The Wikimedia Foundation announced on Monday that it has hired Brad Patrick as general counsel and interim executive director. The announcement followed a resolution earlier this month authorizing the employment of a full time CEO and legal counsel for the Foundation, which operates Wikipedia and its sister projects.
Patrick has been involved with Wikipedia for several months, volunteering legal help to the Foundation for most of the time. Patrick is a practicing lawyer who, before joining the Foundation, worked at Fowler White Boggs Banker in St. Petersburg, Florida in technology and intellectual property litigation. He has an extensive history of legal work, having prior experience with firms in Washington and with top 100 software companies. Patrick was granted administrative rights on the English Wikipedia in April, although he was not promoted through Requests for adminship, the usual route for promotion.
Jimbo Wales commented on the hiring, saying that “[Patrick] has a keen grasp of the opportunities and challenges involved in our tremendous growth, and a great appreciation for the work done by our community of volunteers. Brad's advice and support has been a tremendous asset to us so far, and we look forward to his help in setting the professional side of the organization on a firm footing."
Patrick’s new role includes serving both as general counsel and interim executive director. As general counsel, Patrick will continue providing legal assistance to the Foundation. His role as executive director – essentially equivalent to that of a CEO in a for-profit corporation – is only interim, though; he will only assume the responsibilities while the Foundation, led by Patrick, conducts a full search for a permanent executive director. As interim executive director, Patrick will help the Board and Foundation oversee all operations, activities, and staff, including helping with “business deals, legal matters, finance, audit, planing [sic], etc.”
In a statement to the community, Wales expressed optimism at the hiring and at the improvements to the Foundation and its projects Patrick’s hiring will bring. “[The] need for fulltime legal counsel should be obvious to everyone involved with the projects,” he said. “We are increasingly approached with interesting opportunities to partner with various organizations in ways that are consistent with our community values and missions… [in addition, we are faced with the] ever increasing burden as we grow more popular of legal complaints that we continue to try to deal with in a timely and effective manner.” He continued by emphasizing the need for the position of an executive director, commenting that “the need for help in the executive arena is also obvious to most of you… We, the board, have been overwhelmed for many months, and we need help and assistance.”
Wales also commented that Patrick was hired because “he is of the community, actively involved for several months, and deeply committed to our mission.” Wales also stressed that the search for a permanent executive director would take more time, involving careful consideration from both the Foundation and community. “We intend to hire a fulltime Executive Director following a very careful process of consulting with the community, building support globally, defining what the foundation needs, and [conducting] a comprehensive search for a good candidate, both *within the existing community* and *outside the community*,” he said. “It is my intention that we be very very careful in this process to preserve our fundamentally community-driven model, while at the same time adding professionalism to the organization in order to empower and defend the community model.” In addition, Wales also re-emphasized his message: “I intend to keep repeating my same message strongly and simply: it is my intention to build upon and extend our radical methods of openness and community involvement, while at the same time playing close attention to the needs of the organization which makes all of that possible. Whatever side any of you personally may come down on, relating to some of the details of all that, I hope that you will join me in saying that our similarities and hopes and dreams for the future are more important than any minor differences, and that we can work our way forward as we always have... slowly and carefully, with genuine respect for everyone who is taking part in the discussions in a constructive way.”
A FAQ was set up pertaining to the introduction of the position of executive director following the hiring. The FAQ clarified that the Foundation would still accept outside legal help whenever possible, saying that “the Foundation will continue to rely on volunteer (pro bono) assistance from other attorneys, and the General Counsel will organize and coordinate their efforts.” In addition, the FAQ also stressed that the position of executive director would mainly deal with the business side of the Foundation, not the community side; the FAQ clarified that “for the most part, the Executive Director will not be involved with how the community operates on individual projects.”
