Hi all, I've just met with Lisa Gruwell and Sara Lasner about it to get more of a debrief of the situation. For the purpose of clarity, I'm looking into this on Sue's behalf while she's traveling; she should be able to look into it next week. As noted previously, this isn't a project I was previously familiar with, so bear with me if I'm getting any bits wrong. Here are some initial high level observations: * This project was initiated by Sue Gardner in response to a request by Liz Allison from Stanton Foundation, who initially attempted to fund the project with a direct grant to Harvard. For administrative reasons, both Harvard and Stanton ended up preferring to have Wikimedia Foundation act as a fiscal sponsor for the position. (This included administrative oversight by Sara Lasner, and a minimal degree of programmatic oversight by Sara and Lisa, with a primary programmatic point of contact at the Belfer Center.) The project was overseen by Lisa Gruwell. * WMF agreed to help recruit candidates for the position and to provide three candidates to the Belfer Center for selection. Frank, Siko and Lisa participated in the first round of interviews. The first candidate we put forward was a former Harvard librarian and active WIkipedian, but she was rejected by the Belfer Center for a lack of knowledge in the field on International Security. Then, the Belfer Center posted the JD on a list-serve of top academic programs in International Security. WMF interviewed two candidates from this pool and Belfer selected Timothy Sandole for his strong academic background in International Security. He had just completed a master's program at Columbia University. * The Stanton Foundation has a long-standing interest in promoting awareness regarding issues of international security and nuclear security, which dates back to the founder of the Foundation, Frank Stanton (former president of CBS). * The Stanton Foundation does not have a financial interest in these topics. With that said, Liz Allison, who heads the Stanton Foundation, and Graham Allison, who heads the Belfer Center, are wife and husband, and the Stanton Foundation funds other programs related to international security. * As noted previously, the Wikimedia Foundation communicated about the program in a blog post: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/04/26/can-you-help-wikipedians-collaborate-w… Timothy Sandole also disclosed his affiliation with the Belfer Center on his user page, but did not disclose the funding relationship with WMF or Stanton in the same manner. * Timothy's residency included training programs, but it was heavily weighted towards editing work. * Sara Lasner acted as an administrative point of contact at Wikimedia (handling payments, vacation requests, etc.). Not being steeped in Wikimedia's culture, Sara gave minimal guidance regarding policies and practices, but forwarded instructional materials and pointed out the above conflict-of-interest issues to Timothy. There was a communications contact at the Belfer Center, James Smith, who provided subject-matter guidance. * Timothy himself compiled a weekly report to the Belfer Center and to Sara, and a final report at the end of the project. With his permission, I've published the final report here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Timothy_Sandole_-_Belfer_Center_Rep… I have a copy of the weekly memos as well, and we've asked for his permission to release them. In addition, the Wikimedia Foundation compiled a report to Stanton at the end of the project largely identical to the report to Timothy. We've asked the Stanton Foundation for permission to release this report, as well, for the sake of full transparency. Edits like the following are indeed problematic: * https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cuban_missile_crisis&diff=pr… - potentially undue visibility for research conducted by the head of the Belfer Center * https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Opposition_to_military_action_ag… - potentially undue visibility for the Stanton Nuclear Security Fellowship, which was funded by the same Stanton Foundation which funded the program. In September 2012, Sara Lasner had a call with Timothy Sandole specifically asking him to be conscious of not over-representing Harvard University in his research, and Lisa Gruwell sent an email to James Smith and Timothy Sandole regarding awareness of conflict-of-interest issues in general. Timothy's edits weren't monitored in detail by the Wikimedia Foundation. We'll take a closer look now, and appreciate the community's help in ensuring that, in light of the above potential conflicts-of-interests, that they're consistent with policies and guidelines. At the same time, it's important to note that Stanton Foundation did not stand to benefit financially from this project. The nature of potential bias here is more subtle (e.g. over-representation of certain academic perspectives). Again, it's important to note that in this respect, the relationship with the primary potential "beneficiary" (Belfer Center) was fully disclosed on Timothy's user page. As far as I can tell, everyone involved acted in good faith - the Stanton Foundation tried to expand the availability of freely licensed high quality information in areas that it concerns itself with; the Wikimedia Foundation sought to try to support this request (based on a longstanding positive relationship with the funder); Timothy and the Belfer Center made good faith efforts to improve the areas of content he was tasked to improve. What appears to have been missing: * a full and honest upfront conversation between WMF and Stanton early on about any perceived or real conflicts-of-interest issues in the context of this work; * strong follow-through in ensuring the highest standard of disclosure regarding all funding relationships, beyond the initial blog post, and continued reporting, including the final report; * a sufficient level of training and oversight for Timothy Sandole beyond administrivia. A lot of this can likely be traced to running this within fundraising -- it's totally fine that fundraising isn't positioned to oversee complex Wikipedia-related programs, so we underestimated the complexity of the work and situated it in the wrong place in the org. Liam Wyatt and Pete Forsyth are right to point out that they noted the risks and issues early on, and they're also right to point out that the community-developed WiR program places emphasis on non-editing work for good reasons. Frank Schulenburg and LiAnna Davis also provided internal feedback and criticism early on, pointing out the COI issues and the risks regarding the project. (Thank you to both of them, and others who provided internal feedback; it's appreciated.) We're now heading into the weekend, and beyond answering questions that are easy to answer without coordination, I'll refrain from commenting much further til next week. In response to Pine's point, I agree that we shouldn't rush to conclusions and give ourselves time to more fully evaluate things, so consider all the above to be preliminary and subject to revision as we more fully understand the situation. We will update the wiki page at https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedian_in_Residence/Harvard_Univers… with more information and details. I encourage others to participate in this as a collaborative process. The Wikimedia Foundation did and does not intend to undertake similar efforts again (programs that include paid editing), but these kinds of issues can extend to any program that includes active work on content. So my initial take is that we should aim too ensure that content-related programs are undertaken under a clear and simple set of public guidelines, and are situated in parts of the organization well-positioned to support them with subject-matter expertise. We'll discuss this more, and follow up on this as well. Thanks, Erik

