Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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. If you feel that some of your work is not consistent with key community policies, you should feel free to escalate the matter to your manager, the Deputy Director, or the Executive Director, as appropriate under the circumstances. We will also do work around staff training as I previously mentioned, including adding this to our on-boarding. Thanks to everyone who have provided input on this issue. Lila On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 5:27 PM, Lila Tretikov l...@wikimedia.org wrote: 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 error. - To prevent issues like these in the future two paths are important: 1. ability to highlight issues through escalation 2. improved clarity on which programs or grants qualify for funding (through training) and the process by which that is done - The first point will be addressed this quarter by HR in the employee handbook through the modified escalation policy and escalation channel. - The second will be addressed through changes to grantmaking program, which we proposed to open for discussion this spring/summer (Q4/Q1) starting with the FDC-level grants https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/Advisory_Group/Recommendations/2014/ED_Response. In short, we are looking to be very clear on goals, parameters, and focus of grants we distribute to ensure they are handled and validated consistently and accurately. The two aspects together should help avoid these types of issues. I am also asking to include some 'guardrail items in employee training. No system is perfect however, and we will continue to tune it to avoid problems. Finally, while I sincerely appreciate you bringing up the issue, I would also appreciate if this is done without snark or disparagement in the future. This would ensure everyone is more productive in their solutions. We will respond in kind. Thank you, Lila On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 4:23 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemow...@gmail.com wrote: 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 a collaborative process. Thanks Erik. 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. https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Assessment_of_Belfer_ Center_Wikipedian_in_Residence_program#Decisions_made said: The ED plans, with the C-level team, to develop a better process for staff to escalate and express concerns about any WMF activities that staff think may in tension with, or in violation of, community policies or best practices. It will take some time to develop a simple, robust process: we aim to have it done by 1 May 2014. I think we're well past the deadline–unless 2014 was a typo for 2015, or ED a typo for Sue Gardner in her spare time. Any updates? Nemo ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 Foundation, it has made grants to the Council on Foreign Relations, MIT's Department of Political Science, the Rand Corporation, and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in addition to the Belfer Center. All of these organisations operate in the arena of international relations.* *The trustee of Stanton and contact point for the Wikimedia Foundation is Elisabeth (Liz) K. Allison [...] From the outset, it should be noted that Liz Allison (Stanton) is married to Graham Allison (Belfer).* In December 2014, the $500,000 award Jimmy Wales received from the UAE government proved controversial among Wikipedians; see for example William Beutler's summary titled Jimmy Wales and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Prize Money, published on his blog, The Wikipedian[2]. In the wake of the UAE award, it transpired that Wales had previously been reported[3] on the World Economic Forum website to have contributed to a Guide to Good Government and Trust-Building compiled in cooperation and with the support of the Government of the United Arab Emirates. When Wales was pointed to the UAE government's human rights violations and asked why he had lent his name to the effort, given the UAE government's signal lack of credentials in this field, Wales said that he had been asked to contribute by Prof. Nye of Harvard.[4] According to the Harvard website, Prof. Nye, too, works at the Belfer Center.[5] Some Wikipedians also raised Wales' 2011 Wikipedian of the Year award for the Kazakh WikiBilim organisation in the discussion of the UAE award.[6][7] William Beutler referred to this part of the discussion in his piece, saying that the Kazakh situation [had] always struck [him] like a misstep on the part of the Wikimedia Foundation and Wales both—seemingly a partnership entered into without a clear understanding of the situation.[2] Jimmy Wales commented in a 2013 discussion, As far as I know, the Wikibilim organization is not politicized. This always struck me as strange. Quite apart from WikiBilim's state financing, the Kazakh Prime Minister's photograph appears on every page of WikiBilim's website, which says that In order to increase the attention of society and especially young generation of internet users Wikibilim started to administrate Kazakh Wikipedia.[7] Just to put this in perspective: does it not seem inconceivable that Jimmy Wales would give a Wikipedian of the Year award to a Russian Wikipedia organisation that had Putin's or Medvedev's face on every page of its website, where it claimed to administrate the Russian Wikipedia? How is Kazakhstan different? I still do not understand it. It came to my attention some weeks ago that Graham Allison, the Belfer Center's director, is not just the husband of the Stanton Foundation's Liz Allison, but also a past recipient of a special medal of friendship from Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev, for his contribution to strengthening friendship and cooperation between Kazakhstan and the United States.[9] Allison also authored the introduction to President Nazarbayev's book, Epicenter of Peace.[9] Given the above past instances of Wikimedia Foundation leaders obliging Belfer Center staff by acceding to their requests, do people think that this reported friendship between the Belfer Center's Director and the Kazakh government may in some way have influenced dealings between Wikimedia Foundation board members and WikiBilim? I would further recall here that in July 2012, Kazakh media reported that Jimmy Wales had thanked the Kazakh government for creating conditions for significant achievements in the development of the Kazakh language Wikipedia.[10] This was half a year after A [Kazakh] law that took effect in January 2012 required owners of internet cafés to obtain users’ names and monitor and record their activity, and to share their information with the security services if requested, as noted by Freedom House in its 2013 report on freedom of the press in Kazakhstan, among many other issues.[11] If the quote in the Kazakh media report is accurate, wasn't this a strange statement to make for a self-declared champion of free speech? How does it fit with the movement's goals and values? [1] https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-March/070665.html [2] http://thewikipedian.net/2014/12/26/uae-prize-money-human-rights/ [3] http://www.weforum.org/news/global-agenda-council-launches-guide-good-government-and-trust-building [4] https://archive.today/Ui7PK [5] http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/experts/3/joseph_s_nye.html [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales/Archive_179#Congratulations [7]
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 error. - To prevent issues like these in the future two paths are important: 1. ability to highlight issues through escalation 2. improved clarity on which programs or grants qualify for funding (through training) and the process by which that is done - The first point will be addressed this quarter by HR in the employee handbook through the modified escalation policy and escalation channel. - The second will be addressed through changes to grantmaking program, which we proposed to open for discussion this spring/summer (Q4/Q1) starting with the FDC-level grants https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/Advisory_Group/Recommendations/2014/ED_Response. In short, we are looking to be very clear on goals, parameters, and focus of grants we distribute to ensure they are handled and validated consistently and accurately. The two aspects together should help avoid these types of issues. I am also asking to include some 'guardrail items in employee training. No system is perfect however, and we will continue to tune it to avoid problems. Finally, while I sincerely appreciate you bringing up the issue, I would also appreciate if this is done without snark or disparagement in the future. This would ensure everyone is more productive in their solutions. We will respond in kind. Thank you, Lila On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 4:23 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemow...@gmail.com wrote: 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 a collaborative process. Thanks Erik. 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. https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Assessment_of_Belfer_ Center_Wikipedian_in_Residence_program#Decisions_made said: The ED plans, with the C-level team, to develop a better process for staff to escalate and express concerns about any WMF activities that staff think may in tension with, or in violation of, community policies or best practices. It will take some time to develop a simple, robust process: we aim to have it done by 1 May 2014. I think we're well past the deadline–unless 2014 was a typo for 2015, or ED a typo for Sue Gardner in her spare time. Any updates? Nemo ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 damaging and disrespectful actions on this issue now spanning more than three years. Let me be direct, though -- I'll take care to lay things out in a snark-free manner here. Last spring, WMF found itself in a bit of a bind, of its own making: this list, the blogosphere, etc. were making a lot of noise about how the WMF had actively undermined the efforts of Wikipedians to guide organizations in ethical engagement with the project. One action above all others served to quiet that noise: the announcement of specific reforms quoted by Nemo above. Now, many months overdue and apparently forgotten, it appears that the announcement was made *for the purpose* of quieting the noise, as opposed to being made out of actual concern for how universities interact with Wikipedia, or how the WMF interacts with knowledgeable members of the Wikimedia movement. An oversight, in general, is understandable and human. But overlooking something that was *specifically undertaken to correct past mistakes* is something different. That kind of oversight, I contend, provides a clear view of the level of interest the organization actually has in addressing the problems under discussion. The WMF is clearly not very interested in undoing the damage it wrought. The Wikimedia movement, and English Wikipedia, have worked hard over many years to establish guidelines and policies that frame an ethical approach and guide volunteers toward producing high quality and consistent content. The GLAM sub-movement in particular has worked to bridge that framework and the operations of mission-aligned organizations like museums and universities. But that work -- which the WMF enjoys talking about in its annual reports, etc. -- was ignored by the WMF the moment it became inconvenient. The moment it interfered with a grant. At precisely the moment when the WMF had a chance to positively influence a leading university, it instead gave that university license to disregard the relevant ethical concerns. Making all of that right, the WMF told us last year, was a priority. But apparently it was not. I am glad to learn that the remedies then under discussion will be picked back up. The WMF will be a healthier organization because of it. But I emphatically request that you refrain from scolding those of us who are frustrated by the need for non-WMF staff to repeatedly, over a span of over three years, remind the WMF that important things need doing. A little snark, in this case, should be the very least of your concerns. Pete -- Pete Forsyth [[User:Peteforsyth]] On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 5:27 PM, Lila Tretikov l...@wikimedia.org wrote: 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 error. - To prevent issues like these in the future two paths are important: 1. ability to highlight issues through escalation 2. improved clarity on which programs or grants qualify for funding (through training) and the process by which that is done - The first point will be addressed this quarter by HR in the employee handbook through the modified escalation policy and escalation channel. - The second will be addressed through changes to grantmaking program, which we proposed to open for discussion this spring/summer (Q4/Q1) starting with the FDC-level grants https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/Advisory_Group/Recommendations/2014/ED_Response . In short, we are looking to be very clear on goals, parameters, and focus of grants we distribute to ensure they are handled and validated consistently and accurately. The two aspects together should help avoid these types of issues. I am also asking to include some 'guardrail items in employee training. No system is perfect however, and we will continue to tune it to avoid problems. Finally, while I sincerely appreciate you bringing up the issue, I would also appreciate if this is done without snark or disparagement in the future. This would ensure everyone is more productive in their solutions. We will respond in kind. Thank you, Lila On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 4:23 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemow...@gmail.com wrote: 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.
