Hello! The Advisory Board (AB) and its role was indeed among the BGC priorities for this year [1]. And I have been working with the former AB members on a concept for how the AB’s work should be organized. The concept they came up though needs to be clarified and improved, especially on how the AB internal coordination will be organized [2]. The group will work on this with minimal overhead from the Board of Trustees and without staff/budget support at first. The BGC believes that the AB can be used as a practical path for prospective members of the Board Board of Trustees, and to formalize relationships between high-profile experts, and staff and the Board members. We shall answer with more details soon.
We have not made any announcements, as we're in the process, which I ope is understandable - there is no formal constitution of the body yet.
Dariusz & Nat
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_Governance_Commit... [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_Governance_Commit...
On Sun, Jun 25, 2017 at 6:49 PM, Rogol Domedonfors domedonfors@gmail.com wrote:
Craig
Thanks for your thoughtful response. There are two gneral issues around the Advisory Board that members of the Community might be interested in.
Firstly, it seems that after having lapsed in 2015, the Advisory Board has been reconstituted, but there has been no announcement to the Community, and indeed the Community was given no opportunity to engage with the process of reconstitution (for example, by way of suggesting new members or new processes). In particular, we in the Community do not know who the new Advisory Board members are, or what the new remit of the Advisory Board is, or whether and how to engage with those members.
Secondly, as a consequence there are no established channels for engagement between the Advisory Board and the Community. As a member of the new Avdvisory Board, you may wish to encourage your colleagues to establish appropriate opportunities and rules of engagement for yourself and your fellow members to engage with the Community.
You mentioned "tradtions". I am sorry to say that my personal view is that the relationship between the Board of Trustees and the wider Foundation on the one hand and the Community of contributors and consumers on the other has "traditionally" been less than satisfctory. I hope that this is one tradition that your advice will be helpful in overturning.
"Rogol"
On Sun, Jun 25, 2017 at 4:43 PM, Craig Newmark craig.newmark@gmail.com wrote:
Rogol, I'm on the advisory board, and actively involved in related
issues,
but have hesitated posting in respect for Community traditions (as I
learn
them) and also, as a large effort emerges in journalism regarding
reliable
sources.
Specifically, the latter involves the News Integrity Initiative centered
at
the City University of NY, graduate journalism department.
That's to say, I hesitate until I learn the respectful way to talk about this, and until the NII has a lot more to say.
Additional constraint per the ethics of funding nonprofit journalism, per the American Press Institute: when I say something, I need to be transparent while also Doing No Harm. (The latter is surprisingly difficult.) To that effect, I gotta disclose that I provide significant funding to the NII as well as WMF.
I'd appreciate your advice, and that of anyone interested in this
subject.
Thanks!
Craig Newmark, founder craigslist
On Sat, Jun 24, 2017 at 7:10 AM, Rogol Domedonfors <
domedonfors@gmail.com>
wrote:
This Board was fomed in 2007 to advise the Wikimedia Foundation, and
was
required to be renewed annually. No resolution was made to do so in
2015,
so by the beginning of 2016 it had lapsed. This status is reflected at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Advisory_Board but the corresponding
page
at https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Advisory_Board is seriously
out
of
date (it was written when the board was still in existence). Just
about
a
year ago, Dariusz assured me that "it is one of the BGC's priorities to revise and re-ignite the Advisory Board" and indeed the BGC minutes for April published a couple of days ago at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_ Board_Governance_Committee/Minutes_13-04-2017 show that the BGC took a paper (not made public) from Dariusz on the subject and agreed to "submit a formal proposal to the Board". No
Board
resoultion on the subject has yet been published.
Rather confusingly, shortly after the BGC meeting, Florence wrote a
page
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_ movement/2017/Sources/WMF_Advisory_board recording the Advisory Board's opinions on matters arising in the
current
movement strategy process. So it would seem that within a fortnight of
the
BGC meeting, an entity called the Advisory Board was already in
existence
again.
What is the status of the Avisory Board? Has it been reconstiuted, and
if
so, when, and who are its new members? If it has not been
reconstituted,
what is the status of Florence's record? If and when the Advisory
Board
is
reconstituted, will input from the Community for potential members be welcome, and if so how will it be gathered? Once the Board is in
operation
again, is it expected that it will interact with the Community, and if
so,
what will the mechanism be for that interaction.
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