How Jimbo gamed Wikibooks, in 2006 Options

[Avirosa]

Your question at Wikibooks was completely off-the-wall. Raising the issue of the arbitrariness of the exclusion of video-game textbooks was fine. Blaming it on Jimbo, even though he obviously was very involved in that original shift, wasn't. Wikibooks isn't the judge in a conflict-of-interest lawsuit. It's not even the jury, and even if a consensus appeared there that Jimbo was an evil, self-dealing monster, it would be irrelevant. Would that mean that policy should be changed to frustrate the ESDMs?

I don't think so. What's needed at Wikibooks is a coherent vision, expressed as a policy, with consensus, that then leads to consequential decisions like the VG guide decision. And all the crap of the past is actually irrelevant and distracting, leading to useless argument, unless we turn to the actual issue. That was my "firebreak.".

You are completely lost in the wiki gloop. WMF does not exist in some cyberspace cosmic fluid where boltzman brain players engage in etherial world building, WMF is a real world entity subject to regulation and laws. Whether Wales is an evil self dealing monster or simply an arrogant prat making a living as a chancer doesn't matter, but Wales' actions as a Director/Officer of WMF do matter because they actually impact on the human world with its real consequences. You can come up with whatever 'game' rules for Wikibooks that you like but if the inherent system benefits a specific private corporation linked to one or more WMF directors, then the real world may very well bite WMF and its directors in their collective arses.

A.virosa

[Abd]

You are completely lost in the wiki gloop. WMF does not exist in some cyberspace cosmic fluid where boltzman brain players engage in etherial world building,

It doesn't? My, obviously I have some reconsideration to undertake here.

WMF is a real world entity subject to regulation and laws. Whether Wales is an evil self dealing monster or simply an arrogant prat making a living as a chancer doesn't matter, but Wales' actions as a Director/Officer of WMF do matter because they actually impact on the human world with its real consequences.

Sure. However, Avirosa, you have interpreted "real world entity" and "regulation and laws" as if these fantasies and abstractions -- they are, you know -- actually determine the flow of events, i.e., "real consequences," without any understanding of the practical realities, i.e., what it takes to get the machinery of law enforcement moving.

You can come up with whatever 'game' rules for Wikibooks that you like but if the inherent system benefits a specific private corporation linked to one or more WMF directors, then the real world may very well bite WMF and its directors in their collective arses.

Sure. But I don't see any sign of WMF or Jimbo transgressions rising to anything close to the point of actual consequences. In particular, your statement of the problem is incomplete, overlooking a crucial point.
Others have explained the distinction. It is not unlawful, my opinion, not a lawyer, for a charitable corporation to "benefit" a director or officer, if that benefit does not come at the expense of the corporation, i.e., does not divert funds or charitably controlled resources from that purpose, without sufficient justification. If a donor to the corporation buys influence in this direction, i.e., if Omidyar, for example, were to steer resources toward his own personal interests, the tax deductibility of that donation might come under review (and a nonprofit can get dinged for this). I've not seen anything like that even being alleged.

Let's suppose -- I find it implausible, but possible -- that Jimbo's action to define video game guides as "not textbooks" and outside the scope of Wikibooks, was motivated by private gain. What loss did the WMF suffer? That action was, as far as I can see, a private action, not taken ex officio, at that time, as the WMF. It was simply a personal recommendation, given the way that wikis work, and it was, in fact, taken that way, the community debated it and came up with its own decision in its own weird and arcane process. Some have imagined that every statement of Jimbo was "official WMF," when that is obviously not true. The guy had the right to his opinion! Even if he was occasionally unclear on what his role was.

Quite simply, this is not a legal issue. It might be an image issue, and if someone wants to smear Jimbo and the WMF, this seems like a handy piece of mud to toss. And I'm pointing out that this, itself, is purely destructive, and it's no wonder that it arouses major defensive responses, sometimes.

However, it seems that the Wikibooks community is collectively yawning. And in spite of the nonsense being pushed here by a few, that is not a good example of collective inattention that could lead to serious damage. There is plenty of other stuff that is. And by running around in circles with moot allegations, attention is distracted from what truly does cause continuing damage.