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 a collaborative process. Thanks Erik. 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. https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Assessment_of_Belfer_Center_Wikipedian_in_Residence_program#Decisions_made said: The ED plans, with the C-level team, to develop a better process for staff to escalate and express concerns about any WMF activities that staff think may in tension with, or in violation of, community policies or best practices. It will take some time to develop a simple, robust process: we aim to have it done by 1 May 2014. I think we're well past the deadline–unless 2014 was a typo for 2015, or ED a typo for Sue Gardner in her spare time. Any updates? Nemo ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 funding and using the WMF trademarks? Will the WMF itself ensure that foundation money will not be used to generate content on a long term basis? I think this is more of an appropriate question? I have used long term because stuff like Contests/Challenges [there is one on right now] can be considered short term, you know, just to keep editors interests up. On Wed, May 7, 2014 at 6:24 AM, Pete Forsyth petefors...@gmail.com wrote: 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 this email list, Executive Director Sue Gardner recently said: Editorial policies [for WMF staff] are developed, and therefore also best-understood and best-enforced, not by the WMF but by the community. [1] That is the WMF policy as it applies to WMF staff: essentially, no special rules, use your own judgment in interpreting how to best comply with community standards. But here, in the report Sue authored, it seems there is a very different standard for movement partners who seek funding or endorsement from the WMF: In the future, the Wikimedia Foundation will not support or endorse the creation of paid roles that have article writing as a core focus, regardless of who is initiating or managing the process. [2] Again: this is not a direct contradiction, and it is entirely within the rights of the WMF to apply different standards to its own staff vs. to other organizations. But I do think it deserves some careful consideration, as to *why* such different standards would be appropriate. Decision point #1 in the Belfer Center report is not something that is based in any Wikipedia policy. It does have a basis in the Wikipedian in Residence page on the Outreach Wiki.[3] That is an important page, and I believe many in the movement consider it to have the weight of a formal policy; but I don't. Elevating it from a best practice recommendation to an absolute rule is a significant step, and one that I don't believe should be taken lightly. Hi Pete, Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you, and I hope you can clarify for me so that I can follow your position. I don't see the contradiction at all between the two policy-related statements. In the first case, the WMF says that the editorial policies that apply to its employees are promulgated by specific projects and their communities, not the WMF. In the second, it says effectively that the WMF will not sponsor paid editing. The presumption in the first instance is that the WMF already does not pay its employees to edit, so Sue was not referring to paid editing at all. Russavia's question was about editing with a conflict of interest, not payment. I'm not seeing any conflict between those two statements, and the WMF does not appear to me to be applying different standards to others than to itself. In fact, the only time paid editing by an employee has come up as an issue, the employee was quickly dismissed. Perhaps you can explain? ___ Nathan: Again, I don't say it's a contradiction, it's not. But I do think it's an important contrast, and yes, I'll try to clarify why. Does the Wikimedia Foundation create additional policies, related to editing Wikipedia, over and above those established by the Wikipedia community and documented on Wikipedia? For its staff, according to the email I quoted above, the answer is no. (You're right, there is one case that might suggest otherwise, relating to paid editing -- but we don't, and shouldn't, have public access to all the specifics of that case, so it's a tricky one to draw conclusions from, especially in a public forum.) But, there are countless ways in which Wikimedia Foundation staff edit Wikipedia and other projects as a part of their compensated work (and also, in their free time). There is apparently no policy from the WMF governing that behavior beyond general trust in its staff to abide by community-set rules. For other organizations, though, that might seek Wikimedia funds and/or endorsement, the answer is apparently yes (according to the Belfer Center report.) I think that's a contrast that merits some consideration. I think Pine's example is a good one to consider: if a movement-affiliated organization wants to guide another organization in adding content to Wikipedia, and there is
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 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 funding and using the WMF trademarks? I am not up to date on how often the WMF funds pass-through projects that include Wikipedian-in-Residence-like roles. But to whatever extent it does, I absolutely agree with Pine -- applying a litmus test of whether article writing is a core focus would be an inappropriate oversimplification of a complex subject. There are certainly cases where roles that are centrally focused on article writing could strongly advance to the Wikimedia mission. (In case anybody is surprised to hear me say this -- the concerns I voiced about the paid editing aspect of the Belfer Center project were very much based in the specifics of that case.) I think carefully managed article writing can be done successfully by chapters and other organizations, for example if a Wikimedia DC wanted to sponsor a Wikipedian in Residence at the National Institutes of Health to improve articles about cancer. The responsibility for training and supervision could rest with the chapter and the host organization, and the edits could be tagged for community review. Excellent example. There are of course ways such a project could be designed that would be problematic -- for instance, insufficient disclosure, or a bullish attitude in adding controversial points -- but under the guidance of Wikimedia DC, whose board and staff include many longtime Wikipedians, I would have a high degree of confidence they would avoid such problems. Pete posted some good ideas for WiRs in general in the Signpost last week: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2014-04-23/Op-ed . Thank you, glad you liked that :) The situation with Belfer had a lot of problems, but I don't think it should completely stop us from having Wikimedia-sponsored WiRs add content. That would be a bridge too far. Agreed. 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: Editorial policies [for WMF staff] are developed, and therefore also best-understood and best-enforced, not by the WMF but by the community. [1] That is the WMF policy as it applies to WMF staff: essentially, no special rules, use your own judgment in interpreting how to best comply with community standards. But here, in the report Sue authored, it seems there is a very different standard for movement partners who seek funding or endorsement from the WMF: In the future, the Wikimedia Foundation will not support or endorse the creation of paid roles that have article writing as a core focus, regardless of who is initiating or managing the process. [2] Again: this is not a direct contradiction, and it is entirely within the rights of the WMF to apply different standards to its own staff vs. to other organizations. But I do think it deserves some careful consideration, as to *why* such different standards would be appropriate. Decision point #1 in the Belfer Center report is not something that is based in any Wikipedia policy. It does have a basis in the Wikipedian in Residence page on the Outreach Wiki.[3] That is an important page, and I believe many in the movement consider it to have the weight of a formal policy; but I don't. Elevating it from a best practice recommendation to an absolute rule is a significant step, and one that I don't believe should be taken lightly. Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]] [1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-April/071161.html [2] https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedian_in_Residence/Harvard_University_assessment#Decisions_made [3] https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedian_in_Residence#Core_characteristics_of_a_Wikipedian_in_Residence ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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: Editorial policies [for WMF staff] are developed, and therefore also best-understood and best-enforced, not by the WMF but by the community. [1] That is the WMF policy as it applies to WMF staff: essentially, no special rules, use your own judgment in interpreting how to best comply with community standards. But here, in the report Sue authored, it seems there is a very different standard for movement partners who seek funding or endorsement from the WMF: In the future, the Wikimedia Foundation will not support or endorse the creation of paid roles that have article writing as a core focus, regardless of who is initiating or managing the process. [2] Again: this is not a direct contradiction, and it is entirely within the rights of the WMF to apply different standards to its own staff vs. to other organizations. But I do think it deserves some careful consideration, as to *why* such different standards would be appropriate. Decision point #1 in the Belfer Center report is not something that is based in any Wikipedia policy. It does have a basis in the Wikipedian in Residence page on the Outreach Wiki.[3] That is an important page, and I believe many in the movement consider it to have the weight of a formal policy; but I don't. Elevating it from a best practice recommendation to an absolute rule is a significant step, and one that I don't believe should be taken lightly. Hi Pete, Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you, and I hope you can clarify for me so that I can follow your position. I don't see the contradiction at all between the two policy-related statements. In the first case, the WMF says that the editorial policies that apply to its employees are promulgated by specific projects and their communities, not the WMF. In the second, it says effectively that the WMF will not sponsor paid editing. The presumption in the first instance is that the WMF already does not pay its employees to edit, so Sue was not referring to paid editing at all. Russavia's question was about editing with a conflict of interest, not payment. I'm not seeing any conflict between those two statements, and the WMF does not appear to me to be applying different standards to others than to itself. In fact, the only time paid editing by an employee has come up as an issue, the employee was quickly dismissed. Perhaps you can explain? ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 this email list, Executive Director Sue Gardner recently said: Editorial policies [for WMF staff] are developed, and therefore also best-understood and best-enforced, not by the WMF but by the community. [1] That is the WMF policy as it applies to WMF staff: essentially, no special rules, use your own judgment in interpreting how to best comply with community standards. But here, in the report Sue authored, it seems there is a very different standard for movement partners who seek funding or endorsement from the WMF: In the future, the Wikimedia Foundation will not support or endorse the creation of paid roles that have article writing as a core focus, regardless of who is initiating or managing the process. [2] Again: this is not a direct contradiction, and it is entirely within the rights of the WMF to apply different standards to its own staff vs. to other organizations. But I do think it deserves some careful consideration, as to *why* such different standards would be appropriate. Decision point #1 in the Belfer Center report is not something that is based in any Wikipedia policy. It does have a basis in the Wikipedian in Residence page on the Outreach Wiki.[3] That is an important page, and I believe many in the movement consider it to have the weight of a formal policy; but I don't. Elevating it from a best practice recommendation to an absolute rule is a significant step, and one that I don't believe should be taken lightly. Hi Pete, Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you, and I hope you can clarify for me so that I can follow your position. I don't see the contradiction at all between the two policy-related statements. In the first case, the WMF says that the editorial policies that apply to its employees are promulgated by specific projects and their communities, not the WMF. In the second, it says effectively that the WMF will not sponsor paid editing. The presumption in the first instance is that the WMF already does not pay its employees to edit, so Sue was not referring to paid editing at all. Russavia's question was about editing with a conflict of interest, not payment. I'm not seeing any conflict between those two statements, and the WMF does not appear to me to be applying different standards to others than to itself. In fact, the only time paid editing by an employee has come up as an issue, the employee was quickly dismissed. Perhaps you can explain? ___ Nathan: Again, I don't say it's a contradiction, it's not. But I do think it's an important contrast, and yes, I'll try to clarify why. Does the Wikimedia Foundation create additional policies, related to editing Wikipedia, over and above those established by the Wikipedia community and documented on Wikipedia? For its staff, according to the email I quoted above, the answer is no. (You're right, there is one case that might suggest otherwise, relating to paid editing -- but we don't, and shouldn't, have public access to all the specifics of that case, so it's a tricky one to draw conclusions from, especially in a public forum.) But, there are countless ways in which Wikimedia Foundation staff edit Wikipedia and other projects as a part of their compensated work (and also, in their free time). There is apparently no policy from the WMF governing that behavior beyond general trust in its staff to abide by community-set rules. For other organizations, though, that might seek Wikimedia funds and/or endorsement, the answer is apparently yes (according to the Belfer Center report.) I think that's a contrast that merits some consideration. I think Pine's example is a good one to consider: if a movement-affiliated organization wants to guide another organization in adding content to Wikipedia, and there is payment involved, the WMF apparently won't support that. Is that really a good rule to have? I don't think so. Many organizations have added material directly to Wikipedia, in some cases with the guidance of a Wikipedian in Residence, with unequivocally positive impact to the Wikimedia mission, and with much support from the Wikipedia community. I don't think it's a great idea for the WMF to distance itself from such projects on the basis of paid editing. Pete ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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, high-quality content during the fall term of 2013 and the equivalent of more than 36,000 printed pages of content since its start in 2010. 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? Anthony Cole http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Anthonyhcole On Wed, Apr 16, 2014 at 10:56 PM, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote: 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's more detailed report, that knowledge of Wikipedia was not required by the manager within the Foundation that Sandole was reporting to. It is no surprise that someone within the Funding department might not be an expert in English Wikipedia policies or guidelines for editors. Does anyone know of any positive action taken yet by the Foundation as a result of this governance failure, beyond Sue's report? Fae -- fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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 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 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, high-quality content during the fall term of 2013 and the equivalent of more than 36,000 printed pages of content since its start in 2010. 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? Anthony Cole http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Anthonyhcole On Wed, Apr 16, 2014 at 10:56 PM, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote: 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's more detailed report, that knowledge of Wikipedia was not required by the manager within the Foundation that Sandole was reporting to. It is no surprise that someone within the Funding department might not be an expert in English Wikipedia policies or guidelines for editors. Does anyone know of any positive action taken yet by the Foundation as a result of this governance failure, beyond Sue's report? Fae -- fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
