by Ashley Rindsberg at Pirate Wires
- Wikimedia’s Movement Strategy, which launched in 2017 with a plan to fund Wikimedia “in perpetuity” with its Wikimedia Endowment, was a significant pivot from Wikipedia’s mission: “where Wikipedia had been built on the principle of decentralized knowledge, the Movement Strategy would veer into the hyper-centralized space of top-down social justice activism and advocacy”
- The Endowment is an independently governed long-term fund that bankrolls Wikimedia “projects.” It was set up as a donor-advised fund at progressive megafund Tides for its first seven years; Tides’ former General Counsel left to serve as Wikimedia Foundation’s top lawyer around this time
- Flush with well over a hundred million dollars in cash, the Wikimedia Endowment has funded initiatives that seek to abolish the police and create an “intersectional scientific method,” among others
In 2019, a scandal ripped through the Wikipedia community when a Wikipedia admin who goes by the handle Fram was handed a year-long ban from the site. While known to few outside the tight-knit but feverishly active collective of Wikipedia contributors, the affair was part of a far-reaching, partisan shift at the open encyclopedia with widespread implications for the future of media, technology, and politics around the world.
Although contributor bans are not uncommon on Wikipedia, this case was different. Instead of coming from the English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee (Arbcom), the panel of editors empowered to make such decisions, the ban was handed down directly by Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), the NGO that owns the site.
Little more than 12 hours after the ban’s announcement,…
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