Gardner did, however overspend by $60,000 in finance and administration — a sum which Wool believes mostly went to Mona Venkateswaran, whom he describes as a "crony" of Gardner's from the Canadian Broadcasting Company, where Gardner previously worked. One wonders if Venkateswaran's financial-accountant charter is good enough to let her verify this calculation: Instead of 61 percent of every donated dollar going to support Wikipedia's technology and programs to support its mission, only about 35 percent did.

That Wikipedia has gone to Wales's head. "[He] has created something of a mythology about himself,” a former friend tells the Economist. “The image he created is that he is this benevolent millionaire who donates his time for this charitable project; that is not true.” At last, one true not-true thing about Jimmy Wales: the self-proclaimed "monarch" of Wikipedia may want you to think he's joking about his regal ambitions, but he's not. (Illustration by Andy Potts for the Economist)

Any news organization struggles with covering itself, all the more so when, as with Wikinews, the authors are unpaid volunteers who do not report to anyone. But that difficulty makes the hamhanded approach the Wikimedia Foundation has taken all the worse. Contributor Jason Safoutin recently told Valleywag that Wikimedia administrators, acting at the behest of foundation lawyer Mike Godwin, deleted two articles he wrote, one on a legal case involving literary agent Barbara Bauer, and another looking into Wikimedia Foundation deputy director Erik Möller, the outspoken defender of pedophilia.

But let's return to Wales's supposed interest in the Mormon copyright fracas. Likely he's just concerned with protecting Wikimedia's legal position against the church's claim, which seems specious; the document in question was linked to by Wikinews but not published on the site.

But the document itself is intriguing. A set of directions for church leaders, it was written in part by Lorenzo Snow, who is an ancestor of Michael Snow. Snow, a devout Mormon, serves with Wales on the board of the Wikimedia Foundation. On his Wikipedia user page, Snow maintains that he is a devotee of Wikipedia's "neutral point of view" principle. But one wonders how he can stay neutral on this particular issue.

Or so says Wikimedia lawyer Mike Godwin, who recently posted this on a foundation mailing list:

I should add that there is a complicating factor with regard to Sec. 230, and that's that while simple removal is protected, it's unclear whether every court would agree that more subtle substantive editing is protected — by engaging in the development of the content of an article, the Foundation and its agents or employees may unintentionally negate Sec. 230 immunity, depending on the scope and substance of the editing. That's a legal question that I'm studiously avoiding investing the Foundation's donated funds in finding an answer to. I'd rather see a richer defendant sort that one out for us.

Marsden, who is seeking to have her biography removed from Wikipedia altogether, writes:

It would appear that the approach you describe directly contradicts the spirit of the CDA, which claims that Internet providers are merely providing a blank bulletin board, where people can post whatever they want. That is only true, however, insofar as the owners of the bulletin board do not interfere with what is posted there. It is my understanding, based on extensive legal consultation, that the moment they decide to take action regarding postings, they are liable for everything that is on it.

Jimmy Wales, my ex-boyfriend and Wikimedia Board member, admits publicly to having my article altered. In other words, he is admitting that he is essentially responsible for the content of the bulletin board—he can influence what it says, and the law says that since he can, he should. In other words, the safe harbour—I am not responsible for what people post on my bulletin board—goes right out the window.

But the question isn't so much Marsden's page, or her individual case. If she does not test the law, someone else will. The larger question is whether Wikipedia loses its legal protections if its board members or employees involve themselves in any way in the editing of the site. The answer may well lie in the courts, thanks to Wales's thoughtless actions. If that happens, Wikipedia will not be the better off for it. But why should Wales care? He got his fling.

[May 11 2008 00:18:32] <jwales> [00:15] <jwales> Well one piece of useful information is that as far as I am aware, there is absolutely no truth to there being an FBI investigation.
[May 11 2008 00:18:46] <jwales> [00:16] <jwales> I do not think images should be removed just because of a moral panic... but perhaps just as importantly, I do not think images should be kept just to defy a moral panic.
[May 11 2008 00:18:52] <jwales> that is not exactly a lecture
[May 11 2008 00:19:05] <jwales> I was talking about the story in worldnetdaily
[May 11 2008 00:35:33] <jwales> "I seem to recall a Wikipedian policy that says just because an image is schocking doesn't mean it should be excluded" - but just as importantly... just because it is shocking is certainly not an argument for *inclusion*
[May 11 2008 00:44:31] <jwales> so on this VK image
[May 11 2008 00:45:04] <jwales> I think it is a really difficult borderline case and I think people should be able to debate it with mutual respect.
[May 11 2008 00:45:55] <jwales> I wonder: was the album cover *legally* banned in the US?
[May 11 2008 00:45:59] <jwales> as in, a court case?
[May 11 2008 00:46:05] <jwales> that would have to be in federal court I suppose
[May 11 2008 00:46:10] <jwales> and there would have been an appeal, I suppose
[May 11 2008 00:46:11] <jwales> and so on
[May 11 2008 00:46:24] <jwales> as opposed to merely being "banned by the record company" for sales reasons or whatever

