On 1 Mar 2016, at 12:36 AM, Jimmy Wales jimmywales@wikia-inc.com wrote:
In mid-October, before he emailed the board, James wrote me with a huge misconception - that we had a secret project to build a Google competing search engine. Of course we didn't have such a project We had a few emails back and forth in which I explained that was not the case.
Jimmy, how does this square with the June 24 document entitled “Knowledge Engine by Wikipedia”? [1]
That appears to have been written by Lila. Part of the document reads:
"Our new site will be the Internet’s first transparent search engine, and the first one that carries the reputation of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation.”
I would appreciate it if you could please “declassify” this document (and in fact, could you please have them all released) and tell us who authored it, once and for all.
Unfortunately though, the WMF very much did have internal documents that were positioning the WMF into building a search engine. In fact, it was a grand idea. But one that was done in secret. James was not wrong, and he wasn’t lying. You may not have been aware of it at the time, but there were indeed confidential documents that showed that someone was developing an internal search engine.
The language used in the document is very clearly *not* Damon Sicore’s, incidentally. I assume it was Lila who wrote the document as the entire document is written in her signature style.
We went back and forth in pleasant emails discussing the situation and as a part of that I said: "I am always in favor of more community consultation." I went on to discuss a bit that I didn't think we were at the point where a full-scale community consultation (like the one that legal did on revising the terms of service) was necessary for a mere $250,000 grant. But I was supportive of consulting the community.
In the interests of transparency, could you please release these emails? They sound innocuous enough, it would be nice to be able to verify this and read the email discussion you and James had.
- had offered to write an article for the Signpost about the project to
inform the community,
- was told by his colleagues on the board that the idea of a Signpost
article was not welcome?
I've tried to find this in my email records and have no record of it. I don't know when this offer was made nor who responded. If James knows, and wants to share the board emails with me directly, that would be appreciated.
Under Fl. St. § 617.0808(1) [2] James is not allowed to possess any such email records. In fact, James would have needed to return these to the board of directors within 72 hours. If he didn't, then a circuit court may summarily order him to do so.
This isn’t an issue though, under that same statute - § 617.0808(5)(d) [2] to be precise! - all written communications have to be kept for three years. And you have the right to inspect and copy this information under § 617.1602. [3]
At least, I think this is correct - I’m not a lawyer, so it’s not legal advise, just me geeking out on Florida non-profit law :-) And it’s also in the handbook. [4] The point being is that you can request this information and it will be provided :-)
Chris
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2016-02-10/In_foc... 2. http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&S... 3. http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&S... 4. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_Handbook#Removal_...