On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 1:23 PM, Erik Moeller &lt;erik(a)wikimedia.org&gt; wrote: This is now done: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Belfer_Center_Campus_Wikipedian… I've not scrutinized or touched the reports except for converting docx to PDF (thank you, LibreOffice command line options). These are all the ones Sara has, I'll double-check with Timothy that there weren't any others. Erik -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

Whether or not you have a point about that position having been badly considered or having a been a waste of money -- and I'd be inclined to think that it was at least a little of both -- you've squarely crossed the line between "asking legitimate questions" and "pointless harassment".

Even if Timothy has been highly disruptive rather than just apparently very inefficient (which he wasn't), or if it has been donors' money that had been spent (which it wasn't), or if you had /actually/ been appointed to speak for "the number one stakeholder in our projects" (which you haven't); it wouldn't justify your continuing harangue when you have been clearly told that no further substantive information would come until Sue returns next week.

You've made your point and raised the issue, and now the information for informed judgment is being published. How about you let the /rest/ of the community examine it and reach its own conclusions?

It was donors' money that was spent on this position, Marc.

It was one single donor's money that was spent on this position, not money from the general pool of donations, which I believe is the point Marc was trying to make. Moreover, that donor specifically wanted the money spent on this position. It's not like the Wikimedia Foundation had the option to spend the money on other, better program opportunities.

As such, it seems clear that the donor in question is in the best position to evaluate whether the funds achieved their intended purpose. We don't really have good information in this case to do that for them, and imposing our ideas of what should be done with someone else's money is just wishful thinking.

At the same time, it is clear that there are legitimate concerns with this project from the perspective of good editing practices and conflicts of interest. This is a good argument that it would have been better for the Wikimedia Foundation not to participate in the transaction, and gives reason to be leery of such pass-through arrangements in general. And in terms of organizational philosophy, it's also why the foundation focuses on fundraising from the general public rather than restricted gifts from individual donors. Looking at this from an audit committee perspective, the information so far suggests that the foundation could more carefully screen such gifts for alignment with our values, but at this point I haven't seen indications that this rises to the level of misuse of donor funds.

Michael Snow &lt;wikipedia(a)frontier.com&gt; wrote: Eh, that is not the point in my mind. If A wants to assist his relative B's work, and, "for administrative reasons", they want to engage WMF as a middle man to make it appear as if there is no direct financial flow, then it's not for A to evaluate whether the funds "achieved their intended pur- pose".

