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Posted by: thekohser

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-October/061693.html very, very, very, very, very fishy to me.

How does a non-profit 501-c-3 that files a Form 990 intend to keep secret, forever, a severance package for one of the top paid employees of the organization?

What rotten thing is going on here?

(http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaannounce-l/2010-October/000069.html)

Posted by: thekohser

Would being hauled off in an FBI investigation over illegal use of a high-resolution seal of the bureau and/or condoning the Internet hosting of child pornography possibly constitute a "personal matter"?

Posted by: Milton Roe

I would imagine he knows too much. They don't want the world to know how much they're paying him to go away and never talk. And there's deodorant payments for life.

Posted by: thekohser

Someone pointed out to me the very peculiar characteristic of this line:

"The Wikimedia Foundation believes Mike has always acted in what he believes to be the Wikimedia Foundation’s best interests."

Posted by: NuclearWarfare

Quite interesting that they wrote up a Q&A summary that anticipated most of the usual questions. Have they done that before?

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

This was probably intended to be the next best thing after "If you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all."

Posted by: carbuncle

Mike Godwin is probably just enjoying his success as managing director, Mövenpick Ice Cream, if I understand http://www.eatoutmagazine.co.uk/online_article/M%C3%B6venpick-Ice-Cream-achieves-12_percent-growth-in-sales-/12043 in Eat Out magazine. I know some of you are saying "That's not the same Mike Godwin" (and "That's not how I pictured a magazine named Eat Out"), but check out this quote:

Clearly a lawyer.

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

I did not heretofore understand that FAQ meant Frequently Avoided Questions.

...and three days notice? WTF?

I'm currently reading an account of the Tlatelolco Massacre of '68. After the event one of the students described the way they read the newspapers as "Why is my government telling me this particular lie at this particular moment?"

Posted by: anthony

Posted by: Kevin

3 days notice and a severance package tells me that he was pushed, and pushed hard. And the list of things that are not the reason leave a lot less to speculate on.

Posted by: Milton Roe

Now he can be the Emperor of Ice Cream. Let "be" be finale of "seem".

Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Posted by: TungstenCarbide

meh ... sounds like he got laid off - fired without cause.

Since when do people who quit get severance packages.

I suppose the unprofessional and childish public letter to the FBI didn't help.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

Posted by: SB_Johnny

I hope it's enough for him to take a long vacation in a pleasant place where he can read printed-on-paper law journals so that he can decompress and reconnect with reality.

Maybe he can write a good tell-all memoir.

Posted by: Shalom

Yes, I noticed that line also.

My take?

God WIN

Mike FAIL

Posted by: gomi

Don't quote me on this one, as I haven't researched it, but I believe that only "normal" compensation is required to be included on a 990. It could be that they have interpreted a termination "settlement" as something other than that. Also, if he was neither an officer or one of the five most highly paid employees, then he won't be there either.

Posted by: Kelly Martin

That's the official line, of course. But the reality is that he was shoved out the door for being incompatible with Sue's vision of what Wikimedia is about.

It'll be interesting whether Erik gets shoved next. He's pretty much the last of "Jimmy's people" (defined as people who were part of the Foundation before Sue came along). Jimmy himself better be watching his back; it's a matter of time before Sue and Company decide that he, too, is redundant.

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

My hope is that this is a move away from FreeKulture. Not only will this open up the possibility of acting in a more responsible manner but strained relations might make FK and the tech press less likely to circle the wagons the next time WP steps in something nasty. Yep, could be Erik next.

Posted by: Milton Roe

Indeed. In a sense, you pay taxes (whether on income or property) as the price of having the government recognize you as the OWNER, with owners' rights (or at least title rights). If you don't pay the taxes, you don't get that.

By refusing to own anything you can escape both taxes and legal risk (the risk of lawsuit from an unrelated civil suit back in 2001 apprently being ultimately why Jimmy does not own Wikipedia today).

But all this comes with a penalty.

Posted by: Doc glasgow

That says to me "fired, but we gave him a settlement in return for his silence".

The usual mantra is "mutual agreement" or "personal reasons" but this says "personnel", which looks to me like "fired for cause".

Posted by: Cock-up-over-conspiracy

Ja, that was my thought as well.


Meaning, we paid him enough to shut up.

Posted by: anthony

Quite a change from your previous position that Jimbo has the ultimate power to do whatever he wants. When did your opinion on this change, around the time of the departure of Cary Bass?

In any case, I think Erik would be far too happy to finally "http://allswool.blogspot.com/2008/02/there-has-been-lot-of-controversy-about.html" to call him one of "Jimmy's people".

