Best of luck to the Board moving forward with this process. You have a lot
of work ahead.
Brad
On Thursday, February 25, 2016, Patricio Lorente <patricio.lorente(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
> Dear friends,
>
> This week, the Board of Trustees accepted Lila’s resignation. Her last day
> will be March 31, 2016.
>
> I would like to thank Lila for her efforts over these past two years, and
> her passion for our shared mission. Together, we wish her the best in her
> future endeavors and accomplishments.
>
> The Board of Trustees is meeting regularly to determine next steps. Our
> top priority is to develop a clear transition plan that seeks to build
> confidence with community and staff, appoint interim leadership, and begin
> the search for a new Executive Director. We will continue working closely
> together over the coming days, and will share an update next week.
>
> This work will require extensive collaboration by the Board over the next
> few weeks. Although we know you’ll have questions, it is likely we’ll be
> very focused on planning the next steps. We appreciate your patience and
> understanding during this time.
>
> Patricio
>
> TRANSLATION NOTE: This message is also posted on Meta at the Board
> Noticeboard for for translation. You can find it here:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/25_F…
> --
>
>
>
--
----------------------------------------------------
Bradford A. Patrick, Esq.
3001 North Rocky Point Drive East
Suite 200
Tampa, Florida 33607
bap(a)baplegal.com
www.baplegal.com
813-384-8548 vox
813-333-7321 fax
BradPatrick Skype
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Patricio Lorente <patricio.lorente(a)gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 10:50 AM
Subject: [Wikimedia Announcements] Executive transition planning
To: "wikimediaannounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org" <
wikimediaannounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>, wmfall(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Dear friends,
This week, the Board of Trustees accepted Lila’s resignation. Her last day
will be March 31, 2016.
I would like to thank Lila for her efforts over these past two years, and
her passion for our shared mission. Together, we wish her the best in her
future endeavors and accomplishments.
The Board of Trustees is meeting regularly to determine next steps. Our top
priority is to develop a clear transition plan that seeks to build
confidence with community and staff, appoint interim leadership, and begin
the search for a new Executive Director. We will continue working closely
together over the coming days, and will share an update next week.
This work will require extensive collaboration by the Board over the next
few weeks. Although we know you’ll have questions, it is likely we’ll be
very focused on planning the next steps. We appreciate your patience and
understanding during this time.
Patricio
TRANSLATION NOTE: This message is also posted on Meta at the Board
Noticeboard for for translation. You can find it here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/25_F…
--
_______________________________________________
Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately
directed to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia
community. For more information about Wikimedia-l:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
_______________________________________________
WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list
WikimediaAnnounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
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The following is the text of a letter I just sent to the Board of Trustees.
--------------------------
A tale from the trenches
I wake up every day short on sleep, check staff mail, check wikimedia-l,
check the facebook discussion group, check signpost comments, check irc,
check officewiki recent changes, check wikimediafoundation recent changes...
I gear myself up to learn who may have left today, what they will have
said, to digest the outpouring of support and sadness from others, and the
deafening silence from those who are in a position to put an end to all of
this.
I go over the reasons again in my mind that we're in this crisis: bad
hirings, decisions in secret, dissembling and coverups about the processes
that led to those decisions; refusal or inability to state a clear vision,
let alone get buy-in or the involvement of staff/community in shaping that
vision; restructuring the organization following these same broken
processes. And so much more.
Make no mistake, this is not just about an ED. It's also about failure of
oversight, powerlessness of staff, and a culture of exclusion, among other
things. If, as I hope, the Board acts decisively to remove the current ED,
that will only be the first step in a mountain of work ahead of us. Hard,
painful, exhausting work. But we can't begin to get started on it until
that first step is taken.
In November at The Meeting (you all know which one I mean), Jimmy Wales
called on all of us to give Lila Tretikov a second chance, a chance to
rebuild the trust that had been lost. We're well beyond that point now.
That trust is irrevocably broken. It's possible that she would be able to
play a part in the healing and regrouping that must happen within the WMF
going forwards, but only as a private individual. I would have to have
some distance from things in order to figure that out, and none of us has
that right now. What I do know is that the current situation is toxic, and
getting increasingly more so.
We're bleeding out. Slowly at first, but it's a just matter of time--and
probably not much of it--before that trickle turns into a flood. I plead
with the one organization that has the ability to stop it, to step in and
do so.
SOS...
Sincerely,
Ariel Glenn
tech gnome, WMF staff
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Praveena Maharaj <pmaharaj(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 1:00 PM
Subject: Invitation to WMF January 2016 Metrics & Activities Meeting:
Thursday, February 25, 19:00 UTC
To: wikimediaannounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Dear all,
The next WMF metrics and activities meeting will take place on Thursday,
February 25, 2016, at 7:00 PM UTC (11 AM PST). The IRC channel is
#wikimedia-office on irc.freenode.net, and the meeting will be broadcast as
a live YouTube stream.
