I am sure everyone knows that, but maybe it is worth putting it in words.
It has been mentionned several times that information provided on private lists was leaked publicly.
Arguably, private lists are populated by individuals who care about the projects, who want to help, and who are trusted.
Once information starts leaking, it may imply three things
1) There is information worth being known. It is possibly fine. Some information is good to share. Other information is best kept confidential, at least for a while.
2) Trusted people feel that this information should be public, or at least in part more public than it actually is. This suggests that the core community may not fully agree on where the treshold for confidentiality is located. Another interpretation is that they feel confidentiality would normally be fine, but object with the decisions taken. So, it may be either protest against the process, or against the result.
3) They give info to third parties, instead of asking if they can publish, or instead of forwarding the information themselves, which suggest they fear backslash, and that freedom of speech is losing a bit of ground.
I found interesting that the only action points suggested have been to 1) decrease information proposed to private lists or to 2) decrease number of people on the private lists or to 3) create more private private lists.
No one has suggested to actually look at reasons why there are leaks.
Ant
On 09/01/2008, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
It has been mentionned several times that information provided on private lists was leaked publicly. No one has suggested to actually look at reasons why there are leaks.
Because it makes the person spreading the leak sound cool.
e.g.
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikimedia_leak:_Will_the_Foundation_%22run_on_Su...
Read that and tell me which of the details weren't already all over foundation-l. The main point of the article appears to be bragging about getting a PDF marked "internal."
(I suppose this makes Wikinews proper journalism.)
- d.
On 09/01/2008, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 09/01/2008, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
It has been mentionned several times that information provided on private lists was leaked publicly. No one has suggested to actually look at reasons why there are leaks.
Because it makes the person spreading the leak sound cool.
e.g. http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikimedia_leak:_Will_the_Foundation_%22run_on_Su...
Read that and tell me which of the details weren't already all over foundation-l.
Kaltura.
The meeting with Sun was mentioned less than 12 hours ago (by Erik in "Fundraising & Networking updates"), not what I would call "all over" foundation-l.
I'm still trying to figure out 1) what the lead paragraph of that story has to do with the rest of it, and 2) what Wikinews' criteria for newsworthiness are, especially in relation to Wikimedia.
Regardless of why people leak, it still feels like you're being dudded, to find out information through unofficial or even hostile channels. It seems like something has been out of balance of late.
cheers Brianna
Hi!
Regardless of why people leak, it still feels like you're being dudded, to find out information through unofficial or even hostile channels. It seems like something has been out of balance of late.
In any organization there might be private stuff, simply because we have to deal with other organizations. Though Wikimedia is essentially quite open, other organizations respect confidentiality, because of many reasons. Because they want to stay in business, because they are publicly traded and have to follow quite a bunch of regulations, or simply because they want to help us without too much of bragging and boasting, or just want to prepare for nice publicity, by doing lots of nice work. If we deal with folks, we'd have to respect their wishes, if they respect ours.
Wikimedia does love competition, and can disclose lots of things it is doing - like our operations are by far one of most open. We end up discussing lots - and achieving together lots.
Now, any leak makes people sad. That means that people you'd love to trust, are doing something you wouldn't do. That means that people you spend your time communicating to end up backstabbing with their "journalism". That means that projects you keep supporting end up telling that "hey, we leaked, this is our featured story". Sorry, folks, if thats the only way you can feature yourself, I'd suggest finding other things to do. At least I really would like not to waste my time at tabloid activities. There's more sense in supporting Pokemon articles.
I understand when information about acts against humanity are revealed. Frauds, scams, whatever. But now it was just taking a piss at people doing their job and trying to get projects supported, extended and elevated.
Meh, anything foundation does has to get community support anyway. People should at least allow to package raw ideas into proposals.
My personal opinion - with a flavor of sadness. Though it is not all that bad yet - we can still maintain absolute trust with quite a few people in the project. :)
BR, Domas
Hoi, As it is best to be a "deep throat", you will not learn much of the motivations. It is quite clear to me that it is more likely that your head will be bitten off then you will be praised for spoiling the trust that you were given. In my opinion rightly so because by doing this, a person that leaks is detrimental to openness. Detrimental because the resulting spin put on things is negative and feeds the arguments of those who want to stop leaks.
What I can say for myself is that there is another aspect that makes it hard for people to know what is going on. This has everything to do that it is HARD, BLOODY HARD to communicate with people within the organisation when you are not at least on internal lists. First of all, it is getting better, this has nothing to do with the new position of Erik, but more with the emergence of an actual organised body of people that are the WMF organization.
For those who want more openness, they have to work within the system to achieve this. It will be hard work, but if they believe in openness, the result is the reward.
Thanks, GerardM
On Jan 9, 2008 9:13 AM, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
I am sure everyone knows that, but maybe it is worth putting it in words.
It has been mentionned several times that information provided on private lists was leaked publicly.
Arguably, private lists are populated by individuals who care about the projects, who want to help, and who are trusted.
Once information starts leaking, it may imply three things
- There is information worth being known.
It is possibly fine. Some information is good to share. Other information is best kept confidential, at least for a while.
- Trusted people feel that this information should be public, or at
least in part more public than it actually is. This suggests that the core community may not fully agree on where the treshold for confidentiality is located. Another interpretation is that they feel confidentiality would normally be fine, but object with the decisions taken. So, it may be either protest against the process, or against the result.
- They give info to third parties, instead of asking if they can
publish, or instead of forwarding the information themselves, which suggest they fear backslash, and that freedom of speech is losing a bit of ground.
I found interesting that the only action points suggested have been to
- decrease information proposed to private lists or to 2) decrease
number of people on the private lists or to 3) create more private private lists.
No one has suggested to actually look at reasons why there are leaks.
Ant
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Florence Devouard wrote:
It has been mentionned several times that information provided on private lists was leaked publicly.
Arguably, private lists are populated by individuals who care about the projects, who want to help, and who are trusted.
Once information starts leaking, it may imply three things
- There is information worth being known.
It is possibly fine. Some information is good to share. Other information is best kept confidential, at least for a while.
- Trusted people feel that this information should be public, or at
least in part more public than it actually is. This suggests that the core community may not fully agree on where the treshold for confidentiality is located. Another interpretation is that they feel confidentiality would normally be fine, but object with the decisions taken. So, it may be either protest against the process, or against the result.
- They give info to third parties, instead of asking if they can
publish, or instead of forwarding the information themselves, which suggest they fear backslash, and that freedom of speech is losing a bit of ground.
I found interesting that the only action points suggested have been to
- decrease information proposed to private lists or to 2) decrease
number of people on the private lists or to 3) create more private private lists.
No one has suggested to actually look at reasons why there are leaks.
I'm inclined to rely on the old maxim, "Don't attribute to malice what you can attribute to ignorance. In many situations I don't think that the intentionalities are as clear as what you perceive them to be. I don't completely discount free speech crusaders or malicious moles, but I would look for easier solutions first.
I've suggested a two-prong approach before: 1. Make sure that *all* information which should be made public is made public in a timely manner. 2. Have very clear definitions of what kind of things should be confidential.
I agree that the superficial proposals made to you do not really address the problems. You can't expect people to protect confidentiality if they don't know what it is. Remember too that a lot of the Wikipedia activists are relatively young, and have not had the experience of dealing with business confidentiality; it needs to be spelled out.
Transparency is important to maintaining confidentiality. That may seem paradoxical, but it is essential to building the confidence that the Board is acting in the interests of the community, however you want to define 'community'.
When the Board appointed Erik to his paid deputy director's position it created a political disaster for itself. Sure, you might say that it was Sue's call, but the Board always has, or at least should have, the power to veto any specific hire. It becomes a responsibility when the political optics are wrong. The storm that arose when it was thought that Danny might win a seat on the Board should have been a warning. Neither Danny nor Erik have been strangers to controversy. Even after the hiring the Board could have mitigated the damage by adopting a six-month waiting period before a Board member could join the staff, with the six-months to start from the anticipated end of the elected term so that it cannot be accelerated by an early resignation. When someone is elected for a specific term the electorate expect him to finish that term. When these kinds of hirings happen, they leave the impression, rightly or wrongly, that there is no transparency, and perception is everything.
While I have your attention . . . :-) (I know. I have this fault of thinking too long before I say things.)
I have supported the idea of a Wikicouncil from the very beginning, and I'm sure that somewhere in the bowels of the mailing lists there remains a record of my suggestion for bicameral governance back when the first by-laws were being discussed. The question of how to determine membership on such a council will remain vexed for a long time, and I think it will only be settled after a long period of trial and error. In the early stages I would make the membership fairly open ended, with just enough restriction on membership to keep it from becoming unmanageable. Both appointive and democratic methods for choosing members have their own problems. I would suggest that the first members be appointed from among the most senior and most experienced wikimedians; they could draft provisional policies. A first in-person meeting could take place in Alexandria. Would financial encouragement to get them there be any less worthwile than getting the advisory board to Taipei?
One of the first responsibilities that I would attach to the Wikicouncil would be joint responsibility for the by-laws. Changes to the by-laws would need to be passed by both the Board and the Council. This would allow the Board to examine changes from a business perspective, and the Council to view them from a community perspective.
Ec
Absolutely brilliant. I couldn't think of a better way to form it myself.
Chad
On Jan 10, 2008 7:07 AM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Florence Devouard wrote:
It has been mentionned several times that information provided on private lists was leaked publicly.
Arguably, private lists are populated by individuals who care about the projects, who want to help, and who are trusted.
Once information starts leaking, it may imply three things
- There is information worth being known.
It is possibly fine. Some information is good to share. Other information is best kept confidential, at least for a while.
- Trusted people feel that this information should be public, or at
least in part more public than it actually is. This suggests that the core community may not fully agree on where the treshold for confidentiality is located. Another interpretation is that they feel confidentiality would normally be fine, but object with the decisions taken. So, it may be either protest against the process, or against the result.
- They give info to third parties, instead of asking if they can
publish, or instead of forwarding the information themselves, which suggest they fear backslash, and that freedom of speech is losing a bit of ground.
I found interesting that the only action points suggested have been to
- decrease information proposed to private lists or to 2) decrease
number of people on the private lists or to 3) create more private private lists.
No one has suggested to actually look at reasons why there are leaks.
I'm inclined to rely on the old maxim, "Don't attribute to malice what you can attribute to ignorance. In many situations I don't think that the intentionalities are as clear as what you perceive them to be. I don't completely discount free speech crusaders or malicious moles, but I would look for easier solutions first.
I've suggested a two-prong approach before: 1. Make sure that *all* information which should be made public is made public in a timely manner. 2. Have very clear definitions of what kind of things should be confidential.
I agree that the superficial proposals made to you do not really address the problems. You can't expect people to protect confidentiality if they don't know what it is. Remember too that a lot of the Wikipedia activists are relatively young, and have not had the experience of dealing with business confidentiality; it needs to be spelled out.
Transparency is important to maintaining confidentiality. That may seem paradoxical, but it is essential to building the confidence that the Board is acting in the interests of the community, however you want to define 'community'.
When the Board appointed Erik to his paid deputy director's position it created a political disaster for itself. Sure, you might say that it was Sue's call, but the Board always has, or at least should have, the power to veto any specific hire. It becomes a responsibility when the political optics are wrong. The storm that arose when it was thought that Danny might win a seat on the Board should have been a warning. Neither Danny nor Erik have been strangers to controversy. Even after the hiring the Board could have mitigated the damage by adopting a six-month waiting period before a Board member could join the staff, with the six-months to start from the anticipated end of the elected term so that it cannot be accelerated by an early resignation. When someone is elected for a specific term the electorate expect him to finish that term. When these kinds of hirings happen, they leave the impression, rightly or wrongly, that there is no transparency, and perception is everything.
While I have your attention . . . :-) (I know. I have this fault of thinking too long before I say things.)
I have supported the idea of a Wikicouncil from the very beginning, and I'm sure that somewhere in the bowels of the mailing lists there remains a record of my suggestion for bicameral governance back when the first by-laws were being discussed. The question of how to determine membership on such a council will remain vexed for a long time, and I think it will only be settled after a long period of trial and error. In the early stages I would make the membership fairly open ended, with just enough restriction on membership to keep it from becoming unmanageable. Both appointive and democratic methods for choosing members have their own problems. I would suggest that the first members be appointed from among the most senior and most experienced wikimedians; they could draft provisional policies. A first in-person meeting could take place in Alexandria. Would financial encouragement to get them there be any less worthwile than getting the advisory board to Taipei?
One of the first responsibilities that I would attach to the Wikicouncil would be joint responsibility for the by-laws. Changes to the by-laws would need to be passed by both the Board and the Council. This would allow the Board to examine changes from a business perspective, and the Council to view them from a community perspective.
