Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-07-16/Special report

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It's a real shame that the Signpost has chosen to conflate two unrelated stories here. There is no 'controversy' surrounding the WCA. This whole piece sounds like a troll wrote it, who is continuing the ongoing campaign of harassment against Fæ and is trying to drag the WCA into that campaign. I'm extremely disappointed with this article, and expected much better from the Signpost. :-( Mike Peel (talk) 14:08, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

• I agree with Mike Peel. This article is horrible. I expected better of The Signpost. --Lizzard (talk) 18:28, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
  • I'm sorry you both feel this way, but there is controversy over his selection. When coupled with the fact that the WCA has the potential to be a major shift in the traditional WMF-Chapter-community triangle, it's obviously news we need to cover to inform our readers. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 20:36, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
• Fae should go OFF. --J (t) 14:08, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
• The statement "the committee's refusal to agree to conceal his previous usernames is "an ongoing security risk"" is not something I have said to any WMF staff member or Arbcom. Claims about a WMF staff member ought to at least be confirmed with that same WMF staff member before being published, even if prefixed with the classic "it appears". --Fæ (talk) 14:28, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

  • And ArbCom has said otherwise. Until the time that they retract that statement, they're a reliable source for this article. - Jorgath (talk) ^(contribs) 19:49, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Well done on getting the Signpost right into hatchet jobs. You'll have the page view stats of the Register in no time. You should feel proud of yourselves - David Gerard (talk) 15:43, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

• Exceedingly small point, but the verb "table" has the opposite meaning in US English as the usage in British English. While the meaning can be inferred from the context, best to use a different word.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 16:24, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
• I find it difficult to believe that the Arbitration Committee, which has shown a exceedingly large amount of patience and careful deliberation in so many other cases, has suddenly started an "ongoing campaign of harassment" or a "hatchet job" in this one particular case. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:52, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

  The arbcom discussion came about due to the ongoing campaign of harassment, which started out at Wikipedia Review. Mike Peel (talk) 18:51, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

  Perhaps it did. But here's an important question for you: if the ArbCom started discussing this because of WR, and the ArbCom decided that there was a problem, wouldn't that mean that WR is right? - Jorgath (talk) ^(contribs) 19:52, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

  No, it means that WR helped to generate the situation, which then led to the ArbCom discussion. Mike Peel (talk) 20:51, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

I profoundly resent the attempted establishment of this administrative gravy train. €180,000 for a "secretary general", while countless programming jobs remain undone, and Bugzilla requests go unanswered? If the Foundation has money to burn, pay some extra programmers and web interface designers rather than throwing cash out the window. Unbelievable. JN466 18:44, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Erm, that's a very early draft of the budget, meant for discussion, that no-one at the WCA meeting was in support of. The costs will ultimately be substantially lower than that. Please wait for a more concrete version of the budget. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 18:51, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

The very fact that someone put in charge of drafting this thought this would be appropriate rings alarm bells. When this "more concrete" version of the budget is approaching finalisation, and before it is approved, I suggest you place an article here in the Signpost. Wikimedia UK, an organisation that has a budget of about a million, has an actively voting membership of about five dozen: 61 to be precise. 7 of those voting members are themselves board members. 16, more than a quarter, were candidates for the board! These are very unhealthy ratios, creating a superlative potential for nepotism and abuse of funds. I hope that candidates will be offered a realistic remuneration and selected in a professional manner, with appropriate background checks. It's enough that the Wikimedia Foundation once had a convicted felon as its COO. JN466 21:14, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Man, I wish I could get paid that kind of money to "coordinate" a bunch of wikimedia chapters that have few clearly defined goals and little oversight beyond what they voluntarily agree to. You can't just handwave the number away as a draft- you're planning a budget here, if you didn't think it was at least close to a reasonable number the planned budget would be worthless as-is. If you guys think the best way to find a leader is to just pick someone you know and then pay them triple what a reasonable salary for the position would be, then I fully expect to see a story in the Signpost in a year describing how the WCA has burned through a ton of money and has nothing to show for it. --PresN 21:30, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

It is a shame to see these two issues conflated; but only because the WCA has so many ridiculous problems that it is worth 3 or 4 articles in itself. --Errant ^(chat!)

In contrast to the comments above, I just want to say thanks for having the guts to publish this brave piece of journalism, and not holding back from criticising the Wikimedia Chapters Association. I'm only vaguely aware of the Fae case and don't know the specifics, but from the sound of it the WCA made a spectacularly bad decision here. Anyone who has been banned by ArbCom (or is on the brink of being banned) should not in a million years have any kind of formal position representing Wikipedia. How did the WCA get it so wrong, and how can we protest these developments? Robofish (talk) 19:37, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Food for thought/devil's advocate: yes, he will be banned on en.wp, but he also represents all the other projects, like Commons. We on Wikipedia can't make the mistake that we're the only WMF website out there. :-) Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 20:36, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

But we can make the point that we're arguably the biggest and most important. And it doesn't make a lot of sense for the foundation to give someone a position of authority and a ton of money while they're simultaneously being pressured to resign adminship in one of the biggest projects and on the verge of being banned- and then not even mention or talk about it. If what goes on in en.wiki or anything.wiki doesn't matter at the chapter level or WCA level, then what's the point of all the people involved being editors? Why not actually have a hiring process for the position open to outsiders? You can't have it focused on Wikipedia insiders and then ignore everything that happens inside. --PresN 21:37, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

With respect to being given "a ton of money", I am a volunteer, I get paid nothing for contributing to the board of Wikimedia UK or for my work with the Wikimedia Chapters Association. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 21:41, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

You're right, I got it mixed up with the secretary general position. My apologies. --PresN 21:47, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

With respect to Foundation giving someone a position of authority, it should be outlined that it did not. Fae was made chair by representants of chapters, not by Foundation. Foundation has no specific authority over the WCA. Most representants did not know about the arbcom issue until after Fae was made chair. I would note that the arbcom has not yet given its decision on the matter. Anthere (talk) 22:25, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Especially since it seems the initial information stated by Arbcom members regarding Fae's recent actions may have been mistaken or blown out of proportion. Philippe will have to clarify what exactly was said to him by Fae. If they were just having a conversation and Fae asked if he could see about mentioning how he would like his privacy in certain matters respected, then it's really not as bad as telling Philippe to convince Arbcom to stop looking into his alt accounts. Context is important. Silverseren^C 04:12, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

• If the proposed ban at ArbCom stands, Fae should immediately resign both as head of the WCA and WMUK. Carrite (talk) 20:11, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

• Never going to happen. Especially when, i'm quite sure, WMUK doesn't care what Arbcom thinks. (And considering cases over the past year, they would have a point.) Indeed, though, this Signpost is a pretty good hatchet job. Tabloid news all the way, with all the speculation and unfounded accusations therein. Silverseren^C 22:06, 17 July 2012 (UTC)