Welcome to the community! All the best: Rich Farmbrough 20:28, 17 December 2025 (UTC).[reply]

• *Lenin facepalm* It may be great for many to have a new CEO but disappointing to me. Anyways welcome to the club, Mrs Meehan. Ahri Boy (talk) 22:05, 17 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  @Ahri Boy Why? Polygnotus (talk) 23:48, 17 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Wow, talk about accomplished! That said, welcome to the big leagues! kencf0618 (talk) 00:38, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• I'm pleased to see the WMF continue to be headed by a woman, and I join in welcoming Bernadette Meehan aboard. That said, I am somewhat concerned that she has never done any Wikipedia editing, or at least that's what I gathered from her statement in the Diff article: Like many people, I’ve long been an avid reader of Wikipedia, though never an editor. I recognize and respect that people in management roles are not required or expected to have the same skills as those of us "in the trenches", but I would prefer the WMF CEO to have at least cursory familiarity with the work that we volunteers perform on an everyday basis. Funcrunch (talk) 01:22, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• It's probably just a coincidence, but part of me feels that choosing a CEO who's spent much of her professional life working in the Obama and Biden administrations is a snub at the far-right amid their foaming at the mouth about Wikipedia. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 01:33, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • That seems like an unusual take, to be honest. I don't see any connection. The reality is that when you hire candidates in any field, you're going to be hiring from a small network that is closely connected. Viriditas (talk) 02:12, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Thebiguglyalien: I suggest that we never let the the sitting president's politics affect our choice of CEO. Consider if the current US president was Kamala Harris, or Mike Pence or some traditional centrist of either party. Then would somebody with Meehan's qualifications be ok with us? IMHO, of course. So why let a MAGA president affect our choice? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 03:00, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      • I didn't say anything about affecting anything. I just think it's funny. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 03:01, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• I must ask the most basic of questions here: what is she a planning to do in the role? How does she plan to support us editors? Anyway, with that out of the way, she looks more than qualified and I'm excited for her to come aboard as the new CEO. I wish her good luck with managing the often-tense relationship between the community and the Foundation, with hopes that she might be the one to finally bridge the gap and smooth over the tensions. QuicoleJR (talk) 02:27, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  That sounds unlikely. Traditional organizations are authoritarian and hierarchical (as much as they try to deny it). This has been studied and remarked upon extensively in the organizational literature. This inevitably conflicts with the interests of those who are connected to the organization from the outside looking in, such as volunteers. The tension is always going to be there. Viriditas (talk) 02:39, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• @QuicoleJR and Viriditas: Now there's a question for Part 2 of the interview! More questions from readers will be appreciated. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:49, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  @Smallbones Please look at the talkpage of the article about her: Talk:Bernadette Meehan. It looks like multiple COI editors have made positive edits to her bio. And the stories about the alleged rocket attack and alleged kidnapping don't seem to check out. Polygnotus (talk) 02:57, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  @Polygnotus, look, I like you as a person and editor. But also, christ almighty, your comments on that page are something else! Being driven around and forced to use ATMs is not really a kidnapping in the conventional sense, is it?[1] I mean, no, it's not the conventional form of kidnapping (which is a non-custodial parent or family member taking a child somewhere without the permission of the custodial parent/legal guardian[2]), but looking at El Tiempo, yes, two men did plead guilty to secuestro simple,[3] which is kidnapping.[4] I don't like undisclosed paid editing either, and I agree that source-text integrity is important, but also... you are both wrong on the most important point and coming across as very tone deaf. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🧸 03:17, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  @GreenLipstickLesbian Deaf I hope? Polygnotus (talk) 03:18, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Spelling is overrated :P GreenLipstickLesbian💌🧸 03:19, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I agree with GLL, and I've briefly commented on the talk page. There was no good reason for your removals. Viriditas (talk) 03:19, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  @both This is how we have to deal with such claims. We need to dig in, find sources, compare them to the claims in the article, and make sure everything is sourced to a RS. Especially on BLPs. Especially when dealing with accusations of serious acts such as kidnapping. It would suck if I got robbed one day and then my Wikipedia article contained a sentence like that. If I am ~50 years old then those 2 hours are possibly not the most important things about me. Writing a single sentence about a job someone had for years but giving more attention to a 2-hour long robbery is messed up. Yes they may be a CEO but they are also human. Polygnotus (talk) 03:21, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  If someone forced me from one location and took me to another, keeping me as their prisoner for two hours in the process, I'd call it kidnapping. I'd also be a little traumatized, but that's unrelated. If the legal term disagrees then adjust the wording, but to claim it's not worth mentioning as if it's just a normal Saturday afternoon is honestly baffling. I'd be more convinced that including it is undue weight as the rest of the article isn't that long (the solution to which is always write more in the article, not remove things), but "legally that doesn't seem like kidnapping" is a weird argument, and "wearing nice things in Brazil is a bad idea" is way past the "she deserved it" line to the point that I'm a little disgusted. --PresN 03:32, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Agreed on all points. And whether or not it's legally classified as a kidnapping, being held up by robbers for two hours could, for some, be traumatizing to the point of being a life-defining event. Funcrunch (talk) 03:37, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  to claim it's not worth mentioning as if it's just a normal Saturday afternoon is honestly baffling Good news, no one made that claim.

  undue weight as the rest of the article isn't that long (the solution to which is always write more in the article, not remove things) Incorrect.

