In the following I want to present a personal account of events leading to
James’ removal as a Board member, as I remember them. It was written while
I was still on the Board, and the Board agreed on having it sent. The text
was heavily discussed and edited amongst members of the Board, but in the
end it remains my personal account. I realize that it potentially includes
post-factum sensemaking, affecting my recollection of events.
October 1 and 2 2015, Dariusz, James, Patricio and I received phone calls
from a small number of Wikimedia Foundation staff expressing concerns about
the Foundation. They asked explicitly for confidentiality. I wanted to
approach the whole Board immediately, but due to considerations for
confidentiality, the sensitive nature of the topic, and the lack of an HR
head at the time, the others decided against at this moment. Effectively,
this created a conspiracy within the Board from then on for the following
weeks.
With Patricio’s approval, Dariusz and James started to personally collect
and ask for reports from staff. Unfortunately, this investigation was not
formally approved by the whole Board. It was also conducted in a manner
that would not secure a professional and impartial process. After a few
weeks, we finally reached out to the rest of Board members. They
immediately recognized the necessity for a separate formal task force which
was set up very quickly.
The formal task force was created end of October. This task force involved
outside legal counsel and conducted professional fact finding. The first
request of the task force to the Board members was to ask for all documents
and notes pertaining to the case. Unfortunately, although there has been
more than a week of time, this has not happened in full.
The task force presented its result at the November Board meeting, where it
was discovered during the second day of the Board meeting that the previous
investigation has not provided all available information. Thus, the fact
finding had to be extended into the Board meeting. At the Board meeting
itself, James in particular was repeatedly asked to share his documents,
which only happened on the very last day of the retreat and after several,
increasingly vigorous requests. Some members of the Board were left with an
impression that James was reluctant to cooperate, even though it was
expected that since he participated in an investigation done in an improper
manner, that he would be more collaborative to make up for these mistakes.
Due to that lack of transparency and information sharing, the Board retreat
in November turned out to be extremely ineffective. If we had all
information that was gathered available to the Board in due time, and if
that information was gathered more openly in the first place, the Board
could have acted more effectively.
I was worried that the confidentiality of the Board would not be
maintained, and I was particularly worried about James’ lack of
understanding of confidential matters, a perception also fueled by his
noncooperation and conduct. Some of his behaviour since unfortunately
confirmed my worries. I raised this as an issue to the Board.
While discussing the situation, James remained defensive, in my eyes
answered questions partially, and, while formally expressing apologies,
never conveyed that he really took ownership of his actions or understood
what he did wrong. This lead to a malfunctioning Board, and in order to fix
the situation I suggested James’ removal.
I voted for James’ removal from the Board because of his perceived
reluctance to cooperate with the formal investigation, his withholding of
information when asked for, his secrecy towards other Board members, even
once the conspiracy was lifted, and him never convincingly taking
responsibility for and ownership of his actions and mistakes. This is why I
get triggered if he positions himself as an avatar of transparency. The
whole topic of the Knowledge Engine - although it played a part in the
events that lead to the November meeting - did not, for me, in any way
influence the vote on James’ removal. It was solely his conduct during and
following the November meeting.
I am glad to see that, since James’ removal until I left, the Board has
been functioning better.
I hope that this account helps a little bit towards renewing our culture of
transparency, but even more I hope for understanding. The Board consists of
volunteers and of humans - they cannot react in real-time to events, as the
Board was never set up to do so. Trustees - myself included - made
mistakes. By opening up about them, I hope that we can facilitate a faster
and more complete healing process, and also have this knowledge and
experience available for future Board members and the community.
Denny
Hello all,
The following post on HN states the following:
> About fifteen years ago I was working on a venture to make an open-content journal publishing system. It didn't pan out for various reasons, but the general argument we were making this. Here are various services, and who (or what) handles them:
>
> - Peer review and top-level decision-making. This is handled entirely by the editorial board.
> - Typesetting. We have a free system for this: it's called LaTeX.
> - Copy-editing and typeset-checking. This is handled by the publisher.
> - Publishing and archiving. This is handled by the publisher.
> - Famous Name. This is controlled by the publisher and is pure rent-seeking.
>
> It used to be that the publisher handled much more than this. But with a decent online publishing, workflow, and archiving system, and with a near-zero cost in publishing and archiving online nowadays, essentially the only useful service the publisher provides is copy-editing. That is very minor.
