Updated January4 at 3:04 p.m.: This story has been changed to correct the number of members of the Wikimedia Foundation's board.
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales is "absolutely" not out of a job at the Wikimedia Foundation, according to the foundation's director of communications.
On Saturday, Valleywag editor Owen Thomas reported that Wales was "out of a job," writing, "Imagine an online encylopedia anyone can edit -- and no one can run. Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia's...cofounder, is no longer a board member of the site's nonprofit foundation. Who's in charge here?"
It was reported Saturday that Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales is no longer on the board of the Wikimedia Foundation. But the director of the board said the report was not true.
(Credit: Wikimedia Foundation)The Valleywag report didn't cite any sources saying that Wales was no longer on the foundation's board, though it did point out that Wales' seat on the board--along with those of two others--had expired on December 31, 2008.
But in an e-mail to CNET News, Sue Gardner, the director of the foundation, wrote, "(t)here's nothing to it. Jimmy is a much-valued board member of the Wikimedia Foundation, and I expect he will hold that role permanently: I know of no reason for anyone to speculate otherwise."
In addition, Jay Walsh, the foundation's director of communications, said that Wales is "absolutely" still a member of the board and that he, along with the two other members, had been "unanimously" confirmed for another term on the board.
Wales' official position is Community Founder Trustee. According to Walsh, the Wikimedia Foundation's board decided that rather than make Wales' appointment infinite, or indefinite, it would allow his seat to come up for re-appointment at the end of each term, giving Wales a way to bow out if he needed to do so for any reason.
"I don't foresee any (time) in the near future where he wouldn't continue in that position he holds," Walsh said.
Indeed, in an e-mail sent on December 28, 2008, to the Wikimedia Foundation's e-mail list, board chair Michael Snow wrote, among other things, "We...had a unanimous vote to re-appoint Jimmy Wales to his position as Community Founder Trustee."
Wales did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did Valleywag's Thomas.
Last April, the foundation re-organized its board, formalizing Wales' position as the Community Founder Trustee, and setting forth its current structure, in which the board is intended to be comprised of 10 members, including Wales, three community-elected seats, four "specific expertise" seats, and two chapter seats.
As of right now, the board has just seven members and is still looking for three more, said Walsh.
If you want to watch a bunch of A-list bloggers and business folks at big-name news sites go a little ape, I recommend observing them when their Google PageRank takes a hit.
According to blogger Andy Beard, a number of high-profile blogs and news sites have had just that happen to them in recent days.
Some examples, according to Beard, include Engadget, which saw its PageRank drop from 7 to 5; Joystiq, from 6 to 4; and SFGate, Forbes.com and WashingtonPost.com, all of which had their PageRank drop from 7 to 5.
What's behind this?
Well, speculation in the blogosphere today has it that Google has decided to punish popular sites that accept paid links to lesser sites. As Valleywag puts it, "Google's bean counter, naturally, would prefer that you pay Google for sponsored links instead."
I'm working on getting comment from Google, but so far no luck. I'll update this post if I do get some comment.
Anyway, part of the buzz about this move is that some of the sites that are taking PageRank hits are the very sites (Search Engine Journal, Copyblogger, Search Engine Guide and the Blog Herald, among them) that cover search engine optimization issues, and some suspect that perhaps the search giant is punishing them for being critics.
Is that possible? Well, who knows?
But as Beard points out, not all the sites that saw PageRank losses engage in the practice of selling paid links. Instead, many of them are part of blog networks that have plenty of internal links between sites. For example, Engadget, which is part of the Weblogs Inc. network.
The guidelines that these sites may have abused? "Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to Web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the Web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links."
The real question is, what has changed? It's hard to imagine that all these sites suddenly changed their practices overnight. So for all these sites' PageRank rankings to have changed at once does indicate somebody over at Google is playing with slide rules or something.
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