Last fall, Weckerle interviewed Wales to get advice on how flacks can use Wikipedia to buff their clients' images. Wales is separated from his wife, Christine; the last time he mixed Wikipedia editing with pleasure, things ended badly. Can you come up with a better caption? Suggest one in the comments, and it will become the post's new headline. Friday's winner: hopelessdeskmonkey, for "Robot CEO smuggles human wife into movie premiere"

(Photo by Craig Newmark)

Gardner has a difficult choice. Keeping Möller as an employee seems untenable; no respectable donor will want their money handled by someone who has conducted such distasteful philosophical hair-splitting about pedophilia, a subject on which the civilized world has an unqualified negative opinion.

Yet she hired Möller for a reason: To buy him off. Möller has never made any secret of his plan to profit from his work on Wikipedia, and getting on the payroll has realized that dream. For Gardner, it accomplished the goal of keeping her friends close, but her enemies closer; Möller is in the United States on a work visa, which Gardner controls. And getting him to resign as a director helped her move towards her goal of controlling the board.

Gardner has a choice: She can either admit that she was sloppy, and failed to check Möller's background. Or she can admit that she was conniving, appointing him to his job and hoping no one would notice. Either way, she looks weak. And that's the one thing she can't stand.

(Photo by Gerard Meijssen)

So concerned that he monitors articles on child sexuality on Wikipedia personally. So concerned that he has started Wikiyouth, an organization unaffiliated with Wikipedia which attempts to "protect" children from "fearful adults." So concerned that he has, in the past, posted naked pictures of children in sexual poses to his website, The Humanist.

Before becoming the Wikimedia Foundation's deputy director, Möller was elected to the nonprofit's board of directors by Wikipedia's users. What this points to: The problem goes much deeper than Möller. Wikipedia's inner circles have been taken over by an extreme cadre of advocates of "free culture" whose beliefs boil down to not having a problem with children seeing porn.

They're entitled to their point of view, of course. But they can hardly pretend that, compared to mainstream thought on the subject that it is, in Wikipedia parlance, a "neutral" one. And Wikimedia Foundation can hardly expect to continue raising millions of dollars from mainstream organizations like the Sloan Foundation if it tolerates the likes of Möller in its top ranks.

One wonders if trustees of the Sloan Foundation, which recently donated millions to Wikipedia after Möller pitched them, share his views on pedophilia. BoyLinks finds his pro-pedophilia arguments agreeable, as does Martijn, a Dutch counterpart to the North American Man-Boy Love Association.

Möller himself appears to be growing aware of the need to whitewash his history. He recently removed a vile image of child pornography from his Humanist.de website. But evidence remains in Google's cache.

The notion of a person with such views shaping Wikipedia's articles on "child sexuality" is unsettling enough. What critics of Möller should find equally disturbing is what, exactly Möller hopes to accomplish in his official role at Wikipedia. He has long made no secret that, like founder Jimmy Wales, he, too, wants to profit from the work of Wikipedia's many volunteer editors. Since January, he's been drawing a paycheck from the Wikimedia Foundation. But I doubt his financial goals end there. If Wikipedia starts selling advertising, or otherwise profiting from its users' work, will Möller argue that the site's users were asking for it?

(Photo by Leonard Witt)

How to have a failed career as an options trader? How to build a porn site? How to launch, inadvertently, the world's seventh most popular website and yet avoid making any money on it? How to hire a convicted felon as chief operating officer of a nonprofit? How not to build a Google-killing search engine? How to cheat on one's spouse, get a divorce, and neglect one's seven-year-old daughter? These topics would be fit additions to the sum of all human knowledge, and yet I doubt Wales will address them.

Not that she needs the help. The foundation's bylaws only require that a majority of its board members be "elected or appointed from the community." The spirit of the term "community" suggests those who actively edit Wikipedia; Wikipedia was originally conceived as a membership organization. But that plan was abandoned, the bylaws rewritten. The Wikimedia Foundation's board can define "community" as it sees fit.

