Claims of corruption

Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org) is a user interface to a "copyleft" or share-alike encyclopedia that is collaboratively developed using wiki software. Most GFDL corpus contributions move through Wikipedia channels:

It is also the largest GFDL corpus access provider. Wikipedia is "managed and operated" by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation which is registered (only) in the state of Florida, USA.

The encyclopedic project was alleged by some to have been usurped by Wikimedia, a group or clique or cabal of sysops or administrators, from the actual GFDL corpus contributors in 2003. Some of these allege that Wikipedia violates GFDL and has abused their contributions - there is some talk of a class action suit to this effect.

Since the creation of Wikimedia by Daniel Mayer, it has been alleged to have become increasingly corrupt and unresponsive to those contributors and users, and to be serving the agenda of its sysop power structure instead. Many specific allegations have been posted to the Wikipedia mailing list, far too many to list here, and these seem to have increased in number over time. This list includes only the most egregious and legally actionable allegations:

Evidence of Wikimedia corruption includes:

structural corruption

• that Wikipedia violates GFDL notably re attribution and access to source text and all improvements. See text liberation for more on this issue. Access to source text is provided at http://download.wikimedia.org/ even for those users who cannot export due to IP block; however the use of these sources requires significantly more technical skill.

• no actual end user (as opposed to "developer" or "sysop" or "editor") rep on the "board"; while Michael Davis is not a developer, nor a sysop nor even an editor, he is also not an active end user or an advocate of usability - in fact his only qualification is his connection to Bomis corporation.

• users not consulted when user environment changes - suggesting only certain kinds or status of users "count", e.g. only donors to Wikimedia can vote on their representatives

Response: these are discussed on mailing lists, on meta and more and more on irc. Granted, information feedback is far from perfect. In any cases, the development of MediaWiki is not in the hand of Wikimedia itself. So, this argument, if it were true, would not be the proof of Wikimedia corruption.

Countered: Mailing list users are not wiki users. This has been downgraded to an allegation since it is contingent on realizing that.

• solicitation of donations beyond Florida state lines - this violates US federal law which states clearly that only federally-registered charitable status entitles an organization to make such solicitations;

Response: Granted, I do not know if this is true. Please provide the relevant article in the law. The federal registration is under way. If it were true, it would be a legal issue, not a sign of corruption as nothing is hidden. People pay willingly, the near entirety of the money is used according to donators will and the uses made with the money are absolutely transparent. COnsequently, not only is this accusation doubtful, but even if it were true, it constitute defaming to make an accusation of corruption.

Response: We are not your lawyer. We are not your advisor. Ignore this allegation at your peril. We are not here to provide you legal advice, just to warn you that the truth is known and will be used to destroy your organization and discredit your friends. You are of course attempting libel chill by using the word "defaming": it is perfectly legitimate to assume that an organization that is breaking one law, as you appear to be, is breaking another.

This and other accusations, which have frequently been made by a notorious Wikipedia critic, were discussed extensively in this mailing list post by Jimbo Wales, which he summarised thus: In short, if anyone has *any* questions or concerns about legal or financial matters, I ask you to please write to me privately and express those concerns openly and honestly, so that I can resolve anything of this sort to everyone's satisfaction. If, after you've talked with me privately, you find that you have any remaining issues that you don't feel I've addressed, then by all means I encourage you to go public with your complaints. That's my biggest problem, really, with what this troll is doing. He's issuing a lot of lies (anonymously of course) and insinuations, attempting to make a public stink, rather than honestly and simply raising the issues with me in an appropriate manner. I don't actually fear any actual legal action, because in order to file a legal action, he or she would have to reveal his or her true identity, which would then enable us to finally take legal action to permanently ban them from the website, as well as providing an opportunity for me to file a libel claim against him. Anyhow, really, I wanted to say all this because I want you you all to know my keen interest in openness, transparency, fairness, etc. I want to do whatever I need to do to make sure that the Wikimedia Foundation is looked to as a shining example of how a nonprofit should be run, with tight attention paid to expenses, good stewardship of donor money, etc..

