On 17/09/12 12:48, Andreas Kolbe wrote: See the names at the bottom of this webpage: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l They are in charge of the list behaviour. Gordo

I don't have a problem with the UK chapter giving a few "how to edit leaflets" out to someone who is encouraging people how to edit. But I would appreciate a little clarification re QRpedia. Can someone tell me who owns the http://qrpedia.org domain name? If I'm correct in my understanding of QR codes then all the QR codes that we are encouraging people to use point to that domain and are currently repointed to Wikipedia articles. So if we are going to promote QRpedia we need to know that the domain is part of the movement. WSC On 17 September 2012 13:01, Richard Symonds < richard.symonds(a)wikimedia.org.uk&gt; wrote:

I am at the bedside of someone in hospital so this will be brief. We have been working on an agreement solidly for the last two months. Should be agreed VERY shortly. �No cock ups OR conspiracies just very complicated law. �Jon. Jon. </div> Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange -----Original Message----- From: joseph seddon &lt;life_is_bitter_sweet(a)hotmail.co.uk&gt; Sender: wikimediauk-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2012 17:49:25 To: &lt;wikimediauk-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt; Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Paid editing by Roger Bamkin _______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org

Dear all, Though I should clarify a few issues. 4 different issues have been raised in this thread and it's important that they don't get conflated. 1. "Paid editing" To respond to Tom Dalton's original point, there isn't any specific Wikimedia UK policy on "paid editing". We have never actively decided not to have one, we just don't - this is really the Wikipedia community's call not ours. 2. Gibraltarpedia Wikimedia UK's sole involvement with this to date has been the despatch of a few booklets. Really, with most organisations, we'd just have sent the booklets, and it's only because of Roger's position that it took a board discussion to do so. For the future - at the meeting last weekend, the Board decided that it would be an interesting project to get more involved with. We looked at a draft memorandum of understanding that would enable us to be clear about the terms of engagement with the project in future, and thought it needed some more work. Part of that work would involve defining shared expectations and establishing what Wikimedia UK's involvement would add - and if we found that "marketing Gibraltar as a tourist destination" was all Gibraltar cared about, I doubt we would proceed any further. I would also point out that we have not received any proposals for us to spend any money or use more than a trivial amount of staff time on this. 3. Conflicts of interest Our conflict of interest policy is available here: http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_Interest_Policy and is supported by the Declarations of Interest register here: http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Declarations_of_Interest. The Conflict of Interest policy is modelled quite closely on Charity Commission guidance and is very clear that we can't pay our board members, and that if they have a conflict of interest on a particular item they have to recuse themselves. We have followed this policy in all discussions related to the subjects mentioned in this thread. There is some debate on the Board about whether we need to develop this policy further, and members' views are welcome. 4. QRpedia QRpedia.org is owned by Roger Bamkin and Terence Eden, who have been maintaining it, along with qrwp.org (where the "qrpedia" links resolve), as volunteers. An agreement between Roger and Terence on the one hand and Wikimedia UK on the other is in the works, shouldn't take more than a few weeks to finish off, and will provide a firm basis for the growing use of Wikipedia-linked QR codes in future. Thanks, Chris Chair, Wikimedia UK

On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 8:37 PM, Chris Keating &lt;chriskeatingwiki(a)gmail.com&gt;wrote;wrote: Thanks Chris. That makes more sense. :) Andreas

On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 8:39 PM, Andreas Kolbe &lt;jayen466(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Actually, one more question. Chris Owen says on the DYK talk page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know#Potential_abuse_of… that Roger is apparently being *paid for the use of these domains*, which I understand link the users of mobile devices to Wikipedia content. Does that mean that, once the transfer of these sites to Wikimedia UK is complete, Wikimedia UK will be charging customers of these sites to generate revenue? Or will QRpedia thereafter be a free encyclopedia? Or is Chris Owen altogether mistaken about QRpedia being a paid service? Andreas

He's mistaken. There is no mechanism in place for generating income from the domains qrpedia.org and qrwp.org. Commentators also need to differentiate between the site (which physically hosts the servers) and the domain names. WMUK's interest in QRpedia is in finding ways to ensure that the service provided remains secure and free in perpetuity. -- Doug On 17 September 2012 23:05, Andreas Kolbe &lt;jayen466(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

