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Shake-up at Wikimedia
Two leaders at the nonprofit charitable organization Wikimedia have resigned from the group's foundation separately, both in e-mails sent to the organization's mailing list on Thursday. Wikimedia oversees a number of wiki-style Web projects that involve community participation, such as the user-edited online encyclopedia Wikipedia.
"I am unwilling to discuss the reasons for my resignation from the WMF (Wikimedia Foundation) office team. I plan on remaining an active editor on various projects, as I have always been, even before I began working for WMF," wrote Danny Wool. "I would also like to announce that I plan on running for the Board of Trustees in the June elections...At that time, I will make known my position on how the Wikimedia Foundation should operate, and what mistakes I perceive are being made at present."
Brad Patrick wrote: "I am stepping down as General Counsel to the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., effective March 31, 2007. I tendered my resignation to the Board some weeks ago, which was accepted. In the context of Danny Wool's announcement earlier today that he has resigned, some will speculate the two are related. They are not. The timing is just unfortunate."
Jimmy Wales, founder of the Wikimedia Foundations' best-known project, Wikipedia, told Wired News, which first reported the news, that he was confused by Patrick's complaints about the board being inexperienced.
"The board recognizes that it needs outside expertise to help guide it and the foundation has, in fact, recently put together an advisory board of people from business, academia and the nonprofit realm to help them," the article says. "We are aware as a board that these are very important questions and so we need very good advice on how to expand the board and grow the board long term," Wales said. "We tried to bring in some people who would have that kind of experience."
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Elinor Mills covers Internet security and privacy. She joined CNET News in 2005 after working as a foreign correspondent for Reuters in Portugal and writing for The Industry Standard, the IDG News Service, and the Associated Press.
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