In a message dated 4/18/2007 6:06:08 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
erik(a)wikimedia.org writes:
IANAL, but since it would be a very limited agreement ("In the event
of WMF being unable to continue operations for a period of 4 weeks,
organization X is given permission to .." - use the brand, user
account data, etc.) I don't see why not. It would be not fundamentally
different from a trademark use agreement.
That is just a licensing agreement. If you lose the trademark, any licensing
of it is invalid.
Danny
************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.
Florence,
I do not understand the entirety of your essay. It is rambling and in many
places disjointed. I also think it fails to distinguish between key terms which
shoudl be distinguished, like CEO and ED, or Board of Trustees and Board of
Executives. These are used interchangably, but there are real differences
between them, and only when these differences are fully understood, can the
Board decide what it is (Board of Trustees or Board of Executives) and what it
is looking for (a CEO or an ED).
I also think that there is a significant level of distrust, which permeates
the action points of this proposal. The List of "What ifs ... " immediately
jumps to mind. If the right decision is made in appointing a CEO/ED, this is
moot. As for the solutions: 1. To tell him (her) the whole story--it would be
incumbent on a new CEO/ED to learn this from all parties, not just from the
Board. Someone who has to be told the whole story is not appropriate; nor is it
appropriate for the Board to keeps facts from such a person. 2. "To set up
limits to give him freedom, without letting him wild in the open" -- I have no
idea what this statement means (do you limit the freedom of the ED? To what
degree? How would that be different from the current micromanaging?)
As for the problems with this model, you are suggesting exactly what Carver
cautions against--partial implementation. "Many board members and executive
directors or CEOs interviewed in the research that informed the development of
this web site said they found the policy governance model to be too rigid.
Others indicated that they tried to adopt it but had to modify it to make it
work — and when this model is modified to any degree it is no longer the Carver
model. (_http://www.iog.ca/boardgovernance/html/mod_ove_pol_mor_cri.html_
(http://www.iog.ca/boardgovernance/html/mod_ove_pol_mor_cri.html) ) The text
goes on to say "Carver insists that the model works best when adopted in its
entirety and that its failure can only be attributed to incomplete or improper
implementation." (Ibid.). IN contrast, you write, " am willing to try to
implement something in relation to that governance policy model, even if it does
not fit exactly the model; at least we would have tried." This is precisely
what Carver would claim leads to potential dysfunction.
Nor does this model allow for a genuine "leader" figure to emerge, yet Jimmy
is one such leader figure, and it stands to reason that others will emerge
over time. Finally it requires excellence of all Board members, which may be
unattainable in a rotating (i.e., elected) Board, where the criteria for
inclusion may not be fully understood by the electors or even the candidates
themselves.
Finally, I do not understand the role of an interim CEO/ED. Been there, done
that. Is that step really necessary under the circumstances? How will this
model address what you call the dissatisfaction of the staff, especially when
there is no CEO/ED in place to move it forward? How do you perceive it as
reinstilling trust in the Board.
All in all, I think that this proposal is a huge step forward. On the other
hand, I can't help wonder if this is just a panacea intended to resolve a
festering problem, much like claiming that hiring a CEO/ED is the solution to
all of the Foundation's problems.
Danny
************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.
This seems like a futile exercise. The appearance it gives is that you don't
know what you are doing. As for the executive, perhaps things did not get
done because it was not empowered to do them.
Danny
In a message dated 4/16/2007 9:00:09 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
Anthere9(a)yahoo.com writes:
daniwo59(a)aol.com wrote:
>
> I don't understand this email. For one thing, there are many different
> "ends," "goals," "objectives," or what have you.
I do understand your email generally, but I must say I do not understand
that sentence.
Rather than picking a random
> number--four in this case--you might want to consider identifying numerous
"ends"
> and prioritizing them.
*I* am not picking up 4 ends (ends is different than goals). I am
suggesting people to brainstorm and come up with a few ones.
What I hope to do is to collect a list of ends, put them on a page on
meta, have them refined by editors. I have a list already on my wiki,
some defined, some less defined. Some from the board retreat, some from
the last board meeting, but whilst we have a list, I think it is a good
idea to see if editors might not have other ideas that make sense, or
approaches different but more interesting than the ones we have.
Mostly, I do think that the board is there to listen to what editors
want the foundation to be. I could do that alone, I prefer asking them.
Then, when a list is available, what I hope is to let it open for
editors to somehow express what they feel is a priority. A sort of poll.
Then go to the board with that list (I hope they will have participated
in creating it !) and have a final list retained and officially approved.
