If you have used Wikipedia in the past year (of course you have if you’re reading this) you’ve seen messages from Wikimedia co-founder Jimmy Wales asking for contributions to the nonprofit participatory media project. Wikipedia, “The Free Online Encyclopedia,” is the most well-known part of this amorphous social media enterprise. Mr. Wales greeted the New Year by thanking donors for kicking in $6 million to the continued operation of the outfit.
Wikis are software programs first used for cooperative work on engineering projects. Wikipedia uses these to tie together countless volunteer writers, researchers, and editors to amass and maintain a multilingual compendium of human knowledge. Wikis were formed by and for people of goodwill sharing common goals, but Wikipedia lives in a wild Web-world of conflicting aims and passions, full of cybervandals with broadband and lots of free time.
But while Wikipedia users have become concerned with the reliability of the data, a lot of odd things have been going on in the underlying organization. Gawker’s Valleywag has been tracking this socially-generated serial drama.
This story has it all: Sex and social media; philanthropy and conspiracy; hijinx and hilarity. Did we mention SEX?
Sex isn’t specifically mentioned in the Wikimedia Foundation bylaws, but glandular goings-on appear to interfere with this org’s ability to maintain a solid board quorum. Isn’t there medication for that now? It was on TV.
Dynamic organizations often outgrow charismatic founders, and while we shouldn’t inflate this into Greek mythology, that seems to be the case here. But wait — there’s more. As Valleywag‘s Owen Thomas puts it:
Incompetence and infighting are endemic to nonprofits, of course. But Wikipedia’s bureaucracy is distinctly, fearsomely awful.
The element of scale and the everyday utility of Wikipedia keep the soap opera bubbling in plain view. The public-spirited info operation has ballooned beyond belief but, like the rest of the Web, no one knows how to pay for upkeep, let alone make a buck from it.
So the Foundation’s board battles continue while countless cyber-contributors research and refine references, fighting entropy, cyber-vandals, the flood of data, and time itself. Crazy.
But is sanity necessary for challanges like Wikipedia? It may even be an impediment. Would sane people take on such an unending, gargantuan task? Many entries to the seminal Oxford English Dictionary were contributed by a homicidal maniac. No sex, of course; he was a Yank, but his asylum was British. Wikimedia is in California.
Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
NotionsCapital 
January 10, 2009 at 3:52 am
Mike, Thanks for that great post. It made me curious to read more about Wikipedia and it made me like Wikipedia even more.
January 10, 2009 at 1:25 pm
I’ve said time and again that WikiDiaper is worthless because it is full of $#!t and is made for infants. Unfortunately, the uniformed still buy into the myth and consider it a “valid reference”.
No matter how many scandals, how many misappropriations of money (including by Wales himself), abuses of privilege, provably flawed information and outright frauds perpetrated (e.g. Essjay), people still buy into the myth of WikiDiaper. WikiDiaper and its supporters and editors are as inept, closed minded and biased towards presupposed opinions as the Bush misadministration. What passes for “facts” on WikiDiaper is what the majority agree on (in much the same way the majority of Americans still believe Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11, or how the KKK feels about blacks); accuracy is less important to WikiDiaper than is concensus.
WikiDiaper has become the myth that everyone wants to believe, and urban legend that is given credence, a stereotype that people want to be true. In reality, WikiDiaper is the hell at the end of the road – because it was started with good intentions.
My advice to anyone reading this is to go down to you neighborhood computer store and raid the $10 bin for a five year old CD encyclopedia, or buy an $8 paperback encyclopedia from Funk and Wagnalls at a bookstore. You’ll get better value and more accurate information than anything on WikiDiaper. The only thing WikiDiaper has any accuracy in is pop culture and video game secrets, which does not make it useful for students and researchers. I certainly won’t accept it in my classroom.
January 10, 2009 at 5:44 pm
I would have liked to have read your comment, Trimper, but as soon as you said WikiDiaper you clearly became just another biased *sshole.
Perhaps if you were capable of making your (perfectly valid, in IMO important) points without resorting to stupid names and abuse, some people might listen to you.
-fred
January 11, 2009 at 10:49 am
Fred Fnord; While T Trimper runs a bit long and seems to find malice where others see mere incompetence, he has a point. The good intentions of this project have not withstood real-world rigors.