At next week's meeting, we will:
* Welcome recent hires
* Present a Wikipedia 15 review
* Present a community update
* Give a strategy update
* Review WMF top-level metrics
* Showcase recent work: IEG grantees
* Give a product demo: iOS 5.0 app
* Engage in questions/discussions
Please review
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings for further
information about the meeting and how to participate.
We’ll post the video recording publicly after the meeting.
Thank you,
Praveena
--
Praveena Maharaj
Executive Assistant to the VP of Product
Wikimedia Foundation \\ www.wikimediafoundation.org
Sorry that somehow went to wrong list.
On Feb 25, 2016 9:29 AM, "Brion Vibber" <bvibber(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> Thanks again for your responses, Denny. I think it really helps to get a
clearer perspective on things "on the inside", and that informs the kind of
things we need to think and talk about as a company and as a movement.
>
> I know it's a super awkward position to be putting all of you in,
especially at this juncture. I hope we'll all get through this sanely and
we can talk about ways to better align our various structures to our needs
with less immediate stress.
>
> -- brion
>
> On Feb 25, 2016 9:16 AM, "Denny Vrandecic" <dvrandecic(a)wikimedia.org>
wrote:
>>
>> Thanks to all the answers to my response. I am still reading them, and I
>> probably will not be able to answer to all in a timely manner (I have to
>> work, after all), but I wanted to make a few things clearer, quickly:
>>
>> Milos, I indeed do not care about reelection. And if I have to choose
>> between truth and political wisdom, I hope to continue to choose the
first.
>>
>> More importantly, Milos, I did a massive error in my formulation, as I
know
>> realize, which lead to a misunderstanding. I have to apologize for that.
>> When I said that the Board has to make a decision in the interest of the
>> Foundation when there is a conflict between the Communities and the
>> Foundation, I was phrasing myself very badly, I now realize. I actually
did
>> not mean a direct conflict between a single Community and the Foundation,
>> i.e. with these two as being directly opposed to each other and fighting
>> over something, but rather the more complicated case of a decision where
>> there is a conflict of interests between the Foundation and the
>> Movement-at-large, the Board is obliged to decide in the best interest of
>> the Foundation.
>>
>> I do not buy in the mythology of an "evil community" at all. I do not
even
>> buy into the mythology of a great divide between the communities and the
>> foundation. There are plenty of people who are active and constructive in
>> both, and who bridge both. The cases where the Foundation and the
Movement
>> are directly opposed to each other should be extremely rare, and,
>> thankfully are. I don't think there was anything even close to that
brought
>> to the Board in my tenure so far.
>>
>> More often though is the case that there is a third-party situation, e.g.
>> an imminent and considerable legal threat to the Foundation. In that
case,
>> the interests of the Movement at large has to be secondary for the Board.
>>
>> I regard the Movement-at-large as much more resilient than any and each
of
>> its parts. And I am thankful for that, because I think our mission is
much
>> too important to leave it with a small NGO in the Bay Area. It has to be
a
>> mission carried by every single one of us, it has to be a mission that is
>> inclusive of every one who wants to join in realizing it.
>>
>> I have overstated my point in my last mail, obviously, and also
>> intentionally to make a point (and thanks for everyone to calling me out
on
>> that). But as many have confirmed, there is truth in this overstatement.
I
>> don't think that such situations will occur often. But when they occur,
and
>> that is what I said, they will be painful and frustrating and potentially
>> shrouded in confidentiality / secrecy. Therefore it remains my strong
>> belief, that reaffirming the current Board as the movement leadership
body
>> is a bad idea, because the overstated incompatibility that I have
described
>> remains.
>>
>> I could imagine with a much smaller Board of Trustees, which itself is a
>> constituent of a body representing the whole Movement.
>> I could imagine a wholly new body to represent the whole movement.
>> I could imagine many, many small new bodies who somehow make local
>> decisions on the one side and bubble up to an ineffective, but extremely
>> resilient and representative voice.
>> I could imagine many other models.
>> But I have a hard time to imagine the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia
>> Foundation sincerely filling out the role of the movement leadership, due
>> to the inherent constraints and incompatibilities between these roles. As
>> rare as they appear, they do appear.
>>
>> Dariusz, you say that a disengagement from the Foundation by the
community
>> would increase a specific Foundation versus the rest of the movement
>> situation. I don't think that the formal composition of the Board matters
>> as much as its role, duties, and obligations.
>>
>> The German Wikimedia chapter, the one chapter I have a bit experience
with,
>> is a membership organization. The Board is elected by the members in its
>> entirety. I don't see any claim of that Board to lead the German
Wikimedia
>> communities. I don't see that the German chapter is significantly closer
to
>> the German Wikimedia communities, or that their relation to the
communities
>> is considerably less strained, than the Foundation is to the overall
>> communities (besides the obvious locality of their relation).
>>
>> Dan, Brion, James, in particular thanks to you for arguing why my
>> overstatement was, well, an overstatement. But I still remain convinced
>> that the view of the Board as having the role of leading the movement is
>> merely an accident of the fact that we have no other obvious leadership,
>> and that the Board is being sucked into that vacuum. It is not designed
to
>> be so, and, I argue, due to the legal and formal obligations, it
shouldn't.
>>
>> MZMcBride, I currently lack the time to answer to your specific and
>> excellent points in particular. Sorry. I hope to come back to it.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 8:24 AM, Dariusz Jemielniak <
>> djemielniak(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
>>
>> > On Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 10:43 AM, Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
>> >
>> > > Thus, not the senate, but assembly is the right form of our
>> > > organization: assembly which would select *paid* Board members.
>> > > Besides the load, I want Board members to be accountable to
>> > > Wikimedians, not to the for-profit or non-profit entities which give
>> > > them money.
>> > >
>> >
>> > I am not, and have not been employed by any Wikimedia organization.
>> >
>> >
>> > >
>> > > Yes, it's scary to be accountable to people you lead. I completely
>> > > understand that.
>> > >
>> >
>> > I have no idea where you get this idea from in my letter. I am not
scared
>> > to be accountable to people I lead, and I hope I have stated my
readiness
>> > in this department clearly.
>> >
>> >
>> > >
>> > > The costs of having 100 people assembly won't be significant at all.
>> > > First of all, the most of the people in such large body would be
>> > > anyways mostly consisted of those going to Wikimedia Conference and
>> > > Wikimania. If you really care about money, scale the initial body to
>> > > 40-50 and ask all chapters that sending three or more people to those
>> > > conferences to contribute expenses for one to such body. If you put
>> > > that way, the costs could rise up to ~5%, if they raise at all.
>> > >
>> >
>> > If you envisage a large, 100 people assembly during Wikimania or
Wikimedia
>> > Conference, then indeed it is possible to arrange without significant
>> > additional cost. However, I believe this is basically an entirely
different
>> > idea than the one Denny described (or at least the one I understood
we're
>> > discussing). An assembly would be a body who would voice their opinion
only
>> > once a year in practice, most likely. I'm not sure what exactly would
it
>> > do, but surely it would be difficult for it to agree/vote on situations
>> > happening within a span of weeks, rather than months.
>> >
>> >
>> > >
>> > > So, please, reconsider your ideas on the line: from speaking about
bad
>> > > bureaucracy, while in fact increasing inefficient one -- to thinking
>> > > about efficient, democratically accountable bureaucracy, with
>> > > everybody content by its construction.
>> > >
>> >
>> > I am not convinced if a body of 100 people meeting once a year is an
>> > efficient way to reduce bureaucracy. Of course views may differ.
>> >
>> >
>> > >
>> > > Said everything above, I have to express that I am pissed off by the
>> > > fact that the Board members are constructive as long as they are
under
>> > > high level of pressure. Whenever you feel a bit more empowered, I
hear
>> > > just the excuses I've been listening for a decade.
>> > >
>> >
>> > I am saddened you have this perception.
>> > https://xkcd.com/552/
>> >
>> >
>> > >
>> > > Please, let us know how do you want to talk with us in the way that
we
>> > > see that the communication is constructive.
>> >
>> >
>> > That is a good topic for a separate thread! Currently, the list we use
is
>> > limited to 1500 English speakers.
>> >
>> > An idea that I have been trying to champion for a while was also
>> > community-liaisons: community elected people whose responsibility is
>> > day-to-day communication with the WMF and back. This would not be a
>> > decisive role, and it is independent from whether we have a senate or
>> > assembly or not, but could at least increase the reach of
communication and
>> > decision making in some areas.
>> >
>> > Also, discourse is a platform that perhaps will take off at some point.
>> >
>> > dj
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > 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>
>> >
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
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>> New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
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[x-posted announcement]
Hello,
The next online office hour session of the Wikimedia Language team is
scheduled for next Wednesday, March 2nd 2016 at 14:00 UTC. This session is
going to be an online discussion over Google Hangouts/Youtube with a
simultaneous IRC conversation. Due to the limitation of Google Hangouts,
only a limited number of participation slots are available. Hence, do
please let us know (on the event page
<https://plus.google.com/u/0/events/cbn4a2gubl4m6au3jv0gllh5t0k>) if you
would like to join in the Hangout. The IRC channel #wikimedia-office and
the Q&A channel for the youtube broadcast will be open for interactions
during the session.
