On 9 January 2014 13:10, Fć <faewik@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