>
> If a free online business model can figure out how to fund copy-editing and automatic standards enforcement (for example, people make awful bibtex entries, including Springer's auto-generation system), and a university institution willing to host the journal's archives, the entire utility of a publisher disappears
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11637251 <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11637251>
In all seriousness, what would stop the WMF from attempting to setup journals?
With the WMF’s reputation, I can't see what would stop them from recruiting reputable people who can be reviewers on the panel. Copy editing could be done over the Wiki.
This would take the control of information away from for-profit companies, give maximum transparency, increase the stature of Wikimedia, allow for verified content and allow Wikipedia to keep its user generated, no original research model and allow for WMF expansion into area that it didn't have the ability to be part of before - like research!
Heck, it could then allow the WMF to serious consider funding pure research, or make it easier to run a reputable online university.
The case for disrupting the current business models of Elsevier is compelling. In 2015, Elsevier reported a profit margin of approximately 37% on revenues of £2.070 billion. [0] I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation of the economic benefit of allowing publication of free journals to countries such as Afghanistan. My calculation may be way off, but as an example according to Elsevier they charge an individual researcher "$31.50 per article or chapter for most Elsevier content [and] select titles are priced between $19.95 and $41.95 (subject to change).” [1]
My calculation, on the assumption that the median wage in Afghanistan is 50,000 AHD per year and the exchange rate for USD to AHD of 68.3 AHD to 1 USD shows that for one article it is about 2,150 AHD, or half the monthly wage of an Afghani with a median income!
We could step into this space. And we could do our disruption legally, and make things like Sci-Hub less necessary for those in countries who cannot afford the extraordinary prices of journal publishers!
So what do people think?
Chris Sherlock
0. "2015 RELX Group Annual Report" (PDF at http://www.relx.com/investorcentre/reports%202007/Documents/2015/relxgroup_… <http://www.relx.com/investorcentre/reports%202007/Documents/2015/relxgroup_…>). RELX Group Company Reports. RELX Group. March 2016.
1. https://www.elsevier.com/solutions/sciencedirect/content/pay-per-view <https://www.elsevier.com/solutions/sciencedirect/content/pay-per-view>
Perhaps relevant for folks not on the GLAM list as well.
A.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Asaf Bartov <abartov(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Tue, May 10, 2016 at 7:23 PM
Subject: Pileviews - new/backup tool:
To: Wikimedia Chapters cultural partners coordination <
cultural-partners(a)wikimedia.ch>
Hullo, everyone.
Shani encountered a problem using Treeviews to obtain pageview information
for a PagePile <https://tools.wmflabs.org/pagepile/> -- for some reason it
was returning zero for all pages, even though the Pageviews API itself
returns correct data.
I wrote a quick, simple replacement/backup tool that produces a CSV file of
pageview data (by month) for a given PagePile ID. It is available on Tool
Labs here:
https://tools.wmflabs.org/pileviews
Or as a standalone Ruby script, if you prefer to run it yourself:
https://github.com/abartov/wikimedia_tools/tree/master/pileviews
I hope this helps others, too.
Cheers,
A.
--
Asaf Bartov
Wikimedia Foundation <http://www.wikimediafoundation.org>
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
https://donate.wikimedia.org
--
Asaf Bartov
Wikimedia Foundation <http://www.wikimediafoundation.org>
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
https://donate.wikimedia.org
The Board Handbook [1] specifies a procedure to be followed for publicising
Board meetings. In particular
At least two days before the meeting, the Secretary posts a public
summary of the agenda to wikimediaannounce-l
<https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l>;
No more than five weeks after the meeting, the Secretary posts the
approved public minutes and any presentations intended for publication, to
wikimediaannounce-l
<https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l>. Public
minutes and the resolutions approving them are available on the WMF wiki at
meetings <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Meetings> and resolutions
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolutions>.
It is a matter of concern that these procedures have not been carried out
for recent meetings. In spite of a discussion [2] with the Vice-Chair on
the subject, the minutes of the meeting on 21 March have still not been
published after seven weeks. This is the fourth consecutive meeting for
which the minutes have not been posted within the time specified in the
Handbook. I have requested the Chair and the Vice-Chair to publish these
minutes within the time specified, and the Chair has seen fit to ignore my
request.
