Eugen RochkoRE: https://mastodon.social/@JMarkOckerbloom/116642253074554430
No, not you too ðŸ˜
Pax Ahimsa GethenThanks for boosting this post by @JakeOrlowitz . As I noted when I signed the #WikiWorkersUnited petition (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_Workers_United_solidarity), my volunteer editing on #Wikipedia is very important to me, but I'm a strong union supporter and I do not cross picket lines.
Hannah Clover@funcrunch same! I've been very involved the whole time and told the foundation days ago that there is a very easy way to fix this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(WMF)#c-Clovermoss-20260523195500-Fifteen_thousand_two_hundred_twenty_four-20260523192500
@funcrunch I'd also like to point out Jimmy's talk page for those interested in this latest kerfuffle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#h-WMF_technical_team-20260521144900
Kunal Mehta@HannahClover @funcrunch sorry, I don't think there's an "easy" fix to this. This has been going on for over a decade with rotating management and the board escaping accountability. All the things you suggested are reasonable in isolation but only address the symptoms and not the underlying causes. Staff need a union to do that.
@legoktm @funcrunch oh, I completely agree the union is nessecary. I meant "fix this" in the "fix the immediate crisis so things don't completely explode" way
@legoktm @funcrunch alas, things continued to get worse because no one cared to listen. The problems are definitely systemic in nature.
@legoktm @funcrunch and it's not like we're the first people who've tried. Lots of people have spent years of their volunteer effort trying to be a voice in the room to steer people in the right direction. It seems like the board always just does what it wants anyway and then fails to learn from the totally predictable diasterous outcome.
@legoktm @funcrunch like, no one at the foundation has even admitted that firing these people was a massive mistake yet. Days into this situation. That's a failure of epic proportions.
Mike Peel@HannahClover bear in mind that this is very much not something the Board would be involved in - it's staffing, that's very much delegated (for good reason!) to staff.
@mike_peel wouldn't dissolving a whole team, especially this one, involve the board on some level? The CTO was aware ahead of time so I don't see why the board wouldn't be.
@HannahClover nope, that's operational. There might have been a heads-up.
@HannahClover btw, the place to ask pointed questions about how this affects WMF's plans for the coming year is at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2026-2027 ...
Tamzin Hadasa Kelly@funcrunch @Gargron @JakeOrlowitz The petition has now passed 300 signatures! This makes it one of 12 things *ever* on the English-language Wikipedia, other than election results, to pass the 300 mark <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:300>. We're having trouble keeping up with the stats on everyone who's signed, but we're past 6.5M combined edits and 26k combined article creations, in terms of past work done for free that people are willing to walk away from if necessary to protect union members' rights.
richintheflow@tamzin What about to fork it? Who cares of the petition? Let's make it public and create another governance for all these free datas!
@richintheflow A fork would be extremely logistically difficult, and, in the event it succeeded, would likely go against the interests of the union we're trying to protect here. I'm not categorically against one, but it's best seen as a last-ditch option that serves as a backstop for more straightforward kinds of activism, as I discuss briefly at <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Tamzin/What_would_an_editorial_strike_look_like%3F>.