User:Iopensa/COI

Still editing this page.

My ex-husband is certain that my volunteer work is a strategy to avoid taking care of our children and doing the laundry.

1. I edit Wikipedia with my username, I have no sock puppets and I have never asked others to create articles on my behalf on topics I have conflicts of interests. It has happened that I edit Wikipedia anonymously by mistake; I do not recall that this have ever happened on controversial articles; in any case I have never used anonymous accounts with the intentional objective to manipulate Wikipedia for my interests or related interests. In July 2006 I have opened an account on Wikipedia in Italian called WikiAfrica-provagenerale-25-7-07 and 3 other accounts (Discussant-redattore, Maria Sebregondi-redattore and Elio Grazioli-redattore); the system was tested in collaboration with other Wikipedia in Italian users for an event during which we created live the Wikipedia article Velo; the system was meant to attribute properly oral edits, but it was too complicated and it didn't work efficiently; we did not replicate the experience.
2. I have a clear bias toward providing African content on Wikipedia. I have been explicitly working since 2006 in contributing to enrich Wikipedia with articles and content (my content and content of others released under cc by-sa related to Africa); I have been directly involved in GLAMWiki partnerships to assist institutions in releasing content under cc by-sa. I have been contributing to articles related to Africa on Wikipedia before I was working as scientific director of WikiAfrica and I started contributing back more to Wikipedia after I left lettera27 Foundation. I have no interest in promoting a specific image of Africa; as everybody I have institutions and people I admire more than others (among which doual'art, chimurenga, ars collaboratory, prince claus fund...), but I have no conflicts of interests (or indirect benefit on my professional career), that limit my judgment or impose me to promote institutions or to provide a positive image of them. My contributions highlight my preferences, but my edits aim at contributing to Wikipedia with a neutral point of view and relevant sources.
3. I have been working with lettera27 foundation between 2007 and 2012. This was always clearly stated in my user page. I was aware since the very beginning that this collaboration could have lead to a conflict of interest while contributing to Wikipedia and implementing the WikiAfrica project. In particular the synergy between lettera27 projects and Wikipedia (through WikiAfrica and Share Your Knowledge) had the potential role of producing self-promotion; this would have undermined the real intent of the project which was/is clearly and exclusively aiming at enhancing Wikipedia and respecting its rules. For this very reason I have been systematically understating the presence of lettera27 on Wikipedia. I have not created an article about the organization in any language and - as a director of the project - I have opposed any attempt to promote the name and visibility of lettera27 on Wikipedia. Nevertheless there is the legal necessity to attribute work to its authors as a fact and as the cc by-sa license requires.
4. My contribution to doual'art and the SUD Salon Urbain de Douala does not promote my own interests. I do not have - nor any of my relatives have - direct or indirect business or financial interests with doual'art, the SUD Salon Urbain de Douala or Marilyn Douala Bell or with any other member of doual'art organizers or artists; there are no direct or indirect benefits or favors I receive - or any of my relatives receive - in my contribution to doual'art and the above. Even with the iStrike Foundation I had no direct or indirect business or financial interests. In 2005 my travel costs to Douala have been covered by doual'art since I was an invited guest to the Ars&Urbis 2005 symposium; in 2007 my travel costs to Douala have been covered by Mondriaan Foundation and doual'art to contribute to the Ars&Urbis international workshop. Those are the only financial and professional benefits I received in my collaboration. I have been contributing to support doual'art by triggering financial grants from which I did not benefitted nor directly nor indirectly: notably Doen Foundation, Prince Claus Fund, Orange Foundation (WikiAfrica Cameroon project); doual'art has also been supported by lettera27. I am have been active in the IGE Individual Grant Engagement for a project involving doual'art; the project includes my travel costs to Wikimania 2014 London to participate in the project presentation; I contribute to the project as a volunteer and I do not receive from the grant any salary (not directly from the grant nor indirectly from doual'art or any person involved in the project).