Posted by: Milton Roe

Wonder if he was partly perverted by reading WR?

If so:

Posted by: TungstenCarbide

Jimbo once http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2007-04-09/Election_leaks of a WMF board election in progress, and based on what he found tried to derail Erik's candidacy. The subsequent election had to be held on an outside server operated by another foundation.

Jimbo used to have the ultimate power at Wikipedia. What he said happened. That's all changed. The only real power he has now is what can be derived from WMF board politics. All his "GodKing" power is slowly but surely slipping away. Other than that, he just gets to hang around, collect speaking fees, and promise people "I'll look into it".

Posted by: Somey

The facts are a little sketchy, but as best I can determine, it looks like Mike simply refused to take the "standard offer."

I guess it's possible that they had to oust him because after all this time, he finally got around to reading a legal textbook and realized that what the WMF does has been utterly illegal all along...

Maybe. It's just a hunch, but my guess is that Mr. Moeller was the "prime mover" in ousting Mr. Godwin. (He's a sneaky guy, that Erik!)

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

Mod Note: Moved OT tax stuff to the lounge.

Posted by: thekohser

And wouldn't you know it, the http://www.examiner.com/wiki-edits-in-national/wikipedia-s-top-attorney-says-goodbye.

Posted by: anthony

You missed one, the first one.

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=31162&view=findpost&p=256579 I thought Milton hadn't completely went off the OT rails just yet. Also left one by CW that was "mixed." Moving is bad enough but splitting a post gets the locals all upset.

Posted by: Ottava

Godwin leaves.

This follows Mike Snow leaving.

Both were very "liberal" (libertine, free no matter what, copy left, however you want to explain their internet lawless views).

Coincidence?

Seems like all of those idiots are being pushed out.

Good riddance to the horse shit.

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

I'm intrigued but not seeing it. What might be the nature of the Godwin/Moeller rift?

Posted by: anthony

To put it in Erik's own words, "http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2005-August/017269.html"

(Note that I'm not saying that Somey is right. I'd rather not publicly speculate on the reason for Godwin's departure.)

Posted by: CharlotteWebb

I should start keeping track of how many thread splits I'm blamed for.


I'm surprised they don't pose as a "faith-based organization" and claim exemption from filing that.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

All In The Fullness Of Slime …

Jon

Posted by: EricBarbour

You all missed a little item in that announcement:

That's likely to be a list of WMF's highest holy epopts. Cross one of them, and kiss your ass goodbye.

And no doubt the politics between them are getting quite toxic right now. I would not be surprised
to see either Moeller or Newstead pushed out next.

Ms. Gardner is a toxic, evil woman--or so the scuttlebutt has been claiming.
Dunno myself, but she is clearly a manipulative creature.

Posted by: EricBarbour

I just checked in on this thread, and was amazed to discover that an old familiar name,
one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sj, was reading it.
(He has a WR account but has never said anything.)

Well, Master Klein? Would you care to comment?

Posted by: Milton Roe

Is that Sj the good admin of the North, as opposed to Essjay the bad admin of the East? Now that somebody has accidently dropped a house on SV, the Wicked Witch of the West?

I want to know about the bubble around Sj that keeps him from seeing that his WP policy is actually controlled by a bunch of flying monkeys and assorted munchkins.

Posted by: sjk

Hello Eric & all. I'm just up late on a maté kick, avoiding both sleep and work by browsing WR. I don't have much to add here, though this seems to be one of the first places where Mike's departure was discussed at any length.



The Foundation has started releasing Q&As alongside many announcements, including major arrivals and departures. See for instance:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/June_2010_Wikimedia_Foundation_appoints_new_CCO_and_CGDO_QandA

SJ

(Milton: you mean flying monkeys with typewriters, right?)

Posted by: Emperor

If nothing else, Mr. Godwin will be remembered as the genius who somehow finagled the switch from GFDL to CC-by-SA.

Posted by: thekohser

I don't consider him the agent of change on that item. I believe Moeller was the perpetrator of that sham.

Posted by: Kelly Martin

Oh, I don't think of Erik as one of "Jimmy's People", but I bet Sue does. Sue is building an empire, and one of the rules of building a empire is that you purge everyone who isn't One Of Your People. It's possible that Erik has brownnosed Sue enough for Sue to think of him as one of her people, but I kinda doubt it.

This isn't about Jimmy vs. Sue, it's about Sue vs. Everyone Else. To her, Erik is nothing more than a tool, to be used as long as he remains useful, certainly, but he will be discarded the moment she has no further use for him. Or even as soon as some old crony of hers shows up wanting Erik's job.

