Dear Board (and all),
The growing complexity of governance efforts is defeating us. Process creep https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Avoid_instruction_creep is an existential threat for projects like ours – it is self-perpetuating if not actively curtailed, as it filters out people who dislike excess process. There's a reason 'bureaucrats' and 'stewards' have unglamorous titles.
Global governance in particular seems to be suffering from this now. Let's try to scale it back! Recent developments, all at least somewhat confusing:
*Global Council*: A three-stage vote for the drafting committee. After 6 months of work in private, we know the charter will cover governance, resourcing, & community https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter/Content. A ratifiable charter by 2023 should include Council scope, then *another* group may draft an election process. Council elections would start mid-2024.
*Conduct*: Two years from first draft to realization. Custom review & revision process for policy, set to change ~once a year. Enforcement by *another* group (U4C), not yet defined, with an idea about annual elections for it [starting in 2023?].
*WMF Board*: A *four*-stage election, with a new complex nomination template. Nominees evaluated by *another* elected 9-person Analysis Committee, followed by a two-stage vote. Months of process, 16 staff facilitators.
Something has to give. We don't have time for all of these to be different, complex affairs. And this complexity feels self-imposed, like trying to push spaghetti through a straw.
~ ~ ~ Four short proposals for your consideration:
1. Focus discussions on the decisions we need to resolve, not on process. We need a foundation Board & global Council for specific practical reasons. What challenges do they need to resolve this year? What major issues + nuances are at play?
2. Make elections simple, flexible, consistent. Build tools and frameworks that *conserve* rather than soak up community time. Make longer processes capture proportionately detailed results. Empower a standing election committee.
3. Highlight ways people can engage with governance + prioritization, regionally + globally, beyond winning elections to procedural bodies. *Support* organizers + facilitators rather than *hiring* them out of their communities to facilitate on behalf of a central org.
4. Delegate more. Delegate to community. Delegate *design* and *implementation*. Our communities excel at self-organization, and rebel against arbitrary mandates. Avoid language or policies that remove agency or exaggerate staff-community division.
𝒲♡, SJ
+1
P
From: Samuel Klein [mailto:meta.sj@gmail.com] Sent: 18 May 2022 22:44 To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Simplifying governance processes
Dear Board (and all),
The growing complexity of governance efforts is defeating us. Process creep https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Avoid_instruction_creep is an existential threat for projects like ours – it is self-perpetuating if not actively curtailed, as it filters out people who dislike excess process. There's a reason 'bureaucrats' and 'stewards' have unglamorous titles.
Global governance in particular seems to be suffering from this now. Let's try to scale it back! Recent developments, all at least somewhat confusing:
Global Council: A three-stage vote for the drafting committee. After 6 months of work in private, we know the charter will cover governance, resourcing, https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter/Content & community. A ratifiable charter by 2023 should include Council scope, then another group may draft an election process. Council elections would start mid-2024.
Conduct: Two years from first draft to realization. Custom review & revision process for policy, set to change ~once a year. Enforcement by another group (U4C), not yet defined, with an idea about annual elections for it [starting in 2023?].
WMF Board: A four-stage election, with a new complex nomination template. Nominees evaluated by another elected 9-person Analysis Committee, followed by a two-stage vote. Months of process, 16 staff facilitators.
Something has to give. We don't have time for all of these to be different, complex affairs. And this complexity feels self-imposed, like trying to push spaghetti through a straw.
~ ~ ~
Four short proposals for your consideration:
1. Focus discussions on the decisions we need to resolve, not on process. We need a foundation Board & global Council for specific practical reasons. What challenges do they need to resolve this year? What major issues + nuances are at play?
2. Make elections simple, flexible, consistent. Build tools and frameworks that conserve rather than soak up community time. Make longer processes capture proportionately detailed results. Empower a standing election committee.
3. Highlight ways people can engage with governance + prioritization, regionally + globally, beyond winning elections to procedural bodies. Support organizers + facilitators rather than hiring them out of their communities to facilitate on behalf of a central org.
4. Delegate more. Delegate to community. Delegate design and implementation.
Our communities excel at self-organization, and rebel against arbitrary mandates. Avoid language or policies that remove agency or exaggerate staff-community division.
𝒲♡, SJ
+1
Florence
(the WMF board elections Analysis Committee selection process... really... ugh)
Le 19/05/2022 à 13:50, Peter Southwood a écrit :
+1
P
*From:*Samuel Klein [mailto:meta.sj@gmail.com] *Sent:* 18 May 2022 22:44 *To:* Wikimedia Mailing List *Subject:* [Wikimedia-l] Simplifying governance processes
Dear Board (and all),
The growing complexity of governance efforts is defeating us. Process creep https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Avoid_instruction_creep is an existential threat for projects like ours – it is self-perpetuating if not actively curtailed, as it filters out people who dislike excess process. There's a reason 'bureaucrats' and 'stewards' have unglamorous titles.
Global governance in particular seems to be suffering from this now. Let's try to scale it back! Recent developments, all at least somewhat confusing:
*Global Council*: A three-stage vote for the drafting committee. After 6 months of work in private, we know the charter will cover governance, resourcing, & community https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter/Content. A ratifiable charter by 2023 should include Council scope, then *another* group may draft an election process. Council elections would start mid-2024.
