False or unsubstantiated claims of corruption

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    Revision as of 15:31, 28 September 2004 by 142.177.12.83 (talk) (revert to Juxo's last relevant edit - Wikinfo is not the place to look for Florida law or US federal law, please don't embarass yourself by defending Wikimedia in bizarre ways (stupid ways are enuff))

    The following is from Sysop Vandal point of view not New Troll point of view. That is, a reasonable and objective party with no history dealing with the parties accused and providing evidence would not conclude that claims were false or unsubstantiated based on what is cited here. They are alleged Wikimedia corruption issues that for some reason have been disputed or resolved or where the accusation itself forced previously hidden information to light, e.g. the election results, the unilateral dealing with very important matters like the China ban.


    False claim: Wikimedia withholding Board Vote results is a sign of corruption

    False claim: Wikimedia is corrupt because it did not originally release full records of the Board Vote. Claim was stated as follows:

    This is wrong. They are corrupt because they did not WANT to initially. A non-corrupt organization does not have to be asked to release election result data.
    They released it for the part that matters: Who got elected. I too think it is shady not to release full results immediatelly after they have been counted --Juxo 19:34, 14 Sep 2004 (EEST)

    The partially released results of the Wikimedia Board of Trustees "election" proves what trolls have always said: it is a front for the sysop power structure:

    Filed by 142.177.X.X immediately after the elections - note references.

    Motivation for critiqued practice

    This is not true. Imran and Danny have decided to not release full results apparently because some candidates wished they not be released. This has been critisized in the #wikipedia IRC channel recently and a plan is proposed that all results of those candidates who agree to releasing their votecounts would be released and those withholding would just look silly.

    Sorry, this was true when written, and, full disclosure is full disclosure. What were they trying to hide? --142.177.X.X
    See above --Juxo 19:34, 14 Sep 2004 (EEST)

    Whether they succeeded in hiding it or not. It appears they were trying to hide just how many cronies could use their cronyism to score high in this "election"

    The full disclosure of vote counts does not resolve this question. In case one would study who voted, one could construct an credible attack on the integrity of the vote by claiming either/and that sock puppets voted (impossible to avoid in an open wiki) or that good votes were cast away as duplicates (vote rigging)--Juxo 19:34, 14 Sep 2004 (EEST)

    Resolution to claim being false

    After taking up the issue with Danny here are the full election results http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_results --Juxo

    Again from Sysop Vandal point of view. Only to the sysop vandal does a claim correct when made and referencing the intent of people become 'False' when those people are finally forced to give in. If you steal something and lie about it, and I say you are a thief, then, you give it back, does the claim that you are a thief become a "false claim"?
    Let me put it this way. Claim is no longer correct. --Juxo 19:34, 14 Sep 2004 (EEST)

    Claim not a sign of corruption: No independent board in Wikimedia

    • no independent board members not affiliated with operations or Bomis - the usual definition of an independent board is one that can judge operations objectively thus does not participate in them, operating as an avenue of appeal for any such decisions;

    Filed by 142.177.X.X date yet to be determined

    Motivation for critiqued practice

    One can not realistically that the first board of a new foundation would consist of any members who are not heavily involved and experienced in the area the board is supposed to be overseeing. Time for moving away from affiliated board members is when the foundation elects it's next board. Do not expect CGO to consist of any other then heavily involved people, this would be unrealistical and unproductive if the board members had no experience or involevement with the

    Resolution to not a sign of corruption

    Based on the motivation for having an initial board consisting of people affiliated with the real action the foundation is succesfully supporting.

    • Claim moved to FUCOC by and on --Juxo 18:42, 9 Sep 2004 (EEST)
    This is simply wrong. Choosing not to have an independent board retards the project considerably, contrast LongNow's success at doing real action. It is only the sysop power structure and priestly hierarchy that benefit from having no actual legally competent board members for instance to tell them that Wikipedia violates GFDL.

    Claim not a sign of corruption: No independent board in Wikimedia

    • no independent board members not affiliated with operations or Bomis - the usual definition of an independent board is one that can judge operations objectively thus does not participate in them, operating as an avenue of appeal for any such decisions;

    Filed by 142.177.X.X date yet to be determined

    If this is not a sign of corruption, why do all serious nonprofit and most publcly traded for-profits insist on having such boards to allay accusations of corruption? Basically this is just more nonsense and naivete about the real purposes of a board.

    Motivation for critiqued practice

    One can not realistically that the first board of a new foundation would consist of any members who are not heavily involved and experienced in the area the board is supposed to be overseeing. Time for moving away from affiliated board members is when the foundation elects it's next board. Do not expect CGO to consist of any other then heavily involved people, this would be unrealistical and unproductive if the board members had no experience or involevement with the

    Nonsense. One can find people who are 'heavily involved' but not commercially interested to constitute a majority of the board.

