To clarify, the issues facing the WMF preexisted Denny, Dariusz and myself joining the board. Our perspectives started the process of addressing things. In fact I raised concerns regarding staff turn over a couple of weeks before joining the board at Wikimania.
James
On Sat, Nov 5, 2016 at 8:18 AM, Nataliia Tymkiv ntymkiv@wikimedia.org wrote:
Lodewijk, Anders, James, Dariusz, thanks for your input!
Re: timing. I absolutely agree. But internal discussions are not happening at once as well, before writing this I have waited for people to chime in with the arguments to have my own opinion shaped. I would really love to find a good balance between transparency and efficiency and safe space for discussions. But I haven't found it. I had a plan to publish this last week, so there would be at least two weeks for discussing, but unfortunately I had some work and health related issues that prevented me from writing this sooner. Remember, there is no shared understanding on the desired level of transparency, and how to achieve that transparency [1]
Re: onboarding. An interesting idea. I was also thinking of having some kind of "a letter" from one outgoing Board member to the incoming Board member, but it (probably) should be not personal, rather officer wise (the chair of the Audit committee to the next chair of the Audit committee).
Re: extended terms. Aye, Lodewijk, I can see reasoning behind "6 months to make entry points fit together better". Though I can also understand that this is not the time to lose expertise.
Anders, I also agree. Three year time sounds better, as it is really difficult to become a part of the team in a shorter period of time: we have a few in-person meetings and it is not that we interact with each other too much (well, at this point I would rather say even "enough" rather than too much).
James, yes, the challenges were really big. The issue is to learn from the crisis. And just to clarify, you said that "New perspective can be critical" - are you referring to new people joining the Board?
Dariusz, Alice, for example, haven't served 6 years yet, if I am not mistaken. It seems that this is her fourth/fifth year. And I doubt her expertise is not needed anymore. Probably now more than ever.
Yes, onboarding of 6 new members does not seem optimal, even four seem to be a little too much. But there is a possibility that some not brand new people would join the Board. And I hope we will improve the onboarding process (having people join as members of the Advisory Board or just non-voting observers can be a good practice to implement).
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_ Board_Governance_Committee/Board_transparency/Status_report_October_2016
Best regards, antanana / Nataliia Tymkiv
*NOTICE: You may have received this message outside of your normal working hours/days, as I usually can work more as a volunteer during weekend. You should not feel obligated to answer it during your days off. Thank you in advance!*
On Sat, Nov 5, 2016 at 3:28 PM, James Heilman jmh649@gmail.com wrote:
The last group of community elected trustees were presented with an exceedingly difficult issue to solve months into their term. Moral among staff was critically low and many key employees had left, were leaving,
or
were thinking about leaving.
The board at that time disagreed about what to do about the situation in question. We saw turn over of three board members at the end of 2015 including Jan Bart, Stu West, and myself. The community gained greater clarity of the issues and played a critical roll in pushing for a new ED. We are now in a much better position than before even though it took
longer
to get there than I had hoped.
The issues became more solvable in part as we saw two long term board members leave after more than six years on the board. I am supportive of
6
year maximum term limits. New perspective can be critical.
James
On Sat, Nov 5, 2016 at 6:07 AM, Nataliia Tymkiv ntymkiv@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi all,
I am forking a discussion on Wikimedia Foundation Board of trustees
vacant
appointed seat(s) and turnover at this point.
== The Board members start and end terms (Turnover) == I have drafted here three charts indicating the starting and ending of
the
terms of the Board members:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Wikimedia_ Foundation_Board_Governance_Committee/Board_terms
The first chart shows how it will go now, if nothing is changed.
As you can see we have a lot of onboarding / offboarding even without anything extraordinary happening, and it means that the Board has
scarcely
any time to work as a team and concentrate on things beyond looking for
new
people and onboarding them.
