Philippe Beaudette, whom most of you know as the guy who wired the no-bid research contract to Q2 Consulting (his previous employer) has hired a right-hand gal on a temp basis, Christine Moellenberndt.

So she's the Margaret Mead of nerds?

This article is interesting... it gives a little insight into her 'lived in her mother's basement for eight years' stage...

Kinda nerdy...

Only if she starts dating Jimbo.

I'm still finding more references to her whining about her college debt...

Also, from here:


She leaves little paw-prints all over the Internet...

She's got a Facebook.......looks like a nerdy young woman to me......I don't see any connections to Wikimedia insiders, though.

And down goes her Facebook page's sharing level. That didn't take her long. I didn't even get to suggest to her my Examiner article about her new boss' technique of no-compete bidding.

Redhead. Where's Moulton?

This thread is now the #5 result on a Google search for Christine Moellenberndt.

My coverage of the story in Examiner.com isn't going over so well with the Comments crowd.

If Moellenberndt personally doesn't like the coverage, perhaps I could modify the article, or even delete it, but that would require her engaging with me, and the WMF has manifestly declined obligation to engage me.

Anybody else notice how close Moellenberndt is to Moeller / Brandt?

It looks like San Jose State hasn't taught its Applied Anthropology grad students the importance of sample selection and control when conducting quantitative survey research.

This seems like uneventful news reporting. In Wikipedia terms, "non-notable".

Greg, please please reconsider that article.

Yes, Wikipedia can be evil. But if someone posted that on Wikipedia, I'd delete it on sight.

So, a young girl has taken on a job with an organisation which you find morally bankrupt. Is that any reason for you to victimise her by showing the worst goggle can do on intrusiveness?

Please, tell me you can be better than that? And better than you accuse them of being?

Reconsider?

I'm with Doc, here. Unless there's something here that I'm missing, this seems unwarranted and likely only to stoke anti-Kohs sentiment.

What has age/gender got to do with anything ? The person in question is an adult making adult choices. Those choices have included disporting personal information around the internet, the stuff that multitudes of WP BLPs are made of, though those BLPs may use pre masticated low rent journalism to justify the inclusion of 'personal details'. No one who works for WMF should expect any better treatment than the worst that any WP BLP dishes out to its subject. At least Ms Moellenberndt doesn't have to live with a 'teen nude in suggestive pose' photo of herself gracing the 'sum of all human knowledge'.


A.virosa

Is it possible to add "Sux cocks" to that article?

Seriously though what has she done to warrant any article? <ind you it does illustrate the point, which shouldn't be lost on the young, not to allow your real name on the internet.

Sticking some info on a social networking site isn't (mentally) the same as being the subject of a prurient article in what's designed to look like a newsite. (Although I agree, those posting on social networking need to consider it has the same net effect.)

Now, I'm the first to agree there's a parallel with Wikipedia does. But at least Wikipedia does have a metric of "notability" and didn't scrape stuff from facebook, last I checked.

Greg, if you were making an anti-wikipedia point, you've made it.

This now just makes you look bad.
We've had our differences, but I give you more moral credit than this. Please rethink.

How about I take the article down when she (at age 33 or 34, mind you) quits the WMF in February?

It's interesting that some of you are saying that my article was sourced from Facebook, but really the key pieces of info were derived from the Scripps Howard News Service, and from Moellenberndt's own professional C.V. on LinkedIn. Or, choose CNN, if you wish.

She's writing a master's thesis on LiveJournal, Inc.'s interaction with its community of users. That's fascinating, I think.

One year before reporting that school loans were practically insurmountable, there was the ability to get from California to Rome.



Sounds like she's not exactly "helpless".

Then again, it sounds like she could really use some help.





I hope that her experience with the WMF helps restore a more holistic view of herself and her interaction in social environments.

True. On the other hand, I don't think it's our place to dish out punishment for working there. And I didn't see the point of Greg's story in terms of informing the public.

But maybe I just didn't get it.

So here's an article posing as 'journalism' in which you, Greg, just dig up the dirt on a new WMF employee just in the door. What exactly are you trying to achieve here?

