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
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