Wikimedia Foundation/Stanton Foundation sponsor paid editor

[thekohser]

Looks like Liz Allison has quickly buried the Belfer Center scandal under a mountain of 1.39 million dollar bills. Oh, the irony -- spending Frank Stanton's fortune to help undermine the journalism industry that he worked so hard to build up.

Maybe some of that cash can help the Wiki Ed Foundation convert some of their website's "lorem ipsum" text into actual English.

[Hex]

Maybe some of that cash can help the Wiki Ed Foundation convert some of their website's "lorem ipsum" text into actual English.

And not embed the Flickr stream of the Web Host Industry Review, with all its educational photos like this one:

[thekohser]

Jimbo assures a concerned citizen from Thailand that:

To my knowledge there is no suggestion that the Stanton/Belfer/WMF arrangement involved advocacy editing in any way...

Jimbo's knowledge should be jogged, don't you think? That is, I assume that the Wikipediocracy consensus is that Sandole's editing was (at least in part) done from an advocacy point of view?

(Don't expect any response from Wales, regardless. He is conveniently vacationing in an undisclosed location for the remainder of this week, presumably spending his speaker honoraria and his The People's Operator salary in various and exotic ways, in pursuit of unwinding from all that stress that "working" puts on him.)

[thekohser]

Poor Dimmy... he can't enjoy his vacation! Too many allegations to deny ever hearing about.

(It's easy to say "first I've heard of that" to everything, when your standard procedure is to not be listening to anything unpleasant that you're told.)

[thekohser]

More fallout rooted in the Stanton Foundation - Belfer Center scandal, dredged up by Russavia. This time, the target is Zack Exley and his undisclosed COI editing as User:Wikitedium (T-C-L).

Note that Exley's pedigree begins at the Kennedy School at Harvard (where the Belfer Center is situated), and his biggest claim to fame was that he raised a boatload of donation money for Democrat John Kerry. Lo and behold, the woman that Exley mentored in the WMF to be his replacement, Lisa Seitz-Gruwell, was the political director of Skyline Public Works, which made a big impact by promoting a report on the 2004 Kerry fundraising campaign, co-authored by a Kennedy School of Government graduate (Ryan Friedrichs).

I don't know if the Wikimedia Foundation's fundraising team could have been more inbred to be aligned with the Kennedy School and the Belfer Center, if it had tried... but it sure is beginning to sound like it wasn't an "accident" that the Stanton gift for the Belfer Center was housed on the WMF books under the Fundraising department.

[Mancunium]

(Don't expect any response from Wales, regardless. He is conveniently vacationing in an undisclosed location for the remainder of this week, presumably spending his speaker honoraria and his The People's Operator salary in various and exotic ways, in pursuit of unwinding from all that stress that "working" puts on him.)

link

Jimmy Wales ‏@jimmy_wales Apr 13
I am on vacation. Of course you can guess where ... pic.twitter.com/I54vBX0X0C

[thekohser]

And remember, everyone... if you are too "pointy" in pointing out how scandalous this WMF scandal is, then you'll be reverted, and the page might even get locked.

Where is the line between too pointy and not too pointy? Apparently that line is way, way, way back here.

[Mancunium]

And remember, everyone... if you are too "pointy" in pointing out how scandalous this WMF scandal is, then you'll be reverted, and the page might even get locked

Where is the line between too pointy and not too pointy? Apparently that line is way, way, way back here.

Did you take a look at Ktr101 (T-C-L)'s User page?

For the Fall 2009 semester, I attended the University of Massachusetts Lowell. While I was there, I was a member of the University of Massachusetts Lowell Riverhawk Marching Band. In addition, I am also a 2009 graduate of Barnstable High School. Whilst there, I was an active participant in my high school's marching band where I played the mellophone.

"Me at a Wikipedia event"

He is a member of this exclusive Facebook group: link

[EricBarbour]

And remember, everyone... if you are too "pointy" in pointing out how scandalous this WMF scandal is, then you'll be reverted, and the page might even get locked

Where is the line between too pointy and not too pointy? Apparently that line is way, way, way back here.

Did you take a look at Ktr101 (T-C-L)'s User page?

For the Fall 2009 semester, I attended the University of Massachusetts Lowell. While I was there, I was a member of the University of Massachusetts Lowell Riverhawk Marching Band. In addition, I am also a 2009 graduate of Barnstable High School. Whilst there, I was an active participant in my high school's marching band where I played the mellophone.

Find more examples of Rutherford committing abuses and I'll write up a history.