...an issue debated on the Wikipedia mailing list but overruled by legal expert Jim Wales as per usual

Response: An accusation made with no back up links has no validity and cannot be questioned. It consequently constitute defaming. "As per usual" is a fallacious argument as well, with no source.

Counter: It's very easy to find Wales spouting his own legal opinions and imposing them on the Wikipedia mailing list. You are just looking for an excuse to deny this, you aren't seriously investigating the claim as if you cared (which you don't, according to you, Wales is just fine as a lawyer for a major encyclopedia that often publishes questionable statements about people).Trolls will provide evidence to the state of Florida on this issue, not to you. We are not going to do your own due diligence for you unless we are directly paid by you to audit your organization's complaince with the law. You have guaranteed that this complaint will be made with your attitude. If we were to provide "back up links" it is likely that you would simply censor the evidence itself as a typical cover-up. We are by no means intimidated by your use of the word "defaming", as you are yourselves liars who defame constantly. In a fair court process, we are confident that our friends will prevail against your friends, since our friends do not solicit donations for charitable reasons and then spend them publishing libel.

• outing and concomitant libel based on echo chamber claims

Response: Beside of being made with no source, I guess that again, this is not a proof of Wikimedia corruption either.

Counter: This is not an allegation it's a simple fact: false statements are repeated over and over again in the Wikipedia mailing list if its users feel safe given Wales' views. It is quite easy to find claims that "person X is user Y wrote text Z" all over the place, and since "Z" is often characterized in ways like "untrue", "false", "death threat", etc., that is a very serious allegation against the character of X, especially if the claims that "X is Y" or "Y wrote Z" are themselves based only on an echo chamber. Many innocent people are being attacked and libelled by slack enforcement of standard of evidence on Wikipedia mailing list and other Wiki-media run by you.

• tolerance of extensive sysop vandalism by almost the entire sysop power structure

Response: Do not confuse Wikimedia and Jimbo here. Jimbo has a moral weight on all of us editors, so is in effect tolerant of most matters, which allowed the creativity of all editors to fully express. As for Wikimedia board, it is not supposed to have impact on how the projects are run at the fine level. It is not its role. Its role is to be a legal structure to collect money and decide of its uses. It is also to own the plysical architecture, and to legally protect the project if necessary. It also plays a role in promotion. It does not have the right to take care of fine in-project management. Consequently, this tolerance by Jimbo ay be good or bad, but is no sign of corruption, and is irrelevant to Wikimedia itself.

Counter: this is not an allegation, it is a fact - most sysops have been involved in doing damage to the GFDL corpus and denying other users access to improved articles. This is vandalism that just happens to be carried out by those authorized by Wikimedia. By your view of what constitutes appropriate editorial judgement, that Wikimedia only "collects money" and spends it, and covers up the fact that the actual mission that motivates the cash and content contributors is being constantly undermined by a clique, frees it of responsibility? That is not governance, it is corrupt and probably even w:racketeering if any commercial gain of any kind is involved.

• tolerance of extensive sysop vigilantiism and contemplation of more serious developer vigilantiism

Response: Same answer. Will add that Wikimedia can protect what it physically own. I see not where the corruption stands here either

Counter: this is also not an allegation but a fact: the sysops do regularly block IP for what they call "trolling" which means whatever they want it to mean, and usually means political disagreement. "Wikimedia" does not "physically own" GFDL corpus contributions and has no right to restrict access to them under that share-alike license. Each mirror has the same right to access the same contributions without Wikipedia's own sysop power structure politics undoing improvements and corrections that are provably improving the corpus.

• ad hominem delete without process, recently spread to Meta-Wikipedia

Response: Wikimedia is not responsible of micro-management. Board members have separate activity as board members and editors. You may accuse them of wrong doing, but it has no relation with Wikimedia itself. Jimbo basically never come to meta.

Counter: another fact not an allegation - see w:Genuine Progress Indicator - woops not there! - or w:state services - woops not there! why not? "no relation"? That Ayn Rand disapproves of both and so does Wales is "no relation"?) If you aren't responsible, you aren't responsible, period. When have you ever bothered to desysop someone for abuse of power? Hmm? Never? How are you doing governance then? That in itself is enough evidence of corruption: a "board" that actually does not supervise anything or anyone, and lets them run amok and do damage to the wiki mission via sysop vandalism.