Posted by: Kelly Martin

Fundamentally that was driven by Larry Lessig, who is far more charismatic than either Eben Moglen or Richard Stallman. Both Erik and Jimmy pushed that to please their Very Bestest Friend, Larry. Besides, Eben and Richard mostly hang out with boring, smelly hacker types; the people Larry hangs with are far more interesting, or at least famous.

Posted by: Kelly Martin

That could happen, but there's no reason to believe it will. Sue's only interest in governing Wikimedia as her personal fiefdom is going to be in maintaining revenue. While I don't believe she has any real commitment to FreeKulture the way Moeller does, at the same time she probably believes that many of her donors do, and so she will not actively encourage any change on this front. Absent Moeller's influence, I suspect Wikimedia would move away from its current positions on such matters only in a piecemeal fashion, as specific incidents lead to ad hoc edicts necessary to keep specific donors happy.

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

Well whoever it was established once and for all the free licenses are a farce and once you release material on them anyone can do anything they want and the grantor of the license is powerless to do anything about it. The only thing accomplished was to genuflect to Stallman sufficiently to stop him from running his mouth against the change.

Posted by: Emperor

In my opinion, this is one of the most significant moments in Wikipedia's history. I'd be interested to hear what Mr. Godwin has to say about it once some time has passed.

Posted by: Peter Damian

Or it could be they meant 'personal issues' but messed up the spelling, which is always possible in Wikipedian matters.

Posted by: CharlotteWebb

And of course, "undue weight".
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=391858439&diff=prev

Posted by: thekohser

Funny that a Wikimedia mailing list is a reliable source. They should have sourced it to the http://www.examiner.com/wiki-edits-in-national/wikipedia-s-top-attorney-says-goodbye.

Posted by: CharlotteWebb

Suppose hypothetically that said independent medium is sourced the same unreliable mailing list…

(Insert Dornfeld's first law of investigative journalism)

But yeah I'm sure many of them are unaware of your article or have "confidential personal issues" for which they would not consider citing it.

Posted by: SB_Johnny

Meow! Pfft! Pffffft!

When does Sue have to go through re-election/re-rubberstamping?

Posted by: Kelly Martin

As far as I know she serves at the pleasure of the Board and has no specific review or reappointment process. I've also heard rumors that she has a golden parachute clause in her contract that would make it quite expensive to fire her other than for cause.

Posted by: Cock-up-over-conspiracy

Are these things not public? Can one not just ask and see a copy? Do such documents not need to be made public?

Is there no one willing to go undercover PETW-style* as an intern and expose the factory farm conditions, copy some papework?

PETW: People for Ethical Treatment of Wikipedians.

Posted by: taiwopanfob

Well, I wouldn't go that far: the grantors are powerless not because of the license terms, but because they lack access to the necessary legal resources.

Wikimedia could use some of its N million dollars to protect it's volunteers efforts -- especially in egregious cases involving particularly high value contributions. Just a few cases to set an example would be sufficient. But as far as anyone has been able to determine (cf. almost any action, or inaction, they take), the WMF doesn't give a shit about editors, beyond what they can contribute.

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

Dude, the guy who wrote the license (Stallman) traded off their (supposed) rights like he was party himself.

Posted by: taiwopanfob

If Steve Ballmer can be egged because, as I understand it, Microsoft charges students for software in Hungary:

http://www.break.com/index/steve-ballmer-egged-in-hungary.html

I can't see why Stallman, Moglen, Moeller, Wales and everyone else responsible for that decision can't be repeatedly pied

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpCMJ2xlLfo

wherever and whenever they show their miserable faces in public. For the remainder of their lives, long they may be.

What they did was absolutely reprehensible, beyond the pale. It showed the true colors of these so-called leaders of Free Culture, demonstrated with total clarity their fundamental lack of respect for the content creators.

Posted by: EricBarbour

He charges them too much. For feces. That should happen more often. Too many Americans are afraid of that Fat Bastard and his funny money.


Be happy to oblige, but I refuse to waste a perfectly good cream pie on those grubby little man-things.

Posted by: Text

Fair Use kills any kind of free license. If i am in USA, i can take just about anything and pretend to use it under the concept of Fair Use and Fair Dealing, why bother with licenses? Almost no one would abide by them and in any case it's all reduced to a person name, if not a website name ("this photo comes from site X" and that's about it for license compliance), thanks to the latest CC versions.

