Maggie Dennis hires María Sefidari

[now with extra crispy UPDATES…and finally, at long last, the denouement.]

No sooner did Sefidari resign as board chair, than the WMF turned around and hired her.

The mailing list has exploded.

https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/PFOBFWCBFACRGY3OMXAQG54ALPXGT3K3/

Genderdesk prediction: a done deal

The funny thing is, in spite of all the rhetoric about doing a proper search for candidates, Sefidari is probably the best qualified person for the job. Outsiders just don’t do well with this environment. And don’t you just hate interviewing for a job when they have already picked their candidate behind the scenes, but have to go through the motions to exhibit “fairness”?

They have short-circuited the criticism by promising a public discussion on the next office hours that had originally been scheduled for Maggie to talk about whatever it is that was supposed to get talked about. No more typing, no more mailing list, they are going for the face-to-face to diffuse the situation. They are getting very good at this.

Edit…

Just thinking out loud here, …

There was Anna Stillwell, Wikimedia’s Chargée d’Affaire, hired on by Katherine to answer Rogol’s* interminable trolling on the mailing list . *[See “Rogol trolls the Wikimedia mailing list“] https://diff.wikimedia.org/2017/02/27/talent-culture-senior-leadership/ Actually it was an internal promotion to some Vice President title, but I don’t recall any job search, it was more like the CEO choosing a personal staff assistant.

Same with her chief of staff, what’s-his-name. More of a personal selection. But the top executive gets to hire their own personal assistant, isn’t that how it works?

But as it has been pointed out before, the WMF now has a leadership void, similar to the astrological concept of the moon being “void of course”, or not under the influence of a particular sign. In astrology, that’s a bad thing, you want to make decisions that are aligned with the stars, much as obeying a feudal lord. But in an organization I should think the opposite would be true: in the absence of a Strong Man, alliances can be made, and Things can be accomplished, although it takes a great deal of coordination and consensus building, all of which Wikipedia insiders have in abundance.

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EDIT…

More thinking out loud…

When the board hired Lila, Sue stayed to help with onboarding. But Gardner was going from one paid position to another, while Sefidari has been expected to work for free.  Still, no one said boo.

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What about Doc James?

On the mailing list they are talking about Wikia (now Fandom), and how all the Pokemon stuff got kicked off of Wikipedia and had to move to Wikia, which is supposedly one of the few ways Jimbo makes money. They are saying Wikipedia develops the software at great cost, and Wikia/Fandom uses it for free.

So now we have pricing information for pharmaceuticals kicked off of Wikipedia, and Doc James forming a corporation of some sort to host the information.  https://wikiprojectmed.wordpress.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=Wiki%20Project%20Med%20Foundation

A thoughtful reader has provided the link to Doc James’ website that I was unable to find: https://mdwiki.org/wiki/Main_Page

“While we are incorporated in New York State and tax exempt in the United States we are a global group.” https://www.hifa.org/support/supporting-organisations/wiki-project-med-foundation

Board

We formed our provisional board of 9 experienced and diverse members from the movement.

• • James Heilman (Doc James) – President
  • Jacob de Wolff – Vice President
  • Biosthmors – Secretary
  • Peter.C – Taxes and incorporation renewal
  • Vinicius Siqueira
  • Daniel Mietchen
  • RexxS – Treasurer
  • Anthony Cole – Membership secretary
  • Jake Orlowitz (Ocaasi) – Outreach Coordinator

Some interesting names on there. RexxS for one, he seems to have disappeared from the WikiSphere, but is he still active in Doc James’ project?

And what a sausagefest.

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And what about Denny Vrandečić, former community-elected board member and “co-developer of Semantic MediaWiki and Wikidata, now the lead developer of the Abstract Wikipedia project, and an employee of the Wikimedia Foundation as a Head of Special Projects, Structured Content.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denny_Vrande%C4%8Di%C4%87

You don’t see anyone jumping up and down about that one. And I bet anything he is making more than they are offering María Sefidari Huici, and I bet he did waaaay less work on the board, because it is always the women who take up the slack in volunteer organizations. You won’t hear Wikipediocrazy calling any of these dudes “grifters” either, a word I have never heard of before, but apparently means “woman who dares to receive a paycheck”.

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It looks like chief legal beagle Amanda Keton has dropped the gender markers from the sig, at least on the mailing list. In fact, almost no one seems to be using them.  It must have been a Katherine thing.  https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/GOCGXFUNK4AEMD4RBKN3EHUGQXGLJAFA/

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Just noticed all the smiley faces in the original post.

