Hi,
I can't speak on behalf of the rest of WMF staff, but since I made three edits to the 'Zack Exley' article, I feel that I owe a public explanation of the three edits that I made.
Here are the edits:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zack_Exley&diff=506286326&...
In my judgement of myself, I have a few breaches/COI/errors that I made that I should not have done:
1.) It seems that I made the edits during normal work hours. If I recall, I made the edits during my lunch break (but I can't remember). A few months ago I was reading the WMF employee handbook and realized that any personal editing is not allowed during work hours. Until then, I was unaware of an exact 'rule' for this. That's my fault. I don't have a job so that I can do the 'fun stuff' that I'd like to do - I have a job because there is a job to do, that's what I'm here for. That's it. That's all. This brings me to my second breach/COI/error:
2.) As you can see, the edits I made were an update to a photo on the 'Zack Exley' article. I made these edits from my personal account. I should mention that in the past, I have been sloppy about which account I used (WMF staff account or personal account). This is because in my role (especially in 2011-12), I have to capture stories, which takes time and I was reaching out to dozens and dozens of editors. I found out early on that when I used my personal account, Wikipedians were more likely to contact me back, so I got into the habit of largely ignoring my staff account, since it was important that I could relate to other editors on an editor-to-editor level, especially since my role is getting people to open up to me to tell me about themselves personally and why they became editors in the first place. I specifically remember one editor who said that they respected it more that I was a Wikipedian before I became a WMF staffer.
3.) I shot the photo that I added with the purpose of updating this page: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff_and_contractors but the Wikipedian in me got the better of me and I put the image in the other place where I thought it had utility, the article about Zack Exley. This was stupid. I should have put it on the talk page, and requested that another editor update it.
I have a history of bullheadedness and just going ahead: (Press play from 1:02:25, I talk about how my first edits were vandalism) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0NsY48OQdc
My current work involves a school in South Africa, and while I started the page for the school when I had no connection with it, I came to realize that it was a conflict of interest to keep editing after I had developed a relationship with the school and the administration, so I started to add my additions to the talk page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinenjongo_High_School
But there was another issue that I would like to bring attention to, which is somewhat more appropriate to the conversation at the moment. I have created a few videos and added several photos that I have placed in this article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation
One edit I made in particular was so incredibly stupid to make, because it was a recruiting video for WMF:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Foundation&diff=490...
Fortunately, User:MZMcBride reverted it many days later:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Foundation&diff=494...
I can't find the response I made, but I recall saying something to user:MZMcBride like 'Kick me upside the head if I ever do something stupid like that again'.
I've always tried to step away from the issues of paid editing since media content-generation for fundraising and other WMF-related content is my role, not policy-generation or discussion around such issues. But as staff of the Wikimedia Foundation, and a staffer who creates media which could be called advertising, propaganda or public relations or whatever you'd like to call it, I may be someone who should speak about the issue.
I don't think that I should have made a few of the edits that I have. Some were stupid because of a conflict-of-interest with the thing I'm illustrating and my employer. It insults the core point of NPOV.
That said, from the perspective of the paid-editing issue of Wikipedia content, I do think that as long as editors who work for companies make it clear who their employers are (like I do on my user pages, both staff and personal), and where their potential conflicts of interests may be, that they may have quality content that they can use to illustrate and constructively improve Wikipedia articles and so should be allowed to edit in some capacity.
Per my opinions about WMF staff editing Wikimedia-related content, I think that the talk page suggestion above is a very reasonable way to create content and avoid COI editing. My only issue would be timeliness of updates, but that is a minor concern from my perspective.
I have never been a person who followed all the rules exactly, and was initially attracted to Wikipedia for those reasons (see the youtube video link above), so I apologize for any rule-ignoring/breaking behavior.
I will also say that I haven't spoken with or consulted any colleagues at WMF or any other editors or people involved with Wikimedia at all regarding this issue I'm writing about right now. im writing this because I felt it was important to do so. I feel it fair that the issues raised here be dealt with in a straightforward manner since I'm responsible for my edit history and my own personal opinions. I certainly don't wish to antagonize any of my colleagues with my opinions or words here. I think it's important to make things plain. I'm saying this all as an explanation, not an excuse. I value the questions raised and points made on this thread because they all point towards high standards. It points WMF staff to lead-by-example, which (to put it bluntly) will never not be a pain in the butt. It's something that should happen and people pointing out flaws (no matter how tiny or insignificant they may seem) are important to do. The minute that stops happening, that's bad for NPOV.
