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(a)wikimedia.org | : @Philippewiki<https://twitter.com/Philippewiki> On Fri, Apr 4, 2014 at 4:14 AM, Fæ &lt;faewik(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

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 definition<http://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 &lt;philippe(a)wikimedia.org&gt; wrote:

Hoi, I can understand the sentiment and, it makes some sense. However, I do not like weasel words ... "paid employees".. Bah They are not volunteering. They are on a job, have a mission. I think that employees of any organisations may work for the benefit of bringing the sum of all knowledge together together .. How this is done differs. How this is accepted differs. I for one am bemused with all the hoopla, then again nowadays I do Wikidata first, am a Wikimedian second and yes I love Wikipedia as well. For me when a company, organisation can help us with a significant amount of quality data, I am happy when it gets added to Wikidata. At that we are more "libre" than Wikipedia, to comply with Wikidata requirements a license of CC-0 has to be provided. Thanks, GerardM On 4 April 2014 13:14, Fæ &lt;faewik(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

On 4 April 2014 14:33, Gryllida &lt;gryllida(a)fastmail.fm&gt; wrote: ... ... 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 &lt;richard.symonds(a)wikimedia.org.uk&gt; wrote: 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. 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. 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. Yes, if a user group agreement is in place. 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. No. I would expect the norms for conflict of interest to apply rather than this procedure. Fae -- faewik(a)gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User: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 &lt;yannfo(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: -- faewik(a)gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae Personal and confidential, please do not circulate or re-quote.

On 5 April 2014 08:09, Peter Southwood &lt;peter.southwood(a)telkomsa.net&gt; wrote: 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(a)gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae