Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Lila Tretikov Has Resigned from Wikimedia Foundation

lists.wikimedia.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 87 posts

Re: Lila Tretikov Has Resigned from Wikimedia Foundation

#21

Post by chris_wot »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #18
chris_wot wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia is still running as per normal. But this has caused a great deal of reputation so damage to the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation. I think until everything comes out in the open, I'd be very leery about giving them any fundraising money.

It's not about small-time donors - Wikipedia solicits these only as a PR measure, the real money invariably comes in form of large grants, such as the Knight Foundation grant, and it's inevitably with strings attached. Think Obama's 2008 campaign.

I know. My comment also applies to large donors.

Re: Lila Tretikov Has Resigned from Wikimedia Foundation

#22

Post by huskyr »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #18
chris_wot wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia is still running as per normal. But this has caused a great deal of reputation so damage to the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation. I think until everything comes out in the open, I'd be very leery about giving them any fundraising money.

It's not about small-time donors - Wikipedia solicits these only as a PR measure, the real money invariably comes in form of large grants, such as the Knight Foundation grant, and it's inevitably with strings attached. Think Obama's 2008 campaign.

That's nonsense. Small-time donors are what makes up more than 75% of the total budget. Major gifts are only 13%.

See: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2014-2015_Fundraising_R...

Re: Lila Tretikov Has Resigned from Wikimedia Foundation

#24

Post by wl »

chris_wot wrote: post #14
revelation wrote: post #5

If some more people leave, presumably the foundation can go back to hosting Wikipedia and funding the occasional project to improve it, after extensive user input. You know, instead of this playing startup thing.

There was never a problem with developing new technology. It was the outrageous dissembling and secrecy around the Knowledge Engine that has caused this problem. You cannot go into an organization with such an extreme ethos around transparency and openness as the WMF and get away with secretly coming up with a plan to compete against Google. That's what was done, and I don't care who on the Board say it wasn't ever a…

What about Flow? Media Viewer? Visual Editor? The "extensive user input" came after the code was already written and the community didn't like the result.

Re: Lila Tretikov Has Resigned from Wikimedia Foundation

#25

Post by huskyr »

chris_wot wrote: post #8

What has happened here is one of the worst situations in the WMF's history. I feel the most for James Heilman, who was removed from the Board only after asking serious questions about Lila's 'Knowledge Engine". Lila's stint has had a terrible impact on the staff and community alike. Here are some emails to the Wikimedia mailing list. The one that started the beginning of the end is when she was very specifically aske…

Note that it's Brion Vibber, not Brian Vibber.

Apart from that, excellent summary of events.

Re: Lila Tretikov Has Resigned from Wikimedia Foundation

#26

Post by Mark222 »

ptest1 wrote: post #2

Some background here: http://mollywhite.net/wikimedia-timeline/ The above conflates a lot of highly unrelated events, but it's a cool visualization. But the reality is that she lost the support of senior staff, and wasn't able to regain it. It's impossible to recover from something like that, so it's a good sign she stepped down.

Reading this, I can't help but notice that none of the people they are hiring comes from a non-profit background, doesn't it surprise anybody?

Re: Lila Tretikov Has Resigned from Wikimedia Foundation

#27

Post by randomname2 »

chris_wot wrote: post #13
randomname2 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great backgrounder. The degree of chaos and dysfunction it illustrates truly is astonishing, it seems they had an utter lack of competent, experienced managers. Very sad situation. Is Wikipedia itself severely affected by this?

Wikipedia is still running as per normal. But this has caused a great deal of reputation so damage to the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation. I think until everything comes out in the open, I'd be very leery about giving them any fundraising money.

Yes, for a foundation with $80M in assets overseeing the Wikipedia project the leadership sounds dangerously incompetent, considering that timeline.

Re: Lila Tretikov Has Resigned from Wikimedia Foundation

#28

Post by ghaff »

ptest1 wrote: post #7
randomname2 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great backgrounder. The degree of chaos and dysfunction it illustrates truly is astonishing, it seems they had an utter lack of competent, experienced managers. Very sad situation. Is Wikipedia itself severely affected by this?

It's not just competent management: the WMF is a weird beast. Most savvy managers haven't worked in at nonprofit before, much less a nearly 100% transparent, community-driven nonprofit. Processes are very different, and I think this is what tripped up Lila.

I'm sure. Without having a real opinion on WMF, I've known multiple people who found themselves in non-profits and basically got out in a relative hurry. And, with some exceptions, I've had many of the same experiences with many volunteer organizations that I've been involved with.

Re: Lila Tretikov Has Resigned from Wikimedia Foundation

#30

Post by tetraverse »

imho: The longer the same people stay with an organization, the more personality issues come to the surface. As you end up with a self appointed dictator and his/her sidekick, assorted followers, the opposing team and the rest regulated to the sidelines. Meanwhile it's sad watching a sinking ship.

"Narcissistic personality disorder"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disor...

ps: I don't like you so I am going to vote you down regardless as to the quality of your postings ;)

Post reply on HN