Death and taxes

Notable deaths continue to draw high notice on Wikipedia for another week. And though Glenn Frey's (#1) passing didn't generate nearly as much attention as David Bowie (#1 last week, #4 this week), it is yet another high profile death leading the chart. And even the pop culture entries are serious, with convict Steven Avery (#3), the subject of the documentary Making a Murderer (#7), riding high for yet another week, and survival epic The Revenant at #2. Isn't it time for another vacuous chart topper we can simply get a laugh from, like twerking?

For the full top-25 list, see WP:TOP25. See this section for an explanation of any exclusions. For a list of the most edited articles of the week, see here.

For the week of January 17 to 23, 2016, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the most viewed pages, were:

Rank	Article	Class	Views	Image	Notes
1	Glenn Frey		1,861,483		The founding member of American rock band the Eagles (#8) died on January 18. Though only about 15% of the whopping 11.7 million views David Bowie got on last week's chart, Frey was a highly successful artist on a much more human scale.
2	The Revenant (2015 film)		1,283,947		Alejandro González Iñárritu's Western survival epic starring Leonardo di Caprio (#23, pictured) continues to be popular.
3	Steven Avery		1,062,963		Avery is an American prisoner who is the subject of the popular new Netflix documentary series Making a Murderer which was released on December 18. (Episode 1 is available free on YouTube.) Avery served 18 years in prison, from 1985 to 2003, after being framed by the local police for a sexual assault he plainly did not commit. During his subsequent civil lawsuit for compensation, during a period of explosive depositions, he was charged with the murder of a local photographer, and later convicted. The documentary is compelling to watch, and it causing a fair amount of controversy, and thus bringing continuing attention to this article.
4	David Bowie		1,052,526		Contrary to popular belief, chameleons do not change colour to match their surroundings; they change colour to reflect their mood and their relationships with others. From the moment that David Robert Jones changed his name to David Bowie, he proved himself chameleonic in the true sense. His career was a kaleidoscope of reinventions; not just of music and appearance but of persona, profession and gender identity, each time anticipating the reactions of his audience, and usually forcing them to catch up with him. Fiercely intelligent and unafraid to show it, he also anticipated the effects of technological change, releasing Space Oddity five days before the launch of Apollo 11, and using the Internet to interact with fans years before the age of social media. His work as an actor also frequently ran leaps ahead of audiences, whether as an alien in Nicolas Roeg's initially ill-regarded but now lauded The Man Who Fell To Earth, or as Jareth the Goblin King in Jim Henson's Labyrinth, a critical bomb that would go on to become a fixture of children's video libraries, and earn him an entire new generation of fans. But his death earlier this month at the age of 69 may prove his greatest leap ahead yet; while ill with cancer for the preceding 18 months, he refused to publicise his condition and instead used his last time on Earth to compose Blackstar, one of his best reviewed albums in decades. Just as Bowie lived as art, he died as art, and the video for "Lazarus", the second single from Blackstar, which featured a suddenly aged Bowie blindfolded on a hospital bed, would become an epitaph to the world. Once again, we had to catch up with him, and the shock of his unexpected death shivered across his pan-generational fanbase, pushing Blackstar to #1 in the US album chart, astoundingly for the first time, and giving him not only the highest single-day tally of YouTube VEVO views ever recorded, but also, incidentally, the first ever eight-figure weekly Wikipedia viewcount, with over 11.7 million views on last week's chart.
5	Martin Luther King, Jr.		945,522		The American holiday dedicated to him fell on January 18 this year.
6	Star Wars: The Force Awakens		884,009		The reignition of the Star Wars remains in the Top 10 for another week.
7	Making a Murderer		801,724		See #3.
8	Eagles (band)		782,648		See #1. The Eagles of Death Metal were on the chart in November, and they got their name from this band, as a sarcastic reference. Do people in their 20s listen to the Eagles today? I have no idea. Though wildly popular in their time, their music is also clearly of their time, and did not pretend to be otherwise.
9	Deaths in 2016		684,964		The annual list of deaths is usually fairly consistent in weekly views, but is up again for second week.
10	Suicide Squad (film)		681,863		A superhero film slated for release on August 5 in the United States.

Arnnon Geshuri

Jimmy Wales has joined the board of the Guardian Media Group.

Corbin Bleu – huge in Wikipedia if not in our hearts

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-01-27/Technology report Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-01-27/Essay Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-01-27/Opinion

2016-01-27

Geshuri steps down from the Board

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By Gamaliel

Arnnon Geshuri

One of the two new members of the WMF's Board of Trustees has resigned. Arnnon Geshuri's appointment 22 days ago sparked controversy in the Wikimedia community. His selection and departure come amid growing concerns about not only the composition of the Board, but the direction of the Foundation itself.