> For instance, in a worst-case scenario that there is only limited funds to
> adequately cover server costs/bandwidth or wikimania, it remains for the
board
> to decide whether it should forego one, or alternately, split costs and do
a
> half-assed job with both.
By the way, this isn't so far from the truth. If
> there are multiple ends, some, while important, will always have to be
put
> aside because of other pressing needs. It is not just ends, but
priorities.
I think you should read the model description again (Carver one if you
did not understand my mail). Allow me to tell it boldly. The board is
the boss of the ED. As such, the board tells the ED "the website must be
in working order" and "there must be a Wikimania".
When we say that, we are not defining priorities. We are not telling him
"if you have time, and if you feel like it, could you do one or the
other. And if you are really successful, we could appreciate if you
could do both, but of course, it is up to you, we are just telling your
about our sense of what should be your priorities".
When we say that, we say "your job is to have a website running and to
organise Wikimania. You fail ? You are fired".
> That said, I would say that the foremost "end" is financial
sustainability.
> How much money is needed for minimal operations? Is that coming in? Are
the
> sources dependable? Are there alternatives if a source is cut off? What
new,
> untapped sources are there?
>
> Next I would look at the legal requirements. How are we in securing our
> assets? What else needs to be done? How are we at compliance with
government
> regulations for not for profits? What can be improved?
All this is interesting, but not an End as defined in this model. The
purpose of the Ends is to list a collection of things we want the ED (or
the staff in absence of an ED) to take care of. So, what we should
create is not a list of questions, but a list of what must happen.
One "legal" end for example, might be that all trademarks of our
projects must be secured in countries xx.
The way to do it is not to ask "Are all of our tms registered in
countries xxx ?", but rather to tell the executive, here is YOUR job.
You have 6 months, and this should be done. Period. You are in charge of
organising yourself the way you want, but have it done.
> Finally, one last question--all of the things you raise, Florence, were
> discussed at the Board-Chapter retreat in Frankfurt this autumn. A series
of
> recommendations was made. Why are you reinventing the wheel? Was that
retreat an
> (expensive) exercise in futility? I just don't understand.
Actually, I was looking at the list just 3 days ago, and thought that
many of the items listed then for the BOARD to do, had been indeed done.
One of the few items left for the board is "reorganisation", and that is
what I am currently trying to do.
Many of the executive items have not been done. They certainly will be
there.
Anthere
> Danny
>
> In a message dated 4/16/2007 6:41:16 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> Anthere9(a)yahoo.com writes:
>
> Dear all,
>
> In the past few days, I have explored more systematically the policy
> governance model, and how it could be implemented.By the way, I found a
> short article about it on the english wikipedia :
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Policy_Governance
>
>
> One of the things the board has to design is what is called the ENDS.
> In each ends, the board defines which needs are to be met, for whom, and
> at what cost.
>
> Let me give you two examples of ends.
> *******************************
>
>
> The WMF is the host provider of several websites, referred to as
> Wikimedia project. Wikimedia websites must be up and running
> efficiently, 24/24 hours, 7 days a week. That is the priority of WMF.
>
> Needs to be met ?
> Information must be accessible anytime.
>
> For whom ?
> Any person with internet access
>
> At what cost ?
> Well, within limits reasonable with the revenue we have. If we had
> figures to mention, we could say max 1 million per year.
> *******************************
>
>
> Another example
>
> The WMF is the organiser of an annual conference, Wikimania.
>
> Needs to be met ?
> Both a scientific conference and a community event, Wikimania brings
> together members of various Wikimedia projects in order to exchange
> ideas, build relationships, and report on research and project efforts.
> It also provides an opportunity for Wikimedians and the general public
> alike to meet and share ideas about free and open source software, free
> knowledge initiatives, and wiki projects worldwide.
>
> For whom ?
> Primarily for Wikimedians. Secondarily for the general public
>
> At what cost ?
> No cost. WMF should find sponsors to cover Wikimania costs by large.
> *******************************
>
> Now, these are two easy ends to define.
> What I would like to ask you help on, is to define more ends, which
> describe what you think the WMF is about. The two ends I mentionned
> above a "long term" ends, they would be listed this year, and then next
> year and probably the year after. Not all ends are this way. We could
> also have an end valid only one year, or only 3 months.
> Let us say we want a BIG technical meeting around Mediawiki to occur in
> the next 6 months, it would be one END.
> Or we want to produce a DVD of the english high quality content, it
> could be another END.
> Actually, hiring an ED could also be an end :-)
>
> Now, before you tell me "eh, we elected you guys to think of that for
> us", my answer will be "no, you elected us to represent your dreams
> about WMF, and to make sure your dreams happen".
> So, what I am currently asking you is
>
> "What do you want Wikimedia Foundation to focus its attention on in the
> next few months, few years or more".
>
> Whether you are members on the "paper" (bylaws) or not, morally, you are
> the owners of the organization. I do not think the editors represent the
> only owners, but the editors definitly are part of the owners. So, I ask
> you your opinion as owners.
>
> What do you think we should achieve ? If you had 5 points to list, what
> would they be ?
>
>
> ant
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ************************************** See what's free at
http://www.aol.com.
_______________________________________________
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foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.
Hello,
The mail below born from reading Anthony comment. I thought I could make
a summary and comment one of his thought :-)
Let me summarize the four components of the model.
Once policies are established, how does a board know if the CEO/staff
are fulfilling these requirements?
Board Ends Policies
Management Limitations Policies
Board-Staff Linkage policies
Governance Process policies
Board Ends Policies
Are basically the mission statement, but in a more detailed fashion.
Its most basic form might be the mission statement, but practically, a
list of "things to achieve" are listed, along with who they will benefit
and how much they should cost. Consider it the "list of tasks" that the
board gives to the executive.
The difference with defining a goal is that usually, a goal also
mentions some means to achieve the goal. As I understand it, using the
word "end" is intended to "remind" that means should not be given. It is
the staff job to define the means.
Management Limitations Policies
Since it is the staff job to define the means, the limitations policies
are simply a description of all the means which are non-acceptable.
The staff can be as creative as it wants to reach the ends, but MUST NOT
use some ways to do things.
Board-Staff Linkage policies
They essentially define the relationships between the staff and the
board. Eg, how does the board informs the staff of 1) the ends and 2)
the limitations. And how does the staff reports what it is doing to the
board. And it also defines the information that the staff must
mandatorily provide the board so that the board can check that the job
is done (the ends satisfied) whilst respecting the limitations.
Governance Process policies
This essentially describe how the board is working (eg, meetings,
resolutions, elections etc...)
-----------
Yesterday, Anthony said
"I guess I wasn't really thinking of this in terms of what the ED can
be told to do. In terms of that I think ensuring financial
transparency is an important one that hasn't really been mentioned.
It's also one that Brad started, but never finished - we were supposed
to have regular financial statements by now, which I took to mean
monthly or quarterly. I'll be bold, and request monthly financial
statements. For whom? Published on the website for everyone within
45 days of the end of the month. At what cost? I'd need more
information to be able to give an accurate estimate."
Examples
Having a regular financial feedback is not an end. The Foundation was
not created so that the board could read FS. The FS are a way for the
board to control that things are going well, that's an evaluation
method. So, that is a board-staff linkage policy.
That policy might say "the ED must provide audited financial statements
once a year, cash-flow update every month, cash-flow estimate for the
next six months, as well as a rolling budget every quarter". These tools
are not an end, they are simply a tool to control.
Our auditors said we should try to always have at least 6 months of
operations in cash.
So, a management limitation policy might be "Thou shall not have less
than 6 months operations".
****************
I rather like this example I could find on the net
http://www.actoronto.org/website/home.nsf/cl/act.docs.0256
I think that is a pretty good example of what we could draft. The ends
are very simple (I think we should have more detailed ones). But the
executive limitations are pretty self explanatory. One thing I also like
in it is that the governance policies are also pretty detailed, and
actually would give more leverage to the chair to act without getting an
approval every couple of minutes ;-)
This board manual is one of my favorite... I would like to use it as a
basis of ours (to be completed OF COURSE)
****************
Meanwhile, let me just thank you for all the comments and suggestions so
far.
Ant
I'd like to announce that:
Polish Wikimedia Chapter has just obtained the tax-deducible status,
which we hope will increase our income substantially.
There is also an occasion to announce what we are actually doing:
The DVD with Polish edition of Wikipedia is going to be published soon
(hopefully before the end of April). It was done in cooperation with
Helion Publishing House.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Polska_Wikipedia_na_DVD_%28z_Helionem%29/en
Wikimedia Polska Conference 2007 will take place on May 1-3 in Białowieża:
http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/Konferencja_Wikimedia_Polska_2007/en
Till now 51 people declared to join the conference – both active
Wikimedians as well as people from similar non-Wikimedia projects. We
expect to have 80-100 participants, and 15 lectures and discussion
panels.
