Aug 3, 2026, 6:04 PMThe Wikimedia Foundation hasn’t just refused to recognize their workers’ unions; they’ve also hired one of the most notorious union-busting firms out there. https://medium.com/regarding-wikipedia/the-wikimedia-foundation-hired-the-union-busters-its-own-encyclopedia-warned-about-42b7142a5cd1
Aug 3, 2026, 6:04 PMAug 3, 2026, 8:38 PMThere’s a lot of (correct imo!!) outrage in my mentions, with some folks brainstorming actions to take. One suggestion from the peanut gallery: follow @wwu, and support any actions *they* ask us to take, and when they want us to take them.
You can (and should!) register your displeasure with The Wikimedia Foundation however you see fit. Just consider that your action will be *even more effective* if it’s part of a worker-led campaign.
Can we scrape em and start a new one federated?
I like the notion of a federated, distributed form of wikipedia, however if topics can be edited in a distributed fashion, how does one verify who an "authority" is. Despite its flaws, the wikimedia platform is a sole arbiter of identity (and thus authority). Otherwise you'd get just anybody editing anything and Im pretty sure that's no beuano.
What you CAN do if you have the disk space, and like me, you're concerned that Wikipedia as a resource is about to take a serious dive in quality/be captured by nefarious sources, is help preserve a snapshot of Wikipedia in its current form.
There IS a zim archive of english Wikipedia - all 7.1M articles - that is available on https://browse.library.kiwix.org/#lang=eng&q=Wikipedia - while the zim format is not a "lossless" format per se (no metadata, edit history etc.) the english Wikipedia zim is 117GB. Not shabby for a reasonable precis of all human knowledge/history.
I seed the 2026-02 and the 2025-08 zims.
Wish I had the disk space. I do have a physical location I would make available for a team wanting to do federated projects and alternative web development.
@beep I wish company were so committed to the Lindsey/Tobias meme with union busters 🫠
@beep This really hurts my soul because I've been a Wikimedia donor forever, but I cannot abide union busting.
@beep Well can’t say i’m surprised, with Marco Rubio sounding like Joseph Göbbels lately.
@beep This is exhausting. Like how hard is it to NOT BE EVIL?
@Mimesatwork @beep In this economy?!
Does anyone have a handle on the motivation of Wikimedia to be this heavy-handed?
Is it ideological? Financial?
How do a non-profit's decision-makers theoretically benefit from union busting? Surely they are just damaging Wikimedia by trying to stop unions?
@FediThing @beep i have no insight inside of Wikimedia, but it has to be emotional/ideological not rational, maybe some form of "but, but we are the *good* guys so questioning our benevolence makes you the *bad* guys" along with a clear inability to work collaboratively, taking offense at the mere suggestion that maybe they have something to learn from people who work for them. Anyone who doesn't have some deep seated personal anxiety isn't going to have a problem working out a union contract, I think.
@beep I hadn't cancelled my donation because WWU said that's not an action they're requesting. However... I think I'm going to do it now because I can't justify donating to Littler Mendelson
Aug 3, 2026, 8:41 PM@aburka 💜
I did something similar when ProPublica’s union stood up their strike fund GoFundMe. I also sent an email to the membership team at the company and asked they share with executive leadership saying:
1. I absolutely stood with the workers in their efforts as a long time reader.
2. Listed several of the specific demands the union effort wanted in a contract that were important to me as a reader with trust in ProPublica’s reporting.
3. I was suspending my monthly donation to ProPublica and sending that money instead to the strike fund.
4. Agreed to double my monthly donation to ProPublica if they agreed to a contract with the union.
By no means do I think I individually had a material sway, but it felt like a reasonable approach and made clear my position and how valuable ($$$) it was to me so that executives focused on numbers could understand.
And of course, I did renew and increase my donation last week when they announced a contract outline.
Aug 3, 2026, 10:59 PM@beep well they're sitting on that wealth of information, might as well use it. Eating their own dog food. "Let's see, how are we gonna find someone to bust this union? If only we had a vast resource of knowledge we could trawl for advice or suggestionns..."
@beep Bye bye Wikimedia.
Aug 4, 2026, 12:38 AM@beep the more this story progresses, the more respect I lose for Wikimedia Foundation (crashing into negative levels), and the more I gain for the Wikimedia/Wikipedia workers coming together across the globe to organize. 🖤 ✊
Aug 4, 2026, 1:09 AM@elle Same, on both fronts 💜
Aug 4, 2026, 1:01 AMThe union didn't even ask for money, as I recall. So the foundation is burning donated money, and goodwill earned over decades on principle. And the principle is atomisation of population for better control by hierarchy. Pretty much the opposite of what Wikipedia stands for.
I do wonder how foundation got here. Don't they have elected members?
(And all this so soon after Jimmy Wales' book about community organising.)
@beep Why do Wikimedia have so many employees? Im reading between 700 and 1300 employees. They should be fine with 100.
@beep
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