Wikimedians,
Per my commitment, we have now added this escalation process/whistleblower
policy to the WMF staff handbook to address the issues discussed in this
thread:
To serve the WMF Guiding Principles of shared power and stewardship, it's
important that our work reflects community policies.
Just as a postscript to the Belfer Center affair, regular readers will
remember that Russavia wrote in March 2014[1] that –
*The Stanton Foundation has been a long-term donor to the Wikimedia
Foundation [...] Stanton has no website, and apart from several
high-profile grants to the Wikimedia
Hi Nemo,
Thanks for bringing this to my attention. You are correct -- this did not
make my to do list, but I believe honoring commitments made by the WMF is
important and therefor I've been looking this issue. Here is what I found
and what we will do:
- This issue was a clear oversight
Lila, and all,
I am glad to hear this will be revived. I read your message with interest
and appreciation, up to the final paragraph: in this instance, WMF is in a
very poor position to chide anybody for snark. Nemo's snark was
lighthearted and minimal, and doesn't even register next to the WMF's
Sue Gardner, 01/04/2014 05:23:
On 21 March 2014 13:23, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote:
We will update the wiki page at
https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedian_in_Residence/Harvard_University_assessment
with more information and details. I encourage others to participate
in this as
On 19 May 2014 08:26, ENWP Pine deyntest...@hotmail.com wrote:
I'm giving this thread a poke because we're still waiting for answers to
questions. The most recent email was from Srikanth on May 7.
But Benghazi!
- d.
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list,
Pine, I have another question to add to the initial question:
Will the Foundation prohibit chapters and other thematic organizations from
the creation of paid roles that have article writing as a core focus,
regardless of who is initiating or managing the process as a condition of
receiving WMF
Pine, I think you raise some important questions below. Obviously there has
been a lot going on in the last week, so I'd like to give this a bump and
add a couple points:
On Thu, May 1, 2014 at 12:17 AM, ENWP Pine deyntest...@hotmail.com wrote:
Will the Foundation prohibit chapters and other
On Tue, May 6, 2014 at 8:18 PM, Pete Forsyth petefors...@gmail.com wrote:
I want to point out something that stands out to me. This is not an
outright contradiction, but it's a puzzling contrast. In an unrelated
thread on this email list, Executive Director Sue Gardner recently said:
On Tue, May 6, 2014 at 5:34 PM, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, May 6, 2014 at 8:18 PM, Pete Forsyth petefors...@gmail.com
wrote:
I want to point out something that stands out to me. This is not an
outright contradiction, but it's a puzzling contrast. In an unrelated
thread on
The press release, signed by LiAnna Davis, Head of Communications and
External Relations, that Andreas links to in his comment says, The
program, in which students write Wikipedia articles in place of traditional
term papers, created the equivalent of more than 7,000 printed pages of
new,
Sorry. I just realised what the heading of this thread is. I'll email
LiAnna directly.
Anthony Cole http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Anthonyhcole
On Sat, Apr 19, 2014 at 10:12 PM, Anthony Cole ahcole...@gmail.com wrote:
The press release, signed by LiAnna Davis, Head of Communications
...@lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikimedia-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Anthony Cole
Sent: 19 April 2014 15:15
To: Wikimedia Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF
funding
Sorry. I just realised what the heading of this thread is. I'll
On Sat, Apr 19, 2014 at 10:12 PM, Anthony Cole ahcole...@gmail.com
wrote:
Can anybody point to a source for the 7,000 printed pages of new,
high-quality content during the fall term - particularly the evidence
for the high quality of that content?
Replying on-list since you asked
Article on the matter in The Daily Dot, April 14:
http://www.dailydot.com/business/wikipedia-paid-editing-scandal-stanton/
Apparently, Tim Sandole complains of not having been managed properly by
anybody, saying, The person I dealt with at Wikimedia didn't seem to know
anything about Wikipedia.
On 16 April 2014 15:19, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@gmail.com wrote:
...
Apparently, Tim Sandole complains of not having been managed properly by
anybody, saying, The person I dealt with at Wikimedia didn't seem to know
anything about Wikipedia.
I believe it was clear from Sue's frank report and
Pete Forsyth wrote:
I also published a response to the WMF report:
http://wikistrategies.net/belfer1/
This is an absolutely fantastic blog post, and a must-read for anyone
interested in making sure this... controversy never happens again.
Thanks so much for taking the time to post that,
Russavia wrote:
Annd queue crickets.
I believe you want cue here.
