On 21 March 2014 00:56, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote: ...
This project was not funded through the individual donations of the general public but rather through a third party foundation that had an interest in seeing this happen, so from an ethical perspective, it's reasonable that the standards of accountability differ
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There may be a massive cultural gap between Europe and North America, but no, no, no.
The WMF officially endorsed this project in the same year that the WMF was stomping down with its hobnail boots on Wikimedia UK so hard on matters of ethics and accountability, that it threatened to destroy the organization (literally, based on my personal experience). Just because a well known second party organization is providing funds for the project does not obviate the WMF from ensuring that programmes that it officially endorses meet precisely the same ethical standards that it enforces so firmly on all other Wikimedia organizations.
Eric, in this thread you are officially speaking for the WMF. Does the WMF really want to say it is "ethical" to have different accountability rules for funding organizations that want to use the Wikimedia brand because there are different rules for the rich? On that basis, WMUK should be free to do a deal to offer the Wikimedia brand to officially endorse (or be a "fiscal sponsor") for a Conservative Party or Catholic Church programme of paid editing directed to "fix" Wikipedia to match their world view, and the WMF would have nothing to criticise as the Chapter could wash its hands as it did not directly handle the payments.
The Wikimedia brand value was not spontaneously created by the Foundation, but by unpaid volunteers like me that create the content of our projects. If the WMF wants to retain the hearts and minds of the community of volunteers, it cannot afford to have fluid ethics that conveniently shift to cover up any embarrassingly bad decisions it makes.
Fae