I can see no reason for this failure. We know that the Board is busy, but
it is a legal requirement that the minutes be drawn up and discussed, so
that publication is or should be a matter of very little effort, and a part
of normal operating procedure for the Board's administrative support. I
suggest that this is the very time at which the Board should be taking
extra pains to engage with the Community, and involve them in its planning
and other activities. Instead, we have what appears to be a conscious and
deliberate snub.
I call on the Board to rectify this situation as a matter of urgency.
Rogol Domedonfors
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_Handbook
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard#Meet…
tl;dr: the board did not effectively perform one of their most important
roles (managing the ED); the board (and board candidates) should be talking
about how they will fix that.
[Also, see the very bottom for some relevant disclosures, since I've been
asked after previous postings to this list.]
On Tue, May 3, 2016 at 6:02 PM MZMcBride <z(a)mzmcbride.com> wrote:
> Tim Starling wrote:
> >Board members have a duty to act in the interests of the WMF as a
> >whole, but it does not follow that denying anonymity to whistleblowers
> >is in the best interests of the WMF. In fact, I think this Lila/KF/KE
> >case demonstrates the opposite.
> >
> >I would encourage the Board to extend the current whistleblower policy
> >to provide protection to employees making anonymous complaints via
> >certain intermediaries (such as active Board members), rather than
> >requiring complaints to be made directly to the Chair of the Board;
> >and to specify that the forwarding of such anonymous reports by Board
> >members to the Chair would be permissible.
> >
> >If we want to avoid a repeat of this affair, then employees should be
> >encouraged to communicate serious concerns to the Board as early as
> >possible.
>
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Whistleblower_policy
>
> You mention anonymous complaints and serious concerns, but the current
> whistleblower policy seems to be pretty clear that it only applies to
> laws, rules, and regulations. The text of the policy indicates, to me at
> least, that even alleged violations of other Wikimedia Foundation policies
> would not be covered by the whistleblower policy. Would you extend the
> Wikimedia Foundation whistleblower policy to cover regular (i.e.,
> non-legal and non-regulatory) grievances?
>
> My understanding is that the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees sought
> out and then appointed a tech-minded chief executive, who came from a tech
> organization, in order to "transform" the Wikimedia Foundation from an
> educational non-profit to be more like a traditional tech company. Many
> employees of the Wikimedia Foundation disagreed with this decision and the
> chief executive made a series of poor hires who ran amok (looking at you,
> Damon), but I don't think anything rose to the level of illegal behavior.
>
> From my perspective, whether rightfully or wrongfully, the staff mutinied
> and ultimately successfully deposed the appointed executive director. I
> don't see how this whistleblower policy or most variations of it that a
> typical non-profit would enact would really be applicable here.
>
As MZ says, the problem here is not the whistleblower policy. There should
be other policies and processes to monitor and address non-legal
performance problems with the ED/CEO. Creating and executing on these
policies and processes is one of the key responsibilities of a non-profit
board.
Unfortunately, those policies and processes were not working during my last
six months at the Foundation.
Some things that the board should do to change this situation:
- *Make the board HR committee effective.* This would involve at least:
- Simply documenting *who is on the HR committee and how to contact them*.
Last fall, there was no way for staff to even know who was on the HR
committee until my repeated questions to *four separate board members*
led to this edit
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=HR_Committee&type=revisio…>.
As of when I left, there was still no way to confidentially email the
entire committee as a group.
- Using of one of the board's appointed slots to appoint an *HR
expert*, as has been done in the past with finance. (I assume Arnon
was an attempt at this. If so, I'm very sorry it did not work out.)
- Improving *policies* *on staff-board contact*. The whistleblower
policy is not the right place for this, but it was all the staff had. And
for board members, the Handbook
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_Handbook#Board_m…>
is unfortunately not clear on how to address HR issues. Better policies,
explaining roles and responsibilities, might have helped both groups.
- *Monitor organizational health*. This would involve at least:
- Conducting a *regular engagement survey* with (ideally) a trusted
neutral reporting results to the board as well as the executive
team. This
is now in place through HR, but was not done until monitoring of office
attendance indicated that people hated coming to the office, and tends to
break down in an executive crisis (since HR may not be trusted).
- *Exit interviews* with all departing executive staff. To the best
of my knowledge, the current board did not do this, even after 9-10
executives departed in the space of a year. This is good
practice even when
the board has endorsed a "cleaning house" of the executive staff (as may
have occurred here), since those staff are still likely able to provide
insight into the performance of the ED that the board may not be able to
glean themselves.
