On Feb 26, 2016, at 6:17 PM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
No, I think we've actually done a very superficial identification of the problems. Some of them are so obvious that they are overwhelming the less obvious but equally serious issues.
Honestly, "we need a new board" is probably not an issue. 40% of the board has been seated for less than a year, and another seat is empty and awaiting someone who probably won't have been a WMF board member before. Two more seats are currently being contested. It is entirely conceivable that by the time we get to Wikimania we will only have two people with more than 14 months' experience on the board. No, "new board" isn't an issue, despite how many people keep saying it is; transfer of information at the hand-off last Wikimania probably was an issue, and new board member orientation definitely was (and is). The issues with the appointment of one of the "board selected" members recently was at least partly because, as I understand it, there has never been a written process for how to vet potential board members for most of the things we all assumed board members were screened for. WHile I'll be the first to admit I rolled my eyes too, I'm hard-pressed to openly condemn a bunch of people who'd never done a task before for not getting it perfectly right. (Note that even the WMF staffer assigned to assist in the vetting, Boryana Dineva, had been an employee for only a few days when handed the assignment, knowing almost nothing about the community, the organization, the board, or even what to look for when vetting a potential board member.)
So, "let's restructure the board" is a wish-list item. The structure of the board wasn't a root cause. The processes of the board, including the orientation process, and the lack of documentation or clarity of the process, were much closer to root causes here.
That's just one example.
Risker/Anne
I have not been on the WMF board, and it (collectively, the members) is being fairly opaque about its activities and processes.
That said, it is not clear to me that it was doing what the board of trustees of an organization is required to do (legally, morally, organizationally), and I am not at all comfortable having to say that.
At the beginning of the week, my TLDR message ended with challenging the board to consider if they were up for the job.
It is evident that at least at times it needs to really be a board and not just a group of advisors. It needs to challenge and find out not just be told. It has a fiduciary duty to keep the organization on sound footing. That means something.
That means standing up to each other, to broken process, to management, even to the movement. It's the Board.
I don't know that anyone isn't able to do that, but everyone should be asking. And if anyone can't or won't they're not doing the job.
I am not comfortable asking that, but it needs to be asked.
George William Herbert Sent from my iPhone