Is this funny for some reason? How is “hello all” or “foundation consultant” supposed to be funny, or non-serious.  Or is it some kind of Non-Threatening Leadership Strategies for Women thing? 🙂 Or maybe this is just how the legal department is communicating these days. 🙂 🙂 I wonder if they are reading this. 🙂 🙂 🙂 Probably not 😛 😦 XD 💩 [Oh drat it looks like genderdesk has got emojis enabled. My Evil Twin is going to have to get on that.] 😂  😎

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Hmmm…

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Dan Szymborski, and that’s a knife in his hand

Oh dear sweet Jesus, look who is back. Dan Szymborski.

Szymborski once made a baseball betting prediction system, now obsolete, and has been coasting on his reputation ever since. This guy made a couple of edits back in 2009 and now considers himself an expert on Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Dan_Szymborski

Back then, he couldn’t even figure out how to sign his name, or be bothered with setting up a user page.  It’s still a red link.

But that doesn’t stop him from posting to the mailing list.

Does anyone else see the irony in making your living on the cusp of baseball and gambling, then lecturing a non-profit, open-source, volunteer-driven organization on ethics?

Not Wikipediocrazy, that’s for sure. They quoted the post, but not the signature. Ah, but maybe they do see the irony after all, if they are trying to conceal the author.

Maybe it’s time for a little archiving, since the Wikicrazies are now referring to the WMF’s chief counsel as a pig and their former board chair as “corrupt”… “mob-style”….

Did we ever get any receipts for that from W-crazy?  Nope. But they continue to publish this stuff, based on the say-so of some anonymous guy on their forum who thinks he saw something incriminating in another screed, written by another anonymous guy on Breitbart.  No one can say exactly what it is, of course. Why does Wikipediocracy continue to carry water for Steve Bannon at this late date. Except maybe ZOMG LESBOS!!!1!

Is a woman’s reputation worth anything?

Maybe it’s time for a little archiving. “Maria Sefidari Huici to step down”: https://archive.is/wip/YS1Vp

TBH, and realistically, the chances of this are not the best, but I would like to see WP sue someone on behalf of LH; the diehards will not believe it is Fake News until that happens.

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So what happens to an organization’s “institutional memory” when a board member leaves? And the CEO. In this case, it was a fairly popular CEO, and a board member elected by “the community”. Does the WMF expect the new people to start from the beginning, or is there some process of onboarding?

I can see the issue with sports, and gambling, that an institution set up to regulate those industries and prevent fraud should not be a revolving door between the industry and the regulators.  You don’t want players to throw a game, or control a point spread, or have slot machines that are set not to pay off, and yeah, it happens, I know this guy….

But how does that apply to a non-profit?  Is Las Vegas going to freak out if a certain number of articles aren’t written?  Or if male Wikipedians are not allowed to sexually accost the women?  The board is set up to protect the WMF, not regulate it. So maybe now we have a Wikipedian who just happens to be female, who has gained some valuable skills by volunteer work with the organization, and who now has something they need. A man would never have been questioned.  A man would probably have already found a way to get paid for what he was doing. A man who had been doing what Sefidari has been doing, for free, and as a volunteer for all these years, would be the new CEO already.

Dudes, just pay her already.

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In the meantime, how is that there Strategy coming along?  This is why they want Sefidari.

Headed up by a white dude named “Quim“.  Not good optics. (Although he seems very nice. Oh no he is this same one — who has a history of enabling anti-semitism and doxing.  I had forgotten the “raped by Jewish ponies” episode. https://genderdesk.wordpress.com/2021/04/02/maggie-explains-the-new-strategy-sausagefest/)

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Finally some common sense. Erik Moeller, who has had his share of adventures over the years, but still hangs out at Wikipedia Weekly on occasion, adds some details about his own move from board member to paid employee status. https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/CO2GXTWHRK2OBQPCYGZISM5BEJQRKW33/

It is worth reading in its entirety, but here is a snippet:

The WMF Board did discuss waiting periods previously, both when I was
a member [1] (I was in support of a symmetrical 6 month waiting
period) and after [2]. WMF ultimately did not implement such a policy,
nor did it adhere to one informally when it hired me after I left the
Board in late 2007. (I’ve had no involvement with the org since 2015,
nor have I sought it.)

I don’t know if the implementation of a waiting period was discussed
again by the Board in subsequent years. It’s not surprising to me if
the organization is not adhering to it now, since it appears to still
lack such a policy in 2021.

At least in my understanding, this thread conflates a good practice
(waiting periods) with violations of COI policies. As I understand it,
WMF adhered to its existing COI policy through the usual measures
(recusal & resignation from the Board).

The primary purpose of COI policies is to prevent self-dealing.
Typical scenarios described in COI guidelines written from a US
perspective like [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] focus on Board members hiring
relatives, or securing contracts for their own business. They
generally do not _prohibit_ even such transactions outright but
describe how they must be managed. WMUK’s 2012 governance review was,
in part, triggered by a trustee’s Wikimedia-related consulting
activities while on the Board….

