[Wikimedia-l] Relationship between Wikimedia and oDesk

[Marc A. Pelletier]

On 01/08/2014 02:30 AM, MZMcBride wrote:
> Can anyone explain the relationship between Wikimedia and oDesk?

The short of it: oDesk is indeed roughly the same kind of job board as
freelancer.com and its ilk.  The foundation is simply a client, and uses
it only to pay its contractors and (most of)* their non-US workforce;
and AFAIK never just contract out from postings.

Contractors input work hours, WMF pays oDesk, oDesk sends monies to
contractor.  The system itself is a little shitty and quite a bit
expensive, but considerably less so than it would be to set up legal
entities able to directly pay people outside the US as local employees
(including the horrible mess that it actually /is/ to have employees in
other countries rather than contract out).

-- Marc

* some staffers instead work for a business entity that /itself/
contracts out to the WMF in which case it works a bit differently
because then oDesk is no longer necessary as a middle man.