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>
