Jimmy Wales: Fox News Is Wrong, No Shake Up, from TechCrunch Options

[thekohser]

Jimmy Wales: Fox News Is Wrong, No Shake Up

by Evelyn Rusli on May 16, 2010

Contrary to several reports, Wikipedia’s Founder Jimmy Wales is not relinquishing his editorial control of Wikipedia and its related projects. On Friday, Fox News reported that “a shakeup is underway at the top levels of Wikipedia…Wales is no longer able to delete files, remove administrators, assign projects or edit any content, sources say. Essentially, they say, he has gone from having free reign over the content and people involved in the websites to having the same capabilities of a low-level administrator.”

The report was picked up by Venturebeat and CNET.

An interesting story— except it’s not true according to Jimmy Wales in an e-mail on Sunday. Wales says the Fox News reporter hasn’t even tried to contact him to discuss the alleged “shakeup.” Ouch. Contrary to Fox News’ report of “chaos” at Wikipedia (the article cites an unidentified source close to the company), Wales says everything is fine.

Well, relatively speaking, Wikipedia is still on the defense after Fox News released a report in late April, accusing the site of knowingly distributing child pornography. The article cites former co-founder Larry Sanger (left Wikipedia in 2002), who wrote a letter to the FBI “outlining his concerns and identifying two specific Wikimedia Commons categories he believes violate federal obscenity law.” Wikipedia responded with a statement, defending its editors and its commitment to actively patrol the site: “If and when we are informed by law enforcement agencies of illegal content that has not already been removed through self-policing, we will take quick action to delete it.”

I’ll update with more information soon.

The most emphatic comment I could muster was:

It is astounding to me how a #6 worldwide website (Wikipedia, et al) can be so misunderstood by reporters, bloggers, and mere readers of the site. Likewise, it is astounding to me how Tech Crunch reporters and commenters can be so easily gulled by the spin doctoring of the Wikimedia Foundation. It's as if it is impossible to understand the difference between "Founder" level system rights and "Administrator" level system rights; impossible to understand the difference between a Board "Chairman" and a phony "Chairman Emeritus" and (even more ridiculously) an "owner" of a website (David1984, please stop using the Internet); and impossible to understand the difference between YouPorn or RedTube and a 501-c-3 tax-exempt organization pushing a product into schools that contains smotherboxes, scrotum sacks bulging with saline solution, and blindfolded cum shots.

Despite Seth Finkelstein's best effort to iron this all out, I'm more convinced that the general public, the Wikimedia Foundation board and staff, and American journalism are all too stupid to understand any of this.

[Milton Roe]

Jimmy Wales: Fox News Is Wrong, No Shake Up

by Evelyn Rusli on May 16, 2010

Contrary to several reports, Wikipedia’s Founder Jimmy Wales is not relinquishing his editorial control of Wikipedia and its related projects. On Friday, Fox News reported that “a shakeup is underway at the top levels of Wikipedia…Wales is no longer able to delete files, remove administrators, assign projects or edit any content, sources say. Essentially, they say, he has gone from having free reign over the content and people involved in the websites to having the same capabilities of a low-level administrator.”

The report was picked up by Venturebeat and CNET.

An interesting story— except it’s not true according to Jimmy Wales in an e-mail on Sunday. Wales says the Fox News reporter hasn’t even tried to contact him to discuss the alleged “shakeup.” Ouch. Contrary to Fox News’ report of “chaos” at Wikipedia (the article cites an unidentified source close to the company), Wales says everything is fine.

Well, relatively speaking, Wikipedia is still on the defense after Fox News released a report in late April, accusing the site of knowingly distributing child pornography. The article cites former co-founder Larry Sanger (left Wikipedia in 2002), who wrote a letter to the FBI “outlining his concerns and identifying two specific Wikimedia Commons categories he believes violate federal obscenity law.” Wikipedia responded with a statement, defending its editors and its commitment to actively patrol the site: “If and when we are informed by law enforcement agencies of illegal content that has not already been removed through self-policing, we will take quick action to delete it.”

I’ll update with more information soon.