Bear in mind her email address has now changed as she's moved to @wikiedfoundation.org E.g. this link re: quality http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/10/04/spring-2012-wikipedia-education-program-quality/ but I've seen more recent stuff Simon -Original Message- From: wikimedia-l-boun...@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 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 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, high-quality content during the fall term of 2013 and the equivalent of more than 36,000 printed pages of content since its start in 2010. 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? Anthony Cole http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Anthonyhcole On Wed, Apr 16, 2014 at 10:56 PM, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote: 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's more detailed report, that knowledge of Wikipedia was not required by the manager within the Foundation that Sandole was reporting to. It is no surprise that someone within the Funding department might not be an expert in English Wikipedia policies or guidelines for editors. Does anyone know of any positive action taken yet by the Foundation as a result of this governance failure, beyond Sue's report? Fae -- fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 on-list. :) We've done two quality studies on articles written by students participating in the Wikipedia Education Program in the U.S. and Canada, one covering the first two terms of the pilot (fall 2010 and spring 2011) and then again a year later, in spring 2012. Here's the 2010-11: https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Student_Contributions_to_Wikipedia Here's the spring 2012: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ambassadors/Research/Article_quality/Results As you might imagine, hand-assessing two versions of an article (the version immediately prior to the student's first edit and the version it was at their last edit) is an extremely time-consuming process. Given we found pretty similar results (the vast majority of students significantly improve articles through our program), we have stopped doing these studies because they take up so much valuable volunteer time. If there were an automatic way to gauge article quality that didn't involve volunteer time, I'd love to repeat the study every term, but I haven't seen any good way of gauging article quality that doesn't involve hand assessment of articles. In terms of the 7,000 printed pages, we use WikiMetrics ( https://metrics.wmflabs.org/) to determine how much content students add to the article namespace each term. Hope this helps. LiAnna -- LiAnna Davis Head of Communications and External Relations Wiki Education Foundation ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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. Also from April 14, news that the Stanton Foundation have given the Wikimedia Foundation another grant of $1.39 million to support programmatic activities of the Wiki Education Foundation. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Education_Foundation/Press_Release_14_April_2014 On Tue, Apr 8, 2014 at 2:49 PM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: Russavia wrote: Annd queue crickets. I believe you want cue here. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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's more detailed report, that knowledge of Wikipedia was not required by the manager within the Foundation that Sandole was reporting to. It is no surprise that someone within the Funding department might not be an expert in English Wikipedia policies or guidelines for editors. Does anyone know of any positive action taken yet by the Foundation as a result of this governance failure, beyond Sue's report? Fae -- fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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, Pete. Tomasz ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
Russavia wrote: Annd queue crickets. I believe you want cue here. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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: http://wikistrategies.net/belfer1/ -Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]] On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 8:23 PM, 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 details. I encourage others to participate in this as a collaborative process. Thanks Erik. 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 Wikipedian-in-Residence project with editing as a core activity of the WIR role, despite internal and external voices strongly advising us not to. That was a mistake, and we shouldn't have done it. I want to apologize for it, particularly to Asaf Bartov, Siko Bouterse, LiAnna Davis, Frank Schulenburg, Pete Forsyth, Lori Phillips and Liam Wyatt, who tried to guide the project in the right direction and whose voices didn't get heard. We did advise the Belfer Center and the Wikipedian-in-Residence about conflict-of-interest policies on enWP, and so far we haven't seen any evidence to suggest major problems with Timothy's edits. That said, we didn't structure the program in a way that would've appropriately mitigated the risk of problematic edits, and we wish we had. We also wish we'd been better able to support our partner organizations in understanding and navigating community policies and best practices. Thanks, Sue ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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: https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedian_in_Residence/Harvard_University_assessment#Pete_Forsyth_notes I also published a response to the WMF report: http://wikistrategies.net/belfer1/ -Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]] On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 8:23 PM, 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 details. I encourage others to participate in this as a collaborative process. Thanks Erik. 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 Wikipedian-in-Residence project with editing as a core activity of the WIR role, despite internal and external voices strongly advising us not to. That was a mistake, and we shouldn't have done it. I want to apologize for it, particularly to Asaf Bartov, Siko Bouterse, LiAnna Davis, Frank Schulenburg, Pete Forsyth, Lori Phillips and Liam Wyatt, who tried to guide the project in the right direction and whose voices didn't get heard. We did advise the Belfer Center and the Wikipedian-in-Residence about conflict-of-interest policies on enWP, and so far we haven't seen any evidence to suggest major problems with Timothy's edits. That said, we didn't structure the program in a way that would've appropriately mitigated the risk of problematic edits, and we wish we had. We also wish we'd been better able to support our partner organizations in understanding and navigating community policies and best practices. Thanks, Sue ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 statement from individual board members, present and past (at the time of the issue) as to when they became aware of it. Given that this issue was basically common knowledge at the higher echelons of the WMF, and it was actively ignored by not only the WMF but also the wider community, I find it improbable that the Board, or at the very least individual board members, were in the dark on the issue Cheers, Russavia On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 11:23 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 details. I encourage others to participate in this as a collaborative process. Thanks Erik. 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 Wikipedian-in-Residence project with editing as a core activity of the WIR role, despite internal and external voices strongly advising us not to. That was a mistake, and we shouldn't have done it. I want to apologize for it, particularly to Asaf Bartov, Siko Bouterse, LiAnna Davis, Frank Schulenburg, Pete Forsyth, Lori Phillips and Liam Wyatt, who tried to guide the project in the right direction and whose voices didn't get heard. We did advise the Belfer Center and the Wikipedian-in-Residence about conflict-of-interest policies on enWP, and so far we haven't seen any evidence to suggest major problems with Timothy's edits. That said, we didn't structure the program in a way that would've appropriately mitigated the risk of problematic edits, and we wish we had. We also wish we'd been better able to support our partner organizations in understanding and navigating community policies and best practices. Thanks, Sue ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 to do here. In fact, I'd be concerned if they're poking around on this when there are several matters well within their mandate that are not apparently being addressed. Risker/Anne On 2 April 2014 03:07, ENWP Pine deyntest...@hotmail.com wrote: Although much of my original email to Arbcom about this situation is outdated, I can report that Arbcom is having a look at this situation. I don't think there is any action needed on their part at the moment. I am only relaying my personal views and not speaking on their behalf. While we wait for further answers and documentation about this issue, I hope those who have some spare time will look at the proposed Annual Plan for the next fiscal year. I am glad WMF is providing good opportunities for community and public input. Pine ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 in which this project was started and managed had problems as you described. I think that WiRs need a higher level of training and supervision than happened here, especially if the WiR is not already an established Wikimedia contributor and familiar with the relevant policies for their work. Could WMF also discuss the copyright issues involved? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Timothysandole#Copyright_release_for_excerpts_from_reports https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Russia%E2%80%93United_States_relations#Recent_removal_of_apparent_copyright_violation:_context https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Russia%E2%80%93United_States_relationsdiff=601379035oldid=524953814 Thanks, Pine ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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. Cheers, Craig On 1 April 2014 15:27, Liam Wyatt liamwy...@gmail.com wrote: 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 Wikipedian-in-Residence project with editing as a core activity of the WIR role, despite internal and external voices strongly advising us not to. That was a mistake, and we shouldn't have done it. Thank you for taking the time to put the postmortem together. I've been very impressed with and appreciate the candor and thoughtfulness that have gone into the responses to this discussion. Growing pains are still pains, of course, but I'm hopefully optimistic that the Wikimedia Foundation is learning from its experiences, good and bad, as it matures. MZMcBride Let me second that sentiment. Thank you Sue, Erik et al. at the WMF. While I'm sure there will be ongoing discussions about this topic on the mailing lists and on-wiki, I too am heartened by the genuine concern, non-defensiveness (in the face of criticism - including mine), and willingness to investigate this issue. Sincerely, -Liam / Wittylama wittylama.com Peace, love metadata ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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, regardless of who is initiating or managing the process should be read by the FDC that Chapters and Thorgs should not plan to use their funds for paid editing projects, and that we will not support partnerships with other organizations where this is an expected outcome? As well as the list of people that you thanked, I would like to add my thanks for Tomasz who took the time to research his original blog post, and to Russavia for his analysis, both invested significant unpaid volunteer time to do this research on behalf of the community. Without their work I would not have thought to ask my basic questions about the project on this list, nor would we have so much detailed evidence to support your report. 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, or press for the question and discussion to stay secret from the main body of our community by moving it to closed channels when there are no privacy or personal issues to justify that secrecy or confidentiality. This behaviour drives whistle-blowers underground or leaves them tediously sniping on certain soap-box forums and wiki-discussion pages using anonymous accounts. I may help for us to consider how valuable good faith whistle-blowing can be, and how we could avoid deriding or dismissing the questioner as troll or a 'drama queen' and damaging their standing within our community in the process. Thanks, Fae (troll, drama queen, speaking from the grave, etc.) -- fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 matter that is the issue so much as the manner. It is perfectly possible to express concern - even outrage - without being provocative and offensive. 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 whistleblowers -- we need vigilant participants. Compare MzMcBride's approach to... that of some others on this thread, and you will see the difference between raising an issue and being needlessly provocative. -- Marc ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 whistleblowers -- we need vigilant participants. Compare MzMcBride's approach to... that of some others on this thread, and you will see the difference between raising an issue and being needlessly provocative. ... 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. The evidence of this case, as summarized in Sue's own published words, shows that there were multiple attempts to raise polite inquiry. These were consistently overlooked or ignored over an extremely long period. Yes, the movement certainly does need whilstle-blowers like Tomasz in order for serious failures to be opportunities to take action and learn from. Fae -- fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 can see why you'd think that. I've been an unpaid volunteer outside for very many years before I've been within; and my job at the foundation is only technical and community-facing. 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 would have been exactly the same 18 months ago. The evidence of this case, as summarized in Sue's own published words, shows that there were multiple attempts to raise polite inquiry. These were consistently overlooked or ignored over an extremely long period. Indeed. That was mostly a failure of oversight -- possibly combined with unjustified optimism. You know what they say: hindsight is 20/20. I still see no reason to believe that - given the same timing - a deliberate question would not have been just as effective as the less optimal way this matter was raised. It is *much* easier to get the stakeholders to collaborate when they don't have to go on the defensive. -- Marc ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 details. I encourage others to participate in this as a collaborative process. Thanks Erik. 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 Wikipedian-in-Residence project with editing as a core activity of the WIR role, despite internal and external voices strongly advising us not to. That was a mistake, and we shouldn't have done it. I want to apologize for it, particularly to Asaf Bartov, Siko Bouterse, LiAnna Davis, Frank Schulenburg, Pete Forsyth, Lori Phillips and Liam Wyatt, who tried to guide the project in the right direction and whose voices didn't get heard. We did advise the Belfer Center and the Wikipedian-in-Residence about conflict-of-interest policies on enWP, and so far we haven't seen any evidence to suggest major problems with Timothy's edits. That said, we didn't structure the program in a way that would've appropriately mitigated the risk of problematic edits, and we wish we had. We also wish we'd been better able to support our partner organizations in understanding and navigating community policies and best practices. Thanks, Sue Hi Sue et al, tl;dr: The underlying why did this happen still goes unanswered. Can we do better? It's great to see that the WMF put this post-mortem together, and identified the mistakes that were made in this project (or possibly that this entire project was a mistake), and especially what decisions were made. While reading the report, it strikes me somewhat as a concession to some aspects of this mailinglist (repent! publicly! now grovel! louder! like you mean it! again, but now on one leg!) which may be understandable, but not all that necessary, and possibly counter-productive in that it may create an atmosphere that mistakes are OK when you repent deeply afterwards - while in reality mistakes are to be expected, and investigating them an effective means for improvement of the movement. This is also where my concerns in the report are. I'll immediately concede that I don't have much experience in what is customary in these kinds of reports. The important part of lessons learned to me shouldn't stop at what went wrong, but why. The current Lessons learned section only identifies the mistakes made, but doesn't go in to the reasons these mistakes were made. It's possible that lessons learned is customary corporate-speak -which I am not fluent in- for mistakes made. This leaves out the underlying causes, which are somewhat addressed in the decisions made, but never made explicit, so I'm asking these questions here. (transparency never hurts the movement - though it can definitely sting the people involved at times, but let's rip off the band-aid completely) 1. At the point when it became clear that this project was not a simple pass-through grant but required programmatic work, the Executive Director should have transferred responsibility for it to a programmatic area. In general, it's a good practice to separate fundraising and programmatic work, because programmatic staff have programmatic expertise that fundraising staff lack. (For example in this instance, programmatic oversight would have likely resulted in regular public reporting.) Having programmatic work overseen by the fundraising department was a mistake. So how did it end up at the fundraising department, and why didn't it get transferred? Did the fundraising department regard it as their programme, or did they maybe fear deteriorating relations with the donor of they didn't handle the programme themselves? Were boundries between fundraising and programmatic activities too vague, or were they deliberately overstepped in the believe it would work out? Did the fundraising staff at any point feel they were doing something outside their expertese? If so, what were the causes they didn't solicit help? If not, do there need to be clearer guidelines what is and isn't within their remit? 2. [T]he WMF acceded to that request, replacing the job description with a new version provided by the Stanton Foundation and the Belfer Center. The WMF didn't give that new version enough scrutiny before agreeing to it, and didn't inform the people who'd been advising us. This was a mistake. So why did this happen? Were the people who accepted the replacement thinking people were being difficult and overstepping their boundaries? Was this discussed internally? If so, what was the outcome, and why? Did fundraising identify the concerns about the job description as an important problem, or did it get more or less dismissed as meddling