Seriously - how is this any different from a so-called 'encyclopedia' digging up the dirt on someone? Other than the fact that it's Greg Kohs that's doing the digging and that the target is just some nobody who's recently stepped into an org she probably doesn't know all that well (but is likely rapidly discovering). As someone else pointed out, she's "non-notable" and a soft target.

I've seen some excellent journalism coming from you, Greg, and superb research - especially around WMF fundraising shenanigans. This? This is just garbage - sorry Especially coming after this sorry WR thread that you started and saw no problem with. No wonder she didn't reply to your messages to 'engage'. I'm hardly surprised

(cue some non-sequitur about ED sysops. Just dont)

Haters gonna hate

I'm thinking the same as Alison, Doc etc. This dilutes your other excellent work where the focus is on the foundation.

Greg this is the same type of amoral self-justifying shite we regularly get from the worst BLP violators and kool-aid drinkers on Wikipedia.

You are even beginning to sound like JoshuaZ.

You wanted to make a comparison with Wikipedia?

Well, congratulations, you just compared yourself with the worst of them and came our on bottom.


"Physician, heal thyself."

Thank you for your compliment about some of my excellent journalism, Alison. I will agree that this current story is not my best work, but it was absolutely newsworthy to a citizen journalist whose "beat" includes wikis, Wikipedia, and the Wikimedia Foundation. If I weren't covering every hire and fire at the world's largest organization devoted to wikis, I wouldn't be doing my job as the National Wiki Edits Examiner.

How is Moellenberndt's past documented and factual history as expressed -- by her -- to the mainstream media suddenly "dirt" when I organize it into a news story?

My questions, if they were to be answered by the Wikimedia Foundation (which they would not), would be...

• "How did Philippe Beaudette determine Moellenberndt was the best candidate for the job?"
• "How many applicants were interviewed for this position?"
• "Why was multitasking on two projects considered too much for Beaudette?"
• "Why is the head of Reader Relations (what I would interpret as a content area -- readers read content, don't they?) leading the 2010 fundraising campaign, anyway? Why wasn't someone with more responsibility for financial development like Moeller, or Exley, or Newstead, or Wadhwa, or Handler, or Crouse handling this?"
• "What will Moellenberndt actually be doing for the WMF, in plain English?"
• "If Moellenberndt is a non-notable, low-level WMF contractor/employee, why did Beaudette feel the need to announce her temporary hire to the public?"
• "Why is it appropriate for Wikimedians to publicly document my activity on sites like Freelancer.com -- while prohibiting my response in their same forum; but it is inappropriate for me to publicly document a Wikimedian's activity on sites like Facebook.com -- even while welcoming and inviting them to respond? Why do I have to walk on eggshells?"

Okay, that last question is just a jab, but it does point to how ridiculous some of you are being about a 33-year-old adult's "helplessness" against my "dirt digging". Have any of you -- any single one -- contacted her to see what she would like done with my article?

But, the fact of the matter is that if the Wikimedia Foundation weren't so damn secretive about how they go about internal matters, none of these questions would even be of interest. Or, conversely, if they weren't so public about every minor new hire into a short-term position, it would also be of little interest. As it stands, about 100 unique visitors (so far) were interested enough in this story to open the page it's on, and Google's News reviewers accepted it into their feed as newsworthy. (I am told that is a human-reviewed process at Google.) If this weren't newsworthy, shouldn't Google News have rejected it the way they've rejected the majority of my Examiner stories?


I offered my "opt out by subject of article" proposal. Where is Wikipedia's? I'm waiting to hear from Moellenberndt herself, thank you.

Greg, have you any idea what a $*%%*$& £%^&"£ you look like now?


Words fail me.


To quote Alison (out of context) F*** you.

well, since you brought it up, Alison, contributing to Encyclopedia Dramatica is orders of magnitude more sleazy than anything Greg has done, and being an administrator there is even worse. I'm sure, however, that if you put your mind to it you can figr' a way to thump you chest in self-righteousness, 'bout all the good you've done there.

But yes, I agree, Greg's latest article is a little on the petty side.

Don't stoop at their level! What has this newbie done anyway, other than being not adequately informed about the smoke of lies which permeates the organization?