On 17 September 2012 23:50, Thomas Morton &lt;morton.thomas(a)googlemail.com&gt; wrote: That video just says WMUK is looking forward to supporting the project (which it is - that's why an MoU is being discussed). It doesn't say it is a WMUK project (at least, I didn't notice anything saying that). There has been some confusion about WMUK's involvement, though, certainly. In particular, the project has been repeatedly linked to Monmouthpedia in a way that suggests it is being organised by the same organisation. The "GibraltarpediA" mark doesn't help - in fact, it probably infringes on the "MonmouthpediA" mark. I know there were some issues with the use of the Wikipedia mark, which I believe were resolved with the WMF. I'm not aware of WMUK granting a license to use the "[Placename]pediA" mark, though.

On 18 Sep 2012, at 09:52, Gordon Joly &lt;gordon.joly(a)pobox.com&gt; wrote: The Nolan Principles are written into our Trustee Code of Conduct: http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Trustee_Code_of_Conduct Thanks, Mike

Therefore.... >>>>???? "Make it so" ////Jean-Luc Picard Gordo On 18/09/12 08:55, Jon Davies wrote:

On 17/09/12 20:37, Chris Keating wrote: I like the whois reports for those two domains.... :-) One his hidden...... Registrant ID:68e96fd6372994bd Registrant Name:WhoisGuard Protected Registrant Organization:WhoisGuard This other is not hidden. Gordo

On 17/09/12 23:23, rexx wrote: But surely the domains are hard coded in the QRPedia codes? Therefore it is both the domain name and the server that make up the service? I have lost a domain in the past, and just got it back within the grace period. It was not my fault.....but it was not pretty. Income? Interesting. Somebody could fork Wikipedia and start making money..... Gordo

I've located some more information about Geovation now by myself: https://challenge.geovation.org.uk/a/dtd/119163-16422 Wales Coast Path only: What theme of the challenge does your idea address?: 3. Community engagement What problem are you trying to solve? : Green tourism: what's around me? What makes it different? How will your idea work? : There are two parts, fist we meet local groups and show them how to add information onto a Wikipedia page: and that's really simple! Secondly we show them how their articles can be geotagged. The best part is enjoying a walk down the path with a smart phone, with any AR tagged articles shown through the camera, informing the User (tourist or local) about what's around them: history of that unusual building or where's the nearest Young Farmers Club? What's the name of that mountain, and where's the nearest toilet! Take a look at MonmouthpediA on Wikipedia and multiply it by 10! How will it provide a solution to the Challenge? : It's the best answer possible! The local WI (or Merched y Wawr) will bring along old photographs, which would be scanned in and uploaded, and their locations geotagged. They would learn new skills on how to edit existing articles and how to create new ones. The local chapel could write about the history of their chapel, and so could the local cafe - including the opening times! Schools could show off their latest Brochure for Parents and even nature clubs could write about the local habitats. This is about: bringing people together in order to inform walkers, cyclists and joggers what's around them. What is the stage of development? What help and investment you need to build it?: Because Wikipedia is so simple, it's ideal for this project. Communities know about the geography and history, and culture of their area MUCH better than an app writer or web-author sitting in his office in Manchester! *Wikimedia UK would be asked to run the scheme, employing Wikipedians*, just as the National Library does in London... and the National Museum etc. Their help would be crucial. *Welsh Wicipedians have also shown their enthusiasm and would filter out any unwanted vandalism.* Wikipedia has a proven track record: why re-create the wheel all the time? It's an app which is already installed on most iPads and iPhones! Pure and simple. Neighbourhood Challenge only: How would you use Ordnance Survey data in your solution? : See below. Wales Coast Path only: How will you use geographic information in your solution? : Yes! Geotagging on Wikipedia is so easy! One line and the whole article pops up! Through Layar (invisible to the User), we would view through the camera's phone what's around us, and automatically a number of Wikipedian "W"s pop up wherever the article's location is. For example, an User takes a look at a cluster of mountains, and immediately the "W" shows that there is an article written, so the user chooses a mountain with his or her finger and they're straight into the article! And not just Cymraeg and English: there are over 250 languages on Wikipedia. All articles would be geographically and traditionally (OS) tagged. http://www.geovation.org.uk/teams-win-innovation-funding-wales-coast-path-c… Living Paths – Roger Bamkin and Robin Owain of Monmouthpedia were the pair behind this idea which will allow communities along the path to create a Wikipedia page and post stories about their communities allowing diverse local information to become accessible. Awarded: £17,500. As I see it, this is a programme whereby Wikimedia UK pays Wikipedians to get members of the public to become volunteer editors. You can see it as an editor recruitment programme, and as a programme to secure unemployed Wikipedian friends paid employment. There has been practically no discussion of this on wiki to date. Andreas On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 11:38 AM, Thomas Morton < morton.thomas(a)googlemail.com&gt; wrote:

