¹ OK, the existence of the Good Governance Kodex, and its Good Governance Gremium, may be the best thing I learned all day. Thank you, WMAT!

Some precedents:

~ As Florence noted, in 2007, Erik made a similar transition. (A bit contentious; there was a long internal-l thread).

~ In 2013, Ting stepped down from the Board to apply to the ED search; and addressed concerns at the time. (Discussion on this list)

Since then we've thought more intently about this sort of transition across the movement, and shared many excellent learning patterns,¹ but I haven't seen a resulting global rule of thumb honoring that work. This feels like a good moment to develop such a lightweight overview. E.g., "orgs over size X should review this list of [[common patterns]], and consider implementing a version of each [links to global + regional WM-wide examples]".

SJ
--

topnoting >> topposting
the community that norms together, warms together, &c.

On Thu, Jun 24, 2021 at 4:18 PM Philip Kopetzky <philip.kopetzky@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi SJ!

The 12 month waiting/cooldown period is something that was implemented in the Good Governance Kodex of Wikimedia Austria in 2014, see https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_%C3%96sterreich/Good_Governance_Kodex, with an independent committee consisting of a staff, board and community representative deciding cases that do not fulfill the 12 months waiting period.

Best,
Philip

On Thu, 24 Jun 2021 at 16:28, Samuel Klein <meta.sj@gmail.com> wrote:
Jan-Bart: Spot on. It is always uplifting to see one of your measured notes come over the wire.

Jan-Bart de Vreede <jan-bart@wikimedia.nl> writes:
The Foundation is supposed to be an example of good Governance for our entire movement. We (as a movement) have come a long way in the past 20 years (and that is important: as our organisation and budget grows, so do our responsibilities and the critical questions we get from the world)

It is NOT good governance to have a current board member suddenly resign and then create a situation where that person receives compensation for a position that seems to have been created specifically for that board member (or at least was not publicly posted?).

The impact of this increases as the movement grows, and clear communication is at a premium. How can we use this moment to model the norms we want for the future? Any particular moment can feel like a special exception when you are close to it, but the WMF's actions set a standard, translated across time and context, more instantly and effectively than words.

It is a good practice to create a 12 month waiting period before board members of non-profits can become a staff member/paid contractor/consultant.

A few people mentioned that their own orgs or committees have norms or policies around this (Chris, Philip, Tito); could you describe specifics that are in place now around the movement?

SJ.
_______________________________________________
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/message/7FW7WRGMLPS7MYUI4UPD7YTSCUVP2LVG/
To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
_______________________________________________
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/message/WH33IFBCEQSM7VQUELMW5KYFRRWAXFWY/
To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org