Wikimedia "in chaos" after co-founder Jimmy Wales steps down

After Fox News broke a story in April about Wikimedia hosting pornographic images on its servers, company co-founder and president Jimmy Wales started single-handedly purging the Wikimedia databases of all things deemed pornographic. These actions have been extremely controversial, especially within the Wikimedia editors' circle, and Fox news now reports that Wales has given up his role as top-level content administrator, letting the community completely control the site. A source tells Fox News that nobody is in charge now. "It's chaos," says the source.

The stepping down came in response to a rebellion of sorts from the editors who vehemently disagreed with Wales handling of the pornography. After Larry Sanger, co-founder of Wikipedia, reported to the FBI the existence of illegal pornography on Wikimedia Commons, Fox News started digging for information. Fox News had contacted big companies who donate money to the Wikimedia Foundation for comment, and they began contacting Wikimedia for an explanation. After the calls started coming in, Wales began his conquest against the pornography, deleting a lot himself, and delegating the task to various administrators and editors. Although Wikimedia denies breaking any laws, and emphasizing the continual moderation of pages by its many editors, Sanger defended his actions by saying that he saw the images himself, and that he knew that according to the law, he would be indicted as co-founder if charges were filed.

According to many, Wikimedia is a standard for open content creation and organization, and allowing one person to have total control over its future, message, morals, and content completely obviates the purpose of the platform. The other side of the argument is that Wikimedia is meant to be accessible to students, families, and other content-wary users who are encouraged to use the platform as a research tool; some feel that allowing obscene content into the database will restrict some very large demographics from using the site. This is the reason Sanger cites for writing the FBI letter in the first place, Wales defended his actions in an email:

"Much of the cleanup is done, although there was so much hardcore pornography on commons that there's still some left in nooks and crannies….

"We were about to be smeared in all media as hosting hardcore pornography and doing nothing about it. Now, the correct storyline is that we are cleaning up. I'm proud to have made sure that storyline broke the way it did, and I'm sorry I had to step on some toes to make it happen.

"Now, the key is: let's continue to move forward with a responsible policy discussion."

Needless to say, many are beyond feeling like their toes were stepped on, and one administrator wrote:

“If this is an emergency situation requiring a justified, immediate, unilateral, king-like massive action, I regret Mr. Wales didn't take the time to explain the emergency to us. By rush-imposing his views and decisions on people who are not out of the debate yet, he is browbeating their inner self, ignoring their beliefs and opinions, discarding the value of the Other. This lack of respect and of equality of vote should be extremely well argumented and the reasons transparently communicated. Otherwise, trust, faith and adhesion to the [Wikimedia Foundation] values dissolve. I don't think we should let this happen. Mr. Wales, I hope you enter reason and dialogue realms again….”