A bit of unsolicited advice from a chapter staff member and long-time volunteer coming up. It doesn't represent my view on this proposal, but is, as I said, simply unsolicited advice! Feel free to ignore it if you want.

Here we go...

It seems to me that the term 'paid volunteer' is an oxymoron. A volunteer is, by definitionhttp://www.volunteering.org.uk/iwanttovolunteer/what-is-volunteering, unpaid, aren't they?

That said, this definition, *as applied to paid editing,* is a good start, but it seems like it needs a little reworking to cover what you're trying to cover, in particular the part that reads "This includes employees and contractors...". I'll explain why this is my advice below:

- Paid volunteers are employees, contractors or part time contractors of Wikimedia organizations or other organizations having agreements or partnerships with Wikimedia. - *[This could include, say, Google, who have probably signed a Wikimania sponsorship agreement with the WMF at some point]* - The paid volunteer contributes to Wikimedia projects and discussions that influence the content of Wikimedia projects. - *[This would include any Google employee who edits Wikipedia in his spare time]* - This includes employees and contractors that may not be paid for their on-project activities, - *[This would also include a Google employee who edits in his spare time about trains as his hobby]* - however their employer benefits from the content of the same projects. - *[Which Google does because they trawl Wikimedia projects and thus benefit from them... but then, most of the "Western World" benefits from Wikipedia one way or another!]*

This would mean that anyone who works for Google, and edits Wikipedia about 1920s Welsh steam trains, is a paid volunteer, regardless of whether their job has anything to do with Wikipedia. As a paid volunteer, presumably their would be extra rules which apply to him - but rules which would not serve any purpose in his case except for preventing some sort of Google/Wikipedia/Welsh Steam Trains tryst that wouldn't realistically occur anyway.

What I'm saying is that this would potentially cover an *awful* lot of people. To give another example, what if the US State department granted an amount to the "Wikimedia Idaho" chapter to do an editathon (with a short one-page grant agreement covering what the £250 grant would be used for)? Would that then mean that any US State Department employee, worldwide, would be a 'paid volunteer'? By this definition, yes...

Don't get me wrong, this is a discussion that the community needs to have, but the stated definition, in my opinion, may be overreaching a bit more than intended...

Richard Symonds Wikimedia UK 0207 065 0992

Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects).

*Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.*

On 4 April 2014 12:26, Philippe Beaudette philippe@wikimedia.org wrote:

Perhaps I'm just being obtuse, but I'm a little unclear on the definition of a paid volunteer. Could you possibly try rephrasing it so that I'm more clear?

pb

*Philippe Beaudette * \ Director, Community Advocacy \ Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. T: 1-415-839-6885 x6643 | philippe@wikimedia.org | : @Philippewikihttps://twitter.com/Philippewiki

On Fri, Apr 4, 2014 at 4:14 AM, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:

...

Proposal: "Paid volunteers" should take care to identify themselves on Wikimedia Projects and discussions related to Wikimedia Projects.

Sue Gardner's initial report by the WMF into the Belfer case makes a key decision that there must be effective processes for escalation of

employee

...

activities that may not comply with Wikimedia local project best practice.[1][2] The WMF can direct their own processes for their staff,

but

...

a consequence for the wider community is that on our projects we should have policies that ensure there is simple and straight-forward

transparency

...

for who is a paid volunteer and may have interests related to their edits or their contributions to discussion. The current situation is that paid volunteers have no requirement to identify themselves and may contribute anonymously or pseudonymously in ways that obscure their interest, in

fact

...

this is current common practice.

I am thinking of raising this proposal on meta, so initial thoughts and comments on this list would be welcome to decide whether this is worth taking forward as beneficial to our volunteer community.

*Definition of "paid volunteer":* Paid volunteers are employees, contractors or part time contractors of Wikimedia organizations or other organizations having agreements or partnerships with Wikimedia. The paid volunteer contributes to Wikimedia projects and discussions that influence the content of Wikimedia

projects.

...

This includes employees and contractors that may not be paid for their on-project activities, however their employer benefits from the content

of

...

the same projects.

Links: [1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-April/070827.html [2]

https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedian_in_Residence/Harvard_Universi...

...

Fae

faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe

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Will you be expecting every supporter of a political party, every member of a religious group, every national of a country, every supporter of a football team and so on ad nauseam... to declare COI when editing a related article? These groups are often more biased then grunt employees. Wikipedia content is largely contributed by enthusiasts with either a strong bias or partial information (leading to unintentional bias). It is the strength and the wakness of crowdsourcing. Live with it or lose many of your contributors. This whole pogrom against paid editors is a waste of effort as it is virtually unenforceable without an invasion of privacy that the NSA would reject as over the top. Judge the contributor by the quality of their work, not by who their connections may be, or require every contributor to register their true and validated identity and all affiliations, financial or otherwise.. I oppose double standards favouring unpaid fanatics against well intentioned professionals

Cheers, Peter

----- Original Message ----- From: "Fæ" faewik@gmail.com To: "Wikimedia Mailing List" wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Friday, April 04, 2014 3:39 PM Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Proposal: Transparency for Wikimedia "paidvolunteers"

On 4 April 2014 14:05, Richard Symonds richard.symonds@wikimedia.org.uk wrote: ...