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 impropriety given that the Stanton Foundation is probably the Foundation's single biggest donor, and the administrator of the Stanton Foundation's funds is married to the director of the Belfer Center (who according to the center's website has now taken on the former Wikipedian in Residence as a staff assistant). Whether this was the case or not, it *looks* like the WMF was simply used so that Mrs Harris could get Mr Harris another member of staff who would not show up on the Center's payroll. 2. The fact that the WMF appears to have departed from usual procedures (such as locating this Wikipedian in Residence in Fundraising, allowing the Belfer Center to write the job description, etc.) to please its biggest donor. 3. The fact that in his reports to the WMF the Wikipedian in Residence on more than one occasion billed three hours of research and *six hours* of drafting in MS Word for a 150-word insertion in a Wikipedia article that another Wikipedian could have drafted in a fraction of an hour, and that this apparently was not questioned. 4. The fact that the edits the Wikipedian in Residence made included conflict-of-interest and copyright violations, according to multiple Wikipedians. These, to me, are the real problems. 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 nothing like this will ever happen again. This is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Let's for a moment look at the practicality of the idea that a Wikipedian in Residence should not personally edit Wikipedia. If Graham Allison had physically made the edits that Tim Sandole made, would this have made any material difference whatsoever to the situation? Clearly, it would not. Saying that a Wikipedian in Residence will not physically click Edit, but will merely instruct experts at his institution in how to make and source edits (and perhaps even draft them for them in MS Word ...) is a very thin smokescreen. The material question is not whether a Wikipedian in Residence will physically edit. The question is whether the edits resulting from any WiR placement will be in line with Wikipedia policies and guidelines, including neutral point of view, conflict of interest, copyright, plagiarism, verifiability, and so on, and whether they will improve project content - making it more accurate, more readable, more up to date. What is required here? It's that whichever person ultimately performs the edits receive proper training in Wikipedia policies, guidelines, editing methods, etc., so that their subject matter expertise can be leveraged to optimum effect. Standardised training courses to impart that Wikipedia-specific knowledge to subject matter experts are an area the Foundation could profitably invest in. Saying that Wikipedians in Residence won't edit doesn't address that. It merely absolves the Foundation from responsibility - a purely cosmetic exercise if the quantity and quality of the resulting edits is the same as it was in this case. What counts for the reading and donating public is the quality of the edits that result from a WiR placement, not who makes those edits. The Foundation should not shirk, but embrace its responsibility to use donated funds to optimum effect. Andreas On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 2:45 PM, Marc A. Pelletier m...@uberbox.org wrote: 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 can see why you'd think that. I've been an unpaid volunteer outside for very many years before I've been within; and my job at the foundation is only technical and community-facing. 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 would have been exactly the same 18 months ago. The evidence of this case, as summarized in Sue's own published words, shows that there were multiple attempts to raise polite inquiry. These were consistently overlooked or ignored over an extremely long period. Indeed. That was mostly a failure of oversight -- possibly combined with unjustified optimism. You know what they say: hindsight is 20/20. I still see no reason to believe that - given the same timing - a deliberate question would not have been just as
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 Stanton Foundation funds other programs related to international security. A little bit more detail: As per [1], the Allisons helped care for Dr. Stanton before his death in 2006. Frank Stanton was a member of the Harvard board and a long-time Harvard supporter. [1] [2] The Stanton Foundation was set up in Frank Stanton's name after his death and is a private foundation. We don't have reason to assume that there's anything untoward about the relationship between the Stanton Foundation and Graham Allison / the Belfer Center, and our assessment focuses solely on WMF's mistakes in taking on this project. Erik [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/26/business/media/26stanton.html?_r=0pagewanted=print [2] http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2007/02/ksg-community-pays-tribute-to-frank-stanton/ -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 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 impropriety given that the Stanton Foundation is probably the Foundation's single biggest donor, and the administrator of the Stanton Foundation's funds is married to the director of the Belfer Center (who according to the center's website has now taken on the former Wikipedian in Residence as a staff assistant). Whether this was the case or not, it *looks* like the WMF was simply used so that Mrs Harris could get Mr Harris another member of staff who would not show up on the Center's payroll. 2. The fact that the WMF appears to have departed from usual procedures (such as locating this Wikipedian in Residence in Fundraising, allowing the Belfer Center to write the job description, etc.) to please its biggest donor. 3. The fact that in his reports to the WMF the Wikipedian in Residence on more than one occasion billed three hours of research and *six hours* of drafting in MS Word for a 150-word insertion in a Wikipedia article that another Wikipedian could have drafted in a fraction of an hour, and that this apparently was not questioned. 4. The fact that the edits the Wikipedian in Residence made included conflict-of-interest and copyright violations, according to multiple Wikipedians. These, to me, are the real problems. 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 nothing like this will ever happen again. This is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Let's for a moment look at the practicality of the idea that a Wikipedian in Residence should not personally edit Wikipedia. If Graham Allison had physically made the edits that Tim Sandole made, would this have made any material difference whatsoever to the situation? Clearly, it would not. Saying that a Wikipedian in Residence will not physically click Edit, but will merely instruct experts at his institution in how to make and source edits (and perhaps even draft them for them in MS Word ...) is a very thin smokescreen. The material question is not whether a Wikipedian in Residence will physically edit. The question is whether the edits resulting from any WiR placement will be in line with Wikipedia policies and guidelines, including neutral point of view, conflict of interest, copyright, plagiarism, verifiability, and so on, and whether they will improve project content - making it more accurate, more readable, more up to date. What is required here? It's that whichever person ultimately performs the edits receive proper training in Wikipedia policies, guidelines, editing methods, etc., so that their subject matter expertise can be leveraged to optimum effect. Standardised training courses to impart that Wikipedia-specific knowledge to subject matter experts are an area the Foundation could profitably invest in. Saying that Wikipedians in Residence won't edit doesn't address that. It merely absolves the Foundation from responsibility - a purely cosmetic exercise if the quantity and quality of the resulting edits is the same as it was in this case. What counts for the reading and donating public is the quality of the edits that result from a WiR placement, not who makes those edits. The Foundation should not shirk, but embrace its responsibility to use donated funds to optimum effect. Andreas On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 2:45 PM, Marc A. Pelletier m...@uberbox.org wrote: 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 can see why you'd think that. I've been an unpaid volunteer outside for very many years before I've been within; and my job at the foundation is only technical and community-facing. 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 would have been exactly the same 18 months ago. The evidence of this case, as summarized in Sue's own published words, shows that there were multiple attempts to raise polite inquiry. These were consistently overlooked or ignored over an extremely
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 into a paid editing role and to re-craft the JD came into play in the first place (in turn Lori, Pete, Liam got looped in, who all articulated this very clearly). In fact for some time, it was considered to run this as equivalent to a fellowship. From my read of the situation, as the hiring process dragged on and Belfer turned down candidates with strong Wikipedia experience, the programmatic experts ultimately disengaged (seeing that Wikipedia expertise was not a required part of the job from Belfer's perspective, so the fellowship model didn't apply). Because the project had been held by fundraising in the first place, it ultimately ended up solely being managed by the fundraising staff. or did they maybe fear deteriorating relations with the donor If you're a professional fundraiser, it's your job to build and maintain good relationships with donors - there's nothing wrong with that. We've taken on restricted grants in the past, and while these are never a slam dunk and always a bit challenging, on all of these projects, there has always been a healthy tension between what the funder wants vs. what WMF thinks we should do, with programmatic experts providing direct pushback if needed. The issue here isn't that fundraising tried to maintain good relationships with a funder - the issue is that the project oversight and execution wasn't firewalled off to programs as it ordinarily should be. Were boundries between fundraising and programmatic activities too vague Yes. Erik -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 nothing like this will ever happen again. This is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Perhaps. As I've said in the past, I think it'd be best for any such ethical paid editing work to be conducted within a completely different organizational context, with that org's sole focus being to support and enable it being done well. Organizations need focus, and this isn't ours for good reasons. In fact, nobody would stop you - or anyone - from setting up such an organization and seeking funding for it. I do think there's an inherent risk with situating paid editors within specific institutions, because there may be a tendency that comes with that to attach undue weight to that institution's work. Erik -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 assessment to make sure it wasn't too candid. Refer to Martijn Hoekstra's email and questions as to why this candid assessment isn't really that candid at all. Russavia ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 would have been exactly the same 18 months ago. This is a pretty big statement to make, so I thought it would be a good idea to engage in a little research to see if your comment stands up to scrutiny. I like research.[1] We can see from your stats of postings to the mailing list[2], that 18 months ago you weren't active; you only really became active after you landed yourself a job with the WMF.[3] So I went back just a little further -- only by a few months, and I found this comment[4] from you to (at the time) Board member, Phoebe Ayers[5]: beginquote I think that the first thing that should be learned -- and indeed that should have been learned /before/ this farce -- is that begging the question in a referendum is fundamentally dishonest. I was oh so very pleased to learn that I get to give my opinion on insignificant implementation details of a feature that stands in opposition to everything Wikipedia stands for which is going to be committed against us whether we like it or not. endquote It is *much* easier to get the stakeholders to collaborate when they don't have to go on the defensive. Really, Marc? Really?[4] What is entirely ironic, and quite sad actually, is that we can all remember your diva rage quit of the English Wikipedia Arbcom in 2013[6], in which you accused the committee of being politicised. I call your attention to this statement by you: What I mean by 'politicized' was that decisions are not being argued around 'what is best for the project' but 'what will make [the committee] look good'. Add to that stonewalling, filibustering, and downright 'bullying' from those who aren't getting their way - to the point of having arbitrators being ... creative ... with ethics in order to get the upper hand. I see no difference between what you accused the en.wp Arbcom of doing, and the way that you are bullying and needlessly attacking community members who are presenting relevant information and asking relevant questions. To other list members, I am sorry that the above has had to be said on-list, but the way that Fae has been treated and attacked by numerous members of this list in this very thread is a disgrace, and I for one have had a gutful of it. Russavia [1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-March/070665.html [2] http://www.infodisiac.com/Wikipedia/ScanMail/Marc_A._Pelletier.html [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Coren/disclosure [4] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-August/067518.html [5] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Former_Board_of_Trustees_members#Phoebe_Ayers [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-03-18/News_and_notes ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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. Previously the jobs that I had pretty much covered the entire waterfront: Summer jobs in high school Jobs while in college (didn't we all do that!) 4 years in a combination of corporations and small businesses 17 years as a volunteer as I raised my two sons 17 years in non-profits (helping to found 3 of them) 2 years in county government 2 years as a scheduler for a Presidential campaign and most recently, just before I came here, 6 years as a scheduler for a US Congressman. She must be 'old as dirt you are thinking - well not just yet - and among other things that set WMF apart - they do not discriminate on the basis of age :-) :-) :-) WMF is unique in so many ways from all the other places I have worked, just to name a few: Basic operating manual: Assume good faith! Look for the truth! Express your views in an unbiased way! (a slight rewording of the rules for editing). Everything is discussed in the open. Everyone is welcome to express their opinion. The leadership (all the way to the top) openly apologizes when mistakes are made. Rather than dig in and insist on continuing processes that don't work, people at WMF put their heads together and look for a different solution. Much like the point in the movie Apollo 13 when they discover that the air in the stranded capsule is slowly killing the astronauts. The team is told to bring everything to a meeting that the astronauts have available inside the capsule. They all come into the room shouting and pointing fingers at each other in an effort to lay blame regarding what went wrong. At some point Ed Harris, who plays the White Team Flight Director, yells, Let's just work the problem! WMF is good at working the problem. When I reflect on the above, I ask, what if the entire world worked this way, or even half the world, or even just enough people to get us to the tipping point. It would be powerful stuff. I don't intend to imply that we are looking at perfect - but then, life is not about perfection of action (we are after all human), it is about perfection of intention which is not that from assume good faith. Take good care, Amy -- *Amy Vossbrinck* *Executive Assistant to the* *Chief of Finance and Administration, Garfield Byrd* *Wikimedia Foundation* *149 New Montgomery Street* *San Francisco, CA 94105* *415.839.6885 ext 6628* *avossbri...@wikimedia.org avossbri...@wikimedia.org* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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. Thanks Erik. 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 Wikipedian-in-Residence project with editing as a core activity of the WIR role, despite internal and external voices strongly advising us not to. That was a mistake, and we shouldn't have done it. I want to apologize for it, particularly to Asaf Bartov, Siko Bouterse, LiAnna Davis, Frank Schulenburg, Pete Forsyth, Lori Phillips and Liam Wyatt, who tried to guide the project in the right direction and whose voices didn't get heard. We did advise the Belfer Center and the Wikipedian-in-Residence about conflict-of-interest policies on enWP, and so far we haven't seen any evidence to suggest major problems with Timothy's edits. That said, we didn't structure the program in a way that would've appropriately mitigated the risk of problematic edits, and we wish we had. We also wish we'd been better able to support our partner organizations in understanding and navigating community policies and best practices. Thanks, Sue ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 Wikipedian-in-Residence project with editing as a core activity of the WIR role, despite internal and external voices strongly advising us not to. That was a mistake, and we shouldn't have done it. Thank you for taking the time to put the postmortem together. I've been very impressed with and appreciate the candor and thoughtfulness that have gone into the responses to this discussion. Growing pains are still pains, of course, but I'm hopefully optimistic that the Wikimedia Foundation is learning from its experiences, good and bad, as it matures. MZMcBride Let me second that sentiment. Thank you Sue, Erik et al. at the WMF. While I'm sure there will be ongoing discussions about this topic on the mailing lists and on-wiki, I too am heartened by the genuine concern, non-defensiveness (in the face of criticism - including mine), and willingness to investigate this issue. Sincerely, -Liam / Wittylama wittylama.com Peace, love metadata ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Belfer_Center_Campus_Wikipedian_Reports and there is permission on OTRS for all reports to the managers of this project. There appear to be several weeks missing, in fact even accounting for standard holidays or additional sick leave, I estimate there are around 10 weeks with no reports. Could these be published so that we have a complete record to review before the WMF finalizes its own final report? Thanks, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 them, and imposing our ideas of what should be done with someone else's money is just wishful thinking. At the same time, it is clear that there are legitimate concerns with this project from the perspective of good editing practices and conflicts of interest. This is a good argument that it would have been better for the Wikimedia Foundation not to participate in the transaction, and gives reason to be leery of such pass-through arrangements in general. And in terms of organizational philosophy, it's also why the foundation focuses on fundraising from the general public rather than restricted gifts from individual donors. Looking at this from an audit committee perspective, the information so far suggests that the foundation could more carefully screen such gifts for alignment with our values, but at this point I haven't seen indications that this rises to the level of misuse of donor funds. Eh, that is not the point in my mind. If A wants to assist his relative B's work, and, for administrative reasons, they want to engage WMF as a middle man to make it appear as if there is no direct financial flow, then it's not for A to evaluate whether the funds achieved their intended pur- pose. 