The Wikimedia Foundation, which owns Wikipedia, last week rejected two Board of Trustees candidates during its community elections allowing regular contributors to directly choose board representatives. Its purported rationale included one candidate’s involvement with a major community newsletter and another’s social media comments attacking Israel. The rejections provoked community outrage, including from former board members and staff. Petitions and statements opposing the decision, some blaming Israeli and United States government pressure, generally pledged to boycott the election.

It comes as the online encyclopedia owned by the Wikimedia Foundation has become the subject of increasingly negative reporting over left-wing and anti-Israeli bias. Multiple Congressional representatives in the House and Senate, along with an Acting U.S. Attorney, have reached out with concerns about bias on Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is owned by the Wikimedia Foundation, which also owns sites associated with the online encyclopedia in various languages. These sites host contributions from people around the world who are referred to as the “Wikimedia community” and have chapter organizations, user groups, and other associations established in affiliation with the Foundation. Given their influence over the content of Wikipedia-related sites, generally half of the Foundation Board seats are reserved for candidates elected by the community. The current election seeks to replace two board members elected in 2022, including Vice Chair Shani Evenstein Sigalov, a Hebrew Wikipedia administrator and former board member of the Wikimedia Israel community chapter.

Though the Foundation takes a minimal role in governing Wikipedia and affiliated sites, it has become increasingly involved with its operations by financing “edit-a-thons” and other groups contributing content to the site and by imposing a “code of conduct” on its volunteer contributors. In both cases these initiatives have favored left-wing ideologues criticizing Wikipedia and associated sites for an alleged lack of diversity. Critics of the site have thus focused on the Foundation’s bias in its leadership, including the Board of Trustees. Site co-founder Jimmy Wales retains a seat on the board, although exercising only ceremonial authority on Wikimedia sites themselves after surrendering his privileges several years ago.

Board Rejections

During the current elections for board seats, the Foundation on October 1 approved a candidate review process. This process would review six candidates on a shortlist who passed an initial approval process of community affiliate organizations.