On 19/09/12 07:59, Doug Weller wrote: You mean "Victuallers Ltd" as compared to User:Victuallers? Name & Registered Office: VICTUALLERS LTD xxxxxxx Company No. 07984484 Status: Active Date of Incorporation: 09/03/2012 Gordo

Roger, I would ask that you resign from the board. As it is, it will look as though your directorship in WMUK is a factor in enabling you to get consultancy work for yourself, your company and your associates, and I can't see how either the appearance or the reality of that would be compatible with the first and second Nolan requirements. http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Trustee_Code_of_Conduct#Nolan_Committee_Requir… Andreas On Wed, Sep 19, 2012 at 12:27 PM, Roger Bamkin &lt;victuallers(a)gmail.com&gt;wrote;wrote:

Hi Roger, Thanks for responding to some of the points! You mean the video that ends with the words "Wikimedia UK are looking forward to supporting the project"? So to be clear; this training is for people involved in the project - i.e. outreach to train potential editors. If so, that seems a clear conflict of interest when editing related Wikipedia articles (i.e. you are being paid by people with a vested interest in those articles). If this situation is the case, are you implying that the rest of the "Gibraltarpedia" project is organised via... a gratis offering from you and others? By the ministry of tourism? or?? Surely the project is predicated on the QRpedia plaques and training sessions! I am interested in why you ignored standard advice for those with COI's to interact on the talk page? Also this does not address the most pressing concern; which centres around how Gibraltar approached you, what you told/promised them and so forth. I am sure you can see there is a distinct difference between talking to them as a Wikimedia UK director or as a Wikipedian. Indeed; if you've used your role as a WMUK director in any reference to this project that is an ethical breach (the media are reporting you as such, but whether that is inaccuracy on their part, or quoted from your PR materials I do not know). This new project had not happened then. Monmouthpedia had not even launched fully! This is argument is a fallacy, just because the situation was acceptable/accepted several months ago does not apply indiscriminately to all future situations! As Thomas Dalton pointed out the other day; the deeply concerning issue is the lack of demarcation between your role as a Wikipedian, your role as a WMUK director and your commercial Wiki-Towns business. The only really key concerns for me are: * Whether you have misused your position as trustee to further your commercial consultancy * Whether (speaking as a Wikipedian) you have violated the ethics of the community during this project Some comments on the above would be appreciated! Tom