In a message on Wednesday, January 27 to the Wikimedia-l mailing list, board members Patricio Lorente and Alice Wiegand wrote:

“

Earlier today, Arnnon decided to step down from the Board. To paraphrase his words, he doesn't want to be a distraction for the important discussions that the community and the Foundation need to face in the times to come. We want to thank Arnnon for his ongoing commitment and for helping us to move forward.

”

The surprise announcement came just a day after Geshuri had made his first public statement on his new role, with the Board expressing its intention to stand by Geshuri's appointment. But by that time, concerns about Geshuri's background and selection process, as well as worries regarding the links to Google and other Silicon Valley technology corporations on the Board, were growing in the Wikimedia community and were becoming news items in the mainstream press. A non-binding vote of no confidence in Geshuri has been reported in Ars Technica, BBC News and Le Monde, among others, which is likely to have been a factor in Geshuri's resignation (see this week's "In the media").

Only yesterday, Wiegand posted on Wikimedia-l that the Board would be standing by their choice. She wrote that while the Board was "listening to your worries" and "discussing the concerns" raised by the community, she concluded: "we want to be clear that the Board approved Arnnon unanimously and still believes he is a valuable member of the team." Geshuri had commented publicly for the first time on the same list about an hour before Wiegand's message:

“

It has been almost three weeks since my appointment to the Wikimedia Foundation Board and I have read the feedback and comments from representative members of the community. My first reaction was how amazing the community is in its vibrant culture – there is direct and honest dialog, celebration of diverse ideas, debate and counterpoints, and an overall genuine passion to ensure that the WMF sustains itself for another fifteen years and beyond. Witnessing firsthand the commitment and energy of the community is truly inspirational. Although I would have preferred the tone surrounding my appointment to be more positive and supportive, I deeply understand and respect the criticality of free expression, rallying around convictions, and open disagreement. Regarding the concerns that have been raised, I have listened closely. That said, in my opinion, there are some misconceptions and there are mitigating considerations. As a general matter, I will say that, throughout my career, I have been charged with enforcing company policies as part of my role as a people manager. I have tried to do so thoughtfully and consistently. I have done so realizing company policies and practices evolve over time as circumstances change. As part of the current narrative, members of the community generated a running theme within the online conversations related to trust. Comments were expressed questioning their trust in the Wikimedia Foundation Board and asking if the community could accept me as a new Board Member. Wanting to understand the challenges ahead, I have spent the last few weeks speaking with current and former Board members and reaching out to folks in the community. I have more conversations in the coming days and appreciate those who have been generous with their time. Given the story line that has been shaped over the last couple weeks and based on the feedback from my conversations, I know I have a longer journey than most new Board members to prove to the community and WMF alumni that they can put their trust in me. I joined to make a positive difference and be a part of the important effort to grow the WMF for the next generation of editors, contributors, and users. As the community gets to know me, folks will see the way I work is with thoughtfulness, transparency, diversity, and a focus on doing what is right. I have key experiences in both my professional and non-profit careers which lend a distinctive perspective to the honorable work of a Trustee – especially the learnings gained over the last decade. I passionately believe in the core values of the WMF and trust that the community and even the most energetic community members come from a place of good intent. And as we all become closer and transition to debating the issues and not the people, the community will see I consistently speak from the heart, I am passionately committed to the movement with the best intent, and I am working hard to earn your trust.

”

While some praised Geshuri for speaking out at all, his paean to Wikipedia's community and culture did little to sway those who wanted him to address the issue of his participation in the High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation more directly. Among epithets used by community members to describe his message were "a public-relations exercise" and "unctuous". Votes on Meta in favor of Geshuri's removal grew to 291 before the RFC was closed following the announcement of Geshuri's departure. The supports included six current employees of the Wikimedia Foundation, as well as a number of former WMF employees, including former senior designer Brandon Harris (Jorm) and Frank Schulenburg, currently executive director of the Wiki Education Foundation. Many of the support votes cited the comments of former Board of Trustee chairs Florence Devouard (Anthere) and Kat Walsh (Mindspillage), who had raised concerns about Geshuri's appointment in previous weeks. Another former trustee (and the Signpost founder), Michael Snow, raised his own concerns following Geshuri's message, making him the third former chair of the Board of Trustees to speak out regarding Geshuri's appointment. He wrote, in part:

“

The Board has indicated that you were appointed for your expertise in human resources. I agree that your career includes some impressive experience and you would be a highly qualified candidate in that sense. I can also appreciate why the Board might have felt a need for your kind of expertise. ... But under the circumstances, I struggle to see how your appointment would lead to a net benefit for the Foundation. Your skills and contacts might bring something that is lacking, but the problematic pieces of your background also reflect directly on the same area. Considerations such as staff morale have fluctuated over time, but I cannot imagine how having someone associated with these practices on the Board would be anything but a negative influence on it. Whether they would acknowledge it to you, the rest of the Board, their managers, or anyone at all really, I think this is an extremely serious problem. It seems like it would take an incredible amount of good work from you to overcome the damage your mere presence on the Board is likely to cause.

