Chapters Association mired in controversy over new chair
Controversy over WCA chair
Last Wednesday, the first meeting of the association began with the nomination of Fæ, the UK representative, as the only candidate for chair, by Ziko van Dijk, the Netherlands representative. Fæ was elected with sixteen votes and two abstentions, apparently with no substantive discussion. This strong vote was despite the controversies that have surrounded Fæ on the English Wikipedia and Commons, most recently aired in a live case before the Arbitration Committee, filed by bureaucrat and steward MBisanz on the basis of "aggressive responses and harassment by Fæ toward users who question his actions". As a result of the ongoing case—now in its seventh week—Fæ has surrendered his adminship, which he gained only last year (his failure to reveal previous usernames at his RfA has been a matter of some contention during the ArbCom case). Other points made by parties have concerned:
- Fæ's uploading to Commons of semi-nude images, at least one of which bears a remarkable resemblance to him;
- observations that two months ago Jimmy Wales banned Fæ from his talk page due to "false insinuations about other users, and badgering responses";
- legal threats made by Fæ;
- claims that Fæ "has violated or supported the violation of (alleged) sex workers' privacy while complaining about comments about his own amateur pornography which he freely uploaded onto Wikipedia".
Two days after Fæ's election an email was posted to the non-public chapters mailing list, arguing that Fæ's election "will result in unnecessary and undesirable controversy for the WCA, [which] may even bring the WCA into disrepute". The email—a copy of which was provided to the Signpost by its author, Wikimedia Australia president John Vandenberg—concluded that "the WCA was created to bring more accountability and transparency and visibility to the operations of chapters. The chair ... has spent the last year trying (unsuccessfully) to suppress his previous online profiles after they caught up with him."
On Saturday the Signpost asked Ziko whether Fæ had informed him about the ArbCom case before he nominated Fæ at the meeting. Ziko responded that he "didn't know about the allegations", but was highly supportive of Fæ, saying "I have the feeling we will be a great team". Ziko characterised the email on the chapters mailing list as "harassment ... you know, making allegations easily falls back to the person who makes them." Deryck Chan, Hong Kong representative and member of WMUK, told us: "I believe a significant proportion of delegates—certainly all those from the English-speaking world—were aware of Fæ's arbitration case. Fæ's 'sudden' election was purely the result of a lack of counter-proposals. Ziko's election [as vice chair] was contested and well-discussed." Fæ replied to the Signpost's invitation to put his view on the matter, but made no substantive comments.
In dramatic developments, it appears that Fæ approached a foundation employee over the weekend suggesting that the foundation intercede in the proceedings of the ArbCom case, on the basis that the committee's refusal to agree to conceal his previous usernames is "an ongoing security risk". Just before this edition was published, ArbCom had decided that "for numerous violations of Wikipedia's norms and policies, Fæ is indefinitely banned from the English Language Wikipedia." Seven arbs supported the motion within the first ten hours after it was proposed (and four in the first ninety minutes), with no opposes and no abstentions, suggesting a high level of frustration in the committee about the matter.
Among the arbs' comments are: "Fæ has attempted to ask the WMF to intercede"; "two separate and unconnected allegations of attempts by Fæ to subvert the committee's investigations into his conduct were reported to the committee in the past couple of days, including an attempt to have a foundation official intervene in the committee's internal workings, communicated to that official while Fæ held a position as an official of a foundation-related charity"; "whatever Fæ wants to hide at this point likely isn't as bad as the extreme measures taken to prevent this Committee from reaching the truth of his conduct. What we know Fæ has done is bad; but the level of misconduct committed in the course of this case is so much worse that at this point there can be no choice but to separate Fæ from this project"; and "attempts to use the WMF as a way of avoiding scrutiny [are] beyond the pale." The Signpost has written to the WMF employee involved—inviting comment on the foundation's attitude toward the case, and on whether the foundation's general practice to preserve the self-governance structures of its communities was in question at any stage. At the time of publication we had received no response.
Deryck Chan told us: "My main concern with Fæ isn't the arbitration case, but the time he has for Wikimedia. With his election as WCA chair and continued involvement as WMUK chair, he needs to cut down his involvement with en.wp anyway. Fæ has suffered much harassment on various parts of the interwebs because of his position and advocacy. By all accounts, he doesn't handle them very well. ... Fæ is a very nice chap in person, and I believe that his exile from en.wp will let him focus on contributing to the Wikimedia movement in other ways, ones where he doesn't get trolled for every single thing he does."
A chapter member who preferred not to be named agreed to speak to the Signpost: "I've no idea how Fæ is going to function as chair. If you ask me, his indefinite ban is the nail in the coffin of the WCA's relations with the foundation. The entire mess is just more self-serving gossip, bureaucracy, and politics, with almost no focus on the true purpose of the chapters—to serve the foundation and endeavour in our shared mission to educate. At the moment they have all the dysfunctional workings of the United Nations, complete with a secretary-general."
Other proceedings and decisions of the first meeting
The job of secretary-general, who will be in charge of running the WCA's operative affairs, was not filled at Wikimania. Sebastian Moleski, the departing current chairman of Wikimedia Germany, had announced his interest in the paid position; and the chair of the WCA steering committee, Tomer Ashur, offered a joint interim volunteer solution together with the German chapter's treasurer Delphine Ménard. However, the representatives rejected both and the council settled on establishing an election committee to fill the post and find a deputy.
While Belgium has been proposed as the place of registration by the steering committee, no consensus was reached on this during the conference. Representatives pointed to high taxes and labour costs in Belgium. The task of making a final recommendation was assigned to the budget committee; and a resolution in favour of Belgium, proposed by the representative of Wikimedia Italy, was not voted on by the council after consideration of the tax argument.
