I witnessed the following unethical or otherwise questionable conduct by WMF’s management during the course of my work as a data scientist in the Advancement department of WMF.
The purpose of this virtual meeting was to discuss the development of the EIR tool. The attendants were a senior leader in the Advancement department (I’ll call this person AL2), my manager and me.
In this meeting, I have witnessed the following.
AL2 said that we should not build publicly open tools (like a public version of the EIR tool) that show the impact of WMF’s grant funding. She said that this is because Wikimedia movement members will scrutinize the information made available through such tools and may have unfavorable questions about it or criticisms towards WMF because of it. These were very direct and specific statements by AL2, and I am describing them as I witnessed them, as close as I can to what I heard.
I was surprised by AL2 saying that, so I asked AL2 several followup questions to make sure that I did not misunderstand her. AL2 repeated what she said and gave no other reason. I asked if it was because of PII (personally identifiable information) or financial data privacy concerns, and explained how these issues could be mitigated if needed. I also explained that PII or financial data privacy concerns would be valid reasons to avoid publishing data. AL2 repeatedly said no, and repeatedly said that the reason is so that members of the Wikimedia movement community who criticize WMF do not see that information.
When AL2 was saying that we should not build publicly open tools that show the impact of WMF’s grant funding because of potential scrutiny and criticism of WMF by Wikimedia movement community members, she singled out and named a specific critical Wikimedia movement community member as an example.
To me, the way AL2 portrayed the critical community member came across as very negative. It created the impression that the critical community member was a bad, hostile person with negative intentions towards WMF.
My manager did not object to or question AL2 doing this to a community member. She appeared to be in agreement with how AL2 treated that person.
When I asked if we could use WMF’s LDAP login accounts to manage access to sensitive data insights in the EIR tool for internal stakeholders on the leadership team, AL2 said that no one on the leadership team would ever get an LDAP login account, because it is for developers.
AL2 repeated this point after I explained that an LDAP login account is not just for developers, that it is easy and fast to sign up for, and that there are no big obstacles to obtain it for any employee at WMF who needs access to WMF’s web tools. Getting an LDAP login account would allow a leadership team member easy and direct access to the data dashboards, stats and visualizations they may need for decision-making, with the help of tools like Superset or custom internal solutions.
AL2 continued to insist that no one on the leadership team would ever get an LDAP login account because it is for developers. No other reason was given.
AL2 said that I should have known to prioritize her needs over the needs of her subordinates. She said, “I am not pulling rank, but I’m pulling rank”, and laughed. This was in response to AL2 finding out that I was building the EIR tool version aimed at program officers (AL2’s subordinates) who serve the community, in parallel to also building a version for her.
AL2 also said that the bar charts I included in the EIR tool were bad, because she could not understand them and she did not ask for them (she was looking at the program officers’ version of the EIR tool, and they did ask for them). AL2 said that I should not make tools that show bar charts of monthly metrics for our program officers because, per AL2, while she can of course understand such charts, the program officers will just get confused by all the noise of metrics fluctuating from month to month.
This was odd to hear, because I demoed those same bar charts to the program officers 1-2 weeks before this meeting and asked them for feedback. While they asked for some changes, the program officers were able to understand the charts quickly, did not misinterpret them, and did not appear to be confused by them, as far as I could tell. Their feedback was insightful and constructive. I have nothing but the highest regard for their intelligence and professionalism, and it was an honor to have worked with them.
Had AL2 said that the program officers did not need to see those charts because they’re not helpful or necessary for the work they do, that would be fine. Instead, for some reason, AL2 chose to claim that her subordinates have lower comprehension skills than she does, while demonstrating the opposite.
My manager actively affirmed AL2’s statements and behaviors throughout the meeting, either by nodding along or reiterating AL2’s points. She did not object to any of AL2’s behaviors I described above.
My manager’s and AL2’s actions, demeanor and tone in response to me asking followup questions and pushing back on the behaviors I described above felt condescending, unfriendly and like gaslighting. They both seemed to go out of their way to give me an impression that I was inappropriately questioning behaviors that are perfectly normal at WMF, if not outright noble.