By right, the board could declare that, say, Roger McNamee, the Elevation Partners cofounder who helped broker $1 million in donations recently, was a member of the community, by virtue of his financial support.

The current board, of which three out of seven members are elected, would likely oppose such a move. But three more Gardner-approved appointees could likely swing the vote the other way. And then the board could redefine "community," or just rewrite the bylaws altogether.

Only one seat is up for election in the short term. Conveniently, it is that of board chair Florence Nibart-Devouard, who has consistently led the opposition to Gardner's moves. She is unlikely to stand for reelection in July, we hear. Wikipedians may elect a new board member in protest, but at the cost of losing the most effective resistance they have to Sue Gardner's quiet takeover. (Users have started a toothless online petition.)

The most curious seat is Wales's. It is reserved for a "community founder," and according to Wikimedia vice chair Jan-Bart de Vreede, if Wales does not occupy it, it will go empty. Here's an amusing thought: Why not have Larry Sanger, whom some say has a better claim to founding Wikipedia than Wales, bid for the spot in December, when Wales's term expires?

If the board rejects Sanger for the "community founder" spot, it will have to admit the truth: Jimmy Wales gets a board seat not because he was elected to it. Not because he has any distinct competence. Not because he is popular with the chapters. No, Wales gets a board seat because he's special. This isn't gerrymandering. It's Jimmymandering.

Broadcast media brought us broadcast politics. And let's be simple and bluntly honest about it, left or right, conservative or liberal, broadcast politics are dumb, dumb, dumb.

Barack Obama and other candidates have demonstrated that the Internet is useful enough for raising money and, more importantly according to bloggers, impressing bloggers. Campaigns Wikia has done neither. After an initial spate of press, the site now goes entirely unremarked in a heated political season. Why? For a simple reason. There is actually no shortage of information about politics, much of it delivered by seasoned professionals. It may not be perfect, but it does not leave a void that needs filling by an empty-headed Internet philosopher. Politics may require transformation, and Anderson may be right that it's not happening. But to think that a Web page anyone can edit, but no one cares about, will change this state of affairs? Dumb, dumb, dumb.

(Photoillustration by CEOsmack)

Alarmed, Wales arranged for a bodyguard. "He had an earpiece, greased hair, suit — totally conspicuous," an attendee tells us. "He was 15 feet away from Wales the entire time, including the reception downstairs. The guard was watching him like a hawk." If it's true that Weckerle made up the affair, it's an uncharacteristic display of restraint by Wales. Here's the Facebook attendee list for the event. Note how Weckerle signed up immediately after Wales did.

Update: Another tipster claims Wales put Weckerle on the guest list, and hired the bodyguard to protect her from his ex-girlfriend, Canadian journalist Rachel Marsden. Curiouser and curiouser! Marsden responds: "LOL! Hilarious. I wouldn't cross the street to attend a geek event, and have no reason to do so in order to see Jimmy. I can, however, vouch for problems with Ms. Weckerle."

(Photo by Mary Pilon)

The board, led by Florence Devouard, refused to sign. Among other things, the poorly written agreement made board members sound like employees who reported to Wikipedia staff, rather than the other way around. Gardner surely dodged a bullet when they refused to sign, though. Imagine if Jimmy Wales answered to Gardner. Wouldn't he have a sexual harassment case?

More on Gardner's qualifications, from her LinkedIn bio:

As a journalist, she specialized in pop culture, social issues and media analysis, covering stories such as manipulation of the news media during the first Gulf War, the rise of gated communities in California, the racial implications of the return of the death penalty to New York, changing feminist attitudes towards pornography, the dawn of interactive media, and the rise and fall of rave culture in the UK.

At issue was the photo used on Allison's page, which she deemed unflattering. "I have contacted her to ask for a photo, so we should have that sorted pretty soon," he wrote in January. All business, of course; why would Wales have any personal interest in sorting through photos of Allison? But let's say he was hoping to win Allison's affections too, in exchange for his services on Wikipedia. This at the same time as he wooed Marsden? If so, one can only gawp admiringly at Wales's ability to multitask.

In a reader poll, they dwell on his messy breakup with Marsden and accusations of favor-trading and exploiting Wikipedia for personal gain. Wales remains popular with online voters, however. He's currently No. 20 in the user-chosen ranking, three places behind good friend Bono, the musician turned venture capitalist who tried to persuade Wales to commercialize Wikipedia. (Photo by Toru Yamanaka/AFP/Getty)

Before he split with Canadian journalist Rachel Marsden, Wales talked about taking her with him — first class, of course — to Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, where the event will take place. I wonder if he ever mentioned that to organizers, and who, if anyone, he'll squire in her stead.

