Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Declarations for paid editing and related advocacy
On 9 January 2014 13:10, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote: In the light of the recent announcement by the Wikimedia Foundation that paid editing is not acceptable for employees, and the apparent swift termination of a long term employee, I believe it appropriate for the Board of Trustees of Wikimedia UK to agree a policy at the next board meeting to require employees, contractors and trustees to publicly declare any current or past paid editing activities, or related unpaid advocacy that may represent a potential conflict of interest. On the details of the Sarah Stierch affair, which has been in the Independent for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Stierch Long-term employee seems not quite right. She had a one-year fellowship in 2012. The Independent report said she was engaged in an evaluation project for editathons, which is true enough. I don't know the full extent of her recent portfolio of WMF activities. Stierch, as the WP article makes clear, is a significant activist over a range of things, and working for the WMF has been part of it. As usual, Wikipedia cannot be relied on for all information one might wish to have. No doubt the WMUK Board needs to think this through. The implication that the net should be cast wide to look for COI, of those involved in the WMUK in any fashion, of course has different sides: a prudential approach is one of them. As a coauthor of the original (2006) COI guideline on enWP, I have always been interested in the distinctions between potential conflict of interest (which is in a sense part of the human condition), perceptions of COI, and concrete conflict of interest in the guideline sense. The last of these relates rather precisely to the actual circumstance that someone is editing the project content in such a way as to prioritise outside interests over the best interests of the project. E.g. advocacy where there should be none. Charles ___ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediau...@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Declarations for paid editing and related advocacy
Hmm the lesson here is to realise that we have a wonderful community that shows some wonderful things about the human condition. However what I'm seeing is a lynch mob gathering on the wiki whilst all the decent people stay inside. The board should work out how to avoid and diminish such situations and not to just be a source of fuel and amplification. R On 9 Jan 2014 14:44, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote: On 9 January 2014 14:09, Andy Mabbett a...@pigsonthewing.org.uk wrote: On 9 January 2014 13:10, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote: ... Though it's not unreasonable to infer that, they've made no such declaration - leastways, in their posts that I have seen, the phrase used is frowned upon. and the apparent swift termination of a long term employee, Again, that's not apparent to me; she may have resigned, wither willingly or under duress. WMF comments on the matter have not made such facts clear. You may be waiting an *awfully* long time for the facts to be made clear. I think Occam's razor applies and the specific case does not make all that much difference to the issue. WMUK needs to have a governance policy as to whether it accepts that employees, contractors and trustees can have undeclared past paid editing projects or secret accounts on Wikipediocracy (or similar) where they can play at being double agents (or whatever other good or bad motivation they might have). I believe it appropriate for the Board of Trustees of Wikimedia UK to agree a policy at the next board meeting to require employees, contractors and trustees to publicly declare any current or past paid editing activities, or related unpaid advocacy that may represent a potential conflict of interest. WMUK already has a CoI policy does it not? No hasty action should be taken, particularly while the issues discussed above are not clear. I am not asking for hasty action, just a basic commitment that the board of trustees will consider a policy at the next board meeting. I am specifically not asking for knee-jerk reactions without consultation with the members of the charity, and probably consultation with WMF Legal, as now seems to be normal working practice for the current board of trustees. As for the current WMUK COI policy, speaking as a past Chairman of the charity, no it does not adequately cover this. In fact you can drive a coach and horses through it with regard to these situations. I have posted this same proposal at https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Engine_room#Declarations_for_paid_editing_and_related_advocacy , however I recommend that should anyone wish to discuss specific examples, including naming or linking to the WMF employee case, that this is limited to this independent email list rather than using the WMUK wiki. As a meta issue, I find it unhelpful to have discussions split between venues. Better to start one, and then post pointers to it elsewhere. Apparently decentralized discussion is the wiki-norm. However I agree that having most of the discussion in one place is useful and considering recent actions by the board to delete critical discussion on the WMUK wiki, this list looks more open to free speech. Thanks, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm ___ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediau...@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org ___ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediau...@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
[Wikimediauk-l] Declarations for paid editing and related advocacy