In followup to the Feb 4th meeting, I drafted up a document in Google Docs to capture the project changes requested by AL2 in that meeting. I then shared this document with my manager and AL2, so that we could collaborate on it and refine it.
During the collaboration with AL2 and my manager on that Google Doc, I witnessed the following.
When I drafted that document, I wrote down AL2’s name as the requester of the project changes. AL2 objected to that, and subsequently my manager removed all mentions of AL2’s name from that doc, with AL2 commenting that the project changes are not for her, they are for the organization, they are not her own pet project.
In the process of revising that document, AL2 told me not to use the arithmetic operator for division because it looks too much like ROI (return on investment). This happened after AL2 asked me to come up with ways to measure the outcome of spending money on grant-funded events. I said that this sounds like she wants to measure the return on investment and started writing a formula for it. AL2 said that it can’t be an ROI because it looks bad, then she and my manager talked for a while about how bad using an ROI would look. I tried to explain to them a few times that return on investment is a neutral concept that is widely used outside of finance and does not necessarily have the negative connotation that they are concerned about, especially since it would be used internally only.
Since AL2 and my manager continued to strongly object to the term “return on investment”, I tried suggesting alternative terms, like funding return rate, grants effectiveness rate, etc. AL2 said that any mention of rate still sounded too close to ROI. I tried to explain a few times that the term “rate” is neutral and widely used and is much less associated with finance or investment, so it should be safe to use. AL2 said no, we can’t use the term “rate” because it is too close to ROI.
Then I suggested we keep thinking about the exact naming, and for now, I will just write the formula for it, which was something like the number of new articles, edits or editors / grant funding amount. At that point, AL2 told me not to use the division operator (the slash symbol: / ), because it looks like it implies rate of return and is too much like ROI, which would look bad. I tried to explain to AL2 that we need to use the division operator in order to measure the impact of grant funding. AL2 told me not to use the division operator for measuring it, or any of the terms related to rate or return on investment.
I then tried to frame the measurement as a yes/no hypothesis, mostly because I was running out of ideas of how else I could describe the measurement of grant funding impact without using the division operator or rates. AL2 commented that it is not nuanced enough (that is true, the yes/no hypothesis approach for this is less nuanced, which is why normally a rate is used for this, but I was not allowed to use rates here).
AL2 said that community members who ask for greater transparency into WMF’s spending are “yelling at us on Meta”, making them sound hostile and portraying them negatively. She said it within the workplace, within her role as a leader at WMF, in front of two subordinates, hence modeling a negative attitude toward the Wikimedia movement community to them, and provided it as a reason for decision-making on a work project.
In my opinion, there are many reasons why the behaviors I described above are problematic.
Here are some of them:
| reason | relevant behavior |
|---|---|
| Manipulation of the Wikimedia movement community | 1.A |
| Disparagement of a community member | 1.B |
| Suppressing community criticism | 1.A, 1.B, 1.E, 2.C |
| Suppressing dissent | 1.A, 1.B, 1.D, 1.E, 2.C |
| Undermining WMF’s relationship with the Wikimedia movement community | 1.A, 1.B, 1.E, 2.C |
| Abuse of power | all of the above |
| Undermining the workplace culture at WMF | all of the above |
| Avoiding accountability | 1.A, 1.B, 1.E, 2.C |
| Incompetence | 2.B |
| Potential financial waste | 1.C, 2.A |
There’s a lot I could say about each of those reasons. I’ll expand on just a few of them here.
A senior leadership team member said that we should not build publicly open tools that show the impact of WMF’s grant funding because Wikimedia movement members will scrutinize the information made available through such tools and may have unfavorable questions about it or criticisms towards WMF because of it.
The senior leadership team member who said this was two levels of seniority above me and had a lot of authority at WMF. She made a broad statement that appeared to apply beyond the specific project we were discussing, which suggested that this was a broader ongoing strategy. Given her senior role and the nature of the meeting, she stated it as a workplace directive and not as an offhand opinion. She essentially said that we should not publish certain information solely for the reason that it may be used to criticize WMF. Preventing someone from knowing something solely to avoid criticism is manipulative. Preventing the Wikimedia movement community from seeing data insights on the impact of WMF’s grant funding solely to avoid community criticism of WMF is manipulative. It is an act of manipulation of the Wikimedia movement community. It is unethical, and it is wrong. It is bad for the Wikimedia movement community, it is bad for the WMF employees and company culture, and it is bad for the relationship and trust between WMF and the Wikimedia movement community.