...

It seems to me that the term 'paid volunteer' is an oxymoron.

...

Yes, it is oxymoronic, many common terms are, though I am open to an alternative form of words. I understand that volunteers who are also employees do not want to be required to always declare they are an employee, it can be the equivalent of wearing a "kick me" sign, but this is a community issue to solve, not an excuse for being opaque. Sue's report into the Belfer case is leading us in this direction if we want to avoid the same embarrassments occurring not just in the WMF but in partnerships or chapter/thorg funded projects.

We need to cover the following real and current situations where there is a lack of transparency (here "employee" includes contractors and Wikimedia organizations includes the WMF, chapters, thorgs, proto-chapter programmes, etc.):

(A) There are increasing numbers of Wikimedia self-identified volunteers receiving expenses, scholarships, grants or supplied equipment as part of projects funded or part-funded by Wikimedia organizations. The most notable are Wikimedian in Residence projects, however a variety of other projects exist with money or other benefits, such as me being supplied a computer to support some worthwhile Commons mass upload projects. There is currently no consistent global requirement or procedure for volunteers to do any more than declare their interest, which may remain on a special sub-page of one of the Wikimedia projects, chapter wikis, or even privately declared. There are plenty examples of 'paid volunteers' or 'supported volunteers' in this situation, who are advocating for community support for their projects without it being clear or transparent at the time of that advocacy that they are being supported with funding, equipment or contracted payments. There is *absolutely* nothing wrong with content creation advocacy, it is fulfilling the aim of our projects, however if an interest is not transparent and not easy to understand, it is not best practice.

(B) Significant numbers of Wikimedia/chapter employees are taking part in community project discussions and !votes using pseudonymous accounts. The resulting summary of community consensus does not take account of the numbers of volunteers who are also employees contributing, even when a !vote has direct implications for the priority or future funding of projects that some of the same employees may benefit from or their employer will benefit from.

(C) Full time Wikimedia organization employees are paid Wikimedia volunteer scholarships to go to Wikimedia conferences where they may attend without making it clear they are an employee as they are attending as a volunteer. During the conference they are advocating future projects and community policy changes that will benefit their employer and may create future funded programmes for their employer and potentially themselves as an employee.

Fae

faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae

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OK, Cheers, Peter

----- Original Message ----- From: "Fæ" faewik@gmail.com To: "Wikimedia Mailing List" wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Saturday, April 05, 2014 10:10 AM Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Proposal: Transparency for Wikimedia"paidvolunteers"

On 5 April 2014 08:09, Peter Southwood peter.southwood@telkomsa.net wrote:

...

Will you be expecting every supporter of a political party, every member of a religious group, every national of a country, every supporter of a football team and so on ad nauseam... to declare COI when editing a related article? These groups are often more biased then grunt employees. Wikipedia content is largely contributed by enthusiasts with either a strong bias or partial information (leading to unintentional bias). It is the strength and the wakness of crowdsourcing. Live with it or lose many of your contributors. This whole pogrom against paid editors is a waste of effort as it is virtually unenforceable without an invasion of privacy that the NSA would reject as over the top. Judge the contributor by the quality of their work, not by who their connections may be, or require every contributor to register their true and validated identity and all affiliations, financial or otherwise.. I oppose double standards favouring unpaid fanatics against well intentioned professionals

Hi Peter,

No, the groups you mention are not covered by this proposal.

As for "invasion of privacy", this seems tangential. The proposal is for Wikimedia employees and similar to be transparent about the fact of their status. On the surface at least, this is not something one would expect to be kept a secret on Wikimedia projects.

Thanks, Fae -- faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae

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On 4 April 2014 14:33, Gryllida gryllida@fastmail.fm wrote:

On Fri, 4 Apr 2014, at 22:14, Fæ wrote:

...

*Definition of "paid volunteer":* Paid volunteers are employees, contractors or part time contractors of Wikimedia organizations or other organizations having agreements or partnerships with Wikimedia. The paid volunteer contributes to Wikimedia projects and discussions that influence the content of Wikimedia projects. This includes employees and contractors that may not be paid for their on-project activities, however their employer benefits from the content of the same projects.

...

If I am a student and write wikipedia articles about commercial software my university uses in my free time, I satisfy this definition. However, I would have no conflict of interest here, as neither I nor my university gets paid for the new information I would write.

...