On 19 September 2012 14:13, Andreas Kolbe &lt;jayen466(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Perhaps it's not my place to say this, but here goes anyway. I've edited Wikipedia articles on and off for a few years, but after attending a couple of absolutely splendid local outreach events I was inspired to actually join the UK chapter and subscribe to this mailing list. In the two or three months I've been lurking here, I've witnessed two campaigns for board members to resign, and I have to say I'm beginning to wonder quite what sort of organisation I've joined. I know almost nothing about the background to either of these cases, and to be honest I don't really think I want to know. Maybe the critics do have a point, after all. Certainly the trustees of a charity should behave with decorum and integrity, so I wouldn't want to gainsay any legitimate attempts to hold them to account. But it seems that all the necessary information was made available to the voting members well before the election, and they collectively decided that they'd still rather elect these people to the board. So in the absence of compelling further evidence, which this doesn't appear to be, I'd have thought that's that until the next election. I'm on the board of a small educational charity myself, and I'm very glad that I and my fellow trustees don't have to put up with constant sniping from the sidelines, calls for our resignation, or suspiciously-timed articles appearing in the national press. If we did, I'd almost certainly just say to hell with it, and walk away. I suppose my question is: does this sort of politicking actually serve the aims of Wikimedia UK at all, and if not could it perhaps stop soon? It just seems as though all this infighting does far more damage to the reputation of the chapter than the fact that one of the trustees was temporarily banned, under somewhat questionable circumstances, from editing Wikipedia, or that one of the other trustees might have got a handful of free leaflets in connection with a pretty cool-sounding outreach initiative he's working on. Anyway, if you'll excuse me, I've got a stack of other things to do this afternoon so I'm going to get back to them. Nicholas

We all have other things to do. I am trying to shine some light on an obscured situation as it concerns me. The ethics of what we do is important. I don't begrudge you refusing to answer further, but you've not really addressed any of the critical issues. What isn't credible here? Gibraltar are paying you to provide commercial services in relation to Wikipedia - it seems to follow, fairly logically, that articles related to Gibraltar present at least a strong potential for COI. I apologise. Your comments so far appear to separate your commercial arrangement from the wider Gibraltarpedia project. I'm trying to establish what, outside of your commercial offerings, the project consists of and who is organising this. Obviously it relies heavily on your paid services, though. Yes, I saw that. Which is why I think your other issues are more a good faith oversight, rather than anything else. Thank you. I take it this means you didn't proffer Wikimedia UK's support as part of that agreement (as Andreas has highlighted r.e. the Geovation bid)? Or indeed promote the project to Wikimedia UK. How is it flawed? We elected you based on the existing situation; which is that an independent project, with later WMUK support, resulted in you receiving consultancy payment. Am I incorrect in that summary (which is what we were told at the time)? Not the best situation (slight unethical), but it's only a small sum and I don't begrudge you being paid for the time. However; the situation has now moved on significantly, and you appear to be launching a commercial venture to provide consultancy services around Wikipedia. You did not indicate this goal at the time of the AGM and new ethical issues emerge in relation to your board role. Pish. You volunteered for a prominent and public role in a fairly cash-rich charity. You can't claim a lack of time when scrutiny is levelled. I despise evasiveness of this sort. Thank you, this makes me much happier :) And a lot could have been saved simply by stating this clearly from the outset. As I mentioned; I think you hold a conflicted position when editing articles about Gibraltar, so it would be best to comply with community practices and operate full transparency/disclosure on-wiki. But that is more a matter for discussion on-wiki. Thanks for your time! I charge mine at ~£100/hour, so I hope you appreciate that taking 10 minutes to look into these situations, and write these emails, are not insignificant matters to me, and hope that stresses how deeply I care about our ethics. Tom

On 19 September 2012 16:01, Thomas Morton &lt;morton.thomas(a)googlemail.com&gt; wrote: You appear to be claiming that the default assumption should be corruption, unless stated otherwise daily. This is a weird assumption in the real world in the general case (although it is a standard assumption on Wikipediocracy). This problem appears to be one with your perceptions, i.e. that you make a default assumption of massive corruption and then expect the people you're assuming this of to treat your assumption as reasonable. - d.

Hi Nick, Nice to meet you. What a pleasure it is to meet someone who assumes that we all trying to do something clever and difficult in the best possible way. Maybe you'd like to stand for the board? Thanks for making me smile and appreciate that some people do appreciate what we do. As David says we do have an active field of critics. So thanks for clapping. I shall have to go as I must work and I see that someone else is queuing up to have their nine penny worth very high regards Roger On 19 September 2012 15:43, Nicholas Jackson &lt;dr.nicholas.jackson(a)gmail.com&gt;wrote;wrote: -- Roger Bamkin Victuallers Ltd 01332 702993 0758 2020815 Google+:Victuallers Skype:Victuallers1 Flickr:Victuallers2