Ec
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Florence Devouard wrote:
It has been mentionned several times that information provided on private lists was leaked publicly.
Arguably, private lists are populated by individuals who care about the projects, who want to help, and who are trusted.
Once information starts leaking, it may imply three things
- There is information worth being known.
It is possibly fine. Some information is good to share. Other information is best kept confidential, at least for a while.
- Trusted people feel that this information should be public, or at
least in part more public than it actually is. This suggests that the core community may not fully agree on where the treshold for confidentiality is located. Another interpretation is that they feel confidentiality would normally be fine, but object with the decisions taken. So, it may be either protest against the process, or against the result.
- They give info to third parties, instead of asking if they can
publish, or instead of forwarding the information themselves, which suggest they fear backslash, and that freedom of speech is losing a bit of ground.
I found interesting that the only action points suggested have been to
- decrease information proposed to private lists or to 2) decrease
number of people on the private lists or to 3) create more private private lists.
No one has suggested to actually look at reasons why there are leaks.
I'm inclined to rely on the old maxim, "Don't attribute to malice what you can attribute to ignorance. In many situations I don't think that the intentionalities are as clear as what you perceive them to be. I don't completely discount free speech crusaders or malicious moles, but I would look for easier solutions first.
I've suggested a two-prong approach before: 1. Make sure that *all* information which should be made public is made public in a timely manner. 2. Have very clear definitions of what kind of things should be confidential.
I agree that the superficial proposals made to you do not really address the problems. You can't expect people to protect confidentiality if they don't know what it is. Remember too that a lot of the Wikipedia activists are relatively young, and have not had the experience of dealing with business confidentiality; it needs to be spelled out.
Transparency is important to maintaining confidentiality. That may seem paradoxical, but it is essential to building the confidence that the Board is acting in the interests of the community, however you want to define 'community'.
When the Board appointed Erik to his paid deputy director's position it created a political disaster for itself. Sure, you might say that it was Sue's call, but the Board always has, or at least should have, the power to veto any specific hire. It becomes a responsibility when the political optics are wrong. The storm that arose when it was thought that Danny might win a seat on the Board should have been a warning. Neither Danny nor Erik have been strangers to controversy. Even after the hiring the Board could have mitigated the damage by adopting a six-month waiting period before a Board member could join the staff, with the six-months to start from the anticipated end of the elected term so that it cannot be accelerated by an early resignation. When someone is elected for a specific term the electorate expect him to finish that term. When these kinds of hirings happen, they leave the impression, rightly or wrongly, that there is no transparency, and perception is everything.
I want to have this crystal clear, as there is absolutely no lack of transparency on this very specific point.
The board did not appoint Erik to his paid deputy director's position. Period.
It was Sue's decision. I am not aware that the board has any veto on such matters. We have made it clear to Sue that she is in charge of hiring and firing staff members, so that she can freely organize the team.
There are only two ways for the board to get involved in such matters. One is approving various policies, such as the "non discrimination policy", or giving various strategic guidelines, such as "try to hire a mix of american and non-american staff". The other is to change ED if the board is not happy with the ED.
We have discussed the policy for the 6-months hiring delay in october, but it was not approved because there was no strong consensus. We actually mostly disagreed on the terms (6 months, 12 months) and applicability (board -> staff or staff -> board or both). We discussed against the issue of approving the policy after Erik was hired, and the consensus was to not adopt this policy at the moment. Not because we do not think it would be generally a good idea to adopt this policy, but largely because it would be perceived as a reaction of protection and upset related to Erik being hired, and most members did not want to damage his authority and his ability to join the staff.
While I have your attention . . . :-) (I know. I have this fault of thinking too long before I say things.)
I have supported the idea of a Wikicouncil from the very beginning, and I'm sure that somewhere in the bowels of the mailing lists there remains a record of my suggestion for bicameral governance back when the first by-laws were being discussed. The question of how to determine membership on such a council will remain vexed for a long time, and I think it will only be settled after a long period of trial and error. In the early stages I would make the membership fairly open ended, with just enough restriction on membership to keep it from becoming unmanageable. Both appointive and democratic methods for choosing members have their own problems. I would suggest that the first members be appointed from among the most senior and most experienced wikimedians; they could draft provisional policies. A first in-person meeting could take place in Alexandria. Would financial encouragement to get them there be any less worthwile than getting the advisory board to Taipei?
Seems like a good idea actually...
One of the first responsibilities that I would attach to the Wikicouncil would be joint responsibility for the by-laws. Changes to the by-laws would need to be passed by both the Board and the Council. This would allow the Board to examine changes from a business perspective, and the Council to view them from a community perspective.
I do not think that an external council can get the authority to change the bylaws, however, it certainly would be a great idea that the council propose changes, which the board will approve (or not).
Part of the current broken situation is that the board is small and has limited availabilities to propose and draft new policies, new bylaws, new guidelines. I am very happy when some trusted members help us draft a good resolution. It would be great if the wikicouncil could help on this.
Look, I have a suggestion. In the bylaws, if you look at http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Bylaws#ARTICLE_VI_-_ASSETS, the content of this part of the bylaws is rather limited.
What are our assets ? In my opinion, Cash (in various states), servers, a bit of office stuff, domain names and trademarks.
Are they other things which are assets ? Could we mention these specific things (in particular trademarks and domain names) in our assets ? Does that make sense ? Is that possible to add in the bylaws that assets can not be sold or traded with exclusive deals unless authorized by a resolution of the Board of Trustees ?
Does that make sense ? If so, can someone help draft a resolution in that sense ?
Ant
Hoi, There is one thing that the Wikimedia Foundation has lots off. Goodwill. Many organisations value goodwill highly and have it as an item on their balance sheet.. Thanks, GerardM
On Jan 10, 2008 6:31 PM, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Florence Devouard wrote:
It has been mentionned several times that information provided on private lists was leaked publicly.
Arguably, private lists are populated by individuals who care about the projects, who want to help, and who are trusted.
Once information starts leaking, it may imply three things
- There is information worth being known.
It is possibly fine. Some information is good to share. Other information is best kept confidential, at least for a while.
- Trusted people feel that this information should be public, or at
least in part more public than it actually is. This suggests that the core community may not fully agree on where the treshold for confidentiality is located. Another interpretation is that they feel confidentiality would normally be fine, but object with the decisions taken. So, it may be either protest against the process, or against the result.
- They give info to third parties, instead of asking if they can
publish, or instead of forwarding the information themselves, which suggest they fear backslash, and that freedom of speech is losing a bit of ground.
I found interesting that the only action points suggested have been to
- decrease information proposed to private lists or to 2) decrease
number of people on the private lists or to 3) create more private private lists.
No one has suggested to actually look at reasons why there are leaks.
I'm inclined to rely on the old maxim, "Don't attribute to malice what you can attribute to ignorance. In many situations I don't think that the intentionalities are as clear as what you perceive them to be. I don't completely discount free speech crusaders or malicious moles, but I would look for easier solutions first.
I've suggested a two-prong approach before: 1. Make sure that *all* information which should be made public is made public in a timely manner. 2. Have very clear definitions of what kind of things should be confidential.
I agree that the superficial proposals made to you do not really address the problems. You can't expect people to protect confidentiality if they don't know what it is. Remember too that a lot of the Wikipedia activists are relatively young, and have not had the experience of dealing with business confidentiality; it needs to be spelled out.
Transparency is important to maintaining confidentiality. That may seem paradoxical, but it is essential to building the confidence that the Board is acting in the interests of the community, however you want to define 'community'.
When the Board appointed Erik to his paid deputy director's position it created a political disaster for itself. Sure, you might say that it was Sue's call, but the Board always has, or at least should have, the power to veto any specific hire. It becomes a responsibility when the political optics are wrong. The storm that arose when it was thought that Danny might win a seat on the Board should have been a warning. Neither Danny nor Erik have been strangers to controversy. Even after the hiring the Board could have mitigated the damage by adopting a six-month waiting period before a Board member could join the staff, with the six-months to start from the anticipated end of the elected term so that it cannot be accelerated by an early resignation. When someone is elected for a specific term the electorate expect him to finish that term. When these kinds of hirings happen, they leave the impression, rightly or wrongly, that there is no transparency, and perception is everything.
I want to have this crystal clear, as there is absolutely no lack of transparency on this very specific point.
The board did not appoint Erik to his paid deputy director's position. Period.
It was Sue's decision. I am not aware that the board has any veto on such matters. We have made it clear to Sue that she is in charge of hiring and firing staff members, so that she can freely organize the team.
There are only two ways for the board to get involved in such matters. One is approving various policies, such as the "non discrimination policy", or giving various strategic guidelines, such as "try to hire a mix of american and non-american staff". The other is to change ED if the board is not happy with the ED.
We have discussed the policy for the 6-months hiring delay in october, but it was not approved because there was no strong consensus. We actually mostly disagreed on the terms (6 months, 12 months) and applicability (board -> staff or staff -> board or both). We discussed against the issue of approving the policy after Erik was hired, and the consensus was to not adopt this policy at the moment. Not because we do not think it would be generally a good idea to adopt this policy, but largely because it would be perceived as a reaction of protection and upset related to Erik being hired, and most members did not want to damage his authority and his ability to join the staff.
While I have your attention . . . :-) (I know. I have this fault of thinking too long before I say things.)
I have supported the idea of a Wikicouncil from the very beginning, and I'm sure that somewhere in the bowels of the mailing lists there remains a record of my suggestion for bicameral governance back when the first by-laws were being discussed. The question of how to determine membership on such a council will remain vexed for a long time, and I think it will only be settled after a long period of trial and error. In the early stages I would make the membership fairly open ended, with just enough restriction on membership to keep it from becoming unmanageable. Both appointive and democratic methods for choosing members have their own problems. I would suggest that the first members be appointed from among the most senior and most experienced wikimedians; they could draft provisional policies. A first in-person meeting could take place in Alexandria. Would financial encouragement to get them there be any less worthwile than getting the advisory board to Taipei?
Seems like a good idea actually...
One of the first responsibilities that I would attach to the Wikicouncil would be joint responsibility for the by-laws. Changes to the by-laws would need to be passed by both the Board and the Council. This would allow the Board to examine changes from a business perspective, and the Council to view them from a community perspective.
I do not think that an external council can get the authority to change the bylaws, however, it certainly would be a great idea that the council propose changes, which the board will approve (or not).
Part of the current broken situation is that the board is small and has limited availabilities to propose and draft new policies, new bylaws, new guidelines. I am very happy when some trusted members help us draft a good resolution. It would be great if the wikicouncil could help on this.
Look, I have a suggestion. In the bylaws, if you look at http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Bylaws#ARTICLE_VI_-_ASSETS, the content of this part of the bylaws is rather limited.
What are our assets ? In my opinion, Cash (in various states), servers, a bit of office stuff, domain names and trademarks.
Are they other things which are assets ? Could we mention these specific things (in particular trademarks and domain names) in our assets ? Does that make sense ? Is that possible to add in the bylaws that assets can not be sold or traded with exclusive deals unless authorized by a resolution of the Board of Trustees ?
Does that make sense ? If so, can someone help draft a resolution in that sense ?
Ant
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Jan 10, 2008 1:08 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, There is one thing that the Wikimedia Foundation has lots off. Goodwill. Many organisations value goodwill highly and have it as an item on their balance sheet..
... mostly because they've acquired other companies at substantial multiples of their valuations [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodwill_(accounting)#Modern_meaning], not due to fruits of initiatives like "don't be evil".
--- Mike Godwin <mnemonic at gmail.com > wrote:
I speak as someone who worked to develop other communities -- the WELL, cyberliberties activists, and others -- so I worry that Birgitte is interpreting my anti-club remark as an
anti->community remark.
Sorry about your name ...
I thought your comment was not *against* community so much as narrowly focused on this "meta" community that is more removed from the wiki's and more outward facing today, than it has been before. What proportion of the volunteers creating and managing the content WMFÂ’s support do you believe understand "free content" and how a viral license like the GFDL works? How many editors understand the underlying reason to create a NPOV encyclopedia rather than seeing NPOV as simply th method that was chosen to settle disputes? How does this proportion change outside the top ten wikis?