MZMcBride
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Unsubscribe:
All:
I have added my own timeline to the page set up to debrief the Belfer
Center Wikipedian in Residence project:
https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedian_in_Residence/Harvard_University_assessment#Pete_Forsyth_notes
I also published a response to the WMF report:
Annd queue crickets.
On Tue, Apr 8, 2014 at 6:49 AM, Pete Forsyth petefors...@gmail.com wrote:
All:
I have added my own timeline to the page set up to debrief the Belfer
Center Wikipedian in Residence project:
Sue,
I, as well as others, are wondering whether you will be responding to the
questions and other concerns which have been raised on this list?
Members of the BoT,
I would like to enquire as to when the Board of Trustees became aware of
this issue for the first time. Could we get some
I'm still a bit confused as to why you reported this to Arbcom (Wikipedia
in residence programs, paid editing, and general review of accounts are all
outside of their purview), or what they're supposedly looking at. This is
a community and WMF issue, and I do not see anything at all for Arbcom
Thanks Sue.
I think there are ways WiRs could add valuable content directly such as doing
mass uploads of archived documents to Commons, or add article content as
happened here. However I don't think it's a good idea for WMF to involve itself
so much with content generation, and the manner
Thankyou from me as well, it's refreshing to see such a candid summary of
the failings that occurred in this case, and to see the Foundation taking
responsibility for those. I hope that the opportunity can be taken for all
of us to learn from this so that it does not happen with future projects.
Hi Sue,
Thank you for your report at
https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedian_in_Residence/Harvard_University_assessment.
Could you please clarify if In the future, the Wikimedia Foundation
will not support or endorse the creation of paid roles that have
article writing as a core focus,
On 04/01/2014 07:43 AM, Fæ wrote:
I find it disappointing that when difficult governance questions like
this are raised in public, that some leading members of our community
default to treating the concerned whistle-blower as a troll
I think, Fæ, that you will find that it's not the subject
On 1 April 2014 14:23, Marc A. Pelletier m...@uberbox.org wrote:
...
That analysis and examination of that bad move would have been done just
and quickly and effectively by polite inquiry than it would have with
shrill cries.
We're an extraordinarily transparent movement; we don't need
On 04/01/2014 09:34 AM, Fæ wrote:
I am sure than the viewpoint is different for employees within the WMF
like yourself, compared to unpaid volunteers outside, like me. This
may be part of the reason we see this governance failure in a
different light.
That's actually amusingly wrong, though I
On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 5:23 AM, Sue Gardner sgard...@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 21 March 2014 13:23, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote:
We will update the wiki page at
https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedian_in_Residence/Harvard_University_assessment
with more information and
As far as I am concerned, what was wrong with this situation wasn't that
the Wikimedia Foundation paid a trained academic to edit Wikipedia. I
venture that most donors and members of the general public wouldn't have a
problem with that at all.
What was wrong?
1. The obvious appearance of
On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 1:23 PM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote:
* The Stanton Foundation does not have a financial interest in these
topics. With that said, Liz Allison, who heads the Stanton Foundation,
and Graham Allison, who heads the Belfer Center, are wife and husband,
and the
Good points.
Peter
- Original Message -
From: Andreas Kolbe jayen...@gmail.com
To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2014 4:47 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53,690 of WMF
funding
As far as I am
On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 7:27 AM, Martijn Hoekstra
martijnhoeks...@gmail.com wrote:
Did the fundraising department regard it as their programme
No, on the contrary, fundraising actively looped in other staff. Folks
like Siko and Asaf were involved early on. That's how the advice to
not turn this
On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 7:47 AM, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@gmail.com wrote:
I have no problem *at all* with the
fact that the Wikimedia Foundation paid an academically qualified expert to
make edits to Wikipedia. In fact, I find it disheartening that the
Foundation now feels it has to state that
Erik
A quick question: was the legal department involved in this debacle prior
to it becoming known?
I'm just curious as to why Geoff Brigham was involved in the production of
Sue's assessment. Was it because Legal was involved, or was he simply
vetting what is already being called a candid
Marc
On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 9:45 PM, Marc A. Pelletier m...@uberbox.org wrote:
I have *zero* to do with Governance, no stake in that project, and I
don't even actually interact with any of the involved departments. I
can tell you with absolute certainty that my comments on this thread
Hello All:
I have been following this thread with great interest and a kind of deeply
appreciative fascination.
First to say that I am relatively new to WMF - having been on board for
just a bit over a year. Previously the jobs that I had pretty much covered
the entire waterfront:
Summer jobs
Nicely put!