• ad hominem revert allowed to stand, threats of IP blocks against any who reinstate them for whatever reason (including the fact that they are just correct)

Response: same comment. This is micro management. Plus, an accusation without sources has little value.

Counter: another fact easy to find: you will see lots of revert with reference to "Who wrote it" rather than "what it says or how credible that is" on Recentchanges at Wikipedia. Again, you aren't seriously answering to the charges: With literally dozens of liars and thugs and libellers and spin doctors running around removing all links to the sources, deleting them, etc. it is your responsibility, not our responsibility, to keep these Talk page comments visible so that the people who issue the threats and make the ad hominem arguments can be kept out of the sysop power structure. It was MANY times restated by Erik Moeller that those who reinstated troll text would be themselves subject to IP blocks. But Moeller remains a sysop so this must be considered "policy" on your part.

A fairly typical example: "15:22, 1 May 2004, Eloquence blocked Enforcer (expires indefinite) (contribs) (trolling / libel against Wikimedia foundation); ..."; Moeller is equating what he calls "trolling" with libel which is a legal threat and an attempt to perform social exclusion

• Editorial policy, set by people who speak only English, that leads to the allegation: that policy becomes U.S. and U.K. centric (EPOV).

Response: false. I see not even the need to argue with this argument. Plus, Wikimedia does not drive editorial policy.

Counter: This is a lie. Obviously its policies determine who participates, and Wales writes Secretlondon, and trolls are "banned for life" and so forth, and all of this is MUCH more likely to happen to people who argue against the EPOV - never mind that they must do so in English.

• Allegation: total censorship of Wikipedia Red Faction - not even history now visible due to intimidation of this group

Response: well not answer to this; know not enough about it.

Counter: Look up the various "requests" made of English Wikipedia User Bird and how his attempt to suggest wiki regime change was ultimately censored.

• Allegation: attempted libel chill by labelling contents of this page "slander".

Response: By Wikimedia itself ?

It is not slander ?

Counter:Parties friendly to Wikimedia are difficult to tell apart. Also it is hard to tell when someone has been intimidated into covering up your behaviour. The fact is, someone called it "slander" - look in the page history. The allegation is that this is part of a libel chill campaign.

Also, read the definitions of libel and slander they are extremely clear. Whatever is going on here, it can't possibly be slander, by legal definitions, because it's written it has to satisfy the libel definitions.

• Allegation: several attempts to revert these claims without answering to them, proving there is no adequate response

Response: I answered them. Will detail more if necessary. Fallacious argument : not answering is no proof the claims are correct.

Counter: This is the FIRST time ANY officer of Wikimedia has answered them, after DOZENS of attempts to simply censor them. Your own response is inadequate in many respects, and includes many attempts to spin things (like labelling as "allegation" the supporting facts themselves which no one has disputed).

There is continued attempt to trivialize and deny these claims and hide or downplay the evidence for them, including labelling obvious facts "allegations"

individual corruption by officers

• Allegation: Wales intimidating English Wikipedia User Secretlondon and sending email (allegation:) to chill her editorial point of view and become pro-American like Mr. Wales

Response: Not a proof of Wikimedia corruption.

Jimbo Wales, as any human, is entitled to have personal opinions. He rarely voice them on purpose, to avoid intimidating people as he knows he has a high moral weight in the community. He certainly did not do it on purpose. Jimbo apologized to SL immediately after, and again when the issue erupted again.

chilling people is not usually a good weight to force them to become pro-american. This argument is real bad.

Counter: He should have said nothing. He should have known that to speak was to intimidate. He chose to pretend that he did not know that. The fact that Wikimedia does not restrain Mr. Wales is proof that it is merely his own vehicle.

• libel chill by Wales, attempting to silence critics of his decisions and appointments, or even just those who point out GFDL violations by Wikimedia, e.g. accusing people who say Wikipedia violates GFDL as being guilty of libel against Wikimedia on the Wikipedia mailing list

Response: uh ? Where ?

