$26,845.52 worth

The TL;DR

On February 4th, 2025, I witnessed unethical conduct by a senior leader at the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF). My direct manager, who was directly managed by that senior leader, was also present in that meeting and acted complicitly.

I was so stunned that this could be happening at WMF that it took me a while to bring it up to my manager.

When I eventually did state it to my manager, I was gaslit and told to “practice curiosity” with the senior leader until I agreed that there was no unethical conduct.

I refused, as was within my right per WMF Staff Handbook. I was planning to file a complaint with HR instead.

I was told that WMF HR and the Chief Advancement Officer were made aware of my situation.

After many months of gaslighting, bullying and pressure, I was surprize-fired on December 3rd, 2025, before I finished writing my complaint. But not before I got a chance to talk to many of my colleagues about this and learn about many similar experiences from so many of them.
That’s how I found out that these behaviors are systemic within WMF leadership and HR. It’s not just me, I wasn’t the only one who was treated that way in retaliation for raising concerns about leadership’s conduct at WMF.

When I asked my colleagues what could be done about this, how should I proceed, and what have they tried, what I heard back was very discouraging. My colleagues shared prior attempts to work with WMF’s HR, leadership and Board of Trustees (BoT) through similar issues. These attempts were mostly unsuccessful, and left many people feeling betrayed and distrustful of all three of these groups that were supposed to support and lead them in doing their best work for the Wikimedia movement community.

Things looked very bleak, it seemed that there was no one who could conduct an objective investigation into the unethical conduct I observed, nor into the broader systemic leadership misconduct patterns described by my colleagues. Even the BoT and Jimmy Wales most likely would not help, according to my colleagues, because in the past, when employees came to them reporting serious problems with WMF leadership, they would simply delegate solving those problems back to WMF leadership, to the same people who were causing the problems. I was told that a long time ago, Jimmy Wales and BoT promised to WMF workers to establish an ombudsperson who would help elevate and resolve the issues they raise. That promise was not kept.

It looked like there was nothing I could do to hold leadership accountable and make things better at WMF, whether it’s for my own case, or for my colleagues going through similar experiences, or for the Wikimedia movement community (because you all, readers, donors and editors, deserve better). I thought that if I couldn’t improve this situation, then I should quit, because if I stayed, I would be further enabling and validating this unethical leadership with my work contributions. For a brief while, I was planning to quit.

But something happened that changed my mind. While I was having these difficult conversations about WMF leadership misconduct with my colleagues, one of them mentioned that some time ago, there was an effort to unionize at WMF. This seemed like the only ray of hope in terms of having a long-term solution to bringing accountability to WMF leadership. So I changed my mind about quitting, joined the unionizing effort, and did my best to help form the union.

I anticipated that if I didn’t quit, my manager would continue to gaslight, bully and pressure me, and probably fire me sooner or later. And I knew that helping with the unionizing effort would be extra labor on top of doing my regular work. All of that did happen, and neither of that was easy. But I figured it was worth it, because it was a chance to make WMF better, to get WMF closer to what many people who donate to WMF think of it: an organization dedicated to free knowledge, led with integrity, transparency and honesty. An organization you and I can trust. An organization led by competent and trustworthy people who are committed to doing what’s best for the Wikimedia movement community, and not for themselves or their gossip clique.

The details

I was offered a severance pay of $26,845.52, conditional on me not making disparaging statements about WMF. I turned it down, because I have something to say.

I’m saying it on this website, organized into the following sections:

  • §1. My firsthand account
  • §2. It’s not just me
  • §3. Hanlon’s razor
  • §4. Make WMF better
  • §5. Thank you




P.S.
I recognize that it is a huge privilege for me to be able to afford to speak up like this, but that’s the thing about privilege, how you use it matters. Doing this might negatively impact my career, but I probably can afford it more than many of my former colleagues, especially the ones who were treated much worse than I was by WMF, and especially those of them with underrepresented identities in the tech industry.