*Conduct*: Two years from first draft to realization. Custom review & revision process for policy, set to change ~once a year. Enforcement by *another* group (U4C), not yet defined, with an idea about annual elections for it [starting in 2023?].
*WMF Board*: A /four/-stage election, with a new complex nomination template. Nominees evaluated by *another* elected 9-person Analysis Committee, followed by a two-stage vote. Months of process, 16 staff facilitators.
Something has to give. We don't have time for all of these to be different, complex affairs. And this complexity feels self-imposed, like trying to push spaghetti through a straw.
~ ~ ~
Four short proposals for your consideration:
- Focus discussions on the decisions we need to resolve, not on process.
We need a foundation Board & global Council for specific practical reasons. What challenges do they need to resolve this year? What major issues + nuances are at play?
- Make elections simple, flexible, consistent.
Build tools and frameworks that /conserve/ rather than soak up community time. Make longer processes capture proportionately detailed results. Empower a standing election committee.
- Highlight ways people can engage with governance + prioritization,
regionally + globally, beyond winning elections to procedural bodies. /Support/ organizers + facilitators rather than /hiring/ them out of their communities to facilitate on behalf of a central org.
- Delegate more. Delegate to community. Delegate /design/ and
/implementation/.
Our communities excel at self-organization, and rebel against arbitrary mandates. Avoid language or policies that remove agency or exaggerate staff-community division.
𝒲♡, SJ
--
Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266
Virus-free. www.avg.com http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=emailclient
Wikimedia-l mailing list --wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at:https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines andhttps://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives athttps://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email towikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
I haven't steeped myself in WMF governance details in the past couple of years, but SJ's observation strikes me as sensible.
For example, after 15+ years of board governance, we shouldn't have to spend time every year debating how the Board is to be selected, each time resulting in a more complicated process than before.
The situation reminds me of the sort of rules-creep we frequently see on English WIkipedia. Each individual change is well-intentioned and on its own may make sense, but the cumulative effect is much too complicated, and to newcomers sometimes virtually impenetrable. (Cf. https://slate.com/technology/2014/06/wikipedias-bureaucracy-problem-and-how-... , which as it happens was written by a current WMF board member.)
That being said, I'm not sure what specifically should be done to address this problem. In particular, let's not create a committee and process to decide whether we have too many committees and processes.
Best regards, Newyorkbrad/IBM
On Wed, May 18, 2022 at 4:45 PM Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
Dear Board (and all),
The growing complexity of governance efforts is defeating us. Process creep https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Avoid_instruction_creep is an existential threat for projects like ours – it is self-perpetuating if not actively curtailed, as it filters out people who dislike excess process. There's a reason 'bureaucrats' and 'stewards' have unglamorous titles.
Global governance in particular seems to be suffering from this now. Let's try to scale it back! Recent developments, all at least somewhat confusing:
*Global Council*: A three-stage vote for the drafting committee. After 6 months of work in private, we know the charter will cover governance, resourcing, & community https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter/Content. A ratifiable charter by 2023 should include Council scope, then *another* group may draft an election process. Council elections would start mid-2024.
*Conduct*: Two years from first draft to realization. Custom review & revision process for policy, set to change ~once a year. Enforcement by *another* group (U4C), not yet defined, with an idea about annual elections for it [starting in 2023?].
*WMF Board*: A *four*-stage election, with a new complex nomination template. Nominees evaluated by *another* elected 9-person Analysis Committee, followed by a two-stage vote. Months of process, 16 staff facilitators.
Something has to give. We don't have time for all of these to be different, complex affairs. And this complexity feels self-imposed, like trying to push spaghetti through a straw.
~ ~ ~ Four short proposals for your consideration:
- Focus discussions on the decisions we need to resolve, not on process.
We need a foundation Board & global Council for specific practical reasons. What challenges do they need to resolve this year? What major issues + nuances are at play?
- Make elections simple, flexible, consistent.
Build tools and frameworks that *conserve* rather than soak up community time. Make longer processes capture proportionately detailed results. Empower a standing election committee.
- Highlight ways people can engage with governance + prioritization,
regionally + globally, beyond winning elections to procedural bodies. *Support* organizers + facilitators rather than *hiring* them out of their communities to facilitate on behalf of a central org.
- Delegate more. Delegate to community. Delegate *design* and
*implementation*. Our communities excel at self-organization, and rebel against arbitrary mandates. Avoid language or policies that remove agency or exaggerate staff-community division.
𝒲♡, SJ
-- Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266 _______________________________________________ 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/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
+1 to this, my perception is that we're wasting a lot of volunteer's + staff time + resources into complex governance processes without clear results. In theory, the reason why you want this much transparency & process is to make sure decision making (and in turn resources) are allocated fairly, but in practice so much bureaucracy makes it very hard for people to participate, leading to even more inequality.
It's a complex balance to strike but definitely the current initiatives are not even a good aim to begin with.
cheers, scann
Mostly agree with SJ here, with one exception: I do think that some standing committee to rule on conduct issues is necessary to be community elected (not sure if I understood SJ correctly that he was not in favor of this though). Lets call it some version of separation of powers, and a necessary process effort to ensure trust in that system.
But in general, I agree that while consultations and community decisions are important, we have to get smarter at them. This is in part being selective with how we advertise things (be cautious with the use of your megaphone), more structured and accessible off-cycle engagement (reducing the all-importance of formal processes) and indeed better delegation.