Posted by: Emperor

What are you saying? That the vast majority of Wikipedians do not understand the legal conditions in which they contribute content?

Posted by: lilburne

Probably very little of the articles are copyrightable on wikipedia. If it is plain facts they can't be copyrighted anyway. Most of the prose is plagiarized from elsewhere so they won't get copyright on that, then it gets micro tweaked with numerous de minimus word changes, sentence reorganisations, and punctuation changes, and you rarely get to claim copyright on a spelling fix, or comma insertion.

The copyrightable stuff on wikipedia mainly exists in the talk pages, the trolls, and the vandalisms.

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

What, no photos of the office despedida festivities?

Posted by: Text

That's correct. And the main reason for a lot of people (the majority, since Awbrey, Kohs, Cool3 and others made of similar material are booted rapidly) to edit is to introduce some kind of funny bullshit which may be equivalent to "trolling", and the whole chemical component is known as "lulz".

Posted by: Minor4th

Hmmmmm....

Posted by: Text

Do you disagree on something that has been said, or are you skeptic of the fact that F bemolle is equivalent to E?

Posted by: Minor4th

Well, I don't have my glasses on so I'm not sure what your post says but I do see that there is a question mark at the end.

I am just reading over the thread again. It's a strange way to fire someone, and there's no question that's what it is. It's hard to put a severance package together in 3 days. My initial thought is that Sue really wants him gone immediately but the Foundation needs Godwin to turn over all of his messes to the new guy so the Foundation's 12MM bank account isnt up for grabs. Sounds to me like they 're paying him to be a consultant, and I bet they're paying him a nice amount because he's probabably pissed enough to walk off and let them drown in their own feces. Maybe a non-disclosure agreement about the circumstances of the termination -- everything else would pretty much be covered by the attorney-client privilege, and he can't disclose it anyway unless it's some sort of whistleblower scenario. I'm interested to see how this one turns out.

I was intrigued by the way Godwin handled the FBI seal inquiry and thought it was incredibly foolish and risky to taunt the Feds with a letter that read like an ANI argument. I mean, doesnt everyone know the Feds are vindictive and they'll find a reason to make life miserable if you get their attention? I don't know if that has anything to do with this termination, but reading between the lines, the comment about Godwin doing what he thought was in WMF's best interest (read, Godwin's judgment sucks) -- that could apply to the way he handled the FBI sitch. There are probably others if that is the way Godwin goes about practicing law..

Posted by: SB_Johnny

Indeed. When a lawyer starts sounding like a wikilawyer in "#real_life" situations, he should probably stay away from the bar and/or any keyboard that's connected to a modem.

I hope our resident lawyers won't be tempted to say yes to an inside hire, because that way lies a dead end.

Posted by: Milton Roe

Our resident lawyers are plenty smart enough to know that.

If the FBI matter was part of it, Godwin was ill-used, since I doubt he did anything without consulting Sue. She probably asked him if the law was on WMF's side and he told her it was, and she then said: "Good, because we don't take down anything we don't absolutely have to." So he asked what he should do, and she probably told him to point out the law to the FBI. Which he did. If there were any repercussions, I imagine them sort of like this:

Sue: "Mike, I hear the FBI is really mad at us, now!"

Godwin: "Well, I don't know why. I just pointed out that the law is aimed at reproducing I.D. cards and such.."

Sue: "But you didn't have to be so condescending while doing it. I know I laughed at the letter before you sent it, but I'm not a lawyer. You're supposed to be wiser in these matters. Now they'll think that being snide, is insulting to them personally."

Godwin: "It's not. Lawyers do this all the time and don't take it personally. At the FBI they're big boys and can tell the difference between making fun of an idea and making fun of the people who believe the idea..."

Sue: "You don't know your history! Do you know Galileo attacked the ideas of some high-up Roman Catholic Church people, and they held that he was attacking the church itself?"

Godwin: "What do I care what the Catholic Church did?"

Sue: "The Catholic Church speaks for the views of God Almighty. So obviously God thinks this way, too."

Godwin: "Er, you know I'm Jewish, don't you?"

Sue: "Speaking of which! If your people weren't always making snarky and legalistic arguments to put people down, maybe a lot fewer of them would have wound up in prison camps. Ever thought of that?"

Godwin. "Oy, I saw this coming..."

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

Ω∂! — It's like I was there in the room !!!

Jon

Posted by: Minor4th

But the thing is Godwin got the law wrong, and he was wrong in such an unprofessional, arrogant, ridiculous sounding piece of bravado -- so that makes his wrong-ness monumental and spectacular

If Sue has the bad judgment to think Godwin can school the FBI on the law, then she deserves to reap whatever Godwin has sown.