I'm open to any thoughts or feedback regarding anything that I have done above or have said in this thread.
Thank you for your time.
On Wed, Apr 16, 2014 at 4:34 PM, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
It would be fantastic if the Foundation were to take *positive action* and make it clear that its employees are immediately directed to not edit Wikipedia articles about each other, ex-colleagues, the Foundation, the Foundation's partners, suppliers and contractors or the Foundation's critics. Even minor edits and corrections seem a strangely stupid thing for employees to indulge themselves in, when they know they can simply suggest the edits on on article talk page rather than having to later defend themselves from legitimate complaints of editing with a conflict of interest. I am disappointed to see some of the names of Foundation senior managers acting this way.
I refer interested readers to my previous suggestion of a simple proposal to avoid these situations at http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-April/070904.html
- if Foundation employees do not like the words, perhaps employees
would like to propose their own version in their own words.
I congratulate Russavia on a neat piece of analysis which should concern all Wikimedians who would like to see "advocacy editing" being managed in a more credible way. It would be refreshing if a member of the WMF board of trustees, or the current trustee candidates were to show appreciation for Russavia's work on this rather than silence.
Fae
faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
On 16 April 2014 22:03, Russavia russavia.wikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all,
I just wanted to find out what the stance of the WMF is on the issue of WMF employees and contractors editing articles on themselves, or fellow employees, in direct contravention of COI guidelines? Is this a practice that is officially frowned upon?
Whilst researching the Belfer fiasco I came across User:Wikitedium. The contributions[1] lead me to believe that isn't just a normal editor but one who has an ingrained conflict of interest, and it is pretty clear that the editor is Zack Exley, who is the former WMF Chief Financial Officer.
In April 2006, Exley added links to rootsprimary.org to the 2008 US Presidential election article.[2] Whilst rootsprimary.org no longer exists, it's archived version states: "Who's doing this?: Just me, Zack Exley, and a couple of friends."[3]
In August 2006, Exley created the article on himself.[4] Over the years, Exley made numerous edits to this article. In December 2009, Exley created the article on Argentine Middle School[5], which is in Argentine, a community of Kansas City, Kansas. Exley at the time (so it appears) lived in Kansas City, Missouri.[6] In March 2010, Exley wrote himself into the "Smart mob" article.[7]
In March 2013, Exley created a "nice little article about a notable Springfield coffee shop"[8] -- the coffee shop being in Springfield, Missouri, which is another place that Exley appears to have resided.[9]
Whilst the edits relating to himself were done before he joined the WMF, his article looks like a standard puff piece which is discouraged -- it uses WMF press releases, articles on ThoughtWorks which only mention him in passing[10], a self-authored article on motherjones.com[11]. Exley's only real claim to fame is that George W. Bush once called him a "garbage man".[12]
I had a look at Exley's Linkedin profile[13] which appears to begin in 1987-1988 when he was at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and is current up to the present time, and correlated these to Wikitedium's other edits, and couldn't see anything else of major concern.
What does concern me, however, is that there was a steady stream of WMF staffers/contractors who have edited Exley's wikibio. Although, the edits themselves may not seem to be worrisome, the fact that the puff nature of the article was not picked up on by these staffers is troubling. Also, given that the WMF and the community in general is against COI editing, these edits, as innocent as they are, should not be done by WMF staffers, but rather by others who don't have any perceived COI.
Could the WMF and the BoT perhaps clarify whether COI editing amongst WMF staff/contractors is officially discouraged/forbidden, and whether there is something official in writing which lays out guidelines for how and when WMF staff/contractors should be editing articles relating to their fellow WMF'ers.
Cheers
Russavia
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Wikitedium [2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=United_States_presidential_electi...
[3] http://web.archive.org/web/20060423010423/http://rootsprimary.org/ [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zack_Exley&action=history [5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Argentine_Middle_School&actio...
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Smart_mob&diff=prev&oldid...
[8]
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Coffee_Ethic&action=histo...
[9] https://clarity.fm/zackexley [10]
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=9999100029386
[11] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2000/12/organizing-online [12]
http://web.archive.org/web/20060704033659/http://www.tjcenter.org/past2000.h...
[13] http://www.linkedin.com/in/zackexley
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