[thekohser]

There is an opportunity to improve Wikipedia about Frank Stanton and the Stanton Foundation, make money for doing so, and all under the policy-approved Wikipedia Reward Board. I wonder why there have been no takers for over a week?

[HRIP7]

Currently being discussed on the mailing list again.

https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ass ... sions_made
said:
> The ED plans, with the C-level team, to develop a better process for
> staff to escalate and express concerns about any WMF activities that
> staff think may in tension with, or in violation of, community
> policies or best practices. It will take some time to develop a
> simple, robust process: we aim to have it done by 1 May 2014.

I think we're well past the deadline–unless "2014" was a typo for
"2015", or "ED" a typo for "Sue Gardner in her spare time". Any updates?

Nemo

Hi Nemo,

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. You are correct -- this did not
make my "to do" list, but I believe honoring commitments made by the WMF is
important and therefor I've been looking this issue. Here is what I found
and what we will do:


- This issue was a clear oversight error.
- To prevent issues like these in the future two paths are important:
1. ability to highlight issues through escalation
2. improved clarity on which programs or grants qualify for funding
(through training) and the process by which that is done
- The first point will be addressed this quarter by HR in the employee
handbook through the modified escalation policy and escalation channel.
- The second will be addressed through changes to grantmaking program,
which we proposed to open for discussion this spring/summer (Q4/Q1)
starting with the FDC-level grants
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants: ... D_Response>.
In short, we are looking to be very clear on goals, parameters, and focus
of grants we distribute to ensure they are handled and validated
consistently and accurately.


The two aspects together should help avoid these types of issues. I am also
asking to include some "'guardrail" items in employee training. No system
is perfect however, and we will continue to tune it to avoid problems.

Finally, while I sincerely appreciate you bringing up the issue, I would
also appreciate if this is done without snark or disparagement in the
future. This would ensure everyone is more productive in their solutions.
We will respond in kind.

Thank you,
Lila

Lila, and all,

I am glad to hear this will be revived. I read your message with interest
and appreciation, up to the final paragraph: in this instance, WMF is in a
very poor position to chide anybody for snark. Nemo's "snark" was
lighthearted and minimal, and doesn't even register next to the WMF's
damaging and disrespectful actions on this issue now spanning more than
three years. Let me be direct, though -- I'll take care to lay things out
in a snark-free manner here.

Last spring, WMF found itself in a bit of a bind, of its own making: this
list, the blogosphere, etc. were making a lot of noise about how the WMF
had actively undermined the efforts of Wikipedians to guide organizations
in ethical engagement with the project. One action above all others served
to quiet that noise: the announcement of specific reforms quoted by Nemo
above.

Now, many months overdue and apparently forgotten, it appears that the
announcement was made *for the purpose* of quieting the noise, as opposed
to being made out of actual concern for how universities interact with
Wikipedia, or how the WMF interacts with knowledgeable members of the
Wikimedia movement. An oversight, in general, is understandable and human.
But overlooking something that was *specifically undertaken to correct past
mistakes* is something different. That kind of oversight, I contend,
provides a clear view of the level of interest the organization actually
has in addressing the problems under discussion. The WMF is clearly not
very interested in undoing the damage it wrought.

The Wikimedia movement, and English Wikipedia, have worked hard over many
years to establish guidelines and policies that frame an ethical approach
and guide volunteers toward producing high quality and consistent content.
The GLAM sub-movement in particular has worked to bridge that framework and
the operations of mission-aligned organizations like museums and
universities. But that work -- which the WMF enjoys talking about in its
annual reports, etc. -- was ignored by the WMF the moment it became
inconvenient. The moment it interfered with a grant. At precisely the
moment when the WMF had a chance to positively influence a leading
university, it instead gave that university license to disregard the
relevant ethical concerns.

Making all of that right, the WMF told us last year, was a priority. But
apparently it was not.

I am glad to learn that the remedies then under discussion will be picked
back up. The WMF will be a healthier organization because of it. But I
emphatically request that you refrain from scolding those of us who are
frustrated by the need for non-WMF staff to repeatedly, over a span of over
three years, remind the WMF that important things need doing.

A little snark, in this case, should be the very least of your concerns.
Pete

[Anthonyhcole]

Just posted to the [Wikimedia-l] "Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53, 690 of WMF funding" thread on Wikimedia-l. (Sorry, I don't know how to link to those things.)