[Avirosa]

Let's suppose -- I find it implausible, but possible -- that Jimbo's action to define video game guides as "not textbooks" and outside the scope of Wikibooks, was motivated by private gain. What loss did the WMF suffer? That action was, as far as I can see, a private action, not taken ex officio, at that time, as the WMF. It was simply a personal recommendation, given the way that wikis work, and it was, in fact, taken that way, the community debated it and came up with its own decision in its own weird and arcane process. Some have imagined that every statement of Jimbo was "official WMF," when that is obviously not true. The guy had the right to his opinion! Even if he was occasionally unclear on what his role was.

Quite simply, this is not a legal issue. It might be an image issue, and if someone wants to smear Jimbo and the WMF, this seems like a handy piece of mud to toss. And I'm pointing out that this, itself, is purely destructive, and it's no wonder that it arouses major defensive responses, sometimes.

As Gregg has pointed out - Wales' action with Wikibooks is relevant because it is part of a set of questionable actions. Wikibooks has no substantive legal existance, the only legal entity on the non profit side is WMF and it is the operation of WMF as a whole that raise questions of private benefit. Does anyone who spends their time at Wikibooks or any other WMF pwned website care about the operation of the WMF ? Very probably not - that still leaves nearly 300 million US citizens who might have a concern about how their Tax system operates. For them the following is worth a read: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p4221pc.pdf = What activities may jeopardize a public charity’s tax-exempt status?


A.virosa

[dogbiscuit]

Let's suppose -- I find it implausible, but possible -- that Jimbo's action to define video game guides as "not textbooks" and outside the scope of Wikibooks, was motivated by private gain. What loss did the WMF suffer? That action was, as far as I can see, a private action, not taken ex officio, at that time, as the WMF. It was simply a personal recommendation, given the way that wikis work, and it was, in fact, taken that way, the community debated it and came up with its own decision in its own weird and arcane process. Some have imagined that every statement of Jimbo was "official WMF," when that is obviously not true. The guy had the right to his opinion! Even if he was occasionally unclear on what his role was.

Actually, under company law, company directors do not have a right to a personal opinion on matters that affect a company they are involved in.

Anything that a director of Enron says about an issue involving Enron cannot be separated out into a personal view or a company view.

Similarly, once Jimbo has a role as an officer of one or more companies, he is not allowed to say "x was said on my own dime, it is a private opinion" but "ah, y was my opinion as an officer of the company". It is a burden you accept when becoming a company officer. As you can well imagine, such a distinction is both arbitrary, impossible to police and unreasonable to expect an individual to distinguish - even if prefaced with caveats such as "in my personal opinion". Imagine a director saying "in my private opinion which does not represent my view as a company officer and therefore is of no legal standing, our products are rubbish and we should be sued for selling an unsafe product, but as a company officer, I think any criticism of the company's products is unjustified."

There is a potential loss. It might well be that by disallowing certain forms, the format fails to gain its critical mass - and we also know that link farming is an element of the SEO game, so losing content by itself is potentially a loss to the domain as a whole.

In the UK this action would potentially be covered by the Fraud Act of 2006 (I am sure that the US position is entirely different, but it is instructive to see that in some juristrictions this is has the potential to be an actual illegal act even if no profit derives).

Section 4 deals with fraud by abuse of position (where this is taken to mean something less an an obligation or legal duty, more of a moral obligation). The fact that Jimbo is an important person within the WMF community, and is supposed to be acting for that community by the position he holds, would be sufficient to trigger him as being under the influence of the act. The fact that he made a suggestion that could be for gain is sufficient:

"Section 4 is entirely offender focused. It is complete once the Defendant carries out the act that is the abuse of his position. It is immaterial whether or not he is successful in his enterprise and whether or not any gain or loss is actually made." (CPS Guidance)

But we are again in the Wiki world where people involved in Wikipedia want to treat the world where legal and moral obligations are as flexible as the editing system they are using.

To be absolutely clear, as a member of WMF, and in his position as Chairman Emeritus or whatever it is this week, Jimbo Wales is under a duty not to take any action that may make private gains at the expense of the organisation by abusing his authority within the company.