The picture is "darkened" by the fact that the onboarding process is
not
formalized enough and I would rather concentrate on working on
improving
the onboarding process, so we have it in place when new members join, rather then rush to appoint new Trustees.
We had a discussion about it in the Board Governanace Committee (BGC),
and
it seems that having less on- and off-boardings-points per year (f.ex.,
at
Wikimania) should be something to plan for. And less people joining per year.
The second and third charts illustrate this idea: every year three new trustees join the Board, with the community-, affiliates- and appointed seats joining in different years (well, one appointed seat join
together
with the affiliates).
Of course the transition period will be a challenge. But it should
improve
the workflow.
== Continuity == The second and third charts also suggests that the terms are extended.
WMF
had a really turbulent last two years, this Board (from my perspective) needs some time to work together as a group, so (again, my
perspective) I
would really love if the terms can be extended, so we can concentrate
on
improving how we work and creating / formalizing the processes.
But in case this extension is too much to ask from the current
trustees,
I'd rather leave the seats vacant.
== Onboarding and Pool of candidates == Just so it is clear to everyone, it is a real challenge if a new
trustee
joins. It should not be so. We have started collecting things for a new Board member to have a smoother onboarding process.
There is also an idea about having Advisory Board working: to not lose
the
knowledge we had with every trustee who leaves the Board, but maybe we
can
also use this group as a pool of excellent possible candidates to
"optimize
the hiring process" [1]. And joining the Advisory Board can also be
used
to
onboard people gently. Without too much time commitment, working rather
on
separate tasks, but already being included in the discussions to some level.
== Discussion == I hope it is clear from things I said above, but in case it is not, the discussion is not finalized yet and I plan to have it decided one way
or
another at the Board meeting in a week. It should be decided, so the
BGC
can move on with hiring new Board members or concentrate on the
improvement
of the hiring and onboarding processes; so the Standing Elections
committee
can plan the timeline; so the Chair of the Board can plan the dates for
the
Board meetings for the next year etc.
As I have mentioned before, please comment / suggest. I have listed the problems I myself see from the inside. And my thoughts about that. You
can
raise questions and concerns from your points of views. The more issues discussed, the more informed our decision will be.
If you prefer posting on Meta, please comment / suggest on the relevant talk pages:
- The Board members start and end terms
- Appointing someone to the vacant appointed seat
- Onboarding for new members
And (just in case) please understand that all mentioned above is my understanding of how things stand and my conclusions on how to move
forward
better, based on things I heard from the BGC members and other people I
had
talks with. It does not represent the position the BGC is going to recommend, or the Board will approve. So I would welcome negative and positive comments equally well.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/ 2016-03-16/Op-ed
Best regards, antanana / Nataliia Tymkiv
*NOTICE: You may have received this message outside of your normal
working
hours/days, as I usually can work more as a volunteer during weekend.
You
should not feel obligated to answer it during your days off. Thank you
in
advance!*
On Thu, Nov 3, 2016 at 1:38 AM, Pete Forsyth peteforsyth@gmail.com wrote:
In case my blanket "I disagree" left doubt, let me state very clearly
--
I'm not seeking anybody's resignation here. (Just reread Dan's
message
and
realized it's possible the beginning of my response could be read
that
way,
though I think I'm pretty clear further down.) -Pete
On Wed, Nov 2, 2016 at 4:32 PM, Pete Forsyth peteforsyth@gmail.com wrote:
Dan, I disagree. Three points:
- Rogol explicitly said they *hesitate* to suggest that anybody
resign;
nobody on this list has asked her to resign. Best not to
exaggerate.
