---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Roger Bamkin victuallers@gmail.com Date: 29 September 2012 06:53 Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Joint statement with the Foundation To: UK Wikimedia mailing list wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org
I have been encouraged to issue statements for the last week or so about the debate. I have resisted as I did not want to escalate what I saw as an unfortunate bit of publicity for Wikimedia UK and the Foundation. I'm very disappointed to see the latest press release I believe that the statement on my talk page on the English, Catalan and Simple Wikipedia supplies some background.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Victuallers
In retrospect we could all give the board and me better advice. I have tried to remain loyal to you, the mission, and the board. I have made less money working for "the mission" then I would have done elsewhere, and I think I have also shared in extending our reach. I've visited many countries and talked with five of six ministers from Gibraltar, Wales and the British Parliament about WMUK. You know I worked as an unpaid wikipedian in residence and you may have guessed that I turned down paid work last year to concentrate on leading the WMUK board during my last term. That was costing me too much money and so with the board's agreement I stood down so that Monmouthshire County Council could make the exceptional step of paying me. They did not do this lightly and they had to get special agreement from their elected members that in this case it was worth stepping outside their normal employment procedures to save Monmouthpedia. This is well documented.
As my statement shows both the board and the Foundation should have been aware of the public statements that were made. I have heard it claimed that the Foundation were unaware - but I resigned as chair of the UK chapter. Someone must have read the reason. I was very clear when you re-elected me as a board member that I had and would continue to have business interests like Monmouthshire County Council. (I have to eat). We may have been mistaken, but it was a joint and informed decision.
It seems a long time ago when I was in Haifa and we were told that the Foundation did not want WMUK to take part in last years fundraiser. But we did and that made us several hundreds of thousands of pounds. Our current exec can take a lot of credit for achieving that.
best regards Roger
On 28 September 2012 23:41, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
There were plenty of large countries on that list, although media attention is likely to spread further when it originates in English, that's true.
On Sep 28, 2012 11:37 PM, "Deryck Chan" deryckchan@gmail.com wrote:
On 28 September 2012 23:20, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On Sep 28, 2012 11:11 PM, "Deryck Chan" deryckchan@gmail.com wrote:
There is, an will always be, the option to donate to WMUK rather than WMF even if WMUK isn't the default payment processor anymore.
What I can certainly see is a fragmented 2012 fundraiser, with certain donors staying with WMUK and others switching to WMF because that's where the default landing page now points them to. Lots of returning donors will be very very confused either because they can't gift-aid their donations, or because two "Wikipedia organisations" are asking for their money at the same time.
What will happen is exactly the same as what happened in the countries where the foundation took over fundraising last year which was, indeed, los of people being very confused and not understanding who it was they had just given money to.
The foundation will need to be very clear about its messaging. I would recommend a prominent notice on the landing page that the WMF is not a registered charity in the UK, so that there can be no claims that they have misled donors.
The main difference here is, I believe, that the UK donor base is much larger than the countries whose payment processing was taken over by WMF last year. And they speak English. Therefore the media outcry from the confusion is likely to be much louder.
From a regular reader-donor's point of view, being confused about where their money went to is almost certainly worse than learning that some trustee is involved with a conflict of interest scandal, weirdly, between multiple projects all to do with Wikipedia.
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
-- Roger Bamkin Victuallers Ltd 01332 702993 0758 2020815 Google+:Victuallers Skype:Victuallers1 Flickr:Victuallers2
_______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
On Sat, Sep 29, 2012 at 2:38 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Roger Bamkin victuallers@gmail.com Date: 29 September 2012 06:53 Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Joint statement with the Foundation To: UK Wikimedia mailing list wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org
I have been encouraged to issue statements for the last week or so about the debate. I have resisted as I did not want to escalate what I saw as an unfortunate bit of publicity for Wikimedia UK and the Foundation. I'm very disappointed to see the latest press release I believe that the statement on my talk page on the English, Catalan and Simple Wikipedia supplies some background.
Coping text of user-page here under CC-BY-SA; link above; attribution: Victuallers.
"
It could be that you were unaware of my declared conflicts of interest, however it wasn't your job to be aware, however they were well known. Wikimedia UK were managing this. They said, Roger "... has not voted in any Wikimedia UK decisions about Monmouthpedia since the start of his consultancy relationship with MCC or on any decisions about Gibraltarpedia or QRpedia."[1] Wikimedia UK made monthly reports to the Wikimedia Foundation detailing all significant events. They web cast their board meetings. They had little or no secrets.
Over the past ten months, Roger Bamkin, a Wikimedia UK trustee helped lead two Wikipedia-related projects, Monmouthpedia and Gibraltarpedia. Both of these projects were based on QRpedia which is a service that has been offered free to the movement via Wikimedia UK. As part of this award winning work, the Foundation signed a trademark agreement with Monmouthshire County Council[2] and later with the Government of Gibraltar.[3] Wikimedia UK were well aware of the trustee's commercial involvement[4] in both cases and the Foundation as part of due diligence would have found that out by talking to the trustee, Wikimedia UK and the people they were signing the agreement with. Roger stood again for the board and made it clear that he was a paid consultant of Monmouthshire County Council working on Monmouthpedia in his statement to the members. He was re-elected. Roger has received no payments apart from expenses from Wikimedia UK. He has helped create two projects which align with Wikimedia UK's vision and they have only had to contribute a minority financial contribution.
Coincidentally this is the same trustee who led the Wikimedia UK board to become a registered charity[5] and to obtain (£1m and) hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of gift aid and partial funding for 2012/13. Roger Bamkin stood down as chair here when he took "Monmouthshire County Council (Wikimedia UK partners for the Monmouthpedia project) as a client".[4]
The recent edits on the Gibraltarpedia project are shown here. There are just the additions being made to the English Wikipedia. In the last several weeks volunteers have added 200 new articles in many languages. (Most of the new articles are not in English)
As a result of the action of the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia UK have "agreed" to not take part in the fundraiser.
Before this action was taken the following press release was issued[1]
regards Roger Bamkin
Notes:
QRpedia was shortlisted by the UK as best phone application
Monmouthpedia was voted the world's coolest wikiproject by the World membership present at the annual conference
Gibraltarpedia is the first time that the Foundation has signed a trade mark agreement with a Government.
On the left hand side of this page you will see some of the languages who have been contacted and many involved in the projects described here.
References:
1. Gibraltarpedia: WMUK press release http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2012/09/gibraltarpedia-the-facts/ 2. Welcome to the world’s first Wikipedia town http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2012/05/welcome-to-the-worlds-first-wikipedia-t... 3. Volunteer’s efforts win Gibraltar the right to be the first Wikipedia ‘city’ http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2012/07/volunteers-efforts-win-gibraltar-the-ri... 4. Changes to the Wikimedia UK board – A message from Roger Bamkin http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2012/04/changes-to-the-wikimedia-uk-board-a-mes... 5. What did you think of our annual report? http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2012/07/what-did-you-think-of-our-annual-report...
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