In this case, if he had acted through a Chinese Wall to make the suggestion to the community and it was then taken up by it, he might have a defence, but here we have the founder and leader of the community (especially so in 2006) making a suggestion that is of no benefit to the community (the neutral policy is no games manuals which by itself is reasonable, as Somey points out) but the error is putting in place the policy to direct the content to benefit a company he has a financial interest, when the policy could have been left as "suitable hosts elsewhere on the Internet".

[Kelly Martin]

Actually, under company law, company directors do not have a right to a personal opinion on matters that affect a company they are involved in.

The failure of basically everyone involved in Wikimedia to understand this has been a persistent issue. When I ran for the WMF Board back in 2006 I stated that I thought it was a poor idea for a Board member to actively participate in any WMF project (and promised to curtail my activities as an editor should I be elected) because doing so created an unacceptable risk of liability for the Foundation. Officers and directors of a corporation are always, irrevocably, agents for that corporation, regardless of what hat they claim to be wearing at the time. Fundamentally I think this stems from Jimmy's belief that rules do not apply to him, and so he can do whatever he wants.

[Abd]

To be absolutely clear, as a member of WMF, and in his position as Chairman Emeritus or whatever it is this week, Jimbo Wales is under a duty not to take any action that may make private gains at the expense of the organisation by abusing his authority within the company.

Yes. The critical phrase here, "at the expense of the organization."

In this case, if he had acted through a Chinese Wall to make the suggestion to the community and it was then taken up by it, he might have a defence, but here we have the founder and leader of the community (especially so in 2006) making a suggestion that is of no benefit to the community (the neutral policy is no games manuals which by itself is reasonable, as Somey points out) but the error is putting in place the policy to direct the content to benefit a company he has a financial interest, when the policy could have been left as "suitable hosts elsewhere on the Internet".

I'm not seeing an assertion of harm to the organization.

This argument has practically no chance of standing in a real court of law. And no chance of being accepted for enforcement by a federal agency. You want to make it stand, or try to, go ahead, waste your money hiring a lawyer and paying costs, getting through the thicket of obstacles. It would be fun to watch.

Notice the confusion arising between the community and the organization. A court will not be fooled.

I have seen far more cogent complaints fall flat on their faces.

Here is the relevant section from the manual cited:

A public charity is prohibited from allowing more than an insubstantial accrual of private benefit to individuals or organizations.This restriction is to ensure that a tax-exempt organization serves a public interest, not a private one If a private benefit is more than incidental, it could jeopardize the organization’s tax-exempt status.

No part of an organization’s net earnings may inure to the benefit of an insider. An insider is a person who has a personal or private interest in the activities of the organization such as an officer, director, or a key employee This means that an organization is prohibited from allowing its income or assets to accrue to insiders. An example of prohibited inurement would include payment of unreasonable compensation to an insider Any amount of inurement may be grounds for loss of tax-exempt status

The issue here would be:

1. Was the editing action of Jimbo at Wikibooks an action of the corporation? If so, it was singularly poorly implemented. The recommendation of Jimbo, represented in that edit, did not become policy at first, it was actually removed, and only came back much later, without any apparent action from Jimbo or any officer of the WMF. It had a reasonable explanation from Jimbo's conception of the mission of Wikibooks, and that explanation appears to be the basis for it.

2. Did this action allow a substantial private benefit to Jimbo or an organization controlled by him or from which he receives benefit? That would be very difficult to establish. The form of the policy simply suggested (at some points?) wikia or other wikis or sites as alternatives, which has cover as an action that actually is helpful to wikibooks users, and the question would be whether or not there was undue influence over that choice. I see no sign that the corporation engaged in applying undue influence. The wording of the policy was entirely established and maintained by Wikibooks users, and the corporation is not responsible for what they do. Note that if this were unlawful, every reference on the WMF wikis of some other wiki could be considered a violation, if any WMF officer had any connection with that wiki. This would create a conflict with the mission, which would allow and suggest such links where they benefit the projects and the community.

Is it seriously being argued that a WMF officer should have intervened in the development of Wikibooks policy, to force the exclusion of any possible COI web site, based on? A narrow and mindless interpretation of "more than an insubstantial accrual of private benefit" to some one-time officer? Because that is what "allowing" would mean. Rather, the WMF has, for very good reasons, a hands-off policy, it's obvious, about local community governance. Jimbo's action, then, the initial claim of prohibition, because it wasn't enforced, must be seen as an expression of his private opinion. He didn't block the user who reverted him!

