On 5/28/2014 5:59 AM, Fæ wrote:
On 28/05/2014, Lila Tretikov lila@wikimedia.org wrote: ...
independent individual able to speak with his own voice and ask his own questions. He does not take direction from me. He will not work for the WMF or engage with the WMF employees.
I do not really understand the point being made about not "engaging" with WMF employees, any active volunteer on Wikimedia projects should and must be free to engage with WMF employees. The statement does not appear to match actions over the last 24 hours, with Wil freely making public comments about his dissatisfaction after conversations (emails?) with some WMF employees.
I believe the point is that Wil, in particular, will not interfere with Wikimedia staff in carrying out their duties, assign them specific tasks, or otherwise attempt to supervise and direct their work. These functions properly belong to the employee's supervisor, so it's good for community members to keep this in mind generally, but especially important for Wil because otherwise his connection to Lila might create concern or confusion for the staff (as in the recent GitHub situation, which I believe was already mentioned). If those guidelines are respected, there should be no problem about Wil interacting with staff in an ordinary fashion. I'm sure Wil understands this and will be careful about it, and it's also good that Lila has said this publicly so that people have something to point to, in case anything is uncertain about whether Wil has some sort of special authority.
--Michael Snow