There is an ongoing discussion about this subject in Wikipedia Weekly on
Facebook, and it appears that the matter is not yet closed.
Stephen, could you clarify who "we" is in your last paragraph? I am not
sure that WMF Legal is the entity that should be determining what is "in
the best interest of the Wikimedia movement or Foundation". While WMF Legal
certainly should make recommendations, the final decision about what is
best for WMF should rest with the WMF Board (which I have been pressing for
more transparency in financial matters for quite some time; I believe that
it would be in WMF's best interest to set a good example by being much more
transparent about financial matters in general).
Also, I question whether the decision about what is "in the best interest
of the movement" is WMF's decision to make.
Pine
On Mon, Nov 21, 2016 at 9:22 AM, Stephen LaPorte <slaporte(a)wikimedia.org>
wrote:
Hi Chris and Lodewijk,
I was asked to follow up here on the questions from October about
country-by-country fundraising data.
We make fundraising decisions, including decisions about what information
we release, based in part on our internal legal assessments in the country.
We don't go into our legal assessments publicly, as it may make it
difficult to keep legal risks and costs low.
We strive to be as open about our fundraising activities as we can.
Compared to nonprofit industry standards, we release more information than
other non-profits tend to, including continent-level breakdowns of
donations, information about revenue channels and testing, and reports from
our fundraising research:
-
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2015-2016_Fundraising_Report
-
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_
Reader_Survey_November_2015.pdf
I’m sorry that we can’t give more satisfying answers to your questions, but
in this case we have determined that publishing the requested information
would not be in the best interest of the Wikimedia movement or Foundation.
--
Stephen LaPorte
Senior Legal Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
*NOTICE: As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal and ethical
reasons, I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community
members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity. For more
on what this means, please see our legal disclaimer
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Legal_Disclaimer>.*
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