On Tue, Dec 29, 2015 at 12:47 PM, Newyorkbrad newyorkbrad@gmail.com wrote:
I don't think it's been mentioned on this list that Jimmy Wales (one of the board members) commented about this matter today on his En-WP talkpage. Since I assume many people on this list don't follow that page, I have copied his comment below:
"Hi everyone. I couldn't possibly agree more that this should have been announced with a full and clear and transparent and NPOV explanation. Why didn't that happen? Because James chose to post about it before we even concluded the meeting and before we had even begun to discuss what an announcement should say. WMF legal has asked the board to refrain from further comment until they've reviewed what can be said - this is analogous in some ways to personnel issues. Ideally, you would have heard about this a couple of days from now when a mutual statement by James and the board had been agreed. For now, please be patient. Accuracy is critically important here, and to have 9 board members posting their own first impressions would be more likely to give rise to confusions. -- Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:35, 29 December 2015 (UTC)"
I'm not endorsing Jimbo's comment -- or the reverse -- as I frankly find this whole situation strange and unfortunate. However, it seems relevant and I thought people in this discussion might want to be aware of it..
I also agree that the information about the two new board members should be circulated promptly.
Newyorkbrad/IBM
Thanks Brad.