Anne,
On Tue, Mar 1, 2016 at 2:15 AM, Risker <risker.wp(a)gmail.com> wrote:
They don't
mean the same thing at all. But would you really dispute the
statement that WMF leaders should be both transparent AND honest?
Transparency is a fundamental WMF value.
Nobody here is talking about vendor agreements; at least I am not. I have
no problem whatsoever with your scenario. If the WMF enters into an
umbrella agreement or business deal with Google or whoever, then that is
something the community should know. If the WMF gets computer hardware
at a
preferential rate, absolutely no one is
interested in that.
Because, Andreas, I do not want the Wikimedia Foundation to commit
suicide. On what basis do you say, with complete confidence, that the
basis of the issue is NOT a contract, or a legal agreement, or a human
resources issue - all of which will likely require some degree of
non-transparency?
Where did I say that? We were discussing a very specific thing: that the
board was split, and not unanimous, about whether Lila should stay on, and
that the board chair claimed otherwise in his communication with staff. You
seem to be saying that if the board is split on the matter, that is a human
resources issue and justifies telling staff that the board is unanimous. I
don't follow that reasoning.
For example - if the focus of all this excitement is
a
human resources issue, there are very, very strict regulations about what
can and cannot be public. It's why there is an "executive session" at
every board meeting - because human resource issues involving identifiable
persons MUST not be publicly discussed.
If there are such issues, then it's still possible to be transparent about
what you can't be transparent about (as Todd's post just arriving in my
in-box points out as well).
I cannot for the life of me imagine what Google sells
that the WMF would be
interested in buying, so I'm finding your example a bit weird.
Anne, I have mentioned several times in the past few days here on this list
Sue Gardner's 2008 email suggesting that the WMF enter into an "umbrella
relationship/agreement" or "business deal" with Google. In case you missed
it, here is the link again:
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/sandberg.pdf
Scroll to the very end of the document to see the email in question. I am
still interested in learning what the results of that effort were.
And
unfortunately, there are indeed enough people around here who are so
determined to have total transparency that they *would* believe that
failure to publicly report that the WMF had received computer hardware at a
preferential rate was *failing to be transparent.*
Perhaps, though I would not count myself among them. Though I have to say,
Richard Ames actually makes a good point in the thread he started on this
topic.
So yes, I do dispute that WMF leaders must always be both transparent and
honest. Honest, I'll go for - although as
we're pretty clearly seeing in
this situation, there's a pretty wide divergence between what different
leaders consider honesty. But not transparent. I don't want them
reporting personal human resources issues or other legally confidential
issues publicly - if for no other reason than they'll be slapped with
lawsuits that would be a terrible, terrible waste of our donor's money.
I don't want that either. If you know something about this whole affair
that I don't know, and that motivates your writing in this manner, fine;
but I'm still more likely to agree with Todd.
Andreas