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 way that better fits our priorities. Had the Wikimedia Foundation actually done that, it would be highly improper. Depriving A of the ability to direct the use of the funds may vaguely feel like a just consequence for acting with impure motives, but we do not have the right to enforce such a result. The correct answer is much more likely to be a set of two possibilities. Either more work should have gone into ensuring alignment with our goals, or the foundation should have declined to get involved. The former is what Liam and others have tried to emphasize, and would require having conversations along the lines of, These are the kinds of things Wikipedians-in-Residence are expected to focus on, are you comfortable with your money being directed to those types of activities? The latter option, meanwhile, is always an acceptable course for us to take if it's not clear that we have a mutual understanding with the donor about how to spend the money. Organizations that distribute funds according to the deposi- tors' wishes are called banks and they have to ensure their compliance with relevant regulations. That's a very simplistic formulation which ignores the wide variety of organizations and professions that may need to handle funds belonging to other parties. Trustees, lawyers, and agents of various kinds do this all the time without needing to be banks, although certainly they typically use bank accounts as part of the process. Nonprofit organizations effectively do this when they accept restricted gifts. For many nonprofits, private foundations in particular, this is basically what they do with all the money that comes in the door. Compliance with the relevant regulations, meanwhile, is precisely the point. If the Wikimedia Foundation accepts such a donation, the rules require it to be distributed according to the terms set by the donor. Which again is why the fundraising emphasis is on general, unrestricted donations. WMF should make it very clear that it doesn't engage in any fishy transactions. No disagreement there. It's not clear if any of the staff involved were aware of the relevant facts at the time or understood their implications, but if the real motivation for the arrangement was to avoid disclosure or scrutiny of a related-party transaction on the part of either the Stanton Foundation or the Belfer Center, it suggests that the Wikimedia Foundation should have declined to participate. --Michael Snow ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 way that better fits our priorities. Had the ... When I was getting legal advice on the issues of Wikimedia UK becoming a charity, one of the issues I had to bend my mind around was the tax implications of how the charity could provide grants to non-UK projects. It is not possible for a UK charity to offer restricted grants without risking having to pay tax as if they were paying for a profit making commercial service, rather than gifting money. For this reason the UK charity will only offer *unrestricted* grants, based on a published proposal from the non-UK organization that will spend the grant on charitable purposes. I have little doubt that the IRS rules are just as stringent, otherwise US charities would be frequently used as container companies for tax avoidance and money-laundering. Something the WMF is extremely careful to avoid. I have no doubt that this will be specifically explained in the detailed governance report that is being worked on by WMF Legal and will hopefully be published next week. Fae -- fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 it should have been spent in a way that better fits our priorities. Had the ... When I was getting legal advice on the issues of Wikimedia UK becoming a charity, one of the issues I had to bend my mind around was the tax implications of how the charity could provide grants to non-UK projects. It is not possible for a UK charity to offer restricted grants without risking having to pay tax as if they were paying for a profit making commercial service, rather than gifting money. For this reason the UK charity will only offer *unrestricted* grants, based on a published proposal from the non-UK organization that will spend the grant on charitable purposes. I have little doubt that the IRS rules are just as stringent, otherwise US charities would be frequently used as container companies for tax avoidance and money-laundering. I'm not sure why you're responding to a point about the Wikimedia Foundation in the role of receiving a grant, one that in this case did not require funds to be transferred outside their country of origin, with a hypothetical discussion about Wikimedia UK in the role of making a grant, in which the funds would be transferred between countries that would not necessarily have the same systems for taxation or charitable organizations. Are charities in the UK prohibited from accepting donations to which any form of restriction is attached? --Michael Snow ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 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 way that better fits our priorities. Had the ... When I was getting legal advice on the issues of Wikimedia UK becoming a charity, one of the issues I had to bend my mind around was the tax implications of how the charity could provide grants to non-UK projects. It is not possible for a UK charity to offer restricted grants without risking having to pay tax as if they were paying for a profit making commercial service, rather than gifting money. For this reason the UK charity will only offer *unrestricted* grants, based on a published proposal from the non-UK organization that will spend the grant on charitable purposes. I have little doubt that the IRS rules are just as stringent, otherwise US charities would be frequently used as container companies for tax avoidance and money-laundering. I'm not sure why you're responding to a point about the Wikimedia Foundation in the role of receiving a grant, one that in this case did not require funds to be transferred outside their country of origin, with a hypothetical discussion about Wikimedia UK in the role of making a grant, in which the funds would be transferred between countries that would not necessarily have the same systems for taxation or charitable organizations. Are charities in the UK prohibited from accepting donations to which any form of restriction is attached? --Michael Snow ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 can't pretend that this is money from general fundraising and decide it should have been spent in a way that better fits our priorities. Had the ... When I was getting legal advice on the issues of Wikimedia UK becoming a charity, one of the issues I had to bend my mind around was the tax implications of how the charity could provide grants to non-UK projects. It is not possible for a UK charity to offer restricted grants without risking having to pay tax as if they were paying for a profit making commercial service, rather than gifting money. For this reason the UK charity will only offer *unrestricted* grants, based on a published proposal from the non-UK organization that will spend the grant on charitable purposes. I have little doubt that the IRS rules are just as stringent, otherwise US charities would be frequently used as container companies for tax avoidance and money-laundering. I'm not sure why you're responding to a point about the Wikimedia Foundation in the role of receiving a grant, one that in this case did not require funds to be transferred outside their country of origin, with a hypothetical discussion about Wikimedia UK in the role of making a grant, in which the funds would be transferred between countries that would not necessarily have the same systems for taxation or charitable organizations. Are charities in the UK prohibited from accepting donations to which any form of restriction is attached? No, but they would have to be pretty badly managed not to understand if there would be later tax, criminality, or reputation damage implications either for themselves or the donating party. Fae -- fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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. It's unacceptable under /any/ circumstances, but I don't see an obvious copyright violation, nor can I find a place where you pointed out one? Where was that established? Responding to your second email first, a search for copyright violation on all emails on this list will lead you right to the relevant post, by Russavia. Or search for copyright violations in the following page http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/443518 And in the email you quoted Russavia gave the diff where it can be found. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Russia-United_States_relationsdiff=prevoldid=524972499 On Sat, Mar 22, 2014 at 8:46 PM, Marc A. Pelletier m...@uberbox.org wrote: 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 this is a difficult time for the WMF, but many in the community (the number one stakeholder in our projects) will not be happy with simply getting a few reports from Sandole 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 harassment. You have selectively quoted Russavia. His email wasnt pointless harassment. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-March/070681.html The email was primarily Russavia asking: Can you please provide the original JDF so the rest of the community has the opportunity to look at it. That is a legitimate question in the circumstances, given this was a document that appears to have been revised after publication and it is being discussed on this list without it being public. The tone of Russavia's email around that request had some rough edges, but so does your email. Credit where it is due : Russavia appears to have put quite a lot of time into this in the last few days, and shared an analysis that at least fairly conclusively points towards a serious problem. I'm not expecting Erik to make it his primary task on Monday morning to find and publish this, and do appreciate that he has been personally answering questions and publishing relevant documents already, but it is a pretty simple request and he has staff who can do it. Honestly this type of information should be publicly accessible from the get go. Why wasnt the JDF published on wiki? And discussed on wiki? It is surprising that quite a few people have known about this, and said nothing until now. It is also surprising that (afaik) the WMF didnt announce the person selected for this position to the community, to facilitate continual review of the ongoing program and its contributions, and hasnt undertaken a program evaluation of this already - one half of the Belfer position should have fallen directly in the scope of the Editing Workshops evaluation. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programs:Evaluation_portal/Library/Editing_workshops Even if Timothy has been highly disruptive rather than just apparently very inefficient (which he wasn't), promotional paid editing, inserting pro-U.S. POV and copyvio/plagiarism into English Wikipedia may not be 'highly disruptive', especially as there were so few edits involved, but it is far from 'just apparently very inefficient'. or if it has been donors' money that had been spent (which it wasn't), It is appropriate to distinguish between general public unrestricted donations vs 'the donor of the restricted money telling WMF what to do with it', however focusing on what was 'spent' is not appropriate. There are direct costs which may be larger than the granted amount; there are indirect costs, and there are opportunity costs. From what I have seen, I think it is fair to conclude that general public unrestricted donations will suffer from this broadly speaking. There may be quite a bit of direct costs that arnt covered by the Stanton grant per se, including selection process, onboarding, reviewing their work, and now handling the fallout of a failed project (e.g. Erik's time and I presume Jay is also working overtime). The Stanton grant quite probably included an amount for normal overheads related to the position (selection, onboarding, monitoring), but those costs could have blown out and/or the WMF decided to absorb the costs given the size of the restricted grant for program activity. However it is the indirect costs which will hurt. As the WMF
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 back to me before I comment more extensively. I'm guessing that they may take awhile if they need to establish consensus among themselves before responding. Pine ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 one particular researcher at the center. But looking at it in context of the entire body of his additions to the article https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Opposition_to_military_action_against_Irandiff=519399894oldid=513945067 shows he has also adding a long section by another scholar criticizing Kroenig. (the section dealing with three other people at the Center was there long before he began editing the article. ) I think this shows an attempt at balance, but I suppose it could be argued that it represents an attempt at further enhancing Kroenig's importance On Sun, Mar 23, 2014 at 4:14 PM, John Mark Vandenberg jay...@gmail.comwrote: 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. It's unacceptable under /any/ circumstances, but I don't see an obvious copyright violation, nor can I find a place where you pointed out one? Where was that established? Responding to your second email first, a search for copyright violation on all emails on this list will lead you right to the relevant post, by Russavia. Or search for copyright violations in the following page http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/443518 And in the email you quoted Russavia gave the diff where it can be found. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Russia-United_States_relationsdiff=prevoldid=524972499 On Sat, Mar 22, 2014 at 8:46 PM, Marc A. Pelletier m...@uberbox.org wrote: 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 this is a difficult time for the WMF, but many in the community (the number one stakeholder in our projects) will not be happy with simply getting a few reports from Sandole 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 harassment. You have selectively quoted Russavia. His email wasnt pointless harassment. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-March/070681.html The email was primarily Russavia asking: Can you please provide the original JDF so the rest of the community has the opportunity to look at it. That is a legitimate question in the circumstances, given this was a document that appears to have been revised after publication and it is being discussed on this list without it being public. The tone of Russavia's email around that request had some rough edges, but so does your email. Credit where it is due : Russavia appears to have put quite a lot of time into this in the last few days, and shared an analysis that at least fairly conclusively points towards a serious problem. I'm not expecting Erik to make it his primary task on Monday morning to find and publish this, and do appreciate that he has been personally answering questions and publishing relevant documents already, but it is a pretty simple request and he has staff who can do it. Honestly this type of information should be publicly accessible from the get go. Why wasnt the JDF published on wiki? And discussed on wiki? It is surprising that quite a few people have known about this, and said nothing until now. It is also surprising that (afaik) the WMF didnt announce the person selected for this position to the community, to facilitate continual review of the ongoing program and its contributions, and hasnt undertaken a program evaluation of this already - one half of the Belfer position should have fallen directly in the scope of the Editing Workshops evaluation. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programs:Evaluation_portal/Library/Editing_workshops Even if Timothy has been highly disruptive rather than just apparently very inefficient (which he wasn't), promotional paid editing, inserting pro-U.S. POV and copyvio/plagiarism into English Wikipedia may not be 'highly disruptive', especially as there were so few edits involved, but it is far from 'just apparently very inefficient'. or if it has been donors' money that had been spent (which it wasn't), It is appropriate to distinguish