  "legally that doesn't seem like kidnapping" is a weird argument No one made that claim.

  wearing nice things in Brazil is a bad idea" is way past the "she deserved it" line Again, no one made that claim.

  being held up by robbers for two hours could, for some, be traumatizing to the point of being a life-defining event That is possible, but we'd need sources to make that claim. Polygnotus (talk) 03:45, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Dude, you made the claims. You started your talk page post with "Being driven around and forced to use ATMs is not really a kidnapping in the conventional sense, is it?". You ended it with "According to the sources it sounds like wearing a very expensive Baume et Mercier watch [...] in Bogotá may be a bad idea, and you'd expect Foreign Service officers to be aware of that.". Like, I was trying to be polite, but to be way more direct, you, Polygnotus, personally, said very straightforwardly that it wasn't kidnapping and that she deserved it for having an expensive watch. You may have meant to imply that the source was a bad/inaccurate source, but that's not what you actually said. You said that it wasn't a big deal, and she deserved it, so it shouldn't be in the article, after you, personally, removed the statement from the article. There are potential reasons why that shouldn't be in the article, but what you said isn't any of them. --PresN 03:58, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, I said that Bogotá is a dangerous place, and that being driven around and forced to use ATMs is not what I think of when I think of "kidnapping" in the conventional sense.

To me, what I think of when I read the word kidnapping in the conventional sense is more something like Charles Lindbergh Jr..

Straw man arguments are not helpful. Polygnotus (talk) 04:01, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a little baffled what point you're arguing for. "This isn't an important enough incident to put in her biography" is a valid point, and I'd agree with it. I don't plan on reverting you as a result, as much as I want to on principle. I'm making that up, though, because that wasn't something you've said. I'm not making a straw man argument, I'm directly quoting you: that it's not kidnapping despite actually, well, you're 100% wrong, because in the US kidnapping is "moving another person a substantial distance, without the person's consent, by means of force or fear", which is what happened (I suspect the Brazilian law is similar, no country has "unless they let you go a few hours later" as a caveat, the same way no country has "you can steal a little money, as a treat" as a rule), and "she deserved it because she had a nice watch" is, well, literally what you said, based on nothing and unprompted. Neither of those are reasons to remove the sentence from the article, and they are the reasons you gave. --PresN 04:11, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't an important enough incident to put in her biography" is a valid point Maybe, but my point is that reliable sources that discuss Meehan don't seem to mention it. But Google sucks these days so maybe that is the problem.

The importance of an incident is subjective of course, and we cannot decide that. I believe we should follow whatever reliable sources do. If RS mostly focus on it, so should we. If RS do not, then neither should we.

I'm not making a straw man argument, I'm directly quoting you No, you did not. You responded to something other than what I wrote.

no country has "you can steal a little money, as a treat" as a rule North Korea? See Illicit activities of North Korea. I am not an expert on NK but if I understand correctly NK will let people steal money from their perceived enemies as long as the NK regime benefits.

If you want to debate someone then refuting a claim they did not make is often counterproductive. Polygnotus (talk) 04:16, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Bro. Son. I'm really holding back from being insulting here. You're arguing with me really trying to give you the benefit of the doubt instead of where I quote you, so sure, I'll drop that and focus exclusively on your own words. You know the parts of my post in green? That wasn't a stylistic choice. That was a direct quote.

"Being driven around and forced to use ATMs is not really a kidnapping in the conventional sense, is it?" - you typed these words. That was you. That was not a strawman. You typed that. That is your opinion, which is not correct. What you describe there is kidnapping under US law, and also Brazilian law, and also the colloquial understanding of the term. You are just wrong. That is also not an argument to remove that fact from the article.

