Hi all,
As regards the use of the proceeds from this auction, Jimmy Wales posted
the following rather non-committal statement on his English Wikipedia talk
page:[1]
"I'm planning to donate a significant portion and use a significant portion
for wt.social. I haven't made any final decisions. I offered to pledge to
donate to the WMF, but they (the board) preferred that I not do that."
The way this is phrased could mean 95% for WT.Social and 5% for charity, or
vice versa.
WT.Social (current Alexa rank around 120,000) is Jimmy Wales' commercial
enterprise and the successor to the failed Wikitribune site established in
April 2017. Wikitribune Ltd.'s filing history (incl. financial statements),
as linked on WT.Social's "About" page, is here:
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/10713170…
Reading the above pledge, I was reminded of a previous pledge Jimmy Wales
had made to support worthy causes.
When he and Berners-Lee (who, incidentally, also auctioned an NFT recently)
shared a controversial[2] $1M award from the United Arab Emirates (each
receiving $500K) in 2014, he told the Daily Dot that he "never planned to
keep the money and will use the funds to start his own foundation dedicated
to furthering human rights."[3]
Could Jimmy Wales or the WMF board provide further information, beyond what
is below, on what became of this promise?
And in the meantime, could readers help me with a crowdsourcing effort to
survey what publicly available information there is on how this money was
used, and whether its use matched the public pledge?
Looking at this over the weekend, I found that a Twitter account for the
Jimmy Wales Foundation (@JWalesF) was set up in January 2015, soon after
the Daily Dot report.
Two-and-a-half years later, in September 2017, Jimmy Wales incorporated a
"Jimmy Wales Foundation". Its filing history is here:
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/10950000…
According to its certificate of incorporation, available in the filing
history, the "Jimmy Wales Foundation" is a "private company limited by
guarantee". This is quite different from the sort of charitable foundation
the Wikimedia Foundation is. A search of the UK Register of Charities for
the Jimmy Wales Foundation accordingly draws a blank:
https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-search/-/res…
Section 24 of the certificate of incorporation states that the Jimmy Wales
Foundation's "directors are entitled to such remuneration as the directors
determine". This remuneration may "take any form." Jimmy Wales is the only
director listed in the document.
The foundation's first financial statement after incorporation lists assets
of £25,319 (around $30,000). More recent statements show a negative
balance. I am left wondering: Where did the other $470,000 go?
Looking into what the Jimmy Wales Foundation has achieved since its
inception, I found that it had made 1,267 tweets, with the last one of
these occurring in February 2019. A Google News search finds 9 mentions of
the Jimmy Wales Foundation in the media.
A number of these are mentions of Orit Kopel, the co-founder of WT.Social,
who also describes herself as the Ex-CEO of the Jimmy Wales Foundation on
Twitter.[4]
Given the size of the original award, this seems on the face of it
remarkably modest value for money in terms of the fight for human rights.
As the Daily Dot[3] reported, Wales promised that "every penny of the money
will be used to combat human rights abuses worldwide with a specific focus
on the Middle East and with a specific focus of freedom of speech/access to
knowledge issues."
Of course – and I hope this is the case – there may have been other
activities consistent with this pledge that I am unaware of. Any
information shedding light on this would be very welcome.
Best,
Andreas
[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AJimbo_Wales&diff…
–
see also statement on proceeds at
https://onlineonly.christies.com/s/birth-wikipedia/jimmy-wales-b-1966-2001/…
[2]
https://web.archive.org/web/20191107063546/https://www.middleeastmonitor.co…
[3]
https://www.dailydot.com/debug/jimmy-wales-uae-prize-money/
[4]
https://archive.md/wip/C2rxY
On Mon, Dec 6, 2021 at 12:56 PM Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
Hoi,
When Jimmy wants to sell his pc, he can. When he sells something
intangible like the "first edit of Wikipedia" even that has nothing to do
with us.
Thanks,
GerardM
On Mon, 6 Dec 2021 at 13:49, Lane Chance <zinkloss(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I don't understand how a Wikimedia trustee
using Wikimedia websites,
Wikimedia branding, and this Wikimedia supported email list to promote a
funding event for their own commercial project, i.e. "WT:Social", fits with
the bylaws which include:
"The property of this Foundation is irrevocably dedicated to charitable
purposes and no part of the net income or assets of this Foundation shall
ever inure to the benefit of any Trustee or officer thereof or to the
benefit of any private individual other than compensation in a reasonable
amount to its officers, employees, and contractors for services rendered."
https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Bylaws
Could someone explain why the Wikimedia Foundation gave permission to one
of their trustees to do this in contravention of their own bylaws?
Hopefully asking questions does not automatically get you branded as an
"idealogue" or "attention-seeker".
On Mon, 6 Dec 2021 at 00:20, Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I too expected a stronger reaction from the rigid
idealogues and the
attention-seekers (although I see that did indeed occur on-wiki, courtesy
of the same old grandstanding admins), and thought the minimal response was
perhaps a sign of progress!
Might just be disinterest and the ever-shrinking profile of Wikimedia-L.
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