Patrick also set up a FAQ about his hiring. In it, Patrick commented on his relationship with the Foundation and Wales, saying that he had first met Wales in December 2005. In addition, when asked why he was interested in working for the Foundation, he said that “with [the Wikimedia Foundation], I found an opportunity to combine interests in pursuit of great online content through a community structure that I believe in, support, and want to grow and evolve. It happens I can apply my years of experience as a lawyer in general practice, litigation, and technology to the Foundation's activities.” Patrick also re-emphasized the role he will play in dealing with the community, commenting that “as far as the community is concerned, the best job I can do is keep the projects running smoothly by staying out of the way… I am amazed at [the community’s] energy and success in growing and attracting readers and editors.” In an interview with the Signpost in March of this year regarding Office actions, Patrick, then a volunteer legal counsel for the Foundation, said that his “job [was] to advise the Board and protect the Foundation if they are sued.”
Community reaction to the hiring was generally positive, with many users expressing opinions that Patrick was an ideal person for the role of general counsel and interim executive director. “Great news. All my interactions with Brad have been very positive, and his willingness to help on legal issues has been invaluable,” said Sannse. “Congratulations Brad.”
The New York Times ran another detailed front-page article about Wikipedia last week, this time focusing on page protection and the adoption of a semi-protection feature. The Katie Hafner story, published on Saturday, was headlined "Growing Wikipedia Revises Its 'Anyone Can Edit' Policy".
This comes a couple of weeks after a recent discussion about semi-protection involving Jimmy Wales and Nicholas Carr, who was also quoted by the Times as a Wikipedia critic (see archived story). The policies reported on by Hafner are not particularly new, as semi-protection was implemented last December. Full protection was getting press coverage as much as two years ago, for example with the handling of articles on George W. Bush and John Kerry leading up to the 2004 US presidential election. However, it seems to have been news to Carr and to the New York Times.
The story noted various phenomena that may lead to page protection, such as vandalism and revert wars. It also gave a number of examples of pages that either are or have been protected (either fully or semi-protected). The following day saw more coverage along similar lines from The Observer, "Wikipedia fights off cyber vandals".
Wales responded with a blog entry calling the New York Times story "exactly backwards". As in his previous dialogue with Carr, he argued that semi-protection is "a softer, more open approach" in contrast to full protection. Kat Walsh expressed disappointment with how the article dealt with the role of administrators, an issue she had discussed extensively with Hafner. The story characterized Wikipedia as having a "clear power structure" in which administrators "exercise editorial control".
The Cunctator commented that the dispute over whether these policies make Wikipedia more or less open is really "a semantic game". He argued that neither side was truly right, but that the position taken by the Times was important as a challenge that would test Wikipedia's commitment to maintaining its ideals.
The coverage prompted a flurry of work to further tweak the semi-protection template that appears on affected articles. AlisonW questioned the use of a banner warning on semi-protected articles, pointing out that "vast majority of editors will be able to edit a semi-protected page" and wouldn't need or benefit from the warning. At last check, the banner has now been replaced with a simple icon (
) that appears in the top right of the page, an idea borrowed from the Dutch Wikipedia. Although the use of such metadata icons has also been controversial (see archived story), concerns so far were mostly limited to ensuring that it appears correctly in different layout skins. Presumably this use will not overlap much with the other primary function of metadata icons, identification of featured articles, since protection of those is generally discouraged.
Wikimania recap
28 August 2006
Wikimania recap
14 August 2006
Wikimania recap
7 August 2006
Wikimania last-minute information
31 July 2006
Events: Contests, parties, and the local area
24 July 2006
Wikimania updates
17 July 2006
Wikimania updates
10 July 2006
Meetups And Newsworthy International Assemblages
3 July 2006
More featured speakers at Wikimania
26 June 2006
Hacking Days
19 June 2006
Featured Speakers at Wikimania
12 June 2006
Other international meetups
5 June 2006
About Wikimania
29 May 2006
About Wikimania
22 May 2006
About Wikimania
15 May 2006
About Wikimania
8 May 2006
About Wikimania
1 May 2006
About Wikimania
24 April 2006
Three years of meetups : 2003-2006
17 April 2006
Introduction to a series: Looking forward to Wikimania 2006
10 April 2006
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Wikimania recap |
This week, the Signpost takes a look at the Wikimania 2006 Hacking Days. Wikimania is the annual international Wikimedia conference; early registration is open through July 7, including separate registration for Hacking Days.