I do not understand how you are reading the definition to believe it would apply to students writing about some software they happen to use. Students pay the university to be on a course, or receive a grant from a funding body which they then pay the university, not the reverse. To be clear, this definition does not apply to students, they are not: * employees who are also volunteers * volunteers who are receiving money or given significant assets for improving content of Wikimedia projects

Even a paid researcher on a university project would not meet this definition, unless the project were part funded or in partnership with Wikimedia. In that latter case, yes, we would want their interest to be declared when they were acting as a volunteer contributor to Wikimedia projects and at the same time benefiting their university project or advocating for further projects where they were likely to be employed/contracted or be credited for associated academic publications.

What is proposed here is *not* a general conflict of interest policy, it is a specific policy of transparency directed at Wikimedia organization employees or employees of Wikimedia partners on programmes directly related to Wikimedia projects in the same way as can be claimed for the Belfer case. Vague associations like an employee of a Wikimedia partner organization who has no connection to a Wikimedia partnership are tangential ideas, having nothing to do with this proposal.

Fae

On 04/04/2014, Richard Symonds richard.symonds@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:

Just a quick correction, you say that "Even a paid researcher on a university project would not meet this definition, unless the project were part funded or in partnership with Wikimedia. "

This is not quite accurate: even a student on a university project would meet this definition if his university had:

1. Signed a quick

licencehttps://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Trademark/License/GLAM (an agreement between the University and the WMF)

I cannot imaging a project needing such agreements in place if it were not relevant. If the agreements applied to the specific activities of a student, then they are being funded to take part on a Wikimedia related project. I can think of no other reasons as to why the student would be using Wikimedia trademarks.

2. Paid for the student's scholarship (a contracted payment from the

University to the student)

An unrestricted university scholarship unconnected to any Wikimedia project outcomes is not being part funded by Wikimedia. I cannot imagine any circumstances where this would be relevant. If the student were taking part in Wikimedia projects, the normal COI policy applies when writing about their department, research or institution.

This would apply under the current definition *even if* *the student's studies are entirely unrelated to Wikimedia.* This is because the student would be a "contractor" of an "organizations having [an agreement] with Wikimedia".

No, for the reasons above. This is trying to drive a wedge into basic partnership agreements with universities which would have nothing whatsoever to do with students receiving scholarships. It is well outside of any common-sense interpretation. As I read it, this is covered in the definition, however if you have a specific proposal to simplify the definition I would welcome it.

It could easily be read that a 'paid volunteer':

• "Has to be an employee, contractor or part time contractor of [anyone

who has signed any agreement with any Wikimedia organisation or person describing themselves as part of Wikimedia].

• Has to [contribute to Wikimedia, but not necessarily edit].
• This includes [anyone whose employer benefits from Wikimedia in any

way]."

I know that this seems hysterical, but experience has shown that we need to define these things accurately, and the definition is much too broad at present. It has the effect of including all employees and contractors (even unpaid) of all organisations which have ever so much as signed a single page agreement with anyone from "Wikimedia". We have to ask:

1. How are we defining "Wikimedia"? Does it include, say, user groups?

Could it include single persons in some cases?

Yes, if a user group agreement is in place.

2. Why are we including people who are not actually paid to edit the

projects, but might be paid to, for example, mine coal - but edit the projects when they get home?

I do not understand this example. The WMF does not employ coal miners.

If you mean someone like Garfield (CFO of the WMF) as he is not paid to edit projects, or to develop the software that supports the projects, then yes, I would expect Garfield to be transparent. For example if he were anonymously !voting in a community discussion about the future of Wikimedia Commons, then he should make it clear that he is employed by the WMF.

3. Does this include organisations where there is an "unwritten

agreement"? What about a draft agreement?

No. I would expect the norms for conflict of interest to apply rather than this procedure.

Fae

Yann, the nuclear industry controversy was more the issue of control/ownership of content (which can happen on Commons, for example the news today about attempts to restrict reuse of Barack Obama's image). It is a tangent to this proposal. If you have other examples and think current project policies are insufficient, this might be worth a separate thread.

More comments welcome, but from the struggle over the meaning of words, I think doing this on-wiki will be helpful as it would separate the discussion from the proposal, which itself could be gradually refined. Much harder to cooperate on a proposal by email. :-)

Fae

On 4 April 2014 18:42, Yann Forget yannfo@gmail.com wrote:

Hi,

In 2007, there was some significant conflict on the French Wkipedia, when people working for the nuclear industry edited related articles, and denied anyone without a PhD on nuclear physics any autority about this subject. Further more they refused any reference from outside the nuclear industry, specially from NGOs critical about this (i.e. Greenpeace). The result was that some articles on this subject were pure propaganda. Any mentions about incidents or accidents were systematically removed or reworded to conform to the view of this industry. These people are not paid to edit Wikipedia, so they denied having a conflict of interest. I haven't checked if the situation has changed since that time.

I would like that a situation like this being taken into account, but it may be outside the scope of your request.

Regards,

Yann

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