These are issues that have been topics of discussion to some degree in the past. Today, it seems to me, that promoting "free content" means partnering with outside organizations to work on the goals of larger free content community rather than working to educate the people who have already invested their time in Wikimedia wikis. It seems more and more goals and initiatives are outward looking. And the effort to ensure that those who drive the whole process are on-board is missing. Not just missing, but not even a topic of discussion. People who dedicate a great deal of their time to the wikis mostly request WMF deliver features and straightforward advice. I think they want WMF to look inward at how to help wikiÂ’s that are struggling to deal vandalism, copyright, and pushing the limits of MediaWiki. Not that working to standardize CC and GFDL licenses is a bad thing, but that sort of initiative is not balanced with anything more inward looking. In the past, any complaint about WMF's focus or decisions was answered with the suggestion that a representative of the complaining community should join foundation-l and keep everyone updated about important issues. Recently more discussions move away to private lists and most input is compiled from people who spend most of their time working on foundation issues rather than people whose work is focused on the wiki's, especially the smaller ones. Do I think this is evil and a conspiracy against the undefined "Community"? Of course not. Do I think this is wise? Definitely not.
In full seriousness, as long as WMF has the support of developers I think it will be able to do whatever meta people like. The developers are the demi-gods of the wikis. But wouldn't it be better for WMFÂ’s initiatives to have the informed support of thousands of people who volunteer their time to Wikimedia? To have these people as stakeholders in what WMF is trying to do rather than simply be the passive and sometimes grumbling mass behind WMF's claim to being a top-ten website.
I hope the Wikicouncil intiative can change things and make more people stakeholders in WMF.
Birgitte SB
____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
On Jan 10, 2008 1:19 PM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On Jan 10, 2008 1:08 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, There is one thing that the Wikimedia Foundation has lots off. Goodwill. Many organisations value goodwill highly and have it as an item on their balance sheet..
... mostly because they've acquired other companies at substantial multiples of their valuations [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodwill_(accounting)#Modern_meaning], not due to fruits of initiatives like "don't be evil".
Exactly. [[Book value]] often has very little to do with [[market value]]. Confusing the two is a very common misconception, especially when dealing with [[intangible asset]]s. Intangibles (like Goodwill, but also like trademarks) are valued on a balance sheet at the cost to purchase or develop them. If you buy a trademark, it would go on the balance sheet at the price you paid for it. If 10 years down the road the trademark is now worth 100 times as much as when you bought it, it's still listed on the balance sheet at the price you bought it for. (Unless you're Enron, anyway. Their use of [[mark to market]] accounting to eschew these principals is a big part of what got them in trouble.)
That said, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodwill_(accounting)#Modern_meaning is incorrect. It says "Goodwill cannot be negative", but this is incorrect. Goodwill *can* be negative. See http://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/negativegoodwill.asp. It's relatively rare, but it happens.
Anthony wrote:
On Jan 10, 2008 1:19 PM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On Jan 10, 2008 1:08 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, There is one thing that the Wikimedia Foundation has lots off. Goodwill. Many organisations value goodwill highly and have it as an item on their balance sheet..
... mostly because they've acquired other companies at substantial multiples of their valuations [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodwill_(accounting)#Modern_meaning], not due to fruits of initiatives like "don't be evil".
Exactly. [[Book value]] often has very little to do with [[market value]]. Confusing the two is a very common misconception, especially when dealing with [[intangible asset]]s. Intangibles (like Goodwill, but also like trademarks) are valued on a balance sheet at the cost to purchase or develop them. If you buy a trademark, it would go on the balance sheet at the price you paid for it. If 10 years down the road the trademark is now worth 100 times as much as when you bought it, it's still listed on the balance sheet at the price you bought it for. (Unless you're Enron, anyway. Their use of [[mark to market]] accounting to eschew these principals is a big part of what got them in trouble.)
I very much agree. I don't see much more book value to the trademarks and other intangibles than the amortizable legal costs of establishing them. That's only a tiny fraction of the market value.
Ec
On 1/10/08, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
When the Board appointed Erik to his paid deputy director's position it created a political disaster for itself. Sure, you might say that it was Sue's call, but the Board always has, or at least should have, the power to veto any specific hire. It becomes a responsibility when the political optics are wrong. The storm that arose when it was thought that Danny might win a seat on the Board should have been a warning. Neither Danny nor Erik have been strangers to controversy. Even after the hiring the Board could have mitigated the damage by adopting a six-month waiting period before a Board member could join the staff, with the six-months to start from the anticipated end of the elected term so that it cannot be accelerated by an early resignation. When someone is elected for a specific term the electorate expect him to finish that term. When these kinds of hirings happen, they leave the impression, rightly or wrongly, that there is no transparency, and perception is everything.
I want to have this crystal clear, as there is absolutely no lack of transparency on this very specific point.
The board did not appoint Erik to his paid deputy director's position. Period.
It was Sue's decision. I am not aware that the board has any veto on such matters. We have made it clear to Sue that she is in charge of hiring and firing staff members, so that she can freely organize the team.
I think this is correct. If that was what Sue was instructed to do, then she acted entirely properly. What perhaps is at issue is the nature of the instruction itself. To put it in the nicest of the terms possible, she could have been instructed in very broad terms on which sources of the existing talent pool it was more desireable she look for hires and which would be deprecated. Quite likely the decision to not instruct her in such a way was the proper one, one should not tie the hands of an executive.
But whether the instrucion on how to form her own starff was good or not, it should not cloud the matter that the responsibility to instruct the ED is fairly and squarely on the board. The board need not have a veto on ED decisions to have the job of _instructing_ the ED as to what (and how) thye are supposed to do, before they get about doing it. Not micromanaging, but there is a lot of leeway on how broad the outlines of ways and means expressed as preferrable and or out of bounds, is expressed by the board.
We have discussed the policy for the 6-months hiring delay in october, but it was not approved because there was no strong consensus. We actually mostly disagreed on the terms (6 months, 12 months) and applicability (board -> staff or staff -> board or both). We discussed against the issue of approving the policy after Erik was hired, and the consensus was to not adopt this policy at the moment. Not because we do not think it would be generally a good idea to adopt this policy, but largely because it would be perceived as a reaction of protection and upset related to Erik being hired, and most members did not want to damage his authority and his ability to join the staff.
I am sorry, but the minutes of the meeting do not square with what you say there. According to the minutes - while there may not have been consensus - there was a clear majority vote in favour of setting a symmetrical 6 month exlusion period for transitions both board -> staff and staff -> board.
And (also by the text of the minutes that is published - seems there are some edits there that are discussing later developements rather than what transpired at the meeting itself; which is probably illustrative in a positive fashion, even though it confuses the text of the minutes as a document of a specific event) specifically Erik was tasked with drafting the resolution; which after inquiring with Mike, (someone, not clear who) decided that it was a bylaws matter, not a resolution matter.
If there has been a subsequent decision to not implement the voted on decision even as a bylaws change, that is regrettably in the utmost. A real step backwards in clarifying things between the roles of staff and board.
While I have your attention . . . :-) (I know. I have this fault of thinking too long before I say things.)
I have supported the idea of a Wikicouncil from the very beginning, and I'm sure that somewhere in the bowels of the mailing lists there remains a record of my suggestion for bicameral governance back when the first by-laws were being discussed. The question of how to determine membership on such a council will remain vexed for a long time, and I think it will only be settled after a long period of trial and error. In the early stages I would make the membership fairly open ended, with just enough restriction on membership to keep it from becoming unmanageable. Both appointive and democratic methods for choosing members have their own problems. I would suggest that the first members be appointed from among the most senior and most experienced wikimedians; they could draft provisional policies. A first in-person meeting could take place in Alexandria. Would financial encouragement to get them there be any less worthwile than getting the advisory board to Taipei?
Seems like a good idea actually...
One of the first responsibilities that I would attach to the Wikicouncil would be joint responsibility for the by-laws. Changes to the by-laws would need to be passed by both the Board and the Council. This would allow the Board to examine changes from a business perspective, and the Council to view them from a community perspective.
I do not think that an external council can get the authority to change the bylaws, however, it certainly would be a great idea that the council propose changes, which the board will approve (or not).
Part of the current broken situation is that the board is small and has limited availabilities to propose and draft new policies, new bylaws, new guidelines. I am very happy when some trusted members help us draft a good resolution. It would be great if the wikicouncil could help on this.
I think you got EC:s suggestion backwards. His idea was that the board would propose and decide, but the council would approve. It isn't implicit what would happen if the council would vote down a decided change in the bylaws. As I see it, the disapproval would not mean the change could not be implemented by the board, but it might usefully force the board to reconsider, and re-vote on it. This is a very usual parliamentary custom.
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
On 1/10/08, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
When the Board appointed Erik to his paid deputy director's position it created a political disaster for itself. Sure, you might say that it was Sue's call, but the Board always has, or at least should have, the power to veto any specific hire. It becomes a responsibility when the political optics are wrong. The storm that arose when it was thought that Danny might win a seat on the Board should have been a warning. Neither Danny nor Erik have been strangers to controversy. Even after the hiring the Board could have mitigated the damage by adopting a six-month waiting period before a Board member could join the staff, with the six-months to start from the anticipated end of the elected term so that it cannot be accelerated by an early resignation. When someone is elected for a specific term the electorate expect him to finish that term. When these kinds of hirings happen, they leave the impression, rightly or wrongly, that there is no transparency, and perception is everything.
I want to have this crystal clear, as there is absolutely no lack of transparency on this very specific point.
The board did not appoint Erik to his paid deputy director's position. Period.
It was Sue's decision. I am not aware that the board has any veto on such matters. We have made it clear to Sue that she is in charge of hiring and firing staff members, so that she can freely organize the team.
I think this is correct. If that was what Sue was instructed to do, then she acted entirely properly. What perhaps is at issue is the nature of the instruction itself. To put it in the nicest of the terms possible, she could have been instructed in very broad terms on which sources of the existing talent pool it was more desireable she look for hires and which would be deprecated. Quite likely the decision to not instruct her in such a way was the proper one, one should not tie the hands of an executive.
But whether the instrucion on how to form her own starff was good or not, it should not cloud the matter that the responsibility to instruct the ED is fairly and squarely on the board. The board need not have a veto on ED decisions to have the job of _instructing_ the ED as to what (and how) thye are supposed to do, before they get about doing it. Not micromanaging, but there is a lot of leeway on how broad the outlines of ways and means expressed as preferrable and or out of bounds, is expressed by the board.
We have discussed the policy for the 6-months hiring delay in october, but it was not approved because there was no strong consensus. We actually mostly disagreed on the terms (6 months, 12 months) and applicability (board -> staff or staff -> board or both). We discussed against the issue of approving the policy after Erik was hired, and the consensus was to not adopt this policy at the moment. Not because we do not think it would be generally a good idea to adopt this policy, but largely because it would be perceived as a reaction of protection and upset related to Erik being hired, and most members did not want to damage his authority and his ability to join the staff.
I am sorry, but the minutes of the meeting do not square with what you say there. According to the minutes - while there may not have been consensus - there was a clear majority vote in favour of setting a symmetrical 6 month exlusion period for transitions both board -> staff and staff -> board.
Actually, my memory of the discussion was that Jan-Bart was more in favor of a 12 months waiting period... but the minutes report 6 months... which means at least 2 members were not fully happy. And Jimbo's opinion was missing. In any cases, we tend to try to reach consensus when it is seems best to. There was a weak consensus or a slight disagreement.
And (also by the text of the minutes that is published - seems there are some edits there that are discussing later developements rather than what transpired at the meeting itself; which is probably illustrative in a positive fashion, even though it confuses the text of the minutes as a document of a specific event) specifically Erik was tasked with drafting the resolution; which after inquiring with Mike, (someone, not clear who) decided that it was a bylaws matter, not a resolution matter.
I have vague memories. I think Mike recommanded to have it a bylaws update.Yes Note that voting a resolution can be real quick and straightforward. Bylaws update is a little bit more demanding.
If there has been a subsequent decision to not implement the voted on decision even as a bylaws change, that is regrettably in the utmost. A real step backwards in clarifying things between the roles of staff and board.
We are currently DEEP in the middle of this discussion. As I already explained recently, there is disagreement on the board as to who should be a board member, what the board member role should be (compared to staff), whether a board member is allowed to be involved in executive matters, whether a board member should have professional skills or not, which % of community members should be on the board versus professional outsiders. Etc... So in the middle of this pretty serious discussion, the board->staff and staff->board, is honestly just one more piece.
While I have your attention . . . :-) (I know. I have this fault of thinking too long before I say things.)
I have supported the idea of a Wikicouncil from the very beginning, and I'm sure that somewhere in the bowels of the mailing lists there remains a record of my suggestion for bicameral governance back when the first by-laws were being discussed. The question of how to determine membership on such a council will remain vexed for a long time, and I think it will only be settled after a long period of trial and error. In the early stages I would make the membership fairly open ended, with just enough restriction on membership to keep it from becoming unmanageable. Both appointive and democratic methods for choosing members have their own problems. I would suggest that the first members be appointed from among the most senior and most experienced wikimedians; they could draft provisional policies. A first in-person meeting could take place in Alexandria. Would financial encouragement to get them there be any less worthwile than getting the advisory board to Taipei?
