On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 12:24 AM, Pete Forsyth <peteforsyth(a)gmail.com> wrote:
As a former staff member who actively sought out (and
received very little)
guidance on how to approach my approach to Wikipedia editing during my
tenure,
In other words, you were expected to apply good judgment. It would
have been nice if you had been given explicit assurances that editing
Wikipedia while you're on staff (obviously primarily outside of work
time) is perfectly fine, because it is. :)
I would like to avoid naming names in this thread, but
surely you can see
the risks associated with the approach you *have* taken? Leaving the Belfer
Center situation aside,
.. which, if anything, could have been avoided had everyone who was
part of the project been a bit more experienced with Wikimedia norms
and practices.
this year there has been significant media coverage
of a prominent staff member whose employment ended abruptly over paid
editing that, on the face of it, violated no publicly known policy.
When money and undisclosed side contracts are involved, things get a
lot more complicated - shocking, I know. Hard cases make bad law. We
should default to openness, to encouraging participation in our
community, and to forgiving mistakes. That is the right thing to do
for an organization that is, needs to be, and will remain anchored in
the community.
On this, you and I seem to be about as far apart as we can be, so we
will have to agree to disagree. This is why in threads like the Belfer
one I encourage people to stay cool and not let this stuff get to
their heads, because this is the kind of moral panicky BS we need to
stay the hell clear of.
Erik
--
Erik Möller
VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation