Taking María's statement on behalf of the WMF by itself, there are a couple of simple in-line questions about handling governance I would like to make, based on my experience with a number of governance issues both within and outside of Wikimedia related organizations.
I'm sticking to this being a governance case, as the WMF Board can only be expected to make resolutions on the basis of good governance.
On 11 October 2017 at 18:54, María Sefidari kewlshrink@gmail.com wrote:
Dear all,
We would like to specifically address the allegations related to harassment in this thread’s original email. We take all allegations of harassment seriously. Earlier this year, the Board of Trustees was informed that allegations of harassment had been made against the Wikimedia Foundation Board Chair dating back to his time as chair of Wikimédia France. We immediately directed the Foundation to investigate. The Foundation employed independent, external experts and conducted an investigation. Based on the information presented, the investigation found no support for the allegations. That conclusion was conveyed to the Wikimedia Foundation Board as well as the chair of Wikimédia France.
The statement is short on factual detail despite being described as specific. It would be reassuring if the following actions would be considered by the Board, and responded to even if rejected: 1. Publish the timeline of events, which would be essential for any governance review. Several events are implicit in the statement, but absent any facts about when or who, they easily lead to later confusion. 2. Publish the report from the investigators. If necessary this can be redacted, however from emails that have been made a public record so far, it's hard to imagine what now needs to remain confidential. 3. Explain who was contracted to produce the report and why and how they were chosen. 4. Explain what information has been presented, so there can be no doubt whether the WMF and the Board have been presented with all the information available and the steps taken to ensure potential bias in how information was selected was minimized, for example by not pre-selecting who to talk to, rather than giving the investigators a free hand to ask for interviews.
The Wikimedia Foundation remains committed to independent investigation if presented with new information. Absent such information, we consider the allegations to be without merit.
This closing sentence seem to give a heavy implication that the Board is aware that more information may exist than was used. It seems unhelpful to have an investigation or review that does not take proactive steps to gather information from all the stakeholders identified so that it can stick as a final resolution. In the absence of specifics, it's hard to imagine that anyone outside of the WMF board will be able to understand if you are missing any critical information, yet somehow that appears to be what you are expecting.
On behalf of the Board,
María Sefidari
Thanks for making a statement as a board to the email list, it's a helpful communication channel to use this way. I appreciate that a governance based response to allegations against a named trustee, will not be the same as judging a harassment case that should happen elsewhere.
Fae