…

Warmly,
Erik

This is “institutional memory” at its finest.

But this bit about affiliates is confusing.  Don’t affiliates seek out board members from the institutions they partner with?  And who these days has paid staff, or board members who are paid staff?  Wikimedia Israel is the only one I am aware of, and they have a huge educational program.   The way I heard it, the WMF has yanked all funding from affiliates, forcing them to go to outsiders for grant monies.  And we all know the old saying about “who pays the piper calls the tune,” so it’s not the WMF’s interests that are being served by the affiliates, but whoever is willing to buy the coffee and bagels. And believe me, you can buy a lot of loyalty for a cup of coffee, or with a sandwich or two when you are in the middle of an editing project, so you don’t have to take a 2-hour break to look for food in an unfamiliar neighborhood.

But the WMF needs someone who knows the Strategy process, plus can work with onboarding when the board changes happen. Is there some qualified candidate waiting in the wings we don’t know about? What is the alternative?  There has been a lot of talk lately about “institutional capture”, Stonewall being a recent example, with former members publicly disavowing the current leadership and organizational direction. Another is Reddit, which was nearly taken over by pedophile enablers. Seriously, Wikipedia needs to look to its mission right now, and remember that IAR is there for a reason.

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And what about penis?  Is this all “because penis” as we like to explain it here, or is it something else.  Well, yes, it is more complicated than that, but also more simple.  But that will have to wait for (probably) tomorrow, as there is only so much I can attend to in one day, and I have reached my limit for today.

How about a saint? We haven’t done one of those for a while. June 28 is the day for Saint Theodochilde or Telchild. As its first Abbess, Theodechilde of Jouarre, she ruled over the double monastery of both men and women, and was granted independence from the local church hierarchy, reporting directly to the pope.  On Wikipedia she is a red link, although her brother, Bishop Agilbert, is included. I will leave the reason for that as a deduction for my devoted readers. She did make it into WikiData and the Italian Wikipedia, so all is not lost.

Theodechilde was also the first cousin of St. Audoin (also known as St. Dado). The cenotaph of Theodechilde, on her crypt, I guess, is supposed to be a key monument of early medieval / Merovingian art.

And who is this?  A saint by the same name, and same feast day, but a totally different story? Different location, different parents, she was the daughter of the king Clovis and Saint Clotilde, but she’s carrying the same church and staff? This saint thing can be a difficult business. Yes, in fact, it looks like there was:

• St. Theodehilda (also Theodechild, Theodichild, Theodechildis or Techildis), Fndr. of Convent of St. Pierre-le-Vif at Sens and St. Pierre at Mauriac (6th cent.)
• St. Theodichild (also Theodechilda, Theodechild, Telchildis, Techildis or Theodechildis), Abs. of Jouarre (Seine-et-Marne) (c. 660)

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Denouement

So, this happened on YouTube. (office hours with Amanda Keton, WMF General Counsel) (notes are now here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=IRC_office_hours/Office_hours_2021-06-29&oldid=21681205)

Then there was this official announcement from Keton on the mailing list. https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/4WUO2JZ2ZXOGQR2A6TRPW457NRCQNVZ5/ There was mention on the Signpost, with discussion continued at the Village Pump.

TLDR:  Everything had been done according to policy, the main policy impacting board members  being about COI.  In addition, a huge number of people were consulted ahead of time, so this was not exactly an authoritarian thing or some top-down decision.

The big freakout was about the affiliates, and a double standard in requirements for waiting periods, which Keton explained is based on the requirements of U.S. law. That policy will also be under review, along with the COI policy, but not now.

In the meantime, after a brief offline consultation, the contract is cancelled, but not until they all have their summer break. The whole office is about to go on vacation anyhow, so they have kicked the can forward down the road, with various policies to be reviewed later, and left Sefidari watching the store, while they all go to the beach.

And Wikipediocracy?  Still clutching their pearls. They are becoming more and more an anachronism, expecting to get their own way by throwing tantrums, name calling, and the usual bullying.  But their ‘peasants with pitchforks and torches’ routine is starting to get a little stale. They have gotten clueless, to the point where their whole schtick is if the WMF says yes, they say no; if the WMF says no, they say yes.

You cannot run an organization in reaction mode, it is time to put things on a firm policy basis. So, yes to charters, and yes to writing down standard operating procedures, so newcomers can get up to speed quickly, and yes to a Strategy that includes all Wikipedians, not just those who are able to capture some key process that allows them to impede everyone else’s work flow. No to Wikpediocracy’s ‘governance by dramah’.