Jimmy has always been biased so I personally won't trust his words but
the way this is playing out, its like James somehow revealed the pass
codes to the WMF Nuclear launch codes or something...did he?
A board made up to govern a community driven project filled with
people no one voted in decides to give a community selected board
member the boot for reason which they supposedly 'cannot' reveal and
they wonder why the community is pissed off at them?
The FAQ on James removal gives nothing away and the community will
only accept an answer which they deem truthful, we have yet to get
one.... You only dismiss board/staff members when they waste away
millions on something which has no future (which they didn't) or if
they steal..sorry but a BoT member talking to staff about an ongoing
issue is not good enough a reason for removal..We will be celebrating
15 years of wikipedia soon, 9ish of those years were great, the last 6
years felt like an ongoing battle between the community and the
bloated staff/board with forced changes to the wmf wikis and
unexplained hiring, firings and wastage of money which we do not
have...
Atleast those that have been in the project for a while now would
fondly remember the good times on the wikis, back when bureaucracy did
not play any part in changing the direction the project was
heading.....so now i ask the one question we all have been
pondering....When are the Google-ads coming?
On 1/10/16, MZMcBride <z(a)mzmcbride.com> wrote:
On January 8, 2016, the Wikimedia Foundation Board of
Trustees issued "a
short statement on recent comments by James Heilman". For completeness'
sake, I'm pasting the text of that statement into this thread.
---
Recently, James Heilman wrote, regarding his removal from the Wikimedia
Foundation Board: "It had in part to do with me wanting there to be public
discussion on our long term strategy."
[
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=n…
&oldid=698553023 diff].
I wrote the following statement, which has been agreed to by the entire
board at the time, names below:
"The removal of James as a board member was not due to any disagreement
about public discussion of our long term strategy. The board unanimously
supports public discussion of our long term strategy, has offered no
objections to any board member discussing long term strategy with the
community at any time, and strongly supports that the Wikimedia Foundation
should develop long term strategy in consultation with the community."
* Dariusz Jemielniak
* Frieda Brioschi
* Denny Vrandecic
* Patricio Lorente
* Alice Wiegand
* Guy Kawasaki
* Jan-Bart de Vreede
* Stu West
* Jimmy Wales
I would like to add to this, speaking for myself only, that the loss of
trust that I felt in James was in no small part due to this kind of
statement on his part, in which the thinking of other board members is
being misrepresented to the community and to the staff. James apologized
to the board for certain actions which he has chosen not to share with the
community, which is his right. He asked for a second chance, and the
board declined to give it. My own preference, as expressed to him
repeatedly, is that he live up to the values of honesty and transparency
that are core to our community, and certainly that he not continue to
misrepresent what happened.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:31, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
---
Source: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Diff/698800759/698801403>.
Obviously a single mailing list thread can't and won't capture all of the
information related to this removal, but it seemed remiss to omit an
official statement from the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees on the
subject, especially when we have already included a number of other
statements from individual trustees and the Board in this thread.
MZMcBride
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>