US Edition 
Wikipedia charity chairman resigns after pornography row
The chairman of the charity responsible for promoting Wikipedia in Britain has resigned after he was banned from editing the online encyclopaedia, following rows about the inclusion of pornography.
Ashley van Haeften resigned as chairman of Wikimedia UK today, citing concerns the controversy over his ban could cause divisions among Wikipedia supporters.
“I have discussed this matter with [Mr van Haeften] this morning,” said Jon Davies, the chief executive of the charity, which distributes £1m of donations from Wikipedia supporters annually.
“He is keen that there should be no division in the Wikimedia UK community over his role as Chair, especially at a time when so many great things are being achieved.
“He has therefore resigned as Chair.”
The Telegraph reported this week how Mr van Haeften had been banned indefinitely from contributing to the English version of Wikipedia by ArbCom, an elected committee of senior editors.
ArbCom applied the sanction after finding he mounted personal attacks on people with concerns about explicit material on Wikipedia, including about material he had posted. He was criticised for including a “highly inappropriate” link to pornography in the biography of a living person.
Wikipedia carries a large quantity of explicit material, despite promoting itself as an educational website suitable for schoolchildren. Critics such as Larry Sanger, a co-founder of the website, and people attacked by Mr van Haeften, have argued for filters or age controls to be introduced.
Mr van Haeften, who works as an IT project manager, was also found by ArbCom to have violated a series of editing rules, including by using multiple accounts to change pages after he had asked for a “clean start”.
His resignation follows a call by members of Wikimedia UK for an Extraordinary General Meeting to discuss the controversy. They said the decision of the charity’s board to keep Mr van Haeften on as chairman despite his ban from contributing to Wikipedia “not a sufficient response to this situation”.
An EGM could still go ahead, however, as the call was for a vote on a resolution “to remove Ashley Van Haeften from the Board of Trustees of Wikimedia UK”, not only to strip him of the chairmanship.
“By not resigning as chair immediately after the ArbCom decision was announced I am afraid that [Mr van Haeften] made an error which can now only be corrected by his resignation from the board altogether,” said one Wikimedia UK member.
Mr van Haeften remains on the Wikimedia UK board. A new chairman will be elected at a meeting this evening.