Travel scholarships are now available for attendees; applications are due by June 28.
Hacking Days is a technically-oriented preconference to Wikimania 2006. It will occur from August 1-3 at the MIT Media Lab. The conference is aimed towards developers of MediaWiki and others with technical interests. It is intended to be very hands-on and less focussed on presentations than the main portion of the conference.
Hacking Days will cover the following themes : Wikimedia cluster setup, network topology, and working with multiple data centers; MediaWiki roadmaps and major projects; and tool and Mediawiki extension development.
There will be a tutorial on how to become a [better] MediaWiki hacker (for those familiar with the software), and discussions of how to attract more programmers into the community, and of wiki standards in general.
The MIT campus is near the Harvard Law School campus, where Wikimania will be taking place. Registration for Hacking Days is also separate from the main conference, and is now open here. Please visit the website for more information as it becomes available. Some events during Hacking Days will take place at the headquarters of the One Laptop Per Child project, also a sponsor of the event.
Next week : More speaker and presentation updates. The conference proceedings are in development; comments there, and questions for presenters, are welcome.
On June 16, lead developer Brion Vibber announced the activation of the image undeletion feature on all Wikimedia web sites, following testing of the functionality added to the MediaWiki software over the preceding week. Image undeletion is the first aspect of the upload/image handling process to take advantage of a new codebase which allows for "file stores" to be defined, which will result in improvements to the treatment of uploaded files and media over the coming months.
Images can be undeleted in a manner not dissimilar to normal pages; administrators access the image page and select the "deleted edits" link, or visit Special:Undelete/Filename.ext. Selective undeletion is also available.
In an email sent to the wikitech-l mailing list, Vibber stated, "It's my hope that this will encourage admins to tackle the deletion backlogs a little more aggressively, since mistakes will be easier to undo." User reception to the feature was positive and many well-known users expressed their gratitude to Brion for this enhancement.
Image undeletion had been a long-awaited feature for MediaWiki, the bug report for which had been open since May 2005. Previously, images were discarded from the file system upon deletion. Under the new mechanism, they are passed to the file store, which moves them into an isolated location, while still allowing them to be retrieved and viewed, for previewing and restoration purposes.
Despite popular misconception, the absence of this function from the software was not due to policies restricting the storage of such content, nor due to disk space concerns; it was a simple lack of developer time to code the feature. This was made clear in the subsequent email exchange following the announcement.
Administrators of small wikis using the MediaWiki software who are not following Subversion trunk will find this option available to them as of the July 2006 quarterly release snapshot.
Wikipedia biographies of politicians have made the news again, this time in Australia with a story in the Sunday Herald Sun. In a change from previous incidents, most of which focused on edits by unregistered users that were traced back to political staff, the editor involved has been known for some time.
The article focused on the work of Adam Carr, a long-time editor who is also a staffer for Australian Labor MP Michael Danby. In his Wikipedia editing, Carr has been open about his identity, and his employer has been known to a number of people and was previously reported in the Signpost. His user page does not address it directly, but does identify him as a member of the Australian Labor Party.
The Herald Sun story, by Lincoln Wright, was accompanied by the headline, "Liberals hit back at Wikipedia 'dirt' file", suggesting apparently that Carr had been targeting Labor's primary rivals, the Liberal Party of Australia. In reality, the article focused almost entirely on fellow Labor Party members, indicating that this was more of an internal party dispute. Julia Irwin, a Labor MP whose article notes some controversial comments of hers that brought criticism from Danby, was the person quoted as saying that Carr was "getting dirt on people". Wright also reported that Jennie George, another Labor MP, had complained to party Whip Roger Price as well.