Seems like a good idea actually...
One of the first responsibilities that I would attach to the Wikicouncil would be joint responsibility for the by-laws. Changes to the by-laws would need to be passed by both the Board and the Council. This would allow the Board to examine changes from a business perspective, and the Council to view them from a community perspective.
I do not think that an external council can get the authority to change the bylaws, however, it certainly would be a great idea that the council propose changes, which the board will approve (or not).
Part of the current broken situation is that the board is small and has limited availabilities to propose and draft new policies, new bylaws, new guidelines. I am very happy when some trusted members help us draft a good resolution. It would be great if the wikicouncil could help on this.
I think you got EC:s suggestion backwards. His idea was that the board would propose and decide, but the council would approve. It isn't implicit what would happen if the council would vote down a decided change in the bylaws. As I see it, the disapproval would not mean the change could not be implemented by the board, but it might usefully force the board to reconsider, and re-vote on it. This is a very usual parliamentary custom.
ok I think it would put a very huge pressure on the wikicouncil constitution...
Ant
On 1/11/08, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
I am sorry, but the minutes of the meeting do not square with what you say there. According to the minutes - while there may not have been consensus - there was a clear majority vote in favour of setting a symmetrical 6 month exlusion period for transitions both board -> staff and staff -> board.
Actually, my memory of the discussion was that Jan-Bart was more in favor of a 12 months waiting period... but the minutes report 6 months... which means at least 2 members were not fully happy. And Jimbo's opinion was missing. In any cases, we tend to try to reach consensus when it is seems best to. There was a weak consensus or a slight disagreement.
Okay, just out of curiosity here, maybe I am dredging out something you might not want to revisit, but I recall Angela resigning from the board, because she was disillusioned with the way the board was in fact quite decidedly steered away from consensus driven decision making.
Can we now construe this statement by you, Florence Devouard, that steering away from consensus driven decision making on the board was a mistake?
And (also by the text of the minutes that is published - seems there are
some
edits there that are discussing later developements rather than what
transpired
at the meeting itself; which is probably illustrative in a positive fashion, even though it confuses the text of the minutes as a document of a specific
event)
specifically Erik was tasked with drafting the resolution; which after
inquiring
with Mike, (someone, not clear who) decided that it was a bylaws matter,
not
a resolution matter.
I have vague memories. I think Mike recommanded to have it a bylaws update.Yes Note that voting a resolution can be real quick and straightforward. Bylaws update is a little bit more demanding.
Well, this is very not clear, as you can well imagine. Maybe in addition of minutes, you should make private notes, so your memories are not so vague. The order of events here is very important, and quite decidedly obfuscated in the preceding paragraph.
Was Erik tasked with drafting a resolution, or was Erik tasked with asking Mike how and/or if such a resolution could be drafted, and or what happened after that... really, I can ascribe many possible chains of events that square well with people doing their best to clarify the situation, but vague statements don't improve my ability to believe any one of them actually took place.
I think you got EC:s suggestion backwards. His idea was that the board would propose and decide, but the council would approve. It isn't implicit what would happen if the council would vote down a decided change in the bylaws. As I see it, the disapproval would not mean the change could not be implemented by the board, but it might usefully force the board to reconsider, and re-vote on it. This is a very usual parliamentary
custom.
ok I think it would put a very huge pressure on the wikicouncil constitution...
Well, I think the question is do you really want a wikicouncil, or a wikipoodle?
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
On 1/11/08, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
I am sorry, but the minutes of the meeting do not square with what you say there. According to the minutes - while there may not have been consensus - there was a clear majority vote in favour of setting a symmetrical 6 month exlusion period for transitions both board -> staff and staff -> board.
Actually, my memory of the discussion was that Jan-Bart was more in favor of a 12 months waiting period... but the minutes report 6 months... which means at least 2 members were not fully happy. And Jimbo's opinion was missing. In any cases, we tend to try to reach consensus when it is seems best to. There was a weak consensus or a slight disagreement.
Okay, just out of curiosity here, maybe I am dredging out something you might not want to revisit, but I recall Angela resigning from the board, because she was disillusioned with the way the board was in fact quite decidedly steered away from consensus driven decision making.
Can we now construe this statement by you, Florence Devouard, that steering away from consensus driven decision making on the board was a mistake?
I have always been a supporter of decisions taken by consensus rather than votes. You may remember heated discussions on this matter in the past. I must also admit that consensus is not always the best choice, when decisions drag forever. In a legal organization, we can not always drag forever. We have to move on.
This said, I already stated to Angela that I was sorry of what lead her to resign.
And (also by the text of the minutes that is published - seems there are
some
edits there that are discussing later developements rather than what
transpired
at the meeting itself; which is probably illustrative in a positive fashion, even though it confuses the text of the minutes as a document of a specific
event)
specifically Erik was tasked with drafting the resolution; which after
inquiring
with Mike, (someone, not clear who) decided that it was a bylaws matter,
not
a resolution matter.
I have vague memories. I think Mike recommanded to have it a bylaws update.Yes Note that voting a resolution can be real quick and straightforward. Bylaws update is a little bit more demanding.
Well, this is very not clear, as you can well imagine. Maybe in addition of minutes, you should make private notes, so your memories are not so vague. The order of events here is very important, and quite decidedly obfuscated in the preceding paragraph.
In october 2007, I was the chair of this organization. Not its secretary. It is not very easy to chair a two days meetings, be involved in the discussion as well AND take notes. I beg your pardon, but I think this is exactly why there are two positions, secretary and chair.
Was Erik tasked with drafting a resolution, or was Erik tasked with asking Mike how and/or if such a resolution could be drafted, and or what happened after that... really, I can ascribe many possible chains of events that square well with people doing their best to clarify the situation, but vague statements don't improve my ability to believe any one of them actually took place.
The best to do will be to ask the secretary.
I think you got EC:s suggestion backwards. His idea was that the board would propose and decide, but the council would approve. It isn't implicit what would happen if the council would vote down a decided change in the bylaws. As I see it, the disapproval would not mean the change could not be implemented by the board, but it might usefully force the board to reconsider, and re-vote on it. This is a very usual parliamentary
custom.
ok I think it would put a very huge pressure on the wikicouncil constitution...
Well, I think the question is do you really want a wikicouncil, or a wikipoodle?
What is a wikipoodle ?
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Florence Devouard wrote:
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
On 1/11/08, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
I am sorry, but the minutes of the meeting do not square with what you say there. According to the minutes - while there may not have been consensus - there was a clear majority vote in favour of setting a symmetrical 6 month exlusion period for transitions both board -> staff and staff -> board.
Actually, my memory of the discussion was that Jan-Bart was more in favor of a 12 months waiting period... but the minutes report 6 months... which means at least 2 members were not fully happy. And Jimbo's opinion was missing. In any cases, we tend to try to reach consensus when it is seems best to. There was a weak consensus or a slight disagreement.
Okay, just out of curiosity here, maybe I am dredging out something you might not want to revisit, but I recall Angela resigning from the board, because she was disillusioned with the way the board was in fact quite decidedly steered away from consensus driven decision making.
Can we now construe this statement by you, Florence Devouard, that steering away from consensus driven decision making on the board was a mistake?
I have always been a supporter of decisions taken by consensus rather than votes. You may remember heated discussions on this matter in the past. I must also admit that consensus is not always the best choice, when decisions drag forever. In a legal organization, we can not always drag forever. We have to move on.
Was it really ONLY about the length of the waiting period? If four wanted six months, and two wanted twelve months, did no-one have enough imagination to propose eight months? That situation is like refusing to buy a horse because his curly tail suggests that there was a pig in his ancestry. Consensus on the principle needs to be accompanied by compromise on the details. Demanding unanimity at every step of the way will drive consensus into failure.
This said, I already stated to Angela that I was sorry of what lead her to resign.
I'm not touching that.
I have vague memories. I think Mike recommanded to have it a bylaws update.Yes Note that voting a resolution can be real quick and straightforward. Bylaws update is a little bit more demanding.
Well, this is very not clear, as you can well imagine. Maybe in addition of minutes, you should make private notes, so your memories are not so vague. The order of events here is very important, and quite decidedly obfuscated in the preceding paragraph.
In october 2007, I was the chair of this organization. Not its secretary. It is not very easy to chair a two days meetings, be involved in the discussion as well AND take notes. I beg your pardon, but I think this is exactly why there are two positions, secretary and chair.
Absolutely. "Private" notes should be nothing more than aide-mémoire for your own personal reference in the future. The inference that the minutes may not be accurate boggles the mind. If there were doubts about the accuracy of the minutes would this not have come up at the subsequent meeting when the minutes came up for adoption?
I don't think that it's absolutely essential to have such a resolution in the by-laws; if it proves itself workable it can always be moved to the by-laws later. I agree that the possibility is there that a Board of the future could too easily repeal an ordinary resolution if a favourite candidate is ill served, but I will assume enough good faith to believe that such a board will have the political common sense to not go there without the broad support of the community.
I think you got EC:s suggestion backwards. His idea was that the board would propose and decide, but the council would approve. It isn't implicit what would happen if the council would vote down a decided change in the bylaws. As I see it, the disapproval would not mean the change could not be implemented by the board, but it might usefully force the board to reconsider, and re-vote on it. This is a very usual parliamentary custom.
ok
I think it would put a very huge pressure on the wikicouncil constitution...
To clarify, I don't take any position yet about whether the Council should propose by-laws and the Board ratify, or vice-versa. I simply proposed joint responsibility over the by-laws. It would be premature to establish this kind of detailed mechanism before such a Council is even set up. The most that I can legitimately propose around this is that it be a priority item for its agenda when it first meets.
Ec
On 1/12/08, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Florence Devouard wrote:
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
I think you got EC:s suggestion backwards. His idea was that the board would propose and decide, but the council would approve. It isn't
implicit
what would happen if the council would vote down a decided change in the bylaws. As I see it, the disapproval would not mean the change could not be implemented by the board, but it might usefully force the board to reconsider, and re-vote on it. This is a very usual parliamentary
custom.
ok
I think it would put a very huge pressure on the wikicouncil
constitution... To clarify, I don't take any position yet about whether the Council should propose by-laws and the Board ratify, or vice-versa. I simply proposed joint responsibility over the by-laws. It would be premature to establish this kind of detailed mechanism before such a Council is even set up. The most that I can legitimately propose around this is that it be a priority item for its agenda when it first meets.
While I agree this is not the time nor the place for this yet;
my point stands that in my opinion this would be the most tried and tested method for apportioning power, responsibility and accountability.
The beauty of a system where the council would approve rather than propose, is that that feature would keep the council itself "honest".
If the council got led ashtray into becoming a purely political body directed into an interaction with the board, it would have to contemplate the possibility that in the case of it *not* voting to approve a board decision, the board could capitalize on the estrangement of the council from its real role as the representative of the communities, and leap frog the council, by simply reconsidering, and re-voting to affirmatively pass the decision, in the faith that it could justify its decision to the communities directly (assuming the council had truely lost touch with base).
I understand that where such a system is in place, it has nearly never had to be invoked, which IMO proves its efficacy.
To consider an arrangement where the council could suggest resolutions, which would always be subject to passage only by the board; I will say that my own countrys parliament has a system which is quite close to it, so I am quite aware of how it operates.
Let me show you them.
The way it currently operates in the Finnish House of Representatives, is the floor of the house is immensely busy in drafting bills, of which virtually zilch are passed by the government.
The role of these bills is understood by virtually everyone to fulfill merely the role of theatrical posturing by the members on the floor.
I really don't think we want to go there.
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
On 1/12/08, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Florence Devouard wrote:
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
I think you got EC:s suggestion backwards. His idea was that the board would propose and decide, but the council would approve. It isn't
implicit
what would happen if the council would vote down a decided change in the bylaws. As I see it, the disapproval would not mean the change could not be implemented by the board, but it might usefully force the board to reconsider, and re-vote on it. This is a very usual parliamentary
custom.
ok
I think it would put a very huge pressure on the wikicouncil
constitution... To clarify, I don't take any position yet about whether the Council should propose by-laws and the Board ratify, or vice-versa. I simply proposed joint responsibility over the by-laws. It would be premature to establish this kind of detailed mechanism before such a Council is even set up. The most that I can legitimately propose around this is that it be a priority item for its agenda when it first meets.
While I agree this is not the time nor the place for this yet;
my point stands that in my opinion this would be the most tried and tested method for apportioning power, responsibility and accountability.
The beauty of a system where the council would approve rather than propose, is that that feature would keep the council itself "honest".