That said, Wikipedia is often the most convenient jumping-off point for further research, and even Britannica entries can be erroneous or overtaken by events.
January 11, 2009 at 11:12 am
“incompetence and infighting endemic to nonprofits” — Of course. Since we all know there’s no such thing as incompetence, crappy office politics, or shifty accounting in a for-profit business. Oh no. Never.
January 11, 2009 at 8:28 pm
Aaron Weber:
You left out government.
But having experienced all three sectors, I must agree with Valleywag. There are fewer checks and balances on nonprofit management and boards. Given warm and fuzzy nonprofit intentions, even the media are reluctant to follow the money and literally bring 501(c)(3)s into accountability.
As the Nonprofit Curmudgeon says:”The infighting is so vicious because the stakes are so low.”
That’s called Sayre’s Law. You can find it on Wikipedia.
January 12, 2009 at 7:38 am
I like wikipedia just because it can’t be trusted, and anyone who uses it with any intelligence knows that. It keeps the reader alert and questioning throughout. It’s a beginning, not an end.
January 12, 2009 at 11:58 am
[Edited for length and clarity. -ml]
Fnord’s inability to get past a single word shows the failing is in him, not what I say.
[Thournout: Wikipedia] does claim to be an absolute reference, the “sum of human knowledge”. Calling itself the “sum of human opinions” would be more accurate and less pretentious.
[Licht:] I’d rather have slightly outdated but trustworthy source of information than one that covers the latest world events. There’s a reason the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica is still regarded as the high water mark of Britannica editions.
January 12, 2009 at 1:33 pm
T Trimper: A century-old book is “slightly-outdated”?
[Update: And you use a 1911 encyclopedia in 2009 classroom? Does Teacher know?]
While I share your admiration of the Britannica (EB has a great blog, too) you might want to consider the online version. It has entries on The Great War, rural electrification, votes for women, radiotelephony, and other recent topics which may interest you
January 15, 2009 at 5:06 pm
One thing that’s really important to understand: Valleywag posts lies routinely. It is billed as a gossip blog, but in fact it is known to be meanspirited and hurtful even to the point of telling lies.
Recently they reported that Wales was being pushed out of the Foundation. This was a lie. Did they apologize? Never.
January 15, 2009 at 6:02 pm
Some guy:
One day the Wall Street Journal said the market went up. The next day it went down. Did WSJ apologize?
Things change. ValleyWag assumed the Foundation would comply wih its own bylaws and reported accordingly. The Foundation did something else and, as often happens in the nonprofit world, no one called them on it. Mr. Wales stayed aboard.
Many nonprofits are founded by charismatic leaders who stay past their time and bring the organizations down with them. Will that happened here? We shall see.
What seems “snarky” to some is “mean-spirited” to others, and Gawker Media is heavily invested in “snarky.” Why? So when ValleyWag posts about business and IT, people actually read the stuff.
It’s an attention economy, friend.
January 16, 2009 at 12:51 pm
No, actually, valleywag lied. Wales was reappointed to the board in accordance with the bylaws and there was a public announcement of this before the end of the year. Valleywag didn’t “call them on it” – Valleywag lied.
They went on to say that Sue Gardner was attempting to push Wales off the board. This, too, is a lie.
Attention is one thing – dishonesty is another.
January 16, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Some guy: Got some links here?
BTW, you wouldn’t happen to be some guy named “Wales,” would you? Just checking.
ml
January 17, 2009 at 9:38 pm
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-10130577-52.html?tag=mncol
“Indeed, in an e-mail sent on December 28, 2008, to the Wikimedia Foundation’s e-mail list, board chair Michael Snow wrote, among other things, “We…had a unanimous vote to re-appoint Jimmy Wales to his position as Community Founder Trustee.”
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-December/048389.html
I hope you find these references helpful.
January 17, 2009 at 10:07 pm
Some guy (who may or may not be named Wales):
Thank you very much. That is very welcome. I see a horribly-governed nonprofit corporation (sadly the norm in that realm) and a board struggling to cover its rear and keep Exalted Leader in an organization which has outgrown him (sadly, pretty much the nonprofit norm).