I am more than a little disappointed with the way the board's handled all of this. It was abundantly clear from the outset that the correct response was to lean on Ashley to resign, in the expectation that he would stand again at the next AGM and probably be re-elected, once all of this had blown over.
All I see from the board is a terribly worded blog post, and a load of nit picking about the press articles. It is almost completely irrelevant how accurate they are, or whether you like the news organisation or not, if the trustees of a charity become the news story, they have done something very wrong.
Now Ashley is sure to face a confidence motion at an EGM, which will do even more damage to the charity's reputation. Honestly, at this point my confidence in the whole board is wavering, aside from any thoughts I may have about the appropriateness or otherwise of having Ashley as the chair.
This has gone on too long already. Please end it now, before more damage is done to our reputation.
Tom
From: wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of WereSpielChequers Sent: 01 August 2012 18:56 To: UK Wikimedia mailing list Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] [WMUK Board] Statement regarding Ashley Van Haeften, Chair of Wikimedia UK
Fox are part of News International aren't they?
So a sister company to Page3.com is getting on a high horse re porn and directing people to a homophobic website.
Not as bad as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_International_phone_hacking_scandal#Milly_...
Or the coundown clock the Sun once had marking the days to a 16 year old girl's birthday http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/interactive/2011/nov/28/charlotte-church-wit...
But not impressive.
WSC On 1 August 2012 18:11, Richard Symonds <richard.symonds@wikimedia.org.ukmailto:richard.symonds@wikimedia.org.uk> wrote: Racist sexist, and homophobic is the least of it on Encyclopedia Dramatica. There's some very, very dodgy stuff on there. Very odd of Fox to be linking directly to a site that glorifies both rape and child abuse.
I wonder if the Fox News editor clicked 'random article' on that site?
Richard Symonds Wikimedia UK 0207 065 0992 Disclaimer viewable at http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia:Email_disclaimer
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On 1 August 2012 17:42, Tom Morris <tom@tommorris.orgmailto:tom@tommorris.org> wrote: On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 5:16 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@gmail.commailto:thomas.dalton@gmail.com> wrote:
On 1 August 2012 16:29, Thomas Morton <morton.thomas@googlemail.commailto:morton.thomas@googlemail.com> wrote:
(also: now on FOX - http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2012/08/01/50-shades-wikipedia-uk-head-banned-af...)
Ah, now we find out the real advantage to having Stevie on board - he has to go through that article pointing out all the mistakes in it, not us! The link to Encyclopedia Dramatica is particularly good...
Yes, always good to show maturity and dedication to the cause of protecting children from harmful material by linking to a website that routinely uses racist, sexist and homophobic descriptions...
It's the old Daily Mail trick: this is awful and terrible and wrong, and here are 14 high-resolution closeups of it!
-- Tom Morris http://tommorris.org/
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