Perhaps you misunderstood what I was wondering about, which is probably my fault as I was trying to avoid giving any specific examples. But without at all attempting to disparage her or suggest that her intentions are anything but sincere, let's take the example of Nicole Ebbers. She of course discloses in her e-mail signature that she is an employee of WMDE, so its clear (though not stated in the form of a disclosure) that her income depends, in part, on WMF funding. It's typical in professional circumstances, at least in my business, to disclose personal conflicts when discussing virtually any topic where the audience would not naturally assume that a conflict exists.

Ah I see. So I suppose, following your line of thought, that any and all of the wikimedia staff (all organisations included) involved in any part of the fundraising should attach some kind of disclaimer about how they "benefit" from the work they're paid to do? Since, after all, they're working to raise money that *will* pay their salary. This might prove an interesting thing to implement. Delphine

I think perhaps this "financial benefit" discussion has taken us a bit off track. This thread has a wealth of well-informed commentary, the majority of it coming from volunteers; for most, any "financial" benefit is the result of expenses being (partially) covered to carry out these volunteer activities. Perhaps the point that Nathan might be trying to make is that it is useful for everyone involved in these wide-ranging discussions to understand each other's relative experience. For example, it would be helpful to interpret Cynthia's and Lodewijk's comments knowing that they are members of the Affiliations Committee. That is not to suggest that their opinions should be discounted; in fact, quite the opposite. They are opinions that have been informed by the fact of their committee membership, although of course they are speaking for themselves and not the committee as a whole. I will note as an aside that I was aware they were both on some relevant committee, but it took some digging to figure out which one. Similarly, those who hold executive roles with chapters, or are members of the FDC or other global or local groups that would be affected by these decisions, are able to share their knowledge from those experiences. Risker/Anne _______________________________________________ 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>