Hi Tom, being busy means I don't have time to answer every email immediately. As you can see I try and get there eventually. Actually I think you'll find that questions can be both rhetorical and facetious. However if I am creating or editting Wikipedia articles then you can be sure that I am not being paid and its in my own time. HTH Roger On 19 September 2012 20:19, Thomas Dalton &lt;thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: -- Roger Bamkin Victuallers Ltd 01332 702993 0758 2020815 Google+:Victuallers Skype:Victuallers1 Flickr:Victuallers2

Tom, I'm not criticising you. I very often edit wikipedia to de-stress or whilst trying to resolve more difficult problems. The problem of demarcation can be a tricky one as to which task you are doing if you resolve one problem whilst doing another. If its a pure 9 to 5 job then it can be simpler, but many of us are finding a working day somewhere outside the hours of sleep. best On 19 September 2012 21:11, Thomas Dalton &lt;thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: -- Roger Bamkin Victuallers Ltd 01332 702993 0758 2020815 Google+:Victuallers Skype:Victuallers1 Flickr:Victuallers2

Tom, Roger has clearly stated already in this thread: "The project does not involve me in being paid to create articles. I am creating plaques based on QRpedia, I am supplying training and I am encouraging people to use and edit wikipedia (and open street map et al)." You really can't tell him that "Gibraltar are paying you to help get lots of good articles about their country on Wikipedia" when he's already told you that's not the case. I hope you can see that it is not Roger's paid job to edit articles about Gibraltar, and you ought to be prepared to accept that Roger knows more about what Gibraltar is paying him for than the uniformed peanut gallery. Those who know Roger know that his background is in teaching and training. Why is it so difficult for the small but vocal minority to understand that those skills are what he will be selling, not paid editing or advocacy? - surely it is only those who must wilfully leap to the worst possible conclusions because their agenda prevents them from accepting the truth. -- Doug On 19 September 2012 23:39, Thomas Dalton &lt;thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

I've only been half following this, but On Thu, 20 Sep 2012, Andreas Kolbe wrote: In the messages I've read (not all), it has been stated at least twice that the process transferring this to WMUK (i.e. exactly what is being asked for) is ongoing, and has been for some time (held up by complicated legal issues, rather than a lack of desire from either party). How many times do the same questions need to be answered? (feel free to forward this to wikimedia-l, I don't subscribe to that list) ---- Chris McKenna cmckenna(a)sucs.org www.sucs.org/~cmckenna The essential things in life are seen not with the eyes, but with the heart Antoine de Saint Exupery

On 20/09/2012 02:46, Chris McKenna wrote: Those were posted to this list. If people from the UK community and subscribed to the UK list wasn't aware of it (before), how can you expect someone from aboard who might not be subscribed to this list to have know? I've already copied Chris' response as a reply to that point on Wikimedia-l. KTC -- Experience is a good school but the fees are high. - Heinrich Heine

