On 9 January 2014 13:10, Fæ <faewik(a)gmail.com> wrote:
In the light of the recent announcement by the
Wikimedia Foundation that
paid editing is not acceptable for employees, and the apparent swift
termination of a long term employee, I believe it appropriate for the Board
of Trustees of Wikimedia UK to agree a policy at the next board meeting to
require employees, contractors and trustees to publicly declare any current
or past paid editing activities, or related unpaid advocacy that may
represent a potential conflict of interest.
On the details of the Sarah Stierch affair, which has been in the
Independent for example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Stierch
"Long-term employee" seems not quite right. She had a one-year fellowship
in 2012. The Independent report said she was engaged in an evaluation
project for editathons, which is true enough. I don't know the full extent
of her recent portfolio of WMF activities. Stierch, as the WP article makes
clear, is a significant activist over a range of things, and working for
the WMF has been part of it. As usual, Wikipedia cannot be relied on for
all information one might wish to have.
No doubt the WMUK Board needs to think this through. The implication that
the "net" should be cast wide to look for COI, of those involved in the
WMUK in any fashion, of course has different sides: a prudential approach
is one of them.
As a coauthor of the original (2006) COI guideline on enWP, I have always
been interested in the distinctions between "potential conflict of
interest" (which is in a sense part of the human condition), perceptions of
COI, and concrete "conflict of interest" in the guideline sense. The last
of these relates rather precisely to the actual circumstance that someone
is editing the project content in such a way as to prioritise outside
interests over the best interests of the project. E.g. advocacy where there
should be none.
Charles