Did you miss a “not” in there?
Fae said:
“Trustees are an unpaid volunteer position, leaving your seat should be
made to appear like a royal abdication or the result of failure.”
Suggested edit:
“…leaving your seat should NOT be made to appear like a royal abdication or
the result of failure.”
On Sat, Apr 9, 2016 at 6:51 AM, Fæ <faewik(a)gmail.com> wrote:
It's quite normal for Trustees to step down due to
changing interests
or after a review of interests. It would be great if the WMF board
could move over to a culture where there was far less drama and chest
beating about managing and declaring interests. Trustees are an unpaid
volunteer position, leaving your seat should be made to appear like a
royal abdication or the result of failure.
The practice in the UK chapter established back when I was a trustee,
of making comprehensive declarations of interest and loyalty is
something that the WMF could easily follow at zero cost. The *default*
position should be that this information is public unless there are
jolly good reasons to make it private, and those exceptions should be
carefully reviewed by the Chairperson who has the final say on whether
it ought to be made public. Further, every board meeting needs a
standing agenda including declarations for the coming agenda. For
example, Jimmy's interest as the owner of Wikia has in the last decade
never resulted in a simple declaration of interest in the public
minutes, nor has he declined to vote on a resolution because of that
interest. Declarations should be run of the mill, not a matter of
apparent shame and drama.
Fae
On 9 April 2016 at 07:26, Anders Wennersten <mail(a)anderswennersten.se>
wrote:
I, as all others, has full sympathy for Danny and
find that he in his
mail
made an excellent explanation on how the
situation made the option to
resign
the only reasonable way forward
BUT this is the second community selected that has left the Board within
a
year after being appointed, and before any future
election (either a snap
byelection soon, or the ordinary in a years time) I believe we should
look
into if anything can be learnt. And if there are
things, primary in the
election process, that can be done to ensure the appointed community
selected members of the Board staying on the whole term.
For Danny my interpretation is that he is very operational role in
ordinary
work leads to many interaction with WMF etc and
where COI consideration
hampers his day-to-days activities. And that his major strength,
"Wikidata",
is hard to make use of in the Board as any
influencing of decision re
this
also puts him in a COI situation, and that he
outside this competence
finds
he has limited "value" for the board
work.
But all of these facts was known before the election (but not necessary
the
ramification). Would a more elaborate (tedious
long?) description of
requirements of serving in the Board helped Danny to understand the
challenge before he entered his candidacy? Would some type of
(lightweight)
"vetting" by the Election committee by
all candidates have identified
this
risk (which then could have been feedbacked to
the candidate)? Should for
future election the election committee not only be facilitator of the
election, but also help he voters in complementing the data given by each
candidate by some type of comments? For example last time the requirement
from the board was non western (non English natives) persons and priority
for nonmale. but 2 out of 3 was just his. Could some mark on the
candidate
statement made by the EC (he/she is/is not
fulfilling the Board criteria)
had helped?
The setup up of a Standing Election Committee is under formation but it
will
probably still be some month before it is
established. Any changes in the
election process has to await this formation, but I believe a discussion
of
learnings can start independently.
Anders
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