[Foundation-l] Putin receives same award as Wikipedia

[church.of.emacs.ml]

Hi,

Vladimir Putin has been awarded the Quadriga Award, which is "dedicated
to all of those whose courage tears down walls and whose commitment
builds bridges"[1]. This is the same award Wikipedia received in 2008
(Wikipedia being represented by Jimmy Wales). The award has been
forwarded to Wikimedia Germany by Jimmy. The price money (25k€)
apparently has not be transfered yet, due to financial problems of the
funding organization.

This disposition by the Quadriga committee has received criticism from
both the German media and Wikipedians. It is seen as improper by German
Wikipedians that Putin, responsible for human rights violations in
Russia, shares the same award as Wikipedia. Some of them therefor call
for a return and rejection of the Quadriga Award.

It is especially noteworthy that Jimmy Wales is listed as a Quadriga
Board member[2], which made some media report that he did not vote
against Putin. In fact, he had nothing to do with the award, was not
consulted, and states that he would not have voted for giving Putin any
award.[3]

The question now is: What's the best way to react to this? It seems that
a proposal to RfC on returning Wikipedia's award is accepted by many
German Wikipedians. Jimmy and Wikimedia Germany would probably have to
agree with this, if we want to do this. Also, there's a question on
whether to do this RfC on Meta or German Wikipedia.

Any comments?

Regards,
Tobias
User:Church of emacs

[1] http://tafelderdemokratie.de/quadriga2/en
[2] http://tafelderdemokratie.de/quadriga2/en/content/board-trustees
[3]
http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Caf%C3%A9&diff=91073655&oldid=91073589&hl=de

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