Thanks Dariusz, nice example declaration for the rest of the board to think about.
I look forward to reading about the WMF board follow-up, as this is an easy win to demonstrate improved governance, at a time when we need to count a few quick wins in the good-will bank.
Fae
On 10 January 2016 at 15:40, Dariusz Jemielniak darekj@alk.edu.pl wrote:
On Sun, Jan 10, 2016 at 10:22 AM, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks for talking about it Dariusz.
Could you please make a serious declaration of interests as is being discussed at [1]. This will help set a ethical model for the rest of the WMF board to follow without needing a year to think about it. If you want to check some best practice examples of meaningful and frank declarations, take a look at WMUK's.[2]
I have no problem with that. You've provided links from WMUK, so until there is something similar for WMF, I don't think we can expect all Board members to make declarations (but I also think it would be a good practice to develop a similar model for WMF board, just observing that I don't know of one yet; I will ask).
I terms of shares, I am a major shareholder in Druid Multimedia sp. z o. o. (Polish abbreviation for LLC), which developed the largest online dictionary in Poland. If there are any discussions related to Wiktionary or other dictionary services (e.g. within Wikidata) and the dictionary is still published by the company, I am going to recuse myself. I also own a significant number of shares in Insta.Ling sp. z o. o., which is a startup oriented at online flashcard language acquisition (currently with about 50,000 users in Poland and Germany). If there is ever a language acquisition project discussed, and I'm still in, I'm going to recuse myself.
I've also had a number of academic affiliations, but these can hardly be considered a potential COI, I think.
I'm glad the conversation is back to more civilized - I have to admit that I don't quite enjoy being called a clown (while I have a healthy respect and awe for clowns, and I don't consider myself to be suffering from coulrophobia).
cheers,
dj