Wikimedians,

Per my commitment, we have now added this escalation process/whistleblower
policy to the WMF staff handbook to address the issues discussed in this
thread:

"To serve the WMF Guiding Principles of shared power and stewardship, it's
important that our work reflects community policies. If you feel that some
of your work is not consistent with key community policies, you should feel
free to escalate the matter to your manager, the Deputy Director, or the
Executive Director, as appropriate under the circumstances."

We will also do work around staff training as I previously mentioned,
including adding this to our on-boarding.

Thanks to everyone who have provided input on this issue.

[thekohser]

(link)

or

(link)

[HRIP7]

You can also use linkhttp://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/w ... 432#572432[/link].

The Gossamer threads archive is convenient in that it displays posts in proper threads, so you can simply scroll up or down to see following and preceding posts in a thread. (Its downside is that it can have a time delay of a couple of hours.)

I noticed that post by Lila too. It makes a pleasant change from things simply being forgotten, as they have been so often in the past.

[Anthonyhcole]

You can also use linkhttp://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/w ... 432#572432[/link].

The Gossamer threads archive is convenient in that it displays posts in proper threads, so you can simply scroll up or down to see following and preceding posts in a thread. (Its downside is that it can have a time delay of a couple of hours.)

I noticed that post by Lila too. It makes a pleasant change from things simply being forgotten, as they have been so often in the past.

Thanks. You've pointed me to that before but I forgot the name.

Yes. She seems to take the serious stuff seriously. It's refreshing.

[thekohser]

It is obvious, no?
"Paid editing" when it costs only 300 $ (also called the "Sarah-version") is strictly forbidden.
"Paid editing" when it costs 50,000+++ $ (also called the "Stanton-version") is welcomed with open arms.

Look who popped into Wikipedia last month!

[Poetlister]

It is obvious, no?
"Paid editing" when it costs only 300 $ (also called the "Sarah-version") is strictly forbidden.
"Paid editing" when it costs 50,000+++ $ (also called the "Stanton-version") is welcomed with open arms.

Look who popped into Wikipedia last month!

And guess what she did the next day!

[thekohser]

It is obvious, no?
"Paid editing" when it costs only 300 $ (also called the "Sarah-version") is strictly forbidden.
"Paid editing" when it costs 50,000+++ $ (also called the "Stanton-version") is welcomed with open arms.

Look who popped into Wikipedia last month!

And guess what she did the next day!

And then look what happened today!

[Poetlister]

It is obvious, no?
"Paid editing" when it costs only 300 $ (also called the "Sarah-version") is strictly forbidden.
"Paid editing" when it costs 50,000+++ $ (also called the "Stanton-version") is welcomed with open arms.

Look who popped into Wikipedia last month!

And guess what she did the next day!

And then look what happened today!

Oh, that's just a random vandal using a Comcast IP in the Philadelphia area; take no notice.

[thekohser]

It is obvious, no?
"Paid editing" when it costs only 300 $ (also called the "Sarah-version") is strictly forbidden.
"Paid editing" when it costs 50,000+++ $ (also called the "Stanton-version") is welcomed with open arms.

Look who popped into Wikipedia last month!

And guess what she did the next day!

And then look what happened today!

Oh, that's just a random vandal using a Comcast IP in the Philadelphia area; take no notice.

This former WMF staff member didn't obey your command.

[thekohser]

Liz Allison is back to editing Wikipedia's article about the Stanton Foundation (T-H-L), and she thinks she's exempt from the Bright Line Rule.

Before the analysis comment is removed from DimboTalk...

== Should Bright Line Rule apply to Stanton Foundation? ==

Jimbo, your Bright Line Rule clearly says that those with a financial conflict of interest on a topic should not directly edit the Wikipedia article about their organization. It would seem that Liz Allison of the Stanton Foundation believes that her organization may be an exception, commenting:

I propose to edit "our" page to correct several factual errors and to expand upon the description of our activities. I understand that it would be better if this were done by an unconnected person, but we share the problem of many smaller organizations, that not many people follow our article and so the quality improvement mechanism doesn't work as well as it does with major entries.

According to a recent Form 990 report, Allison is paid $115 an hour ($180,000 annually) for her role directing the Stanton Foundation, so she has a financial conflict of interest.

She has directly edited the article to remove numerous reference sources, including an interesting mention that Stanton served President Eisenhower "on a committee that would plan the country's response to a nuclear attack", and a mention that the roots of the present Stanton Foundation were laid out on September 1, 1991, when the Ruth and Frank Stanton Fund was established, and whose assets were later transferred over to the newly-named Stanton Foundation. She has changed the article to describe the "previously unfunded Ruth and Frank Stanton Fund". Federally-filed documents showed that the Ruth and Frank Stanton Fund had assets of $28.89 million in 2007. Most neutral readers would not characterize that as "unfunded", would they?