The meeting did not agree on a budget during the conference. While a draft budget of 450k euros (US$560k) was proposed by Ashur and Ménard, the amount and other details were criticised. Personnel costs were judged to be too high: the secretary-general alone would have cost €180k ($225k), an amount greater than the WMF executive director's salary of approximately €160k ($200k);1 and the amount reserved for chapter development, the WCA's main purpose, was regarded as too low, at €21k ($26k). Instead, the meeting decided to set up a budget committee to examine the issue and report by 30 August.
1Note from the author: As pointed out on the talk page below, the comparison neglects to account for any difference in "on-costs" between the jurisdictions.
Discuss this story
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
and a ton of moneywhile 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)[reply]I am happy that the Signpost dedicates bits and bytes to the Council meeting in Washington. However, I would have liked to see more accuracy. Others have already noticed some errors. Here what I have to say:
Ziko (talk) 05:53, 21 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Apples and Oranges
I have a great many issues with the tone and content of this report, but the most egregious is to suggest that in the (rejected, by the way) budget, that the SG would have been paid more than Sue Gardner. A quick look at the budget will show that the proposed gross salary before tax of the SG would be €96,000, not "over €180k" as implied here. The rest of the money proposed would be on-costs, including payroll tax and other non-discretionary expenses (and to be honest, it does seem high to me, but I haven't looked into the specifics of what it is made up of). To compare the combined remuneration plus on-costs to Sue's remuneration without the on-costs added is comparing apples and oranges, and gives a highly misleading impression. The report also dances around the fact that this budget was rejected (not just "not agreed upon") by the chapters at the meeting. But I suppose that doesn't make for as interesting a story. Lankiveil (speak to me) 10:57, 18 July 2012 (UTC).[reply]
WMUK treasurer Mike Peel has requested that the article be split in two to separately cover the WCA and Fae; but on this occasion the article was written in good faith under the assumption that the community has a right to be presented with the facts under a single theme; I'm sorry if they're inconvenient in this combination.
Eclecticology's "troll" accusation repeats a slur levelled by Mike Peel on this page; Eclecticology likens our style to that of American supermarket tabloid The National Enquirer—which "openly acknowledges that it will pay sources for tips", according to WP; I ask readers to make their own judgement on these points.
Mike Peel characterises the report as "continuing the ongoing campaign of harassment against Fæ". But we can only report what other editors and sources say, and in terms of journalistic balance we took the trouble to include lengthy quotations from our correspondence with vice chair Ziko and WCA rep Deryck Chan that were strongly supportive of Fae. Fae did not take up our offer to put his views on the matter.
The figure of €180,000 was taken from the talk page of the budget committee; if there's confusion about whether the sum includes on-costs, perhaps this might have been clarified in the first place on that talk page—which certainly includes concerns about the apparently exorbitant cost of employing people in Belgium. I must take the blame for allowing these figures and the comparison with Sue Gardner's salary to be included in the text (at a late stage) without properly scrutinising the on-cost issue.
Although personal attitudes are hardly relevant here, I will say that the WCA has a complicated job ahead of it, and that success will be achieved only through careful and timely analysis and planning and an unprecedented level of interlinguistic cooperation. I think I speak for my Signpost colleagues too in wishing the organisation well in its bold mission to serve the movement. Tony (talk) 12:33, 18 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Claim about sex workers' privacy
The claim that I "violated or supported the violation of (alleged) sex workers' privacy" in a Commons deletion request has previously been addressed and apparently not sufficiently researched by the author of this piece. There is a specific response to this false allegation by a Commons bureaucrat here on Commons. --Fæ (talk) 13:19, 18 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It's over
Fae has now been officially indefinitely site banned by Arbcom.
I have to say it's an absolute shame. I know Fae and have worked with him a bit and seen his extensive work elsewhere: he has always acted as a gentleman and I can only think this is a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde type of thing - but even that is hard to believe. I do hope that Fae takes a good look at his actions, makes any corrections he thinks necessary, and applies to Arbcom as soon as possible for reinstatement.
That said, I think many of the commenters above owe Tony1 an apology. This article was well researched, well written (maybe a few quibbles excepted), and timely. I congratulate Tony for taking what had to be a controversial topic, and fearlessly wading into the swamp to let us all know what was going on.
Arbcom usually takes a few lumps at this stage of the proceedings - fair enough, it comes with the job. Though I quite often put in my 2 kopecks on Arbcom decisions, I can't say what I'd do differently here. And it is always very important that we accept Arbcom decisions and even strongly support them, as being arrived at according to our rules, perhaps more so if we disagree with them. Where would Wikipedia be if we didn't have these folks making final decisions?
The Chapters Association needs to regroup and decide their next steps. To get any real work done they'll need a new chairman. They'll also need to be more realistic on the budget as many folks have said above.
Finally, I think for the good of the Chapters Association Fae should resign as chair. This won't be viewed as an admission of wrong doing or anything like that, but needs to be done as a way to get it out of controversy and into a working mode. Though it is not as important as with the Chapters Association, I believe Fae should take the same step as head of the UK Chapter. There's simply no reason to put the chapter in a difficult position.
All the best to everybody,
Smallbones (talk) 00:35, 22 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Mathew Townsend (talk) 19:41, 22 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
A couple of comments, two minor and one suggestion. The minor comments first: Hawaii is on that map; and it should surely be ilk, not elk. The suggestion, after reading the above, is that The Signpost might like to consider doing some feature articles on the various arcane organisations and activities outside of Wikipedia. Some Wikipedians don't have the time or inclination to read about what is happening elsewhere, so a series of Signpost articles might help. Carcharoth (talk) 23:55, 28 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]