If the council got led ashtray into becoming a purely political body directed into an interaction with the board, it would have to contemplate the possibility that in the case of it *not* voting to approve a board decision, the board could capitalize on the estrangement of the council from its real role as the representative of the communities, and leap frog the council, by simply reconsidering, and re-voting to affirmatively pass the decision, in the faith that it could justify its decision to the communities directly (assuming the council had truely lost touch with base).
I understand that where such a system is in place, it has nearly never had to be invoked, which IMO proves its efficacy.
To consider an arrangement where the council could suggest resolutions, which would always be subject to passage only by the board; I will say that my own countrys parliament has a system which is quite close to it, so I am quite aware of how it operates.
Let me show you them.
The way it currently operates in the Finnish House of Representatives, is the floor of the house is immensely busy in drafting bills, of which virtually zilch are passed by the government.
The role of these bills is understood by virtually everyone to fulfill merely the role of theatrical posturing by the members on the floor.
I really don't think we want to go there.
I'm sure that we could all find good examples of what not to do in our respective national governments. Canadian parliamentarians do propose meaningless "private members'" bills in large quantities, and I suppose they too could be viewed as posturing. They are mostly ignored by using strict party discipline. Limited amounts of time are available for debating these bills, and the government insures that enough of its members speak in support to make sure that debating time runs out.
My inclination would be to approach these details with an open mind, and in a spirit of compromise.
Ec
Florence Devouard wrote:
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
And (also by the text of the minutes that is published - seems there are some edits there that are discussing later developements rather than what transpired at the meeting itself; which is probably illustrative in a positive fashion, even though it confuses the text of the minutes as a document of a specific event) specifically Erik was tasked with drafting the resolution; which after inquiring with Mike, (someone, not clear who) decided that it was a bylaws matter, not a resolution matter.
I have vague memories. I think Mike recommanded to have it a bylaws update.Yes Note that voting a resolution can be real quick and straightforward. Bylaws update is a little bit more demanding.
A simple resolution that can be easily passed can be upgraded to by-law status later.
If there has been a subsequent decision to not implement the voted on decision even as a bylaws change, that is regrettably in the utmost. A real step backwards in clarifying things between the roles of staff and board.
We are currently DEEP in the middle of this discussion. As I already explained recently, there is disagreement on the board as to who should be a board member, what the board member role should be (compared to staff), whether a board member is allowed to be involved in executive matters, whether a board member should have professional skills or not, which % of community members should be on the board versus professional outsiders. Etc...
Are the current five members of the Board even enough to make those kinds of decisions. At the same time, if there are to be more members involved there needs to be a way of choosing them. These are important and highly sensitive issues. I don't expect you to identify particular Board members with particular positions. It's enough to say that these divisions exist. If furthermore the Board can't fill vacancies out of a fear that the newcomers might contradict the favoured position of some existing members, that's paralysis.
We had a long forewarning of the Michael Davis vacancy; there's no excuse for that position to continue vacant. At times I'm even tempted to nominate someone like Anthony as our own version of Celestine V; he's been the most vocal about the lack of financial reporting. He's querulous, but at least he puts a lot of homework into arriving at his wrong opinions. ;-)
Look at the list of participants in this thread. I often disagree with some of them, but one cannot escape the fact that a disproportionate number have been around long enough to have a deep emotional commitment to the Wikimedia projects. There is enough caring and talent available to expand the decision beyond an incestuous gang of five.
(Come to think of it I don't know what to make of the fact that on the present Board the three elected members are female, and the two appointed ones are male. :-X )
So in the middle of this pretty serious discussion, the board->staff and staff->board, is honestly just one more piece.
And introducing a Wikicouncil would add one more dimension to the discussion. :-) Ec
On Jan 11, 2008 7:41 PM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
We had a long forewarning of the Michael Davis vacancy; there's no excuse for that position to continue vacant. At times I'm even tempted to nominate someone like Anthony as our own version of Celestine V; he's been the most vocal about the lack of financial reporting. He's querulous, but at least he puts a lot of homework into arriving at his wrong opinions. ;-)
I'd probably decline that at this point. I almost certainly wouldn't be willing to sign a nondisclosure, and I'd quickly resign if I didn't get the information I needed. Unless you want to make it a paid position, then maybe I'd be a little more flexible...
At least you called my opinions wrong, and not my facts, so I'll let that one go. :)
On Jan 10, 2008 11:13 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
And (also by the text of the minutes that is published - seems there are some edits there that are discussing later developements rather than what transpired at the meeting itself; which is probably illustrative in a positive fashion, even though it confuses the text of the minutes as a document of a specific event) specifically Erik was tasked with drafting the resolution; which after inquiring with Mike, (someone, not clear who) decided that it was a bylaws matter, not a resolution matter.
Well, it would make no sense as a resolution matter to ban former employees from becoming board members (for a certain period of time following their employment). The board has to have a majority vote to install new board members anyway, so that same majority could just repeal the resolution. To have any effectiveness at all this would have to be in the bylaws.
That said, the opposite move, banning former board members from becoming employees (for a certain period of time following their board membership), would at least have some effect as a resolution, as it would at least bar such things from happening without the explicit approval of the board.
If there has been a subsequent decision to not implement the voted on decision even as a bylaws change, that is regrettably in the utmost. A real step backwards in clarifying things between the roles of staff and board.
Well, I think the recent events have shown that such a bylaws change would hinder the ability of the Foundation to structure itself most efficiently, so I'd say such a change of view would be fortunate, rather than regrettable. OTOH, I haven't heard any of the board members, or even Erik himself, say that their view on this rule has changed.
Anthony wrote:
On Jan 10, 2008 11:13 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
And (also by the text of the minutes that is published - seems there are some edits there that are discussing later developements rather than what transpired at the meeting itself; which is probably illustrative in a positive fashion, even though it confuses the text of the minutes as a document of a specific event) specifically Erik was tasked with drafting the resolution; which after inquiring with Mike, (someone, not clear who) decided that it was a bylaws matter, not a resolution matter.
Well, it would make no sense as a resolution matter to ban former employees from becoming board members (for a certain period of time following their employment). The board has to have a majority vote to install new board members anyway, so that same majority could just repeal the resolution.
Though the community made it crystal clear that it would be really shocking that we could refuse a member elected by the community.
Ant
To have any effectiveness at all this would
have to be in the bylaws.
That said, the opposite move, banning former board members from becoming employees (for a certain period of time following their board membership), would at least have some effect as a resolution, as it would at least bar such things from happening without the explicit approval of the board.
If there has been a subsequent decision to not implement the voted on decision even as a bylaws change, that is regrettably in the utmost. A real step backwards in clarifying things between the roles of staff and board.
Well, I think the recent events have shown that such a bylaws change would hinder the ability of the Foundation to structure itself most efficiently, so I'd say such a change of view would be fortunate, rather than regrettable. OTOH, I haven't heard any of the board members, or even Erik himself, say that their view on this rule has changed.
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Hoi, There is an important difference between a person who walks away in a huff as an employee and then decides to stand for board election and a person that changes one role for another. The difference is that in the one situation I do not expect positive cooperation and in the other I do not see such such a problem. From my perspective Danny was not forthcoming in explaining why he left his job. I have asked him repeatedly for this from the moment when he announced that he would run for a seat on the board of trustees.
I opposed Danny's candidacy from the moment he announced his wish to be a candidate. This was before the moment people could make themselves available as such. The notion that people would object to accepting someone on the board that was voted in is an option that is open to the board. It will upset some people but this is to be weighed against the harm that is expected of an unwelcome elected board member.
Thanks, GerardM
On Jan 11, 2008 2:17 PM, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Anthony wrote:
On Jan 10, 2008 11:13 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com
wrote:
And (also by the text of the minutes that is published - seems there
are some
edits there that are discussing later developements rather than what
transpired
at the meeting itself; which is probably illustrative in a positive fashion, even though it confuses the text of the minutes as a document of a specific
event)
specifically Erik was tasked with drafting the resolution; which after
inquiring
with Mike, (someone, not clear who) decided that it was a bylaws
matter, not
a resolution matter.
Well, it would make no sense as a resolution matter to ban former employees from becoming board members (for a certain period of time following their employment). The board has to have a majority vote to install new board members anyway, so that same majority could just repeal the resolution.
Though the community made it crystal clear that it would be really shocking that we could refuse a member elected by the community.
Ant
To have any effectiveness at all this would
have to be in the bylaws.
That said, the opposite move, banning former board members from becoming employees (for a certain period of time following their board membership), would at least have some effect as a resolution, as it would at least bar such things from happening without the explicit approval of the board.
If there has been a subsequent decision to not implement the voted on decision even as a bylaws change, that is regrettably in the utmost. A
real
step backwards in clarifying things between the roles of staff and
board.
Well, I think the recent events have shown that such a bylaws change would hinder the ability of the Foundation to structure itself most efficiently, so I'd say such a change of view would be fortunate, rather than regrettable. OTOH, I haven't heard any of the board members, or even Erik himself, say that their view on this rule has changed.
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Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi, There is an important difference between a person who walks away in a huff as an employee and then decides to stand for board election and a person that changes one role for another. The difference is that in the one situation I do not expect positive cooperation and in the other I do not see such such a problem. From my perspective Danny was not forthcoming in explaining why he left his job. I have asked him repeatedly for this from the moment when he announced that he would run for a seat on the board of trustees.
At this point, I think the time for that may have passed, so that it is no longer appropriate to demand such an explanation. Virtually everyone on the staff, at least those in the office, has left the organization or will very soon because of the relocation to San Francisco. As Mike Godwin has mentioned in the context of Carolyn's situation, it's generally best to avoid criticism focusing on former employees, whether an agreement to that effect exists or not.
I think it's best to look back and recognize that the Wikimedia Foundation had some serious failings during this period, primarily due to being severely understaffed and the development of a problematic organizational culture. With hiring Sue as Executive Director, the many other new people, and the move to San Francisco, I look at it as a clean break with an opportunity to deal with both the staffing and cultural issues. I would leave it at that, which is not a reflection on any specific individual in the past - the people involved have suffered from these problems more than they've caused them. Had they been properly supported and surrounded with qualified people who were needed for other roles, things might have been very different. That's unfortunate, but now we need to get on with cleaning up any remaining mess and moving forward.
--Michael Snow
Hoi, I agree that it is no longer necessary or needed to learn why Danny left.
Comparisons are made between Erik taking his job and Danny running for the board. Anthere indicates that people would have been upset if Danny would have been denied a seat. My point is that the board has to weigh the potential negative result of an unwanted board member and the potential negative result of some people who will be upset when an unwanted person is voted to be on the board. It is for the board to decide this.
I do agree that things have shifted since the elections. New issues have arisen. Danny is doing good at Veropedia. Indeed there is enough that needs attention. As half a year has passed, I would no longer object to Danny standing.. It is indeed in many ways a different situation.
Thanks, GerardM
On Jan 11, 2008 5:54 PM, Michael Snow wikipedia@att.net wrote:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi, There is an important difference between a person who walks away in a
huff
as an employee and then decides to stand for board election and a person that changes one role for another. The difference is that in the one situation I do not expect positive cooperation and in the other I do not
see
such such a problem. From my perspective Danny was not forthcoming in explaining why he left his job. I have asked him repeatedly for this
from
the moment when he announced that he would run for a seat on the board
of
trustees.
At this point, I think the time for that may have passed, so that it is no longer appropriate to demand such an explanation. Virtually everyone on the staff, at least those in the office, has left the organization or will very soon because of the relocation to San Francisco. As Mike Godwin has mentioned in the context of Carolyn's situation, it's generally best to avoid criticism focusing on former employees, whether an agreement to that effect exists or not.
I think it's best to look back and recognize that the Wikimedia Foundation had some serious failings during this period, primarily due to being severely understaffed and the development of a problematic organizational culture. With hiring Sue as Executive Director, the many other new people, and the move to San Francisco, I look at it as a clean break with an opportunity to deal with both the staffing and cultural issues. I would leave it at that, which is not a reflection on any specific individual in the past - the people involved have suffered from these problems more than they've caused them. Had they been properly supported and surrounded with qualified people who were needed for other roles, things might have been very different. That's unfortunate, but now we need to get on with cleaning up any remaining mess and moving forward.
--Michael Snow
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On 1/11/08, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, I agree that it is no longer necessary or needed to learn why Danny left.
Comparisons are made between Erik taking his job and Danny running for the board. Anthere indicates that people would have been upset if Danny would have been denied a seat. My point is that the board has to weigh the potential negative result of an unwanted board member and the potential negative result of some people who will be upset when an unwanted person is voted to be on the board. It is for the board to decide this.
I do agree that things have shifted since the elections. New issues have arisen. Danny is doing good at Veropedia. Indeed there is enough that needs attention. As half a year has passed, I would no longer object to Danny standing.. It is indeed in many ways a different situation.
I am very sorry, but I really have to put the boot in here...
" My point is that the board has to weigh the potential negative result of an unwanted board member and the potential negative result of some people who will be upset when an unwanted person is voted to be on the board. It is for the board to decide this."
Really?
No fucking way, if I have any say on it.
(excuse my french)
If we want a board that is invulnerable to criticism, then maybe.
If we do want one, than I just lost track of who we are. Please show me the way to the nearest exit. Much obliged.
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
Jussi-ville is exactly right. Who will police the board? The board themselves? Riight. If the board were to become corrupted, there would be no check on them.
-Dan On Jan 11, 2008, at 1:45 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
On 1/11/08, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, I agree that it is no longer necessary or needed to learn why Danny left.
Comparisons are made between Erik taking his job and Danny running for the board. Anthere indicates that people would have been upset if Danny would have been denied a seat. My point is that the board has to weigh the potential negative result of an unwanted board member and the potential negative result of some people who will be upset when an unwanted person is voted to be on the board. It is for the board to decide this.
I do agree that things have shifted since the elections. New issues have arisen. Danny is doing good at Veropedia. Indeed there is enough that needs attention. As half a year has passed, I would no longer object to Danny standing.. It is indeed in many ways a different situation.
I am very sorry, but I really have to put the boot in here...
" My point is that the board has to weigh the potential negative result of an unwanted board member and the potential negative result of some people who will be upset when an unwanted person is voted to be on the board. It is for the board to decide this."
Really?
No fucking way, if I have any say on it.
(excuse my french)
If we want a board that is invulnerable to criticism, then maybe.
If we do want one, than I just lost track of who we are. Please show me the way to the nearest exit. Much obliged.
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
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On Jan 11, 2008 1:54 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
Jussi-ville is exactly right. Who will police the board? The board themselves? Riight. If the board were to become corrupted, there would be no check on them.
We could reach a certain level of paranoia that is really absurd. The better idea is to mandate qualifications on who can become a board member in the first place, mandate that the community must have a hand in electing the majority of the board, and limit terms to something reasonable. It may also be worth adding the restriction that the board cannot appoint it's own members, except perhaps in some extenuated circumstances (mass resignation, etc).
If we had "police" for the board, then who would oversee these police? what if the police became corrupt? If we are sufficiently paranoid, there are simply no acceptable solutions. We need to have faith in the board members we elect, and take solace in the fact that terms are time-limited.
--Andrew Whitworth
But we're not talking about extreme levels of paranoia here. We're talking about a simple concept here. A small organization is always reluctant to eliminate one of their own. That gets even more difficult when you make that organization self-policed. There must be some outside system of checks and balances to prevent corruption within that group. This may be foreign to non-americans, but to us it is integral.
-Dan On Jan 11, 2008, at 2:01 PM, Andrew Whitworth wrote:
On Jan 11, 2008 1:54 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
Jussi-ville is exactly right. Who will police the board? The board themselves? Riight. If the board were to become corrupted, there would be no check on them.
We could reach a certain level of paranoia that is really absurd. The better idea is to mandate qualifications on who can become a board member in the first place, mandate that the community must have a hand in electing the majority of the board, and limit terms to something reasonable. It may also be worth adding the restriction that the board cannot appoint it's own members, except perhaps in some extenuated circumstances (mass resignation, etc).
If we had "police" for the board, then who would oversee these police? what if the police became corrupt? If we are sufficiently paranoid, there are simply no acceptable solutions. We need to have faith in the board members we elect, and take solace in the fact that terms are time-limited.
--Andrew Whitworth
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On Jan 11, 2008 2:13 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
But we're not talking about extreme levels of paranoia here. We're talking about a simple concept here. A small organization is always reluctant to eliminate one of their own. That gets even more difficult when you make that organization self-policed. There must be some outside system of checks and balances to prevent corruption within that group. This may be foreign to non-americans, but to us it is integral.
I'm american, and I am still against this idea. More bodies, even if they are intended to police each other, simply represent more points of failure. A group of "board police" is just another source of power that could become susceptible to corruption.
The true "power" should always lie with the community, and authority should be kept to a minimum so there are fewer points of failure. The board is elected by the community (or should be). Appointed board members should only be allowed to serve a single term without requiring a community election. If a board member is being corrupt/inappropriate, it should fall to the community to vote them out. A process for that should be established. Time will remove "poor" board members, and a vote can remove the "terrible" ones. We would do well to prevent terrible people from becoming board members in the first place.
--Andrew Whitworth
On Jan 11, 2008 8:13 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote: This may be foreign to non-americans, but to us it is
integral.
IIRC, Montesquieu wasn't French.
On Jan 11, 2008 11:51 PM, Michael Bimmler mbimmler@gmail.com wrote:
On Jan 11, 2008 8:13 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote: This may be foreign to non-americans, but to us it is
integral.
IIRC, Montesquieu wasn't French.
Argh. I mean, he *was* French, not American. Whatever, I shouldn't write mails at midnight :p
Michael Bimmler wrote:
On Jan 11, 2008 11:51 PM, Michael Bimmler mbimmler@gmail.com wrote:
On Jan 11, 2008 8:13 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
This may be foreign to non-americans, but to us it is integral.
IIRC, Montesquieu wasn't French.
Argh. I mean, he *was* French, not American. Whatever, I shouldn't write mails at midnight :p
The person that jumped to my mind when I read that statement by Dan was de Tocqueville.
Ec
Andrew Whitworth wrote:
On Jan 11, 2008 1:54 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
Jussi-ville is exactly right. Who will police the board? The board themselves? Riight. If the board were to become corrupted, there would be no check on them.
We could reach a certain level of paranoia that is really absurd. The better idea is to mandate qualifications on who can become a board member in the first place, mandate that the community must have a hand in electing the majority of the board, and limit terms to something reasonable. It may also be worth adding the restriction that the board cannot appoint it's own members, except perhaps in some extenuated circumstances (mass resignation, etc).
If we had "police" for the board, then who would oversee these police? what if the police became corrupt? If we are sufficiently paranoid, there are simply no acceptable solutions. We need to have faith in the board members we elect, and take solace in the fact that terms are time-limited.
Indeed, a Board that is fully corrupted would be greater than the sum of seven individual corruptions. Since individuals have different thresholds of corruptibility such a scenario would not likely happen overnight. I do not attribute any of these recent events to malice. Errors of judgement should never be interpreted as anything more than that. Suspicions arise when a board inexplicably ignores events and their lessons. The perception of a corrupt Board is a cumulative perception of ignored lessons.
Ec
On Jan 11, 2008 1:54 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
Jussi-ville is exactly right. Who will police the board? The board themselves? Riight. If the board were to become corrupted, there would be no check on them.
If the corruption were made public, they'd run out of money pretty quickly, though.
Dan Rosenthal wrote:
Jussi-ville is exactly right. Who will police the board?
Maybe you two guys are the nicest in the world, but the limited impression that I get by only reading your posts on this list is that you have a lot of complaints, but no real problem. Perhaps there are some real issues you could focus on instead? Or are you trying to portray the current board and staff as incompetent, to build a platform for your own candidacy? What do you aim for?
Dan, are you proposing that you should head a committee to police the board? If there needs to be a police, then someone has to fill that position. Is this you? Is that what you want?
In my naïve and limited view of this world, the Wikimedia Foundation works just fine. The servers are running and everybody should be happy. You might want to explain why I'm wrong.
On 1/12/08, Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se wrote:
Dan Rosenthal wrote:
Jussi-ville is exactly right. Who will police the board?
Maybe you two guys are the nicest in the world, but the limited impression that I get by only reading your posts on this list is that you have a lot of complaints, but no real problem. Perhaps there are some real issues you could focus on instead? Or are you trying to portray the current board and staff as incompetent, to build a platform for your own candidacy? What do you aim for?
Dan, are you proposing that you should head a committee to police the board? If there needs to be a police, then someone has to fill that position. Is this you? Is that what you want?
In my naïve and limited view of this world, the Wikimedia Foundation works just fine. The servers are running and everybody should be happy. You might want to explain why I'm wrong.
You will excuse me if I think your language is a bit rich, coming from a person who led a fork - albeit a friendly one - very early in the history of wikipedia, and pretty figuratively at the drop of a hat.
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
On 1/12/08, Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se wrote:
In my naïve and limited view of this world, the Wikimedia Foundation works just fine. The servers are running and everybody should be happy. You might want to explain why I'm wrong.
You will excuse me if I think your language is a bit rich, coming from a person who led a fork - albeit a friendly one - very early in the history of wikipedia, and pretty figuratively at the drop of a hat.
Oh, if you want to discuss my person, please do, but isn't that a bit off topic here? Yes, I try to stay friendly. I haven't led any fork, but I have started my own parallel projects in a couple of instances: Project Runeberg is my Scandinavian e-text project, Elektrosmog.nu was my Swedish free wi-fi mailing list, and susning.nu is/was my Swedish non-encyclopedic wiki website. Even if these would have been forks, that's nothing wrong. I think more people should start projects, so we can have an exchange of actual experience. For example, Wikisource is picking up many of my ideas from Project Runeberg. There's no conflict there.
However, now we were discussing what so wrong with the Wikimedia Foundation. My impression is that most things are fine, but you don't seem to agree? I don't believe in "radical" transparency in the sense some people have expressed their wishes here. Maybe that's why I'm not disappointed. I like to think I'm realistic.
I'm on the board of Wikimedia Sverige, the newly established Swedish chapter, and we're working on how to promote and advance WMF projects and free knowledge in Sweden, but I'm on this mailing list as a private individual.
On 1/12/08, Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se wrote:
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
On 1/12/08, Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se wrote:
In my naïve and limited view of this world, the Wikimedia Foundation works just fine. The servers are running and everybody should be happy. You might want to explain why I'm wrong.
You will excuse me if I think your language is a bit rich, coming from a person who led a fork - albeit a friendly one - very early in the history of wikipedia, and pretty figuratively at the drop of a hat.
Oh, if you want to discuss my person, please do, but isn't that a bit off topic here?
Everything you said subsequentially was both valuable and useful and what I didn't know before, and my hat is off for you for not forking ever.
But I have to question if it is right to question one person who is questioning two persons, or whether it is wrong to question persons whether there are two or one of them. Please do try to address points, rather than trying to cast aspersions on the people trying to argue points.
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
rather than trying to cast aspersions on the people trying to argue points.
So let's return to this: What point are you trying to argue? I hear complaints (e.g. we need something to police the board), but I don't see any real problem (is the board doing anything wrong?).
What's wrong with the WMF in your opinion? Is anything wrong, or are you just complaining for the fun of it? Can you please show me something that makes me understand the difference?
You have previously stood for election to the board. So could you cooperate with the other board members, or are they all hopeless?
To clarify: I'm not standing for election to WMF board. I did stand for election (and got elected) to the board of the Swedish chapter because I really wanted it to get started.
On 1/12/08, Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se wrote:
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
rather than trying to cast aspersions on the people trying to argue points.
So let's return to this: What point are you trying to argue? I hear complaints (e.g. we need something to police the board), but I don't see any real problem (is the board doing anything wrong?).
I could be very blunt here, but I choose not to be. The suggestion that there should be a wiki-council was floated by the most senior member of the board, Florence Devouard, its titular head or chair.
If I comment and embellish on this suggestion, what in the <expletive delided> makes you think I am complaining. There is no complaint from this quarter, merely queries and comments. Please be advised that if I were to want to complain, that would be quite plain to all concerned.
What's wrong with the WMF in your opinion? Is anything wrong, or are you just complaining for the fun of it? Can you please show me something that makes me understand the difference?
You have previously stood for election to the board. So could you cooperate with the other board members, or are they all hopeless?
To clarify: I'm not standing for election to WMF board. I did stand for election (and got elected) to the board of the Swedish chapter because I really wanted it to get started.
I am infact trying my best to help the board do the right thing. If you see mee complaining, please disregard that entirely. I think you will not though, if you have any idea what the difference between a legitimate question and a complaint is.
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
On 1/12/08, Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se wrote:
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
You have previously stood for election to the board. So could you cooperate with the other board members, or are they all hopeless?
To clarify: I'm not standing for election to WMF board. I did stand for election (and got elected) to the board of the Swedish chapter because I really wanted it to get started.
On this particular point; my first time candidate statement has stood the test of time. In fact the board (even without me being on it) very closely followed the blueprint I laid down as my personal candidateship platform in its earliest incarnation. The later boards have kept less their faith with goals I would have seen as useful evolutionally, nor even the principles of the peoples platforms who were eventually elected. Right now, the board is clearly searching its own soul... I personally hope it finds it. There is a person who I think should be on the board, and that person is not the person this person is accustomed to referring to in the first person singular mode.