5. I am working for SUPSI since 2013 as it is indicated in my user page. I was paid as guest speaker at the Sommerakademie/Paul Klee Musum. I have been working as a payed consultant for Africa e Mediterraneo and the Africa Centre. I have been payed for articles published in the magazines Domus, Gulliver, Flair, Flash Art, Tema Celeste. I received individual grants from Fondazione Banca del Monte di Lombardia, Wikimedia IT, Wikimedia CH, Wikimedia Foundation, the European Commission, ACASA Arts Council of the African Studies Association, Mondriaan Foundation; those grants were supporting specific activities (mainly research and travel costs).
6. I serve as a volunteer consultant for Prince Claus Fund; the only benefit I receive (beyond the pleasure of contributing to an institutions that fosters culture in Africa, Asia and Latin America) is that each year I am invited to the Prince Claus Award Ceremony in Amsterdam and the organization offers me to cover my accommodation for two nights (I cover the travel cost and I took advantage of this invitation in 2012).
7. In regards to Moleskine company (which supports lettera27 Foundation) I have never contributed to its article on Wikipedia in any language; I was aware that a contribution to their visibility might have lead to conflict of interest; they once asked me advice on how to improve their article and I suggested them to make external sources about the company (publications, studies, press reviews) available; I reverted an edit in 2013 because content was cancelled on the article simply due to a presumed conflict of interest with me and I added a comment in the discussion page; this led nowhere. I don't particularly care but I find strange that people can accuse you with "board member of lettera27 promoting the sale of its own book" when you actually didn't write neither that Wikipedia article nor the book removed.
8. I have been of course contributing to WikiAfrica project page on Wikipedia in different languages. WikiAfrica is a wiki project and it was openly and transparently developed on Wikipedia. The fact that I was editing the project pages WikiAfrica as scientific director for lettera27 foundation was clearly stated in my user page, I was not paid for updating those pages and in any case the project pages were not meant to promote lettera27 but to inform and coordinate the work about the wiki project. The project page was created by Wikimedia Italia on Wikipedia in Italian and then created in other languages. All the institutions involved are mentioned. The name of lettera27 is included in those pages because lettera27 is indeed the institution which have launched and promoted the project since 2006. Not mentioning it means to not attributing it. I have actually argued quite a long time ago that I think WikiAfrica project page could be merged with the Africa project and to prepare it I have been adding more information about the project WikiAfrica - and other projects related to Africa (Africa Portal, Afripédia…) - on meta. But this is not and can not be my own decision. In any case, I strongly believe WikiAfrica project pages have been used to coordinate WikiAfrica on Wikipedia (what project pages are meant for) and they do not represent a promotional initiative to support the visibility of lettera27 or WikiAfrica. I would also argue that project pages are really not the most efficient promotional tool you can find and use on the internet. The project has been launched in 2006 by lettera27 in collaboration with Wikimedia Italia and it has been involving many other institutions and people through time; notably we were really pleased in 2011 when the Africa Centre has decided to become an active promoter of the project (this is something any institution can do); all the project documentation is in cc by-sa, everything produced is open for reuse; I am not aware of any registered trademark associated to WikiAfrica.
9. I have been founder and board member of the iStrike Foundation between 2005 and 2008. I didn't create an article on the institution but I have added few citations in articles I have been editing. Please note that since its creation the institution have used the cc by-sa license to allow its documentation to be used freely. In case documentation was available there, I used it and I have cited the source.
