On Sat, Feb 20, 2016 at 4:54 PM, Amir E. Aharoni < amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il> wrote:
Delphine, this was possibly the strongest email of the last four months or so of this mind-numbing nonsense.
The Board. I never really understood it. I did feel that it's supposed to lead the editors and the staff in _some_ way, but, being both a staff member and a volunteer editor, I never felt that it _actually_ does. Even though quite a lot of the Board members are totally wonderful people, wonderful Wikimedians and _my personal friends_, they never felt as Wikimedia's leaders. And I'd think that they should be.
Leader worship of the kind that is common in USSR, DPRK, or the Linux kernel, was NEVER my cup of tea, but _some_ (SOME!!!) kind of leadership would be nice. It feels like a pregnant void at the moment.
Please, somebody, make it stop. Let's go back to improving the encyclopedia, or something.
I hear you. I understand that the BoT may seem undecisive, slow, overly inwards, etc. A lot of it is valid criticism. Some of it can be improved, some is unlikely to change (as you can imagine, even coordinating frequent meetings of people on different continents and having regular jobs, spanning occasionally 12h of time difference, is a challenge).
I cannot tell you that I believe we're not making mistakes on the way, and I cannot even admit that the pace of our work is satisfactory to me. I also share a lot of frustration with our disconnect, no good transparency and dialog practices, etc. But I can assure you that some of us are meeting to address different urging issues several times a week, or sometimes even daily (for instance, to catch up on the backlog of critical things from the past, such as seeking an expert member for the Board, or to seek better governance practices, as well as to discuss the contemporary emerging issues).
It is important to do things in good timing, but it is even more important to do things right (not just in decision-making - remember the VIsual Editor?), not get easily swayed or lead by a crowd, think straight. When I'm asking for patience, I'm basically trying to say that the Board is not ignoring you - but I think that as a body it tries its best to focus and use good, independent judgment, in the plenty of topics that emerge as important. It is not up to me to offer deadlines, but we are not really passive, as you seem to believe, either.
dj