On 1 Apr 2014 22:29, Amy Vossbrinck avossbri...@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello All:
I have been following this thread with great interest and a kind of deeply
appreciative fascination.
First to say that I am relatively new to WMF - having been on board for
just a bit over a year.
On 21 March 2014 13:23, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote:
We will update the wiki page at
https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedian_in_Residence/Harvard_University_assessment
with more information and details. I encourage others to participate
in this as a collaborative process.
On 1 April 2014 16:22, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Sue Gardner wrote:
For everyone: following up on Erik's e-mail, the WMF has done a
postmortem of the Belfer situation, which I've just posted at the link
from Erik above. Suffice to say here that we implemented the Belfer
On 21 March 2014 20:23, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote:
...
I have a copy of the weekly memos as well, and we've asked for his
permission to release them.
Hi Erik,
A helpful visual table of the weekly reports is available at
On 3/22/2014 2:04 PM, Tim Landscheidt wrote:
Michael Snow wikipe...@frontier.com wrote:
As such, it seems clear that the donor in question is in the
best position to evaluate whether the funds achieved their
intended purpose. We don't really have good information in
this case to do that for
On 23/03/2014, Michael Snow wikipe...@frontier.com
There isn't a legitimate basis for evaluating how the funds are spent
other than A's desires and intentions. It's still a restricted gift, we
can't pretend that this is money from general fundraising and decide it
should have been spent in a
On 3/23/2014 1:08 AM, Fæ wrote:
On 23/03/2014, Michael Snow wikipe...@frontier.com
There isn't a legitimate basis for evaluating how the funds are spent
other than A's desires and intentions. It's still a restricted gift, we
can't pretend that this is money from general fundraising and decide
Are charities in the UK prohibited from accepting donations to which any
form of restriction is attached?
No. It can be quite common.
On 23 Mar 2014 08:33, Michael Snow wikipe...@frontier.com wrote:
On 3/23/2014 1:08 AM, Fæ wrote:
On 23/03/2014, Michael Snow wikipe...@frontier.com
There
On 23 March 2014 08:32, Michael Snow wikipe...@frontier.com wrote:
On 3/23/2014 1:08 AM, Fæ wrote:
On 23/03/2014, Michael Snow wikipe...@frontier.com
There isn't a legitimate basis for evaluating how the funds are spent
other than A's desires and intentions. It's still a restricted gift, we
On Sun, Mar 23, 2014 at 6:59 AM, Marc A. Pelletier m...@uberbox.org wrote:
On 03/22/2014 02:45 PM, Russavia wrote:
It's already been established that there is massive copyvio in there,
and I think it is absolutely unacceptable for a copyvio to still be in
this article under the circumstances.
Before we start thinking about the implications for WiR in general or WMF's
relationship with Stanton, I think we should focus on establishing the facts of
what happened here. After we have a good understanding of the facts we can
discuss the implications.
I'm still waiting for Arbcom to get
With respect to Sandole's editing
of the article on [[Opposition to military action against Iran]]
The edit listed in this thread
*
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Opposition_to_military_action_against_Irandiff=514822741oldid=514817891
by itself would seem to show undue emphasis on
Thanks Erik.
I am going to be discussing this in private with the English Wikipedia
Arbitration Committee before making further comments here.
Pine
___
Wikimedia-l
Thank you for this Erik, we look forward to receiving on Commons the other
25 weeks (half a years worth) of reports -- especially the reports from the
weeks the 3 seminars were held.
There will certainly be lots to look at, and I noted on one report:
On 22 March 2014 09:40, Russavia russavia.wikipe...@gmail.com wrote:
...
Does anyone believe for one minute that
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Buck_passingdiff=551697085oldid=549480580took
6 hours to draft? And anywhere between 0 and 3 hours to research?
...
Correction to link
Erik,
In Liam's email to the list he mentioned:
We did get to dilute the worst of the original job description so it
wasn't so blatant a paid editing role but our suggestions that the position
be 'paused' until the community could help was rejected because of a
deadline that had been set by
Russavia,
First, I write here in my capacity as a volunteer and a member of the
community you claim to speak on behalf of, clearly not as a staffer of
the Foundation (not that engineering has anything to do with programs
like this anyways).
On 03/22/2014 09:00 AM, Russavia wrote:
I understand
Marc A. Pelletier wrote:
Whether or not you have a point about that position having been badly
considered or having a been a waste of money -- and I'd be inclined to
think that it was at least a little of both -- you've squarely crossed
the line between asking legitimate questions and pointless
Marc A. Pelletier wrote:
Russavia,
[...]