Posted by: Subtle Bee

Sure, deserves. Lots of people deserve things. But going with this plausible theory, she now realizes she was wrong, and this would help explain the mutual interest in shutting up about circumstances. I think the "tell" will be in their reaction to the next similar controversy - something someone might consider helping happen, at the appropriate time.

Posted by: thekohser

And, Examiner getting a bit of credit from http://www.law.com/jsp/cc/PubArticleCC.jsp?id=1202473788355&:

Posted by: CharlotteWebb

Let's all wish Mr. Godwin a happy birthday. He turns 54 today.

Posted by: SB_Johnny

Happy birthday, Mike. I guess there's no present we could get that could even come close to Sue's.


Color me impressed! Greg Kohs the mainstream journalist... who'da thunk it?

Posted by: Milton Roe

Happy 54th birthday, Godwin. Hitler made it to 56!

Posted by: Cock-up-over-conspiracy

Can anyone confirm that the pay off came directly from Jimbo, and not the Wikimedia Foundation, so that it wont appear on the books ... and hence the NDA ?

I mean, I have no idea if the guy is a gentleman but he does know a whole load of shit about Wales and the operation.

Posted by: thekohser

If you think Jimbo would pay off someone out of his OWN POCKET, unless it was a bribe to keep quiet about something illegal that Jimbo had done, then you might as well call for a pig-flying festival tomorrow, too.

Posted by: Kevin

You were saying...

http://www.flyinpigfestival.com/

Posted by: Somey

Oh come on - that was like two weeks ago.

And where does this notion of Jimbo "paying off" Godwin himself come from? It might be necessary to strike that one - it's one thing to accuse Jimbo of malfeasance, it's another to accuse Jimbo of malfeasance that doesn't even advance his personal interests.

Long story short, I think the basic reason for easing Godwin out of the WMF is that he's too visible. Sue and Erik don't like competition any more than Jimbo does, and they all know that virtually nothing they do can hold up under any sort of public scrutiny whatsoever. They want the attention focused on them, personally, not on what the WMF actually does, most of which is indefensible. Having Godwin around was probably a major impediment to achieving that ideal situation.

Posted by: Cock-up-over-conspiracy

Therefore you are saying that Godwin was the good guy and they want a new counsel who is impressed and beholden to them? "Their Team"?

My source ... it could have just been someone's speculative gossip as to what the terms of the NDA was for all I know which is why I passed it by the experts.

My feeling is that a legal counsel seek further employment is not likely to spill dirt, we might have to wait a long time before he writes his mémoires of the inner workings of Wiki Towers.

Posted by: MZMcBride

Using "indefensible" here is indefensible.

Posted by: SB_Johnny

As Minor 4th pointed out earlier, his hands are tied on the actual legal stuff due to attorney-client privileges. OTOH, he probably knows all sorts of gossip they'd rather not have people know about.

Posted by: Cock-up-over-conspiracy

Do you think they 're paying him MORE to be a consultant?

Posted by: carbuncle

Has anyone considered the possibility that Godwin decided to leave of his accord? Perhaps for "personnel" reasons?

Since we're speculating here, maybe he saw something coming down the pike that he didn't want to be around for or be associated with? Perhaps being the WMF's lawyer isn't such a great gig when they get successfully sued or stripped of their charity status? Not that I think either of those is likely to happen, but those were the only examples that sprang to mind.

Posted by: thekohser

That was my first consideration.

But, then I don't think he would have agreed to the wording of Gardner's posting. In fact, he would have probably insisted on as tersely-worded and uninformative a note as possible.

Because if you read between the lines and see how Gardner positioned the whole thing as being more Godwin's "fault" than the WMF's "fault", I think this was an unanticipated departure for Godwin.

Posted by: Cedric

No doubt about it, Sue's chirpy, vague and quite possibly passive-aggressive "Q&A" raises more questions than it answers. The rules of client confidentiality coupled with the natural interests of both the WMF and Godwin to kept quiet as to the true cause for his dismissal make it unlikely that we will ever know what really happened, unless someone says more than they would normally intend in an unguarded moment (always a possibility given this clown college roster). Even then, I would expect the glimpse at the truth to be a limited one.

While we are speculating as to the real reason, no need to leave out Godwin's reputation for prickliness. If Kelly Martin has him right (and I suspect she does), Godwin is thin-skinned and has a terrible temper. He may have finally wrote a check with his mouth that only a boot to his ass could cash. That would go a long way toward explaining Sue's precipitous and oddly phrased announcement.

