[p2p-research] conflict of interest in wikipedia

Mon Jan 7 04:36:01 CET 2008

found this, from here
http://wikipediareview.com/blog/20070821/the-tight-knit-web-of-wikimedia-and-wikia/#more-23

*Wikimedia Foundation* Board of Directors includes: Jimmy Wales (Chairman
Emeritus) and Michael E. Davis (Treasurer). Wikimedia Foundation also enjoys
the services of a former Board member, who remains a member of the
Communications Committee of the Wikimedia Foundation and also chairs the
Foundation's Advisory Board: Angela Beesley.

Contrast the above list of individuals with a list of key players at the
for-profit *Wikia, Inc.*: Jimmy Wales (co-founder), Michael E. Davis
(Treasurer and Secretary), Angela Beesley (co-founder and vice president for
community relations).

Non-profit and for-profit board members and accountants both have fiduciary
duties to act in the best interest of their organizations. By various laws
and governance principles they have to recuse themselves or avoid
involvement when there is a conflict of interest. Even a perceived conflict
can be corrosive to governance and is sometimes prohibited because donors
and volunteers lose faith. Someone who is on the board of Wikimedia
Foundation or prepares its finances and also has a financial stake in Wikia
should be very careful about taking positions within Wikimedia properties
that could benefit Wikia by directing traffic there, banning things from
Wikipedia so as to distinguish it from a commercial site, making Wikipedia
less attractive to constituents than Wikia, etc. Actions that seem to raise
a conflict might include hiring personnel from the volunteer Foundation to
work at the for-profit corporation, installing Wikia, Inc. employees into
positions of power within Foundation properties, selectively banning some
commercial links while allowing others, travel and speaking engagements for
the Foundation that are also used to drum up support for the for-profit
venture, etc.

It would appear that all of these warning signals have been played out in
reality at the Wikimedia Foundation.

The IRS form 1023 notes in Line 5a: *A "conflict of interest" arises when a
person in a position of authority over an organization, such as a director,
officer, or manager, may benefit personally from a decision he or she could
make.* Note also Appendix A of said form, starting at Page 25, which
outlines a sample Conflict of Interest policy that a non-profit organization
might adopt. There has been no indication that the Wikimedia Foundation has
such a policy, nor is there any record that the Board of Directors have
discussed (without Wales or Davis present in the conversation) whether a
conflict of interest was present for those two, who happen to be former
business partners and are currently vested in Wikia, which has benefited
from many, many favorable associations within Wikipedia:

(1) An article by Nik
Cubrilovic<http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/04/28/wikipedia-special-treatment-for-wikia-and-other-wikis/>on
TechCrunch.com outlined how in Febuary of 2005 the Wikipedia community voted
in favor (by a vote of 61% to 39%) of removing "nofollow" tags (which have
the effect of dampening Google search engine results for said links), but
this outcome was overruled by Jimmy Wales, in early 2007. It seems that
while the nofollow tag is added to standard outbound links, it is not
applied to inter-wiki links, which would include certain formatted links to
Wikia.com. That is, Wales' personal decision to overrule the community
consensus had the effect of particularly benefiting the search results for
his for-profit business, Wikia, Inc. Wales has denied that he gave the order
to add "nofollow" to all non-interwiki links; however, the code developer
who implemented the change has expressly stated that he was instructed to
take these actions by Jimmy Wales.

(2) There are currently over 9,400 outbound links from Wikipedia to
Wikia.com sites — which are supported by revenue-generating advertising from
Google AdSense banners and contextual ads. Furthermore, Amazon was the sole
investor in Wikia's second round of capital
generation<http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Amazon_invests_in_Wikia>,
purportedly to the tune of $10
million<http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/amazoncoms-investment-in-wikia-10-million-developing-wiki-based-search-engi/>.
Meanwhile, Amazon enjoys over 27,500 outbound links from Wikipedia, not to
mention nearly 120,000 outbound links from Wikipedia to IMDB.com, which is
wholly owned by Amazon. Virtually every page of IMDB.com contains glitzy
images and links to buy products from Amazon, even in German or French.
There is no denying that Amazon is benefiting from sales traffic being
generated by the Wikipedia website, which is governed in part by a Board
staffed with Wikia principals, who are in turn funded by Amazon. This is a
three-way racket.