Or if you want to stoop down at their level anyway, try to convince this Chris character that the organization is a scam and that she should look for something better. Show her some of the stuff about a certain person from High Pole City and the fact that he went to contact the offices in San Francisco, and that he could "contact" her at her university in San Jose while the foundation would do nothing to protect her. Make her THINK. Tough love

Doc, have you ever promoted or recommended or suggested one of my "good" Examiner articles to anyone, anywhere?

WTF?

Just wondering if you're actually a friend of the cause, or whether you're just bitching and moaning about things.

Wow, so you're calling her a "nobody" in her defense, and you're assuming she's so much of a nitwit that she wouldn't do any background research on the organization (or the boss) that's about to hire her for the next four months, even though she's getting her master's degree in Internet anthropology?

That is really streeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetching it, Alison.

How is this relevant? Whether or not she has a good grasp on the WMF, she just started an extremely short contract while doing postgrad, and has done nothing to warrant any media attention, and it is inappropriate to run an indepth piece on a person without their permission or some strong message that hinges on that person. If your story was about 'too much info' on the Internet, your article has a sample size of one. If your story is 'WMF is OMGFBAD', she isn't your target, and shouldn't be the focus. Either way, she is just convenient, and this article only reflects badly on you.

Consider this: how does your article influence the subjects worldview, or the worldview of anyone in your target audience?

Can a mod move this to a non-indexed area, please?

I have no objection to that, or having my posts deleted.

Does anyone know if the person in question, this Ms. Moellenberndt, has expressed a desire for that to happen? I honestly don't see what all the fuss is about - I agree that Greg here isn't doing much good for his (our?) cause by focusing on such a minor hire/employee, but that's his call and I'm not interested in trying to shame him over it. Besides, it looks like everything in the examiner.com article is legitimate.

Let's not overestimate the "impact" of a WR thread about someone who happens to have an unusual name, either. I mean, sure, it's conceivable that someone might read this thread as part of a future hiring process, but what's it going to prove? That she did, indeed, work for the WMF, and that she borrowed a lot of money for her education and has been having a tough time paying it all off in a down economy? For a lot of people, those would be reasons to give her a job, not refuse her one.

It's an accident of birth, but it sure looks to me like she's decided to take advantage of the unusual name to increase her visibility in the IT world, not hide from it. I doubt she's all that concerned about this thread, and she may even think it's amusing for all we know.

How did she get onto CNN.com, then?

She's taking it in stride, from what I understand.

Say, what's your real name, Somey?

By being interviewed, and it looks like she was selected by the reporter because she represented what the reporter considered to be an average person in that scenario.

It is a rather unusual name, even in German. This is a city of Mielno in Northwest Poland near the Baltic, that was formerly the German city of Groß Möllen (Big Mountain) until 1945. Möllen = Moellen means "Mountain". Berndt is short for Bernehardt and various variations, a German man's given name meaning "bear heart" or if you will, brave-heart. Goes back to the middle ages.

It's not hard to imagine a surname for a mountain-community person, or perhaps somebody from Groß Möllen, taking on a "Berndt" from somebody named that.

Her geneology, if she knows it, should be interesting. But hell, there's a story in everybody's geneology.

So, CNN reported on a common phenomenon, focusing on an average person. But, you didn't see fit to go protest CNN in 2006?

I trust that you will never again complain about Wikipedia having a biography on anyone again.

No matter how unnotable they are, if the information is verifiable online, Kohs believes that's fair game.

With that mantra, I now list you you as an associate on [[List of Wikipedia Kool-aid drinkers]].

That is the same lot SarekOfVulcan and his partner hang out with ... International Order of the Rainbow for Girls.

It basically prepares girls to be the wives of masons or go on to co-masonic orders and those such as the Order of the Eastern Star. It really probably is not a Satanic conspiracy, and they definitely do not have sex with vampires, but it does profile the people actually getting involved with the project these days; from scout masters to freemasons ... it is not exactly the kewl, geek, skaterboi crew.

They must be pretty pissed that the gay movement adopted their flag, they did get there first. Seemingly, that had to change it just because of the darn sodomites. But, dont mock these people, we need more like them involved ... "all Advisory Board members are required to complete a background check form in order to work with the Rainbow Girls". Those are the kind of standards we need for all Wikipedia admins.

I don't suppose they will have her counting penises on the Wikipedia, or monitoring all the hard core porn uploads in her first week there.

Are NSFW photos suitable if you work for the Wikimedia?