This act of manipulation goes against the values of transparency, honesty and integrity. Before the February 4th meeting, I believed that WMF as a whole, and especially its leadership team, upheld and championed these values, especially towards the Wikimedia movement community. It was genuinely startling and disappointing to see that that’s not the case, and in such a major way. I was in such disbelief that in the February 4th meeting I asked and re-asked AL2 multiple times about it in hopes that I misunderstood her. When she repeated multiple times that we must not publish certain data insights solely to avoid community criticism, I even suggested an alternative potentially valid reason of protecting PII or financially sensitive data, hoping that perhaps that’s what she meant. AL2 explicitly said that no, the reason for not publishing those data insights is to prevent community criticism of WMF. My manager appeared to agree to all of AL2’s statements, often nodding along and reinforcing them. Both of them appeared to act as if I was in the wrong for questioning this behavior. I was stunned, and eventually at a loss for words. I would have never guessed that I would ever witness something like this at WMF.
I am guessing that many Wikimedia community members would have been just as shocked by this as I was. After the Feb 4th meeting, as I was thinking about what just transpired, I recalled reading some quotes from the comments that donors made along with their donations to WMF. The donors said things like the reason they donate to WMF is that they think of Wikipedia as the last bastion of free knowledge on the internet, as the source of knowledge that they trust the most, that they donate because they believe in knowledge equity, etc. To me, such comments imply an underlying trust in WMF upholding the values of transparency, honesty and integrity, among other things. My guess is that the people who left those comments would not be ok with WMF leadership directing employees to withhold information from the public solely to avoid criticism from the Wikimedia movement community. And I’d guess that the majority of the Wikimedia movement community would not be ok with it either. That’s just my guess, of course. The Wikimedia movement community is welcome to speak for itself.
A senior leadership team member singled out a critical community member by name and disparaged them in a workplace setting in front of employees. Not only that, she did this as part of her decision-making on a work project. Not only that, the decision-making in question was about withholding information to avoid community criticism.
Disparaging Wikimedia community members, including critics of WMF, as part of work and decision-making at WMF, is not ok. I cannot believe that this needs to be said. It is not a fair or equitable treatment of community members, especially given the massive power imbalance between a senior leader at WMF and a single community member. Disparaging critics is not something that is beneficial to the mission of knowledge equity.
I was so stunned when I heard AL2 disparage a critical community member that I later asked several colleagues whether it’s normal at WMF to talk about critical community members in this way. To my surprise, unfortunately, multiple colleagues said yes and excused that behavior by saying that there are some truly terrible WMF critics who are very mean and wish to destroy WMF. That was very disappointing to hear. I don’t blame my colleagues for this as much as I blame the leadership team. The leadership team models and sets the tone for company culture, and so they are responsible for normalizing such treatment of critical community members at WMF. When senior leaders model disparagement and negativity towards community members, the rest of the staff is influenced to follow in their example, either naively believing that it’s the right thing to do, or conforming, or just trying to keep their jobs.
When WMF’s senior leadership treats critical Wikimedia movement community members in such a negative way, it can discourage all community members from speaking up for fear of being disparaged or mistreated. Critics are an essential part of all healthy communities. They might not always be pleasant to deal with, but that is not an excuse for disparaging them, especially at an organization with the mission of knowledge equity. There are more constructive and ethical ways to address any actual problematic behaviors by community members. Criticism in and of itself is not an inherently problematic behavior, nor is it inherently abusive. It is important not to conflate criticism with abuse or harassment; those are different things. A competent leader at a community-focused organization would know that and would never stoop so low as to single out a critical community member by name and disparage them in the workplace.
Technically, all of the problematic behaviors I described above involve some degree of incompetence. But, in my opinion, one of them truly excels in stupidity, to a jaw-dropping degree. And that is the fact that I was told not to use the arithmetic operator of division because it looks too much like ROI, which was allegedly bad. And the term “rate” as well. I think this is literally the stupidest thing I have ever heard (and had to follow as a directive in my work) from senior management, by a long shot.
