I guess this resolves the question of whether he'll ever voluntarily retire from the god-king job. Does this mean the foundation being in charge is just an imaginary thing?

Don't like teh Jimness' stance on something?
Then wait 5 minutes.
His only constant is his inconstancy.

I thought Wikipedia is NOT a democracy?

"A ratification vote of 50%+1 of the community"? That's an impossible condition because there's no defined sense of who is in the community or even what that term means. Every balloting in Wikipedia that has been held has been held under different terms, with no predictability whatsoever.

It's high irony for him to say that Wikipedia isn't suffering from "founder's syndrome" when it's fairly evident that Wikipedia is, in fact, a classic case of founder's syndrome. And it's fairly clear that the Foundation is not in charge of Wikipedia, nor does it want to be.

When Jimbo does leave (or die), the bloody infighting that will result is going to be quite amusing to watch.

Did everyone miss the idea that 50%+1 would need neutals to count as non-supports? Because he said vote and they did vote.

In parliamentary procedure a "50%+1 vote of the membership" requires a majority of the membership (not merely a majority of those voting) to adopt the measure in question. The "membership" of the Association of Editors of the English Wikipedia is not well-defined. However, if we use the number of editors qualified to vote in the last ArbCom election it's somewhere between 10,000 and 100,000, which would mean somewhere between 5,000 and 50,000 votes in favor of ratification would be required. Since no ballot ever on the English Wikipedia has gathered more than a thousand or so votes, this bar is extremely unlikely to be reached.

Basically, Jimbo, in his clueless idiocy, has set a ratification bar that cannot possibly be reached.

"Neutral" votes have no meaning in parliamentary law other than to show presence for the purpose of determining quorum. The default decisional rule for a ballot is a majority of those present and expressing an opinion, and a "neutral" vote does not express an opinion. Since Wikipedia's elections have no concept of quorum, they're absolutely meaningless and should just be ignored. Robert's Rules explicitly comments that voting systems that treat abstensions as negative votes are generally undesirable and should be avoided (RONR 10th ed, p. 390).

I don't understand this at all. Surely whatever duties Jimbo has should be transferred to the WMF board. We've already seen instances where decisions made on English-language WP have been rejected by other projects (Commons rejecting the banning of Tyciol, for example, but I'm sure there are many other better examples). ArbCom doesn't have any standing except on English WP, right?

The second thing I don't understand is what Jimbo actually does outside of his role as a potent leader to inspire the masses. Why does he still have any duties at this point? He appoints ArbCom based on the results of an election. What else?

Cough.

I'm not completely incapable of getting things fixed when needed.


And was it worth giving the en-ArbCom an excuse to keep me banned just so that I could ensure that Tyciol was kept off Commons? Yes, yes it was.

I've been wondering about that myself... I thought that "technically speaking" he is simply appointed by the WMF board to oversee Arbcom, so why he would have that in his will doesn't make sense.

He also mentions:



So apparently he must have some other powers too.

I didn't realize that it was you that got Tyciol banned.

The direction from the grave of the disposition an entity which he does not have the power to determine even in life is the act of a vain and lost man. WMF's General Counsel should politely point his out to him.

I'm guessing he means "50% of whoever happens to vote", with who's actually allowed to vote presumably determined in his will or by some as yet unidentified cabal of worshippers.

The lulz should be copious, yes. If it's not due to his abandoning of the mortal coil, my guess is that he will do the "retire/unretire/retire/unretire" thing so popular on WP and become the gift that keeps on giving.

The problem with that is that the Board doesn't want them, and will likely actively refuse to accept them.

Jimbo's authority with respect to the English Wikipedia is poorly-defined; Jimbo's take on it is that his powers are plenary and limited only by his own lack of will to use them. Even where he has explicitly declared a intent not to exercise some power or other, you will find that he considers those abdications revocable.

Not so much a "vain and lost man" as rather a muddle-headed one.

Jimbo's authority over the English Wikipedia, in his opinion, is not mediated by or subject to the jurisdiction of the Board, since it predates the existence of the Wikimedia Foundation. The Board does not consider Jimmy to be exercising delegated authority when he acts as governor of the English Wikipedia.

Still WMF needs to short this out. A best as I can sort out Mr. Wales asserts that he has some "special rights" retained even as against WMF based on his control of buttons in the RPG of Wikipedia. This is an unsupportable and intolerable position for the corporation which at the end of the day needs to assert its authority over whatever occurs on its own servers. Imagine a WoW player that gained privileges that permitted him to ruin the experience for other players. Here, given the supposedly charitable purpose of the corporation, such a situation is even less tolerable.

Jimbo has no duties, only powers.

Jimmy ultimately aspires to be the éminence grise of Wikipedia; Power without any real responsibility.

For how many of you has Jimbo promised to "look into it".

Only took getting into a nasty fight wih a Board Member's husband who was using her cloak to ban people in IRC who dare point out that Tyciol was not someone Commons should have around and getting indeffed on Commons. Eventually, the backlash and the embarrassment of his actions led to him reversing it all and ensuring Tyciol stayed blocked. But the indef was used to say I wouldn't be able to behave myself on Wikipedia.

I still think it was the morally proper choice though not the most politically expedient.

The only thing resembling a board statement on it that I'm aware of is this one, which at least implies that he has the nod (Jimbo had said elsewhere in that discussion that he "had the WMF's backing", and Sue's post was presumably in response to that).

In any other situation, giving up ownership of one's shares means giving up control (like giving a kid up for adoption means losing your authority over the child).

That husband is manipulative troublemaker himself. He's one of the certified koolaid drinkers who's knee-jerk reaction to porn is to grant it extra protection under the banner of anti-censorship, regardless of its academic value. And he also likes to make fun of Christians and has vandalized Christian userboxes in the past.

Surely Commons rejecting the banning of Ottava is a better example.

And they hate me more over there!!!

I thought this thread was about the other narcissistic asshole.

The other one doesn't want to get an account here, for some reason.

Because the other co-founders already have accounts here, for one.

Eh? Wikipedia has always, right from its inception, been saturated with bloody infighting.

Anyone remember Larry Sanger Vs. Cunctator, back in 2001?
Or Ed Poor endlessly arguing with others about the creationism article, starting in October 2001.