Oops, you're in the wrong part of the library again — you're in Reference — Ephemerals are in the basement.

You really gotta learn where to shelve it …

Jon

I commented on the blog yesterday, but her resume looks quite good for the job.

Greg looks very silly begging her to comment there. The Godwin/Sue article looked like a step in the direction of "legitimizing" Greg's work, and a few more like that would have only made the foundation look worse for keeping all the blocks and bans in place.

The hair-pulling and breast beating about the invasion of privacy stuff is a bit much too though, because she did, after all, put this all out there herself, and while her FB photo has a youthful appearance, she's clearly not a teenager.

Examiner isn't a reference source. Wikipedia isn't a reference source.

Examiner allows content about living people. Wikipedia allows content about living people.

Examiner hosts content about people that can't be altered once it's written, without possibly obtaining the permission of the author. Wikipedia allows content about living people that can be altered by anyone.

Examiner isn't popular among the common Joes. Wikipedia is popular among the common Joes.

Examiner can potentially spread libel against real people. Wikipedia can potentially spread libel against real people at a greater magnitude.

Examiner isn't relevant to common Joe due to lower ranks on searches. Wikipedia is relevant to common Joe due to higher ranks on searches, and the content gets copied by scrapers.

Common Joe uses wikipedia as a source, so he believes what's written there. Well, too bad, of course. If he donates without even looking around to know the system better, then double bad!

I trust that your logic fails to consider that I sign my pieces on Examiner with my real name, such that attorneys for my subjects can contact me with any potential libel torts. They would also be able to contact Examiner itself, as I've been professionally vetted by their human resources process.

Let me know the day that a Wikipedia article is ever attributed to one person who signs their real name to the article, such that an attorney would have a clear path for legal action. Also, let me know when the Wikimedia Foundation assumes liability for the content its vetted writers choose to publish.

Doc, are you just trying to sound like a nitwit for giggles, or are you really this incapable of making apt comparisons?

What exactly is her job? How do you know what her work would detail, to draw the conclusion about whether or not her resume is a good fit? I'd love to know -- I'm not being facetious. Beaudette only elaborated that she would be "beginning with internal protocols, and building out scalable support systems". What does that mean?

Sorry that I look silly asking for the subject of a news article to feel welcome to participate in the discussion, and even offering to modify or even potentially delete content that they feel is unfair. Do you really think that my articles on Godwin and about Gardner were putting me on the verge of being accepted back into various Wikimedia communities as a "legitimate" journalist? Wow! I didn't know I was so close. Too bad I really blew it with this one.

She is 33 years old. She'll be 34 in a couple of weeks.

Perhaps it's a new Chapter in Wikimedia's development? Only time will tell.

They can win, but they can't hide.

Let's pretend that the situation was something like this:

a. Greg doesn't use his real name in his byline, but is known as "SlimVirgin" or some such silly screen name, and is next to impossible to track down. Moreover, he has the unquestioning support of the "founder" of examiner.com the way that SlimVirgin had the support of Jimbo in 2005.

b. About 10 friends of Greg/Slim/Jimbo jump on the article and dig up all sorts of stuff, and add it to the article.

c. The subject of the article makes it known that she wasn't asked to comment on the article and discovered it by accident, and would like the article deleted.

d. Once this happens, another 10 nerds add even more obscure stuff to the article to teach her a lesson, going back to incidents that happened 40 years ago. They all use screen names and are difficult to track down.

e. Dozens of "made for AdSense" sites begin scraping the article regularly, insuring that every little piece of information ever added lives forever, somewhere on the web.

f. Examiner.com changes it's name to Encyclopedia Examiner, and is one of the top sites on the web. Most mainstream commentators consider it the best thing to happen since peanut butter.

If you assume all of the above, then you can compare Greg's article to the BLP situation on Wikipedia.

Having said that, I think there is a real problem with this woman joining the Foundation. The problem is that she has absolutely no grasp whatsoever of the privacy issues that are presented by social networking, or the accountability issues raised by allowing top admins at Wikipedia to use screen names. The Foundation needs to wake up to this issue. Since her name is so unusual, Greg's piece about her and this thread on WR will help to educate her.

That's a good thing, because she sure as hell won't get any education from her co-workers at the Foundation.