There are, of course, many other things a board can do to help with these
issues (leading on creation of a clear strategy; putting a staff rep on the
HR committee; regular contact with staff and executives; etc., etc.) But
these are the utter, utter basics that are still, to the best of my
knowledge, unresolved.
Besides the points above, I'd like to see:
- When I asked board candidates
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Affiliate-selected_Board_seats…>
what they thought the top responsibilities of the board were, I was hoping
to see at least one person say "HR". Obviously many votes have been cast,
but I'd still like to hear the candidates speak about how they will
effectively fulfill their HR-related responsibilities ("select, evaluate
and (if necessary) remove the Executive Director
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_Handbook#Effecti…>
").
- The HR committee is supposed to do a yearly self-assessment
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_Handbook#Human_R…>.
I think the current HR committee and the board should publish that
self-assessment, and share (*as part of the hiring plan*) how they plan to
monitor *and support *the next ED's performance.
Slightly more than two cents-
Luis
[Disclosures:
- After I left, I did not sign a termination or contracting agreement
with the organization, so I did not become a contractor with the
organization. I do still speak to many friends within the org, but have not
discussed this email with them.
- I was one of the people who spoke to James (as well as other board
members) about Lila last fall. I appreciate his efforts on behalf of the
staff, as well as his efforts to protect our confidentiality.
- My baby was due yesterday, so I probably won't check the list again
for quite a while. :) Still, hope this is helpful to highlight some
specific actions the board could be taking.]
Greetings all,
I wanted to give you a heads up about a small test WMF Online Fundraising
will be running over this weekend. Following a suggestion from
User:Wittylama we are for the first time going to be testing fundraiser
banners that are content specific. [1]
>From now until Monday 9th May we will be running an A/B test strictly on
articles relating to Game of Thrones [2] and only within the United States.
The reason being its huge popular appeal and expected spikes of traffic to
related articles during the airing of the next episode this Sunday . This
is the first test of its kind so we are being reasonable in our
expectations. It's hoped that this sort of specific messaging will allow us
to engage with our readership a little better through our fundraising and
in time provide alternatives to our standard messaging.
The banner we are testing [3] has gone through several iterations and we
are trying to strike that fine line between engaging with our readers by
being content specific but at the same time avoiding being seen as
advertising or overt endorsement. There were certainly some more
extravagant ideas but we have gone with the more conservative option for
now.
If you have any ideas you would like to suggest about either our process or
banner ideas feel free to contribute on our fundraising ideas page. [4]
It is my plan going forward to provide more regular updates about our
testing and the results we find from it. What form that takes and where I
post those I'll decide in the coming weeks and will update you then.
Hope you all have a great weekend.
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/2015-16_Fundraising_ideas#Relat…
[2] http://pastebin.com/M8AjB1tk
[3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_of_Thrones?force=1&country=US&banner=B15…
[4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/2015-16_Fundraising_ideas
--
Seddon
*Advancement Associate (Community Engagement)*
*Wikimedia Foundation*
Congratulations to Christophe and Nataliia! It's great to see two strong
candidates join the Board soon, and I am confident of your ability to shape
the Board and strengthen our movement. We are looking forward to working
with you over the coming years.
Also many thanks to everyone else who was running and of course to Chris,
Lorenzo and Lane for facilitating these elections.
Best,
Tim
2016-05-09 16:11 GMT+02:00 Chris Keating <chriskeatingwiki(a)gmail.com>:
> Dear Wikimedians,
>
> We are writing to let you know the result of the election for the 2
> Affiliate Selected Board Seats on the Wikimedia Foundation board.
>
> The successful candidates were *Christophe Henner* and *Nataliia Tymkiv.*
>
> A total of 40 chapters and thorgs voted - all except for the Macedonia and
> Macau chapters - which is a record.
>
> The number of first preferences received by each candidate was as follows:
>
> Christophe Henner (9.00);
> Siska Doviana (6.75);
> Jan Ainali (5.50);
> Osmar Valdebenito (5.50);
> Nataliia Tymkiv (4.75);
> Susanna Mkrtchyan (3.25);
> Lodewijk Gelauff (2.50);
> Maarten Deneckere (1.50);
> Kunal Mehta(1.25);
> Leigh Thelmadatter (0.00)
>
> As you know the election was conducted under the Single Transferable Vote,
> which meant that votes were redistributed between candidates to come up
> with the final result. In the 9th round of voting the final place, after
> Christophe was elected, was between Nataliia (16.09) and Siska (9.91). We
> will be putting the full count narrative on the Chapters Wiki so that
> others can verify it if they wish.