"According to the sources it sounds like wearing a very expensive Baume et Mercier watch [...] in Bogotá may be a bad idea, and you'd expect Foreign Service officers to be aware of that." - This is also a direct quote. You said that, in justification for removing the fact from the article, that wearing an expensive watch in Bogotá is a bad idea and she should have known that. That is a weird thing to say, that she deserved to be robbed for what she was wearing. This is also not a justification for removing something from an article. --04:34, 18 December 2025 (UTC) PresN 04:34, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@PresN That is your opinion, which is not correct. What I mean with kidnapping in the conventional sense has two elements, the kid and the napping. So what I think of when I hear that word is something like the Lindbergh kidnapping where a baby was stolen, a ransom letter was received/found, and 3 months later the baby was found. This is (obviously) not the same as an adult taking a taxi who then drives the victim to multiple ATMs to withdraw money. So while it may fit the legal definition, it is not what I think of when I hear/read that word. If you ask 10 random people on the street what they think of when they hear the word kidnapping they'll describe a scenario that has far more similarities with the Lindbergh kidnapping. Obviously. So you are just wrong.

That is a weird thing to say, that she deserved to be robbed for what she was wearing. But I didn't say that anyone deserved or deserves to be robbed for what they are wearing. You made that up. What I am saying is is that Bogotá is a relatively dangerous place, the kind of place in which wearing a very expensive [..] watch [...] may be a bad idea. So I am saying that in my opinion it is likely that such a thing could happen there, but also that I expect FSOs to be aware of the fact that it is a relatively dangerous place.

Since you repeatedly use straw man arguments I should probably stop responding to you. The fact that you wrote Bro. Son. I'm really holding back from being insulting here. means you are probably unable to have a productive discussion about this topic. Polygnotus (talk) 04:46, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think you seem to know what a strawman argument is. I also think that you're explicitly arguing that your opinion matters more than facts or definitions. I also see that you've changed your argument on the talk page to be about source backing, which is what you earlier backed away from, so sure, lets drop the discussion here. --PresN 04:56, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Although I'm sure Ms. Meehan has done well at her previous positions, and likely will do well at this one, I do feel prompted to call out the editors claiming her as very qualified for the position: what, exactly, do you think being the CEO of a nonprofit has in common with being an ambassador, or an advisor on foreign policy? I'm sure she was great at those roles, but I'm baffled how they relate to running a nonprofit. She was in charge of international efforts at the Obama Foundation, a nonprofit that focuses almost exclusively on non-international efforts, and has next to nothing that relates to running an organization about free-access information systems. The closest to experienced you can get is that she is used to being in important roles and interacting with important people. But she has very little experience actually running an organization, and even at my most cynical position that most CEOs don't do much of anything in regards to actually directing an organization but instead pontificate for investors, she also has no experience with convincing rich people to give money to an organization. She seems smart and talented, so we could do way worse, but that's not the same as well qualified. Please stop glazing CEOs. --PresN 03:23, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Seems like an odd argument. Skills are transferable and cross-training is said to be a plus. Viriditas (talk) 03:46, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  No one says this about any other field. No one would say a new programmer is well qualified because of their home construction work, no one says a new sales manager is well qualified because they programmed a sales tracking program. No one says that an artist is well qualified because they wrote books. For some reason, though, we say that a CEO that has never led an organization is well qualified because they've done other hard things, as if running an organization is not a skilled profession on par with other highly-paid professions. My personal belief is that it's because we don't see "running a large organization" as a skill, but instead something that can be done by "talented" people, so all you need to do to be qualified is show that you're talented. This is despite the numerous examples of failsons running organizations into the ground, or silicon valley bros burning a the GDP of a small country to get nowhere. I think that's because America has built a temple to the idea of the CEO as above mere mortals, but opinions may vary. --PresN 04:22, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  The problem is that you are comparing highly specialized roles to general ones. Skills such as executive, diplomatic, strategic, and leadership experience are directly transferable to that of a CEO. Nobody is expecting a computer programmer, an artist, or anyone who works on such specialized tasks to act as a CEO. Viriditas (talk) 04:33, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Running an organization is not a "general" role that does not require "specialized" skills. Even on a micro level, please think about the last time you had a boss that was bad at running their suborganization, and consider if maybe "the thing they did all day at work", the same amount of time you spent each day at work doing what you think is a "specialized" skill, was actually a skill that could be learned or practiced or improved upon, instead of just somehow an emergent property of "being a skilled person" that didn't need knowledge or training but still deserved to be paid (a lot) more.

  I think she has applicable skills. I don't know why you think there's no difference in knowledge or experience between "being the ambassador to a country" and "running a large nonprofit". They're really not the same job, and it really maps strongly onto the idea of "people who are important can do any important position, unlike me, a peasant". --PresN 04:46, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Not my take at all. Viriditas (talk) 04:48, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Yeah that is another strawman. Polygnotus (talk) 04:52, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Baffled how "The problem is that you are comparing highly specialized roles to general ones" isn't your argument, when my counter was that CEO isn't a "general" role. But sure. --PresN 04:57, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• I think an ambassadorship is certainly relevant, since one of the WMF CEO's main roles is being the public face of the Foundation, so I'd say it's at least somewhat related. And like you said, we could certainly do worse. I'm optimistic. QuicoleJR (talk) 03:26, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]