Yes. Our employees in wmno are recruited externally, and could never hve done their job or learnt to know the projects If it wasn,t for:
A - editing from a wmno account in order to give community information about events, etc.
B - editing from a private account, under full name, to learn how to edit and write on the Wikipedia, in order to commumicate to the outside world how Wikipedia works and what it is about.
This whole thing, by the way, just illustrates how impractible and difficult COI regulation has become. If the community ban third-party paid editing, and force employee-editors to state their affiliation at their user page, the normal rules on npov and sources would do the rest of the job. And spare us of all these "investigations" of each other.
Erlend Bjørtvedt Wmno
Den torsdag 17. april 2014 skrev Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org følgende:
On Wed, Apr 16, 2014 at 11:21 PM, Pete Forsyth <peteforsyth@gmail.comjavascript:;> wrote:
The community guidelines are extremely complex, yes. I consider that an argument *in favor* of adopting simpler rules for staff, that exceed community rules. For a general idea, here are the kind of rules that
could
be implemented for staff:
- Staff will not edit Wikipedia, at all
- Staff will not edit Wikipedia unless they have discussed appropriate
boundaries around their editing with their supervisor
- Staff will not edit Wikipedia unless they have discussed appropriate
boundaries with XYZ people in the Community department
Any policies like that would increase disconnect between WMF and community, not decrease it. It would disincentivize hiring from the community (because it's risky), and would disincentivize community members from applying to join the staff (because they'd have to give up a loved hobby). It would reduce the likelihood of managers to encourage people to become editors (because it's dangerous) and instead encourage a more corporate mentality towards the site and its users. In short, I think these are truly counterproductive suggestions, and I'm 100% supportive of Sue's original point. We have to accept that people will come in conflict with normal community guidelines, and we should encourage people to get involved in Wikipedia, because understanding the thing you support is key to supporting it well.
The COI stuff is scary because it sets of people's alarm bells around integrity and ethics, but it shouldn't be as scary. A COI edit of an article about yourself is an entirely different ball o' wax than an edit on behalf of a paying client. Like Sue said, everyone was new once, and it takes people a while to learn the ropes. And even those of us who've been around for a while sometimes do things we shouldn't
- we're all human. That's why we have community policies.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The rules, IMO, are pretty simple:
- Make it clear when you're acting in an official capacity;
- Be especially mindful when editing WMF-related topics, since WMF has
a conflict-of-interest about itself.
- When getting involved, it's understood that you'll make mistakes -
that's fine. Be bold. :-) Follow community norms and best practices.
Cheers, Erik
-- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
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