Talk:Conflict of Interest Policy

Summary of private discussion

When this draft was circulated on the private members mailing list (1 October) the discussion focused on

whether the COI should be publicly disclosed or treated confidentially by the committee, and
when the declaration should happen (beginning of meeting or as the agenda items arise), and
what the committee member with a COI should do during the relevant agenda item.

I wont repeat everyones thoughts publicly; just noting that these issues need to be considered, discussed and possible the draft altered. John Vandenberg 20:05, 7 October 2012 (EST)

multiple hat wearing

While not necessary immediately, one issue that I would like our COI policy to explicitly address is multiple hat wearing. Many of our board and members have multiple roles within the movement (e.g. every committee member is also an contributor to English Wikipedia), and sometimes board members also have other positions of responsibility within the movement. Too often a person will compartmentalise their various activities as being undertake while wearing one of many hats, and believe that actions done while wearing a different hat are free of any relationship to their board position. However someone else may believe that they were wearing a different hat for those actions, resulting in confusion or worse. Sometimes this problem is addressed by people always explicitly saying which hat they are wearing for each action. However someone in a board position should be expected to always put the organisations interests ahead of their own, and actions they take while wearing another hat do reflect on the organisation, for good or ill. I think we should mandate that a WMAU board member must agree to at a responsible representative of WMAU in all of their public actions. i.e. if they are in public they must wear their WMAU hat. John Vandenberg 19:57, 7 October 2012 (EST)