>
> We would like to congratulate Christophe and Nataliia and thank everyone
> who stood. It is the closest ASBS result for some time, and all candidates
> brought very valuable perspectives to the work of the WMF.
>
> Regards,
>
> Chris Keating, Lorenzo Losa, Lane Rasberry
> Election Facilitators
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
> New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Patricio Lorente wrote:
> When Denny informed the Board that he was stepping down, we began to
>consider how we would move forward. We recognize the importance of
>filling the two vacancies on the Board, and would like to proceed in a
>way that respects the will of the community and responds to existing
>Board needs. The Board will be meeting in Berlin during the Wikimedia
>Conference on April 22nd and 23rd - during this time we will discuss how
>we should fill the open community-nominated and appointed Trustee seats.
>
>
>I look forward to sharing more information with you in late April.
April has now come and gone. Is there any new information about filling
these two vacancies on the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees?
In poking around to see if I had missed a post somewhere, I found this
on-wiki reply by Patricio from May 4, 2016:
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?diff=15578608&oldid=15578561>.
The reply is vaguely related to the vacant seats; I imagine its contents
will be of interest to this list.
MZMcBride
Dear colleagues,
The Board of Wikimedia Ukraine has decided to share the reasoning behind
this choice. First of all we are very thankful to everyone who decided to
nominate themselves, and to those, who supported them, translated their
statements and helped to spread the word.
Secondly, we decided to have 5 places rated. It was a very hard choice to
make, we have tried to talk to the candidates and to evaluate their
relevant experience and knowledge.
Our first choice remains Nataliia Tymkiv, our Deputy Chair and Treasurer.
We have shared our reasoning here: wmua:Рішення Правління №30/2016 від 4
березня 2016
<https://ua.wikimedia.org/wiki/%D0%A0%D1%96%D1%88%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%BD%D1%8F_%D…>
.
Our second choice is Christophe Henner, Chair of Wikimédia France Board,
deputy CEO of a large organization. He has led WMFR through governance
crisis.
Our third choice is Osmar Valdebenito, first President of Wikimedia Chile,
former Executive Director of Wikimedia Argentina (and also in charge of
their reorganization), Iberocoop Network General Coordinator, current
member of Funds Dissemination Committee.
Our fourth choice is Jan Ainali. Unfortunately he was the only candidate we
did not get a chance to have a proper talk with, but he has relevant
experience (Board member of Wikimedia Sweden, chapter’s ED from 2013 to
2016).
Our fifth choice is Lodewijk Gelauff. While he lacks experience of working
with staff as a Board member, he has helped to organise Wiki Loves
Monuments, one of the biggest community-driven projects, so his insight can
be very useful to the Board of Trustees.
We had a pleasure to talk and listen to almost all candidates. We
identified some strong skills in every nominee, but after some long
discussions decided to support these 5 candidates, as the most balanced
ones. We think that all candidates proved that they are committed to our
Movement, and Siska Doviana, Susanna Mkrtchyan, Leigh Thelmadatter, Kunal
Mehta and Maarten Deneckere would also make sure that their unique voices
are well heard, that WMF and BoT and the Community itself can communicate
with each other better. And we think that no matter who is selected, the
Community will not stop helping the BoT to improve its work. And we are
open to discussions and cooperation, as we believe that this selection
process is only a prelude to some real changes. The two people selected
will have to keep up with the trust of a lot of people, but it does not
mean that 8 not selected yet can rest and just do nothing. We are all going
to work really hard if we care and believe in what we do.
On behalf of the Board of Wikimedia Ukraine,
Illia Korniiko, Chair
Hello,
As of now, 13 of 42 eligible organizations have voted in the 2016 chapters'
election for 2 of 10 Wikimedia Foundation seats on the board of trustees.
In the last election, 1/3 of organizations did not vote. Anyone who wishes
to influence the election could do so by asking sleepier chapters to vote
by the May 7 end of election.
Feel free also to pressure more active chapters to do their duty to support
less organized chapters in voting. Support can mean having
chapter-to-chapter encouragement to vote. All chapters appreciate being
reminded. All eligible organizations are supposed to vote. The election
result is more sound with more votes.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2016
yours,
--
Lane Rasberry
user:bluerasberry on Wikipedia
206.801.0814
lane(a)bluerasberry.com