On 7 October 2012 18:15, Jan-bart de Vreede jdevreede@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hey,
So I felt that "mate" implies more than friendship, but you are right, friendship should never get in the way of simply putting the interests of the organization first.
To me "mate" is just a colloquial synonym for "friend". Complications of the English language aside, I'm curious what level of relationship you think can create a conflict.
I think there is an excellent rule of thumb: "if you feel conflicted, then you are". I just trust my conscience to tell me when the line has been crossed - if I start to feel uncomfortable, I take a step back. Where that line is may be different for different people, depending on how good you are at compartmentalising (apologies to non-native English speakers - it's probably easier for you to look that up than for me to try to define it!). Of course, even if you are fantastic at compartmentalising, you still need to avoid the perception of conflicts.
The WMF's COI policy [1] has a list of relationships that create a conflict - it's basically just family (broadly defined). There is a catch-all clause at the end, as any such policy needs (you can't cover every possibility in a policy), but the intention is clearly that only very close relationships are an issue. Friendships, even very close ones, aren't included. Even romantic relationships where you aren't married or living together aren't included. Is your view that relationships that create a conflict should be considered to be wider than that policy suggests?
1. https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest_policy