Well start with Wikipedia's head, Wales. Where does he come from, how does he think? We know he ran an Ayn Rand mailing list before becoming involved with Wikipedia, but how does his personal, political thinking influence Wikipedia? Well he himself has said that conservative Friedrich Hayek's work "is central to my own thinking about how to manage the Wikipedia project". While he is not always blatant and draconian in politically influencing Wikipedia, this has cropped up again and again.
For example this Arbitration Committee spoken of - in mid-2005 Wales appoints an editor so biased against Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims that Wikipedia Review has a whole forum on this editor - JayJG ( http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showforum=46 ). People find him incredibly biased and the vote of all Wikipedia in early 2006 for ArbCom members kicks him out. But Wales is not happy with this and decides to stuff ArbCom, like FDR threatened to stuff the Supreme Court. So Wales creates a new ArbCom seat. Does he appoint the Wikipedia-wide next highest voted neutral editor to ArbCom? No, he reappoints this Arab and Muslim hating editor JayJG.
You can find many examples of this sort of thing. With Wikipedia, the rot starts at the top. One day, a rival wiki encyclopedia will come into play and trounce Wikipedia (or at least be an alternative to it).
A figurehead who can create new seats on committees and arbitrarily appoint people to them doesn't seem a "figurehead" to me, unless you're insinuating that he's merely doing someone else's dirty work.
I'll put it this way: grandparent's example was from 7 years ago. If Wales was not a figurehead, his chosen example should be a little more recent, shall we say?
I agree that he's renounced his long-held sweeping powers a few years ago, but he still has "editorial input", sits on the board and clearly still holds a certain influence.
For example this Arbitration Committee spoken of - in mid-2005 Wales appoints an editor so biased against Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims that Wikipedia Review has a whole forum on this editor - JayJG ( http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showforum=46 ). People find him incredibly biased and the vote of all Wikipedia in early 2006 for ArbCom members kicks him out. But Wales is not happy with this and decides to stuff ArbCom, like FDR threatened to stuff the Supreme Court. So Wales creates a new ArbCom seat. Does he appoint the Wikipedia-wide next highest voted neutral editor to ArbCom? No, he reappoints this Arab and Muslim hating editor JayJG.
You can find many examples of this sort of thing. With Wikipedia, the rot starts at the top. One day, a rival wiki encyclopedia will come into play and trounce Wikipedia (or at least be an alternative to it).
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