That some editors practically worshipped him, and considered his writ to be law, is not his legal responsibility. In fact, it's probably a damned nuisance, if he looks back at it....

This post has been edited by Abd: Thu 16th September 2010, 6:27pm

[Somey]

I'm not seeing an assertion of harm to the organization.

This argument has practically no chance of standing in a real court of law. And no chance of being accepted for enforcement by a federal agency. You want to make it stand, or try to, go ahead, waste your money hiring a lawyer and paying costs, getting through the thicket of obstacles. It would be fun to watch.

I would actually have to agree with you - this is not really a legal issue so much as an ethical one, which (at best) can help establish a pattern of behavior by which Jimbo subtly attempted to "monetize" WMF-hosted content by trying to have the more commercially-viable stuff siphoned off to Wikia. But as long as he can make the case that he simply suggested that the stuff be siphoned off, he's in the clear legally.

As for things like this affecting the WMF's "charity" status, I suppose you could add it to the list of subtle offenses... but in the end, the WMF should lose its charity status because it isn't a charity, not because of some legal technicality or even the questionable behavior of one (or more) of its principals. And speaking only for myself, I'd say that if there's any one thing that "activist" Wikipedia critics in general should be bringing to the attention of the public at large, in hopes of obtaining some sort of official relief, this is it.

[SB_Johnny]

Actually, under company law, company directors do not have a right to a personal opinion on matters that affect a company they are involved in.

The failure of basically everyone involved in Wikimedia to understand this has been a persistent issue. When I ran for the WMF Board back in 2006 I stated that I thought it was a poor idea for a Board member to actively participate in any WMF project (and promised to curtail my activities as an editor should I be elected) because doing so created an unacceptable risk of liability for the Foundation. Officers and directors of a corporation are always, irrevocably, agents for that corporation, regardless of what hat they claim to be wearing at the time. Fundamentally I think this stems from Jimmy's belief that rules do not apply to him, and so he can do whatever he wants.

I agree, completely. While "IAR" makes sense as a rule for people writing an encyclopedia to follow, it's absolutely not a good idea for a non-profit out here in the real world. Jimmy's disdain for rules and authority (and his willingness to make up rules and be an authoritarian) is a poisonous influence on the WMF, which otherwise might be able to grow into a force for the good.

Unfortunately, Jimmy doesn't have an altruistic bone in his body, and so will never be man enough to walk away even though it's plainly obvious that he's become a lodestone. The board might force the issue, eventually, but not while it's still collectively enthralled... I suspect things will need to go considerably further downhill before they start to take a realistic view of things.

[thekohser]

Could we please all remember one important thing?

According to Jimbo (numerous public lectures), Wikipedia represents that little section of the library where the librarian would send you when you asked for "the encyclopedias".

Wikia is the rest of the library.™

[Milton Roe]

Could we please all remember one important thing?

According to Jimbo (numerous public lectures), Wikipedia represents that little section of the library where the librarian would send you when you asked for "the encyclopedias".

Wikia is the rest of the library.™

That explains a lot. Wikipedia has done more than any other website to break down the traditional divisions between "stuff in the library." For example, despite WP:NOTALMANAC, Wikipedia is the world's largest and most complete almanac.

Wales uses these distinctions (and plays on them, in others' minds) when they serves his interests, and plays the visionary who disregards them all, when they don't. Surprize!

Of course, the truth is that knowlege is far more "one piece" than you'd guess from looking at the random piles of scrolls, waiting to be sorted after being deposited in order of their various physical sources, in the Library of Alexandria. And also more one piece than is suggested by Dewey Decimalized sections of a "modern" library, including the "shelves" where they keep the "encyclopedias." It's more one piece than Jimmy Wales would have you believe because it suits him for you to believe it.

Splitting all knowledge up now, is done for reasons of space, convenience, and (when things are on paper) for reasons of sheer mass. How large a book can you conveniently hold in your hands, or pull off a shelf? That's why books are the size that they are.