- It is true that there is a higher level of scrutiny of the board
than
there has been in the past. We should not forget that in the last
year,
the
board or its members:
- Ousted a community-selected member, for reasons generally
regarded
as
frivolous and insufficient;
- Defamed that same person following his ouster
- Appointed a new member with insufficient vetting, who
subsequently
had
to resign under pressure
- Lost another community-selected member, who cited reasons he had
been
explicitly aware of during his candidacy
- Appointed a member to a community-selected seat who had not, in
fact,
been selected by the community (I don't think this was actually a
bad
move
given the circumstances, but it's worth noting nonetheless)
- Lost an executive director (amid scandal) it had hailed as a
perfect
"unicorn" just two years ago
It therefore stands to reason that people will be more critical
than
usual
of the board's activities. I would argue this is healthy. The board
has a
great deal of work to do in regaining the trust it has lost as an institution. (I'll note that I published some suggestions about
actions
the
board could take; I have seen no indication that the board even
read
this
op-ed, much less considered implementing its suggestions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/ 2016-03-16/Op-ed )
- On the specifics mentioned here: Without suggesting that Ms.
Battles
or
anybody has done anything wrong, it is indeed prudent, as Rogol
suggests,
to consider whether this might constitute a COI that directly
impedes
important work on Wikimedia's behalf. I'm personally not as worried
about
it as Rogol; I take it as a good sign that she has proactively
announced
it
here, and I trust it will be noted in a more visible location as
well.
I
am
not sure that her area of specialization (finance) is something
that
would
really suffer from this particular COI. But as important as legal
vetting
may be, it remains important that somebody pay attention to the fit
of
board members with the general mission of the organization -- and I wouldn't expect WMF staff lawyers to fill that role. Ordinarily, I
think
it
would be the board's role to pay attention to that -- but for the
reasons
stated above, I think it's worthwhile if others in the movement pay attention too.
-Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]]
On Wed, Nov 2, 2016 at 3:48 PM, Dan Garry dgarry@wikimedia.org
wrote:
The mere potential that a conflict of interest may arise in the
future
is
not necessarily a reason to resign from the board. This is why we
have
legal counsel such as Stephen and Michelle to determine whether
such
conflicts are serious enough to be inappropriate. We should all be satisfied with their opinions that this situation is fine in light
of
their reputation, experience, and credentials; I know I am.
Minor conflicts of interest sometimes arise. That is normal, and
as
Kelly
said, such conflicts can be managed. For example, when it happens,
the
relevant party can do things like recusing themselves from that
discussion
and stepping out of the room until the discussion is complete.
This
is
standard procedure adopted by boards of other organisations, and
also
in
parts of our movement such as the Arbitration Committees or Funds Dissemination Committee.
Additionally, I am disturbed by the recent trend of seemingly all
threads
involving members of the Board of Trustees inevitably having
someone
asking a trustee to resign. I hope this absurdity does not continue.
Dan
On 2 November 2016 at 22:34, Rogol Domedonfors <
domedonfors@gmail.com
wrote:
> Congratuations to Kelly Battles on her new job at Quora. I
believe
I'm
> correct in saying that this is a company whose business is to
make a
profit > by pursuing its "mission is to share and grow the world’s
knowledge".
> Surely that means that in general the more and better the
Wikimedia
> projects pursue their mission, the more they will undercut
Quora's
> business? In particular, would not the Knowledge Engine, at
least
as
> originally conceived, be very much in direct competition with
Quora's
> question-and-answer model? It seems to me that Kelly's duty to
her
new
> employer is likely to come very clearly into conflict with her
duty
to
the > Foundation, and while it is posible that this can be managed,
will
it
not > seriously diminish her ability to work with the Board on the
strategic
> thinking they are just about to start? I hestiate to suggest
that
Kelly's > best course of action is to step down from the Board but I do
believe
it
> needs serious consideration by herself and her fellow Trustees
--
it
is
not > clear whether it is better for the Board to have another
vacancy,
or a
> Trustee who is unable to engage in the strategy-setting which is
so
bady
> needed. Indeed, with two vacancies already, and no clear
indication
of
> when or how they will be filled, I suggest that the Board is in
a
rather
> awkward position now. > > "Rogol" > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
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