You've made your point and raised the issue, and now the information for
informed judgment is being published. How about you let the /rest/ of
the community examine it and reach its own conclusions? Because, right
now, you seem more interested in
On 3/22/2014 7:42 AM, Tomasz W. Kozlowski wrote:
Even if Timothy has been highly disruptive rather than just apparently
very inefficient (which he wasn't), or if it has been donors' money that
had been spent (which it wasn't), or if you had /actually/ been
appointed to speak for the number one
As important as this issue is let's remember that the big picture mission is to
have high quality content that is easy and free to access. WMF management has a
lot to handle in addition to this investigation and the Sandole situation
shouldn't consume such a large portion of management's time
Coren / Marc (cc'ing to your personal email as well)
Odder's blog post was posted 3 weeks ago, and my analysis was posted 24
hours ago, and many English Wikipedia admins have said they have seen
either and/or both.
Yet,
Michael Snow wikipe...@frontier.com wrote:
Even if Timothy has been highly disruptive rather than just apparently
very inefficient (which he wasn't), or if it has been donors' money that
had been spent (which it wasn't), or if you had /actually/ been
appointed to speak for the number one
On 03/22/2014 02:45 PM, Russavia wrote:
It's already been established that there is massive copyvio in there,
and I think it is absolutely unacceptable for a copyvio to still be in
this article under the circumstances.
It's unacceptable under /any/ circumstances, but I don't see an obvious
On 21 March 2014 00:56, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote:
...
This project was not funded through the individual
donations of the general public but rather through a third party
foundation that had an interest in seeing this happen, so from an
ethical perspective, it's reasonable that the
Jan-Bart de Vreede, 20/03/2014 18:49:
work for the Wikimedia Foundation. Your email (and Fae’s) seems to imply that
they work directly for you, which is of course not the case (because they
really only need one person to be their manager
Nice one, can be reused with profit. Next time someone
On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 11:55 PM, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote:
Eric, in this thread you are officially speaking for the WMF. Does the
WMF really want to say it is ethical to have different
accountability rules for funding organizations that want to use the
Wikimedia brand because there are
On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 3:37 PM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote:
[3] Contributions welcome, and I hope we can avoid personalizing
things as I'm sure Timothy worked in good faith and did his best to
meet the expectations of the project. :)
On this I do agree, that Sandole was used as a
On 21 March 2014 07:37, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote:
...
needed, to fully expose Harvard's evil agenda and the secret workings
of the reptilian order which most WMF senior staff are part of.
...
Erik, you are a senior manager within the WMF. If you cannot resist
offensive schoolboy
On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 1:08 AM, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote:
Erik, you are a senior manager within the WMF. If you cannot resist
offensive schoolboy sarcasm in your responses
Just after talking about stomping down with its hobnail boots on
Wikimedia UK, huh? :-) I'm sorry to have offended your
Thanks Erik, for looking into it constructively. Looking forward to the
report and the learnings from the assessment.
Best regards,
Bence
On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 8:37 AM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 11:55 PM, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote:
Eric, in this
Erik Moeller wrote:
You tend to add a drama factor of 10x to any discussion I've ever seen
you participate in, and it gets tiresome after a while. Give it a
rest.
Why are you making this issue unnecessarily personal, Erik? This isn't
about Fae, you, or even Timothy Sandole -- so give it a
On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 5:42 AM, Tomasz W. Kozlowski tom...@twkozlowski.net
wrote:
Erik Moeller wrote:
You tend to add a drama factor of 10x to any discussion I've ever seen
you participate in, and it gets tiresome after a while. Give it a
rest.
Why are you making this issue
On 21 March 2014 11:31, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote:
...
it seems to have been the Belfer
Center directing his actions and not the WMF.
If Sandole is a reliable source for his employment during 2012-13,
then we must take into account his recent statement which indicates
that the WMF had some
Russiavia, thanks for your efforts to make a comprehensive report. It's
certainly worth reading, although I am refraining from personally reaching
major conclusions until after we have heard more details from WMF.
Regarding Timothy Sandole's qualifications for the job, he could have been an
Hi all,
I've just met with Lisa Gruwell and Sara Lasner about it to get more
of a debrief of the situation. For the purpose of clarity, I'm looking
into this on Sue's behalf while she's traveling; she should be able to
look into it next week. As noted previously, this isn't a project I
was
Thanks Erik for this clear and, as far as I can see, rather
comprehensive report
There will always be mistakes done, both from us as individuals and as
organizations.