Although the official language of the conference is Polish, we invite
all the people interested to join. The cost of conference is really
cheap – just 150 zł (around 40 EUR per person, accommodation and food
included), and there are several excursions to the neighboring
museums, and sightseeing of the largest existing wild forest in EU, as
well as bonfire with free beer and sausages. (sponsored by local
restaurant).
On 21-22 April 2007 we will have a free stand during "PC tuning
affairs" in Wrocław, which is a kind of Mecca of Polish nerds and
hackers (in good meaning of this word).
We have started to organize an advertising of Wikimedia Projects by
printing and distributing bookmarks and posters.
http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/Koncepcje_promocyjne/Zak%C5%82adki
We have started cooperation with Metalmind Productions – a company,
which specialize in promotion and issuing CD's of niche Polish music
bands.
http://www.metalmind.pl/
We have also joined a "Coalition for Open Standards":
http://www.standardy.org/
an organization trying to persuade Polish government to use open
electronic standards for exchange of official documents and during
contacts with general public.
Cheers,
--
Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz
http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerekhttp://www.poli.toya.net.plhttp://www.ptchem.lodz.pl/en/TomaszGanicz.html
I would like to remind those of you who are bloggers to consider
joining Planet Wikimedia, which has grown nicely in recent weeks:
http://en.planet.wikimedia.org/
(Polish also active, German about to go live)
It shows recent wiki-tagged posts from Wikimedians on one page. You
can add your blog by putting a request for inclusion on:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Planet_Wikimedia
Included blogs should tag their wiki-related posts, or be exclusively
about the topic. This policy has made Planet Wikimedia, in my opinion,
highly on topic and useful, and I would love to see it scale to
hundreds of blogs eventually. Hence, no exceptions. ;-)
For those of you from smaller projects: Think of this as an excellent
opportunity to promote the best work your project is doing, to get new
people excited about it. As an example of this principle, take a look
what some English Wikinewsies are doing in the "Original Reporting"
group blog: http://wikinewsreports.blogspot.com/
If you don't have a blog yet, you can set one up easily, e.g. at:
http://wordpress.com/ or http://blogger.com
--
Peace & Love,
Erik
DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
"An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic
Hello all,
I'm writing this on my mobile from the pediatrics ward of the hospital...
Rushed to the emergency room Saturday night for abdominal pain far
worse and in a different area than I am used to (I have [[Ulcerative
colitis]]), blood tests revealed elevated pancreatic enzymes and I was
diagnosed with pancreatitis. Hopefully I'll be fine within a few
weeks, but I wanted to explain in advance my absence, and to explain
to those sad and to the (hopefully few) happy that it'll be a while
before i return.
Best,
Mark Williamson
--
Refije dirije lanmè yo paske nou posede pwòp bato.
I understand that this is a planned feature for the MediaWiki software.
I heard recently that a co-founder of Wikipedia has become highly
dissatisfied with it on account of it containing so many factual errors that
it was useless (and beyond repair), and he's quite right - this is a major
issue that needs to be addressed. Obviously, the ability to mark
revisions is the perfect solution. If there was a way to pick out a revision
as being error-free (I assume, synonymous with "stable"), Wikipedia could
potentially progress towards being an academically-citable encyclopedia.
I was just wondering who would feasibly *do* the marking as a stable
revision? Obviously if this can be done by any users then there will be no
advantage to it (as just the same liability toward inserting errors will
transfer into a liability towards marking stable revisions which aren't
actually stable). If you restrict it to registered users then there will
still be no advantage, as even long-time registered users often vandalise
and get things wrong. If you restrict it to admins then there will be too
few of them.
The real problem is that it will take proper peer-reviewing - by experts -
to really mark an article as "stable" in the sense of containing none of the
errors and mistakes that caused the aforementioned co-founder to give up on
Wikipedia. Obviously this is because any average editor (even an admin) is
not necessarily qualified to declare an article error-free. Certainly, if
nothing else, it will take expert-reviewing to bring an article up to
"citable" standards.
So how do we currently suppose this will all work? Will the Foundation hire
experts to check articles? Will we rely on expert volunteers contacting the
Foundation so that they can be given "expert" accounts that can mark stable
revisions? Or will we just allow long-time trusted editors to mark versions
as stable, which leaves us in the same position of not knowing whether the
article is *mistakenly* stable or not?
