Michael Snow wikipedia@frontier.com wrote:
Even if Timothy has been highly disruptive rather than just apparently very inefficient (which he wasn't), or if it has been donors' money that had been spent (which it wasn't), or if you had /actually/ been appointed to speak for "the number one stakeholder in our projects" (which you haven't); it wouldn't justify your continuing harangue when you have been clearly told that no further substantive information would come until Sue returns next week.
It was donors' money that was spent on this position, Marc.
It was one single donor's money that was spent on this position, not money from the general pool of donations, which I believe is the point Marc was trying to make. Moreover, that donor specifically wanted the money spent on this position. It's not like the Wikimedia Foundation had the option to spend the money on other, better program opportunities.
As such, it seems clear that the donor in question is in the best position to evaluate whether the funds achieved their intended purpose. We don't really have good information in this case to do that for them, and imposing our ideas of what should be done with someone else's money is just wishful thinking.
At the same time, it is clear that there are legitimate concerns with this project from the perspective of good editing practices and conflicts of interest. This is a good argument that it would have been better for the Wikimedia Foundation not to participate in the transaction, and gives reason to be leery of such pass-through arrangements in general. And in terms of organizational philosophy, it's also why the foundation focuses on fundraising from the general public rather than restricted gifts from individual donors. Looking at this from an audit committee perspective, the information so far suggests that the foundation could more carefully screen such gifts for alignment with our values, but at this point I haven't seen indications that this rises to the level of misuse of donor funds.
Eh, that is not the point in my mind. If A wants to assist his relative B's work, and, "for administrative reasons", they want to engage WMF as a middle man to make it appear as if there is no direct financial flow, then it's not for A to evaluate whether the funds "achieved their intended pur- pose".
Organizations that distribute funds according to the deposi- tors' wishes are called banks and they have to ensure their compliance with relevant regulations. WMF should make it very clear that it doesn't engage in any fishy transactions.
Tim