[Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Wikimediauk-l] Joint statement with the Foundation

[David Gerard]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Roger Bamkin <victuallers at gmail.com>
Date: 29 September 2012 06:53
Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Joint statement with the Foundation
To: UK Wikimedia mailing list <wikimediauk-l at lists.wikimedia.org>


I have been encouraged to issue statements for the last week or so
about the debate. I have resisted as I did not want to escalate what I
saw as an unfortunate bit of publicity for Wikimedia UK and the
Foundation. I'm very disappointed to see the latest press release  I
believe that the statement on my talk page on the English, Catalan and
Simple Wikipedia supplies some background.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Victuallers

In retrospect we could all give the board and me better advice. I have
tried to remain loyal to you, the mission, and the board. I have made
less money working for "the mission" then I would have done elsewhere,
and I think I have also shared in extending our reach. I've visited
many countries and  talked with five of six ministers from Gibraltar,
Wales and the British Parliament about WMUK. You know I worked as an
unpaid wikipedian in residence and you may have guessed that I turned
down paid work last year to concentrate on leading the WMUK board
during my last term. That was costing me too much money and so with
the board's agreement I stood down so that Monmouthshire County
Council could make the exceptional step of paying me. They did not do
this lightly and they had to get special agreement from their elected
members that in this case it was worth stepping outside their normal
employment procedures to save Monmouthpedia. This is well documented.

As my statement shows both the board and the Foundation should have
been aware of the public statements that were made. I have heard it
claimed that the Foundation were unaware - but I resigned as chair of
the UK chapter. Someone must have read the reason. I was very clear
when you re-elected me as a board member that I had and would continue
to have business interests like Monmouthshire County Council. (I have
to eat). We may have been mistaken, but it was a joint and informed
decision.

It seems a long time ago when I was in Haifa and we were told that the
Foundation did not want WMUK to take part in last years fundraiser.
But we did and that made us several hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Our current exec can take a lot of credit for achieving that.

best regards
Roger



On 28 September 2012 23:41, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> There were plenty of large countries on that list, although media attention is likely to spread further when it originates in English, that's true.
>
> On Sep 28, 2012 11:37 PM, "Deryck Chan" <deryckchan at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > On 28 September 2012 23:20, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> On Sep 28, 2012 11:11 PM, "Deryck Chan" <deryckchan at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > There is, an will always be, the option to donate to WMUK rather than WMF even if WMUK isn't the default payment processor anymore.
> >> >
> >> > What I can certainly see is a fragmented 2012 fundraiser, with certain donors staying with WMUK and others switching to WMF because that's where the default landing page now points them to. Lots of returning donors will be very very confused either because they can't gift-aid their donations, or because two "Wikipedia organisations" are asking for their money at the same time.
> >>
> >> What will happen is exactly the same as what happened in the countries where the foundation took over fundraising last year which was, indeed, los of people being very confused and not understanding who it was they had just given money to.
> >>
> >> The foundation will need to be very clear about its messaging. I would recommend a prominent notice on the landing page that the WMF is not a registered charity in the UK, so that there can be no claims that they have misled donors.
> >
> >
> > The main difference here is, I believe, that the UK donor base is much larger than the countries whose payment processing was taken over by WMF last year. And they speak English. Therefore the media outcry from the confusion is likely to be much louder.
> >
> > From a regular reader-donor's point of view, being confused about where their money went to is almost certainly worse than learning that some trustee is involved with a conflict of interest scandal, weirdly, between multiple projects all to do with Wikipedia.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikimedia UK mailing list
> > wikimediauk-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
> > WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
> >
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia UK mailing list
> wikimediauk-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
> WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
>



--
Roger Bamkin
Victuallers Ltd
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0758 2020815
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