

Sarah Stierch leaves Wikimedia Foundation over paid editing - dbbolton
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-January/129466.html

======
jrochkind1
It is quite clear that nobody that's paid staff for Wikimedia Foundation
should be doing paid editing.

But I'm not liking the sound of:

> She did that even though it is widely known that paid editing is frowned
> upon by many in the editing communit

Yeah, it's "frowned upon" for _anyone_ to do paid editing, clearly. But
"frowned upon" is not usually a good reason to fire someone.

If it's not already clearly against clearly stated policies for WMF employees
to do paid editing, WMF is hopefully making it so pretty quickly. Next time
(which is definitely a 'when' rather than an 'if', I'm afriad), it should say
"They did that even though paid editing is a clear violation of WMF conflict
of interest policies," not "it is frowned upon." Time to get real.

~~~
look_lookatme
What I don't understand is why they have to be quasi-transparent about it.
They should have just released her sans-reason and made an announcement sans-
details or went fully transparent and named all the parties above. This
middling disclosure in the email is confusingly non-specific.

~~~
HarryHirsch
They had to release Sarah and be public about it. What happened here goes
straight against journalistic standards and the mission of Wikipedia, and the
story would have broken sooner or later anyway. It would have been bad for
donations.

There's two things I just don't understand. First, how can anyone be so stupid
and as a high-ranking member of Wikipedia accept money to pass of
advertisement as copy? Second, what's with the culture of the Wikimedia
Foundation? How come that they can hire someone with questionable ethical
standards? They have continuous problems with the staff they hire, but then,
from the outside, the place doesn't look like something that someone with a
choice would like to be employed at.

------
aroch
Jeez, the white-knighting on her user:talk page is atrocious...

I say good riddance. We don't need paid shills in the WMF and we certainly
don't need them writing and reviewing articles. There are enough issues, as
is, with idiotic editors/reviewers and "policy" that those users have pushed
as de jure.

~~~
pilsetnieks
I don't have a horse in the race but would you still call it white-knighting
if the editor was male?

~~~
tptacek
No. It's a terrible term that needs to die.

~~~
redthrowaway
What would you replace it with? It describes a particular, unique phenomenon
where creepy guys on the Internet rush to the "chivalrous" defence of a damsel
in distress. It's widely misused, but there's definitely something there that
needs some term to describe it, and in lieu of anything else "white knighting"
suffices.

~~~
tptacek
People defend other people on the Internet for all sorts of dumb reasons. Only
women get a special term for when guys stick up for them.

~~~
redthrowaway
It's about the men, not the women. The term refers to a certain kind of guy
with certain views of women who acts in a particularly bizarre fashion towards
them. It doesn't refer to the generic act of standing up for someone, or even
the generic act of standing up for a woman. It refers to men who defend and
act nice towards women in the vague belief it will get them laid, if
indirectly, through being the type of man they believe women will have sex
with. They're the type of man who usually tries being too nice for a couple of
years, gets frustrated, then gets into the PUA community.

~~~
tptacek
It is a point that doesn't need to be made, and that diminishes all of us
almost every time it is. Let it go.

~~~
redthrowaway
I'm curious why you feel that way, but I don't want to pollute the thread with
an OT discussion. Shoot me an email if you're interested.

~~~
hamburglar
I think a concise way to put it is that automatically assuming a man's only
reason to defend a woman is to infantilize her infantilizes her. [edit: i know
you didn't use the word "infantilize", but that seems to be the gist of the
term "white knighting" to me -- the accusation that someone posing as the big
strong man is rescuing the weak person]

If most people in a particular population are men and a random set of people
come to a woman's defense, she's mostly being defended by men. Don't read too
much into it.

edit: I can't reply to you, redthrowaway, so I'll just say that I wonder what
the evidence is that these guys defending Ms. Stierch deserve the term "white
knight" if it's not a knee-jerk reaction to any man defending a woman. I
haven't seen any evidence of "expectation of a sleazy reward" so I question
the application of the term. edit2: we probably agree on this particular
point. I see that you take exception to the overall rejection of the term, on
the grounds that it's _possible_ to apply it correctly. I tend to agree with
tptacek that it tends to be overused and incorrectly used, and really wouldn't
be unhappy if it just disappeared along with the term "butthurt." :)

~~~
redthrowaway
For the specific type of man the phrase "white knight" applies to, the
motivation isn't infantilization but rather objectification. The men engaging
in that behaviour don't do so because they think the woman is in need of
protection, but rather because they think being protectors in that sense is
what will make women have sex with them.

Again, it's not a criticism of, or term describing, men who defend women. It's
a criticism of a particular kind of man who defends women in a particular way
with an expectation of a sleazy reward.

That's not to say the term isn't abused; it is. I'm not arguing with tptacek's
assertion that use of the term tends to lower quality of discourse, but rather
with the implied assertion that the term itself is invalid or in some way
offensive. As I said in my original comment, it fairly specifically describes
a particular phenomenon, and if it didn't exist some other term would be
invented to take its place.

