Proposal: Conflict of interest policy

{{proposal|member1=John Vandenberg|member2=Sam Wilson}}

As the size of our projects increase, and more partnerships are involved, we need to improve policy, project management practises, and communications (including disclosure).  The most obvious place to start is the many missing policies, however more important than policies are a community that ask (hard) questions of the committee on a regular basis, and becomes more involved in the organisation in general.  And that applies doubly so for the financial members of the organisation.

One key policy that we are missing is a conflict of interest policy.

Our previous secretary Sarah wrote a draft policy on the private committee wiki in May 2010‎, however it was not discussed or adopted since then.

This proposal is to publish that draft policy on the public wiki, to be edited prior to the 21 October committee meeting when it will be approved by the committee.  The policy will then be tabled at the [[Meeting:2012 AGM]] to be endorsed by the membership.

The draft policy is at [[Conflict of interest policy]].

We should look at the Wikimedia Foundation  [[wmf:COI]] policy and incorporate any use additions.  Note that Craig Franklin has already taken this document and revised it in order to make it suitable for Wikimedia Australia.

The [http://www.ourcommunity.com.au/files/policybank/ConflictofInterest.doc template policy] from ourcommunity, and their [http://www.ourcommunity.com.au/boards/boards_article.jsp?articleId=1346 notes], should be reviewed and any good elements incorporated.  Note that these documents are not 'free content', so the additions to our policy will need to be avoid copy&paste.

[[meta:Guidelines on potential conflicts of interest]]