On Wed, Mar 9, 2016 at 6:35 PM, Jimmy Wales <jimmywa...@wikia-inc.com> wrote:
> One unhealthy cycle that I think we've gotten into is what I would call > "Kremlinology". > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kremlinology > > The cycle looks like this: > - the board doesn't share enough, so people are forced to try to > interpret indirect clues > - this interpretation is too often deeply paranoid and hostile, and > sometimes led by people with their own private agenda > - board members feel attacked personally for doing things they haven't > done, or believing things they don't believe > - leading them to pull back from a hostile set of interactions > - leading to the board not sharing enough > I think the paranoia and hostility comes in good part from the number of times you say stuff – often very emphatically – that turns out not to be supported by the facts. (Examples: [1].) And when that happens, I don't see you fessing up and saying "sorry"; instead, you try to smear, undermine and intimidate those who point the contradictions out. Along with that come empty promises – sops to Cerberus – like the one quoted here:[2] Quote: "I'll have to talk to others to make sure there are no contractual reasons not to do so, but in my opinion the grant letter should be published on meta. The Knight Grant is a red herring here, so it would be best to clear the air around that completely as soon as possible." Nothing happened after you said that, as is so often the case. The grant agreement was only published a month later, within hours of my calling John Bracken at the Knight Foundation, on behalf of The Signpost, who confirmed that the Knight Foundation welcomed transparency and had no objection whatsoever to the grant agreement being published. Previously, we had been told – by Lila – that publishing the grant agreement would "break donor privacy required in maintaining sustainable donor relations".[3] (Bracken told me that as soon as he advised the WMF of our communication, the WMF released the grant agreement.) Yet just a couple of hours before the release of that document, you still told the community that it was a "total lie" that there had ever been a search engine project, or that it was part of any grant.[4] Your behaviour comes across as completely self-serving. The overall impression is one of complete disdain and disrespect for the community. It's as though the community is just a means to an end to you. There's no basis for trust. And there won't be, until you own up to and apologise for that stuff, instead of complaining that people are "attacking" you. Andreas [1] Examples: A. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2016-02-17/Special_report#cite_note-3 Quote: “To make this very clear: no one in top positions has proposed or is proposing that WMF should get into the general “searching” or to try to “be google”. It’s an interesting hypothetical which has not been part of any serious strategy proposal, nor even discussed at the board level, nor proposed to the board by staff, nor a part of any grant, etc. It’s a total lie.” Compare that to the Knowledge Engine grant agreement at https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:Knowledge_engine_grant_agreement.pdf B. http://archive.is/hFMNV#selection-10409.0-10413.73 Quote: "In all these occasions - all of them - I publicly and privately condemned the human rights abuses of these regimes. Writegeist is spreading lies about me, and should be permanently blocked." Compare that to the Wikimania speech here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVR82uP_f6Q&t=39m0s C. http://archive.is/M56Wm#selection-345.0-357.95 Quote: "I just wanted to comment here on the idea that Larry Sanger had the idea for Wikipedia. This is not correct." Compare that to http://archive.is/kDwzh#selection-95.104-95.331 three-and-a-half years earlier: Quote: "After a year or so of working on Nupedia, Larry had the idea to use Wiki software for a separate project specifically for people like you (and me!) ..." [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2016-02-03/Op-ed – diff: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=698861097 [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:LilaTretikov_(WMF)#Knowledge_Engine_grant [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=704421946 > I rejoined this list after a long absence, and I was immediately > reminded why some people call it "drama-l" - there are good people and > good conversations on here, but there are also people who are behaving > in ways that no one would tolerate in person or even on the wiki. > _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
