I owe a very heartfelt apology to Jimbo. I used to think that he was the bullshit artist extraordinaire, a man whose moral rectitude had deteriorated since the days of Bomis Babes, and who considered masturbation to be the only legitimate form of fidelity. Now that may all be true, but when it comes to unintegrity Sue Gardner's got him beat. In fact, I had to invent a new word for it—unintegrity. Or perhaps it should be wikitegrity: the 'tegrity' that anyone can edit.
In an email to
I will not comment on the tech budget overestimate of $1.673 million. I suppose the hardware and stuff is hunky dory under Erik's eagle eye. Nor can I critique the legal department's overspending, because frankly, it seems reasonable given that Brad, who was largely responsible for overseeing trademarks, preferred changing his daughter's dirty diapers than coming into work (for which he was finally fired). Underspending on the programs ("mission") budget is also understandable, given that the mission now seems to be "hoard as much money as possible, and screw the little African kids who are dying of AIDS anyways." Let's face it: the classic fundraising statement "If you (and 99 other people) give $100, we can send a Pokemon sticker book to
More intriguing to me was the fact that her office's responsibility, Finance and Administration, overspent by $60 thousand … because of consulting and auditing costs. So, Suzy, how much of that went to pay off your buddy Mona from the CBC, the one you tried to strong-arm on to the Board? I'm sure you Board members remember that vote: Michael Snow, Domas, Mona. Thankfully, you had the temerity to resist. And at least Sue's friend got paid off well.
It is also quite interesting that this amount is precisely the sum that the Board saved by avoiding one face-to-face meeting. That's right, $60,000. Of course, that makes me wonder where they were planning this meeting that cost $60,000.
So yes, Suzy's got Jimbo beat. Of course, there is no competition, which is obvious since JW didn’t even merit a mention in her email. The squanderer is dead! Long live the squanderer!
38 comments:
Is she saying that the things the Foundation cut back on are hardware/software and mission? I would think that these are the only things the Foundation should be paying for.
I realise the dollar is worth peanuts right now, but how the hell does a meeting cost $60,000? Golden thrones for each attendee? Jugs of water replaced with the finest imported champagne? WTF?
Good question, Max.
Say there were 15 people at the meeting, for whatever reason. And their tickets cost $750 each. A liberal guess, but watch the result.
Say the conference room rental was $1000/day, for a five day meeting. Their hotel rooms each cost $200/night. Meals costs $50/day/person, so with three square meals a day for all fifteen participants, that's $11,250 on food. And for the hell of it, let's throw in $1,500 into the mix.
Even with my very liberal guess amounts (particularly viz. plane tickets), that's still less than three-fourths of the amount the Board of Trustees was willing to spend on something which can as easily be accomplished over the Internet.
"One thing is, when you make a budget, you try and make it really conservative, by which I mean you posit that you're gonna need more than you think you actually will need [my emphasis]. The reason you do that is because it's safer, right, then you have a pad in theory." - Sue Gardner, NTWW Number 3
Of course, don't say I didn't warn you: "These supposed budgets look completely unrealistic to me. I assumed
that was intentional. Ask for way more than you need, and then settle for half that. It's a common strategy."
I wonder if Gerard still wants to stick with his response that "Suggesting that the budget is misleading and fraudulent can get you and the WMF in serious problems."
And no, I'm not the one who called it "fraudulent". That was Gerard's term. Sue's term of "conservative" "pad[ding]" is much nicer, though that's not my term either. My POV is closer to Gerard's than Sue's, but I'd prefer to remain as NPOV as possible: "you posit that you're gonna need more than you think you actually will need" There's a quote which speaks for itself.
By the way, my quote came before Sue's. The similarity is most likely purely coincidental. I sure hope so, anyway.
It's interesting. Sue seems to be learning from Jimbo how to lie, cheat and steal, and from Erik how to talk crap endlessly and hope people will be impressed by it. The thing is, we already have two egomaniacal nutjobs. What does Sue bring to the table?
Danny, can you give some more details and links about Mona? I'm not familiar with this tale and it sounds really interesting. Thanks.
Yes, would you please explain more about the Mona story you mention?
Anthony
Of course you should expect to spend more than you'd anticipate. It's just an extension of Hofstadter's law, but you'll always spend more than you anticipate. If you only budget for what you expect you'll need, you'll almost always come up short.
@WilyD. BUT ... why would an internet company spend only a small fraction of the budgeted hardware needs and overspend on Sue and her friends? Why would a meeting that occurs over a weekend cost more than twice any historical meeting? (remember the budget was done before gas prices skyrocketed). And why would Sue say that there was no historic accounting when a 3-year audit was completed less than a year before and Danny advised Sue as to what and where all the scanned & numbered documents/receipts were located?
I agree with you Danny, Sue makes Jimbo look like the fiscally responsible one and that scares the crap out of me.
Are we sure the tattoo on Sue's hand isn't a black widow spider and not the reported scorpion?
@anonymous
I'm not suggesting the actual expenditures are justified (or not, I haven't really looked at it).
