<CPOV> RS: Wikimedia evolution in terms of governance and thecreation of a Foundation (Fuster, Mayo)

nathaniel tkacz nathanieltkacz at gmail.com
Fri Mar 12 02:25:29 CET 2010


-
> I'm curious about the time frame for the "Spanish Fork" incident. This was
> after Sanger's departure from the project? My reading of the Wikipedia
> mailing list around the time Sanger left the project suggests to me (I'd be
> more sure with my notes!) that the move towards organizing the foundation
> starts here, with the rejection by Wikipedians of placing advertising on the
> site to raise Sanger's salary. Perhaps I'm misreading these archives?
>

I know from the archives that Sanger was actively involved in trying to
prevent the fork. He was definitely still around, but no longer getting
paid. Wales was pretty much silent until the very end of the discussion.

However, it is interesting that, again based on my reading of the
> Wikipedia-L mailing list during 2001-2002, that early Wikipedians understood
> that project forking was not a realistic way to "exit" the project.
>

But it happened!


> Instead, they talk about the "threat" of forking, and thus disrupting the
> project, as a sort of check on the power of Wales and the other owners and
> adminstrators of the site. That is to say, they seemed to understand forking
> as destructive, rather than constructive, a way of withdrawing labor
> power... almost like a sort of wildcat strike!
>
> interesting.

nate



>
>
> - Andy
> --
> Andrew Famiglietti
> Brittain Fellow
> School of Literature, Communication, and Culture
> Georgia Institute of Technology
>




-- 
Nate Tkacz

Research Fellow,
RMIT University

Twitter: http://twitter.com/__nate__
Homepage: www.nathanieltkacz.net
Current project: http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/cpov/about-2/
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