    Resolution to not a sign of corruption

    Based on the motivation for having an initial board consisting of people affiliated with the real action the foundation is succesfully supporting.

    • Claim moved to FUCOC by and on --Juxo 18:42, 9 Sep 2004 (EEST)
    Nonsense. Independent board means more confident donors means more money means a better project means more real action that meets the donors' desires to support an encyclopedia not a sysop power structure.

    Flase Claim: Wikimedia Foundation not consulted when legally important decisions made

    , e.g. in response to Wikipedia being blocked in China, which is the biggest issue it has ever faced, that Jimmy Wales unilaterally "hereby authorize Andrew Lih to make a statement on our behalf", based on usual happy NPOV talk.

    Wikimedia claims that this was discussed "offline" but no minutes or any report was made. Abusively, their shills assert that "to be certain that decisions are unilaterally taken, you first need to know whether private discussions took place or not." In other words, there is no such thing as a unilateral decision as assessed from outside - only the actual participants are ever able to say whether it was unilateral or not, and they may withhold proof that it was not at their leisure. This is an obvious and total abuse of process. This was shortly after the "election" of Wikimedia Board of Trustees who evidently had no opinion that mattered, on this all-important question.

    Resolution of the claim being false

    of newly elected board being dismissed from formulating a strategy to deal with the issue according to Engish Wikpedia user Angela she received information on this situation two weeks before the authorization was made by Jimmy.

    Nice counter-claim. Why should anyone believe her? Especially the trolls she lies about, harasses, and subjects to sysop vandalism. She would very obviously lie for Wales, she lies all the time and does his dirty work, removing material fit for an encyclopedia but not a Bomis advert.
    • Claim moved to FUCOC by and on --Juxo 11:27, 11 Sep 2004 (EEST) 04:53, 11 Sep 2004 (EEST)

    Unsubstatiated and later on false claim of Wikimedia withholding valuable link transit data in favor of commercial interests of Bomis

    • False Claim: withholding of information regarding link transit at Wikipedia which would be very useful to editors, but also quite profitable for a search engine like Bomis; several attempts to raise this issue have been suppressed; in September 2004 User:TimStarling did some code to start to deal with it.
    This is simply wrong. The claim was quite substantiated - no one had any access to this data as a direct result of decisions made by Wikimedia, i.e. no independent board thus no serious funding thus no link transit data --142.177.X.X
    Is it? You claimed that they are analysing the link transit and keep that information to themselves for commercial interests. --Juxo 19:18, 14 Sep 2004 (EEST)


    Motivation for critiqued practice and debate about it

    According to someone whom I do not remember: No one has requested this information. --Juxo 19:18, 14 Sep 2004 (EEST)

    A lie - both page view and link transit were constantly requested at Meta-Wikipedia since at least late 2002. 142.177.X.X
    Page view is a separate issue. File a new claim if you want. As for link transit data: No-one has had any software to analyse these and the raw logs cannot be released due to privacy concerns and besides the daily logs amount to some 5GB so most people would be unable to download it anyway. As for the page view count I'm sure a compromise between caching efficiency and returning to releasing the hit count could be negotiated if and because absolute accuracy is not needed, thus the count can be refreshed to the cached page every now and then with a note that the count is a little dated. Agreeable? Yes? I will take up this issue with the Wikimedia folk when I get my computer working (ie. have access to irc) --Juxo 19:18, 14 Sep 2004 (EEST)
    You claimed originally that Bomis is secretly analysing this information that can be extracted from httpd log files. This is not true, they don't even download the logs. --Juxo 19:18, 14 Sep 2004 (EEST)

    It is not analysed by Wikimedia or anyone else (eg. Bomis) currently according to several (unnamed per request) MediaWiki developers with shell access to all machines. Also Read link transit. Where User:TimStarling has come up with some code to implement part of the functionality that the false claim states to be in the posession and use of Wikimedia or Bomis.

    That's nice - two years later under the pressure of being accused of alleged Wikimedia corruption in public they finally write some code that may or may not work. What's that worth?
    You are welcome to fetch the code, compile and try it out on your own free MediaWiki installation (free too) if you have the time and a working computer (preferably unix based) --Juxo 19:18, 14 Sep 2004 (EEST)
    There is no reason to believe people in this conflict of interest. --142.177.X.X
    I see is that there is no other thing to do exept to assume people are telling the truth. --Juxo 19:18, 14 Sep 2004 (EEST)


    Resolution to being a false claim

    See above motivation and link transit. It seems likely that this information will soon be made available to all interested parties

    Likely TO WHOM?
    We'll see. Be patient. And please don't shout at me I'm not feeling well due to not having my computer and thus no irc or email --Juxo 19:18, 14 Sep 2004 (EEST)
      • Claim moved to FUCOC by and on --Juxo 18:50, 9 Sep 2004 (EEST)