I'm only suggesting that budgets should be padded, because otherwise you won't have enough money. Unexpected things always crop up.
@wilyD. I agree to a point. But my questions really revolve around the idea that when fund raising didn't meet expectations, the budget appears to have been cut primarily in the area of hardware -- hardly the department that should have substantive cutbacks considering the traffic on wikipedia?
At core of my concerns are that the only things that appear to have changed with the introduction of Sue and her friends are that the payroll has grown astronomically, there appears to be far more (and more public) scandals, many long time editors have given up and left the project, and the substance of the articles (anecdotally) are getting more juvenile and/or sexually oriented.
Overall, Sue has done virtually nothing for the projects while enriching herself and her friends. She has spent significant amounts of money with little return for the investment -- her year in office has brought little of any positive substance. I suggest she be removed.
I'm curious to know if, as some of us have surmissed, whether or not the $5,000 which Carolyn Doran put on the WikiMediaFoundation credit card over a weekend, only to pay back the next Tuesday long before anybody found out about it, was for a bailbond. I cannot for the life of me think why anybody would need an emergency $5,000 on a weekend, except for that. Ideas?
I can't think of why someone would need 5K RIGHT NOW, unless they're in big to gamblers, need to flee the country, or...they're incarcerated.
Mona was engaged to help with the audit - she worked with Sue at the CBC. She was also brought in to help implement financial controls.
She visited St. Pete's once, in order to review the books with the accountant.
Wily, seriously applying a form of Hofstadter's law to a budget would mean the only acceptable budget is an infinite one. To "expect to spend more than you anticipate", but it rests on your definitions of "expect" and "anticipate". You should certainly prepare for the possibility of spending more than you estimate. But you shouldn't estimate more than you estimate.
I can't agree with intentionally padding budgets, as in "posit[ing] that you're gonna need more than you think you actually will need". Doing so is dishonest. It lacks integrity. And like the Boy Who Cried Wolf, "Even when liars tell the truth, they are never believed. The liar will lie once, twice, and then perish when he tells the truth." Next time the Foundation sends out an urgent plea for more money, the public is much less likely to believe them.
Anthony.
If you're consistantly overbudget, you're doing a disservice to your organisation, and you won't be in charge of the budget for long. The only responsible thing to do is plan to spend more money than you expect to, because you will. If Wikimedia didn't pad its budgets, its belly would already be visible above the pondwater. Pragmatism is a virtual.
Hofstadter's law cuts off when you think to yourself "Okay, I've sufficiently accounted for it", which is usually well before you have.
It's an interesting question, as an aside: "Can we quantify the increases in work done with the increasing budget?" which is the first step to criticising the spending. I haven't seen such things, though.
@WilyD. Do you honestly believe that anything of any substance has changed at the Foundation, aside from the staggering payroll budget?
I agree that when budgeting, the "fudge" factor in slightly over estimating needs for the following year is not unreasonable. BUT, Sue's contention that historic records were incomplete and that using the "wild-ass-guess" form of budgeting was necessary is disingenuous at best and outright lying at worst.
Sue is an arrogant, manipulative troll that puts much of Jimbo's past indiscretions to shame.
@anonymous above me
I think the difference is that Sue is ruthless and out to make money.
Jimbo's just an idiot out to make money.
LOL!!!!!!!!!! I stand corrected.
@anonymous
I have no idea. I cannot quantify any improvement, but I've only really paid any attention to such things for ~1 year. I only really even became a regular contributer in 2006. So I'm not the best person to ask.
Why should I believe anything? Why not just ask "What has changed with increasing budget?" Going into that with an answer in mind seems like a mistake.
I'm still bitter that this kind of thing keeps scientists off juries. *sigh*
@WilyD. OK, I will definitely cut you some slack as you haven't been around for as long as many of us that are fed up and angry. I have been around for significantly longer than you and have watched a wonderful idea with exciting developments and interesting articles morph into something that is less about education and more about "unusual" sexuality, pop culture, biographies of living people and far-left ideology; and not even all that accurate in those areas ... except maybe the "unusual" sexuality for which I thank Jimbo & Erik.
So, when I ask "what has changed" I am looking for some hint that the projects will return to their mission and not this entity that is more focused on power, control and notoriety. I hope that one day the Foundation will actually be run by people who both care about the projects AND are willing to work for the "good of the projects".
ps. And are capable of doing what needs to be done in terms of professional ability (ie accountants, lawyers, administrative, IT, etc.) and desire to see the projects succeed without the need for public adulation.
A good way to project the budget would be to gain an estimate based on reality, and then to the total budget, add a 10-20% buffer, in case shit happens. (It inevitably does).
I would be curious to know how involved Brion, Domas, Tim, et al were involved in the technology aspect of the budget.
Knowing this would tell us if the tech budget is a planned (and acceptable) cut, or is it Sue/Erik playing with things they know nothing about.
Hearing the constant juxtaposition of names is pretty annoying.
Jimbo, Sue, Erik. Sue, Erik. Sue, Erik. For some reason, it's always in that exact order.
It's like reciting the holy trinity: The Jimbo, the Sue, and the Holy Moeller.