Organizations that distribute funds according to the deposi- tors' wishes are called banks and they have to ensure their compliance with relevant regulations.

WMF should make it very clear that it doesn't engage in any fishy transactions.

On 23/03/2014, Michael Snow &lt;wikipedia(a)frontier.com&gt; ... When I was getting legal advice on the issues of Wikimedia UK becoming a charity, one of the issues I had to bend my mind around was the tax implications of how the charity could provide grants to non-UK projects. It is not possible for a UK charity to offer restricted grants without risking having to pay tax as if they were paying for a profit making commercial service, rather than gifting money. For this reason the UK charity will only offer *unrestricted* grants, based on a published proposal from the non-UK organization that will spend the grant on charitable purposes. I have little doubt that the IRS rules are just as stringent, otherwise US charities would be frequently used as container companies for tax avoidance and money-laundering.

On 3/23/2014 1:08 AM, Fæ wrote: I'm not sure why you're responding to a point about the Wikimedia Foundation in the role of receiving a grant, one that in this case did not require funds to be transferred outside their country of origin, with a hypothetical discussion about Wikimedia UK in the role of making a grant, in which the funds would be transferred between countries that would not necessarily have the same systems for taxation or charitable organizations. Are charities in the UK prohibited from accepting donations to which any form of restriction is attached?

On Sun, Mar 23, 2014 at 6:59 AM, Marc A. Pelletier &lt;marc(a)uberbox.org&gt; wrote: Responding to your second email first, a search for "copyright violation" on all emails on this list will lead you right to the relevant post, by Russavia. Or search for copyright violations in the following page http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/443518 And in the email you quoted Russavia gave the diff where it can be found. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Russia-United_States_relations&a… On Sat, Mar 22, 2014 at 8:46 PM, Marc A. Pelletier &lt;marc(a)uberbox.org&gt; wrote: harassment". You have selectively quoted Russavia. His email wasnt pointless harassment. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-March/070681.html The email was primarily Russavia asking: "Can you please provide the original JDF so the rest of the community has the opportunity to look at it." That is a legitimate question in the circumstances, given this was a document that appears to have been revised after publication and it is being discussed on this list without it being public. The tone of Russavia's email around that request had some rough edges, but so does your email. Credit where it is due : Russavia appears to have put quite a lot of time into this in the last few days, and shared an analysis that at least fairly conclusively points towards a serious problem. I'm not expecting Erik to make it his primary task on Monday morning to find and publish this, and do appreciate that he has been personally answering questions and publishing relevant documents already, but it is a pretty simple request and he has staff who can do it. Honestly this type of information should be publicly accessible from the get go. Why wasnt the JDF published on wiki? And discussed on wiki? It is surprising that quite a few people have known about this, and said nothing until now. It is also surprising that (afaik) the WMF didnt announce the person selected for this position to the community, to facilitate continual review of the ongoing program and its contributions, and hasnt undertaken a program evaluation of this already - one half of the Belfer position should have fallen directly in the scope of the Editing Workshops evaluation. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programs:Evaluation_portal/Library/Editing_… promotional paid editing, inserting pro-U.S. POV and copyvio/plagiarism into English Wikipedia may not be 'highly disruptive', especially as there were so few edits involved, but it is far from 'just apparently very inefficient'. It is appropriate to distinguish between general public unrestricted donations vs 'the donor of the restricted money telling WMF what to do with it', however focusing on what was 'spent' is not appropriate. There are direct costs which may be larger than the granted amount; there are indirect costs, and there are opportunity costs. From what I have seen, I think it is fair to conclude that general public unrestricted donations will suffer from this broadly speaking. There may be quite a bit of direct costs that arnt covered by the Stanton grant per se, including selection process, onboarding, reviewing their work, and now handling the fallout of a failed project (e.g. Erik's time and I presume Jay is also working overtime). The Stanton grant quite probably included an amount for normal overheads related to the position (selection, onboarding, monitoring), but those costs could have blown out and/or the WMF decided to absorb the costs given the size of the restricted grant for program activity. However it is the indirect costs which will hurt. As the WMF considers spending donor money on clamping down on paid editing to be money well spent, a whole lot more of that donor money needs to be spent achieving that goal when month after month there are revelations of the WMF staff (which Timothy Sandole was, roughly speaking) engaging in this type of editing, or the initial investment of donor dollars has been wasted if the concept of WMF policing paid editing needs to be abandoned as it has lost the high ground. There is reputational damage to the WiR concept, WMF, and Wikimedia generally, which will be felt across the movement. While the WMF may not be going to run this type of program again, affiliates do run these types of programs. Affiliate staff and volunteer time will be spent rebuilding the WiR brand. IMO it is also a shame that this will mean more resistance to content rather than community-focused WiR. I know many people feel very strongly that a WiR should act as an enabler for the community rather than fill the gaps themselves, but in practise a lot of WiR end up writing content to some degree, and I think there are scenarios when a WiR should be more of a contributor rather than collaborator, especially in topical areas that are under-represented in major languages and in wikis in their early stages needing a major content boost rather than a minor, and maybe shortlived, boost to the number of contributors that a WiR might be able to achieve. But the community, GAC and FDC will be more shy of content-heavy WiR type programs since Belfer. Then there is the potential for this to cause Stanton to stop giving grants to WMF, which means donor money needs to fill the void or programs need to be cut (and staff may need to be laid off.) I cant even guess the opportunity costs, except that these types of 'special interest' projects can be headaches for pushing through large structural changes like Sue's "Narrowing the focus" which was launched in October 2012. Eh? No appointments necessary. Who said that there would be no further substantive information until Sue returns? Which vendetta are you referring to? Russavia was asking for more information, presumably in order to figure out what happened. -- John Vandenberg _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