Best, Lodewijk
On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 10:27 AM Evelin Heidel scannopolis@gmail.com wrote:
+1 to this, my perception is that we're wasting a lot of volunteer's + staff time + resources into complex governance processes without clear results. In theory, the reason why you want this much transparency & process is to make sure decision making (and in turn resources) are allocated fairly, but in practice so much bureaucracy makes it very hard for people to participate, leading to even more inequality.
It's a complex balance to strike but definitely the current initiatives are not even a good aim to begin with.
cheers, scann _______________________________________________ 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/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 10:27 AM Evelin Heidel scannopolis@gmail.com wrote:
+1 to this, my perception is that we're wasting a lot of volunteer's + staff time + resources into complex governance processes without clear results. In theory, the reason why you want this much transparency & process is to make sure decision making (and in turn resources) are allocated fairly, but in practice so much bureaucracy makes it very hard for people to participate, leading to even more inequality.
It's a complex balance to strike but definitely the current initiatives are not even a good aim to begin with.
cheers, scann
100% this.
The intentions behind the complex governance processes are good in that they intend to increase inclusivity. But it’s easy to forget the most limited resource we have is the attention of volunteers. The groups we include the least today have the least free time and money. Longer, multi-step processes to form and elect committees to set up committees to review processes to inform a decision then has exactly the opposite of the intended effect because it reduces participation to the slim group of people who have the time and patience for such a process. The CIA wrote a manual about how to sabotage organizations, and it’s like they wrote a perfect description of exactly how things operate right now: "When possible, refer all matters to committees for further study and consideration. Attempt to make the committee as large as possible–never less than five."[1]
The other reason we ended up in this situation is simply a lack of strong leadership. People feel like they don't have the permission or safety to do things unless they've done the maximum amount of consultations possible. This is why decisions flounder in limbo for a long time, with no one really knowing if they are happening or not happening. We're stuck because we're trying to reset our governance to solve the problem where it's unclear who is able to decide what and when... but we're trying to solve that by perpetually punting a decision to some other committee or council of people. It's turtles all the way down.
1: https://www.openculture.com/2022/01/read-the-cias-simple-sabotage-field-manu...
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/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 5:38 PM Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 10:27 AM Evelin Heidel scannopolis@gmail.com wrote:
+1 to this, my perception is that we're wasting a lot of volunteer's + staff time + resources into complex governance processes without clear results. In theory, the reason why you want this much transparency & process is to make sure decision making (and in turn resources) are allocated fairly, but in practice so much bureaucracy makes it very hard for people to participate, leading to even more inequality.
It's a complex balance to strike but definitely the current initiatives are not even a good aim to begin with.
cheers, scann
100% this.
The intentions behind the complex governance processes are good in that they intend to increase inclusivity. But it’s easy to forget the most limited resource we have is the attention of volunteers. The groups we include the least today have the least free time and money. Longer, multi-step processes to form and elect committees to set up committees to review processes to inform a decision then has exactly the opposite of the intended effect because it reduces participation to the slim group of people who have the time and patience for such a process. The CIA wrote a manual about how to sabotage organizations, and it’s like they wrote a perfect description of exactly how things operate right now: "When possible, refer all matters to committees for further study and consideration. Attempt to make the committee as large as possible–never less than five."[1]
The other reason we ended up in this situation is simply a lack of strong leadership. People feel like they don't have the permission or safety to do things unless they've done the maximum amount of consultations possible. This is why decisions flounder in limbo for a long time, with no one really knowing if they are happening or not happening. We're stuck because we're trying to reset our governance to solve the problem where it's unclear who is able to decide what and when... but we're trying to solve that by perpetually punting a decision to some other committee or council of people. It's turtles all the way down.
1: https://www.openculture.com/2022/01/read-the-cias-simple-sabotage-field-manu...
I think that means we need to acknowledge some culpability for this phenomena - in environments like this list, folks learn that no decision is too benign to spark controversy and any actually controversial decision is guaranteed to garner a vitriolic backlash.
Combine that with the normal tendencies of bureaucracies, magnified by the special nature of the WMF, and the result is explosive growth in distributed decision-making organs.
Accurate insights from SJ and others, if not necessarily new, but unlikely to lead to change because all the incentives that led to this place remain.
On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 4:35 PM Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 5:38 PM Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 10:27 AM Evelin Heidel scannopolis@gmail.com wrote:
+1 to this, my perception is that we're wasting a lot of volunteer's + staff time + resources into complex governance processes without clear results. In theory, the reason why you want this much transparency & process is to make sure decision making (and in turn resources) are allocated fairly, but in practice so much bureaucracy makes it very hard for people to participate, leading to even more inequality.
It's a complex balance to strike but definitely the current initiatives are not even a good aim to begin with.
cheers, scann
100% this.
The intentions behind the complex governance processes are good in that they intend to increase inclusivity. But it’s easy to forget the most limited resource we have is the attention of volunteers. The groups we include the least today have the least free time and money. Longer, multi-step processes to form and elect committees to set up committees to review processes to inform a decision then has exactly the opposite of the intended effect because it reduces participation to the slim group of people who have the time and patience for such a process. The CIA wrote a manual about how to sabotage organizations, and it’s like they wrote a perfect description of exactly how things operate right now: "When possible, refer all matters to committees for further study and consideration. Attempt to make the committee as large as possible–never less than five."[1]
The other reason we ended up in this situation is simply a lack of strong leadership. People feel like they don't have the permission or safety to do things unless they've done the maximum amount of consultations possible. This is why decisions flounder in limbo for a long time, with no one really knowing if they are happening or not happening. We're stuck because we're trying to reset our governance to solve the problem where it's unclear who is able to decide what and when... but we're trying to solve that by perpetually punting a decision to some other committee or council of people. It's turtles all the way down.
1: https://www.openculture.com/2022/01/read-the-cias-simple-sabotage-field-manu...
I think that means we need to acknowledge some culpability for this phenomena - in environments like this list, folks learn that no decision is too benign to spark controversy and any actually controversial decision is guaranteed to garner a vitriolic backlash.
Combine that with the normal tendencies of bureaucracies, magnified by the special nature of the WMF, and the result is explosive growth in distributed decision-making organs.
Accurate insights from SJ and others, if not necessarily new, but unlikely to lead to change because all the incentives that led to this place remain.
Yes completely true.
Some of the other bullet points in that guide to sabotage are things like “argue over precise wordings of things” that are endemic to the culture of the projects for reasons that may be unfixable.
Coming back to SJ’s original point, the tangible immediate kind of changes the Board and Maryana could enforce are:
- Set more aggressive deadlines for forming new governance bodies and policies. None of these processes should take multiple years to get running. - Reduce the number of pre-planned stages of duplicative feedback / drafting periods. - Where elections are necessary just do a single round of ranked choice voting after an open call for candidates.
What else?
_______________________________________________
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/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
The proposals that you list are a bit double edged. It may be necessary, but they have downsides. For example, there are in a few cases very good reasons to go back to the drawing board when we're talking about foundational documents. It is annoying that it takes so long, but with time we also should see increased ownership and an increased support base. Having a single phase reduces the number of messages and time spent, but it also reduces the process to a single point of failure, making it much higher stakes. If you don't participate, you're too late. It would be nice if we can somehow still lower the stakes by making processes more iterative, and accepting that the outcome does not have to be the same for a long period of time. But there is a fundamental tension between speed and perceived pressure.
I'm less concerned about elections, if only one of these rounds involves the community. If having an additional round of filtering helps to make the ballot easier to digest (reduced to six candidates for three positions sounds great to me!) that also means less mental effort for voters. The real question is: how much cumulative time are we spending on this process (or rather: should we be spending on this, if we want a good outcome). If 100 people spend an extra 2 hour to trim down from 30 to 6 candidates, that is worth it, because 10,000 people don't have to read 30 statements, bio's, Q&A's etc. If we go from 7 to 6 candidates, maybe less so. If doing another drafting round means 30 people spend an extra 10 hours drafting, that may be worth it, if it means that 1000 people don't have to be frustrated for a year because they constantly run into consequences of the policy and have to go through protests to get it changed. If the iteration for things that don't work is more lightweight, maybe we can just try it for a year, and evaluate after that.
Maybe it's worth it to sometimes take a napkin and do the math: how much collective time are we going to spend on this?
Best, Lodewijk
On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 5:12 PM Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 4:35 PM Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 5:38 PM Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 10:27 AM Evelin Heidel scannopolis@gmail.com wrote:
+1 to this, my perception is that we're wasting a lot of volunteer's + staff time + resources into complex governance processes without clear results. In theory, the reason why you want this much transparency & process is to make sure decision making (and in turn resources) are allocated fairly, but in practice so much bureaucracy makes it very hard for people to participate, leading to even more inequality.
It's a complex balance to strike but definitely the current initiatives are not even a good aim to begin with.
cheers, scann
100% this.
The intentions behind the complex governance processes are good in that they intend to increase inclusivity. But it’s easy to forget the most limited resource we have is the attention of volunteers. The groups we include the least today have the least free time and money. Longer, multi-step processes to form and elect committees to set up committees to review processes to inform a decision then has exactly the opposite of the intended effect because it reduces participation to the slim group of people who have the time and patience for such a process. The CIA wrote a manual about how to sabotage organizations, and it’s like they wrote a perfect description of exactly how things operate right now: "When possible, refer all matters to committees for further study and consideration. Attempt to make the committee as large as possible–never less than five."[1]
The other reason we ended up in this situation is simply a lack of strong leadership. People feel like they don't have the permission or safety to do things unless they've done the maximum amount of consultations possible. This is why decisions flounder in limbo for a long time, with no one really knowing if they are happening or not happening. We're stuck because we're trying to reset our governance to solve the problem where it's unclear who is able to decide what and when... but we're trying to solve that by perpetually punting a decision to some other committee or council of people. It's turtles all the way down.
1: https://www.openculture.com/2022/01/read-the-cias-simple-sabotage-field-manu...
I think that means we need to acknowledge some culpability for this phenomena - in environments like this list, folks learn that no decision is too benign to spark controversy and any actually controversial decision is guaranteed to garner a vitriolic backlash.
Combine that with the normal tendencies of bureaucracies, magnified by the special nature of the WMF, and the result is explosive growth in distributed decision-making organs.
Accurate insights from SJ and others, if not necessarily new, but unlikely to lead to change because all the incentives that led to this place remain.
Yes completely true.
Some of the other bullet points in that guide to sabotage are things like “argue over precise wordings of things” that are endemic to the culture of the projects for reasons that may be unfixable.