A computer-driven digitized hyperlinked library is a quite different beast. The divisions now in knowledge are driven only by convenience and memory, and can be arbitrary in type and granularity. And the whole library can be one interconnected database or one piece. Even the idea of a digital "document" is completely arbitrary. If your memory has no limits, a "document" can be 12 films and 100 books that comment on them. It can be an entire smaller library. Think flexibly.

Yes, the job of indexing and hyperlinking this "thing" (mass of digitized human knowledge) is monsterous, and computers themselves don't have enough "intelligence" to do it all in 2010. They are assisted now "by hand" and much of that work is done by volunteers. Amazing. This will continue to an extent not even possible to comprehend now. But in 20 years, the structure of "libraries" and human knowledge itself, will all be as much transformed as has happened in the last 20 years. I promise.

So Jimbo is spinning bullshit, and as usually it's hard to tell how much even he himself believes. There's no limit to what people can believe if it's in their private interests to do so.

In any case, the "encyclopedia" is not intrinsically a "bit" of the library, with Jimbo owning the rest. The digital encyclopedia is merely one nexus from which the digital library, which has no obvious natural divisions but those we choose for it, has started to crystallize into one single hyperlinked mass, as organized by human minds and machines. It's not the only seed from which this crystallization and linking of knowledge is happening and moving out into the rest of the digital library. But right now, it's the most visible one-- and that is all.

MR

[Emperor]

Yes, the job of indexing and hyperlinking this "thing" (mass of digitized human knowledge) is monsterous, and computers themselves don't have enough "intelligence" to do it all in 2010. They are assisted now "by hand" and much of that work is done by volunteers. Amazing. This will continue to an extent not even possible to comprehend now. But in 20 years, the structure of "libraries" and human knowledge itself, will all be as much transformed as has happened in the last 20 years. I promise.

One problem with inclusionism is what to do with all the stuff of limited interest. Like should an article about the electric knife include its uses in carving up murder victims and fashioning hip and buttock padding for transvestites? I think it's going to be a very long time before computers are smart enough to make these decisions. Probably the information should be in the encyclopedia somewhere, but in a way so that it doesn't interfere with the usefulness of the encyclopedia to the average reader.

Of course the crowd isn't so great at making content decisions either. Individuals and very small groups of humans still seem to be best at this.

[Milton Roe]

Yes, the job of indexing and hyperlinking this "thing" (mass of digitized human knowledge) is monsterous, and computers themselves don't have enough "intelligence" to do it all in 2010. They are assisted now "by hand" and much of that work is done by volunteers. Amazing. This will continue to an extent not even possible to comprehend now. But in 20 years, the structure of "libraries" and human knowledge itself, will all be as much transformed as has happened in the last 20 years. I promise.

One problem with inclusionism is what to do with all the stuff of limited interest. Like should an article about the electric knife include its uses in carving up murder victims and fashioning hip and buttock padding for transvestites? I think it's going to be a very long time before computers are smart enough to make these decisions. Probably the information should be in the encyclopedia somewhere, but in a way so that it doesn't interfere with the usefulness of the encyclopedia to the average reader.

Yes, but note that this isn't really an "inclusionist vs. deletionist" problem! That entire division only sends up serving the pocketbook of Jimmy Wales.

There's no reason, from the pure viewpoint of ease-of-use, to ever delete anything. The only real argument THERE is how far down the Link-Tree to put it, so that the only people who end up seeing it, are those digging really hard to find it.

If there are some people (like children) who you don't want to find porn or murder techniques no matter how many deep the link-well is to see them, then THAT is your problem. It's a very narrow one, unrelated to library science (except as libraries need to have off-limits-to-children sections). And presumably there are some national security related things that all adults on Earth should not get access to. And there are privacy-related things.

Of course you can't let some children see some knowlege, no matter how much they'd like to, and you can't let some adults see some knowlege, no matter how much they want to (your military's ops plans; somebody else's private financial or medical info). But these are complete red-herrings, when it comes to Jimbo and his databases.

As we have seen, WP has no problem letting anybody see anything, unless WP is legally restrained. THEY don't give a shit about children, privacy, or national security (we all are pretty sure that Wikia, and thus Jimbo, is in bed with Wikileaks). But they really DO care when somebody starts making a buck from organization of knowledge that they'd like to make a buck off. That is the one and only reason that now exists behind the entirely artificial division between "Wikipedia" and WikiANYTHINGELSE. It's Jimbo's wallet.