I have a copy of the weekly memos as well, and we've asked for his permission to release them.

For everyone: following up on Erik's e-mail, the WMF has done a postmortem of the Belfer situation, which I've just posted at the link from Erik above. Suffice to say here that we implemented the Belfer Wikipedian-in-Residence project with editing as a core activity of the WIR role, despite internal and external voices strongly advising us not to. That was a mistake, and we shouldn't have done it.

On 1 April 2014 16:22, MZMcBride &lt;z(a)mzmcbride.com&gt; wrote: have While I'm sure there will be ongoing discussions about this topic on the mailing lists and on-wiki, I too am heartened by the genuine concern, non-defensiveness (in the face of criticism - including mine), and willingness to investigate this issue. Sincerely, -Liam / Wittylama wittylama.com Peace, love & metadata _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

I find it disappointing that when difficult governance questions like this are raised in public, that some leading members of our community default to treating the concerned whistle-blower as a troll

I am sure than the viewpoint is different for employees within the WMF like yourself, compared to unpaid volunteers outside, like me. This may be part of the reason we see this governance failure in a different light.

The evidence of this case, as summarized in Sue's own published words, shows that there were multiple attempts to raise polite inquiry. These were consistently overlooked or ignored over an extremely long period.

On 04/01/2014 09:34 AM, Fæ wrote: That's actually amusingly wrong, though I can see why you'd think that. I've been an "unpaid volunteer outside" for very many years before I've been "within"; and my job at the foundation is only technical and community-facing. I have *zero* to do with Governance, no stake in that project, and I don't even actually interact with any of the involved departments. I can tell you with absolute certainty that my comments on this thread would have been exactly the same 18 months ago. Indeed. That was mostly a failure of oversight -- possibly combined with unjustified optimism. You know what they say: hindsight is 20/20. I still see no reason to believe that - given the same timing - a deliberate question would not have been just as effective as the less optimal way this matter was raised. It is *much* easier to get the stakeholders to collaborate when they don't have to go on the defensive. -- Marc _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

