When a board member has special 'enthusiasms', it can be normal for the board to seek their view as an inside expert, however it can easily turn out to be a mistake if a trustee vote includes their vote, especially if the community wishes to see trustee voting becoming more transparent.
This is because the same trustees with special passions and interests for a resolution may be hard to stand against for fellow trustees who have neither special interest nor knowledge for a resolution, beyond what is presented to the board at that time. Just having a especially interested trustee participate in the vote may sway the outcome far more than their single numerical vote. It is fairly obvious that trustees like Jimmy with interests in Wikia, ex-trustee Denny with interests in Google or ex-trustee James with interests in the medical field, have interests to be managed and should be a reason for them to recuse from votes touching on those same interests, or where they may be later *seen* to touch on those interests. This should not be a reason for the board to fail to benefit from expert knowledge that some trustees happen to have.
Of course there is *plenty* of outside expertize amongst the Wikimedia community that could be provided to the board at minimal cost, especially if video conferencing were used, rather than flying people around the world to talk. I find it sad that we see few of these types of board presentations being solicited from expert and enthusiastic community members, with a default of using WMF employees or consultants to give board presentations (based on what we see from the ridiculously sketchy board meeting minutes). Getting varying views from non-Trustee experts in snapshot/10 minute briefing presentations would be an excellent way for Trustees in Denny's position to recommend sources of expert information while avoiding being compromised, and remaining comfortable that the issues and benefits for improvements to the WMF strategy, and best use of funding, were being properly explored.
Fae
On 12 April 2016 at 12:30, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Ting.
You say, "...a board member should not foster his or her own pet projects."
It's just one vote out of ten (normally). If they can't persuade their colleagues, the motion won't pass.
In the case of community-selected trustees, they were put there by people who know their enthusiasms and expect them to do what they can to allow those initiatives to flourish, and who trust them not to do that at the expense of the overall shared mission.
Shouldn't a discussion affecting an initiative include the very trustee who is (likely) the best informed and best placed to explain things to the other trustees?
Anthony Cole
On Tue, Apr 12, 2016 at 7:09 PM, Ting Chen wing.philopp@gmx.de wrote:
Hello Anthony,
in my opinion a board member should not foster his or her own pet projects. The WMF board members are leading a global movement. When everyone of them are fosting their own pet projects other projects may suffer. The board members should be beyond the single projects and give directions, like do more for the small projects, instead of single out the Swahili Wikipedia (just as an example).
This does not mean that the board members should not continue their involvement in the projects, but then as community members, not having more power or say than other community members.
Greetings Ting
Am 04/12/2016 um 01:03 PM schrieb Anthony Cole:
Ugh. Sorry. I mean: should involvement in and advocacy for a particular movement initiative disqualify one from voting on motions related to that initiative?
Anthony Cole
On Tue, Apr 12, 2016 at 6:55 PM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
jytdog, regarding:
"Going forward, there should be a) a clear disclosure of relevant outside interests and b) a pre-agreed COI management plan where those interests conflict with a Trustee's obligations, before Trustees formally step into the role."
When you say "relevant outside interests" what do you mean?
I'd love to hear Denny's thoughts on this. Also, Denny, I'm interested to hear you were concerned about a conflict of interest with Wikidata. I'm just now rethinking the question of internal conflicts of interest. Are they necessarily a bad thing? You were elected by a community who, I think, expected you to create an environment where Wikidata could flourish. Is it a bad thing to have advocates for movement initiatives on the board?
Anthony Cole
On Tue, Apr 12, 2016 at 5:07 PM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Good points worth repeating, though, jytdog.
We're learning as we go here. COI is notoriously difficult to anticipate and manage. None of us, that I'm aware of, thought about - or at least discussed - the implications of his Google role when he ran for the board, and when it became too onerous to manage, Denny had the wisdom to step away.
He's an enormous asset to this movement; as I said, we're lucky to have him, and I'm very grateful for all he's contributed.
Anthony Cole
On Tue, Apr 12, 2016 at 4:44 PM, jytdog jytdog@gmail.com wrote:
This is kind of frustrating. Lila (speaking for the board) in her "Why
we changed <
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Lila_Tretikov%27s_statement_on_Why_we%27ve_c...
> " > message, identified falling page views (creating a threat of falling donation revenue) caused by folks like Google repurposing our content as an "existential challenge". I am not sure I agree with that, but the WMF Board and the former ED said that. (Jimmy confirmed that on his Talk page, too)
The key thing about Denny's COI issues as they unfolded, is that he was surprised and frustrated about the problems managing his COI ended up causing - so much so that he quit. That stuff actually happened. Debating what his COI was or whether it mattered is really beside the point... and all murky because whatever management plan was worked out - whatever areas actually were identified as problematic - we do not know, as that plan wasn't made public.
Going forward, there should be a) a clear disclosure of relevant outside interests and b) a pre-agreed COI management plan where those interests conflict with a Trustee's obligations, before Trustees formally step into the role. What happened with Denny doesn't have to happen again. That seems to be the key issue looking forward.
I'm repeating myself, and will stop now.
On Tue, Apr 12, 2016 at 2:28 AM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
I agree with all of that, MZ. As to your questions: > > "Shouldn't we be applauding Google and others for helping us share our > knowledge with the world?" > > Yes. > > "What size do you think the Wikimedia Foundation should be in terms of > yearly > budget and number of full-time employees? How much bigger or smaller > should
> the Wikimedia Foundation be than other Wikimedia chapters?" > > It depends on what we want them to do. > > "...are you sure that we're all agreed that this [Google impacting > Wikipedia's > page views and the ability to raise funds and recruit new volunteers] > is
> problematic?" > > I'm less concerned than many, and I'm sure others are unconcerned. > > "If Google causes page views to go down and our sites are directly hit > less frequently, > that actually saves us money, doesn't it?" > > If our page views drop by 50% and this halves our fundraising > capacity, I
> doubt that would be offset by the saved hosting costs. But I'm no > expert on
> these things. > > > Anthony Cole > > > On Tue, Apr 12, 2016 at 11:46 AM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote: > > Anthony Cole wrote: >> >>> Google's "info boxes" and their answers at the top of their results, >>> >> we're > >> all agreed now, I think, are impacting Wikipedia's page views and, >>> consequently, our ability to raise funds and recruit new volunteers. >>> >> Google and others have a direct interest in their data being >> > accurate and
> reliable. We already see that Google has a "report a correction" >> > feature
> for some of its services. It's in both Wikimedia's interest and >> > re-users'
> interest for the underlying data source to be update-to-date and >> > correct.
> Our mission is to spread free educational content to the world and we >> > make > >> our data available for re-use for this purpose. Shouldn't we be >> > applauding > >> Google and others for helping us share our knowledge with the world? >> >> As far as threats to direct-to-user fund-raising go, I'd put >> organizational instability ahead of Google at the moment. The >> > Wikimedia
> Foundation has repeatedly been in the news lately for ongoing >> > management
> issues, both in its executive team and in its board of trustees. >> >> What size do you think the Wikimedia Foundation should be in terms of >> yearly budget and number of full-time employees? How much bigger or >> smaller should the Wikimedia Foundation be than other Wikimedia >> > chapters?
> Even if we accepted your premise that Google was impacting >> > Wikipedia's
> page views and the ability to raise funds and recruit new volunteers >> (citations needed, to be sure), are you sure that we're all agreed >> > that
> this is problematic? If others re-using our content has a side effect >> of reducing donations to Wikimedia Foundation Inc., donations which >> > are
> received through questionable and increasingly obnoxious on-site >> advertisements, you will not find universal agreement that this donor >> reduction would be terrible. As others have argued previously, small >> > and
> recurring donations are a means of providing accountability for the >> entities entrusted with these monetary donations. If potential >> > donors no
> longer trust the Wikimedia Foundation to manage and distribute this >> money, no longer donating financially is practical and wise. >> >> If Google causes page views to go down and our sites are directly hit >> > less > >> frequently, that actually saves us money, doesn't it? We're >> > theoretically
> then off-loading some of our hosting costs to Google, Facebook, and >> others who are downloading and re-uploading our data to the Web, >> > exactly
> as we mandated that anyone be able to do. With multiple copies of the >> > data > >> on the Web, we're better ensuring that the content lives on in >> > perpetuity. > >> >> MZMcBride >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines >> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> Unsubscribe: >> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
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