In the light of the recent announcement by the Wikimedia Foundation that paid editing is not acceptable for employees, and the apparent swift termination of a long term employee, I believe it appropriate for the Board of Trustees of Wikimedia UK to agree a policy at the next board meeting to require employees, contractors and trustees to publicly declare any current or past paid editing activities, or related unpaid advocacy that may represent a potential conflict of interest. The risk to the charity by allowing confidential declarations limited to the board in this area, or to overlook past paid editing (even if some years ago) is that a current board member, employee or contractor may be perceived to be deliberately misleading the Wikimedia community. Were this to be exposed then Wikimedia UK may suffer reputational damage if seen to be supporting procedures that protect this secrecy. Considering the recent resignation of an Arbcom member, after avoiding a public declaration of off-wiki accounts where they were advocating matters related to Wikimedia projects, I would hope that the board would require employees and contractors to similarly interpret related advocacy as applying to secret accounts elsewhere whenever they can be seen to relate to Wikimedia projects or Wikimedia UK matters. The board of trustees will already be aware that such undeclared accounts already exist. I have posted this same proposal at https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Engine_room#Declarations_for_paid_editing_and_related_advocacy, however I recommend that should anyone wish to discuss specific examples, including naming or linking to the WMF employee case, that this is limited to this independent email list rather than using the WMUK wiki. Thanks Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm ___ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediau...@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Declarations for paid editing and related advocacy
On 9 January 2014 13:10, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote: In the light of the recent announcement by the Wikimedia Foundation that paid editing is not acceptable for employees, Though it's not unreasonable to infer that, they've made no such declaration - leastways, in their posts that I have seen, the phrase used is frowned upon. and the apparent swift termination of a long term employee, Again, that's not apparent to me; she may have resigned, wither willingly or under duress. WMF comments on the matter have not made such facts clear. I believe it appropriate for the Board of Trustees of Wikimedia UK to agree a policy at the next board meeting to require employees, contractors and trustees to publicly declare any current or past paid editing activities, or related unpaid advocacy that may represent a potential conflict of interest. WMUK already has a CoI policy does it not? No hasty action should be taken, particularly while the issues discussed above are not clear. I have posted this same proposal at https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Engine_room#Declarations_for_paid_editing_and_related_advocacy, however I recommend that should anyone wish to discuss specific examples, including naming or linking to the WMF employee case, that this is limited to this independent email list rather than using the WMUK wiki. As a meta issue, I find it unhelpful to have discussions split between venues. Better to start one, and then post pointers to it elsewhere. -- Andy Mabbett @pigsonthewing http://pigsonthewing.org.uk ___ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediau...@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Declarations for paid editing and related advocacy
On 9 January 2014 14:09, Andy Mabbett a...@pigsonthewing.org.uk wrote: On 9 January 2014 13:10, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote: ... Though it's not unreasonable to infer that, they've made no such declaration - leastways, in their posts that I have seen, the phrase used is frowned upon. and the apparent swift termination of a long term employee, Again, that's not apparent to me; she may have resigned, wither willingly or under duress. WMF comments on the matter have not made such facts clear. You may be waiting an *awfully* long time for the facts to be made clear. I think Occam's razor applies and the specific case does not make all that much difference to the issue. WMUK needs to have a governance policy as to whether it accepts that employees, contractors and trustees can have undeclared past paid editing projects or secret accounts on Wikipediocracy (or similar) where they can play at being double agents (or whatever other good or bad motivation they might have). I believe it appropriate for the Board of Trustees of Wikimedia UK to agree a policy at the next board meeting to require employees, contractors and trustees to publicly declare any current or past paid editing activities, or related unpaid advocacy that may represent a potential conflict of interest. WMUK already has a CoI policy does it not? No hasty action should be taken, particularly while the issues discussed above are not clear. I am not asking for hasty action, just a basic commitment that the board of trustees will consider a policy at the next board meeting. I am specifically not asking for knee-jerk reactions without consultation with the members of the charity, and probably consultation with WMF Legal, as now seems to be normal working practice for the current board of trustees. As for the current WMUK COI policy, speaking as a past Chairman of the charity, no it does not adequately cover this. In fact you can drive a coach and horses through it with regard to these situations. I have posted this same proposal at https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Engine_room#Declarations_for_paid_editing_and_related_advocacy, however I recommend that should anyone wish to discuss specific examples, including naming or linking to the WMF employee case, that this is limited to this independent email list rather than using the WMUK wiki. As a meta issue, I find it unhelpful to have discussions split between venues. Better to start one, and then post pointers to it elsewhere. Apparently decentralized discussion is the wiki-norm. However I agree that having most of the discussion in one place is useful and considering recent actions by the board to delete critical discussion on the WMUK wiki, this list looks more open to free speech. Thanks, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm ___ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediau...@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