As far as I am concerned, what was wrong with this situation wasn't that the Wikimedia Foundation paid a trained academic to edit Wikipedia. I venture that most donors and members of the general public wouldn't have a problem with that at all. What was wrong? 1. The obvious appearance of impropriety given that the Stanton Foundation is probably the Foundation's single biggest donor, and the administrator of the Stanton Foundation's funds is married to the director of the Belfer Center (who according to the center's website has now taken on the former Wikipedian in Residence as a staff assistant). Whether this was the case or not, it *looks* like the WMF was simply used so that Mrs Harris could get Mr Harris another member of staff who would not show up on the Center's payroll. 2. The fact that the WMF appears to have departed from usual procedures (such as locating this Wikipedian in Residence in Fundraising, allowing the Belfer Center to write the job description, etc.) to please its biggest donor. 3. The fact that in his reports to the WMF the Wikipedian in Residence on more than one occasion "billed" three hours of research and *six hours* of drafting in MS Word for a 150-word insertion in a Wikipedia article that another Wikipedian could have drafted in a fraction of an hour, and that this apparently was not questioned. 4. The fact that the edits the Wikipedian in Residence made included conflict-of-interest and copyright violations, according to multiple Wikipedians. These, to me, are the real problems. I have no problem *at all* with the fact that the Wikimedia Foundation paid an academically qualified expert to make edits to Wikipedia. In fact, I find it disheartening that the Foundation now feels it has to state that nothing like this will ever happen again. This is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Let's for a moment look at the practicality of the idea that a Wikipedian in Residence should not personally edit Wikipedia. If Graham Allison had physically made the edits that Tim Sandole made, would this have made any material difference whatsoever to the situation? Clearly, it would not. Saying that a Wikipedian in Residence will not physically click Edit, but will merely instruct experts at his institution in how to make and source edits (and perhaps even draft them for them in MS Word ...) is a very thin smokescreen. The material question is not whether a Wikipedian in Residence will physically edit. The question is whether the edits resulting from any WiR placement will be in line with Wikipedia policies and guidelines, including neutral point of view, conflict of interest, copyright, plagiarism, verifiability, and so on, and whether they will improve project content - making it more accurate, more readable, more up to date. What is required here? It's that whichever person ultimately performs the edits receive proper training in Wikipedia policies, guidelines, editing methods, etc., so that their subject matter expertise can be leveraged to optimum effect. Standardised training courses to impart that Wikipedia-specific knowledge to subject matter experts are an area the Foundation could profitably invest in. Saying that Wikipedians in Residence won't edit doesn't address that. It merely absolves the Foundation from responsibility - a purely cosmetic exercise if the quantity and quality of the resulting edits is the same as it was in this case. What counts for the reading and donating public is the quality of the edits that result from a WiR placement, not who makes those edits. The Foundation should not shirk, but embrace its responsibility to use donated funds to optimum effect. Andreas On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 2:45 PM, Marc A. Pelletier &lt;marc(a)uberbox.org&gt; wrote: _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

I have no problem *at all* with the fact that the Wikimedia Foundation paid an academically qualified expert to make edits to Wikipedia. In fact, I find it disheartening that the Foundation now feels it has to state that nothing like this will ever happen again. This is throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

I do think there's an inherent risk with situating paid editors within specific institutions, because there may be a tendency that comes with that to attach undue weight to that institution's work.

Really, Marc? Really?

I see no difference between what you accused the en.wp Arbcom of doing, and the way that you are bullying and needlessly attacking community members who are presenting relevant information and asking relevant questions.

On 21 March 2014 13:23, Erik Moeller &lt;erik(a)wikimedia.org&gt; wrote: https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedian_in_Residence/Harvard_Univers… Thanks Erik. For everyone: following up on Erik's e-mail, the WMF has done a postmortem of the Belfer situation, which I've just posted at the link from Erik above. Suffice to say here that we implemented the Belfer Wikipedian-in-Residence project with editing as a core activity of the WIR role, despite internal and external voices strongly advising us not to. That was a mistake, and we shouldn't have done it. I want to apologize for it, particularly to Asaf Bartov, Siko Bouterse, LiAnna Davis, Frank Schulenburg, Pete Forsyth, Lori Phillips and Liam Wyatt, who tried to guide the project in the right direction and whose voices didn't get heard. We did advise the Belfer Center and the Wikipedian-in-Residence about conflict-of-interest policies on enWP, and so far we haven't seen any evidence to suggest major problems with Timothy's edits. That said, we didn't structure the program in a way that would've appropriately mitigated the risk of problematic edits, and we wish we had. We also wish we'd been better able to support our partner organizations in understanding and navigating community policies and best practices. Thanks, Sue _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