Counter: There was a specific link to a specific mailing list posting, deleted in one of the usual attacks on this page. Look it up yourself. It's not an allegation, it's a simple fact, Wales said he wanted people to file complaints with Florida's charitable status regulator so he could sue them for libel. That is libel chill, and it is not allegation.

• Daniel Mayer was appointed to the position of Chief Financial Officer on July 4, 2004; Allegation: this individual is hardly credible as a reporter of facts or a guardian of any principles, given his long standing participation in echo chamber and libel pit activities; it strongly detracts from credibility of Wikimedia and Wikipedia when such a person is in charge of the books

Response: Certainly, Daniel is not credible in your eyes, but is credible in other people eyes. If credibility is lower for some people, well, that is unfortunate, but not anyone can be pleased. Credibility, still, is one thing, corruption is another. Do you have proof of corruption from him ? If not, this should be moved as a lack of credibility claim, not a corruption proof.

Response: It is not a question of whose "eyes" are involved: Mayer is objectively guilty of libel and of using false claims to police to intimidate people. He may also be guilty of perjury. You have accepted an incompetent and petulant and unreliable person prone to lying in a position of authority, and that is corrupt in itself. Why? Could it be that no one who is competent will take on the task he offered to take on?

For issues with developers and others without official status, see Talk:alleged Wikimedia corruption. The most egregious of these is:

• release of carefully guarded MediaWiki bot code - used as a vandalbot for technological escalation against Recyclopedia and threatened against Wikinfo - post facto, attempted coverup with extremely selective event reporting in Wikipedia, Allegation: false claims in the Wikipedia article nominally about Recyclopedia but with no mention of denial of service attacks or vandalbots that were the actual proximate cause of it becoming unusable, and the clearest example yet of intimidation.

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official response from Wikimedia:

I suggest that all unsupported arguments given as proof are removed.

Your "suggestion" is actually an attempt to shield perjurors, libellers, libel chillers, those abusing the GFDL contributors and the license that Wikipedia was founded on. It should be denied out right with a cease and desist letter from Consumerium Governance Organization to Wikimedia Foundation telling you people that you have no right to lie about yourselves here or about others there.

But, to start a Peace Process, here is the deal: the Wikimedia Foundation agrees to take legal action against all who publish libel via its media, or who have done so, starting with Erik Moeller and Daniel Mayer who should recieve stern official warning letters from you immediately. They are removed from all positions of authority and publicly shamed. Wales apologizes to various people he has intimidated. All remaining developers and sysops swear in writing that they had nothing to do with vandalbot or denial of service attacks or the vandalism of troll-friendly wikis unfriendly to Wikimedia including Consumerium and Recyclopedia. These are collected in writing and the Wikimedia Foundation states as policy that no one who engages in any kind of technological escalation against Wikimedia critics is sanctioned by it or will ever receive any support from it. THEN we will bother listing all the claims, as we will be reasonably sure that they will stand without attacks nor censorship. THE ONLY ALTERNATIVE? Complaints directly to Florida regulators. The choice is yours. This is the only deal anyone will offer you.

Some of your claims may be right (though, I am not really certain which are), and if so, I think your feedback is interesting, but all the other ones loosen the credibility of those which may be correct.

We have not had the luxury of documenting them all without harassment and censorship. When we do, the final and fully documented version will go straight to Washington DC to prevent or end any federal charitable status for Wikimedia. We will not be consulting with those who harass us, since we have been harassed enough to require there be no cooperation with authority.

Besides, keeping unsupported, or even defaming claims in this page, and in others, is threatening Juxo project credibility and viability. I recommand that you consider this issue with due respect.

Anthere.

The threats come from an unaccountable organization that covers up its own behaviour. A bad example. To assert that there are "Threats" to "credibility" is simply to assert that you will use Wikipedia to continue to spread lies and libel about those who expose Wikimedia for what it is, a false front. To assert that its "viability" is at stake is to assert that you are going to pressure MediaWiki developers or others to stop supporting it.

Trolls suggest that you, Anthere, as an honourable person defending a dishonourable group, RESIGN, and cite the failure of Wikimedia to deal with its various corruption and accountability problems as the reason for doing so.

Yes, Anthere, resign. Resign now.