Coming back to SJ’s original point, the tangible immediate kind of changes the Board and Maryana could enforce are:
- Set more aggressive deadlines for forming new governance bodies and
policies. None of these processes should take multiple years to get running.
- Reduce the number of pre-planned stages of duplicative feedback /
drafting periods.
- Where elections are necessary just do a single round of ranked choice
voting after an open call for candidates.
What else?
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/... 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/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 6:25 PM effe iets anders effeietsanders@gmail.com wrote:
The proposals that you list are a bit double edged. It may be necessary, but they have downsides. For example, there are in a few cases very good reasons to go back to the drawing board when we're talking about foundational documents. It is annoying that it takes so long, but with time we also should see increased ownership and an increased support base. Having a single phase reduces the number of messages and time spent, but it also reduces the process to a single point of failure, making it much higher stakes. If you don't participate, you're too late. It would be nice if we can somehow still lower the stakes by making processes more iterative, and accepting that the outcome does not have to be the same for a long period of time. But there is a fundamental tension between speed and perceived pressure.
Do we really think that the dramatic increase in process has resulted in commensurately better community participation and buy-in? Doesn’t seem like it. Seems like we still get the same relatively tiny number voices who care a lot about global governance structure, and everyone else in the community mostly just votes when advertised to.
In any case, taking multiple years to do things like even outline what say, a code of conduct committee or global council (I still have no clue WTF that really is) will even look like and do is egregiously slow by any standard.
I'm less concerned about elections, if only one of these rounds involves
the community. If having an additional round of filtering helps to make the ballot easier to digest (reduced to six candidates for three positions sounds great to me!) that also means less mental effort for voters. The real question is: how much cumulative time are we spending on this process (or rather: should we be spending on this, if we want a good outcome). If 100 people spend an extra 2 hour to trim down from 30 to 6 candidates, that is worth it, because 10,000 people don't have to read 30 statements, bio's, Q&A's etc. If we go from 7 to 6 candidates, maybe less so. If doing another drafting round means 30 people spend an extra 10 hours drafting, that may be worth it, if it means that 1000 people don't have to be frustrated for a year because they constantly run into consequences of the policy and have to go through protests to get it changed. If the iteration for things that don't work is more lightweight, maybe we can just try it for a year, and evaluate after that.
Maybe it's worth it to sometimes take a napkin and do the math: how much collective time are we going to spend on this?
Best, Lodewijk
On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 5:12 PM Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 4:35 PM Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 5:38 PM Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 10:27 AM Evelin Heidel scannopolis@gmail.com wrote:
+1 to this, my perception is that we're wasting a lot of volunteer's + staff time + resources into complex governance processes without clear results. In theory, the reason why you want this much transparency & process is to make sure decision making (and in turn resources) are allocated fairly, but in practice so much bureaucracy makes it very hard for people to participate, leading to even more inequality.
It's a complex balance to strike but definitely the current initiatives are not even a good aim to begin with.
cheers, scann
100% this.
The intentions behind the complex governance processes are good in that they intend to increase inclusivity. But it’s easy to forget the most limited resource we have is the attention of volunteers. The groups we include the least today have the least free time and money. Longer, multi-step processes to form and elect committees to set up committees to review processes to inform a decision then has exactly the opposite of the intended effect because it reduces participation to the slim group of people who have the time and patience for such a process. The CIA wrote a manual about how to sabotage organizations, and it’s like they wrote a perfect description of exactly how things operate right now: "When possible, refer all matters to committees for further study and consideration. Attempt to make the committee as large as possible–never less than five."[1]
The other reason we ended up in this situation is simply a lack of strong leadership. People feel like they don't have the permission or safety to do things unless they've done the maximum amount of consultations possible. This is why decisions flounder in limbo for a long time, with no one really knowing if they are happening or not happening. We're stuck because we're trying to reset our governance to solve the problem where it's unclear who is able to decide what and when... but we're trying to solve that by perpetually punting a decision to some other committee or council of people. It's turtles all the way down.
1: https://www.openculture.com/2022/01/read-the-cias-simple-sabotage-field-manu...
I think that means we need to acknowledge some culpability for this phenomena - in environments like this list, folks learn that no decision is too benign to spark controversy and any actually controversial decision is guaranteed to garner a vitriolic backlash.
Combine that with the normal tendencies of bureaucracies, magnified by the special nature of the WMF, and the result is explosive growth in distributed decision-making organs.
Accurate insights from SJ and others, if not necessarily new, but unlikely to lead to change because all the incentives that led to this place remain.
Yes completely true.
Some of the other bullet points in that guide to sabotage are things like “argue over precise wordings of things” that are endemic to the culture of the projects for reasons that may be unfixable.
Coming back to SJ’s original point, the tangible immediate kind of changes the Board and Maryana could enforce are:
- Set more aggressive deadlines for forming new governance bodies and
policies. None of these processes should take multiple years to get running.
- Reduce the number of pre-planned stages of duplicative feedback /
drafting periods.
- Where elections are necessary just do a single round of ranked choice
voting after an open call for candidates.
What else?
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/... 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/... 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/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
I would hope the UCoC gives us the tools to address many of these long delays. In all cases no matter how long the process when it is completed, the goals have shifted, there's new people, and they will one day want their say.
It all comes down to one simple little idea that was the foundation of what we have created "Assume Good Faith" . Once we moved away from that we had to replace it with something that was process orientated with each process we became better at identifying holes so we built more complex processes but processes can never achieve the ideals we once reached for. We have now become so scared to make a decision without everyone being ask, so we hold a meetings, talk, then the outcome is always lets do a survey, then lets check with the affiliates so goes to the regional hubs they hold their meeting, then do another survey, then send it back to local affiliates to give an opinion then the local affiliate sends out its own survey. All we have done is kicked the ball 6 months down the road with no decision, then someone its often when just one that disagrees it gets kicked back for another attempt. In that first meeting the people there could have decided with the same outcome thats taken 2 years to reach.
These long process development cycles necessitate paid opportunities just following the trail of meetings and making sure the ball has gone down every road whether the people along that road are really invested in the individual product, and now the consideration of stipends for various community guides; perhaps now the WMF has grown in size its worth looking into how this growth is impacting community development.
It always amazes everyone what Wikimedians can do when left to just make it happen.
On Fri, 20 May 2022 at 11:43, Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 6:25 PM effe iets anders effeietsanders@gmail.com wrote:
The proposals that you list are a bit double edged. It may be necessary, but they have downsides. For example, there are in a few cases very good reasons to go back to the drawing board when we're talking about foundational documents. It is annoying that it takes so long, but with time we also should see increased ownership and an increased support base. Having a single phase reduces the number of messages and time spent, but it also reduces the process to a single point of failure, making it much higher stakes. If you don't participate, you're too late. It would be nice if we can somehow still lower the stakes by making processes more iterative, and accepting that the outcome does not have to be the same for a long period of time. But there is a fundamental tension between speed and perceived pressure.
Do we really think that the dramatic increase in process has resulted in commensurately better community participation and buy-in? Doesn’t seem like it. Seems like we still get the same relatively tiny number voices who care a lot about global governance structure, and everyone else in the community mostly just votes when advertised to.
In any case, taking multiple years to do things like even outline what say, a code of conduct committee or global council (I still have no clue WTF that really is) will even look like and do is egregiously slow by any standard.
I'm less concerned about elections, if only one of these rounds involves
the community. If having an additional round of filtering helps to make the ballot easier to digest (reduced to six candidates for three positions sounds great to me!) that also means less mental effort for voters. The real question is: how much cumulative time are we spending on this process (or rather: should we be spending on this, if we want a good outcome). If 100 people spend an extra 2 hour to trim down from 30 to 6 candidates, that is worth it, because 10,000 people don't have to read 30 statements, bio's, Q&A's etc. If we go from 7 to 6 candidates, maybe less so. If doing another drafting round means 30 people spend an extra 10 hours drafting, that may be worth it, if it means that 1000 people don't have to be frustrated for a year because they constantly run into consequences of the policy and have to go through protests to get it changed. If the iteration for things that don't work is more lightweight, maybe we can just try it for a year, and evaluate after that.
Maybe it's worth it to sometimes take a napkin and do the math: how much collective time are we going to spend on this?
Best, Lodewijk
On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 5:12 PM Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 4:35 PM Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 5:38 PM Steven Walling < steven.walling@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 10:27 AM Evelin Heidel scannopolis@gmail.com wrote:
+1 to this, my perception is that we're wasting a lot of volunteer's
- staff time + resources into complex governance processes without clear
results. In theory, the reason why you want this much transparency & process is to make sure decision making (and in turn resources) are allocated fairly, but in practice so much bureaucracy makes it very hard for people to participate, leading to even more inequality.
It's a complex balance to strike but definitely the current initiatives are not even a good aim to begin with.
cheers, scann
100% this.
The intentions behind the complex governance processes are good in that they intend to increase inclusivity. But it’s easy to forget the most limited resource we have is the attention of volunteers. The groups we include the least today have the least free time and money. Longer, multi-step processes to form and elect committees to set up committees to review processes to inform a decision then has exactly the opposite of the intended effect because it reduces participation to the slim group of people who have the time and patience for such a process. The CIA wrote a manual about how to sabotage organizations, and it’s like they wrote a perfect description of exactly how things operate right now: "When possible, refer all matters to committees for further study and consideration. Attempt to make the committee as large as possible–never less than five."[1]
The other reason we ended up in this situation is simply a lack of strong leadership. People feel like they don't have the permission or safety to do things unless they've done the maximum amount of consultations possible. This is why decisions flounder in limbo for a long time, with no one really knowing if they are happening or not happening. We're stuck because we're trying to reset our governance to solve the problem where it's unclear who is able to decide what and when... but we're trying to solve that by perpetually punting a decision to some other committee or council of people. It's turtles all the way down.
1: https://www.openculture.com/2022/01/read-the-cias-simple-sabotage-field-manu...
I think that means we need to acknowledge some culpability for this phenomena - in environments like this list, folks learn that no decision is too benign to spark controversy and any actually controversial decision is guaranteed to garner a vitriolic backlash.
Combine that with the normal tendencies of bureaucracies, magnified by the special nature of the WMF, and the result is explosive growth in distributed decision-making organs.
Accurate insights from SJ and others, if not necessarily new, but unlikely to lead to change because all the incentives that led to this place remain.
Yes completely true.
Some of the other bullet points in that guide to sabotage are things like “argue over precise wordings of things” that are endemic to the culture of the projects for reasons that may be unfixable.
Coming back to SJ’s original point, the tangible immediate kind of changes the Board and Maryana could enforce are:
- Set more aggressive deadlines for forming new governance bodies and
policies. None of these processes should take multiple years to get running.
- Reduce the number of pre-planned stages of duplicative feedback /
drafting periods.
- Where elections are necessary just do a single round of ranked choice
voting after an open call for candidates.
What else?
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/... 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/... 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/... 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/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Hi all,
A couple of thoughts.
Lodewijk said: "It would be nice if we can somehow still lower the stakes by making processes more iterative, and accepting that the outcome does not have to be the same for a long period of time."
This encapsulates *exactly* what wikis are all about. Wikipedia was revolutionary because it trusted this process. Giving everything to multiple layers of committees working behind closed doors feels disempowering, like being dragged back into the 20th century.
Gnangarra said: "These long process development cycles necessitate paid opportunities just following the trail of meetings ..."
This is my feeling as well. The new management structures that have been proposed, or are in the process of being created, seem designed to insert a layer of paid career Wikimedians between the Foundation and the volunteer community. This, too, feels like a break with the very ideas that brought the Wikimedia projects into being.
Similarly, while I appreciate office hours, zoom calls etc. – it's nice to be able to put a face to a name – such meetings are very time-consuming. What is said in a one-hour meeting can be read in 5 or 10 minutes once it's written down. Attending such meetings involves significant disruptions of work and family life (actually more so than IRC did). I wish there were more discussions on-wiki, where everyone can contribute and make an effective input whenever they have time. This is how the projects were built.
Andreas
On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 5:13 PM Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.com wrote:
What else?
In my view, User Experience research has a lot to contribute to this conversation. Every announcement, every banner, every call to action can be user-tested, including in multiple languages. Put it in front of people and see how they respond. Do they get what you're trying to say? Are they turned away? Are they able to follow the call to action? Do they want to? How do different audiences (experienced Wiki[mp]edians, new contributors, people in the Global North or Global South, people with disabilities) respond?
That kind of testing is certainly possible for well-funded organizations; it's also possible to provide volunteers with the resources to do it.
All organizations struggle with creeping complexity over time. Hard evidence that this complexity is stifling can be the necessary counterweight that motivates action: user research findings, clickthrough and completion rates for calls to action (aggregate numbers are fine, no need to track individuals!), time series data to optimize feedback periods, etc.
With evidence in hand, develop standards. Wording choices carry strong connotations. Is "team" a better term than "committee"? Is "movement" a term that fosters in-group/out-group dynamics? Are feedback periods too long or not long enough? Do participation rates in elections go up or down?
In short, I believe an evidence-driven approach to reducing complexity could bear fruit quickly. I still think fondly of the A/B testing work Maryana P. and you organized for talk page templates. [1] I don't mean to diminish the extent to which Wikimedia is evidence-driven today! I'm sure lots of folks are measuring, testing & comparing different approaches for community engagement, and I'd love to hear about it. But perhaps a more org-wide evidence-driven campaign to simplify processes, improve communications & increase their effectiveness is needed as well.
Warmly, Erik
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Template_A/B_testing
Pascale: you are the best :) Let us by all means take inspiration from math and art.
Erik notes, about UX testing:
it's also possible to provide volunteers with the resources to do it.
Yes, our ability to let people run A/B/Z tests, is extremely powerful. We should make more use of this, and teach more people to use it : particularly the editors already spending long hours fine-tuning designs.
Lodewijk writes:
Mostly agree with SJ here, with one exception: I do think that some
standing committee to rule on conduct issues is necessary
Yes, elected conduct-decision bodies make sense. I'm suggesting we use a simpler process, not be too particular about it, and iterate. The more drawn-out and elaborate a selection, the more we filter out people who would prefer to be doing non-bureaucratic work.
Let's combine a slate of elections into *one annual election process*. Make the range of elections intriguing rather than daunting.
Also, as Steven notes, we need to rebuild norms for leadership / stewardship of individual projects + decisions. Whoever is planning and leading an initiative -- be bold and humble, responsive and iterative, empowering others to fix what's broken.
SJ
On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 7:34 PM Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 5:38 PM Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 10:27 AM Evelin Heidel scannopolis@gmail.com wrote:
+1 to this, my perception is that we're wasting a lot of volunteer's + staff time + resources into complex governance processes without clear results. In theory, the reason why you want this much transparency & process is to make sure decision making (and in turn resources) are allocated fairly, but in practice so much bureaucracy makes it very hard for people to participate, leading to even more inequality.
It's a complex balance to strike but definitely the current initiatives are not even a good aim to begin with.
cheers, scann
100% this.
The intentions behind the complex governance processes are good in that they intend to increase inclusivity. But it’s easy to forget the most limited resource we have is the attention of volunteers. The groups we include the least today have the least free time and money. Longer, multi-step processes to form and elect committees to set up committees to review processes to inform a decision then has exactly the opposite of the intended effect because it reduces participation to the slim group of people who have the time and patience for such a process. The CIA wrote a manual about how to sabotage organizations, and it’s like they wrote a perfect description of exactly how things operate right now: "When possible, refer all matters to committees for further study and consideration. Attempt to make the committee as large as possible–never less than five."[1]
The other reason we ended up in this situation is simply a lack of strong leadership. People feel like they don't have the permission or safety to do things unless they've done the maximum amount of consultations possible. This is why decisions flounder in limbo for a long time, with no one really knowing if they are happening or not happening. We're stuck because we're trying to reset our governance to solve the problem where it's unclear who is able to decide what and when... but we're trying to solve that by perpetually punting a decision to some other committee or council of people. It's turtles all the way down.