I also published a response to the WMF report: http://wikistrategies.net/belfer1/

Russavia wrote: I believe you want "cue" here. MZMcBride _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

On 16 April 2014 15:19, Andreas Kolbe &lt;jayen466(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: ... know I believe it was clear from Sue's frank report and Pete's more detailed report, that knowledge of Wikipedia was not required by the manager within the Foundation that Sandole was reporting to. It is no surprise that someone within the Funding department might not be an expert in English Wikipedia policies or guidelines for editors. Does anyone know of any positive action taken yet by the Foundation as a result of this governance failure, beyond Sue's report? Fae -- faewik(a)gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

The press release, signed by LiAnna Davis, Head of Communications and External Relations, that Andreas links to in his comment says, "The program, in which students write Wikipedia articles in place of traditional term papers, created the equivalent of more than 7,000 printed pages of new, high-quality content during the fall term of 2013 and the equivalent of more than 36,000 printed pages of content since its start in 2010." Can anybody point to a source for the 7,000 printed pages of new, high-quality content during the fall term - particularly the evidence for the high quality of that content? Anthony Cole <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Anthonyhcole> On Wed, Apr 16, 2014 at 10:56 PM, Fæ &lt;faewik(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

On 21 March 2014 13:23, Erik Moeller &lt;erik(a)wikimedia.org&gt; wrote: Thanks Erik. For everyone: following up on Erik's e-mail, the WMF has done a postmortem of the Belfer situation, which I've just posted at the link from Erik above.

The ED plans, with the C-level team, to develop a better process for staff to escalate and express concerns about any WMF activities that staff think may in tension with, or in violation of, community policies or best practices. It will take some time to develop a simple, robust process: we aim to have it done by 1 May 2014.

Hi Nemo, Thanks for bringing this to my attention. You are correct -- this did not make my "to do" list, but I believe honoring commitments made by the WMF is important and therefor I've been looking this issue. Here is what I found and what we will do: - This issue was a clear oversight error. - To prevent issues like these in the future two paths are important: 1. ability to highlight issues through escalation 2. improved clarity on which programs or grants qualify for funding (through training) and the process by which that is done - The first point will be addressed this quarter by HR in the employee handbook through the modified escalation policy and escalation channel. - The second will be addressed through changes to grantmaking program, which we proposed to open for discussion this spring/summer (Q4/Q1) starting with the FDC-level grants < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/Ad… In short, we are looking to be very clear on goals, parameters, and focus of grants we distribute to ensure they are handled and validated consistently and accurately. The two aspects together should help avoid these types of issues. I am also asking to include some "'guardrail" items in employee training. No system is perfect however, and we will continue to tune it to avoid problems. Finally, while I sincerely appreciate you bringing up the issue, I would also appreciate if this is done without snark or disparagement in the future. This would ensure everyone is more productive in their solutions. We will respond in kind. Thank you, Lila On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 4:23 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) &lt;nemowiki(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

Hi Nemo, Thanks for bringing this to my attention. You are correct -- this did not make my "to do" list, but I believe honoring commitments made by the WMF is important and therefor I've been looking this issue. Here is what I found and what we will do: - This issue was a clear oversight error. - To prevent issues like these in the future two paths are important: 1. ability to highlight issues through escalation 2. improved clarity on which programs or grants qualify for funding (through training) and the process by which that is done - The first point will be addressed this quarter by HR in the employee handbook through the modified escalation policy and escalation channel. - The second will be addressed through changes to grantmaking program, which we proposed to open for discussion this spring/summer (Q4/Q1) starting with the FDC-level grants <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/Advisory_Group/Recommendations/2014/ED_Response>. In short, we are looking to be very clear on goals, parameters, and focus of grants we distribute to ensure they are handled and validated consistently and accurately. The two aspects together should help avoid these types of issues. I am also asking to include some "'guardrail" items in employee training. No system is perfect however, and we will continue to tune it to avoid problems. Finally, while I sincerely appreciate you bringing up the issue, I would also appreciate if this is done without snark or disparagement in the future. This would ensure everyone is more productive in their solutions. We will respond in kind. Thank you, Lila On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 4:23 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) &lt;nemowiki(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: