Thanks Ben.
Just a few comments:
* The WMF Board has limited bandwidth, and they have a lot on their agenda right now. I'm not sure how much of strategic work they can do while also handling their other priorities, so some dependence on the ED is likely necessary.
* Some members of the WMF Board have voiced the feeling that they would like the Board to have a leading role rather than a reactionary one. It looks to me like the governance review could be considered a step in this direction. Having the Board take a public and leading role in developing strategy with a transparent and thoughtful approach would be great to see, so +1 to your comments on this topic.
* I get the sense that both the current Board and Katherine are trying to take a responsive and cooperative approach to community input, so I am cautiously optimistic that in the big picture WMF is heading in a good direction.
Comments about specifics of strategic planning:
* One of my current concerns is the usability of Wikimedia sites for both readers and contributors; we have some powerful tools but our usability leaves much to be desired, and fixing an approximately 10 to 15 year design and features deficit might require a lot more design and engineering resources than WMF can recruit with its current income streams. I am hopeful that WMF can boost its design and engineering capacity while maintaining good relations with the community, and also while investing more resources in developing GLAM+STEM and other offline support of affiliate programs that have good cost-benefit ratios.
* WMF remains a single point of failure in the Wikimedia network of affiliates. I am hoping that mitigating the community and affiliate dependencies on WMF will be addressed in the strategic plan, so that if we have another mess like we had prior to Katherine, the affiliates and community will have a plan that can be executed that ensures the viability of the Wikimedia sites and affiliates without WMF. WMF can fail in many ways; besides governance meltdowns, lawsuits and hostile political environments are also risks. The sites and affiliates need to endure even if WMF weakens, loses its way, or dissolves. I hope that we never again have a repeat of last year and that WMF is healthy in the future, but it would be prudent to have a strategty for the affiliates and community to continue whether or not WMF is with us.
Thanks again for your post.
Regards,
Pine