Hi Phoebe,
Thanks for the swift reply. Please note that the proposal sent to AffCom by
the staff was /not/ the same proposal considered by the board. The
arguments presented with it, were not even close to the ones presented now
- it is unrealistic to expect AffCom to be able to provide any helpful
input to that. Also, please note this has been communicated to the board
before, and that you still chose to paint this unfair and unjust image.
Disappointing again.
But even /if/ affcom would have been consulted properly (which it wasn't),
then still you didn't consult the other stakeholders: affiliates, candidate
affiliates and the community at large.
Maybe the board had a reason to rush through this decision without
consultation, but I still haven't heard any satisfying argument for that.
However, dwindling in the past processes is only of limited use. What I
hope for is that the board members will finally commit to actually ask
input to all stakeholders before taking major decisions like this, and not
just the staff (and the committee if you really had that illusion).
Best,
Lodewijk
(I write this email entirely in a personal capacity)
2014-02-11 19:27 GMT+01:00 phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki(a)gmail.com>om>:
Per Fae, a short response in bullet points:
* I'm sorry. I take your criticisms seriously.
* How we got to this point, as I see it*: I think the Board felt we had
gotten input from AffCom because we saw their responses to the proposal to
change to a usergroup-first approval model, which was presented by a staff
member. However, it seems AffCom didn't realize that the Board might take
up this proposal. This unclarity is the fault of the board.
-- phoebe
* speaking for myself, not all trustees may agree.
On Tue, Feb 11, 2014 at 10:16 AM, Fæ <faewik(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks for this honest critical feedback
Lodewijk. It is refreshing to
have a straight-forward statement. Most emails from established
members of our community being critical about the WMF board or staff
seem to feel they need to wrap anything negative in so much cotton
wool and glib praise, that it looses any effect.
It would be great for a WMF to respond to the failures your email
identifies without writing about issues or successes that were not
mentioned, and without garnishing with lengthy caveats or tangents.
Fae
On 11 February 2014 17:58, Lodewijk <lodewijk(a)effeietsanders.org> wrote:
Hi,
I'm very sorry about these decisions. Not only because I disagree with
them
on the content (although there are one or two
aspects I can live with)
and
> because I think this is very bad for the volunteers, but also because
the
> board returned to a mode where they make
decisions without involving
the
stakeholders properly. The Affiliations Committee will probably come
with a
more elaborate (and perhaps nuanced) reply as a
committee later, but
after
this email from Jan-Bart, I feel the need to
emphasize that the
Affiliation
> Committee was not consulted by the board on this topic - despite the
> suggestions being made now. Affcom was consulted on a different (but
> related) proposal by a staff member, with very different arguments from
> those that the board used in their discussion. In my feeling the board
is
painting
an unjust and unfair picture of the consultation that took
place.
>
> I'm strongly disappointed in /all/ board members for not consulting
with
the
stakeholders (Affcom, FDC, the existing affiliated, the candidate
affiliates and of course the community at large) on these strategy
changing
> decisions. From the votes it is clear that these decisions were of
course
> not unanimous, but the sole fact that a
decision was taken at all
without
proper
consultation (in favor or not) strikes me as almost offensive
towards the volunteers involved. I feel this as a slap in the face and
the
board becomes an unreliable body making
unpredictable course changes
without allowing stakeholders to influence those.
I hope that the board will return on this decision, and take it again
after
> a proper consultation. But even more so, I hope that this situation
will
not
repeat itself. I have brought this up before on the topic of bylaw
changes, but similar arguments are of course valid here.
Lodewijk Gelauff
(While a member of the Affiliations Committee - I write this email
entirely
in a personal capacity)
--
faewik(a)gmail.com
http://j.mp/faewm
Personal and confidential, please do not circulate or re-quote.
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