@Anonymous
Again, is that really true? This is your impression, but is there some kind of exposure selection here? Is maybe
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jenna_Jameson&oldid=618893 just not remembered, rather than some kind of exception? Of course, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Star&oldid=577249 was a better article then. I'd try and do some actual measure by my simulations are bogging my computer down right bad.
I am fairly convinced the observational biases are terrible, and that nobody really knows how (or if) the project(s) has(ve) changed. Anecdotes and fond recollections are not good starting points for understanding something. I'll try a little stats when I can.
Okay, so quick and dirty, with small number cavaets:
%BLPs don't noticeable change. It's a flat 33%
%POPCULTURE does rise, but only because RAMBOT articles dominate the early going. If I exclude them, It's a flat ~50%
%ACADEMIC does seem to noticeably decline, though I called RAMBOTs "academic" which may be stretching it. Probably still shows decline ...
I need a much better sample, though, to really rely on this at all. Call it "sanity check".
WilyD ... over what period of time? In the last year? or over the last 4 years? Also, I would suggest that we might have some differences as to what would be pop culture and what is academic, but that is likely due to an age differential?
As the entire wikipedia project had its start from an old encyclopedia, I would venture to wager that on Day 1 there was no pop culture, no BLPs and extremely limited sexual "education". Wikipedia really began to "take off" in early 2004 so I would use that as the base point; the project had been around for a while, but was still very education-oriented. Now look at your statistics ... still the same?
But back to our original question ... What has Sue "brought to the table"? What positive results has her "leadership" brought to the Foundation and the projects over the last year? I can't think of any, can you?
@anonymous
I can name no specific thing that can be credited to Gardner.
What's academic, pop culture? Age, environment, et cetera might set this, but there weren't many "ambigious" cases. Maybe two or three - Silent Film Actor? 1930s Composer? that kind of stuff, but as long as I'm consistant, the time evolution should be okay.
2004 is where things fall into place - way too few articles before that, and I think they were all written by rambot.
As for my sample of articles, it's too small to really judge by. I might try and push it to a few hundred.
"The only responsible thing to do is plan to spend more money than you expect to, because you will. If Wikimedia didn't pad its budgets, its belly would already be visible above the pondwater."
Wily, you seem to be neglecting the possibility that one can be prepared to go over budget without actually modifying the budget itself.
It's a simple matter of saying "OK, here's what we think we'll spend, and we'll keep an extra million dollars in the bank just in case we go over".
Telling lies, to yourself or to the public, is by no means necessary to survival.
Wilyd. thank you for admitting that you have no evidence of Sue actually DOING anything for the Foundation in the last year. In fact, she has done nothing, except pad the budget and hire an extremely overpaid staff and move to one of the most expensive cities in the country.
Has anyone stopped to consider that in 2006, a THREE YEAR AUDIT was completed in about 4 months. With the same books & records (read Danny's previous blogs & posted emails) Sue and her friend Mona spent more than six months (and $60k) to complete A SINGLE YEAR.
How many ways can we spell incompetent? And yet nobody has ever questioned this or the $4.6 million budget that Sue proposed. Face it everybody ... Sue is another in a long line of directors that is just not appropriate for the position as ED of the Foundation. But at least the historic ED-mistakes didn't cost the foundation hundreds of thousands of dollars.
@anthony: These sound like essentially identical activities, perhaps seperated only conceptually. I fail to see any other difference.
@anonmoose: I never meant to say I had specific reason to believe Gardner has accomplished anything. I only said "let's ask the question, see if anyone has relevent observations".
The girlfriend bitches me out for always being reluctant to come to conclusions without irresistable data ... occupational hazard. Don't take it personal-like.
Gardner sends out reports to foundatio-l or some spamming-list I'm subscribed to. Maybe I should read it more close-like, at least see what she says she's doing.
@WilyD. I guess you and I look at things slightly different, but in many instances may come to a similar conclusion.
I keep looking and waiting to actually see any evidence of anything Sue has accomplished in the last year and I come up with a big blank. Her "reports" would suggest that she is always doing something, but I still have seen nothing that would show that she has actually accomplished anything. Her reports are a self-congratulatory statement of how wonderful she is and how she is the foundation's "savior". So, when you do read these narratives, please take it with a grain of salt. Better yet, make it the whole salt shaker.
This is a very interesting discussion. I want to suggest that Sue has actually done things, the problem being what she has succeeded in doing.
In the past, a legitimate criticism of Wikipedia was that the focus was on the quantity of the articles, rather than their quality. While this still seems to be the case (see, for instance, the ongoing discussion on Foundation-l), Sue has introduced a new parameter. With recent events and the two new hires, the focus of the Foundation seems to be "How much money can we get." The problem is that academic ventures (and I am speaking broadly so as to include Wikipedia) are not measured by size or wealth, but by quality. In that respect, Sue has succeeded in recasting the focus of the Foundation and transforming it into a business.
We need a new post, Danny. Maybe one about the Board election?
@Gregory Kohs: Do you expect him to comment on how you didn't win any points in that election?
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