Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-11-08/News and notes

Safe, harmless, giant atomic bomb? The Dark Peria (talk) 17:57, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Citizendium
The summary by RW looks potentially controversial, as it suggests (not-so-subtly) that Sanger has been embezzling money (or at least that there have been serious financial irregularities ). I always thought that Sanger was a good but misguided person, I never thought something like this would happen; Sanger is a philosoper and Jimbo is/was a businessman -- this seems like role-reversal to me (Jimbo is now--to an extent--"in charge of" the largest encyclopedia ever and Sanger is accused of embezzling ). -- N Y  Kevin  @797, i.e. 18:07, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't see any accusations of embezzlement. Powers T 19:20, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * From RationalWiki: "The obvious question is whether Sanger himself pocketed $30,000 for his work on Citizendium and then jumped ship." Close enough.  -- N  Y  Kevin  @247, i.e. 04:55, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * No, not close enough at all to introduce the word "embezzling" here, which I find quite irresponsible of you. If you read it in context with the previous sentence ("only two individuals received any compensation for their work on the project and they were Larry Sanger and an initial technical director"), "pocketed" clearly refers to the payment that has been openly stated at CZ:Personnel for a long time, i.e. money that can be presumed to have been intended by the donor for that purpose. The accusation by Rationalwiki would be that Sanger was only interested in working for CZ as long as he got a salary for it, and "jumped ship" (probably a reference to the Financial Times blog post last year) when it stopped, or maybe also that the payment was too high. I am not sure these are fair charges, but in any case they are not asserting that illegal activities took place. Regards, HaeB (talk) 05:39, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I wasn't sure whether "embezzling" applied, so I qualified it with "serious financial irregularities," which arguable have happened if RW is to be believed. -- N  Y  Kevin  @682, i.e. 15:22, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I apolgoize, NYKevin; I overlooked that by "RW" you mean "RationalWiki". Even so, I agree with HaeB that the quoted text is not an accusation of embezzlement.  Powers T 12:24, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Also: "This left $20,000-$30,000 completely unaccounted for." Finally, I'd like to clarify that I'm not sure whether RW is perfectly accurate on this, nor am I sure who can be blamed for it if the numbers are accurate (I have not checked the numbers).  I don't take any position on whether Sanger did or did not do anything unethical.  -- N  Y  Kevin  @250, i.e. 05:00, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Too early to use the term "embezzle" without further proof, but what I find interesting is the reaction of citizendium to the crisis, or should I say lack of it. It appears in their discussions there has been no effort to investigate where the "missing" money went. We know from the donors page that at least US$75,000 was donated, maybe more not listed, and that $30,000 was blown on an unreliable server set-up. What happened to the remaining missing money has not been fully accounted for and probably wont be - citizendium didn't keep records nor financial statements, and they never appointed a treasurer or donors officer. What else that is intriguing is that there is no move to set-up a proper accounts system, so the same problem with donors moneys may likely happen again. Czobserver (talk) 10:13, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

It appears that a donation drive among CZ members is in preparation - here is a call for an US lawyer who would be willing to give pro bono advice on how to do so. Regards, HaeB (talk) 15:34, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Save Citizendium, help at WikiProject Citizendium Porting. Rich Farmbrough, 18:34, 10 November 2010 (UTC).


 * A partial explanation of where the money went is here. --Banana (talk) 17:35, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Citation needed
User:Shimgray/Citation needed is a nice overview of references to the tag in popular culture. Regards, HaeB (talk) 17:29, 13 November 2010 (UTC)