Hi Amanda,
It is obvious that despite our best intentions, the Board and Transition Team did not have all the relevant facts and circumstances in mind when this decision was made.
I'm trying hard to understand how the Board and Transition team failed to realize the WMF expects standards of transparency, ethics, and governance from affiliates that the WMF itself is not able to meet, and worse, than hiring María as a consultant with this level of transparency wouldn't be considered unethical. I certainly understand the need, and value tremendously María's advice, but t's not the first time incidents like this happen, and the reply we always receive is "going forward, we'll do this better" or something along those lines.
Many volunteers around the globe have worked very hard for years to meet the standards the WMF expects from us. This feels like a slap on the face. Or, another.
This is a separate issue from whether or not a COI exists, which I plan for us to discuss together on Tuesday. I will take tangible steps to address these issues now that they have been brought to our attention. I want to make sure we do that with proper reflection, to avoid worsening those mistakes with poorly thought-out solutions. I would like to partner to repair this together, and grow stronger as a result.
I look forward to seeing many of you tomorrow for Movement Strategy conversations and then again to discuss these and other transition matters on Tuesday.
Sincerely, Amanda _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org