10. I have been publishing articles about my area of expertise which is contemporary African art. I have contributing to articles in this field and my publications do represent a source. I have used them and I have cited my work when I believed it was relevant for the articles; I have always cited more sources and I have not deliberately used citations from my work for self-promotion, but to edit articles and contributing to Wikipedia according to the related guidelines (w:en:WP:SELFCITE, w:en:WP:SELFPUB, w:en:WP:SELFPROMOTE). I have included inline citations (w:en:Wikipedia:Neutral point of view#Attributing and specifying biased statements) to specify which where my biased statements and I have attributed work when using material I wrote and released in cc by-sa. I have cited self-published work only when specifically related to an interview and relevant for an article. The very fact I did not wrote an article about myself or asked people to do it, I trust is an indicator of my intentions. According to the guidelines "Using material you have written or published is allowed within reason, but only if it is relevant, conforms to the content policies, including WP:SELFPUB, and is not excessive. Citations should be in the third person and should not place undue emphasis on your work. When in doubt, defer to the community's opinion." I didn't consistently added citations to my publications on all Wikipedia articles that have a related topic, just to spam the encyclopedia with my work; I used them case by case.
11. I have been contributing to Africa e Mediterraneo article (which I created in 2006 on Wikipedia in Italian) and to the SUPSI article on Wikipedia in English. I have a conflict of interest in those articles because I have been working for Africa e Mediterraneo and now I work for SUPSI. Those have not been considered controversial articles and I trust I have been contributing in an informative and neutral way. More specifically in the SUPSI article there is only a mention to my laboratory (Laboratorio Cultura Visiva/Laboratory of Visual Culture) and I trust I avoided any opinion-based content or promotional content. But please do not hesitate to review them and check.
12. I do have quite a few relatives with encyclopedic articles on paper encyclopedias and on Wikipedia (notably Ferdinand de Saussure, Édouard Naville and François Naville, and quite a few others on Wikipedia, such as my cousin, my uncle, him and him and the Swiss among them). I have contributed extensively to the Wikipedia in Italian article about my Italian grand-father (author of books and alpinist) and translated the French article in Italian about my Swiss grand-father (author of books as well). Quite frankly I can not recall any personal benefit in my life of having relatives on encyclopedias, but I am aware of the conflict of interest. I have informed members of the community by email to ask for advice specifically about my contribution to Pietro Pensa; they told me be bold. Also those articles don't appear to be considered controversial or promotional.
13. I have contacts with many institutions and people. This is actually my expertise and what I can bring to Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects. Having an expertise does not mean to have a conflict of interest. My approach on Wikipedia is not to contribute for my own economic/professional interest (direct or indirect interests or to obtain favors and other benefits).
14. I have been working as professor at NABA Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti Milano between 2007 and 2012; my course was on Art Economy and I was teaching with Domenico Sedini and Simona Bodo. I was payed to teach and to make the exams. Independently from my contract, I involved the students in producing wikipedia articles since the beginning (the article was part of the exam); later on the other professors liked the idea too and in 2010-2011 (some of the exams happened in 2012) I invited the students to contribute with their specific work to WikiAfrica. For this reason – in agreement with Marco Scotini, director of the master course – I created a template for NABA; I added the template only to the articles related to Africa and developed within the course (not to all articles made by NABA students, and not to other articles unrelated to the topic). Here is the documentation related to the courses.
15. I have been developing quite a lot of projects in Esino Lario always as a volunteer. I am a member of the Associazione Amici del Museo delle Grigne Onlus and CAI and I am coordinator of the Ecomuseo delle Grigne; for all those roles and for the related projects I am a volunteer and I have never received money from any association in Esino or from the city council (not even reimbursements for transport and meals). It is possible that in the future I will be mayor of Esino Lario; I have been asked already several times to run for it, it is a duty that for centuries my family have carried out (always as volunteers - as representatives of the community and as mayors), and there is really not a queue for it. My family (parents and cousins) does not have particular real estate interests in Esino Lario; family members do have some holiday homes, some tolls, some woods (basically all people from Esino have some tolls and woods) and there is still the former shed used by ODE (a company formally owned by my relatives, which started in Esino; now the building is partially rented as a storage space). I am not aware of family links with tourist operators in Esino, but if there are they date back to last century or so (if we check family trees in a small village you might end up demonstrating some sort of relationships with something like 60% of the population). When I first proposed a project in 2003 to rearrange the archive of my grandfather to make it public (a project which at the end took five years with a team of professional archivists), I told my family that I wanted to get payed for my work (at the time I was a freelancer and my profession is specifically related to the activity): my father and my uncle told me "no way". And this is how it went. It is a sort of family legacy that you do things "for Esino Lario" (this is also how other family members behave; i.e. the street my grandfather build was done using for free the machines he was working on and he needed to test; he made the projects – i.e. the strew, the hydraulic pun for the water supply in Esino, the restoration of pastures – as an engineer for free, and he created the kindergarten, the museum and he established the Comunità montana as a volunteer).
16. The proposal of Wikimania Esino Lario would be impossible if I (or someone else) did not know the territory, the people and the institutions of the area. I am from Esino Lario (this is also pretty clear here) and my family link is quite explicit in the taxonomy of the village (in particular the name of my grant-father is pretty ubiquitous). In case Wikimania Esino Lario will take place we will provide my family house without asking for reimbursement. In Wikimania Esino Lario team there are some of my relatives contributing; they are all volunteers. There are also friends involved in the team and they are volunteers as well. We might include in Wikimania team a payed manager (not selected yet) and it is probable that the person will be someone I know and I have been working with before. For Wikimania Esino Lario we will have quite a large number of suppliers; as defined in the approach (pillars) we will surely involve first of all local suppliers (operators based in Esino and in the area); the fact that the project is supported and it involves public institutions (Esino Lario city council and Comunità montana) and the potential involvement of grant-makers (Lombardy Region, Italian foundations) requires a very transparent financial management (bank payments, estimates, tenders, detailed financial report); we are actually looking for a system to reduce the level of complexity requested by public institutions through the establishment of a committee or a cooperative to manage the event: this would allow to split the budget into areas (side events, program, technical, communication...) and to have a direct management (and financial report) by each team lead by a person responsible for the task and for the budget; this system can be specifically useful to take full advantage of the budget (instead of making one payment to one large provider, it can allow to get the best price with more providers). In any case all transitions related to Wikimania Esino Lario will be documented (bank payments and bank statement and receipts) and I can not recall to have (or any of my relatives have) any direct or indirect business or financial interests related to any of the providers we have currently contacted or considered.
17. I am paid by SUPSI for the project The Alps on Wikipedia (2013-2015) linked to Esino Lario; it is a trans-border project Italy-Switzerland. I have conceived the project when I was not working at SUPSI and with the project I made sure it was included a financial support for the museum design in Esino Lario (managed - the museum and the new museum design – by Esino Lario city council); when I proposed the project to the Comunità Montana Valsassina Valvarrone Val d'Esino e Riviera (leading institution for the Italian side of the project), I have made very clear that Esino was to be involved (which was not a problem since it is also part of the comunità montana and this institution does support all the villages which are part of its network). In 2013 I have started working for SUPSI and in the project I became principal investigator for Switzerland and I am scientific consultant for both sides (I have a percentage of my time devoted to it, around 30%); my role is basically to facilitate contributions to the Wikimedia projects by involving institutions in providing content with open licenses (in Switzerland and Italy) and by supporting training. This project is also developed in partnership with Wikimedia Italia and Wikimedia CH. If Wikimania Esino Lario takes place, I am thinking of developing some trans-border projects Italy-Swtizterland. This is coherent with the double support of Wikimedia Italia and Wikimedia CH to Wikimania Esino Lario (meant also to allow the project to get resources - in kind, volunteer contributions and financial opportunities - from both sides), it would provide financial support for the event, and it does relate indeed to my trans-border identity (I am from Italy and Switzerland - my mother and her family are from Geneva) and my trans-border work (I live in Italy and I work in Switzerland, I am already working in both countries and in general my work is trans-borders); this also relates to my vision: I do believe the Alps are a connecting point, not a border. I am deciding how to eventually involve SUPSI (my work) in Wikimania Esino Lario; as mentioned we can support and be involved in trans-border projects (Interreg, Alpine Space) and I can ask SUPSI if they are willing to contribute to the event with a percentage of my time. For SUPSI it would be maybe interesting to have me affiliate to their institution in an event with a large visibility and it is coherent with the applied research projects we are working on; for Wikimania Esino Lario it would provide resources and it would allow me personally to devote more time to the event with the support of the institution I work with. I am not promoting Wikimania Esino Lario because it is a working opportunity: lots of other projects would be much easier, more economically beneficial and more directly connected to my work than this one. I am not promoting Wikimania Esino Lario neither for the indirect benefits on my career; the idea of involving SUPSI is actually to try to not be fired because I spend too much time on it. Furthermore I do not have career plans connected to Wikimania Esino Lario: I am very happy with my work at SUPSI (where I am already doing projects I like) and (even if I would be the proudest person on earth if we get to implant such a project I consider really cool) I can not think of projects/positions that Wikimania Esino Lario would allow me to do in the future, which I can not do without it (indeed Wikimania Esino Lario is in Italy, and I work and I want to continue to work in Switzerland).
18. In all the paid projects I have been involved in (as researcher, scientific director, principal investigator, consultant), my role has never been to write articles on Wikipedia or to upload images on Wikimedia Commons. My work has never been evaluated on the content I upload or contribute to on the Wikimedia projects. The first project I am involved in, which will count content I produce or contribute to, is Expo 2015: Contributing to Wikipedia at Expo 2015; in this project I am involved as a volunteer.
19. I am currently developing several projects related to Wikipedia and its ecosystem at SUPSI, where I work. The projects are all published on meta and none of the projects is evaluated based on the number of articles produced on Wikipedia (the project Wikipedia Primary School SSAJRP is expected to focus on 100 articles but the project does not fail if we do not review them or trigger their improvements; the relevance of the research is based on testing a methodology and recording what works and what does not work).
20. In particular in Africa and at African related conferences, when I encourage people to contribute to Wikipedia, or I ask people and institutions to release content under cc by-sa to make it available for Wikipedia, they all think I am paid by Wikipedia.
21. In 2015 my mother (Catherine de Senarclens) has been elected in Esino Lario city council. As all the city council she is a volunteer not paid and she really didn't want to be there but there were not enough candidates in the list and she is an incredible worker and project manager, so she had to join it. The major is Pietro Pensa who is not a relative for me (I think we have a 5th degree of family relation).
22. Wikimania Esino Lario (larger project until May 2018) has two paid collaborators: Dario Crespi (the same last name of my husband but they are not relatives) and Lara Pensa (my last name but we are not relatives). In May 2017 we have re-established and confirmed the collaboration with Dario Crespi; Dario Crespi has left his paid collaboration with Wikimedia Italia.
23. From April 2016 to 2019 I was in the consiglio dei garanti (ombudspersons) of Wikimedia Italia.
24. Between November 2016 and February 2017 I have been president of "Wiki in Africa", an unregistered voluntary organization based in South Africa. I am a member of the board (scientific board member) and involved in supporting the organization to make sure WikiAfrica and Wikipedia and Africa-related activities continue and flourish.
25. In 2017 my project GLAM Visual Tool received a grant of 15'000 chf from Wikimedia CH (grant to the Laboratory of visual culture at SUPSI, where I work and where I direct the research area "Culture and Territory); the work was the basis for the visualizations of the GLAM Statistical Tool.
26. Member of the Wikimania Committee and chair of it from 2017.
27. Founding member of the non profit association InFormAzioni since 01/01/2018. I am a volunteers and I have no direct nor indirect economic interests in the organisation.
28. My partner works for a company which is occasionally payed by Wikimedia CH for ICT services and which was payed in 2020-beginning 2021 by Wikimedia Italia for ICT services (I was not involved in the nomination and at the time I was not a member of Wikimedia Italia board). He is also engaged as a volunteer in Wikimedia and free software projects.
29. 2021-2024. Member of SUPSI board (Consiglio della scuola). I am one of the 2 elected members; the other 11 members are nominated by the Ticino Canton.
30. President of Wikimedia Italia since December 2020.