Thanks WereSpeilChequers, I especially approve of "You could define a de minimis threshold, perhaps a shareholding that pays you dividends worth no more than a cup of coffee a month is not worth declaring. But for simplicity and transparency it might be easier to recuse from any decision where you are a shareholder."[1]
This cost-free and minor improvement to WMF governance would help a lot towards community confidence in the WMF board, particularly if the WMF adopted the transparency practices for (pre-emptive) public trustee declarations of interest we implemented for Wikimedia UK as part of necessary governance improvements.[2]
Links 1. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_transparency_gap#Confli... 2. https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Declarations_of_Interest
Fae
On 10 January 2016 at 12:11, WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:
Recent threads query whether it is or should be a conflict of interest for a board member to support the appointment of someone who used to work at the same company, and whether multiple board members have shares or stock options with a particular company. So I have read the Conflict of interest policy https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest_policy, which from my lay person's reading does not appear to have been breached.
I have taken the opportunity to propose a couple of changes https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_transparency_gap#Conflicts_of_interest_-_investments to that policy. Note I have not first tried to find out how long it is since a certain new trustee left the same company that an existing trustee works for, nor have I asked any board member how many Google shares that they own. But I am making the assumption that no individual member of the WMF board currently owns 10% or more of Google, so I would be very surprised if any of them have managed to break the current conflict of interest policy as I understand it.
To be clear I am not proposing any sort of retrospective change that would mean a past decision was void because a trustee voted despite having an interest according to these new rules. Any change to the rules could only apply to decisions made after the rules were updated.
WereSpielChequers