~~~
tommorris
I've been accused of being a white knight and been told that certain opinions
I hold are held only because they will enable me to sleep with feminist women.

Strangely enough, the sort of person who says this will also happily engage in
gutter-level homophobic abuse when they find out that I really have no
interest in sleeping with women, feminist or otherwise.

God forbid that I could have opinions formed from reasoned evaluation of
evidence.

------
pervycreeper
When her entire raison d'etre at Wikimedia was to inject POV into Wikipedia
(subtly/for a greater good/justifiably or not), it can hardly come as a
surprise that something like this would happen eventually.

~~~
makomk
Yeah, perhaps even more than the announcement would suggest. I know that at
one point Wikimedia's policy on including women called sex-positive feminism
fake feminism and said fighting it was an important part of attracting more
female editors. Wonder if that was her doing?

------
danso
Apparently as a Wikimedia foundation member, you have a lower bar when it
comes to getting your own page?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Stierch](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Stierch)

From the Affiliations section:

Ada Initiative – Advisor

American Alliance of Museums – Member

Archives of American Art – Wikipedian in Residence

Museum Computer Network – Member

Open Knowledge Foundation – OpenGLAM Coordinator

Smithsonian Institution Archives – Wikipedian in Residence

Wikimedia Foundation – Community Fellow

World Digital Library at the Library of Congress –

Wikipedian in Residence

Her life and advocacy sound fulfilling and good hearted, but nothing seems to
meet the (admittedly inconsistent) standard of inclusion of living persons in
WP.

~~~
ptest1
This stuck out to me as well. Her Wikipedia page reads like a vanity article.

~~~
jebblue
It didn't seem any more such a thing than a LinkedIn page or a resume?

~~~
chc
A LinkedIn page or resume posted to Wikipedia _would_ be a vanity page.

------
danso
FYI, this blog post seems to have sparked the issue:
[http://twkozlowski.net/paid-editing-thrives-in-the-heart-
of-...](http://twkozlowski.net/paid-editing-thrives-in-the-heart-of-
wikipedia/)

Apparently Stierch was exposed because she was advertising the pay-for-article
service on her oDesk profile.

[http://i.imgur.com/iYBNjhH.png](http://i.imgur.com/iYBNjhH.png)

Even casual Wikipedia fans are aware of how good the community is at sniffing
out subterfuge...in what bizarre reality can a foundation member exist in as
to not think this would be exposed, nevermind being seen as unethical?

------
mosselman
"...women and _other_ minorities..."

Wait what?

------
dabernathy89
I actually don't find paid Wikipedia editing inherently troublesome. The
process of discussing and editing a Wikipedia page is entirely open. So why
should a company not be able to contribute to their page if the community
approves of the changes - especially if that company is open about their
involvement? Perhaps higher standards of review should be applied, but I see
no reason to consider it inherently suspect. And we should all be realistic -
you would be hard pressed to find a company, organization, or individual who
doesn't try to influence their Wikipedia page if they have the resources to.

~~~
jebus989
Neither does the Wikipedia community on the whole [0]; the problem is when
it's undisclosed. If the editor makes clear their conflict-of-interest, the
edits should receive extra scrutiny for neutrality and due weight and the end
result should be the same: a "warts and all", unbiased article about a notable
topic.

[0] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:PAY#Paid_editing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:PAY#Paid_editing)

~~~
dabernathy89
Thank you for posting that. I was under the impression that Wikipedia took a
firm stance against all paid editing.

~~~
emmelaich
They also make a distinction (important!) between paid editing and paid
advocacy. Read further in the thread.

------
emmelaich
Later in the thread someone points out that there is a important distinction
between paid editing and paid advocacy.

    
    
        http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-January/129470.html
    

I don't know how it bears on this event precisely but it seems that SS was
doing the former.

------
6cxs2hd6
They publicized this just after the conclusion of the year-end fund-raising
push.

The timing could be coincidental. Or not.

------
seansouthern
I thought spending money to get your message across is free speech? Isn't the
Wikimedia Foundation an American company?

~~~
Jtsummers
Free speech is only protected from the government. To a certain extent
companies and individuals are barred from some types of actions that would
prevent your voice from being heard (in the literal or figurative sense). But
no company is required to permit _all_ speech via their forums or by any
individual person. HN is hosted in the US, but actively attempts to block spam
content. Is that hurting the "free speech" of the spammers? Sure, if you're
into that sort of thing. But HN has no obligation to give them the
opportunity.

~~~
cmelbye
I'm continually amazed at how people can't understand this. You have a right
to not have your free speech stifled by the government, but that has nothing
to do with what a private corporation decides to let you do with their
product.