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/Timothy_Sandole_Memo_April_22-26.pdf Monday, April 22 - Researched offensive realism and the concept, 'buck passing' (3 hours). - Wrote a draft on buck passing in MS Word. Coded/authored the stub, Buck passing, on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_passing (6 hours). 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? This would have taken one no more than 10 minutes to do -- research books relating to buck passing and find one (5 minutes), copy and paste a quote from the book (as was done here) (2 minutes), do wikimarkup/references (not HTML) (2 minutes), hit save (1 minute). Voila! Seriously, this is a disgrace, particularly given this was some 7 months into the project. There is no way that 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for an entire year was spent on this full-time position, and the above is just plain evidence of that. Comment from anyone at the WMF welcome. Russavia On Sat, Mar 22, 2014 at 4:36 PM, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 1:23 PM, 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. This is now done: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Belfer_Center_Campus_Wikipedian_Reports I've not scrutinized or touched the reports except for converting docx to PDF (thank you, LibreOffice command line options). These are all the ones Sara has, I'll double-check with Timothy that there weren't any others. Erik -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 (missing space): https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Buck_passingdiff=551697085oldid=549480580 The point made by Russavia on *extremely* poor value for charitable monies is well made, especially as it now appears that the Wikimedia Foundation had a duty of care in the form of line management or oversight of this work. There are unimpressive direct links to Google books as a source citations, against Wikipedia best practices. Were this my research student I would wonder if they were surfing Google books and as a result only reading partial quotes, rather than getting the original out of the library and ensuring they have checked the entire source material and understood what the author intended. These are understandable beginner mistakes, but when burning $50,000+ a year grant money, I would expect WMF officially endorsed paid editing to be first class examples. Fae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 Stanton/Harvard apparently. Can you please provide the original JDF so the rest of the community has the opportunity to look at it. I understand this is a difficult time for the WMF, but many in the community (the number one stakeholder in our projects) will not be happy with simply getting a few reports from Sandole, a heap of spin from the WMF and then move on; as we do on Wikipedia projects, we present information and let the readers make their own minds up. I also had a question relating to https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Wikimedia_Foundation_Guiding_Principles#Independence but given you weren't involved in this (perhaps the only person in management at the WMF who wasn't!), I will leave my question for Sue to answer when she gets back. Anyway, I would welcome the community being able to peruse the original JDF, that at least Liam and LoriLee was privvy too, at the earliest opportunity. Cheers Russavia ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 this is a difficult time for the WMF, but many in the community (the number one stakeholder in our projects) will not be happy with simply getting a few reports from Sandole 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 harassment. 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 stakeholder in our projects (which you haven't); it wouldn't justify your continuing harangue when you have been clearly told that no further substantive information would come until Sue returns next week. 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 stoking the fires of your vendetta by harping on what you /want/ that conclusion to be than any actual interest in figuring out what happened and how to prevent it from happening again if it was a problem. -- Coren / Marc ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 harassment. Yes, think of the employees! How dare you ask very acute questions! How dare you ask any questions at all! It's harassment, and it's even worse than that! It's pointless harassment! 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 stakeholder in our projects (which you haven't); it wouldn't justify your continuing harangue when you have been clearly told that no further substantive information would come until Sue returns next week. It was donors' money that was spent on this position, Marc. And if you can point me to where Russavia said he was speaking of behalf of the community, and not on behalf of himself, it would be appreciated. Otherwise, if you think community members can only speak their mind if they have been appointed by the rest of the Wikimedia contributors, this needs to be added to our mailing list guidelines. Or maybe we should get rid of the mailing lists altogether to avoid such misunderstandings in the future. 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? How about you stop telling people what to do? You're not Russavia's boss, so just stop, and do it fast. Thanks. Tomasz ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 stoking the fires of your vendetta by harping on what you /want/ that conclusion to be than any actual interest in figuring out what happened and how to prevent it from happening again if it was a problem. Yes, this. ^^^ In general, just being a bit kinder would go a long way here. Erik and others have been incredibly accommodating to your research requests and the primary response I've seen from the interrogators is now do this! Chill out. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 stakeholder in our projects (which you haven't); it wouldn't justify your continuing harangue when you have been clearly told that no further substantive information would come until Sue returns next week. It was donors' money that was spent on this position, Marc. It was one single donor's money that was spent on this position, not money from the general pool of donations, which I believe is the point Marc was trying to make. Moreover, that donor specifically wanted the money spent on this position. It's not like the Wikimedia Foundation had the option to spend the money on other, better program opportunities. 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 them, and imposing our ideas of what should be done with someone else's money is just wishful thinking. At the same time, it is clear that there are legitimate concerns with this project from the perspective of good editing practices and conflicts of interest. This is a good argument that it would have been better for the Wikimedia Foundation not to participate in the transaction, and gives reason to be leery of such pass-through arrangements in general. And in terms of organizational philosophy, it's also why the foundation focuses on fundraising from the general public rather than restricted gifts from individual donors. Looking at this from an audit committee perspective, the information so far suggests that the foundation could more carefully screen such gifts for alignment with our values, but at this point I haven't seen indications that this rises to the level of misuse of donor funds. --Michael Snow ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 that other priorities get neglected. For example I heard that WMF is very close to finally appointing a new ED and they're also working on VE, Flow, mobile, grants, legal issues, the Annual Plan, and a million other things that we also care about. I may have more to say about the Sandole situation after I hear back from Arbcom. Pine ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Russia-United_States_relationsdiff=prevoldid=524972499is still there. 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. Could you please be so kind as to: 1) Revert the article back to https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Russia-United_States_relationsoldid=524953814 2) Revdel all edits going back to https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Russia-United_States_relationsoldid=524953814to ensure that the copyright violation is hidden from public view as is best practice 3) Perhaps you could leave a message on the article talk page, and perhaps also leave messages at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_International_relations- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Russia and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_United_Statesadvising them that this article which is rated as top importance for 2 of these projects have had to be revdelled back to November 2012 (a year and a half) and that they may wish to work on the article given the circumstances. I have more examples of copyvios as well, so if you like I would be happy to send them through to you for you to action. Would that be ok with you? Cheers Russavia ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 stakeholder in our projects (which you haven't); it wouldn't justify your continuing harangue when you have been clearly told that no further substantive information would come until Sue returns next week. It was donors' money that was spent on this position, Marc. It was one single donor's money that was spent on this position, not money from the general pool of donations, which I believe is the point Marc was trying to make. Moreover, that donor specifically wanted the money spent on this position. It's not like the Wikimedia Foundation had the option to spend the money on other, better program opportunities. 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 them, and imposing our ideas of what should be done with someone else's money is just wishful thinking. At the same time, it is clear that there are legitimate concerns with this project from the perspective of good editing practices and conflicts of interest. This is a good argument that it would have been better for the Wikimedia Foundation not to participate in the transaction, and gives reason to be leery of such pass-through arrangements in general. And in terms of organizational philosophy, it's also why the foundation focuses on fundraising from the general public rather than restricted gifts from individual donors. Looking at this from an audit committee perspective, the information so far suggests that the foundation could more carefully screen such gifts for alignment with our values, but at this point I haven't seen indications that this rises to the level of misuse of donor funds. Eh, that is not the point in my mind. If A wants to assist his relative B's work, and, for administrative reasons, they want to engage WMF as a middle man to make it appear as if there is no direct financial flow, then it's not for A to evaluate whether the funds achieved their intended pur- pose. Organizations that distribute funds according to the deposi- tors' wishes are called banks and they have to ensure their compliance with relevant regulations. WMF should make it very clear that it doesn't engage in any fishy transactions. Tim ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 copyright violation, nor can I find a place where you pointed out one? Where was that established? -- Coren / Marc ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 standards of accountability differ ... There may be a massive cultural gap between Europe and North America, but no, no, no. The WMF officially endorsed this project in the same year that the WMF was stomping down with its hobnail boots on Wikimedia UK so hard on matters of ethics and accountability, that it threatened to destroy the organization (literally, based on my personal experience). Just because a well known second party organization is providing funds for the project does not obviate the WMF from ensuring that programmes that it officially endorses meet precisely the same ethical standards that it enforces so firmly on all other Wikimedia organizations. 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 different rules for the rich? On that basis, WMUK should be free to do a deal to offer the Wikimedia brand to officially endorse (or be a fiscal sponsor) for a Conservative Party or Catholic Church programme of paid editing directed to fix Wikipedia to match their world view, and the WMF would have nothing to criticise as the Chapter could wash its hands as it did not directly handle the payments. The Wikimedia brand value was not spontaneously created by the Foundation, but by unpaid volunteers like me that create the content of our projects. If the WMF wants to retain the hearts and minds of the community of volunteers, it cannot afford to have fluid ethics that conveniently shift to cover up any embarrassingly bad decisions it makes. Fae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 (e.g. WMF) asks a question to a volunteer editor, board member or anything I'll suggest to reply I'm a volunteer so I don't work directly for you and I have only one manager, that is myself. Nemo ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 different rules for the rich? No, that's not the point. The point is that a grant given to us goes through a different process than, say, a grant from us to WMFR, and that necessarily leads to different practices -- the grant-giver has their own expectations on how to do accounting, reporting, etc. The project was publicly announced through a blog post, the responsibilities for the Wikipedian in Residence were publicly posted, and the user in question publicly disclosed their affiliation (that disclosure didn't, but should have, included more details including the WMF sponsorship). The edits are, as any, a matter of public record and easily scrutinized, criticized, and corrected or reverted if needed, to fully expose Harvard's evil agenda and the secret workings of the reptilian order which most WMF senior staff are part of. Timothy noted [1] hat there's a report which he compiled as part of his residency. I've reached out to Lisa, and we're looking into publishing the report at the earliest opportunity. Hopefully this will make it possible to collectively draw some more conclusions about the project. I've added [2] the residency to the public directory and also created a holding space for capturing observations and conclusions. [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. :) Cheers, Erik [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Timothysandolediff=600543335oldid=600410517 [2] https://outreach.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedian_in_Residencediff=65415oldid=65414 [3] https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedian_in_Residence/Harvard_University_assessment -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 tool by Stanton/Belfer, and was not given any support by the WMF (his employer) should not be held against him in any way shape or form. It's not his fault that the WMF is a mickey mouse organisation. Russavia ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 sarcasm in your responses in a thread about what now seems to be an admitted serious failure of governance within the WMF, then you are doing a disservice for the WMF and the Wikimedia movement. I do not think Russavia's use of mickey mouse in his email is helpful either, but it almost seems fitting if you are making official statement for the Foundation with these jokes. I am pleased to read that Lisa is now working on an official investigation. I hope this report will be published for the benefit of the Wikimedia community within days rather than weeks and will be written in a detailed and frank way, that reflects how seriously the majority of the Wikimedia Community, especially those of us working hard with Chapters and GLAM partners, see this breach of our trust in you. Fae -- fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 delicate sensibilities. These kinds of things always warrant scrutiny, iteration and improvement, but excessive hyperbole is rarely helpful. 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. Cheers, Erik -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 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 different rules for the rich? No, that's not the point. The point is that a grant given to us goes through a different process than, say, a grant from us to WMFR, and that necessarily leads to different practices -- the grant-giver has their own expectations on how to do accounting, reporting, etc. The project was publicly announced through a blog post, the responsibilities for the Wikipedian in Residence were publicly posted, and the user in question publicly disclosed their affiliation (that disclosure didn't, but should have, included more details including the WMF sponsorship). The edits are, as any, a matter of public record and easily scrutinized, criticized, and corrected or reverted if needed, to fully expose Harvard's evil agenda and the secret workings of the reptilian order which most WMF senior staff are part of. Timothy noted [1] hat there's a report which he compiled as part of his residency. I've reached out to Lisa, and we're looking into publishing the report at the earliest opportunity. Hopefully this will make it possible to collectively draw some more conclusions about the project. I've added [2] the residency to the public directory and also created a holding space for capturing observations and conclusions. [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. :) Cheers, Erik [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Timothysandolediff=600543335oldid=600410517 [2] https://outreach.