In contrast and despite the headline, nobody from the Liberal Party was quoted on the record with any complaints about Carr's work. Two Wikipedia articles about Liberal politicians, Peter Costello and Alexander Downer, were cited as having been edited by Carr, but nothing was said to indicate that his edits were improper.
As a result of these complaints, Price reportedly warned Danby that he should, as the reporter put it, "rein in" Carr. It was not immediately clear when the complaints were made or any warning given. According to Robert Merkel, another long-time Wikipedia editor from Australia, Carr curtailed his editing of articles about Australian politicians after the publicity surrounding US congressional staffer edits in January. Carr is a prolific editor who edits a wide range of topics, but for Australian politicians his substantive work seems to have been directed more to talk pages recently; he has, however, reverted some edits or made changes to things like categories directly on articles, including Michael Danby, since then.
Carr's response to the story was to dismiss it as "a plain and simple smear-job". He said the Herald Sun showed no interest in reporting the real facts involved and added, "I have of course not compiled "dirt files" on anyone." A number of other editors on the Australian Wikipedians' notice board also commented that the claims had no relationship to the work Carr has done on Wikipedia.
Discussions were ongoing on the Meta-Wiki regarding the redesign of logos on Wiktionary and Wikibooks, as well as on a logo for Wikimedia Incubator. A minor change regarding the logo of Wikispecies has also been brought up.
On the front page of its National edition, The New York Times published the story "Growing Wikipedia Revises Its 'Anyone Can Edit' Policy", about Wikipedia's "new restrictions" on openness (see related story). Jimmy Wales responds in his blog, with "The New York Times gets it exactly backwards". The story was picked up by numerous other media who reprint Times content, and commented on in several blogs.
The Australian Herald Sun discussed how "Liberals hit back at Wikipedia 'dirt' file", regarding longtime Wikipedia editor Adam Carr (see related story).
Colorado newspaper The Aspen Daily News discussed edits made by participants in Colorado political campaigns in "Candidate supporters use Wikipedia to spin, sling mud".
According to "Auctioneer eBay adds 'wiki'for tips about online selling" in the The China Post in Taiwan, eBay has launched its own http://www.ebaywiki.com on Tuesday at the eBay Live conference in Las Vegas. The wiki will allow eBay users to build a communal how-to guide for buying and selling. eBay joins Amazon.com in the ranks of major internet players who have added wiki functionality to their websites in recent months.
Eight users were granted admin status last week: Crzrussian (nom), Fir0002 (nom), Samir (The Scope) (nom), Silence (nom), IanManka (nom), Cuivienen (nom), DVD R W (nom) and Gwernol (nom).
Seven articles were featured last week: Cystic fibrosis (nom), Cane Toad (nom), Hurricane John (1994) (nom), Chromatophore (nom), Venus (nom), The Lord of the Rings (nom) and Plano Senior High School (nom).
One article was de-featured last week: Hugo Chávez.
Three lists reached featured list status last week: List of Chief Ministers of Tamil Nadu, List of members of the ASEAN and List of Virtual Boy games.
The following featured articles were displayed last week on the main page as Today's featured article: 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, Phil Collins, Crab Nebula, AIDS, Parliament of the United Kingdom, Hurricane Floyd and Che Guevara.
These were the pictures of the day last week: Frogs, Han Civilisation, Suburbs, British Museum Reading Room, Round hay bale, Carrots and Orb-weaver spider.
Three pictures reached featured picture status last week:
{{NUMBEROFADMINS}} added; current value: 851. (Rob Church)__NOGALLERY__ added; the word suppresses image galleries in category views. (Magnus Manske)
The Arbitration Committee did not close any cases this week.
Four cases were opened this week; all are in the evidence phase.
