Hi all,
If you've been following this you might be interested in the views of Geoff Brigham, the WMF legal counsel, which he's posted on our wiki:
https://wiki.wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Water_cooler#Comment_from_Geoff_Brigham
Also, I would certainly urge more people to contribute to the discussion. If there are a lot of people out there thinking to themselves that the Board has got this wrong, but haven't summoned the time or energy to post to that effect, please do post and let us know your views. Equally, if there are people who have been watching this conversation and haven't participated because they feel the right decision's been made and so they have nothing to add, please do speak up.
This time last year we had a very clear message from our membership, from the broader community, and from the Wikimedia Foundation that we needed to greatly improve how we handled conflicts of interest. That resulted in the Hudson Review, which gave us some pretty clear recommendations. We have followed those recommendations in dealing with this situation - taking external advice early, thinking carefully about the likely impact of the potential conflict of interest, and coming to a conclusion which the Board believes defends us not just against the risk of anything bad happening, but any allegation of impropriety. In short we have been to the best of our ability doing good governance.
Now, we also clearly have a duty to our members, and a responsibility to maintain the goodwill of the Wikimedia community as a whole. If there is a widespread view that, even with the steps we've outlined, it's not in the charity's best interests for Alastair to continue, then we will listen to that. However since Alastair posted the details of how he will handle this situation, only 5 people (myself included) have taken part in the resulting discussion. Some have posted at some length and in strident terms, but I don't yet see the picture I would need to see to be persuaded we are taking the wrong course of action here.
So please do take part in the discussion.
Regards,
Chris
On Thu, Oct 3, 2013 at 4:35 PM, Simon Knight sjgknight@gmail.com wrote:
I appear not to be able to edit the Water cooler at the moment (is this an artefact of the transfer?) That should be fixed asap...
Fae as you're soliciting for further comment I'll just note the reason I haven’t commented further on the cooler is that I don't think it's productive at the moment - I'm happy with how the board has dealt with things, I don't think we should assume bad faith from Alastair. I do think we should continue to be aware of his - and anyone else's - positions, but that's hardly an interesting comment. Re: "conflict of loyalties" (which is not about COI) well for what it's worth I agree with Charles Matthew's comments on the cooler. I'm not sure that we should be actively looking for more people to be outraged...
Best Simon
-----Original Message----- From: wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto: wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of brian.mcneil@wikinewsie.org Sent: 03 October 2013 16:23 To: UK Wikimedia mailing list; Fæ Cc: Sue Gardner; Jimmy Wales Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Alastair McCapra's conflict of loyalties between CIPR and WMUK
Quoting Fæ faewik@gmail.com:
<snip>
- the thread on Wikipediocracy was started on 10 September 2013
Simple question:
When did Wikipediocracy become a member of Wikimedia UK, and able to dictate how the charity operates? A casual inspection suggests it's just a front for malcontents to feed their grievances, or manipulation, into The Signpost - in it's distinctive "Yellow Journalism" style.
I've my grievances with The Signpost, far more than I've any worry that Alastair is incapable of managing (i.e. not voting on) issues where his COI is present.
Brian McNeil.
Wikinewsie.org | http://en.wikinewsie.org/wiki/Brian_McNeil "Facts don't cease to be facts, but news ceases to be news." Tel: +44 (0)788 987 8314 | Email: brian.mcneil@wikinewsie.org GPG Key Fingerprint: 7C3D FFD5 5ED5 B80F 1D18 A52B E84C 8928 6ABC A7AD
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