MIskander-WMF

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Notification of potential grant fraud

As a follow up to User_talk:MIskander-WMF/Archives/2024#Potential_misappropriation_of_grant_funds to which you have not yet replied, I wanted to draw your attention to another case of potential grant fraud, which I have outlined in Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Wiki Loves Earth 2024 in Togo (ID: 22680682)/Final Report.

I am disappointed by your ongoing disinterest in this matter. Should I be reporting this directly to the IRS or a state attorney general? Bovlb (talk) 21:20, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

@Bovlb - I can see the grantee has responded to you directly after you left the message on the grants page and my talk page and also that a conversation about notability is ongoing with the grantee and other editors on their Wikidata talk page. I am asking @RWeissburg (WMF) to follow these conversations and investigate further the specifics of what you have noted, including your recommendations with the regional grants officer responsible for this grant. They will be in touch. Please direct further questions on this matter specifically on this grants page. -MIskander-WMF (talk) 15:51, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for responding. This issue is much wider than one specific grant, as it appears to keep happening, again and again. I would like to hear your thoughts on solving the general problem. Bovlb (talk) 16:09, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

I wanted to clarify a conflation here:

My on-project conversations with editors are intended to help them by identifying editing problems, teaching them how to resolve them and also how to avoid them in future. This sort of thing happens a lot in the day-to-day life of a project, and I am proud to have pioneered several documents, template messages, and tools that assist with this process. Notwithstanding, there seems to be a never-ending flood of new editors who may be well-intentioned, but have been let down somewhere along the line, because they start in with bulk creation of new items, but don't know how to follow basic policies such as notability. This is why I try to trace the problem upstream, to see if we can stop it from happening in the first place.

My messages here on meta are concerned with improving the grants process, as I believe we should have some basic expectation that grants will improve projects, not just make extra work for volunteers. I would like to make grants conditional on the participants presenting some positive evidence that they can make productive contributions to the target projects. This is especially the case for grants that involve some element of training others, such as editathons. Unfortunately, we don't even seem to be holding grant applications to the much weaker negative conditions that are part of the stated eligibility criteria. Bovlb (talk) 16:42, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

As an example of a small change that might have a significant impact, I suggest that these questions be part of future grant applications:

• Please give details of any training undertaken or certification received by participants that relate to the target projects.
• Do any of the participants has a record of problem edits on any target project? If so, has feedback been responded to, and what reason is there to believe that these problems will not affect this application?
• I acknowledge that every project has its own policies and guidelines, in particular including local notability criteria. Participants undertake to familiarise themselves with these and will attempt to follow them.

Bovlb (talk) 17:06, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

@Bovlb Confirming here that I've responded to your concerns over on the grants page, as suggested by Maryana, above. RWeissburg (WMF) (talk) 16:18, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

How can we prevent subpoenas being served on editors because of their work?

Given the current situation with the Asian News International vs. Wikimedia Foundation case, I'm not sure I have confidence in the Legal or CR&S departments to ask them this question, which probably spans technical and management policy outside of their purview anyway, so let me ask you:

What do we need to do so that anonymous volunteer editors can't be served subpoenas in suits brought by parties unhappy with their work? Mesopub (talk) 16:35, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

@Mesopub - Thanks for your question. The Legal team posted an update to explain that a summons informs someone of a lawsuit, it does not mean they have to participate in a case. I won’t be able to say more about the case itself given the rules of active litigation, but can reiterate what we have shared in every communication so far, which is that protecting volunteers is the paramount priority. I am sorry that you can’t see close up what I experience in the integrity, competence, and values of our Legal and T&S teams who are using every tool they can to defend and protect Wikimedians. MIskander-WMF (talk) 14:15, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying this. I was not aware, and as far as I can see the Foundation has not mentioned in any of the updates, that unlike court summonses almost everywhere else, "an omission to appear in response to a summons under Section 27 [of the Indian Code of Civil Procedure] carries no penalty in the strict sense, while disregard of a summons under Section 30 may entail punishment."[1] That makes a huge difference, and I am very glad that exception applies here. Mesopub (talk) 20:49, 12 December 2024 (UTC)