To be clear, the arithmetic operator of division does not look too much like ROI, and it does not look bad or make someone look bad for using it. And neither does the term “rate”. To insist that it does is deeply stupid. Continuing to employ people who make such stupid claims and directives in senior leadership is also deeply stupid. The WMF staff and the Wikimedia movement community deserve better.
The fact that I had to try to convince not one but two managers at the Wikimedia Foundation that the division operator does not look too much like ROI and does not look bad is surreal. Both of them have worked at the Wikimedia Foundation for several years, so they’ve been availing the WMF staff and the Wikimedia movement community to this level of professional excellence for quite some time now, which reflects poorly (and accurately, in my opinion) on the quality of top-level leadership at WMF.
I am sorry that you were singled out and disparaged by a senior leadership team member at WMF. I believe that you and all other members of the Wikimedia movement community deserve to be treated with respect, equity and humanity by everyone at WMF, regardless of whether you have been critical of WMF.
How WMF’s leadership treats WMF’s critics is a reflection of the current WMF leadership’s values and practices, and not that of the majority of WMF’s staff. While, unfortunately and probably naively, some WMF staff do follow leadership’s modeled behavior on this, most do not. To the best of my knowledge, the majority of WMF’s staff strive to treat WMF critics with respect, understand and responsibly navigate the power difference between WMF and individual community members, and deeply value protecting the community’s right to criticism and dissent.
I tried my best to push back on how you were treated, but I was outnumbered, outranked, told to “practice curiosity”, and eventually fired. I believe that if WMF is to support the Wikimedia movement community, then WMF employees should stand up for Wikimedia community members if they ever see them mistreated at WMF, critics or not. That’s what I tried to do. I am sorry I was not more effective. Perhaps someone else could have done a better job at it, but I did what I could with the resources that I had.
I looked for ways to hold the senior leader and my manager accountable, and when I found that there didn’t seem to be any, I joined the unionizing effort at WMF, Wiki Workers United. My hope was, and is, that an official union at WMF will empower WMF staff to speak up safely and effectively both for themselves and for the Wikimedia movement community members, including critics.
I am sorry for the current state of how WMF’s leadership treats WMF critics. You all deserve better. The Wikimedia movement community deserves better.
I am hopeful that things will get better at WMF, but I doubt that they’ll get better on their own. I trust the Wiki Workers United union to bring about positive change at WMF for both staff and the Wikimedia movement community. Please continue to voice your support for them. Every time you do, they hear you. It matters.
Nope.
After I stated my concerns about the unethical conduct to my manager, I faced retaliation and was ultimately fired, which involved more problematic conduct by WMF management and HR. While that was happening, I reached out to many of my colleagues at WMF and learned of many other instances of potentially problematic conduct by WMF management and HR. It was very disappointing to learn how widespread this is, and how there’s apparently no accountability for it.
When I first reached out to colleagues, I was optimistic that I’d hear from them assurances that this kind of thing almost never happens at WMF, and if it does, there are trustworthy and objective ways to address it and hold management accountable. Instead, I got a lot of sympathy and solidarity (for which I am forever grateful), and very few surprised reactions. And also stories that started with something like “you think that’s bad, here’s what happened when I dissented or tried raising concerns about WMF management”. Stories where, in response to employees raising concerns in good faith, what they often heard back was “if you don’t like it, then leave” or “you need to practice curiosity”.
Many of my former colleagues are very deeply committed to the mission of WMF, the mission of knowledge equity. This was never just another job to them. To them, a statement like “if you don’t like it, then leave” in response to raising concerns is equivalent to an ultimatum of either abandoning the mission they love and have dedicated their lives and labor to, or learning to shut up and silently watch problematic conduct by WMF management proliferate. Personally, I consider this borderline moral abuse.
And don’t even get me started on WMF leadership’s hilariously frequent use of “practice curiosity” in response to employees questioning the ethics of WMF leadership’s conduct.
