Nathan, thank you for the reflection on my practices. I'll take these point by point below.

On Mon, Apr 21, 2014 at 5:29 PM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:

Pete's emphasis on transparency, disclosure and an absolutist approach to conflict of interest brings up an interesting issue. Pete is the only Wikipedian I'm aware of to have developed a full time consulting career centered on the English Wikipedia. His Wiki Strategies company has a fairly robust statement of ethics,

Thank you. I have worked hard to get it right, and should also credit my cofounder John Wallin with much of the thinking that went into this. Still, these are complex issues, and I am very interested to hear feedback on it.

including assertions that any editing by either

himself or his clients will come attached to a conflict of interest warning. The statement is impressive and laudable, although it does not link to any list of projects or clients that an observer might use to see it in action. Still, a very good start, and Pete rightly encourages other entrepreneurs to adopt his standards.

Thanks for that. Also, I'd like to note -- I licensed that document CC BY-ND, and would be gladly consider any requests from individuals or businesses who request the right to publish derivative works.

But despite some searching, I haven't found any overt disclosures of a relationship between any companies and Wiki Strategies, or any detail about which companies or articles Wiki Strategies have had a hand in guiding.

This is something I tried to cover in the Statement itself, but I'm happy to discuss.

I never edit Wikipedia articles on behalf of my corporate clients, so in my view, there is no compelling ethical reason why a connection between me and the company should be disclosed.

I guide my clients in proactive transparency. In some cases, where there is already some on-wiki activity like tagging the article (like the Pixetell example), this means reaching out specifically to the Wikipedians who have placed tags; in others, where the article might not have attracted much attention, it means reaching out to a relevant WikiProject or two.

They will often state that they have sought out some guidance. I do not believe it is ethically significant who their guidance comes from, or whether they paid for it. It would be significant to the general deliberation around business models, yes, to have more specific examples to point to; but I don't feel my clients are obliged in any way to contribute to that, and the additional scrutiny it might bring would not be to their benefit. (Keep in mind, they already *actively seek out* more scrutiny than most COI editors get.)

I

notice that on his Signpost interview Pete links to the Pixetell article as an example of his work; Pete apparently edited that article at least once several years before disclosing that he had (at one time) a "connection" with Ontier/Pixetell. While Pete does say that he "worked with" the company on the article, I don't see where it was made clear that this was in his capacity as a for-profit, paid consultant. The limited disclosure came only after the company was evidently acquired and shut down, and barely 50 edits before he mentions it in the Signpost interview.

Sure. The disclosure came at the time when I edited the article of a (former) client, which was indeed shortly before, and in preparation for, what I wanted to say in the Signpost interview.

The one edit I made prior to that may or may not have been after I had signed a contract -- I don't recall for sure -- but regardless, it was not to the content of the article. It was to an inline comment in the article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pixetell&diff=329586013&o...

I'm also a little concerned that Pete created his consulting company in

February 2009, prior to his employment by the WMF (which began towards the end of 2009). The announcement of his hiring describes his background in some detail, but does not refer to his consulting business. The consulting business and his employment at the WMF then continued in parallel for two years, and there is no reference on his site, his LinkedIn profile or his userpage that the business was mothballed while he was employed.

I discussed my consulting practice extensively in my interview process for my position at Wikimedia, and also with my supervisor after I was hired. Nobody had any concerns. Still, I was very busy in my work for WMF; as it turns out I did only one side project, which was the Pixetell project. I did casually maintain my business relationship with other previous clients during that time, but I did not take any payment or do any projects on their behalf. Also, Wiki Strategies did a little other work for Pixetell in that time, but it was conducted by my then partner and was unrelated to Wikipedia or any Wikimedia projects.

I don't mean to accuse Pete of doing anything that violated policies on the

English Wikipedia, and I'm not aware of any internal policies that might apply. But it does strike me that his userpage is a bit of an advertisement for his business (on it, he links to the Wiki Strategies contact form and invites people to contact him there),

I have tried to maintain my user page in a way that discloses my paid work, without advertising it. I think that line is a bit blurry, and recognize that others might disagree. If anybody has specific concerns, or specific changes they would like me to make, please let me know and I will carefully consider it.

and that there is some mystery

surrounding the consultancy and its activities. Of course all this serves to support part of Pete's point in his blog post; transparency is tough to successfully mandate, and hardly solves all of the inherent issues surrounding for-profit engagement with Wikimedia content.

Again, thanks for the feedback on this. If others have reflections or

concerns, I look forward to hearing more.

-Pete Forsyth Principal, Wiki Strategies - www.wikistrategies.net (included this one time for clarity, but generally not included in my list signature) [[User:Peteforsyth]] on English Wikipedia and other projects