Thank you for sharing the link to the recording, unfortunately I could not follow it live. I am reassured by the open approach and speed taken to transparently address the issue and hope that the commitments promised will be followed through. With the high turnover at the WMF and many leadership positions still to be filled, this was an encouraging signal.
I did not want to come in earlier, as I believe the perception and what is expected of a major and mature organisation was well described by others.
I only want to draw attention to one point in the interest of our growing or future affiliates in that the examples brought forward from affiliate policies enforced by the WMF all concerned mature organisations with an established separation of staff and board roles (can't be sure, but I don't believe this was a policy systematically promoted to affiliates). Some smaller affiliates might find themselves in the position where a given board member might be putting in the 30 hours a week as a volunteer, and when it comes to hiring the first employee, the choice is between giving this "unicorn" board member a chance (provided the position is advertised, s/he is properly recused and qualified) or getting an outsider on-boarded probably by the same board member who was already working 30 hours a week for free and who might be asked to continue to do so. (There's already a lot on this topic on Meta which is a bit off topic in this thread, and just my short hypothetical example here raises a myriad assumptions or side discussions on the right approach to take -- the point is that our movement is more varied than has been represented in the few posts on the mailing list here and any future harmonisation in this area should keep this diversity and Dariusz' perspective at the end of the recording https://youtu.be/rQTND98b_Yg?t=3585 in mind in our efforts to setting up a movement wide minimum standard on the experience of this oversight at our supposedly most mature organisation.)
Best regards, Bence
On Tue, 29 Jun 2021 at 19:06, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all,
An important item of information that transpired during the Office Hour just now is that the envisaged contract is for consultancy services of up to 40 hours per week.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQTND98b_Yg
(The event also featured, it must be said, a very photogenic cat.)
Andreas
On Tue, Jun 29, 2021 at 5:16 PM Maor Malul maor.malul.x@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Amanda,
It is obvious that despite our best intentions, the Board and Transition Team did not have all the relevant facts and circumstances in mind when this decision was made.
I'm trying hard to understand how the Board and Transition team failed to realize the WMF expects standards of transparency, ethics, and governance from affiliates that the WMF itself is not able to meet, and worse, than hiring María as a consultant with this level of transparency wouldn't be considered unethical. I certainly understand the need, and value tremendously María's advice, but t's not the first time incidents like this happen, and the reply we always receive is "going forward, we'll do this better" or something along those lines.
Many volunteers around the globe have worked very hard for years to meet the standards the WMF expects from us. This feels like a slap on the face. Or, another.
This is a separate issue from whether or not a COI exists, which I plan for us to discuss together on Tuesday. I will take tangible steps to address these issues now that they have been brought to our attention. I want to make sure we do that with proper reflection, to avoid worsening those mistakes with poorly thought-out solutions. I would like to partner to repair this together, and grow stronger as a result.
I look forward to seeing many of you tomorrow for Movement Strategy conversations and then again to discuss these and other transition matters on Tuesday.
Sincerely, Amanda _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
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