefer it if it excluded some people, and the ones that it includes are a homogeneous group?
kHtasf 2y ago
It appears to be entirely futile to contribute anything of value to any group project on the Internet. Every project is taken over by a group of apparatchiks and 80% of the energy goes into "who has power".
inhumantsar 2y ago
only 129 out of >180 affiliates voted and barely 2,400 individual votes were cast, which apparently meets their self defined quorum of 2% of eligible voters. this new global council would take over a bunch of functions setting overall strategy, allocating funds, setting technical priorities (which the foundation would be responsible for implementing and maintaining), and overseeing affiliate organisations. the existing foundation would be left with running and maintaining the software, legal items (trademarks, organizational compliance, etc), and fundraising. the council would be 25 members: 12 at-large, 8 from affiliate groups, 1 from the existing foundation, and 20% (four initially) selected by the council. then every 18 months to council could increase its own size by up to 25 new members to a max of 100 without any requirement to maintain the existing distribution of seats. as far as I can tell there's no term length or limits and no requirement for regular elections. just a self-evaluation every three years. overall from this outsider's perspective, the charter seems to describe broad powers without many specific constraints or responsibilities. I can understand why one of the foundation board members called this a power grab. without recall votes, regular elections, or other accountability mechanisms, I can also see how this structure would make it relatively easy for a clique to take over the global council and entrench themselves. with all that funding on the table, it seems like it would be a ripe environment for corruption and nepotism. not saying the foundation is good or bad, but this proposal seems like a half baked idea at best. it reminds me of the sort of power structure shenanigans I've seen from university student union boards and the like.
ksec 2y ago
Am I reading this correctly? So the user contributing to Wikipedia now demands they control Wikipedia Foundation as well? That is like a group of user contributing to Linux now demanding they also control the Linux Foundation.

38 points by akolbe 2y ago

I definitely do not understand the internal structure, process, and politics of Wikimedia (either the community or foundation). But my feeling as a long time user and donor is that Wikipedia should remain a neutral and apolitical resource if it is to be the world’s encyclopedia. However, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend over the years with Wikipedia’s English content becoming more skewed. Various articles have significant biases, mostly leaning towards the American political left, and you can see how the edits and discussions in talk pages got things to that point. Wikipedia seems to be heavily influenced and controlled by a small set of highly active and powerful users who seem to treat control of Wikipedia as a personal mission. I see shades of that even here in this movement charter. For example, in https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter#Responsibilities_3 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter#Responsibil... it looks like the Movement Charter proposes responsibilities like this which seem very politically biased: > facilitating inclusion, equity, and diversity within their community; It also seems like it is biased towards highly active and engaged users - from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2024-07-22/News_and_notes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2...: > "'The quorum' is only 2% (!) of the eligible voters, and who know how many of them are the affiliates members"

nubinetwork 2y ago
> Wikipedia seems to be heavily influenced and controlled by a small set of highly active and powerful users who seem to treat control of Wikipedia as a personal mission. It's been like that for decades, contributing edits is a waste of time, because they will just get reverted.
StimDeck 2y ago
Well I can’t know what you’re talking about precisely because you didn’t give any examples, but my sense is that people involved in things like Wikipedia are going to lean (American) left because Wikipedia is socialism and it embraces progress. Most of the rest of the world is left of the American left and Wikipedia is also international, so that would exacerbate things to some degree.
- add-sub-mul-div 2y ago
  Also in the US the right is just generally less popular. It hasn't won the popular vote in 20 years.
  - onetokeoverthe 2y ago
    [dead]
panja 2y ago
Being inclusive and having diverse input is now a left wing bias lol
Am4TIfIsER0ppos 2y ago
Wikipedia isn't apolitical because it is controlled and edited by people who don't have jobs
bdjsiqoocwk 2y ago
> facilitating inclusion, equity, and diversity within their community; Would you prefer it if it excluded some people, and the ones that it includes are a homogeneous group?

kHtasf 2y ago

It appears to be entirely futile to contribute anything of value to any group project on the Internet. Every project is taken over by a group of apparatchiks and 80% of the energy goes into "who has power".

inhumantsar 2y ago

only 129 out of >180 affiliates voted and barely 2,400 individual votes were cast, which apparently meets their self defined quorum of 2% of eligible voters. this new global council would take over a bunch of functions setting overall strategy, allocating funds, setting technical priorities (which the foundation would be responsible for implementing and maintaining), and overseeing affiliate organisations. the existing foundation would be left with running and maintaining the software, legal items (trademarks, organizational compliance, etc), and fundraising. the council would be 25 members: 12 at-large, 8 from affiliate groups, 1 from the existing foundation, and 20% (four initially) selected by the council. then every 18 months to council could increase its own size by up to 25 new members to a max of 100 without any requirement to maintain the existing distribution of seats. as far as I can tell there's no term length or limits and no requirement for regular elections. just a self-evaluation every three years. overall from this outsider's perspective, the charter seems to describe broad powers without many specific constraints or responsibilities. I can understand why one of the foundation board members called this a power grab. without recall votes, regular elections, or other accountability mechanisms, I can also see how this structure would make it relatively easy for a clique to take over the global council and entrench themselves. with all that funding on the table, it seems like it would be a ripe environment for corruption and nepotism. not saying the foundation is good or bad, but this proposal seems like a half baked idea at best. it reminds me of the sort of power structure shenanigans I've seen from university student union boards and the like.

ksec 2y ago

Am I reading this correctly? So the user contributing to Wikipedia now demands they control Wikipedia Foundation as well? That is like a group of user contributing to Linux now demanding they also control the Linux Foundation.