[Foundation-l] Money, politics and corruption

Wed Jul 14 13:08:02 UTC 2010

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Corruption is a deep concern because it's a transformative and invasive
force/process. It's not just a stain, it's rather like an oil spill:
growing bigger, with consequences on every level. The more a community
let the corruption in, the more the community is out of its own business.
I understand the worries of Milos, though I have no clue about the
specifics. In its current allusive form, only a few in-the-know can
understand the alarm signal of Milos and judge if the danger is real. I
hope they will have a deep thought about it.

Enucleation, parasiting and phagocyting are known processes in the
biological world. The same happens with institutions, ideas and social
processes. Except that because we are part of those processes, we
usually realize what is happening to us once it is too late.

I don't think that the wikimedian community is so special that
corruption won't occur, therefore justifying a lack of worry or effort
against it.
I don't think that corruption is unavoidable either.

Mankind has never before been able to communicate and think massively
about its common problems. We're living a new era.
No solution is out of reach until someone tries to find if it is. No
human had the opportunity before to share with 1 000 000 of his/her
peers so we don't know anymore what we cannot do about *any* problem.

If auditing is found to be a good solution, then maybe we can obtain
help from the side of AVINA[1], an latino-american organization,
originally founded in 1994 by Stephan Schmidheiny[2], that has
experience and knowledge about trust, self-evaluation and corruption.
They also have an impressive list of hundreds of independent of
organizations capable of auditing.

[1]:
http://www.avina.net/web/siteavina.nsf/page?openform&Sistema=1&idioma=eng
[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephan_Schmidheiny

