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Wikimedia Foundation's Oliver Keyes stripped of administrator status

Oliver Keyes suggested fire was one solution for problematic Wikipedia editors
Oliver Keyes suggested fire was one solution for problematic Wikipedia editors
MarcusObal, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

In a shocking decision today, the English Wikipedia's highest volunteer governing body, the Arbitration Committee, has defrocked a Wikimedia Foundation paid contract staff member, Oliver Keyes, for "conduct unbecoming an administrator, and for bringing the project into disrepute". This morning, August 12th, the seventh straight unopposed vote to remove the administrator tools from Mr. Keyes was leveled by Scottish arbitrator, AGK. Recall, that Examiner reported several weeks ago that Keyes had uttered some rather crude and offensive remarks on Wikimedia Foundation discussion channels -- including a suggestion that another Wikipedia editor should be set on fire, and a recommendation that someone should stab a particular woman in the throat with a pen, then look on "as her attempts to wave for help got increasingly feeble".

Keyes' appalling remarks were brought to the attention of Wikimedia Foundation executive director Sue Gardner, but not only did she not reprimand Keyes, she said that she didn't feel the need to familiarize herself with the case, and that it was just an "informal jokey exchange". Gardner herself is on the way out at the Wikimedia Foundation, seeking to do work in other areas of the Internet. It is perhaps a coincidence that she announced her departure at approximately the same time as a disastrous roll-out of a new "VisualEditor" software change for which Keyes was serving as the "Community Liaison". What is not a coincidence is that one of her key areas of focus for Wikipedia was to expand the ratio of women editing the encyclopedia, but that this ratio hasn't budged in years -- and it's hardly a wonder, with one of her contractors making an "informal jokey exchange" about stabbing a woman in the throat with a pen.

The rather disconcerting precedent of this Arbitration Committee case is that while three of the arbitrators were prepared to fully ban Oliver Keyes from even editing Wikipedia, four arbitrators did not want to take that extraordinary step. One gave the following reason:

"I do not believe that the Arbitration Committee has a place in telling anyone's employer how to handle their employees..."

Thus, a de facto "untouchable" status has been lended to employees of the Wikimedia Foundation, no matter how atrocious their behavior may be on the various Wikimedia Foundation projects, the governance body set up by the community of volunteers is not empowered to protect that community from a Foundation staff member gone amok.