Many of my colleagues’ experiences seemed to be much worse than mine. Some have cried when sharing theirs. This is not ok. And it’s not ok that so many of them feel like there’s no trustworthy and safe official resource at WMF that they can turn to when they see problematic conduct by WMF management. I hope that the Wiki Workers United union can change that and be a safe haven and a trusted resource for WMF staff in tough situations like this.
In retrospect, I think I had witnessed potentially problematic conduct by WMF leadership before the Feb 4th meeting as well, but back then I explained it all away to myself because I saw WMF through rose-colored glasses. I thought that, as a new employee at WMF, perhaps I was seeing things out of context or misunderstanding something. Then the Feb 4th meeting happened, and I just couldn’t explain away or put a positive spin on WMF management’s behaviors I witnessed in it. It was just so blatant.
I have more to say on all of that, but this post is already long enough.
I worked as a senior data scientist at the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) from January 2024 to December 2025.
On February 4th, 2025, I witnessed unethical conduct by a senior leader at WMF. When I shared my concerns about it with my manager, I was gaslit and told to “practice curiosity” with the senior leader until I agreed that there was no unethical conduct. My attempts to explain that that’s not what curiosity means, and that using the phrase “practice curiosity” in response to someone raising concerns in good faith is problematic, were unsuccessful.
I declined to meet with the senior leader to “practice curiosity”, as was within my rights per the WMF Staff Handbook. I was planning to file a complaint with HR or some other party instead.
After months of gaslighting, bullying and pressure by my manager, I was fired before I finished writing my complaint. But not before I got a chance to talk to many of my colleagues about this and learn about many similar experiences from so many of them.
That’s how I found out that these behaviors are systemic within WMF leadership and HR. It’s not just me, I wasn’t the only one who was treated that way in retaliation for raising concerns about leadership’s conduct at WMF.
When I asked my colleagues what could be done about this, how should I proceed, and what have they tried, what I heard back was very discouraging. My colleagues shared prior attempts to work with WMF’s HR, leadership and Board of Trustees (BoT) through similar issues. These attempts were mostly unsuccessful, and left many people feeling betrayed and distrustful of all three of these groups that were supposed to support and lead them in doing their best work for the Wikimedia movement community.
Things looked quite bleak. It seemed that there was no one who could conduct an objective investigation into the unethical conduct I observed, nor into the broader systemic leadership misconduct patterns described by my colleagues. Even the BoT and Jimmy Wales most likely would not help, according to my colleagues, because in the past, when employees came to them reporting serious problems with WMF leadership, they would simply delegate solving those problems back to WMF leadership, to the same people who were causing the problems.
I was told that a long time ago, the BoT promised WMF workers to establish an ombudsperson who would help elevate and resolve the issues they raise. That promise was not kept.
It looked like there was nothing I could do to hold leadership accountable and make things better at WMF, whether it’s for my own case, or for my colleagues going through similar experiences, or for the Wikimedia movement community (because you all, readers, donors and editors, deserve better).
I thought that if I couldn’t improve this situation, I should quit, because if I stayed, I would be further enabling unethical conduct by the leadership team with my work contributions. So, for a brief while, I was planning to quit.
But something happened that changed my mind. While I was having these difficult conversations with my colleagues about WMF leadership misconduct, one of them mentioned that, some time ago, there had been an effort to unionize at WMF. This seemed like the only ray of hope for a long-term solution to bringing accountability to WMF leadership. So I changed my mind about quitting, joined the unionizing effort, and did my best to help organize Wiki Workers United.
I anticipated that if I didn’t quit, my manager would continue to gaslight, bully and pressure me, and probably fire me sooner or later. And I knew that helping with the unionizing effort would be extra labor on top of doing my regular work. All of that did happen, and neither of that was easy. But I figured it was worth it, because it was a chance to make WMF better, to get WMF closer to what many people who donate to WMF think of it: an organization dedicated to free knowledge, led with integrity, transparency and honesty. An organization you and I can trust. An organization led by competent and trustworthy people who are committed to doing what’s best for the Wikimedia movement community, and not for themselves or their gossip clique.
I was offered a severance pay of $26,845.52, conditional on my not making disparaging statements about WMF. I turned it down, because I have something to say. That’s the purpose of this blog.