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedian_in_Residencediff=65415oldid=65414 [3] https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedian_in_Residence/Harvard_University_assessment -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 rest, okay? Tomasz ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 unnecessarily personal, Erik? This isn't about Fae, you, or even Timothy Sandole -- so give it a rest, okay? Tomasz Erik is right, and anyone who regularly reads this list (or especially the WMUK list) knows that he is right. Fae's legitimate points (of which there are many) tend to be obscured by the massively off-putting way in which he makes them. That said, Fae's points (which are really your [Tomasz'] points, and better said by you in the blog post) are perfectly legit. You pointed out a couple of edits where it looks like Sandole was promoting the director of the Belfer Center. While many other edits seem useful and additive, those are concerning and point up the risks generally of paid editors (including WiRs). Sandole's disclosure of his link to the Belfer Center on his userpage does not solve the problem, though it does mostly satisfy the disclosure requirements of the ToU -- as it seems to have been the Belfer Center directing his actions and not the WMF. Since Sandole says he wrote a comprehensive report on his WiR and submitted it to the WMF, when Erik gets that report publicized I'm sure things will become much more clear. Meanwhile, use of an accusatory or interrogatory tone towards WMF employees is probably not helpful, as it rarely is in professional communication. ~Nathan ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 defined responsibility for directing his actions, presumably as they were acting as his line manager even if they were not controlling grant payment: ... Sara Lasner at the Wikimedia Foundation, as she was my direct boss during my one-year stint as Wikipedian[1][2] Links: 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Timothysandolediff=600543335oldid=600410517 2. http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/User:Slasner Fae -- fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 experienced Wikipedian who had solid editing experience in an anonymous account before he registered the Sandole account for the purpose of Belfair-related editing. I hope this is the case. I'm surprised that Belfair would hire him if he knew very little about copyright, but Belfair may not have had enough experience with Wikipedia to know what questions to ask. I hope that WMF asks basic questions about copyright if someone will be editing for pay or training new editors. It's very problematic to hear from Timothy that anyone at WMF was his direct boss. This raises lots of red flags and adds more complex problems. This is also one of the reasons I hope WMF Legal is aware of this situation because I can think of multiple types of liability this could create. I would encourage WMF not to rush the process of investigating what happened here including what seem to be contradictory statements in WMF documents and from WMF employees. It would be best to get a comprehensive report even if that takes a week or two. I appreciate WMF investigating this and that WMF board members have taken an interest. Pine ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 previously familiar with, so bear with me if I'm getting any bits wrong. Here are some initial high level observations: * This project was initiated by Sue Gardner in response to a request by Liz Allison from Stanton Foundation, who initially attempted to fund the project with a direct grant to Harvard. For administrative reasons, both Harvard and Stanton ended up preferring to have Wikimedia Foundation act as a fiscal sponsor for the position. (This included administrative oversight by Sara Lasner, and a minimal degree of programmatic oversight by Sara and Lisa, with a primary programmatic point of contact at the Belfer Center.) The project was overseen by Lisa Gruwell. * WMF agreed to help recruit candidates for the position and to provide three candidates to the Belfer Center for selection. Frank, Siko and Lisa participated in the first round of interviews. The first candidate we put forward was a former Harvard librarian and active WIkipedian, but she was rejected by the Belfer Center for a lack of knowledge in the field on International Security. Then, the Belfer Center posted the JD on a list-serve of top academic programs in International Security. WMF interviewed two candidates from this pool and Belfer selected Timothy Sandole for his strong academic background in International Security. He had just completed a master's program at Columbia University. * The Stanton Foundation has a long-standing interest in promoting awareness regarding issues of international security and nuclear security, which dates back to the founder of the Foundation, Frank Stanton (former president of CBS). * 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 Stanton Foundation funds other programs related to international security. * As noted previously, the Wikimedia Foundation communicated about the program in a blog post: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/04/26/can-you-help-wikipedians-collaborate-with-harvard-university/ Timothy Sandole also disclosed his affiliation with the Belfer Center on his user page, but did not disclose the funding relationship with WMF or Stanton in the same manner. * Timothy's residency included training programs, but it was heavily weighted towards editing work. * Sara Lasner acted as an administrative point of contact at Wikimedia (handling payments, vacation requests, etc.). Not being steeped in Wikimedia's culture, Sara gave minimal guidance regarding policies and practices, but forwarded instructional materials and pointed out the above conflict-of-interest issues to Timothy. There was a communications contact at the Belfer Center, James Smith, who provided subject-matter guidance. * Timothy himself compiled a weekly report to the Belfer Center and to Sara, and a final report at the end of the project. With his permission, I've published the final report here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Timothy_Sandole_-_Belfer_Center_Report.pdf I have a copy of the weekly memos as well, and we've asked for his permission to release them. In addition, the Wikimedia Foundation compiled a report to Stanton at the end of the project largely identical to the report to Timothy. We've asked the Stanton Foundation for permission to release this report, as well, for the sake of full transparency. Edits like the following are indeed problematic: * https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cuban_missile_crisisdiff=prevoldid=512468645 - potentially undue visibility for research conducted by the head of the Belfer Center * https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Opposition_to_military_action_against_Irandiff=514822741oldid=514817891 - potentially undue visibility for the Stanton Nuclear Security Fellowship, which was funded by the same Stanton Foundation which funded the program. In September 2012, Sara Lasner had a call with Timothy Sandole specifically asking him to be conscious of not over-representing Harvard University in his research, and Lisa Gruwell sent an email to James Smith and Timothy Sandole regarding awareness of conflict-of-interest issues in general. Timothy's edits weren't monitored in detail by the Wikimedia Foundation. We'll take a closer look now, and appreciate the community's help in ensuring that, in light of the above potential conflicts-of-interests, that they're consistent with policies and guidelines. At the same time, it's important to note that Stanton Foundation did not stand to benefit financially from this project. The nature of potential bias here is more subtle (e.g. over-representation of
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 my opinion you have now handled this issue in this correct way, and I hope we now can take in the necessary learnings in our routines Anders Erik Moeller skrev 2014-03-21 21:23: 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 previously familiar with, so bear with me if I'm getting any bits wrong. Here are some initial high level observations: * This project was initiated by Sue Gardner in response to a request by Liz Allison from Stanton Foundation, who initially attempted to fund the project with a direct grant to Harvard. For administrative reasons, both Harvard and Stanton ended up preferring to have Wikimedia Foundation act as a fiscal sponsor for the position. (This included administrative oversight by Sara Lasner, and a minimal degree of programmatic oversight by Sara and Lisa, with a primary programmatic point of contact at the Belfer Center.) The project was overseen by Lisa Gruwell. * WMF agreed to help recruit candidates for the position and to provide three candidates to the Belfer Center for selection. Frank, Siko and Lisa participated in the first round of interviews. The first candidate we put forward was a former Harvard librarian and active WIkipedian, but she was rejected by the Belfer Center for a lack of knowledge in the field on International Security. Then, the Belfer Center posted the JD on a list-serve of top academic programs in International Security. WMF interviewed two candidates from this pool and Belfer selected Timothy Sandole for his strong academic background in International Security. He had just completed a master's program at Columbia University. * The Stanton Foundation has a long-standing interest in promoting awareness regarding issues of international security and nuclear security, which dates back to the founder of the Foundation, Frank Stanton (former president of CBS). * 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 Stanton Foundation funds other programs related to international security. * As noted previously, the Wikimedia Foundation communicated about the program in a blog post: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/04/26/can-you-help-wikipedians-collaborate-with-harvard-university/ Timothy Sandole also disclosed his affiliation with the Belfer Center on his user page, but did not disclose the funding relationship with WMF or Stanton in the same manner. * Timothy's residency included training programs, but it was heavily weighted towards editing work. * Sara Lasner acted as an administrative point of contact at Wikimedia (handling payments, vacation requests, etc.). Not being steeped in Wikimedia's culture, Sara gave minimal guidance regarding policies and practices, but forwarded instructional materials and pointed out the above conflict-of-interest issues to Timothy. There was a communications contact at the Belfer Center, James Smith, who provided subject-matter guidance. * Timothy himself compiled a weekly report to the Belfer Center and to Sara, and a final report at the end of the project. With his permission, I've published the final report here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Timothy_Sandole_-_Belfer_Center_Report.pdf I have a copy of the weekly memos as well, and we've asked for his permission to release them. In addition, the Wikimedia Foundation compiled a report to Stanton at the end of the project largely identical to the report to Timothy. We've asked the Stanton Foundation for permission to release this report, as well, for the sake of full transparency. Edits like the following are indeed problematic: * https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cuban_missile_crisisdiff=prevoldid=512468645 - potentially undue visibility for research conducted by the head of the Belfer Center * https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Opposition_to_military_action_against_Irandiff=514822741oldid=514817891 - potentially undue visibility for the Stanton Nuclear Security Fellowship, which was funded by the same Stanton Foundation which funded the program. In September 2012, Sara Lasner had a call with Timothy Sandole specifically asking him to be conscious of not over-representing Harvard University in his research, and Lisa Gruwell sent an email to James Smith and Timothy Sandole regarding awareness of conflict-of-interest issues
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 there are different rules for the rich? No, that's not the point. The point is that a grant given to us goes through a different process than, say, a grant from us to WMFR, and that necessarily leads to different practices -- the grant-giver has their own expectations on how to do accounting, reporting, etc. True. But I'd go further: the problem here is not that WMF has not been ethical enough, rather that it wasn't smart enough to properly wash its hands of a possibly (possibly) unethical affair. From the looks of it, this is just the boring story of a rather standard academical trick: A and B are connected and want to hire C; X is introduced as middle man, receives money from A and opportunity from B, blindly transfers them (and nothing more, or something less) to C; formally nobody has any responsibility or knowledge of what's going on and magically everyone is happy. However, X either earns something or doesn't want any responsibility on the choice of C, taking only care of the financial part as a mere clearing account (if that's the term in English)/gift. The responsibility is put on either A or B, usually the one who benefits more from the operation. Nemo ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 states the following: Articles I helped to create: Two Wikipedia articles, AirSea Battle and Operation Olympic Games, were stubs before I contributed to them. A stub is an article containing only one or a few sentences of text that, although providing some useful information, is too short to provide encyclopedic coverage of a subject. I was inspired to add content to AirSea Battle and Operation Olympic Games because they are popular in international relations scholarship. The two leading voices on these issues, Andrew Krepinevich and David E. Sanger, happen to be Harvard graduates and affiliates of the Belfer Center Why is it when I look at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=AirSea_Battleaction=history do I not see Sandole in the edit history. There is an edit at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=AirSea_Battlediff=564567483oldid=399022349which did add a lot of content. Is it true that Sandole is in fact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hcobbwho according to his user page divides his time between Pacheco, Californiahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacheco,_California and Pune https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pune, has a website at http://www.hcobb.com/, is into fan fiction and feedbooks. Or is there something else to it? Cheers Russavia ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 look at this issue, figure out what happened from start to finish, and respond to the other questions raised in this discussion? Can you confirm what the amount of money involved was, clarify why Sandole was listed as a WMF Fundraiser contractor which implied that he raised money for WMF instead of being a grantee receiving money from WMF, that the money came entirely from Stanton, how it was accounted for in the financial statements referenced by Tomasz, and what reports were produced that may have been sent back to Stanton or WMF about what the outcomes of the grant were? I would also be interested in knowing what COI rules were established as conditions of this grant, by Stanton, Harvard, and/or WMF. It would be interesting to get full copies of any contracts or grant award documents although that may be appropriate for review by the Board in private. I'm also CCing this to Garfield and WMF Legal. It looks like something went very wrong here. Thanks, Pine ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 you, which is of course not the case (because they really only need one person to be their manager :) In this case: thank you both for pointing out this post and someone within the Foundation will undoubtedly come back with some response in the coming period. Jan-Bart de Vreede On 20 Mar 2014, at 07:59, ENWP Pine deyntest...@hotmail.com wrote: 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 look at this issue, figure out what happened from start to finish, and respond to the other questions raised in this discussion? Can you confirm what the amount of money involved was, clarify why Sandole was listed as a WMF Fundraiser contractor which implied that he raised money for WMF instead of being a grantee receiving money from WMF, that the money came entirely from Stanton, how it was accounted for in the financial statements referenced by Tomasz, and what reports were produced that may have been sent back to Stanton or WMF about what the outcomes of the grant were? I would also be interested in knowing what COI rules were established as conditions of this grant, by Stanton, Harvard, and/or WMF. It would be interesting to get full copies of any contracts or grant award documents although that may be appropriate for review by the Board in private. I'm also CCing this to Garfield and WMF Legal. It looks like something went very wrong here. Thanks, Pine ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 only need one person to be their manager :) Hi Jan-Bart, Unless you are joking, you have put me in a position of feeling obliged to defend myself for raising basic questions. My email was directed to this list as an open request about where I could find information. For all I knew the information was published but hard for me to find. It was directed at the Wikimedia Community, not employees of the WMF. There was no implication otherwise. Thanks for replying so quickly with your personal commitment on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation, that there will be official responses to the detailed questions in raised here and in the original blog post. I have no doubt that as further information is published, the community will have more questions, I hope you will continue to fulfil your track record for insisting on reasonable transparency and full accountability. PS If the board of trustees believes that I should be directing employees, then this is flattering, though please do consider paying me for it. I'm always good value. ;-) Fae -- fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 the consensus here is that this situation should be investigated. Please assume good faith (: Pine ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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, Could you link me to the report of outcomes for the 2012 position, or if they exist the regular project reports? The blog post mentions expectations but I have yet to find the reports that explain what was later delivered for the investment. I am aware that the WMF required public reporting for all sponsored projects back in 2012. Having been a Chapter trustee myself that year, I recall how rigorous the requirements for accountability and reporting were. :-) Thanks, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 12:05 PM, Lisa Gruwell lgruw...@wikimedia.orgwrote: 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 supporter of ours for many years, had asked us to do so. This was reported to the community here. [1] 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 customary in fiscal sponsorship arrangements. Harvard University is now considering similar positions for other centers.