Andreas Kolbe I think bullying you is very risky Kolbe as you have half a dozen equally warped friends who do little else but tear into Wikipedia and Wikipedians at every possible opportunity. Indeed, I believe at least one or two are actually claiming publicly to be professional journalists taking money for articles which basically have a theme of tearing into the Wiki projects and targeting community members at every possible opportunity. Would he need to put this on his User page as a Declaration of Interest so that other Wikipedians know that he has a paid for agenda when talking to them? Your orchestrations of Wikipediocracy’s rather pathetic attempts to see conspiracy and subterfuge where there is none does you no service and people should think seriously when talking to you in any Wikipedian forum as your track record suggests you are unlikely to use what you hear for good. http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=17779#p17779 (Mr Kolbe is the blonde guy 2-3 down from the top on the left for those keen to be on their guard if he comes calling) And the whole of this site is dedicated to tearing down people and undermining the whole Wiki Project, if any of you reading this are unclear. You and your little chums decided I was liable to be ‘up to something’ without a single shred of evidence. But I suppose Wikipediaocracy does not need evidence and that would simply be cumbersome, particularly when you have tame journalists in the States who’ll print any claptrap you tell them, which you can then hold up as conclusive proof of something that does not exist. I think it highly amusing to see your chums speculating on whether gaps in my editing record and small bursts of edits mean I was paid sums of cash for practising editing by moving French text from the French Wikipedia to the English stub about a town where my Mum-in-Law lives and where my wife was born. (see your site’s recent trawl over my own website in screen grab below). I spent three years of my life trying to get a Chapter functioning in the UK so that we could build relationships with institutions, encourage people to learn, encourage people to pick up ICT skills and think about how they can apply all that is good about Wikipedia and the other projects to their lives. My business was effectively put on hold, ticking over during that time. Although I was a Director and owner of that business I and it never so much as promoted itself on any occasion to anyone anywhere when I was working. So get your creepy sad little friends off my case. The Chapter actually owes me money. I took no expenses during the first year of its existence with me on the Board and I have not submitted expenses for the work I carried out February to May this year. Your ridiculous fellow conspiracy theorists have said my PR links are some kind of evil proof of me cashing in on my connections. Let’s kill that one off now too. Jimmy Wales went to see a big PR agency last January after outing them as doing paid for editing. In attendance were PRCA & CIPR people who were very unhappy at the complete disconnect between the PR world and ours and wanted to kick a dialogue off to see if there was any hope in hell of sorting this out. I started that dialogue. I told them THEY had to show good faith and start doing something for us before we’d even begin to consider them as anything other than ‘dodgy and dubious.’ They agreed. The two PR groups then asked some individual PR people to work Pro-Bono for us on promoting Monmouthpedia. This is what happened. The CIPR also talked to the younger social media PR crowd amongst its members and asked them to get a working paper together for discussion – so that OUR community and their community could begin to talking to try and bridge the unbridgeable divide that may well divide us from the PR world. Note ‘talking’ – not taking cash, not having freebies – nothing. You and your crowd are a cancer undermining the Wiki Projects. The perpetual attacks on people devoting their time for free will ultimately result in no one coming forward to stand for the Board as idiots from this site will be looking at their Directorships, trolling their website looking for a word here or there out of place or whipping up a incompetent journalist to write utter nonsense about them and then holding it up as some kind of major discovery of a plot to usurp donors money for personal gain. I personally liked and was proud of achieving things for the benefit of the chapter – working with a leading member to achieve charitable status. Organising Jimmy Wales’ 10th Birthday of Wikipedia celebration talks in Bristol in January of last year. Persuading people to give freely of their time to promote an excellent world first in Monmouth. Do you know I’ve never seen nearly 300 major articles across 38 countries about something Wikipedia has done all positive across a 3-5 day period? Have you? I know you are your Wikipediocracy chronies can boast the reverse and that you’ve got tonnes of negative coverage. But that to me suggests how warped you are your chronies sets of values are. If you had a shred of decency you’d walk away from a set of projects that you seem to despise. Before I get another 10 pages on Wikipediocracy for being honest about what you and your tiny band do, let me stress this is a personal view. Steve Virgin From: wikimediauk-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Andreas Kolbe Sent: 20 September 2012 12:21 To: UK Wikimedia mailing list Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Paid editing by Roger Bamkin On Wed, Sep 19, 2012 at 2:33 PM, Craig Franklin &lt;cfranklin(a)wikimedia.org.au&gt; wrote: Good grief, the only way that someone could come to that conclusion from what you've quoted is if they had a rather severe case of paranoia or were overly fond of conspiracy theories. Teaching people how to use Wikipedia, what villainy and wickedness! I'm not surprised that Roger isn't dignifying this nonsense with a direct response, and I can't say I blame him either. We are not just talking about teaching people how to use Wikipedia. We are talking about people being paid to teach members of the public to edit Wikipedia, for projects that in some cases are openly described and sold as marketing initiatives. Does your chapter have programmes like that? As the minutes and disclosure statements show, Roger has been pretty clear about this with the board and with the members at the AGM, and the information you are dredging up is all on the public record. If there is a grand conspiracy here to secretly "a programme to secure unemployed Wikipedian friends paid employment", then it's a pretty inept one. Rather than Roger resigning, I think it would be better if you just stopped trolling this list. Don't try to bully me. I voted for Roger in this year's board election. That was before the Geovation bid, and before he became a paid consultant for the government of Gibraltar – a fact which the Spanish daily of record, El País, pointed out this morning is not noted on his Wikipedia user page. That's an oversight that should be fixed. The El País article is currently on the elpais.com front page (not sure about the paper edition). Regardless of whether there is impropriety or not, it is hardly possible to claim that the appearance of impropriety has been avoided. http://elpais.com/ Andreas

