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(a)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(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:
wikimediauk-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of
brian.mcneil(a)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(a)gmail.com>om>:
<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."
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