Because he has an exceedingly tolerant employer. Wikia, the for-profit startup he created after realizing he'd never make a fortune from Wikipedia, is betting on Wikia Search, a "Google-killing search engine" Wales bragged about in sex chats with ex-lover Rachel Marsden. Wales has talked about moving from San Francisco to New York to be closer to the search project's team. The notion of Wikia Search is that, as with Wikipedia, volunteers can build a better search engine than Google's experts. The reality? According to a user who's been working on the project since 2006, nothing is getting done. His screed, sent to an internal Wikia mailing list:

Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2008 22:13:24
To:"Mailing list for Search Wikia" ,"Search Wiki" ,"Jimmy Wales" , jer ,dennis@igfoo.com
Subject: [Search-l] Sorry to do this but its coming, yes a rant :-(

Right, im afraid the time has come once again where i have been wondering to my self again, and i feel that things need to be said, so here they are.

*Whats happening with the project. AFAIK overall (and i know somethings have happened) but *very* little seems to have happened since the launch. Now i know that things are probably happening with the team, but any chance of actually telling the users about this, cos its not looking good from here atm.

Ive copied in the so called pillars of search

* Transparency - riiiiiiight :-(
* Community - hmmm contribute to stale projects?

* Quality - well....

* Privacy - hmm yes that seems to have been done to an extent ( by the community mind)

Ive been on the project since dec 2006, and so have been waiting along time for this to happen, so its not purely a case of i want everything to happen NOW, i just want it to look like SOMETHING will happen SOON.

*This brings me onto the next topic of where is the project going??? There has been practically no progress, and frankly i cant see much being done from my point. The launch has happened, many people were interested, contributed but have now left, because NOTHING has happened. so overall the net gain of launching the project?? bad press and a few (relative to the web) minis.

*Many things have been promised by various people, which havent happened. Most specifically this has come from a certain member of staff, one specifically, that has said that they will do many things, but even the most basic of tasks seem to have not happened. so Broken/missed promises. Well iirc (name here) said he would make sure that the about pages etc were created, hmm... (http://alpha.search.wikia.com/about.html in case you forgot where those were). This is a wikia project, any chance of getting ANY involvement/input/co-ordination from the team who, ultimately, want us to make them more successfull and a profit (if were being frank).

Now i know i havent been that active recently on the wiki, but i have been reading the mailing lists and talking in irc, but the main reason for me not being active on the wiki, is mainly the fact that i just dont have the motivation to do anything because of the above. Frankly atm its a stale project, but hopefully this rant (which i hate doing) will mean that the project will hopefully become better.

If i have offended anyone above then i am sorry, but i feel that certain things need to be said right now, in order to make the project better, which is my aim.

Many thanks and look forward to the responses to this, especially from wikia staff

Regards

mark

(user:Markie)
_______________________________________________
Wikia Search mailing list
http://alpha.search.wikia.com/
Change options or unsubscribe: http://lists.wikia.com/mailman/options/search-l

Marsden's extreme political views and amusingly checkered personal life tell us she's no saint. Her relationship with Wales grew out of her efforts to use Wikipedia to obscur her contrail of controversy. Now that they've broken up, and Wales's proxies have allowed all manner of edits they'd previously blocked at his behest, she's upset over the state of her Wikipedia entry.

But the Wikipedia scandal isn't about her; it's about Wales. If you think ill of Marsden, remember that Wales freely chose to associate with her. Wales has made a series of bad choices in terms of who he gets in bed with, in love and in business: Marsden; venture capitalist Roger McNamee; Sue Gardner, executive director of Wikipedia's parent, the WIkimedia Foundation; rock star Bono; and countless others. Someone really ought to list all his mistakes. Perhaps in an online encyclopedia that anyone can edit?

Marsden's Wikipedia missive to Wales:

As anyone who has ever cared about Jimbo here knows, the only way to have any sort of rational or caring discussion with him is in the Wikimatrix here. Alright, fine. Game on, sweetheart. Newsflash: Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia; it is a cult. I wouldn't even be included in a real encyclopedia. I want the Wikipedia entry about me deleted. I don't know why this is such a difficult concept to accept.

This is not a publishing company, nor is it some kind of altruistic venture for the greater good of humanity. Wikipedia is nothing more than the biggest and most prolific defamation machine that the world has ever known, run by people with varying degrees of personality disorders. You couldn't have cared less about my Wikipedia entry until we started sleeping together, Jimmy. At that point, it was nicely cleaned up and taken care of through your proxies here on the site, as per your instructions (and it's not the first time an article has been cleaned up through a proxy, as per your orders...this kind of stuff, contrary to popular belief, doesn't just happen "magically" here on Wikipedia). Now that we're not sleeping together and since you so publicly broke up with my here on this website, the page about me has turned into a complete free-for-all.

