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From the Wikipedia "foundation-l" mailing list:
QUOTE("Michael Snow")
We also appointed someone to one of the vacant expertise seats appointed by the board. His name is Matt Halprin, and in brief, Matt is with the Omidyar Network and a former eBay executive who was in charge of trust and safety there. Matt has met with a number of us over the past several months, and I invited him to join us in Buenos Aires and meet the entire board. The Omidyar Network is very interested in supporting our strategy development discussions, and I look forward to having Matt's experience and insight as we continue with the process.
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QUOTE(A spatula said what? @ Tue 25th August 2009, 5:16pm)
From the Wikipedia "foundation-l" mailing list:
QUOTE("Michael Snow")
We also appointed someone to one of the vacant expertise seats appointed by the board. His name is Matt Halprin, and in brief, Matt is with the Omidyar Network and a former eBay executive who was in charge of trust and safety there. Matt has met with a number of us over the past several months, and I invited him to join us in Buenos Aires and meet the entire board. The Omidyar Network is very interested in supporting our strategy development discussions, and I look forward to having Matt's experience and insight as we continue with the process.
Jimbo does have a possible point in this last paragraph:
QUOTE(Jimbo @ 23:36, 29 August 2009 (UTC))
I think that people who are concerned that this is "buying a seat" can take some comfort in the fact that not one board member supports the notion that it would be ok to "sell" a seat on the board. But additionally, I think it's important to remember that it would be absolutely impossible for anyone to get their money's worth, if they have some nefarious purpose in mind. A board seat simply wouldn't be worth $2 million - how the heck could you ever make anything back out of it?
Obviously $2 million is chicken feed to someone who's worth as much as Omidyar, but still, for that much money you'd think they could at least protect his BLP article:
...all of which is not as bad as it's been for a lot of other People With Big Bucks - none of these edits lasted more than a minute or two. When you think of all the people who have been ripped off in eBay transactions over the years, that's a fairly large pool of potential "vandals."
Then again, if I were really, really cynical, I could maybe suggest that the grant is a defensive move, to ensure that WP won't start taking ad revenue anytime soon - since some of the companies taking out ads on Future Wikipedia might be eBay competitors, whose success might serve to diminish Omidyar's net worth (much of which is in the form of eBay stock). I don't think I'm quite that cynical, though... (am I?) (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/unsure.gif)
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QUOTE(Somey @ Sun 30th August 2009, 4:53am)
Obviously $2 million is chicken feed to someone who's worth as much as Omidyar, but still, for that much money you'd think they could at least protect his BLP article...