”

Discussion of the vetting and selection process is likely to continue following Geshuri's departure. On his talk page two days before Geshuri's resignation, Jimmy Wales conceded that he needed to shoulder some of the blame ("I feel remorse"). He wrote:

“

The subcommittee of the board tasked with finding good board candidates did not flag this issue to the rest of the board, and as far as I know, they were unaware of it. I'm not going to speak right now as to whether or not the board would have voted to approve him after a full investigation, and I'm certainly not going to speak about my opinion of whether we should have voted to approve given what we know now. My point is that the process of selection did not flag the issue and so we did not deliberate about it. That's obviously a failure of the process. (A plausible position is that it could have been flagged, investigated, and deemed to be fine. Another plausible position is that it could have been flagged, investigated, and deemed to be not fine. But it is not ok that it wasn't flagged at all.) As to my own culpability here, I can say that I feel remorse. I googled his name, I saw that he had been at google and mentioned in connection to that story, and I didn't dig deeper. I should have and I'm sorry about that. My only reasoning is that I was just googling for the hell of it – I assumed (incorrectly) that the process was working and that there was nothing to be concerned about.

”

Beyond a discussion by Wales and other members of Board regarding their Google searches for Geshuri's name, nothing has been said publicly about how Geshuri was vetted or how the candidates were found, weighed, and selected. Also unknown is the involvement of the staff of the Wikimedia Foundation, whose VP of Human Resources, Boryana Dineva, worked as Head of HR Systems, HR Operations & Data Analytics under Geshuri at Tesla Motors from 2013 to 2015.

Also of concern to many is the fear that the selection of Geshuri, whose actions as director of human resources at Google were troubling to the community, may be symptomatic of a desire to instill a similar corporate culture in human resources at the Foundation itself. Adam Wight, a fundraising tech lead at the WMF, wrote:

“

As a current WMF staff member, and having received a formal scolding two weeks ago for expressing my professional and personal opinions on this list – that a hierarchical corporate structure is completely inappropriate and ineffectual for running the Foundation – I don't feel safe editorializing about what membership could mean for the future of the Wikimedia movement.

”

Earlier this month the Signpost covered employee discontent at the Wikimedia Foundation. Wight's message echoes similar complaints that other WMF staffers have made to the Signpost about a perceived cultural shift at the Foundation. One of them described it as "a culture of risk-management and fear", while another noted that they were "terrified" of speaking out in public for fear of retaliation. They are just two of several staffers who have privately expressed similar concerns to the Signpost. At least one speculated that the way recent employee departures from the WMF have been handled may be related to these changes.

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-01-27/Serendipity

2016-01-27

Lila Tretikov: the WMF needs your input in developing our strategy

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By Lila Tretikov

In 2010, the Wikimedia community and the Wikimedia Foundation collaborated to develop a five-year strategy for the movement. The final strategy focused on major priorities such as increasing the number and diversity of contributors to our movement, the amount and quality of knowledge in our projects, and the number of people we reached every month.

Last year, in anticipation of the end of those five years, the Foundation began reviewing our progress. In 2015 the movement reached a long-standing goal of stabilizing the overall number of highly active editors on the projects. In other areas, such as increasing Global South contributors and improving gender diversity, more progress is needed. Overall, the movement targets adopted by the Wikimedia Foundation’s Board of Trustees in 2010 have not been reached yet and are still applicable today.

Therefore this year, we decided to focus on the role of the Foundation in supporting our movement and our vision, which we see as conceptual triangle of reach, communities, and knowledge:

• Reach: Reaching every human being
• Communities: Empowering more people from all walks of life to share in knowledge
• Knowledge: Growing the quality and depth of all free knowledge

While these provide a framework for our overarching goals, the Foundation needs a practical plan that will:

• Outline how we will address these three key areas
• Prepare us for changes in the overall landscape of free knowledge
• Guide our activities in cooperation with Wikimedia’s communities, projects, and affiliates
• Keep the Wikimedia Foundation on track and accountable with clear and achievable goals
• Provide direction for the next 2–3 years

To make our plan as effective as possible, we will limit the scope of this strategic planning to the Foundation as one global organization within the broader movement. We are inspired by the efforts of the communities and Wikimedia movement affiliates, which support overall movement goals through independent local strategies tailored to their own strengths, capacities, and operating environments.

Last week, we launched a community discussion about this planning, focused on the topics of reach, communities, and knowledge. Building on the outcomes of our spring 2015 consultation with readers and editors, we have identified a number of approaches that could guide the the Foundation’s future plan and actions. Today, we’re asking for your input and contributions. The community is the primary catalyst of the movement, and the success, health, and participation of contributors is central to any Wikimedia Foundation strategy. Your thoughts will be essential in informing how the Foundation can best contribute to the Wikimedia movement going forward.

The consultation will be open until February 15. We invite you to participate and look forward to your thoughts.

Lila Tretikov is the executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-01-27/In focus Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-01-27/Arbitration report Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-01-27/Humour

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