Another possibility to consider is a common enough reason that attorneys get fired: he spoke a truth to his client that his client was not prepared to hear. When this is the cause for dismissal, it often comes as a relief to both attorney and client, albeit for different reasons.

Posted by: thekohser

I've heard it also theorized that perhaps Godwin and someone with influence in the WMF (probably either a majority of the board or Gardner) disagreed on a new strategy. (Could it be how to manage that troublesome public pornography collection, perhaps?) Godwin then may have refused to yield and Sue was forced to fire him, without cause. Since it would be without cause, and his contract probably did not allow him to be fired without cause without a significant payoff, his new "consulting fee" period of engagement might very well be substantially more lucrative than his previous base salary.

I think this is as plausible a speculation as any we've heard.

Posted by: thekohser

Some humorous tidbits from http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours/Office_hours_2010-06-11, less than 5 months ago...

Posted by: Kelly Martin

Do recall that Godwin made quite a few enemies in the Kommunity when he upbraided the ArbCom for publicly libeling David Gerard. While I don't think those chickens coming home to roost are enough to push him out the door, they could well have been some of the the thousand papercuts. (Yes, I'm overdrawn at the metaphor bank.)

Posted by: Milton Roe

I hadn't encountered leaving for "personnel reasons". It's a good euphemism for being fired!

Posted by: EricBarbour

Just a few "interesting" items in the past, that I'd like to point out.

First, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Mikegodwin. Most people said "of course he should have admin powers!!", but some pissants
objected--including, amusingly enough, Risker. Then Anthere swoops in and forces the end of the debate.

Then, a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_28#Mike_Godwin_editing_Wikipedia_with_a_COI http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive479#Suicide_threat.3F http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive461#IP_editor_improperly_blocked.2C_this_report_was_not_a_legal_threat_per_WP:NLT disputes or other nastiness somehow involving Mike.

That suicide threat was especially "amusing"--Alison took action, whilst the mighty Mike chose to do nothing, until Alison called him. On the phone. The rest of the AN/I nerds did nothing but squabble.

(Why was a photo of Mike a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_picture_candidates/Mike_Godwin? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_picture_candidates/Mike_Godwin_2??
Is he so magnificent to behold, or was this simply an attempt to asskiss?)

After looking at a lot of mentions of him in the WP database, I have to say that he was invoked in an endless number of disputes, mostly involving copyright/fair use or legal threats. But I saw very little evidence that he actually acted on very many of those issues. I can't count the number of "Has anybody called Mike Godwin?" comments, with little or no evidence they actually called him, nor that he did anything......

Posted by: Minor4th

No clue what he was being paid as general counsel, and I use the word "consultant" very loosely. I think they arranged for a very swift departure, but they need him for the transition. And Godwin needs to continue to make a living while he looks for another job -- i'd guess he 's being paid 80 or so percent of his salary while he remains available and behaves himself until he is phased out completely. Im sure his access to files and so forth is limited and he's not provided an office onsite, nor permitted to be present at the WMF offices without an escort.

Its all just a guess. It's a peculiar situation.

Posted by: thekohser

This information is publicly available in the organization's Form 990.

Posted by: Milton Roe

The only person on last year's Schedule J was Sue Gardner. Other "salaries" must be hidden as other types of expenses. Godwin certainly isn't (wasn't) a salaried employee.

http://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AWMF_2008_2009_Form_990.pdf&page=29

Oh, I see it on page 7. $128,000, as you noted. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/5/54/WMF_2008_2009_Form_990.pdf

Posted by: thekohser

In case anyone is interested, it seems that someone named Michelle Paulson is filling in for the Godwin-less WMF these days, when it comes to the legal heavy lifting. Here's her LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/pub/michelle-paulson/19/56/10a.

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

Priorities, priorities, …

moar t-shirts
less c-men

& larn to spell “memorandumbs”

Jon

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

It's a good thing she is tech savvy. Based on that profile it is likely that she will need Google Maps to find the courthouse. When I saw Community Legal Services I though "Well cool, at least she has represented clients in court." But the description seems like not even that. Maybe California doesn't have a student practice act.

Posted by: melloden

Not Wikipedia savvy, it seems. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Mpaulson, and her http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Los_Angeles_Recording_School&diff=prev&oldid=401575900. Assuming that is her, which it almost certainly is.

Posted by: Kelly Martin

Dunno, seems like she's figured out straightaway how best to use Wikipedia.

