Hi Risker,
Information asymmetry is a big issue. For example, in my role there is a lot I cannot say, I have responsibilities to protect people in the organization both current and former. So, for example, if someone is fired, even for cause, I would not say anything about this person that may hurt their chances in the future. We allow people to message their own exits.
When a situation arises that maybe completely unfair to the senior officer or a board member, as long as we are employed (and often if we are not) we will not disclose the details to protect the organization as a whole.
As I am sure you practice all too often in your own professional life this is required in a professional role: to take the heat and the arrows when something goes wrong, and to give away credit for what goes right. I would not have it any other way, but it is something people all too often ignore or forget.
I'd love to have a broader FAQ than the current one for Knowledge Engine to review and help provide transparency into any of the issues I can.
Lila
On Sat, Feb 20, 2016 at 6:54 PM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
This is a difficult time for everyone. Staff, particularly staff who work out of the San Francisco office, have seen and been through things that are not well known or understood outside of that small group; even "highly involved" volunteers aren't entirely in the loop. Former staff continue to have a knowledge advantage over the vast majority of community members simply because of their continued ties to friends and former colleagues who remain on staff.
I encourage everyone to treat each other with respect, even when disagreeing with the interpretations that other people have made based on the (often comparatively limited) information that they have available. I can honestly say that I know some things that perhaps SarahSV and Anthonyhcole don't know, but I certainly don't know everything - and I have been in the SF offices twice in the last six months as a volunteer and regularly converse with staff in certain areas in my role as a volunteer working on various things.
One of the major barriers is the legitimate concern that many staff have in trying to communicate concerns in a manner that is not destructive, either to the WMF as an organization, or to their own professional reputations. The whistleblower provisions at the WMF are very narrow (essentially only permitting reporting directly to the Board chair/chair of the Audit Committee if there is reason to believe that a law has been broken, not just internal policies no matter how severe), as one example. I've been aware of concerns for about a year now, myself, but I've still found out quite a bit more over the last few weeks. For staff, a lot of those early concerns are practically ancient history, and that knowledge hasn't been disseminated to a much broader community. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the majority of the audience here doesn't know.
Anthony, speaking for myself only, I don't think that your association with Wikipediocracy is particularly relevant; other active members of that site have expressed significantly different opinions, whether within or outside of "WMF-related" locations like this mailing list or Meta or The Signpost. I'd like to discourage anyone from assuming that there are monolithic and unified positions on the current situation amongst any particular group. That includes former and current staff, editors of particular projects, commenters on external blogs or through other non-WMF media or criticism sites, user groups, chapters, etc. There are a lot of different points of view, and a lot of different levels of knowledge and information.
I'm not going to say "let's assume good faith", don't worry. I'm going to say "don't beat up on people who have different levels of information".
Risker/Anne
On 20 February 2016 at 20:31, Brandon Harris bharris@gaijin.com wrote:
Danny, don't kid yourself! The folks at Wikipediocracy knoweverything about everything that's happened at the Foundation and about everything that will EVER happen. They've never been wrong, ever!
I don't understand why we're still talking about this!On Feb 20, 2016, at 5:29 PM, Danny Horn dhorn@wikimedia.org wrote:
You know, it's possible that the people who work for the Foundation
might
understand the situation in a more nuanced way than you do. I know it doesn't seem likely, but dare to dream.
Brandon Harris :: bharris@gaijin.com :: made of steel wool and whiskey
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