Additionally, while Allison has retained mention of the controversial Stanton Foundation donation to the Wikipedian-in-Residence at (her husband's) Belfer Center, where it used to be described on the first "screen" of content in the Wikipedia article, it now requires the reader to scroll down to a third "screen" of text to find it.

I believe you have said in the past that if a violation of the Bright Line Rule is found, if the matter is brought to you thoughtfully and without a "gotcha" tone, you would consider responding appropriately to the editor engaging in the practice. That is why this message has been carried to you here today.

Also worthy of some note: the editor who created the Stanton Foundation (T-H-L) article on Wikipedia was indefinitely blocked by an admin, about 10 months later.

[Poetlister]

It was removed after just over an hour. Three guesses who did it.

[thekohser]

It was removed after just over an hour. Three guesses who did it.

A very miserable person, to be sure.

Anyway, the question has been moved here -- I would appreciated Wikipedians in good standing weighing in on the matter there!

[Vigilant]

It was removed after just over an hour. Three guesses who did it.

A very miserable person, to be sure.

Anyway, the question has been moved here -- I would appreciated Wikipedians in good standing weighing in on the matter there!

Jimmy's micropenis sure does get around.

[thekohser]

Liz and Jimbo are just going to love how this is being portrayed by the mainstream media.

[eppur si muove]

A little bird has told me that Examiner have received the following complaint.

Your reporter, Gregory Kohs, is being economical with the truth here. The "anonymous investigator" in the opening sentence and "whistle-blower" in the last paragraph both refer to Kohs himself. Kohs and Jimmy Wales have had a long-standing personal dispute which has led to Wales having Kohs banned from various facilities with which he is associated including Wikipedia and, in particular, Wales's talk page there. Kohs has made a habit of flouting this ban in an obvious manner by repeatedly using IP addresses beginning with "2001" and Wales has encouraged his more obsequious yes-man to remove anything that "Mr. 2001" posts.

So the "whistle-blower"'s comment was removed here, not because it brought any cosy relationship between the Stanton Foundation and Wikimedia into the light but because Gregory Kohs was tweaking Wales's tale and one of Wales' sycophants was dealing with this in exactly the way that Kohs expected him to.

Please get Kohs to correct this article so that it doesn't contain the nonsense implying a cover-up.

[thekohser]

A little bird has told me that Examiner have received the following complaint.

...tweaking Wales's tale...

I hope that my editor at Examiner will give this all the attention it deserves!

[thekohser]

Astounding that Jimbo still has not responded to the problem, when it was posted on the "Unprotected" sub-page of JimboTalk.

[thekohser]

Sorry to resurrect this thread, a painful chapter in the history of WMF malfeasance, but many of us might have believed that the WMF "learned a lesson" in the Sandole-Stanton-Belfer affair... and we would be wrong, apparently.

Just look...

We do not do an in-depth review of each of the WiR programs after they are completed. We don’t have the capacity to do so, and don’t believe it is compatible with the goals of the APG program, since grantees receive general support funding through this program and are trusted to make decisions about how to use their funding effectively for mission-aligned activities (as specified in their grant agreements).

Yes, we should all remember that with only 289 personnel on the San Francisco payroll, the WMF just does not have the capacity to take an hour or so per Wikipedian-in-Residence program to review how well the Wikipedian complied with community guidelines that set boundaries of good editing. If only the WMF could raise a little more money, maybe they could hire their 290th staff member, whose job duties would include 40 hours a year, monitoring results of WiR programs.

[Randy from Boise]

Sorry to resurrect this thread, a painful chapter in the history of WMF malfeasance, but many of us might have believed that the WMF "learned a lesson" in the Sandole-Stanton-Belfer affair... and we would be wrong, apparently.

Just look...

We do not do an in-depth review of each of the WiR programs after they are completed. We don’t have the capacity to do so, and don’t believe it is compatible with the goals of the APG program, since grantees receive general support funding through this program and are trusted to make decisions about how to use their funding effectively for mission-aligned activities (as specified in their grant agreements).

Yes, we should all remember that with only 289 personnel on the San Francisco payroll, the WMF just does not have the capacity to take an hour or so per Wikipedian-in-Residence program to review how well the Wikipedian complied with community guidelines that set boundaries of good editing. If only the WMF could raise a little more money, maybe they could hire their 290th staff member, whose job duties would include 40 hours a year, monitoring results of WiR programs.

