Hi Ben, Arnnon -
There will be at least two bay area editathons in March, which I'll
announce when I finalize the details of. At least one of them is going to
be at least partially closed due to the nature of the host, but one should
be fully open... and Arnnon, you are invited to both of them. I realize
full-well the board needs your skillset - really pretty badly - but don't
see a way right now you can possibly serve as a trustee. I hold no grudge
against you and would be happy to see you at March's editathons and help
introduce you more directly to the community and editing Wikipedia about
subjects you're interested in... it's just really hard to see you
successful in a fiduciary role, and my doubts here are magnified by other
ongoing situations.
----
Kevin Gorman
On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 9:16 PM, Ben Creasy <ben(a)bencreasy.com> wrote:
Arnnon Geshuri <ageshuri@...> writes:
>>>>
Hi Arnnon - nicely worded message! I can't imagine that you're feeling too
great
right now, but I want to give you a little hope. Wikipedia can be a
forgiving
place - many have been blocked and banned only to return later for second
or
third chances. We take who we can get, because we can't afford to be too
picky.
If you're really looking to prove yourself, we are in a weird way
fortunate.
Some of the appointed (and even nonappointed) board members don't seem
highly
engaged with the English Wikipedia, and you're actually facing the
consequence
of board neglect of the community right now. My concern with someone like
yourself, given that you don't seem to have prior interest in Wikipedia,
is that
you're actually looking for little extra conversation filler when you're
rubbing
elbows with powerful folks at cocktail parties. I hope you prove me wrong.
Jimbo
Wales gets a lot of flak, but I appreciate the fact that he's there on
Wikipedia. I prefer him over someone who is basically "phoning it in" once
or
twice a year.
So, the "SF Bay" group of Wikimedians could use some extra love. I gather
you're
not too far from San Francisco? I've been in San Francisco for a year and I
think I missed one or two meetups, but that's not very many and I hear DC
is
much more active. When I went to the 15th anniversary meetup, there were a
fair
number who had never edited and most of the veterans had never been to an
editathon (and neither have I). I collected as many emails as I could, but
I
imagine you'd have more connections of potential new volunteers -
let's connect and try to get a regular (even as rare as quarterly or twice
a
year) meetup/editathon happening in San Francisco. I've done a fair bit of
editing on corporate governance and nonprofits, and I'd be happy to show
you
around.
I understand that the antitrust settlement is, in the scheme of corporate
scandals, somewhat mild. It's not Arthur Andersen and Enron or subprime
mortgages. Although people do go to prison for antitrust violations (which
is in
some cases a felony, per the Sherman Act), this case didn't involve
criminal
charges. Despite what the textbooks say, I believe it's difficult to
succeed as
an executive without being unethical. In picking my battles I've been a
part of
things I'm not proud of even in my limited career.
Power does funny things to people. It's been shown that powerful people
are 3
times as likely to help a stranger in distress.[1] Powerful people focus on
the rewards and take risks but they lack broader perspective and can easily
objectify people or ignore social norms or laws, as we see over and over
with
executives.
We need a powerful person on Wikipedia's board to help steer them towards
sensible decisions. The board's judgment seems to be lacking, especially
when
they made the remarkably poor decision (for their reputation) to spark this
controversy by removing James even though he was upholding their odd
omerta by
not leaking to the community the 90% disapproval of the executive director
among
staff and the new (yet to be fully revealed) partnership with the Knight
Foundation. In the end, it's actually worked out for the best since it
sparked
a conversation that needed to happen.
I'm not sure you're the powerful person who can pull WMF out of this
ditch, but
if you are, I'd say a worthwhile step would be to take a shot at getting
your
hands dirty in the trenches of Wikipedia as an editor and join me in
trying to
recruit volunteers in the Bay. Plus James should be appointed back to his
rightful place on the board.
[1]
https://web.archive.org/web/20080908051020/http://www.kellogg.northwestern.…
news/whatsnew/mbaupdate08.htm
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