Posted by: carbuncle

I'm sure this is a case of mistaken identity. I don't think WP's associate counsel would commit copyright violation as their first edit by pasting two paragraphs from a http://www.webcitation.org/5v11pTgCb...

Posted by: Jon Awbrey

But really, how come they don't just crowd-source the job?

Jon

Posted by: melloden

Hush, she's only an intern Although the user name, registration date, and editing interests certainly are similar, you're probably right.

Posted by: carbuncle

Her LinkedIn profile disagrees about the intern part.

Posted by: Cedric

The profile also suggests she passed her bar in March. It is entirely possible that a newly-minted attorney would be largely unaware of the requirements of copyright law. Copyright, trademark and patent is considered a specialty in the legal world; such a practice is quite expensive and the fees are correspondingly huge. While probably every ABA accredited law school offers courses in intellectual property law, I doubt that any has it as a required course. Also, I have never heard of an intellectual property question on a state's bar exam.

Still, she should have been expected to know plagiarism is. Naughty, naughty!

Posted by: thekohser

Don't worry, whether it is her or it is not her editing on Wikipedia, Scotty Mac has given him/her/it the ol' http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Mpaulson&diff=402667558&oldid=402647163:

I just sent him/her/it an e-mail to find out if they'll share their identity.

Posted by: Larry Sanger

I just discovered this (fascinating!) thread. Somey, what exactly do you mean when you say "what the WMF does has been utterly illegal all along"?

Posted by: Larry Sanger

Having talked with her at some length this year, that's not the impression I have, at all.

Posted by: Milton Roe

She is only toxic and not evil? Or only evil and not toxic?

Most evil people, or people who do evil, are pretty boring. Said Arendt. Godwin!

Posted by: GlassBeadGame

My spidey senses are all-a-tingley. I suspect a setup.

Posted by: MZMcBride

Well, I don't know about the "Mpaulson" account and can't really be bothered to check, but I did http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Foundation_contractors&diff=2247867&oldid=2246549 the contractors page.

Posted by: thekohser

Sue Gardner, http://news.cnet.com/1606-2-6233396.html.

When Sue Gardner left the CBC, there was a blog tribute wishing her farewell. The comments were so rabid about her political scheming at the CBC, the page was http://teamakers.blogspot.com/2007/05/farewell-to-sue.html entirely.

Posted by: melloden

It still said intern when the thread first started.

Posted by: EricBarbour

There was http://www.theteamakers.com/author/ouimet/page/19/ about her leaving. It, too, was removed mysteriously.
Nothing in archive.org either.

I remember seeing it in early 2009, before it went "poof". There were a LOT of comments posted below it, many of them said very nasty and catty things about Sue's leadership skills.

Even more interesting, the Toronto media blog saila.com had a http://saila.com/2007/05/01/ about Sue leaving. It's still shown in Google as a hit, but if you go to saila.com and search for the post---it's gone.

Wanna bet she's been going around threatening bloggers, to force them to remove any mention of her time at cbc.ca? Perhaps because people were criticizing her?

Is Sue one of those people who sits around in her office, Googling her own name to find criticism?

(Sadly, she was http://valleywag.gawker.com/377621/ex+journalist-sue-gardner-tries-to-silence-wikipedia-board to muzzle Gawker.....)

Posted by: melloden

She's both right and wrong for the Foundation, imo. Aggressive and media oriented leader who wants to advance her own agenda and start a new page of sorts.

Posted by: thekohser

Apparently legal trooper Michelle Paulson is being supervised by legal eagle Alisa Key, according to this http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Foundation_Report,_October_2010&oldid=2279547#Human_Resources.

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/alisa-key/6/a0b/347 is currently with Rosetta Stone, but she was previously with Squire Sanders, which was (as you may recall) the highest-paid contractor to the Wikimedia Foundation on the June 2009 Form 990. She's http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&q=%22alisa+key%22+squire+sanders+professionals+18143&rlz=1B3GGGL_enUS351US351&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&biw=1280&bih=588 all the way to the bank.

Posted by: Viridae

I have been missing for quite a while, came back to look around on a whim. Someone want to fill me in on this?

Posted by: thekohser

Which portions of this 6-page thread left you feeling un-filled-in?

Posted by: Viridae

Sorry, I should have cut the quote down. Referring to the letter to the FBI.

Posted by: thekohser

Use Google to search for "Mike Godwin" and "FBI" and "letter".

That's if you didn't know about his letter to the FBI. If rather you are asking what's "new" on the letter-to-the-FBI front... the man to whom Godwin wrote the letter was two weeks from retirement, and he retired, and Mike Godwin left (was pushed out of) the Wikimedia Foundation.

