Hello dear all,
I won't impose my standard to other people, I just want to tell you what is the standard I setup for myself, and I will also tell you why.
I won't accept payment or gift exceeding a certain amount (means > 20 Euro) or search for payment for my volunteer's work that is however related to Wikimedia. Especially when I was on my travel reject gift may be considered as unfriendly or even insulting, this is the ONLY reason why I do accept small gifts. And by larger gift, like a quite expansive looking image band I received in Kazakhstan I brought it to the office and left it there.
There are a few reasons for this:
At first a very personal one: I made the experience in my life again and again that I lost my fun and my interest on something as soon as I got paid for it. Get paid = in debt of = duty = no fun.
Second is a philosophical one: I believe that getting paid do have a desruptive effect on the free and collaboratory character of our projects. The philosophical background is that I believe knowledge and education is something like air, it is the basics of human live and humanity and should not be charged. But well, I know, not all people, (maybe most people) don't share this view point.
Third is a practical one: And this especially for people who occupy a position in the movement, be it an employee of one of the organizations, or be it a volunteer board member or a committee member: If you need to fend off an accusation (most probably conflict of interest, or misuse of power), you are in a bad position. It is in this case unimportant if the accusation is true or not, battling against rumors and emotions is a hard battle. And the limbo of being stained will always be with you. Sadly, I have seen this too often by people inside of the movement and outside of the movement (mainly in the politics) that I actually wonder why people still fall into these pitfalls again and again. So try to stay in a position in which you will not be confronted with such a battle. It is simply like in the medicine: prophylax is better than antibiotics.
A few words to my view on paid edition: I think this is something that we cannot avoid happening. Prohibition just drives them into secrecy. As such, I prefer it to be done openly instead of in secrecy. My personal aversion against paid edition should be quite obvious from the above account, just I don't feel I can (or should) enforce it upon other people.
Greetings Ting
Am 1/8/2014 9:04 AM, schrieb Fæ:
I have not used it but would like to know more. If WMF employees/contractors are free to sell their services as paid Wikipedia editors on oDesk, I think that a how-to-sell-your-services guide would be helpful so that active unpaid volunteers who are not employees know how to go get some money from their hobby.
To date, I have never be paid for my volunteer work, neither have I been an employee of the WMF or a Chapter, but my activities as an active batch uploader and bot-writer for Commons might be fungible and if so, I would like to sell my services ethically and openly.
Fae
On 8 January 2014 07:30, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Hi.
Can anyone explain the relationship between Wikimedia and oDesk?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/oDesk
As I understand it, the Wikimedia Foundation uses oDesk with contractors to track their hours. (Right?)
But it also appears to be a job board of some kind. It seems like a hybrid of LinkedIn and Craigslist, though I haven't looked carefully and I'm still lightly poking around. It seems like the kind of place where you can post Wikipedia paid editing services. If this is part of oDesk, does anyone know roughly how many people offer or buy these services?
Regarding paid editing, Jimmy reiterated his stance on his talk page saying "I very very strongly condemn such editing, and this is no exception" and expressing his "usual principled objections to such things in the strongest possible terms."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Permalink/589723131
I think the underlying issue deserves a discussion, apart from particular examples.
MZMcBride
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