Re: [Wikimedia-l] ombudsmen commission

On Sat, Apr 21, 2012 at 8:10 PM, Béria Lima <berialima(a)gmail.com> wrote: Hi Beria - It's a good question, and a fair one. The truth is, there were a couple of factors: first, did I believe the current commission was doing a good job? No, I actually think they're doing an *exceptional* job. Second, was there a desire from among themselves for change? Yes, Pundit wanted to be a steward, but when Christine and I were scouting for this committee, we had anticipated someone rotating off and had another commissioner who was already trained and participating. So the commission was stable. Then, what is the cost and benefit of the search? On the benefit side, there's the ability to form a new commission with all the myriad benefits that flow from that. But on the contra side, I sort of felt like stability is something good right now: systems are changing everywhere, and maybe keeping this one with a core group of stable people who are doing a good job is a good idea. I continue to believe that is true. In addition, running a search is costly: in time for volunteers and staff. This is a secondary consideration - obviously, if the preceding had not been true, we'd have made the staff time to run the search. But when I looked at the realities of my transition to a new team, to not having Christine to help, and at Maggie's workload, there was a definite savings in "time beyond the norm" that would have been used to run this search. They're hard: it's more than just asking for volunteers. We put together the commission with an eye toward diversity of gender, project, language, and geography, and we needed Wikimedians who are above reproach: this folks are the ultimate arbiters of the checkuser tool, and they have to be unblemished. So much as a whiff of an issue around privacy, and things could get very uncomfortable... so we did a lot of deep diving into backgrounds. It's a very very time intensive process, and we could frankly use the time other places. Finally, I continue to believe that we should stick with traditions that make sense, but give them enough flexibility to change with circumstances: so re-appointing the commission this time was partially intended to set that as a possible solution going forward. That said, in order to prevent a "permanent committee", I can't imagine a circumstance in which I would ever reappoint a full commission more than one time. But, I wanted to have reappointment in my (or whomever's) list of tools for the future if need be. Hope that gives you some insight into my thinking. pb