Correct Harry. Although the QRpedia and training bit comes in too. R On 20 September 2012 14:28, HJ Mitchell &lt;hjmitchell(a)ymail.com&gt; wrote: -- Roger Bamkin Victuallers Ltd 01332 702993 0758 2020815 Google+:Victuallers Skype:Victuallers1 Flickr:Victuallers2

Seen this? http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/20/wikimedia_uk_scandal/ James Trolls just like thrill of tearing things down they live for it Steve From: wikimediauk-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of James Farrar Sent: 20 September 2012 16:20 To: UK Wikimedia mailing list Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Paid editing by Roger Bamkin On Sep 20, 2012 12:21 PM, "Andreas Kolbe" &lt;jayen466(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: to claim that the appearance of impropriety has been avoided. For someone in the public eye, no matter how properly they behave, a person with an axe to grind can always spin an appearance of impropriety. And let's say Roger does resign: who's the next target on your list?

On 20 September 2012 16:19, James Farrar &lt;james.farrar(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Steve Virgin appears to be their next target. - d.

Here is a video of a presentation openly selling the SEO value of Wikipedia, and Wikipedia front page appearances, in the name of Wikimedia UK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rO6ZrWJeaOM Quotes: "Can we help put Bristol on the global map longer term, that's why we want to talk to you today." [3.25] "Roger's going to tell you all about Derby Museum, and what we did for them." [3.40] "We partnered Derby Museum. [...] We thought we'd pick on one small museum and give it a lot of it, national attention, even international attention, into one museum, just to see what kind of effect we could have on a museum, how we could affect its profile." [6.23] "We made the front pages of the main Wikipedias [... English, French, Polish, Russian ...] It's giving us more hits to Derby Museum's web page, so it's actually going from our page, clicking through to their web page, it's fulfilling our mission to educate and to share information around the world, and it's raising the interest and status of the city." [12.22] "It's a phenomenally cheap, and very, very imaginative way to absolutely energize a city and put a city on the map." [17.41] I am not comfortable with this sales pitch – especially when it is combined with private consultancy contracts for those making it. It is not consistent with the spirit and ideals of the project I signed up to more than six years ago, and with the spirit and ideals of Wikipedia as communicated to the public. And it is arguably an exploitation of volunteer editors for personal profit. There is a telling passage in the latter part of the presentation about how creating massive amounts of text in multiple languages would have cost a lot of money, and how, just by advertising "prizes of some books and a £50 book voucher" on Wikipedia, 100 articles were created for the project in the space of one week, at no cost. Today, even after the brouhaha all over the European press, another Gibraltar DYK ran on the Wikipedia main page. Andreas

*We can confirm that Roger Bamkin, an ex-Director of Wikimedia UK, is one of two individuals who continue to provide advice on the production of the QR codes and training for volunteer contributors to Gibraltar's Wikipedia site. These two individuals were also involved in Monmouth's Wikipedia project. The final agreement with them is being finalised and does not include them being paid to write or edit articles on Wikipedia. A letter of intent between all parties was signed in June.* *Doug Taylor, Vice-Chair of Wikimedia UK said "WMUK have been keen to be involved with this project ever since it was announced at Wikimania. The agreement that the Gibraltar Government has with the Wikimedia Foundation ensures that there is a clear legal basis for this collaboration. Roger Bamkin and John Cummings remain as the Wikimedia UK members who managed to get the accolade of "World's coolest project" for their last project in Wales. I wish them similar success as they aim to "bridge Europe and Africa".* Sorry that it has taken most of the day to provide the above. Regards, Stuart SI GREEN Press Office HM Government of Gibraltar No 6 Convent Place Gibraltar