1: https://www.openculture.com/2022/01/read-the-cias-simple-sabotage-field-manu...
I think that means we need to acknowledge some culpability for this phenomena - in environments like this list, folks learn that no decision is too benign to spark controversy and any actually controversial decision is guaranteed to garner a vitriolic backlash.
Combine that with the normal tendencies of bureaucracies, magnified by the special nature of the WMF, and the result is explosive growth in distributed decision-making organs.
Accurate insights from SJ and others, if not necessarily new, but unlikely to lead to change because all the incentives that led to this place remain. _______________________________________________ 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/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
+1 to this. The constant bombardment of messages to call for volunteers to engage in different highly complicated and bureaucratic top down processes are wasting valuable volunteer time and resources and over-stretching already thinned lines of global south communities. It needs to be understood, that there are many other serious priorities for Wikimedia volunteers than to spend time in all kinds of time consuming governance processes.
Regards, Bodhisattwa
On Fri, May 20, 2022, 03:08 Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 10:27 AM Evelin Heidel scannopolis@gmail.com wrote:
+1 to this, my perception is that we're wasting a lot of volunteer's + staff time + resources into complex governance processes without clear results. In theory, the reason why you want this much transparency & process is to make sure decision making (and in turn resources) are allocated fairly, but in practice so much bureaucracy makes it very hard for people to participate, leading to even more inequality.
It's a complex balance to strike but definitely the current initiatives are not even a good aim to begin with.
cheers, scann
100% this.
The intentions behind the complex governance processes are good in that they intend to increase inclusivity. But it’s easy to forget the most limited resource we have is the attention of volunteers. The groups we include the least today have the least free time and money. Longer, multi-step processes to form and elect committees to set up committees to review processes to inform a decision then has exactly the opposite of the intended effect because it reduces participation to the slim group of people who have the time and patience for such a process. The CIA wrote a manual about how to sabotage organizations, and it’s like they wrote a perfect description of exactly how things operate right now: "When possible, refer all matters to committees for further study and consideration. Attempt to make the committee as large as possible–never less than five."[1]
The other reason we ended up in this situation is simply a lack of strong leadership. People feel like they don't have the permission or safety to do things unless they've done the maximum amount of consultations possible. This is why decisions flounder in limbo for a long time, with no one really knowing if they are happening or not happening. We're stuck because we're trying to reset our governance to solve the problem where it's unclear who is able to decide what and when... but we're trying to solve that by perpetually punting a decision to some other committee or council of people. It's turtles all the way down.
1: https://www.openculture.com/2022/01/read-the-cias-simple-sabotage-field-manu...
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/... 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/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
One more proposal to "decomplexify" the WMF/Community processes :
Get inspired by maths and art.
There is nothing complex that cannot be simplified for an equivalent result.
Let's find the good degree of complexity at all stages and not just take the first raw equation that comes out. It may be exact, but just need to be reworked to get pertinent and easy to use.
Maths What does simplify mean in math?
https://howtodiscuss.com/t/simplify-math-definition/108309
Art Simplify images to their core elements. https://simplify.thatsh.it/
Pascale
………………………… Pascale Camus-Walter
Le 18 mai 2022 à 22:46, Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com a écrit :
Dear Board (and all),
The growing complexity of governance efforts is defeating us. Process creep is an existential threat for projects like ours – it is self-perpetuating if not actively curtailed, as it filters out people who dislike excess process. There's a reason 'bureaucrats' and 'stewards' have unglamorous titles.
Global governance in particular seems to be suffering from this now. Let's try to scale it back! Recent developments, all at least somewhat confusing:
Global Council: A three-stage vote for the drafting committee. After 6 months of work in private, we know the charter will cover governance, resourcing, & community. A ratifiable charter by 2023 should include Council scope, then another group may draft an election process. Council elections would start mid-2024.
Conduct: Two years from first draft to realization. Custom review & revision process for policy, set to change ~once a year. Enforcement by another group (U4C), not yet defined, with an idea about annual elections for it [starting in 2023?].
WMF Board: A four-stage election, with a new complex nomination template. Nominees evaluated by another elected 9-person Analysis Committee, followed by a two-stage vote. Months of process, 16 staff facilitators.
Something has to give. We don't have time for all of these to be different, complex affairs. And this complexity feels self-imposed, like trying to push spaghetti through a straw.
~ ~ ~ Four short proposals for your consideration:
1. Focus discussions on the decisions we need to resolve, not on process. We need a foundation Board & global Council for specific practical reasons. What challenges do they need to resolve this year? What major issues + nuances are at play?
2. Make elections simple, flexible, consistent. Build tools and frameworks that conserve rather than soak up community time. Make longer processes capture proportionately detailed results. Empower a standing election committee.
3. Highlight ways people can engage with governance + prioritization, regionally + globally, beyond winning elections to procedural bodies. Support organizers + facilitators rather than hiring them out of their communities to facilitate on behalf of a central org.
4. Delegate more. Delegate to community. Delegate design and implementation. Our communities excel at self-organization, and rebel against arbitrary mandates. Avoid language or policies that remove agency or exaggerate staff-community division.
𝒲♡, SJ
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org