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
No, I'm not at all suggesting any committee be formed to police the board. What I'm saying is that it's impossible for the board to police themselves, so the community as a whole needs to do so, by having impeachment power. The exact same way that the entire community has the ability to elect members to the board, the entire community should have the power to remove members from the board. And by that, I do NOT mean waiting until the term is up and then not voting for them. Without external enforcement power, in this case a potentially angry community, there is no incentive for the board to remain transparent.
-Dan
On Jan 12, 2008, at 4:56 AM, Lars Aronsson wrote:
Dan Rosenthal wrote:
Jussi-ville is exactly right. Who will police the board?
Maybe you two guys are the nicest in the world, but the limited impression that I get by only reading your posts on this list is that you have a lot of complaints, but no real problem. Perhaps there are some real issues you could focus on instead? Or are you trying to portray the current board and staff as incompetent, to build a platform for your own candidacy? What do you aim for?
Dan, are you proposing that you should head a committee to police the board? If there needs to be a police, then someone has to fill that position. Is this you? Is that what you want?
In my naïve and limited view of this world, the Wikimedia Foundation works just fine. The servers are running and everybody should be happy. You might want to explain why I'm wrong.
-- Lars Aronsson (lars@aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se
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Dan Rosenthal wrote:
No, I'm not at all suggesting any committee be formed to police the board. What I'm saying is that it's impossible for the board to police themselves, so the community as a whole needs to do so, by having impeachment power. The exact same way that the entire community has the ability to elect members to the board, the entire community should have the power to remove members from the board. And by that, I do NOT mean waiting until the term is up and then not voting for them. Without external enforcement power, in this case a potentially angry community, there is no incentive for the board to remain transparent.
-Dan
I dunno about others. But I do not need the incentive of knowing someone can remove me, to try to be transparent. That's... an internal caracteristic.
ant
Exactly, you don't know about the others, and neither do we. Therefore, it's an additional safeguard just in case. Even the most upstanding board member could find themselves in a tough situation and be tempted to take the easy way out, and the threat of an impeachment, so to speak, will act as an impetus for them to always do the right thing, even when that is not the easy thing.
-Dan On Jan 12, 2008, at 1:27 PM, Florence Devouard wrote:
Dan Rosenthal wrote:
No, I'm not at all suggesting any committee be formed to police the board. What I'm saying is that it's impossible for the board to police themselves, so the community as a whole needs to do so, by having impeachment power. The exact same way that the entire community has the ability to elect members to the board, the entire community should have the power to remove members from the board. And by that, I do NOT mean waiting until the term is up and then not voting for them. Without external enforcement power, in this case a potentially angry community, there is no incentive for the board to remain transparent.
-Dan
I dunno about others. But I do not need the incentive of knowing someone can remove me, to try to be transparent. That's... an internal caracteristic.
ant
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Dan Rosenthal wrote:
Exactly, you don't know about the others, and neither do we. Therefore, it's an additional safeguard just in case. Even the most upstanding board member could find themselves in a tough situation and be tempted to take the easy way out, and the threat of an impeachment, so to speak, will act as an impetus for them to always do the right thing, even when that is not the easy thing.
Not necessarily. While what you describe is one possible outcome, it is by no means the only outcome. Some may even be contrary to what you intend. One easy possibility is that the hypothetical board member in a tough situation would just find more effective ways to hide the problem. Advocates of more secure systems fail to recognize that they encourage hackers to find ways around the security. It's a challenge to the hackers even when there is no malicious intent. The deterrent theory is unproven.
Ec
On Jan 12, 2008 1:21 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
No, I'm not at all suggesting any committee be formed to police the board. What I'm saying is that it's impossible for the board to police themselves, so the community as a whole needs to do so, by having impeachment power.
I thought the whole reason membership was taken away from the community was to take away our impeachment power.
Doesn't sound very just, does it?
-Dan On Jan 12, 2008, at 1:41 PM, Anthony wrote:
On Jan 12, 2008 1:21 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
No, I'm not at all suggesting any committee be formed to police the board. What I'm saying is that it's impossible for the board to police themselves, so the community as a whole needs to do so, by having impeachment power.
I thought the whole reason membership was taken away from the community was to take away our impeachment power.
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Dan Rosenthal wrote:
the community as a whole needs to do so, by having impeachment power.
Are you saying that if this mechanism existed today, you would find use for it today?
I honestly can't imagine a situation where this would be needed. True, such a mechanism is a normal part of the bylaws of membership organizations (such as the WMF chapters), but the Wikimedia Foundation is not a membership organization.
Wouldn't the introduction of this power in the WMF bylaws require a more clear definition of who the "community" is? Is it just the writers, or does it include the readers? Should the same qualifications be used as in previous board elections?
I'm personally quite happy with the current situation. So far the board hasn't made any major mistakes. The servers are running and everybody should be happy. If the board would go mad, we do have copies of the database dumps and the right to fork. If the board would want to run away with the money, there is very little to run away with, and this is a safeguard in itself.
On 13/01/2008, Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se wrote:
I'm personally quite happy with the current situation. So far the board hasn't made any major mistakes. The servers are running and everybody should be happy. If the board would go mad, we do have copies of the database dumps and the right to fork. If the board would want to run away with the money, there is very little to run away with, and this is a safeguard in itself.
The en:wp and Commons image dumps are still iffy, but this has the devs' attention as important :-)
One of the best protections we have against the Foundation being taken over by insane space aliens is good database dumps.
- d.
On 13/01/2008, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 13/01/2008, Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se wrote:
I'm personally quite happy with the current situation. So far the board hasn't made any major mistakes. The servers are running and everybody should be happy. If the board would go mad, we do have copies of the database dumps and the right to fork. If the board would want to run away with the money, there is very little to run away with, and this is a safeguard in itself.
The en:wp and Commons image dumps are still iffy, but this has the devs' attention as important :-)
One of the best protections we have against the Foundation being taken over by insane space aliens is good database dumps.
Nonetheless a serious effort at a fork of a major project would be the biggest failure I can imagine in Wikimedia - and that includes if Knol is a raging success. It would be comforting to have mechanisms to trigger before the all-out blaze.
regards Brianna
On 13/01/2008, Brianna Laugher brianna.laugher@gmail.com wrote:
On 13/01/2008, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
The en:wp and Commons image dumps are still iffy, but this has the devs' attention as important :-) One of the best protections we have against the Foundation being taken over by insane space aliens is good database dumps.
Nonetheless a serious effort at a fork of a major project would be the biggest failure I can imagine in Wikimedia - and that includes if Knol is a raging success.
[[Enciclopedia Libre]] is why advertising on Wikipedia would be an absolute last resort ...
See also http://davidgerard.co.uk/notes/2007/04/10/disaster-recovery-planning/ - and even if people disagree with my first sentence there, the rest still applies.
It would be comforting to have mechanisms to trigger before the all-out blaze.
The trouble with installing a big red button is that its presence says "PRESS ME."
- d.
On 1/13/08, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
<snip> One of the best protections we have against the Foundation being taken over by insane space aliens is good database dumps.
And how long has it been since we had good database dumps?
We haven't had an image dump in ages, and most of the major projects (enwiki, dewiki, frwiki, commons) routinely fail to generate full history dumps.
I assume it's not intentional, but at the moment it would be very difficult to fork the major projects in anything approaching a comprehensive way.
In the absense of dumps, I also wonder how much would survive if a meteorite (or similar implausible catastrophe) destroyed the main data center.
-Robert Rohde
On Jan 13, 2008 6:51 AM, Robert Rohde rarohde@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/13/08, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
<snip> One of the best protections we have against the Foundation being taken over by insane space aliens is good database dumps.
And how long has it been since we had good database dumps?
We haven't had an image dump in ages, and most of the major projects (enwiki, dewiki, frwiki, commons) routinely fail to generate full history dumps.
I assume it's not intentional, but at the moment it would be very difficult to fork the major projects in anything approaching a comprehensive way.
You don't really need the full database dump to fork. All you need is the current database dump and the stub dump with the list of authors. You'd lose some textual information this way, but not really that much. And with the money and time you'd have to put into creating a viable fork it wouldn't be hard to get the rest through scraping and/or a live feed purchase anyway.
The lack of an image dump is a bigger problem, but again through scraping you could get them all in a few weeks. And in terms of images, having them in a tarball really wouldn't speed up the process that much compared with just scraping them. You might say what if you get blocked, but just scraping the images in a single thread (or small number of threads) probably wouldn't even be noticed, let alone blocked.
The legal problems would probably be the biggest, though. Complying with the GFDL, eliminating the copyright violations (DMCA probably wouldn't apply to a fork), eliminating the libel and other legal violations (though Section 230 *might* apply to a fork), making sure you don't violate the WMF's trademarks... And then, there's getting rid of all the self-references.
Forking Wikipedia is by no means impossible, it's just a lot more expensive and risky than it should be.
In the absense of dumps, I also wonder how much would survive if a meteorite (or similar implausible catastrophe) destroyed the main data center.
I thought the raw database itself was backed up privately and remotely, it just wasn't released to the public because it contains all the non-public information. But maybe I'm just assuming an inordinate level of competence.
On Jan 13, 2008 5:56 AM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On Jan 13, 2008 6:51 AM, Robert Rohde rarohde@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/13/08, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
<snip> One of the best protections we have against the Foundation being taken over by insane space aliens is good database dumps.
And how long has it been since we had good database dumps?
We haven't had an image dump in ages, and most of the major projects (enwiki, dewiki, frwiki, commons) routinely fail to generate full
history
dumps.
I assume it's not intentional, but at the moment it would be very
difficult
to fork the major projects in anything approaching a comprehensive way.
You don't really need the full database dump to fork. All you need is the current database dump and the stub dump with the list of authors. You'd lose some textual information this way, but not really that much. And with the money and time you'd have to put into creating a viable fork it wouldn't be hard to get the rest through scraping and/or a live feed purchase anyway.
<snip>
For several months enwiki's stub-meta-history has also failed (albeit silently, you don't notice unless you try downloading it). There is no dump at all that contains all of enwiki's contribution history.
As for scraping, don't kid yourself and think that is easy. I've run large scale scraping efforts in the past. For enwiki you are talking about >2 million images in 2.1 million articles with 35 million edits. A friendly scraper (e.g. one that paused a second or so between requests) could easily be running a few hundred days if it wanted to grab all of the images and edit history. An unfriendly, mutli-threaded scraper could of course do better, but it would still likely take a couple weeks.
-Robert Rohde
Scraping:
Jeff Merkey was downloading all images used by enwiki in a day and a half using 16 workstations just a few months ago with his wikix tool so this is definitely possible.
Not to be done by too much people too often of course but seldom are those that have enougth bandwith anyway.
He was actually redistributing this image dump through torrent but it was taking a week to download it. As it was faster to download them from WP, he killed the tracker.
There is some info in this mailing list history (look around March/April) and on the net. The Linux executable is < ftp://www.wikigadugi.org/wiki/MediaWiki/wikix.tar.gz.bz2> here and it requires only a XML dump to work.
If you want a torrent dump again, maybe he can provide one again if you ask him politely.
Jerome
2008/1/13, Robert Rohde rarohde@gmail.com:
On Jan 13, 2008 5:56 AM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On Jan 13, 2008 6:51 AM, Robert Rohde < rarohde@gmail.com> wrote:
On 1/13/08, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
<snip> One of the best protections we have against the Foundation being
taken
over by insane space aliens is good database dumps.
And how long has it been since we had good database dumps?
We haven't had an image dump in ages, and most of the major projects (enwiki, dewiki, frwiki, commons) routinely fail to generate full
history
dumps.
I assume it's not intentional, but at the moment it would be very
difficult
to fork the major projects in anything approaching a comprehensive
way.
You don't really need the full database dump to fork. All you need is the current database dump and the stub dump with the list of authors. You'd lose some textual information this way, but not really that much. And with the money and time you'd have to put into creating a viable fork it wouldn't be hard to get the rest through scraping and/or a live feed purchase anyway.
<snip>
For several months enwiki's stub-meta-history has also failed (albeit silently, you don't notice unless you try downloading it). There is no dump at all that contains all of enwiki's contribution history.
As for scraping, don't kid yourself and think that is easy. I've run large scale scraping efforts in the past. For enwiki you are talking about >2 million images in 2.1 million articles with 35 million edits. A friendly scraper (e.g. one that paused a second or so between requests) could easily be running a few hundred days if it wanted to grab all of the images and edit history. An unfriendly, mutli-threaded scraper could of course do better, but it would still likely take a couple weeks.