Are you aware, Jimmy, that "NPOV" (aka "Neutral Point Of View") is actually an oxymoron? By its very nature, a "point of view" cannot be "neutral". Communism has failed everywhere it has been tried, Jimmy, and Wikipedia is no exception. As for you trying to make it seem as though your invisible hand isn't involved in any of this, perhaps it's wise for people to remember that the greatest feat the devil ever pulled off was convincing people that he doesn't exist.

*Sloan Foundation to support Wikipedia's quality and growth initiatives*

''Institutional support of $3 million to Wikimedia Foundation over three years will support organizational growth and technical innovation''

March 25, 2008, New York/San Francisco - The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation today announced it is awarding $3 million of support to the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization which operates the world's largest and most popular encyclopedia, Wikipedia. The money will support Wikimedia's organizational development and help to increase the quality of its content and the reach of its services.

"We are extremely grateful for this support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation," said Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. "Wikipedia and its sister projects have an enormous global impact, but the organization behind them has been operating on a shoestring: unable to pursue partnerships, execute projects, or even to effectively fundraise. This institutional support from Sloan will enable us to make progress on some key goals: increasing quality, broadening participation, and distributing free knowledge to people without Internet connectivity."

"We are delighted to support the Wikimedia Foundation and to help develop its organizational capacity and improve the quality of its flagship, Wikipedia," said Doron Weber, Sloan Program Director for Universal Access to Recorded Knowledge. "As the largest encyclopedia in human history and one of the top ten web sites in the world, Wikipedia represents a quantum leap in collecting human knowledge from diverse sources, organizing it without commercial or other bias, and making it freely available to people everywhere."

The funding will be received over three years, at 1 million dollars per year.

It comes at a critical time in the history of the Wikimedia Foundation, which has just relocated to San Francisco and upped its staff from 10 to 15. One of the projects which will be supported with the Sloan grant is a software feature called Flagged Revisions, which will allow experienced editors to publicly and visibly grade the quality status of articles — in effect, functioning as a kind of "nutrition labeling" for Wikipedia content. In coming years, Wikimedia also plans to significantly expand outreach events such as Wikipedia Academy, designed to increase Wikipedia's quality by teaching academics, older people, and other targeted groups how to contribute. Another goal is the distribution of educational content from Wikipedia and its sister projects in non-web-based formats such as DVDs and books, to reach people who are not online.

The Wikimedia projects are written, edited and maintained by a global community of thousands of volunteers. The Wikimedia Foundation, founded in 2003, has a staff of 15, and provides organizational support for the projects. It plans to grow its staff to 25 by 2010.

Jimbo Wales, Prince of the United States is a well-known huckster, con-man and dictator of Wikiland, who has adopted a lifestyle of libertinage, debauchery, nudism, international travel, kitten huffing and Ferrari connoisseurship by standing on the shoulders of a million nerds.

It may well be. Aflame, too, are the sentiments of Wikipedia's volunteers, many of whom are already enraged by Wales's jetsetting ways. For Wales, the gathering had an added attraction: After lunch, Branson took a party by catamaran to Mosquito, where women in bikini danced on the beach. "Normally the girls would be naked, but the prime minister is here," said Branson.

(Image via Wikimedia Commons)

If only the board had known what would become of that dinner. Bodnick and Bono's colleague Roger McNamee later gave $300,000 to the Wikipedia organization personally and helped arrange another $1 million in donations. Let's see: $1,300 for $1.3 million. Leaving aside what Elevation Partners hoped to get for that money, that seems like a pretty good return. Jimbo, have you thought about resubmitting the dinner tab?

(Image via Turn on, tune in, take off!)

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.)

Wales needs to think about the special attributes he — and he alone — brings to the Wikipedia brand. Wales is becoming known as a stud to end all studs, having bedded women around the world on Wikipedia-promoting junkets. Three words: user-generated condoms. Imagine the sum of all human knowledge unrolling before her eyes. Pick the right article to put on your article, and she'll edit herself right into your history. And worry not — they're as reliable as the information in Wikipedia.

That's just the beginning. What (or whom) would you brand with the august Wikipedia logo? The 250th commenter gets a free copy of Jimmy Wales: Vision: Wikipedia and the Future of Free Culture on DVD.