[Jon Awbrey]

In any case, the "encyclopedia" is not intrinsically a "bit" of the library, with Jimbo owning the rest. The digital encyclopedia is merely one nexus from which the digital library, which has no obvious natural divisions but those we choose for it, has started to crystallize into one single hyperlinked mass, as organized by human minds and machines. It's not the only seed from which this crystallization and linking of knowledge is happening and moving out into the rest of the digital library. But right now, it's the most visible one — and that is all.

MR

CAHGO CULT

Crystallized And Hyperlinked Garbage In —
Crystallized And Hyperlinked Garbage Out …

CAHGI
CAHGO

Jon

[Milton Roe]

In any case, the "encyclopedia" is not intrinsically a "bit" of the library, with Jimbo owning the rest. The digital encyclopedia is merely one nexus from which the digital library, which has no obvious natural divisions but those we choose for it, has started to crystallize into one single hyperlinked mass, as organized by human minds and machines. It's not the only seed from which this crystallization and linking of knowledge is happening and moving out into the rest of the digital library. But right now, it's the most visible one — and that is all.

MR

CAHGO CULT

Crystallized And Hyperlinked Garbage In —
Crystallized And Hyperlinked Garbage Out …

CAHGI
CAHGO

Jon

True, but so what? The inputs to WP are not entirely garbage, and neither is its output. That fact that digestion isn't perfect only means that you probably don't want to eat it, unless you're Andrew Zimmern. But that doesn't mean a useful function hasn't been performed, and doesn't mean that there's no work to be done that will do any good. Actually, progress has been made.

It's still shit, Jon. But some of it it's now really good shit.

[Jon Awbrey]

In any case, the "encyclopedia" is not intrinsically a "bit" of the library, with Jimbo owning the rest. The digital encyclopedia is merely one nexus from which the digital library, which has no obvious natural divisions but those we choose for it, has started to crystallize into one single hyperlinked mass, as organized by human minds and machines. It's not the only seed from which this crystallization and linking of knowledge is happening and moving out into the rest of the digital library. But right now, it's the most visible one — and that is all.

MR

CAHGO CULT

Crystallized And Hyperlinked Garbage In —
Crystallized And Hyperlinked Garbage Out …

CAHGI
CAHGO

Jon

True, but so what? The inputs to WP are not entirely garbage, and neither is its output. That fact that digestion isn't perfect only means that you probably don't want to eat it, unless you're Andrew Zimmern. But that doesn't mean a useful function hasn't been performed, and doesn't mean that there's no work to be done that will do any good. Actually, progress has been made.

It's still shit, Jon. But some of it it's now really good shit.

Maybe it's happening the way it should somewhere or other, but the vast majority of that is happening the old-fashioned way.

What's occurring in Wikipedia is the continual detachment of signs and texts from the semiotic matrix that gives them meaning — both from their objective referents and from the indexicality of the interpretive chain. A hermenewtic critter that operates that way is a malign parasite on whatever knowledge it consumes. It's not the Library, Alex, it's the Flames.

Jon

[Avirosa]

I would actually have to agree with you - this is not really a legal issue so much as an ethical one, which (at best) can help establish a pattern of behavior by which Jimbo subtly attempted to "monetize" WMF-hosted content by trying to have the more commercially-viable stuff siphoned off to Wikia. But as long as he can make the case that he simply suggested that the stuff be siphoned off, he's in the clear legally.

There is a distinction between 'private benefit' and 'inurement'. While 'inurement' requires that a 'loss' falls to, or some form excessive cost is met by, the non profit organisation, private benefit does not require that such a loss or excessive cost should have occured.

"A public charity is prohibited from allowing more than an insubstantial accrual of private benefit to individuals or organizations.This restriction is to ensure that a tax-exempt organization serves a public interest, not a private one. If a private benefit is more than incidental, it could jeopardize the organization’s tax-exempt status."

The 'private benefit' clause is in effect an insurance of the integrity of the taxation system, i.e it prohibits the use of non profit status to facilitate 'for profit' activity. It is not necessary that the 'private benefit' has to occur 'within' the given non profit for there to be a breach of the IRS code, merely that a non profit act to facilitate private benefit.