One feasible way I can see this as working is defining an arbitrary amount,
say 100, that has to be reached for an article to become stable. If one
person marks a revision as stable, it gets +1, and if they are a more
trusted editor (been around for longer, done more major non-reverted edits)
then it may get +5. If someone marks it as unstable it gets -5 (weighting
towards holding back). And so on. Then if the article reaches 100 it becomes
stable. This method roughly solves the problem of there being vandal or
mistaken stable articles, but assumes that one revision of an article will
stick around for long enough to be evaluated in this manner. Will we have to
freeze the page after an admin puts it into "evaluation mode", or perhaps
set it aside into a subsidiary page where it is evaluated, after that
revision has been nominated for Stable Revision Evaluation? Obviously this
is all a very tricky issue because we're dealing with a wiki!
I was just wondering what people thought of these issues, and what plans
there are, if there are any.
I just want to know what came out of the retreat. Are we doing this whole
exercise again?
Danny
In a message dated 4/16/2007 9:22:35 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
Anthere9(a)yahoo.com writes:
daniwo59(a)aol.com wrote:
>
> This seems like a futile exercise. The appearance it gives is that you
don't
> know what you are doing. As for the executive, perhaps things did not get
> done because it was not empowered to do them.
>
> Danny
Okay.
Are you done ?
************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.
I don't understand this email. For one thing, there are many different
"ends," "goals," "objectives," or what have you. Rather than picking a random
number--four in this case--you might want to consider identifying numerous "ends"
and prioritizing them.
For instance, in a worst-case scenario that there is only limited funds to
adequately cover server costs/bandwidth or wikimania, it remains for the board
to decide whether it should forego one, or alternately, split costs and do a
half-assed job with both. By the way, this isn't so far from the truth. If
there are multiple ends, some, while important, will always have to be put
aside because of other pressing needs. It is not just ends, but priorities.
That said, I would say that the foremost "end" is financial sustainability.
How much money is needed for minimal operations? Is that coming in? Are the
sources dependable? Are there alternatives if a source is cut off? What new,
untapped sources are there?
Next I would look at the legal requirements. How are we in securing our
assets? What else needs to be done? How are we at compliance with government
regulations for not for profits? What can be improved?
Finally, one last question--all of the things you raise, Florence, were
discussed at the Board-Chapter retreat in Frankfurt this autumn. A series of
recommendations was made. Why are you reinventing the wheel? Was that retreat an
(expensive) exercise in futility? I just don't understand.
Danny
In a message dated 4/16/2007 6:41:16 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
Anthere9(a)yahoo.com writes:
Dear all,
In the past few days, I have explored more systematically the policy
governance model, and how it could be implemented.By the way, I found a
short article about it on the english wikipedia :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Policy_Governance
One of the things the board has to design is what is called the ENDS.
In each ends, the board defines which needs are to be met, for whom, and
at what cost.
Let me give you two examples of ends.
*******************************
The WMF is the host provider of several websites, referred to as
Wikimedia project. Wikimedia websites must be up and running
efficiently, 24/24 hours, 7 days a week. That is the priority of WMF.
Needs to be met ?
Information must be accessible anytime.
For whom ?
Any person with internet access
At what cost ?
Well, within limits reasonable with the revenue we have. If we had
figures to mention, we could say max 1 million per year.
*******************************
Another example
The WMF is the organiser of an annual conference, Wikimania.
Needs to be met ?
Both a scientific conference and a community event, Wikimania brings
together members of various Wikimedia projects in order to exchange
ideas, build relationships, and report on research and project efforts.
It also provides an opportunity for Wikimedians and the general public
alike to meet and share ideas about free and open source software, free
knowledge initiatives, and wiki projects worldwide.
For whom ?
Primarily for Wikimedians. Secondarily for the general public
At what cost ?
No cost. WMF should find sponsors to cover Wikimania costs by large.
*******************************
Now, these are two easy ends to define.
What I would like to ask you help on, is to define more ends, which
describe what you think the WMF is about. The two ends I mentionned
above a "long term" ends, they would be listed this year, and then next
year and probably the year after. Not all ends are this way. We could
also have an end valid only one year, or only 3 months.
Let us say we want a BIG technical meeting around Mediawiki to occur in
the next 6 months, it would be one END.
Or we want to produce a DVD of the english high quality content, it
could be another END.
Actually, hiring an ED could also be an end :-)
Now, before you tell me "eh, we elected you guys to think of that for
us", my answer will be "no, you elected us to represent your dreams
about WMF, and to make sure your dreams happen".
So, what I am currently asking you is
"What do you want Wikimedia Foundation to focus its attention on in the
next few months, few years or more".
Whether you are members on the "paper" (bylaws) or not, morally, you are
the owners of the organization. I do not think the editors represent the
only owners, but the editors definitly are part of the owners. So, I ask
you your opinion as owners.
What do you think we should achieve ? If you had 5 points to list, what
would they be ?
ant
************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.