The most emphatic comment I could muster was:

It is astounding to me how a #6 worldwide website (Wikipedia, et al) can be so misunderstood by reporters, bloggers, and mere readers of the site. Likewise, it is astounding to me how Tech Crunch reporters and commenters can be so easily gulled by the spin doctoring of the Wikimedia Foundation. It's as if it is impossible to understand the difference between "Founder" level system rights and "Administrator" level system rights; impossible to understand the difference between a Board "Chairman" and a phony "Chairman Emeritus" and (even more ridiculously) an "owner" of a website (David1984, please stop using the Internet); and impossible to understand the difference between YouPorn or RedTube and a 501-c-3 tax-exempt organization pushing a product into schools that contains smotherboxes, scrotum sacks bulging with saline solution, and blindfolded cum shots.

Despite Seth Finkelstein's best effort to iron this all out, I'm more convinced that the general public, the Wikimedia Foundation board and staff, and American journalism are all too stupid to understand any of this.

That's an apt and true comment, but it must be pointed out that does not yet exist a "primer" (pronounced to rhyme with skimmer, not rhymer) that explains this whole mess in a couple of pages that even a reporter with an ivy league degree in journalism could understand.

Yes, it's not WR's reponsiblity to produce such a thing. All this info has already been reduced a great deal so that somebody reading WR alone can get the gist. Kelly in particular has produced a list of the long and silly number of "flags" (powerz) that Jimbo still retains, and what they mean (basically he is Sauron, the All Seeing Eye), and others have commented that Jimbo can pick up any others he wants, when he wants (ie, apparently the great Ring of Power sits in his jewelry case, whenever he wants to put it on). There are no hobbits engaged right now in carrying Jimbo's influence toward Mount Doom. Which means those who would like to see WikiMordorFoundation and its legions of Orcs destroyed, are out of luck in this age of Middle Earth. Sorry.

But reporters are A) too lazy and/or B) not given enough time by their jobs to do deep background work like that, for a story like this. And the stuff Jimbo has done has changed day by day. Some months ago he promised not to block anybody ever again, and then a couple of months ago he desysopped SB_Johnny. So part of the problem is the lack of integrity of WMF itself (surprise).

So, anyway, here we are. In dealing with WMF and its skanky PR people like Walsh, reporters are trying to catch a greased pig. The best they can get, if they want to see the thing, is snapshots of the Crisco-covered beast, on WR. Which they never go to.

If somebody wants to write a proper essay with links, then plop that link out whenever this story surfaces, that would be good. But I'm not asking that of anybody, because I'm too lazy to do it myself. Not that I'm on a journalists' salary.

[GlassBeadGame]

The fact that the tech press headlines "denials" for a story about events they did not cover shows just how far they have their heads up their asses. Can't they just get a bot to put the WMF press releases on their own mastheads?

[Moulton]

I noticed that the tech press stories on the new skin quickly displaced (and also outnumbered) the stories about the pornucopia on Commons.

[Jon Awbrey]

Not that I'm on a journalist's salary.

That's okay, pretty soon they won't be either.

Jon

[anthony]

Yes, it's not WR's reponsiblity to produce such a thing. All this info has already been reduced a great deal so that somebody reading WR alone can get the gist. Kelly in particular has produced a list of the long and silly number of "flags" (powerz) that Jimbo still retains, and what they mean (basically he is Sauron, the All Seeing Eye), and others have commented that Jimbo can pick up any others he wants, when he wants (ie, apparently the great Ring of Power sits in his jewelry case, whenever he wants to put it on).

I thought he gave up those powers. One of us must not be up to date...

But yeah, newspapers get things wrong all the time, which, incidentally, is one of the problems with Wikipedia.

Whether it's Fox News or TechCrunch or Wikipedia, you get what you pay for.

[tarantino]

... impossible to understand the difference between a Board "Chairman" and a phony "Chairman Emeritus"

Up until an hour ago, Jimmy's wikipedia bio stated he was the chairman.

Meanwhile, Jimmy's been twittering away to clear up a few misconceptions

owenthomas
Ludicrous: @jimmy_wales sent me a DM claiming that his Wikipedia bio doesn't say he's "chairman." It does: http://twitpic.com/1oizp0 about 18 hours ago via TweetDeck

jimmy_wales
@owenthomas You're an idiot with no concern for the facts. But - we all knew that years ago. about 18 hours ago via web in reply to owenthomas

owenthomas
One day after @jimmy_wales incorrectly claimed his Wikipedia bio had his title right (it didn't), it's been fixed: http://bit.ly/ZfQWs about 1 hour ago via TweetDeck

[the fieryangel]

... impossible to understand the difference between a Board "Chairman" and a phony "Chairman Emeritus"

Up until an hour ago, Jimmy's wikipedia bio stated he was the chairman.