(3) There is a court
case<http://www.state.il.us/court/Opinions/AppellateCourt/2006/1stDistrict/March/Html/1041110.htm>ruling
against Michael E. Davis. This is important, as it shows that Davis
has not paid $817,830 that he was judged to owe the plaintiff. Donors to the
Wikimedia Foundation are simultaneously being asked to "trust" that Davis
will do a good job with the books at both Wikimedia and Wikia, Inc.

(4) The Wikimedia Foundation's own Form
990<http://www.ihatewikipedia.com/uploads/Wikimedia_IRS_Form_990_2006_YE_063006.pdf>indicates
on Line 80 that there is a personnel relationship between Wikia,
Inc. and the Foundation. Yet, the Wikipedia article about Wikia, Inc. has
been edited to say that "Wikia, Inc. is independent from the Wikimedia
Foundation…"

(5) Angela Beesley (co-founder of Wikia, Inc.) has publicly noted that she
has reclaimed rejected Wikipedia
articles<http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/htdig/wikien-l/2007-January/059882.html>that
were entered into the non-profit encyclopedia under the GNU Free
Documentation License, and re-constituted them on the Wikia website for the
benefit of Wikia's content and ad-clicking traffic. In so doing, she is
exploiting for personal profit the Wikipedia community's work, which would
not be unethical — were it not that she acts as the head of the Wikimedia
Foundation's Advisory Board and works on the Communications Committee for
the Foundation.

(6) Larry Sanger neatly summarized the events surrounding a scandal that
took place<http://blog.citizendium.org/2007/03/05/one-last-brief-comment-on-the-essjay-scandal/>in
early 2007. In January, Wikia, Inc. hired a 24-year-old named Ryan
Jordan, in full knowledge that on Wikipedia he had been impersonating a
multi-degreed college professor. In February, Jimmy Wales personally
appointed Jordan (user name "Essjay") to the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee
— the highest panel of dispute resolution below the Board of Directors —
knowing that Jordan had been impersonating a professor, and probably knowing
that Jordan had perpetuated the charade with a Pulitzer-winning journalist
at *The New Yorker*. The Arbitration Committee, by rule, had to accept
Wales' nomination of Jordan. Presumably, many of the Committee members also
knew that Jordan had been impersonating a professor. Later that month, when
Wales told *The New Yorker, *"I regard it as a pseudonym and I don't really
have a problem with it," he *was* referring to the fact that Jordan had been
impersonating a professor. The resulting firestorm surrounding Jordan's
fabricated credentials seems to have drowned out what may be the even larger
ethical question — Jimmy Wales installed a Wikia employee, without debate,
onto the Foundation's most visible chamber of dispute resolution, without
anyone questioning it.

(7) Jimmy Wales makes Wikipedia-related pronouncements when he is traveling
for speaking engagements, and these have a quasi-policy effect within the
encyclopedia. Yet, during these same speaking engagements, Wales will boost
and promote his various Wikia-related projects for profit. Even in his
public speaking, he cannot comprehend that he is ensnared in a tangled
web<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olmTL1cc-UE>of conflicted behavior.
The Foundation board does vote on resolutions that
affect what the encyclopedia looks like, how content is licensed and
distributed, and how Wikipedia goes about its business generally. If a board
member were to say "We do not do X on Wikipedia, that is for other wiki
sites", this implies "wikis such as Wikia, Inc., where I might make some
money from it." Wikimedia Foundation donors and volunteers should be
concerned. It is the prerogative of the stakeholders to discuss conflicted
management issues; however, thus far, these calls have fallen mostly on deaf
ears.

This contributor feels that it is time for the federal authorities to step
in (IRS Form 3949 A, perhaps) and at least investigate these claims of
conflicted behavior among specific members on the Board of Directors of the
Wikimedia Foundation, who are clearly using Wikimedia properties such as
Wikipedia to personally benefit financially at Wikia, Inc.

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