How this will be tested where the benefits are as fluid and transferable as they are in Net based operations is open to question but there seems no doubt that WMF has acted in ways that could facilitate accrual of private benefit that is more than 'insubstantial'. The value of 'through traffic' from Wikipedia to Wikia could be considerable and the calculation of private benefit would not be what share of the profit derived from Wikia's activities based on the through traffic was earned by Board Members/Officials of WMF who have an interest in Wikia, but the whole of the assessable value of the through traffic to Wikia. Even if the total value is small, the fact that the WMF has so readily tolerated the follow/no follow advantage to Wikia is probably worthy of report to the IRS - though that's something best coming from a US resident, so I'll pass.

A.virosa

[jayvdb]

... the fact that the WMF has so readily tolerated the follow/no follow advantage to Wikia ...

Advantage to Wikia over who?

Wikia is only one of many wikis who all share that advantage, along with other websites which are not wikis.

Also, the 'interwiki map' is managed in part by the community on the talk page on meta, but the changes made to the database are performed by devs, and these devs would say they were also acting as part of the community rather than agents of the WMF.

[CharlotteWebb]

... the fact that the WMF has so readily tolerated the follow/no follow advantage to Wikia ...

Advantage to Wikia over who?

Wikia is only one of many wikis who all share that advantage, along with other websites which are not wikis.

There is no reason the interwiki prefixes should have any effect on the nofollow attribute. Rather, these should exist solely for ease of linking to web-sites whose urls follow a predictable pattern, and without implying merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

[Avirosa]

... the fact that the WMF has so readily tolerated the follow/no follow advantage to Wikia ...

Advantage to Wikia over who?

Wikia is only one of many wikis who all share that advantage, along with other websites which are not wikis.

Also, the 'interwiki map' is managed in part by the community on the talk page on meta, but the changes made to the database are performed by devs, and these devs would say they were also acting as part of the community rather than agents of the WMF.

The 'advantage' is mediated by commercial exploitability, so all those non commercial wikis are irrelevant, (unless it could be shown they are an effective non monetised market offering competition to Wikia). The point is that Wikia appears to be the only commercial operation enjoying 'follow', where there is no justification for 'no follow' not to apply - Google presumably gets its 'follow' because of its search facilty, though I would have thought Bing et al should be there as well. As the lone non justified commercial operation to have 'follow' Wikia is advantaged over all of its potential commercial competitors.

What the devs claim or don't claim, or what the community does or doesn't agree is also not relevent. The responsibility lies with WMF, which exercises influence upon the community and employs the devs. Even if there was a strict Chinese Wall between the WMF and the operation of the Wikis, the WMF would still be under legal obligation to ensure that it did not act to secure, except in the slightest incidental way, private advantage for any officer or board memeber of WMF - if the very act of funding the interwiki mapping gave Wikia an advantage over its commercial rivals, then that would stand as a potential private benefit. I don't understand what the difficulty is with this - if 'no follow' is the default, then Wikia should be on the 'no follow' list and the question of 'private benefit' lessens quite considerably.

A.virosa

[dogbiscuit]

I don't understand what the difficulty is with this - if 'no follow' is the default, then Wikia should be on the 'no follow' list and the question of 'private benefit' lessens quite considerably.

As a simple rule, any time that Wikia is found to have some setting or option or policy within WMF projects that is explicitly different from the usual policy, then the WMF is exposed.

It was mentioned earlier that Jimbo suggested Wikimedia is the reference section, and Wikia is the rest. That may be a valid view for Wikia, and there is no problem with Wikia positioning itself in that way, there is even a theoretical view that Wikia providing a service to WMF in providing an outlet for unsuitable content pis beneficial. However, it is how that relationship is controlled that is the issue. There are numerous other individuals trying to latch onto the Wiki world.

The real question is, how does the WMF justify the preferential relationship with Wikia?

Perhaps to break that down: does the WMF accept there is a preferential relationship with Wikia? Why are no other partners sought? For example, if commercial content is an anathema to Wikimedia, why have they not approached another organisation, such as Wikipedia Review, to resolve those issues?