[Wikimedia-l] Relationship between Wikimedia and oDesk

[MZMcBride]

Marc A. Pelletier wrote:
>On 01/08/2014 02:30 AM, MZMcBride wrote:
>> Can anyone explain the relationship between Wikimedia and oDesk?
>
>The short of it: oDesk is indeed roughly the same kind of job board as
>freelancer.com and its ilk.  The foundation is simply a client, and uses
>it only to pay its contractors and (most of)* their non-US workforce;
>and AFAIK never just contract out from postings.
>
>Contractors input work hours, WMF pays oDesk, oDesk sends monies to
>contractor.  The system itself is a little shitty and quite a bit
>expensive, but considerably less so than it would be to set up legal
>entities able to directly pay people outside the US as local employees
>(including the horrible mess that it actually /is/ to have employees in
>other countries rather than contract out).

Thank you for this. It helped me better understand the business
relationship between the Wikimedia Foundation and oDesk.

Clarifying whether it's appropriate for anyone, Wikimedia Foundation
employee or otherwise, to engage with oDesk's... other services seems like
a pretty high priority. And, in general, there needs to be clarification
about the distinction between paid editing versus paid advocacy editing,
especially if it's going to be treated as a bright line.

MZMcBride