(Welcome back, by the way, Viridae!)

Posted by: Somey

Just to follow up a little bit after having lost track of this thread...

That was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but I was mostly referring to what I consider to be the WMF's bogus "charity" status. For them to call themselves a charity has always struck me as little more than outright fraud. The fact that many of them edit Wikipedia themselves, and then claim that this activity "is in no way related" to their statuses as WMF employees, is probably not so much illegal as simply dishonest.

Obviously it's not illegal to host a website, and I suppose there are charities that occasionally harm people and realize it, but all the WMF really does is host websites - and they've always known that their websites can harm people. If they were doing something more traditional, like manufacturing toys for kids, but working under the same operating principles that they have now... I think they would have been put in the slammer by now, for reckless endangerment.

Posted by: melloden

If the WMF moved to China, they could use as much lead paint as they wanted.

Posted by: EricBarbour

Hell with that--the only major reason to make things in China is simple: cheap labor.

The WMF is the ultimate sweatshop. They don't have to move to China, because they already
have thousands of crazy people working for them. From all over the world. For free.

Posted by: thekohser

Might I be the first to predict that Godwin's next employer may be Twitter?

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-May/065629.html!

Posted by: EricBarbour

And says very little. Except the general implication that he goes where the
(litigation) money is, in this case Twitter.

And oh looky, an argument. Even the Slim One weighs in.

Good luck fixing the mess you've dedicated your life to, lady.....

And Thomas Morton weighs in with the "party line".
Asshole.......

Posted by: Milton Roe

A trial balloon, floated unseriously by Mellovirgin 2.0.

I still think my "better weed at Canadian pain clinics" theory explains everything parsimoniously.

Posted by: thekohser

http://wikipediareview.com/File:Godwin_and_LinkedIn.jpg?

Posted by: thekohser

Wow, it got a lot better.

E-mail transcript:

Posted by: Emperor

Interesting. Is that the real Mike Godwin?

Posted by: thekohser

The one and only, unless both his LinkedIn and his Gmail accounts have been compromised.

Although, based on other e-mails I've seen him write, this fits cleanly with his general tone with people.

Posted by: Bielle

Wow! That's actually more than a little scary.

Posted by: Milton Roe

Maybe PWI? (Hint: analogous to DWI)

Posted by: lilburne

I had a several similar requests last year. Being as the only contact I'd had with him was via the foundation-l, and he'd made a reply off-list, I gathered that linkedin is harvesting his email and sending out requests.

Posted by: EricBarbour

So, does this mean that Mr. Godwin is unwilling to be interviewed by Greg?......oh, poopy-poo.

Posted by: thekohser

LinkedIn doesn't just go and "harvest" on its own volition, though. The user-member initiates that scrape of Gmail addresses who are also LinkedIn members; then the user-member has the option of checking or un-checking those prospective recipients, to tailor the invitation list.

I think what happened here is fairly clear (based on other e-mails I've received today from other Godwin-connections-wannabes). Godwin executed the Google e-mail scraping feature, then didn't give a shit which people it came up with, and he just selected "Invite all". What I find interesting is that I extended him a rather polite and generous response, to which he responded like a tough 10th-grader, completely disregarding the fact that HE was the one who polluted MY inbox in the first place.

No wonder he's jobless.

Posted by: lilburne

One caveat on the above I don't have a LinkedIn account and don't intend to either, it seems to be totally useless activity, unless you are a spammer. Maybe it lists anyone that isn't already on his list. IOW he's simply spamming his email harvest.

Posted by: thekohser

According to LinkedIn, Godwin has apparently landed employment as General Counsel at MadRiver Entertainment:

MadRiver has fewer than 10 employees, its CEO has held positions with 13 different companies over his career, and its CTO is http://media02.linkedin.com/media/p/3/000/028/0bf/151fc68.jpg. Looks like a lot of fun!

Posted by: Emperor

Actually, working for a company where he can help artists get their work out is a big step up from what he was doing at Wikipedia. Too bad it seems to be the same old angle, i.e. monetizing free stuff, rather than a more traditional distribution system. I doubt it's going to work out well for very many comic book writers.

The content generators out there are starting to wise up and the days of the "monetizing free content" business model are numbered. It used to be writers were so thrilled just to see their stuff on the internets that they'd work for free, but not anymore.

Posted by: lilburne

Seems that there are still a lot prepared to give stuff away to commercial enterprises. Though the shame argument that creators should be glad to "Get their work out there" is not heard quite so frequently nowadays.