Nerf

TLDR: In ten days last month, the Wikimedia Foundation fired the longtime lead developer of MediaWiki and disbanded the team whose entire job was to listen to volunteers. Most of the people they fired were union organizers. Wikipedia’s editors are now threatening to strike in solidarity. The Foundation is sitting on $296 million in reserves and a freshly profitable AI revenue stream. This is a confrontation with global implications.

> Hello! I have donated, what I can and when I can over the years, despite being on an extremely limited income. It saddens me greatly to see that Brooke Vibber and the members of the Community Tech team were let go. I know that the public stance is that the Wikimedia leadership supports unionization attempts, but this action seems to prove that those are hollow, meaningless publicity statements that are not backed by actions or policy. I will be withholding future donations until I feel that Wikimedia has shown that they support unionization. I hope employees manage to unionize soon - and that nobody else's position is questionably terminated. In the modern era of AI disinformation, actual humans willing to put in the work - and coordinate and assist the many, many more who do it FOR FREE - are a precious resource that should not be so easily thrown away.

and got back a form letter:

Thank you for your email and for your support of the Wikimedia Foundation and free knowledge.

Thank you also for sharing your concerns. I am happy to provide you with more context and information about the recent events.

The decision to disband the Community Tech team is not in any way connected to recent discussions about unionizing, nor have we terminated any staff for their participation in those discussions. The Foundation respects the right of staff to unionize if they vote to do so.

Earlier this month, the Wikimedia Foundation restructured the way the organization supports the Community Wishlist initiative, a forum for the volunteer editors behind Wikimedia projects to suggest and collaborate on improvements to our product and technology.

The decision to restructure followed internal assessments dating back to September 2025 on ways to make our Community Wishlist work more effective and to improve our support for volunteer editors. We learned from these assessments that it is rarely possible to fulfill community wishes through a single team due to the vast breadth of the software we support and the number of channels through which we receive wishes. The restructuring shifts the management of the Community Wishlist from a single, sometimes siloed team (formerly known as the Community Tech team) to the full Product and Technology Department — ensuring that community wishes can be acted on by teams who are specialists in many different areas.

As part of this restructuring, the Community Tech team was disbanded, and six roles were impacted. The Foundation has been committed to supporting the affected team members during this transition in various ways. The team members are currently still working at the Foundation and are receiving internal support to identify and apply for open roles at the organization.

Regarding Brooke Vibber’s departure, as a general practice, and out of respect for individual privacy, the Foundation does not share details about personnel matters. This applies consistently in all cases. We recognize that this can be frustrating, but maintaining this standard is important for everyone. However, we do want to reiterate that the Wikimedia Foundation does not take employment actions in response to union activity. We respect employees’ rights to organize and engage in protected activities.

You may also wish to read our CEO Bernadette Meehan’s update to the community here.

I hope that information assuages some of your concerns. Please don’t hesitate to get back in touch if I can be of any further assistance, and thank you again for your support.

sincerely,

Kristie Robinson

2. Tumblr tags reading "Years from now we're gonna be like, 'They put it in WHAT???' Like, this is it. This is our Radium."

They send someone to stop the experiment but Grace refuses cause they’re so far in already and well that would just ruin the data.

The kid was picked up by an ambulance 30 minutes later.

Now as an adult working in security I get SO MANY folks- upper-middle aged mostly- coming to me to 'rat out' people they think are faking it.

I was once sent into a bathroom because a client demanded that the "fucker won't get out, so go drag them out"- I was NEVER going to do that, so I did a wellness check instead. You know who it was? A person recently released from the hospital after a car accident. They had a hole in their skull and major hearing loss. They couldn't answer the owner because they couldn't HEAR the owner.

Another time about a homeless man who got around town by kicking the ground from his wheelchair. "You know he doesn't actually need that thing, his legs work fine, it's just for pity points"- Oh, so he's not paralyzed, his wheelchair is performative? Funny story Dale, I actually know that guy, he was backed over by a truck and has chronic pain from his shattered pelvis. But sure, let's make him stand up and walk everywhere so nobody feels too bad for him and tries to help him or something.

"She doesn't need that scooter, I've seen her get out of it."

"Look how fat he is, because he just rides around and refuses to get up."

"She doesn't really need that cane- she comes here without it all the time"

Okay, let's say that these people mentioned *do* deserve to die, just for the sake of argument.

Who gets to decide that they do? Who actually genuinely has the right to make the final decision, specifically?

Is it the judge? Is it the lawmakers? It can't be you. It can't be a case by case basis where you get input, this is being carried out by the state.

Do you trust those people to never ever get it wrong? Do you trust the state?

If you do trust them, you aren't paying attention to literally anything that has ever happened in this or any country.

If you don't trust them, you must shift your stance to oppose the death penalty because a circumstance where an innocent person is killed is unacceptable.

Peeling back the curtain, yeah, my personal feelings are that there *are* people who should stop being alive. I don't think that's a good thought for me to have, but I have it.

And I don't trust the fucking state, or myself, or judge, or a panel of people, or ANYONE to be able to, with ZERO false positives, make that determination. No one, no one, NO ONE has the right to make that call because no one can always get it right.

So I oppose the death penalty even though, yeah, my gut reaction is that certain people who have severely harmed others and will do so again should be killed. But the death penalty is wrong. For even a single innocent person to die is a moral failing, an unacceptable loss. There is not and never will be a way to administer that fairly and perfectly.