Meanwhile, Jimmy's been twittering away to clear up a few misconceptions

owenthomas
Ludicrous: @jimmy_wales sent me a DM claiming that his Wikipedia bio doesn't say he's "chairman." It does: http://twitpic.com/1oizp0 about 18 hours ago via TweetDeck

jimmy_wales
@owenthomas You're an idiot with no concern for the facts. But - we all knew that years ago. about 18 hours ago via web in reply to owenthomas

owenthomas
One day after @jimmy_wales incorrectly claimed his Wikipedia bio had his title right (it didn't), it's been fixed: http://bit.ly/ZfQWs about 1 hour ago via TweetDeck

yup, Owen's been on that story...and it would seem that Jimbo still hasn't gotten over the various Valleywag articles...

[carbuncle]

jimmy_wales
@owenthomas You're an idiot with no concern for the facts. But - we all knew that years ago. about 18 hours ago via web in reply to owenthomas

Does this square with Jimbo's "civility" campaign? Not a cheap shot, I'm asking this in all sincerity.

[thekohser]

jimmy_wales
@owenthomas You're an idiot with no concern for the facts. But - we all knew that years ago. about 18 hours ago via web in reply to owenthomas

Does this square with Jimbo's "civility" campaign? Not a cheap shot, I'm asking this in all sincerity.

Nothing about Jimbo is sincere, so feel free to just make that into a cheap shot. It fits the target, if you will.

[Kelly Martin]

Kelly in particular has produced a list of the long and silly number of "flags" (powerz) that Jimbo still retains, and what they mean (basically he is Sauron, the All Seeing Eye), and others have commented that Jimbo can pick up any others he wants, when he wants (ie, apparently the great Ring of Power sits in his jewelry case, whenever he wants to put it on).

That wasn't me; I just added a bit to someone else's analysis. Also, at this time Jimbo is, as far as I know, unable to use his Wikimedia global rights to gain administrative powers on any project; he truly did give up the bulk of his rights. He does retain a very broad range of inspection privileges, as you note, but the Ring of Power has been put in the hands of others for the moment.

Jimmy's comments are interesting in that they are technically true: he did not relinquish any of his authority on the English Wikipedia; he has universal rights there independent of his global founder status and the change in the power of the "global founder" flag had no impact on his rights there. He was therefore able to lie about having given up power on hundreds of Wikimedia projects using statements that, individually, are all true. Every true con artist knows that such lies carry the greatest power.

[EricBarbour]

Jimmy's comments are interesting in that they are technically true: he did not relinquish any of his authority on the English Wikipedia; he has universal rights there independent of his global founder status and the change in the power of the "global founder" flag had no impact on his rights there. He was therefore able to lie about having given up power on hundreds of Wikimedia projects using statements that, individually, are all true. Every true con artist knows that such lies carry the greatest power.

And don't forget: as a founder and original sysop going right back to the first version,
it's quite likely that he possesses the root passwords to key WMF servers. If not every
damned one of them.

And, I suspect, he would deny it -- until he was caught using root access for some
self-effacing purpose.

[Moulton]

He might know the root passwords, but he is not competent to use privileged features, either on Unix or on IRC. It takes a lot more specialized technical knowledge than most people realize to do things as the root superuser, and it's easy to screw things up royally if you don't know how to use the tools. On IRC, Jimbo wanted to boot me off the #wikiversity channel, but he simply didn't know how. He had to summon a sycophant to do it for him.

[ulsterman]

He might know the root passwords, but he is not competent to use privileged features, either on Unix or on IRC. It takes a lot more specialized technical knowledge than most people realize to do things as the root superuser, and it's easy to screw things up royally if you don't know how to use the tools. On IRC, Jimbo wanted to boot me off the #wikiversity channel, but he simply didn't know how. He had to summon a sycophant to do it for him.

If he can summon a sycophant to do that, he can summon one to do a bit of SQL coding. I'd do it for him (and secretly make Somey a checkuser while I'm at it ). And what makes anyone think that a developer wouldn't do it?

[TungstenCarbide]

If he can summon a sycophant to do that, he can summon one to do a bit of SQL coding. I'd do it for him (and secretly make Somey a checkuser while I'm at it ). And what makes anyone think that a developer wouldn't do it?

Damn, this website really likes the word 'sycophant'