-Robert Rohde _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
No, I would not have a use for it today. But today is not what I'm worried about: the future is.
-Dan On Jan 13, 2008, at 4:03 AM, Lars Aronsson wrote:
Dan Rosenthal wrote:
the community as a whole needs to do so, by having impeachment power.
Are you saying that if this mechanism existed today, you would find use for it today?
I honestly can't imagine a situation where this would be needed. True, such a mechanism is a normal part of the bylaws of membership organizations (such as the WMF chapters), but the Wikimedia Foundation is not a membership organization.
Wouldn't the introduction of this power in the WMF bylaws require a more clear definition of who the "community" is? Is it just the writers, or does it include the readers? Should the same qualifications be used as in previous board elections?
I'm personally quite happy with the current situation. So far the board hasn't made any major mistakes. The servers are running and everybody should be happy. If the board would go mad, we do have copies of the database dumps and the right to fork. If the board would want to run away with the money, there is very little to run away with, and this is a safeguard in itself.
-- Lars Aronsson (lars@aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se
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Hoi, Hey, listen what I write .. this consideration is for them to make. It is in the bylaws. Nothing to do with me. Thanks, GerardM
On Jan 11, 2008 7:45 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/11/08, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, I agree that it is no longer necessary or needed to learn why Danny
left.
Comparisons are made between Erik taking his job and Danny running for
the
board. Anthere indicates that people would have been upset if Danny
would
have been denied a seat. My point is that the board has to weigh the potential negative result of an unwanted board member and the potential negative result of some people who will be upset when an unwanted person
is
voted to be on the board. It is for the board to decide this.
I do agree that things have shifted since the elections. New issues have arisen. Danny is doing good at Veropedia. Indeed there is enough that
needs
attention. As half a year has passed, I would no longer object to Danny standing.. It is indeed in many ways a different situation.
I am very sorry, but I really have to put the boot in here...
" My point is that the board has to weigh the potential negative result of an unwanted board member and the potential negative result of some people who will be upset when an unwanted person is voted to be on the board. It is for the board to decide this."
Really?
No fucking way, if I have any say on it.
(excuse my french)
If we want a board that is invulnerable to criticism, then maybe.
If we do want one, than I just lost track of who we are. Please show me the way to the nearest exit. Much obliged.
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
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Gerard,
Maybe the reason you don't know why Danny left his job, is because you haven't asked nicely. The story is out there.
-Dan On Jan 11, 2008, at 9:39 AM, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi, There is an important difference between a person who walks away in a huff as an employee and then decides to stand for board election and a person that changes one role for another. The difference is that in the one situation I do not expect positive cooperation and in the other I do not see such such a problem. From my perspective Danny was not forthcoming in explaining why he left his job. I have asked him repeatedly for this from the moment when he announced that he would run for a seat on the board of trustees.
I opposed Danny's candidacy from the moment he announced his wish to be a candidate. This was before the moment people could make themselves available as such. The notion that people would object to accepting someone on the board that was voted in is an option that is open to the board. It will upset some people but this is to be weighed against the harm that is expected of an unwelcome elected board member.
Thanks, GerardM
On Jan 11, 2008 2:17 PM, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Anthony wrote:
On Jan 10, 2008 11:13 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro@gmail.com
wrote:
And (also by the text of the minutes that is published - seems there
are some
edits there that are discussing later developements rather than what
transpired
at the meeting itself; which is probably illustrative in a positive fashion, even though it confuses the text of the minutes as a document of a specific
event)
specifically Erik was tasked with drafting the resolution; which after
inquiring
with Mike, (someone, not clear who) decided that it was a bylaws
matter, not
a resolution matter.
Well, it would make no sense as a resolution matter to ban former employees from becoming board members (for a certain period of time following their employment). The board has to have a majority vote to install new board members anyway, so that same majority could just repeal the resolution.
Though the community made it crystal clear that it would be really shocking that we could refuse a member elected by the community.
Ant
To have any effectiveness at all this would
have to be in the bylaws.
That said, the opposite move, banning former board members from becoming employees (for a certain period of time following their board membership), would at least have some effect as a resolution, as it would at least bar such things from happening without the explicit approval of the board.
If there has been a subsequent decision to not implement the voted on decision even as a bylaws change, that is regrettably in the utmost. A
real
step backwards in clarifying things between the roles of staff and
board.
Well, I think the recent events have shown that such a bylaws change would hinder the ability of the Foundation to structure itself most efficiently, so I'd say such a change of view would be fortunate, rather than regrettable. OTOH, I haven't heard any of the board members, or even Erik himself, say that their view on this rule has changed.
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On 1/11/08, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, There is an important difference between a person who walks away in a huff as an employee and then decides to stand for board election and a person that changes one role for another. The difference is that in the one situation I do not expect positive cooperation and in the other I do not see such such a problem. From my perspective Danny was not forthcoming in explaining why he left his job. I have asked him repeatedly for this from the moment when he announced that he would run for a seat on the board of trustees.
I opposed Danny's candidacy from the moment he announced his wish to be a candidate. This was before the moment people could make themselves available as such. The notion that people would object to accepting someone on the board that was voted in is an option that is open to the board. It will upset some people but this is to be weighed against the harm that is expected of an unwelcome elected board member.
Just out of curiosity... Did you ever feel it might have been useful for Erik to publicly tell the world at large precisely why he left the role of CRO?
I recall Erik making a grandiloquent stament about how he felt he and Jimbo could not live together in a house, because their egos supposedly were too large.
I infact have yet to see any evidence that Eriks evaluation of Jimbos ego was correct.
I freely admit this query is only for my own curiosity.
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
There is an important difference between a person who walks away in a huff as an employee and then decides to stand for board election and a person that changes one role for another. The difference is that in the one situation I do not expect positive cooperation and in the other I do not see such such a problem. From my perspective Danny was not forthcoming in explaining why he left his job. I have asked him repeatedly for this from the moment when he announced that he would run for a seat on the board of trustees.
I opposed Danny's candidacy from the moment he announced his wish to be a candidate. This was before the moment people could make themselves available as such. The notion that people would object to accepting someone on the board that was voted in is an option that is open to the board. It will upset some people but this is to be weighed against the harm that is expected of an unwelcome elected board member.
This is why you adopt such policies at a time when there is no apparent candidate to go either way. From the moment that Danny announced, well before the election started, that he would be a candidate, any such move would have been seen as a get-Danny action. Once the election was over, and he was not that many votes away from winning a seat on the Board, those who opposed him could breathe a sigh of relief that they had dodged that bullet. That was the best time to pass such a resolution.
Having such a resolution in place is more important than whether it says 6 months or 12 months. If the period is too long or too short it's fairly easy to change that detail later. Other things can be tweaked later when the problem can be seen, though never when it can be interpreted as an action directed towards one single person. Thus, if we begin with the policy that a staff person cannot become a Board member for six months, and need to face the question, "What do we do if he's elected by the community?" we can tweak it to say that he cannot be nominated as a candidate.
At the other end of things, it might have been difficult to foresee in an early policy that a person would resign early from his elected position in order to take on a paid staff position. Only the benefit of hindsight and experience would allow us to say that the six months would start on the date that his term was expected to end normally.
One final point: The ED's role is administrative; the Board's role is political. I don't at all question the hiring of Erik from an administrative perspective, I trust Sue's determination that he was the best person for the job. When the candidate for the position is well-known, and has been a significant participant in controversy the matter becomes political. Very few of an ED's hiring decisions will be seen as having political overtones. Political decisions are not always fair to the candidate, but boards need to take them into account, preferably before there is a public uproar.
Hiring Carolyn represented an administrative failure, notwithstanding the staffing problems at the time. It would _not_ normally be the function of the Board members to do the work needed to check her background. That decision would only have become political if the full facts were known to the Board at the time, and the Board had decided to hire her despite the baggage in her background.
I don't expect the Board to rewrite history, I do expect it to learn from history.
Ec
On 1/11/08, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On Jan 10, 2008 11:13 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
And (also by the text of the minutes that is published - seems there are
some
edits there that are discussing later developements rather than what
transpired
at the meeting itself; which is probably illustrative in a positive fashion, even though it confuses the text of the minutes as a document of a specific
event)
specifically Erik was tasked with drafting the resolution; which after
inquiring
with Mike, (someone, not clear who) decided that it was a bylaws matter,
not
a resolution matter.
Well, it would make no sense as a resolution matter to ban former employees from becoming board members (for a certain period of time following their employment). The board has to have a majority vote to install new board members anyway, so that same majority could just repeal the resolution. To have any effectiveness at all this would have to be in the bylaws.
*cough*(bullshit)*cough*
The board willy nilly reversing itself is not something really likely to happen, so resolutions do have force, if only the force of making the board look like a dancing fool, when it keeps twisting and turning...
That said, the opposite move, banning former board members from becoming employees (for a certain period of time following their board membership), would at least have some effect as a resolution, as it would at least bar such things from happening without the explicit approval of the board.
If there has been a subsequent decision to not implement the voted on decision even as a bylaws change, that is regrettably in the utmost. A
real
step backwards in clarifying things between the roles of staff and board.
Well, I think the recent events have shown that such a bylaws change would hinder the ability of the Foundation to structure itself most efficiently, so I'd say such a change of view would be fortunate, rather than regrettable. OTOH, I haven't heard any of the board members, or even Erik himself, say that their view on this rule has changed.
I think the recent events have shown nothing. The future will provide good proven evaluations of how efficient the structuring has been. The proof of the pudding is very much in the eating yet.
It would be very nice indeed if the people responsible would make sure that the bylaws are amended in the appropriate way though, so we are spared farces like this, down the road.
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
Florence Devouard wrote:
We discussed against the issue of approving the policy after Erik was hired, and the consensus was to not adopt this policy at the moment. Not because we do not think it would be generally a good idea to adopt this policy, but largely because it would be perceived as a reaction of protection and upset related to Erik being hired, and most members did not want to damage his authority and his ability to join the staff.
Not necessarily. I certainly would not recommend making it retroactively applicable to Erik personally. It's all a matter of the way the resolution is framed. By admitting that the Board had erred in failing to plug such a big loophole it would show its determination not to let it happen again.
One of the first responsibilities that I would attach to the Wikicouncil would be joint responsibility for the by-laws. Changes to the by-laws would need to be passed by both the Board and the Council. This would allow the Board to examine changes from a business perspective, and the Council to view them from a community perspective.
I do not think that an external council can get the authority to change the bylaws, however, it certainly would be a great idea that the council propose changes, which the board will approve (or not).
One step at a time. For the council to have legal authority to be a party in the change of by-laws would itself require a change of by-laws, and until that change is made it is the exclusive territory of the Board. It may or may not agree to such a change, but stubbornly thwarting the clearly expressed will of the Council would come with a cost.
Part of the current broken situation is that the board is small and has limited availabilities to propose and draft new policies, new bylaws, new guidelines. I am very happy when some trusted members help us draft a good resolution. It would be great if the wikicouncil could help on this.
I agree.
Look, I have a suggestion. In the bylaws, if you look at http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Bylaws#ARTICLE_VI_-_ASSETS, the content of this part of the bylaws is rather limited.
What are our assets ? In my opinion, Cash (in various states), servers, a bit of office stuff, domain names and trademarks.
Are they other things which are assets ? Could we mention these specific things (in particular trademarks and domain names) in our assets ? Does that make sense ?
It looks like a relatively standard dissolution clause for non-profit companies, though I don't know that most people would use that section title. Assets here should be given a broad interpretation. Selling a highly appreciated intangible asset to a member for its book value would be contrary to the intent of this section.
Is that possible to add in the bylaws that assets can not be sold or traded with exclusive deals unless authorized by a resolution of the Board of Trustees ?
Yes, but it comes down to a question of what you are trying to do with that idea. Selling off an old server or office desk that has outlived its purpose is one thing, but selling off trademarks is quite another. If it were a matter of selling off the Wikipedia name for whatever the market would pay I think that that should be backed by more than a simple resolution of the directors. We might end up with a billion dollars in the bank, but what then?
Does that make sense ? If so, can someone help draft a resolution in that sense ?
It does make sense. We just need to make sure that we are solving the right problem.
Ec
On Jan 11, 2008 9:46 PM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Florence Devouard wrote:
Look, I have a suggestion. In the bylaws, if you look at http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Bylaws#ARTICLE_VI_-_ASSETS, the content of this part of the bylaws is rather limited.
[snip]
It looks like a relatively standard dissolution clause for non-profit companies, though I don't know that most people would use that section title.
[snip]
This clause is pretty much there as a requirement for acceptance as a 501(c)(3). Modifying it would probably be a bad idea. Doing so without first talking to a tax expert definitely would.
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