Thanks WereSpeilChequers, I especially approve of "You could define a de minimis threshold, perhaps a shareholding that pays you dividends worth no more than a cup of coffee a month is not worth declaring. But for simplicity and transparency it might be easier to recuse from any decision where you are a shareholder."[1]
This cost-free and minor improvement to WMF governance would help a lot towards community confidence in the WMF board, particularly if the WMF adopted the transparency practices for (pre-emptive) public trustee declarations of interest we implemented for Wikimedia UK as part of necessary governance improvements.[2] Links 1. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_transparency_gap#Conflicts_of_interest_-_investments 2. https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Declarations_of_Interest Fae On 10 January 2016 at 12:11, WereSpielChequers <werespielchequ...@gmail.com> wrote: > Recent threads query whether it is or should be a conflict of interest for > a board member to support the appointment of someone who used to work at > the same company, and whether multiple board members have shares or stock > options with a particular company. So I have read the Conflict of interest > policy <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest_policy>, > which from my lay person's reading does not appear to have been breached. > > I have taken the opportunity to propose a couple of changes > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_transparency_gap#Conflicts_of_interest_-_investments> > to that policy. Note I have not first tried to find out how long it is > since a certain new trustee left the same company that an existing trustee > works for, nor have I asked any board member how many Google shares that > they own. But I am making the assumption that no individual member of the > WMF board currently owns 10% or more of Google, so I would be very > surprised if any of them have managed to break the current conflict of > interest policy as I understand it. > > To be clear I am not proposing any sort of retrospective change that would > mean a past decision was void because a trustee voted despite having an > interest according to these new rules. Any change to the rules could only > apply to decisions made after the rules were updated. > > WereSpielChequers -- fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
