The Wikimedia Foundation has dissolved the Community Tech team and laid off 5 engineers + 1 manager while unionization efforts are ongoing.
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The Wikimedia Foundation has dissolved the Community Tech team and laid off 5 engineers + 1 manager while unionization efforts are ongoing.
Contributors are raising concerns about loss of community-focused engineering, possible union busting and growing disconnect between WMF leadership and volunteers
A solidarity initiative is now underway across Wikimedia projects.
Read more & consider supporting:
@neriman you should contact the wikipedia projects. tell them how this decision will hurt them too.
make as much noise as possible. fuck shit up. let it be know theyre union busting assholes. I hope everyone hears you loud and clear! good luck for the fight - its not over -
@neriman you should contact the wikipedia projects. tell them how this decision will hurt them too.
make as much noise as possible. fuck shit up. let it be know theyre union busting assholes. I hope everyone hears you loud and clear! good luck for the fight - its not over@kouett I sent this message to multiple mailing lists
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The Wikimedia Foundation has dissolved the Community Tech team and laid off 5 engineers + 1 manager while unionization efforts are ongoing.
Contributors are raising concerns about loss of community-focused engineering, possible union busting and growing disconnect between WMF leadership and volunteers
A solidarity initiative is now underway across Wikimedia projects.
Read more & consider supporting:
@neriman This Christmas past might be the last Christmas I give a donation to the Wikipedia website. I have seen vague rumors of shenangans about content and now this. Also they only used to ask for donations once a year, and when you gave they stopped asking for donations for that year. I was so impressed by that. It made me feel that here was a true community not in an endless chase of the dollar. I forget when that stopped and now seems like a continous begging alarm about how bad things are.
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The Wikimedia Foundation has dissolved the Community Tech team and laid off 5 engineers + 1 manager while unionization efforts are ongoing.
Contributors are raising concerns about loss of community-focused engineering, possible union busting and growing disconnect between WMF leadership and volunteers
A solidarity initiative is now underway across Wikimedia projects.
Read more & consider supporting:
@neriman wow, now I've seen it all
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@neriman possible #entshification of #wikipedia coming next? #unionbusting at community driven projects is a scandal
@greenbone That's exactly what many editors are worried about. Wikipedia's public trust comes from being community-driven and not behaving like a typical tech corporation.
By the way, WMF has stated that the layoffs were not related to unionization efforts and says it will respect the legal unionization process.
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@neriman the union busting behavior is atrocious, and undermines the great work that actual workers at wikimedia do. The management of the org needs to stop being shitheads and respect their people, because they’re the ones who actually *do* what wikimedia does
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@neriman you should contact the wikipedia projects. tell them how this decision will hurt them too.
make as much noise as possible. fuck shit up. let it be know theyre union busting assholes. I hope everyone hears you loud and clear! good luck for the fight - its not over@kouett @neriman The English Wikipedia community is already discussing an editorial strike (conditional upon it being requested by Wiki Workers United). At the moment we have 113 signatories, who collectively have made over 3,000,000 edits and written about 700 of our best articles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(WMF)#Petition:_Editors_willing_to_join_in_collective_labor_action
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@kouett @neriman The English Wikipedia community is already discussing an editorial strike (conditional upon it being requested by Wiki Workers United). At the moment we have 113 signatories, who collectively have made over 3,000,000 edits and written about 700 of our best articles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(WMF)#Petition:_Editors_willing_to_join_in_collective_labor_action
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@kouett merci ! great display name btw
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The Wikimedia Foundation has dissolved the Community Tech team and laid off 5 engineers + 1 manager while unionization efforts are ongoing.
Contributors are raising concerns about loss of community-focused engineering, possible union busting and growing disconnect between WMF leadership and volunteers
A solidarity initiative is now underway across Wikimedia projects.
Read more & consider supporting:
@neriman incredible /s
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The Wikimedia Foundation has dissolved the Community Tech team and laid off 5 engineers + 1 manager while unionization efforts are ongoing.
Contributors are raising concerns about loss of community-focused engineering, possible union busting and growing disconnect between WMF leadership and volunteers
A solidarity initiative is now underway across Wikimedia projects.
Read more & consider supporting:
@neriman This strike is so strange - it has nothing to do with the fact that contributions are being stolen and sold off to LLM companies, and is focused on layoff.
The actual corpus is being stolen, and people are quibbling over some jobs that people are getting paid for - while the volunteer community is being robbed wholesale.
The staff may be losing their job, but you are working for free and all you want is for some other people to get paid as you get robbed.
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The Wikimedia Foundation has dissolved the Community Tech team and laid off 5 engineers + 1 manager while unionization efforts are ongoing.
Contributors are raising concerns about loss of community-focused engineering, possible union busting and growing disconnect between WMF leadership and volunteers
A solidarity initiative is now underway across Wikimedia projects.
Read more & consider supporting:
@neriman @ShaulaEvans wow, that "sign the petition is too geeky for me". I guess it's intended for wikipedidia contributors.
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The Wikimedia Foundation has dissolved the Community Tech team and laid off 5 engineers + 1 manager while unionization efforts are ongoing.
Contributors are raising concerns about loss of community-focused engineering, possible union busting and growing disconnect between WMF leadership and volunteers
A solidarity initiative is now underway across Wikimedia projects.
Read more & consider supporting:
@neriman It was always a bad foundation. They beg for money like they are going to die while giving huge bonuses to executives. I stopped donating after discovering that the campaigns are severely misleading
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@neriman @ShaulaEvans wow, that "sign the petition is too geeky for me". I guess it's intended for wikipedidia contributors.
@deborahh @ShaulaEvans you can sign if you have Wikipedia account, you can also help by spreading the word:
Take Action
How to take action for Wiki Workers United as part of the Wikimedia Community
Wiki Workers United (wikiworkersunited.org)
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The Wikimedia Foundation has dissolved the Community Tech team and laid off 5 engineers + 1 manager while unionization efforts are ongoing.
Contributors are raising concerns about loss of community-focused engineering, possible union busting and growing disconnect between WMF leadership and volunteers
A solidarity initiative is now underway across Wikimedia projects.
Read more & consider supporting:
@neriman I've sent an email to stop my recurring donations to WMF, and stated the reason as their union-busting practices.
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@neriman This strike is so strange - it has nothing to do with the fact that contributions are being stolen and sold off to LLM companies, and is focused on layoff.
The actual corpus is being stolen, and people are quibbling over some jobs that people are getting paid for - while the volunteer community is being robbed wholesale.
The staff may be losing their job, but you are working for free and all you want is for some other people to get paid as you get robbed.
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@greenbone That's exactly what many editors are worried about. Wikipedia's public trust comes from being community-driven and not behaving like a typical tech corporation.
By the way, WMF has stated that the layoffs were not related to unionization efforts and says it will respect the legal unionization process.
@neriman @greenbone They always say that.
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The Wikimedia Foundation has dissolved the Community Tech team and laid off 5 engineers + 1 manager while unionization efforts are ongoing.
Contributors are raising concerns about loss of community-focused engineering, possible union busting and growing disconnect between WMF leadership and volunteers
A solidarity initiative is now underway across Wikimedia projects.
Read more & consider supporting:
@neriman NB: in the jurisdiction where I live, the suspicion that an employer fired staff because they wanted to unionize may lead to criminal investigations

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