[2] WMF was not asked to fiscally sponsor for this new project at Harvard. Best, Lisa Gruwell *[1] ** https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/04/26/can-you-help-wikipedians-collaborate-with-harvard-university/ https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/04/26/can-you-help-wikipedians-collaborate-with-harvard-university/ * *[2] ** http://www.latimes.com/nation/shareitnow/la-sh-harvard-job-wikipedian-in-residence-20140313,0,5003509.story#axzz2wWQo2cXX http://www.latimes.com/nation/shareitnow/la-sh-harvard-job-wikipedian-in-residence-20140313,0,5003509.story#axzz2wWQo2cXX * On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 11:16 AM, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote: 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 only need one person to be their manager :) Hi Jan-Bart, Unless you are joking, you have put me in a position of feeling obliged to defend myself for raising basic questions. My email was directed to this list as an open request about where I could find information. For all I knew the information was published but hard for me to find. It was directed at the Wikimedia Community, not employees of the WMF. There was no implication otherwise. Thanks for replying so quickly with your personal commitment on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation, that there will be official responses to the detailed questions in raised here and in the original blog post. I have no doubt that as further information is published, the community will have more questions, I hope you will continue to fulfil your track record for insisting on reasonable transparency and full accountability. PS If the board of trustees believes that I should be directing employees, then this is flattering, though please do consider paying me for it. I'm always good value. ;-) Fae -- fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe -- *Anasuya SenguptaSenior Director of GrantmakingWikimedia Foundation* Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! Support Wikimedia https://donate.wikimedia.org/ ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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. Wouldn't that mean that the same duty of care should be present here as is the case for WMF grants? Either way, if the WMF (as the largest Wikimedia organisation) choses to do this sort of endorsement of a project, then it should really follow it through to the end and ensure that it has had the best possible impact on the WIkimedia projects, rather than just providing initial support and advertising, and then leaving things dangling in doubt, as seems to have happened here... That really doesn't set a good example for other Wikimedia organisations that might consider doing similar work... (I'm rather worried about similar project/positions taking place at other Harvard centres without any sort of Wikimedia organisation or community support - that sounds like a recipe for disaster...) Thanks, Mike On 20 Mar 2014, at 21:51, Anasuya Sengupta asengu...@wikimedia.org wrote: 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 On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 12:05 PM, Lisa Gruwell lgruw...@wikimedia.orgwrote: 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 supporter of ours for many years, had asked us to do so. This was reported to the community here. [1] 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 customary in fiscal sponsorship arrangements. Harvard University is now considering similar positions for other centers.[2] WMF was not asked to fiscally sponsor for this new project at Harvard. Best, Lisa Gruwell *[1] ** https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/04/26/can-you-help-wikipedians-collaborate-with-harvard-university/ https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/04/26/can-you-help-wikipedians-collaborate-with-harvard-university/ * *[2] ** http://www.latimes.com/nation/shareitnow/la-sh-harvard-job-wikipedian-in-residence-20140313,0,5003509.story#axzz2wWQo2cXX http://www.latimes.com/nation/shareitnow/la-sh-harvard-job-wikipedian-in-residence-20140313,0,5003509.story#axzz2wWQo2cXX * On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 11:16 AM, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote: 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 only need one person to be their manager :) Hi Jan-Bart, Unless you are joking, you have put me in a position of feeling obliged to defend myself for raising basic questions. My email was directed to this list as an open request about where I could find information. For all I knew the information was published but hard for me to find. It was directed at the Wikimedia Community, not employees of the WMF. There was no implication otherwise. Thanks for replying so quickly with your personal commitment on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation, that there will be official responses to the detailed questions in raised here and in the original blog post. I have no doubt that as further information is published, the community will have more questions, I hope you will continue to fulfil your track record for insisting on reasonable transparency and full accountability. PS If the board of trustees believes that I should be directing employees, then this is flattering, though please do consider paying me for it. I'm always good value. ;-) Fae -- fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe -- *Anasuya SenguptaSenior Director of GrantmakingWikimedia Foundation* Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 recruiting and to inform the community as they did so. I am sure you are technically correct, however the blog post that Lisa linked to[1] appears to directly contradict your statement. In particular it informed the community that: ... the Wikimedia Foundation is pleased to announce ... We’re seeking an experienced Wikipedia editor for a one year, There is no qualification of any sort, so the blog post has been written so that the WMF is directly claiming to be running or responsible for the recruitment. Further, Stephen Walling states in a comment that: when we say we’re looking for a Wikipedian, that means we are looking for someone experienced as a volunteer editor of the free encyclopedia. This statement can only be read as the WMF running the recruitment, there can be no other interpretation of we when this is on the WMF blog and written by a WMF employee. The post does state that This position is funded by a generous grant from the Stanton Foundation This philanthropic institution has supported ... the Wikimedia Foundation in the past.. However there is no implication that the Stanton Foundation were doing anything other than providing a grant to the WMF and that the WMF were responsible for . There is no doubt that the WMF provided its name against this post and officially promoted and endorsed it, putting the reputation of the WMF firmly against this project. I hope that someone can provide a report of the beneficial outcomes of this project for Wikimedia and open knowledge showing exactly what was purchased for this generous grant that was claimed to be provided to the WMF or for the benefit of WMF projects. Links: 1. https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/04/26/can-you-help-wikipedians-collaborate-with-harvard-university/ Fae -- fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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. I've corrected the report, pointing out the error in the earlier version. https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Foundation_Report,_August_2012diff=7907453oldid=5390952 Erik -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 version is we told them so. We tried, oh how we tried, to tell the relevant WMF staff that this was a terribly designed project, but the best we got in response was that we could help edit the job description *after* it had already been published! Some WMF staff 'got it' and tried to help but the process (Thank you to those staff) was apparently already in motion and had too much momentum to change. 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 Stanton/Harvard apparently. Other concerns about reporting outcomes and where the money came from/to have already been raised. The odd financial and organisational relationship of Stanton-Harvard-WMF is just one of them. 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 Wikipedian with the first task of the position being Researching relevant topics and improving the articles.Stanton is not mentioned anywhere as the actual funding organisation (are we ok with that?), and since when does Wikipedia hire people? Some of the issues that we were arguing about at the time included why, when the GLAM-focused Wikimedians have tried to ensure that WiR roles are about facilitating a relationship between the community and an organisation's academics/researchers/curators/etc, does this position focus on editing articles directly, for money. Even if that wasn't the actual primary purpose it certainly LOOKED that way according to the job description and you'd think that of ALL groups in the community the WMF would see the 'red flag' of posting a job on its OWN contractors page asking for a paid editor. Furthermore, the WMF have in the past frequently refused to directly support WiR roles on the basis that this kind of direct outreach was not its role but more a role of the Chapters (this is before the current 'affiliation' system and before the 'Individual engagement grants' etc. and in that situation their position was fair enough). And yet, this position was a direct contradiction - the WMF ITSELF advertising for a WiR and administering the payment of the person. At the very least that made it feel like a double standard for the rest of us. There was no transparency with the people in the community that could have helped facilitate the successful 'birth' of the project - what should have been a great recognition of our projects' value - but instead felt like a betrayal of our hard-earned trust with the cultural/education sectors. The WMF dug themselves into this hole despite the frantic attempts, which were largely rebuffed, of several of the GLAM-WIKI community help them fix it - or at least reduce the number of problems. Now, it's up to the WMF to dig themselves out again. Ironic given the current attention being given by the WMF to paid editing... -Liam/Wittylama On 21 March 2014 09:23, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote: 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 recruiting and to inform the community as they did so. I am sure you are technically correct, however the blog post that Lisa linked to[1] appears to directly contradict your statement. In particular it informed the community that: ... the Wikimedia Foundation is pleased to announce ... We're seeking an experienced Wikipedia editor for a one year, There is no qualification of any sort, so the blog post has been written so that the WMF is directly claiming to be running or responsible for the recruitment. Further, Stephen Walling states in a comment that: when we say we're looking for a Wikipedian, that means we are looking for someone experienced as a volunteer editor of the free encyclopedia. This statement can only be read as the WMF running the recruitment, there can be no other interpretation of we when this is on the WMF blog and written by a WMF employee. The post does state that This position is funded by a generous grant from the Stanton Foundation This philanthropic institution has supported ... the Wikimedia Foundation in the past.. However there is no implication that the Stanton Foundation were doing anything other than providing a grant to the WMF and that the WMF
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 customary in fiscal sponsorship arrangements. ... Hi Lisa, I have been re-reading your statement and I feel there is some ambiguity over how this is being explained here versus how it might have been declared to others by the Stanton Foundation. To be clear, could you please confirm that the WMF has officially stated that: A. No grant or other money was ever taken or managed by the WMF for Sandole's project/job. B. The Stanton Foundation has never declared this as a grant for the WMF or for WMF projects. C. The WMF did not authorize or otherwise approve Sandole's project or appointment and has never employed Sandole. D. The WMF Fundraising department managed Sandole's contract[1] E. The WMF has neither paid tax nor claimed tax relief as a result of Sandole's project/job. F. No financial benefit has been gained by any organization due to the WMF claiming to be a fiscal sponsor of Sandole's appointment as no money has changed hands. I am aware that the statements may be contradictory, where this is the case is would be great if the position could be unambiguously clarified and the Wikimedia community could be pointed to what WMF legal consider official and final public reports, noting that what should be an official past report linked below has changed during this discussion. Links: 1. https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Foundation_Report,_August_2012diff=7907453oldid=5390952 Fae -- fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 explicitly address the structural and ethical issues raised on this list and on Odder's blog post. I do have a bit more to say about this, but will leave it at that for now. I'll probably post on my blog in the next 24 hours. Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]] On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 4:59 PM, Liam Wyatt liamwy...@gmail.com wrote: 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 version is we told them so. We tried, oh how we tried, to tell the relevant WMF staff that this was a terribly designed project, but the best we got in response was that we could help edit the job description *after* it had already been published! Some WMF staff 'got it' and tried to help but the process (Thank you to those staff) was apparently already in motion and had too much momentum to change. 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 Stanton/Harvard apparently. Other concerns about reporting outcomes and where the money came from/to have already been raised. The odd financial and organisational relationship of Stanton-Harvard-WMF is just one of them. 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 Wikipedian with the first task of the position being Researching relevant topics and improving the articles. Stanton is not mentioned anywhere as the actual funding organisation (are we ok with that?), and since when does Wikipedia hire people? Some of the issues that we were arguing about at the time included why, when the GLAM-focused Wikimedians have tried to ensure that WiR roles are about facilitating a relationship between the community and an organisation's academics/researchers/curators/etc, does this position focus on editing articles directly, for money. Even if that wasn't the actual primary purpose it certainly LOOKED that way according to the job description and you'd think that of ALL groups in the community the WMF would see the 'red flag' of posting a job on its OWN contractors page asking for a paid editor. Furthermore, the WMF have in the past frequently refused to directly support WiR roles on the basis that this kind of direct outreach was not its role but more a role of the Chapters (this is before the current 'affiliation' system and before the 'Individual engagement grants' etc. and in that situation their position was fair enough). And yet, this position was a direct contradiction - the WMF ITSELF advertising for a WiR and administering the payment of the person. At the very least that made it feel like a double standard for the rest of us. There was no transparency with the people in the community that could have helped facilitate the successful 'birth' of the project - what should have been a great recognition of our projects' value - but instead felt like a betrayal of our hard-earned trust with the cultural/education sectors. The WMF dug themselves into this hole despite the frantic attempts, which were largely rebuffed, of several of the GLAM-WIKI community help them fix it - or at least reduce the number of problems. Now, it's up to the WMF to dig themselves out again. Ironic given the current attention being given by the WMF to paid editing... -Liam/Wittylama On 21 March 2014 09:23, Fæ fae...@gmail.com wrote: 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 recruiting and to inform the community as they did so. I am sure you are technically correct, however the blog post that Lisa linked to[1] appears to directly contradict your statement. In particular it informed the community that: ... the Wikimedia Foundation is pleased to announce ... We're seeking an experienced Wikipedia editor for a one year, There is no qualification of any sort, so the blog post has been written so that the WMF is directly claiming to be running or responsible for the recruitment. Further, Stephen Walling
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding
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 Wikipedian with the first task of the position being Researching relevant topics and improving the articles.Stanton is not mentioned anywhere as the actual funding organisation (are we ok with that?), and since when does Wikipedia hire people? Disclaimer - I had no involvement in the project and am unaware of the details. As far as I can tell, this was a pretty opportunistic one-off agreement primarily supporting a funder's desire to boost the Wikipedians in Residence model. The frustration by Liam and Pete expressed in this thread does suggest that we erred on the side of moving too quickly - I respect their engagement in the field highly and appreciate all the efforts they've made to help develop clear models and practices for this type of work. I'll note that Timothy Sandole disclosed his affiliation with Harvard on his user page, and stated that he was tasked to author, edit and improve Wikipedia articles. Given that any substantial influence on what he did clearly came from Harvard rather than WMF, I think from an ethical standpoint, that's the most important part. However, I agree that if we ever engage in such projects again, we should aim for the highest standard of disclosure, including any pass-through agreements. That's especially true in light of the disclosure requirements currently under discussion. I'd love to see more visibility into the project's outcomes as well. We ask people to write detailed reports even as part of travel grants [1], so if there's no public report of any kind, that's a bit disheartening. 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 standards of accountability differ -- but if we have the ability to obtain any kind of public report after the fact, I think as a matter of good practice, it would be a good thing to do so. I saw SJ already left a question on Timothy's talk page. I also just pinged him via the email feature in case he has time to comment here a bit more about the nature of his work. Without such visibility, it's hard to see how much Timothy's work deviated from the community-developed WiR guidelines [2], which don't say that WiRs shouldn't edit, but which emphasize the issue of conflicts-of-interest and the idea that a WiR shouldn't be an in-house editor. Erik [1] e.g. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:TPS/Daniel_Mietchen/58th_Annual_Meeting_of_the_Biophysical_Society/Report [2] https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedian_in_Residence -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
