Valleywag: Florence Devouard

Wikipedia board vote eliminates longtime foe of site's commercialization

Owen Thomas — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:20:00 PDT

The nonprofit parent of Wikipedia, the Wikimedia Foundation, has dumped Florence Devouard as its chair and replaced her with board member Michael Snow, while also appointing Ting Chen, an editor of Wikipedia's German and Chinese editions. Venture capitalist Roger McNamee is surely grinning as he thrums his guitar: Devouard has long opposed efforts to profit off the volunteer-written encyclopedia, an idea advanced by McNamee, a cofounder of private-equity firm Elevation Partners. McNamee, whose partner Bono is a buddy of Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, who has helped broker large donations to the foundation, is believed to have given the board change his approval.

Who's really running Wikipedia?

Owen Thomas — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 18:00:32 PDT

The Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit which operates Wikipedia, says its mission is to give the world free access to the sum of all human knowledge. Behind the scenes, it's responsible for the mother of all power struggles. Jimmy Wales is supposedly a figurehead — just one of many board members. Sue Gardner, the executive director, supposedly runs Wikipedia day to day — though deputy director Erik Moeller, a former board member who has long schemed to take control of Wikipedia, actually runs the site's technology and content. Florence Nibart-Devouard, a French local official, replaced Wales as the nonprofit's chair in October 2006, and thinks she's in charge. Ah, but not according to Wikimedia's legal filings.

A Florida business registration for the nonprofit filed last May shows Wales's title did change — but to "EC," short for "executive chairman," a worker in Florida's Department of State confirms. On paper, Wales still outranks Devouard. Could he have told her that "EC" stands for "emeritus chair," while secretly keeping legal authority over Wikipedia to himself? That would explain why Wales feels entitled to bypass Devoard and cut deals with venture capitalists on the side.

The legal filing:

(Click to expand.)

Wikipedia chair misleads reporter to protect junket junkie Jimmy Wales

Owen Thomas — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 15:20:11 PST

Did Jimmy Wales misuse funds from the Wikimedia Foundation, a nonprofit he set up in 2003 to oversee Wikipedia? Publicly, the foundation's leaders are saying no. Privately, foundation chair Florence Devouard has alternately bragged about how she's mislead reporters and upbraided Wales over the scandal.

In a message to an internal Wikipedia mailing list obtained by an AP reporter, she wrote: "I find (it) tiring to see how you are constantly trying to rewrite the past. Get a grip!" Devouard, you'll recall, is said to have asked Wales if he was buying his wife a "gold-plated washing machine" with the speaking fees he was earning. If only she were so forthright about Wales in public. (Photo by Wikinews Reports)

Jimmy Wales's "gold-plated washing machine"

Owen Thomas — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 11:20:28 PST

It's not the sex. It's the money. So contends Danny Wool, a former top administrator at the nonprofit which runs Wikipedia. Wool reports on how Wales ran up $30,000 in expenses on trips abroad, many of which allowed him to pick up speaking fees which he kept personally. Florence Devouard, chair of the nonprofit, confronted Wales about this. "I don't make any money, and my wife needs a washing machine," Wales reportedly told her. Her reply, according to Wool: "A gold-plated washing machine?" Wool is right.

Forget the bimbo eruptions. Rachel Marsden wasn't Wales's first wild fling, and it won't be his last. Wales used to run Bomis, which he describes as a "Web portal" and the rest of the world calls a "porn site."

What Wikipedians need to ask is where their money is going. Ads have been appearing on Wikipedia for months soliciting donations, ostensibly to pay for bandwidth and other costs of running the site. How will those donors feel when they learn that they funded Wales's extravagant trips? (In his chats with Marsden, he brags about how he flies first class, though he only got first-class tickets when flying on a speaker's dime.)

And ultimately one can't really separate money and sex. Wool suggests Wales visited a massage parlor on a trip to Russia — and expensed the subway ticket he used to get there. To what extent has Wales mixed business and pleasure? Only Devouard and the other staff at Wikimedia Foundation, the charity which runs Wikipedia, know for sure. But the IRS, which must approve of Wikimedia's nonprofit status, may start asking questions.