Chris wrote:Peter Damian wrote:Me:
Peter Damian wrote:After many years, I have come to realise that the most easily concealed form of corruption is the kind that is the boldest and most brazen. Advertise it well, although don't call it by its true name. Try and involve most of the people who would be your internal critics – especially if you are able to implicate them in it. Label it in a way that is familiar and reassuring to everyone. Publicise it widely. That way, no one will imagine it is corruption. They think that everyone else will have scrutinised it carefully, and that because others have endorsed it there can be no possibility of it being what it really is. People always imagine that corruption involves only secrecy and back-handers in dark places, and suitcases full of money.
Bamkin:
I realise that this is a very interesting debate but do try and remember that these facts that are being discovered are public knowledge. The project was announced at Wikimania, no less, with a video that set out the projects plans and expectations. The video made it clear that the minister for tourism was involved and that this was not a WMUK project. The project does not involve me in being paid to create articles. I am creating plaques based on QRpedia, I am supplying training and I am encouraging people to use and edit wikipedia (and open street map et al).
The ownership of the QRpedia domains has been documented in WMUK minutes and it was obvious when I made a presentation at the Wikiconference in 2011 (before I was elected as a director). As Chris has noted the transfer of the intellectual property to WMUK has run on for months. There is no conspiracy. The rights to QRpedia are intended as a gift and cannot be just demanded.
Those who voted for me and/or attended the last wiki AGM/conference are aware that I was (and am) offering my expertise as a consutant. These are the same skills as I was paid for at the end of the Monmouthpedia project. All of this was overseen by the board. The COI conflict meant that I gladly stepped down as Chair but I was asked to stay on as a board member. The board agreed to manage the COI conflict, which I am obviously pleased to comply with.
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/pri ... 09235.html
LOL, so, this is the sort of secret conspiracy where corruption is craftily at the highest level by being openly announced as a nasty plan for conspiracy and corruption well in
advance of Bamkin even pursuing paid work? He went on to tell the membership all about it during the election and made a presentation about it all at Wikimania where Jimbo was a key speaker (yet Jimbo now handily denies all knowledge)?
Talk about damned if you do and damned if you don't. It looks to me that the guy has been so open he's been on the verge of crucifying himself.
What a strange view of the world where everyone must be corrupt. If I thought that way, I would totally believe that politicians were being craftily replaced by alien replicants.
You don't get it, do you?
Charities are given certain financial advantages on the expectation that they act (only) for the public good. As over the years, charities have been subverted for whatever reason, the rules governing charities are quite strict. Trustees, for example, can never be paid for their work in running the charity, and must absolutely discount any personal advantage in any decision they make, they must set their entire personal life to one side while being part of the charity.
There are two fundamental issues here: one the trustees of a charity being involved in business dealings which potentially benefit an individual without being directly in line with the objectives of the charity (simple example, the subversion of DYK and the subsequent concerns raised that WM UK seem to be involved in messing about with Wikipedia to the detriment of the project); secondly, we have an individual who has a business model that depends on Wikipedia, and is using WM UK as a means to inflate his standing with the customers, and also seems to have been gaining business out of the charity.
Further, there are a group of individuals who seem to be doing commercial work closely allied to WM UK.
There are two solutions: WMUK does not need to be a charity, it could be a business without the charitable aspect. As soon as the charity aspect comes in, it is not a case of "managing COI issues" it is a case that they should be avoided unless it can be shown that there is a direct benefit to the charity. I don't think that is the case. Effectively, as it stands, Roger is gaining a benefit from the taxpayer for his business as without WMUK it is doubtful he could be doing the consultancy he is doing. What commission or other benefits is he providing back to the charity when he is so enthusiastically basing his earnings upon that charity?
Secondly, there is no reason for Roger to be part of the WMUK management. Just because he is a good egg, or is a mate, or does things that WMUK see as useful, he should not be in there, and should be at arm's length from the organisation. The fact that he is trading off the name of WM UK, and that is indisputable, is one of the conflicts. WM UK do not get a benefit from that, but are getting damage. Any uninvolved trustees would have put a stop to this and insisted that there was a formal disassociation of the consultancy work from the charity, but it is clear that clients have been sold his insider expertise.
You cannot mix a private business and a charity. It is very simple.
Further point: given that Roger's business is fundamentally linked to WM UK, it seems that the COI issue seems to have been restricted to actual financial deals, but what has not been understood is that he will have a general influence on the total policy that could be seen as promoting activities that ally to his business interests. So he was heavily involved in setting up Monmouthopedia, not earning directly, but then jumped over the wall when that was set up. It could well be argued that his decisions in the run up to his leaving to work as a consultant were conflicted.
