I'd like to see more complete minutes that get published more frequently; I suspect the members of the Board would love it if they could make it happen by waving a wand and have it be so.
I was once a public observer taking notes for a Board meeting for a different organization, and there was no way to get notes out the door with universal agreement except to redact large parts. A lot of it involved "I did not say that" or "I did not mean that" or "That's out of context". Controversial topic discussions will be even harder to cover fairly without being content-free.
And, as others have said on this list, recording meetings often has the side effect of moving real discussions out of the limelight back into the shadows. If you don't believe me, check out your respective legislative bodies ;-)
So, given that, as Risker and others point out, "it's complicated", perhaps we could start with a smaller step: get the agenda published within 5 days after any meeting. This would mean publishing: the items brought into the meeting for discussion, marking those that were actually discussed, and those that were dropped or alternatively held over for a future meeting.
Even this document will not be controversy free and will need to be vetted before being released, but a 5 day period (let's say) seems manageable.
Once we have that going smoothly we can take what's been learned from it and apply it to summaries with a bit more detail, etc.
Ariel
On Fri, Mar 4, 2016 at 1:19 AM, Craig Franklin cfranklin@halonetwork.net wrote:
This sounds like an excellent strategy if you're looking to have the board meetings turn into a rubber stamp for issues that have been discussed and decided elsewhere.
Rather than solving the transparency problem through gimmicks like wheeling a video camera into the board room, we should look at reasons why the Board of Trustees might not feel comfortable being transparent. The only real solution will involve cultural change, not just on the WMF side, but also from the community. What can *we* as community members do to assist the WMF in being transparent?
Although, I most certainly agree that the official minutes of meetings could do with a little more detail. If brevity is wit, then the existing minutes are positively Wildean.
Cheers, Craig
On 3 March 2016 at 16:31, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Having WMF Board meetings be open and recorded by default would be a wonderful step in aligning the Board with the value of transparency.
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