On Wednesday, March 2, 2016, Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com wrote:
To discuss which practices to adopt, it's worth first looking at the existing Board manual, which is a remarkably detailed document that goes into many of these issues including the exact process for minutes publication, what types of information is captured in minutes, and so on. [2] [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_Handbook
I'm going to quote the current state of the bit that has always worried me about minutes:
- The Secretary takes minutes of the meeting. - No more than three weeks after the meeting, the Secretary posts draft minutes and a draft resolution to approve the minutes on the Board wiki; Board members must amend or vote to approve the minutes within 10 days. - No more than five weeks after the meeting, the Secretary posts the approved public minutes and any presentations intended for publication, to wikimediaannounce-l https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l. Public minutes and the resolutions approving them are available on the WMF wiki at meetings https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Meetings and resolutions https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolutions. The Secretary also certifies a hard copy of the minutes and any referenced documents, including any nonpublic portions of the minutes and retains them in Board books.
This three to five week delay is very out of step with the best practices recommended in the rest of the organization.
Please push "send" at the end of the meeting and amend them later with notes if clarification is required...
The board meetings already have a privacy switch, the executive session (kick out any visitors and leave a big empty spot in the public notes), for things that cannot be public.
-- brion