Michael Snow <wikipedia(a)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