"As a current WMF staff member, and having received a formal scolding two weeks ago for expressing my professional and personal opinions on this list--that a hierarchical corporate structure is completely inappropriate and ineffectual for running the Foundation--I don't feel safe editorializing about what membership could mean for the future of the Wikimedia movement. But I would be thrilled to see this discussion take place, and to contribute however I am able."
I find this paragraph deeply disturbing. Historically, members of the Wikimedia movement, including those who work directly for WMF, have been completely free to vehemently advocate their opinions about both how the work of the Wikimedia movement should be done, and about whether or not a particular line of behavior fell within our against our movement's values - including on public lists. Although it was on internal-l, I even remember a thread where a seniorish person in HR announced that they had just gotten a certification in something (I can't honestly recall what,) and it started a thread where multiple staff members started posted peer reviewed papers (and metareviews, etc,) published in highend journals that brought the value of what the HR person had gotten in to severe question - it basically made it look like at most it had absolutely no effect - and multiple staff members asked about whether or not the certification had been paid for by WMF, and if it had, asked the HR person to reimburse the cost of the cert because since there was solid evidence it was useless, it was a waste of donor money.
In all of the recent brouhaha, at least some WMF staffers have come forward with their opinions, and many more have made their opinions obvious. Historically, that's been a fine thing, and a lot of positive change has come about as a result of it. That's one of the things I loved about coming in to WMF as an intern and later as a contractor - I was encouraged to publicly question things if I thought they were flawed or I could improve process - and I did. Even though it wasn't at all my department, I remember within my first week as a communication intern noticing a severe flaw in the calculation of the metrics Zack Exley, a C level in a different department, was using. When I asked my boss what to do, her answer was pretty much "... if you're sure they're his metrics just email him. If you aren't sure whose they are, email internal asking. If you noticed an issue somewhere else, you should still absolutely get it fixed." I dropped Zack an email (who is now one of Bernie's senior advisors,) and he promptly gratefully fixed the problem though, iirc, it made his stats sad. While at WMF, I expressed strong opinions on both internal and foundation-l, was encouraged to do so regarding most things, and was joined in doing so by a lot of actual staffers.
I brought up a number of other relatively serious questions about practices and values while actively at WMF, including in public forums, and a lot of staffers did, too. I saw way more good things happen from staffers feeling free to openly speak out than bad things. It's disturbing to me that there's been a cultural shift towards a hierarchical structure that discourages open and blunt dialogue even on public lists - and it's a cultural shift that hasn't been talked about much outside of WMF directly. It's also iffy from a practical standpoint. I hate to call out a specific person, but *Tim Starling* has expressed extremely strong feelings about recent events in public on this list. You can't really fire Tim, or a number of other staffers who have spoken out publicly, because they are Wikimedia. If the culture inside WMF stays this way and people like Tim, WMF's longest standing employee get disciplined if they speak out publicly... The Wikimedia movement and the Wikimedia Foundation are going to rapidly diverge.
All of the content that WMF relies on to raise money is freely licensed, built by volunteers, and although difficult technically, is forkable. The social capital that allows WMF to raise $70m+ a year belongs far more to the movement than to the Foundation, and if they do start to diverge further, that's going to put WMF in a tough situation. I know one of the risks in the strat document this year is decreased revenue from fundraising... part of me is seriously starting to wonder if that's a risk pretty much created by WMF's recent behavor.
---- Kevin Gorman
On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 11:14 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
It would be interesting to know if the people who participated in that decision actually had the legal authority to make it. They might have, but this would be worth further inquiry.
Pine
On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 11:03 PM, SarahSV sarahsv.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 11:39 AM, Adam Wight adam.m.wight@gmail.com wrote:
Dear friends,
Recent events have made me curious to learn more about the Wikimedia Foundation's origins and history as a membership organization. The revelations about the Wikimedia Foundation Board elections being a recommendation for appointment rather than a direct vote seem to have
been
a surprise to many of us, and almost ten years after membership was eliminated, we see strongly suggestive "directly elected" language
still
being fixed on the Foundation's own Board elections page.[1]
Adam, thank you for starting this discussion. Eric Moeller announced
to
the list in December 2006 that the bylaws had been changed and that we
were
no longer members, or as he said " [ m ] embership was previously described in the bylaws but not actually implemented." [1]
Sarah
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2006-December/072001.html
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