Blind, impotent rage isn't helpful, neither are conjectures about the
abstract and nebulous nature of "something".
Let's try and remember, this is the same pattern as every other last time,
most people commenting here are in agreement, this was wrong or at the
least, this was handled poorly, and as usual, there is little to no
official communication from the other side. The pitchforks are ready, the
mob is assembled but the castle is empty, as usual.
I'm not sure why we keep perpetuating this us vs them mentality. Whether
its the action of singular staff member or the board or large decision by
the executive, the end result is always the same and I'm not sure we are
making any progress over the years. Just pushing this boulder up the hill
to watch it roll down every few months.
It is irrelevant what the disagreement was over with James. It is healthy
for consensus building, and if james' views or actions were so radical that
it required his immediate removal from the board - maybe that's what the
board needed in it entrenched ways, isolated from what is relevant. I am
not sure what the board is trying to maintain in their silence - beyond
this expectation to be professional and secretive and respect some sort of
group cohesion or collective authority - the legal department isn't helping
the situation either, peppering it with NDAs and gag order/requests.
The prepared and semi-prepared statements from the two board members aren't
really assuring or remotely revealing of anything. So I guess, we are left
to conjectures and conspiracies, extrapolating theories from morsels of
information. This has been a sad effort from the board and the
communication need for all parties involved.
On Mon, Jan 4, 2016, MZMcBride <z(a)mzmcbride.com> wrote:
No more Sue, no more Erik, no more many, many others. With the exception
of Geoff, we have a full turnover of the leadership/executive/whatever
team of the Wikimedia Foundation. This, in addition to two vacancies for
Chief Technology and Chief Financial Officers, along with a recent-ish
massive re-organization of the engineering team that ruffled feathers.
I think you are missing some of the context to support your narrative.
Sue's departure was the precondition for Lila's arrival and the new
leadership. Erik also, would be seen as an extension of the same executive
body that had to be refactored. You mention Geoff, but he was brought on to
replace someone else in that position(Mike), by Sue. I count several of the
same individuals still around - off the top of my head, Asaf, Siko, James,
Megan, Brion, Tomasz, and many more are still around. A large majority of
the WMF staff just never interacted with the community, and there were
always new staff members around, so it really doesn't feel all that
different. I would also argue the average employment length for a wfm
employee under Sue wasn't any better. There were a lot of staff changes
that happened quietly and frequently. There was also a clique that formed
that moved around titles - I see less of that now. The open positions on
staff aren't really evidence of anything in particular beyond a suitable
hire hasn't been located, given how important those two positions are I
would rather they err on the side of caution.
I assume bringing in a new executive and new leadership for an organisation
means change. In fact, I'd be more surprised if there weren't these changes
and Lila was working with the same people doing the exact same things as
Sue. Change in this case is evident, whether that change is for good or not
- remains to be seen - something we agree on.
I like to remind people that Sue's start as
Executive Director wasn't
exactly drama-free, but at no point in her tenure can I remember anyone,
inside or outside of the Wikimedia Foundation, suggesting holding a vote
of no confidence for her. The same hasn't been true of Lila, unfortunately.
I would disagree, and I would also point out that there isn't a no
confidence vote for Lila now either. This is strictly about the board and
its conduct, this might be among the first few times the focus is shifting
to Lila without even her mention by any of the parties involved. For
historical accuracy, I would point you to the 2012 fundraising debate, the
superprotect debacle, and a lot of contentious discussion over the years
that questioned Sue's leadership on a regular basis.
It's possible that the secrecy is hiding all of the work taking place in
the background, with people diligently studying the
past five years,
associated goals, and figuring out what went wrong and what went right.
But the suspicion I have, as a somewhat-informed observer, is that the
high-level vision for what comes next for the Wikimedia Foundation is
missing. And that's what driving the low morale and high discomfort.
As another somewhat-informed observer, I would assure you that a high-level
vision for what comes next for WMF was ALWAYS missing. Just see the
original strategic plan from boots on the ground in the "global south" to
payment processing/chapter fundraising debate moving to narrowing focus to
myriads of development efforts that were just abandoned and never replaced
with a cohesive strategy. For example, there was a global dev. dept. at
some point, it was gutted a long time ago but everyone involved was
refactored in other positions - one would argue there might be little to no
skill or experience overlap between overseeing a "boots on the ground"
strategy in MENA region(Or Brazil and India) to handling grants from SF,
and same could be said for a lot of other departments and position
shuffling over the years, but I digress.
One can also argue, the high level vision could in part come from the
board. They certainly might have had a vision in mind when they replaced
Sue. But I highly doubt there ever was, and this is the flat circle
perpetuating itself - who is leading whom?
Perhaps ironically, this tumult and anxiety comes at a time when there's
so much to be excited about in the tech space. We have all kinds of new
tools: arbitrary Wikidata access, graphing/visualization libraries, more
powerful transclusion, Scribunto/Lua modules, VisualEditor, etc., along
with steady performance and operations improvements that have made the
sites faster and securer to load and more enjoyable to use. There are
reasons to be hopeful about the next few years, but also reasons to be
concerned. It's unclear what the precise ratio is currently.
I'm not sure why you wouldn't put at least some of that as a win for Lila?
That is not to say Lila has my vote of confidence on all issues, I have my
disappointments too. But I have a simple measure that I follow, I check
Lila's talk page (Last edited by her on 2 Jan) to see how the conversation
is going there. It sounds stupid, but really I've seen more board members
and executives lose sight of what is relevant when they shut the world
around them and stop communicating on wiki. She is listening to the raw
feedback, even when it is constantly negative. There is no alternative to
unadulterated feedback - the board needs a good dose of that.
Regards
Theo