On 14/07/2010 14:06, oliver keyes wrote:
> 
> The problem with general accusations that hit nobody in particular is that it's rather hard to follow up on them. I'm sure there is probably at least one corrupt or biased employee of the foundation or chapter somewhere in the world - it's a human weakness. Nothing can really be done about it unless, as gerard says, it hits the fan. 
> 
>> From: gerard.meijssen at gmail.com
>> Date: Wed, 14 Jul 2010 09:28:33 +0200
>> To: foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Money, politics and corruption
>>
>> Hoi,
>> Our community is not perfect. That is good. There are people who spend an
>> inordinate amount of time on Wiki related subjects; I am one of them. There
>> are people who go to Wikimania, I have been to all of them. There are people
>> with a large amount of influence; when you heared Jimmy speak I am one of
>> them. I am not perfect.
>>
>> There are many people with loads of influence and as I have been there from
>> quite early it was relatively easy for me to cut out a niche. I am not on
>> influential-l or secret-l or cabal-l.
>>
>> Like yourself I have heard of incompetence, money grabbing, power plays. I
>> have seen some. However for me it does not matter.  Many of these people
>> have their own agenda and if it the time of the items of such an agenda are
>> in the here and now, they shape our world. Many of the items of my agenda
>> are in the agenda and I could not be more happy about that. I also know that
>> it upsets others.
>>
>> The problem with behaviour that is not good / acceptable is that at some
>> stage it will be recognised and it will kill off the people in a similar way
>> as to Essjay. The best indication that such things can happen is the upset
>> of our capable, competent and upright former chair. I was convinced that he
>> would be re-elected and I would have welcomed his re-election.
>>
>> When there is substance to "officials" with problematic credentials, it is
>> certain that this will be noticed. When the system gets manipulated to keep
>> them where they are, it will get noticed. When they are chapter officials
>> and they damage the chapter it will be the members of the Foundation that
>> have the possibility to force the issue.
>>
>> From my perspective, I hate it when there are half formulated accusations. I
>> am sure that I will work well with Milos in our little committee and like
>> pinky and the brain, we will conquer the world. <grin> we even have a
>> mandate to do so in our strategy plan </grin>
>> Thanks,
>>        GerardM
>>
>> On 14 July 2010 00:30, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Besides having a great time on Wikimania, I've heard a number of
>>> complains which put a shadow on a really great event. At some point of
>>> time I was even a bit depressed.
>>>
>>> I was thinking a lot about should I raise this issue or not; and if
>>> yes, then how. After the first issue I thought not to talk about it at
>>> all. After the second, I thought that it is better not to talk. After
>>> the third, I thought that I should contact some people privately.
>>> After the fourth I've realized that I should talk about it publicly.
>>> Then a couple of more issues came which convinced me that I have to
>>> talk about that publicly. We are open community and serious issues,
>>> those which affect many people, should be discussed publicly.
>>>
>>> I will talk without mentioning names, but I will try to be precise
>>> enough. In other words, I don't want to talk about people and
>>> organizations, but about problems. Taking care about problems is much
>>> more important than making witch hunts.
>>>
>>> It also should be noted that all of those problems are "natural" and I
>>> don't see that any of them is able to hurt Wikimedia movement, if we
>>> put it under control. It also should be noted that there are many
>>> successful corrupted organizations, like FIFA and OIC are. However, I
>>> hope that we won't go that way.
>>>
>>> I've heard about two serious corruption issues among chapters. And as
>>> I am living in a deeply corrupted country, I am personally very upset
>>> with this. However, those two cases are too obvious not to be
>>> recognized and fixing is in ongoing phase. However, I am very deeply
>>> concerned about what is going with the rest of 20+ chapters. And what
>>> will happen with them when they are able to become corrupted. We need
>>> an audit system for checking how things are going on in all chapters.
>>> In this case I am much more concerned about chapters than about WMF,
>>> but it would be good to have a common international body which would
>>> audit all of the important issues among chapters and WMF.
>>>
>>> What I am able to realize a couple of months earlier, everybody are
>>> able to realize when those things become public. I've already
>>> mentioned privately that I am deeply concerned with the connection
>>> with US business interests and present WMF strategy (not to be
>>> confused with whole Strategic Planning, but partially yes). It is now
>>> a public issue, although my concern has been seen by very limited
>>> number of people. And I am quite sure that it was not about spreading
>>> my concern via informal channels, but about recognizing the problem by
>>> a number of Wikimedians separately. I hope that Strategy Planning will
>>> fix those problems -- if properly implemented.
>>>
>>> There is a split between those who are coming from rich and poor
>>> countries. Wikimania social networking was about various groups. I am
>>> lucky that I am connected well and that I know where should I ask and
>>> what should I ask. However, there are Wikimedians who are not well
>>> connected and who don't know where to ask and what to ask. I am also
>>> from a country similar to Poland and I had a feeling like I am just in
>>> a little bit weird city of my own country. But, many Wikimedians came
>>> from very different parts of the world, as well as they were not able
>>> to buy their confidence. If we want to be a global movement, we have
>>> to think about them. It is not just about Wikimanias, it is about
>>> every social interaction in which Wikimedia is involved. Thus, I fully
>>> support Wikimedia Israel initiative for helping spreading Wikimedia
>>> projects into developing world. And if organizations from Israel are
>>> not welcomed everywhere, there are many other Wikimedia chapter which
>>> could help.
>>>
>>> Wikimedia is now a global movement and global culture. It is not
>>> anymore a site with cool content, but an organization and movement
>>> with worldwide impact. *All* decisions of WMF, chapters and their
>>> bodies are now political decisions in the international sense. So,
>>> *before* making *any* decision, please consider political impact of
>>> your decision. If you need help, you can ask various Wikimedians or
>>> hire a professional in international relations.
>>>
>>> WMF and chapters have enough money now to be attracted by careerists.
>>> Persons who try to put themselves as "mid-players", between Wikimedia
>>> organizations and people and organizations who are working with WM
>>> organizations. WMF and chapters should be explicit in noting to
>>> everybody that such behavior is not acceptable and to Wikimedians that
>>> they are safe of it.
>>>
>>> Closely connected with the previous previous is the fact that many
>>> Wikimedians feel that they are alienated from Wikimedia leadership
>>> (not just WMF and staff, but more about some amorphous mass of
>>> influential Wikimedians). There was an incident in Dormitory 6 because
>>> of misunderstanding between organizers and dormitory management. I
>>> would say that it shouldn't be a big deal, as such problems can happen
>>> everywhere. What was not usual is the reaction of the part of
>>> Wikimedians who were there. Some of them were cool and just somewhat
>>> frustrated because of this. However, the reaction and feeling of the
>>> other part was "We shouldn't call them [WMF and organizers]. They will
>>> not help us. They don't care for us. They have fun in the city,
>>> although we have problems here."
>>>
>>> This feeling is irrational in the particular case. Organizers took
>>> care about them, of course. However, I didn't hear this from a couple
>>> of well connected Wikimedians who were there. I didn't hear it from
>>> Europeans and inhabitants of other OECD countries. I've heard this
>>> from not so rich Wikimedians who were far away from home; from those
>>> who felt insecure in a distant country and who feel a gap between
>>> those with money (and/or connections) and them.
>>>
>>> This list is consisted of our first serious real-world problems. Yes,
>>> I know that we used to be virtual, online, onwiki. I know that those
>>> problems are new for us. But if we want to stay as a global movement,
>>> we have to fix them. Otherwise, we'll be just another attempt for
>>> creating a decadent society which main purpose is to make fun for rich
>>> and wannabe rich. And, by the way, to explain to poor how rich world
>>> looks like.
>>>
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>>>
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