Critical, though, is that we treat these mistakes with openness and
tranparancies and that we learn from our mistakes
In
Erik Moeller, 21/03/2014 08:37:
On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 11:55 PM, Fæ wrote:
Eric, in this thread you are officially speaking for the WMF. Does the
WMF really want to say it is ethical to have different
accountability rules for funding organizations that want to use the
Wikimedia brand because
Thanks Erik for your email which was full of spin, and which will be
discussed later.
But for now, I need to present something that needs clarification from
Timothy.
In reference to
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Timothy_Sandole_-_Belfer_Center_Report.pdf
On Page 2 of his report he
That's a very interesting blog post, and at first glance situation looks bad in
a number of ways. I'm bothered by the lack of reporting as well as the COI
issues involved.
Anasuya, at I don't think the $53,690 number is the right one, but regardless
of how much money was involved, can you
Hey
So while I do not know the background of this case I am a little concerned by
the tone of the email (and similar emails in the past)
Anasuya, Garfield and indeed the entire legal department work for the Wikimedia
Foundation. Your email (and Fae’s) seems to imply that they work directly for
On 20 March 2014 17:49, Jan-Bart de Vreede jdevre...@wikimedia.org wrote:
Anasuya, Garfield and indeed the entire legal department work for the
Wikimedia Foundation. Your email (and Fae’s) seems to imply that they work
directly for you, which is of course not the case (because they really
Hi Jan-Bart,
I'm saying that this looks bad and asking what happened. I directed my email to
the people who I think are in the best positions to respond or would want to
look at this for themselves.
There is a point at which asking questions becomes trolling or wasting
resources but I think
On 20 March 2014 19:05, Lisa Gruwell lgruw...@wikimedia.org wrote:
I am happy to chime in here. WMF served as a fiscal sponsor for the
Stanton Foundation and the Belfer Center at Harvard University in this
project, which started in 2012 and lasted one year. Stanton, a trusted
...
Hi Lisa,
Hi all,
Just to be clear and follow up on Lisa's mail: this project and process did
not involve grants from WMF, and WMF's role (as Lisa explained) was as a
fiscal sponsor, and thereby to provide initial advice as they began
recruiting and to inform the community as they did so.
thanks,
Anasuya
Hi Anasuya and Lisa,
I'm not sure I understand what is meant by fiscal sponsor here. I'd have
thought that would mean that the funding to the sponsored organisation is
analogous to a grant provided by the WMF, even thought the money is actually
provided (directly?) by another organisation.
On 20 March 2014 21:51, Anasuya Sengupta asengu...@wikimedia.org wrote:
Just to be clear and follow up on Lisa's mail: this project and process did
not involve grants from WMF, and WMF's role (as Lisa explained) was as a
fiscal sponsor, and thereby to provide initial advice as they began
On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 11:59 PM, ENWP Pine deyntest...@hotmail.com wrote:
clarify why Sandole was listed as a WMF Fundraiser contractor
Presumably because the fiscal sponsorship was handled through
fundraising, and HR simply tallies the contracts per department and
didn't have the backstory.
Myself and several other community members who are heavily involved in the
development of 'Wikipedian in Residence' and GLAM-WIKI became aware of this
project in early 2012, just before the job description was published. I
will let them speak for themselves if they wish to weigh-in. But the TL;DR
On 20 March 2014 19:05, Lisa Gruwell lgruw...@wikimedia.org wrote:
...
... The Stanton Foundation covered all of the costs
associated with it (approximately $50,000). While WMF provided advice and
posted the position on the Wikimedia Blog, Belfer made the final hiring
decision, which is
I'd like to confirm that I am one of the community members Liam
considerately declined to name; I agree with Liam's account of what
happened; and I agree with Fae's proposed solution (a detailed, public
report from the WMF, the Belfer Center, and/or the Stanton Foundation). The
report should
On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 4:59 PM, Liam Wyatt liamwy...@gmail.com wrote:
The original job description (here
https://hire.jobvite.com/Jobvite/Job.aspx?j=o52lWfw8c=qSa9VfwQ) is on the
WMF's page and says that Wikipedia, in cooperation with the Belfer Center...
is seeking applicants for a Campus
Re: http://twkozlowski.net/the-pot-and-the-kettle-the-wikimedia-way/
Two questions:
1. Where can I find a response from either the WMF board or WMF
funding/finance to the criticisms of a lack of transparency or the
apparent failure of the project to deliver value for the donor's money
as raised
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