Our last online round-table session was held in November 2015. You can
watch the recording here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYWZ6C4N93Y
Please read below for the event details, including local time and do let us
know if you have any questions.
Thank you
Runa
== Details ==
# Event: Wikimedia Language team's office hour session
# When: March 2nd, 2016 (Wednesday) at 14:00 UTC (check local time
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20160302T1400)
# Where: https://plus.google.com/u/0/events/cbn4a2gubl4m6au3jv0gllh5t0k and
on IRC #wikimedia-office (Freenode)
# Agenda: Content Translation updates and Q & A
--
Language Engineering Manager
Outreach and QA Coordinator
Wikimedia Foundation
Dnia 24 lutego 2016 18:47 Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com> napisał(a):
> Good to know that I am not the only not abducted one.
>
> Maybe Lydia is not abducted because she is not subscribed on this list?
>
> We should make the plan now how to search for others. Any idea?
>
> Milos
I am not sure but it does sound like a thing for the Search and Discovery
Team! </me hides>
Best Regards and Stay Happy,
michał.
Tilman, are these quarterly reports no longer being released?
On Mon, Oct 19, 2015 at 7:58 PM, Tilman Bayer <tbayer(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> please find the Wikimedia Foundation's report for the first quarter of
> this fiscal year at
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Quarterly_Repor…
> .
>
> Quoting below the foreword by Terry:
>
> We are pleased to bring you the Wikimedia Foundation’s Quarterly
> Report for Q1 of the 2015/16 fiscal year, a comprehensive summary of
> how we did on the objectives defined earlier in our quarterly goal
> setting process. We are continuing to optimize the report’s format and
> the organization’s quarterly review process based on the feedback that
> we have received.
>
> This issue includes some new pieces of information and a few format
> changes. Teams have been starting to highlight one key performance
> indicator (KPI) each - with ongoing efforts to identify the best
> possible metrics - and to estimate how much time fell into each of the
> three categories from the 2015 Call to Action (strengthen, focus and
> experiment). We have reorganized the content to present all the
> information that is related to a particular objective in one place
> (description of the goal, measures of success, how we did on achieving
> the objective, and what we learned from working on it), and changed
> these slides to a cleaner, more effective layout.
>
> As before, we are including an overview slide summarizing successes
> and misses across all teams. In a mature 90-day goal setting process,
> the “sweet spot” is for about 75% of goals to be a success.
> Organizations that are meeting 100% of their goals are not typically
> setting aggressive goals.
>
> Terry Gilbey, Chief Operating Officer
>
> --
> A wiki version should become available on Meta-wiki tomorrow, and we
> will also announce the report in a blog post.
>
> --
> Tilman Bayer
> Senior Analyst
> Wikimedia Foundation
> IRC (Freenode): HaeB
>
> _______________________________________________
> Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately
> directed to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia
> community. For more information about Wikimedia-l:
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
> _______________________________________________
> WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list
> WikimediaAnnounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l
>
> On Feb 21, 2016, at 3:54 PM, Thyge <ltl.privat(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I really wonder why wikimedia discussions have migrated to FB. ...
On Sun, Feb 21, 2016 at 4:00 PM, Brandon Harris <bharris(a)gaijin.com> wrote:
> Because Talk pages suck as a medium for conversation and all
> attempts to fix this have been shot down with venom.
This is a very important point to discuss -- and actually circles us back
to the topic of post-mortems.
When software features are unpopular, it is very important to carefully
consider the reasons for their unpopularity. Here, Brandon, I think you're
implying that there is fundamental resistance to change. I disagree; I
think the attempts (Liquid Threads and Flow), though there was great
technical merit in them, were approached in ways that felt threatening to
Wikimedians.
If we disagree on this, that's OK -- I don't expect to resolve this
disagreement here on the list. But I do think we should have a thorough,
careful evaluation of how the Liquid Threads and Flow projects were
approached. It should include what factors contributed to and detracted
from their popularity among Wikimedians. That, I think, would establish a
shared understanding that would support discourse about whether or not it
is possible to design better discussion software, and how that could be
more effectively approached.
Why were past efforts shot down?
Is it possible to imagine an effort that would not be shot down, but
embraced?
What would need to be different?
These are the kinds of questions I wish the Wikimedia Foundation would get
better at asking and exploring.
-Pete
[[User:Peteforsyth]]