Yeah, but Google has more employees, so WMF can be as incompetent as they want, because Google has more employees.

See how that works?

RfB

[Rogol Domedonfors]

I'm just as concerned by the notion that grantees [...] are trusted to make decisions about how to use their funding effectively. It's only donor money, so who cares?

By the way, I didn't get the point about Google having more employees?

[Poetlister]

By the way, I didn't get the point about Google having more employees?

Google isn't perfect, despite having far more employees than the WMF. How on earth can the WMF do better with so few employees?

[Rogol Domedonfors]

I think I see what you mean, now, thanks. I thought there might be some underlying allusion to Google being the WMF's evil overlord – which it is to no little extent – rather than a general comment. I made a similar point in another thread about the under-performance of the WMF.

One reason the WMF does not exert itself too hard to verify that donor money is being well spent in its affiliates is that the WMF is itself a vehicle for delivering donor money to selected volunteers by providing them with undemanding jobs in San Francisco – jobs where they do not have to exert themselves too hard by doing actual work, or being held to account for their failure to deliver.

There are a few exceptions where effectiveness is required: the Fundraising team are ruthlessly efficient (efficiently ruthless?), as they would have to be, and the servers do manage to stay on a decent percentage of the time.

[eagle]

The Wikipedian in Residence program is not based in logic. On the one hand, a "GLAM" institution has both a reservoir of expertise and a good reputation for using resources effectively and for presenting content reliably and competently. The "GLAM" is a non-profit answerable to its own donor base and heirarchy. The "GLAM" has its own mission statement and accountability structure.

On the other hand, a for-profit business has both a reservoir of expertise and a good reputation for using resources effectively and for presenting content competently (although perhaps selectively aligned with managing its own reputation. The for-profit business is answerable to its management and owners. The for-profit business has its own mission statement (to make a profit within a defined business plan) and generally a better-than-"GLAM" accountability structure.

Given that, the WMF evolves a conflict of interest policy and inserts the WiR into a strange no mans land of COI and accountability vacuum. The WMF is based on a model of obtaining high-quality content for free or at nominal cost. It wants to somehow capitalize on the reputation of the "GLAM's" collection and expertise while grafting it into a chaotic pool of crowd-sourced curation and presentation. The contribution from the "GLAM" will be mixed in with stuff added by the basement-dweller and the policed on an on-going basis by bots and ego-driven teen admins. If it survives it will be juxtaposed with the hoax de jour. The WiR program seeks to buy credibility from the host institution without any effort to see that the reputation boost is earned by properly maintaining the generated content.

At the same time, a for-profit business seeks to manage its reputation by paying someone to generate or edit Wikipedia content. (Suppose Ford Motor Company (T-H-L) uploads images of all of its prior model cars and polishes its corporate history and biographies of past executives.) Under the bright line rule, for-profit businesses are prohibited from doing that while GLAMs are encouraged to do the same thing. While the WiR is not supposed to edit on paid company time, he is supposed to train employees of the host to do paid editing, and in fact in many cases the WiR is expected to edit on a voluntary basis. All monitoring of GLAM content stops at the end of the WiR's term. Meanwhile, for-profit businesses pay people to monitor their on-wiki content over time to protect it from detractors, but it must be disclosed in a general way on the user page.

Meanwhile, the funding does not need to pass muster under either the host or the WMF. It is ok for the WiR to buy a group of employees lunch as a bribe to get them to participate in an edit-a-thon. The WiR's effectiveness and productivity is not really measured.

The "GLAM" / for-profit distinction makes no sense. The completely opposite treatment of "GLAMs" and for-profit businesses reflect the implicit assumption that for-profit business are untrustworthy and have questionable reputations (while "GLAMs" are more trustworthy and have better reputations than the WMF.) However, there is no strict definition of a "GLAM." For example, the Australian Paralympic Committee put out an RFP for a historian to write a book on their movement. They were persuaded instead to fund an WiR to place their content into Wikipedia. Major COI concerns disappeared by declaring the group to be a "GLAM". Hypothetically, if Apple were to fund a WiR at the Computer History Museum (T-H-L), can content relating to Apple be transferred to Wikipedia? (This is an analog to the Staton Foundation.) Can the United Daughters of the Confederacy (T-H-L) host a WiR? So, if the community likes the reputation or mission statement of a group, it is a "GLAM" and COI and accountability concerns disappear. If the WiR receives a WMF grant, the WiR will be subject to the host's accountability structure and not to the WMF.