[Foundation-l] Corporate Social Responsibility

Fri Nov 19 22:22:46 UTC 2010

On Nov 19, 2010, at 1:30 PM, Noein wrote:

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> On 19/11/2010 11:42, Fred Bauder wrote:
>>> On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 14:46, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> On 19 November 2010 13:41, Abbas Mahmoud <abbasjnr at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> Does Wikimedia Foundation engage in Corporate Social Responsibility?
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_social_responsibility
>>>> 
>>>> It appears to be something for for-profit corporations to do to appear
>>>> less rapacious.
>>>> 
>>>> It's not clear what its applicability is to a 501(c)3 charity, given
>>>> that you only get 501(c)3 by being of social benefit in the first
>>>> place.
>>> 
>>> Yes, but it would be good if we would have "Social Contract", like
>>> Debian has: http://www.debian.org/social_contract
>>> 
>> 
>> We are not short of similar firmly held policies, such as neutral point
>> of view. They are mostly written out in our policy pages. What would you
>> add or emphasize?
> 
> I would add policies for the WMF like a duty of transparency about
> money. I still don't understand how the WMF can state for example:
> 
> "The Wikimedia Foundation and Mike have figured out severance that
> we all hope will protect Mike and give him time to think about what he
> wants to do next. The terms of the severance are confidential: we
> won’t talk about them now, or in the future. But you can rest assured
> that the Wikimedia Foundation wants to see Mike continue working to
> advance people’s online freedoms: everybody would like to see him
> continue making an important contribution." [1]
> 
> 
> As I understand, and please correct me if I'm wrong, this is public
> money. There should be no "confidential" secret about where it ends, and
> how much, and why.
> 
> I don't want to stir a polemic, but I really have no clue about how I
> should understand such decision to hide facts.
> 
> 
> [1]: I couldn't find the original mail by Sue Gardner but here's a link
> to an immediate answer quoting it entirely:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-October/061693.html
> 
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Just a few personal musings -- 

Noein, personally, I would think that a "duty of transparency about money"  and publicizing information about a private employee's salary, benefits, or severance packages are two wildly different things.  There is a certain point where things become a matter of personal privacy, after all. You say you have no clue about how you should understand a decision to "hide facts".  Does that mean we should publicize his medical records too? Those are facts as well.  How transparent would we need to be? Should we put his salary history for every job he's worked in his life on his article? 

Corporate Social Responsibility applies just as much to transparency as it does to protecting the privacy of its employees. 

-Dan