I don't know what to think about a final community consultation on a specific name. Personally I suspect that I wouldn't be able to say anything about it, as with <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Executive_Director_Transition_Team/Update_9_December>. Speaking of which, I wonder how the problems there were addressed: apparently they just expanded the search and reduced the number of people participating, but I see no answers to the question: «Have we been looking for a unicorn -- somebody who doesn't exist in the real world? [...] too insular? [...] unfairly comparing [...]?». If an answer was found, I'd like to know it. To me that only looked like a rhetorical question, because of course I have no idea what exact criteria/questions/interview practices are being applied or if unfair comparisons were made. To avoid another fiasco, it would probably be useful to publish on Meta an anonymised table of candidates, pointing out strengths and weaknesses in a single line for each. Then one could say «oh, look, "criterion" 175 made 12 otherwise awesome candidates "fail", do we really need it?». Nemo _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

Hey Frederico I will write an update for the meta page in the coming week or so but just to give you a general sense of where we are at: we are trying to reach potential candidates in a different way, and so far that looks like a good strategy. This means more direct contact between the Foundation and candidates and more pro-actively reaching out to people who initially showed no interest. There is no scientific way to make the trade-off between characteristics/skills of candidates. We might very well choose to ignore an important characteristic if all the others fall into place. And it is of course easier to make a trade-off on less significant characteristics and skills. The decision to look for more candidates rather than make a choice in December was not an easy one, but we were not willing to go for a candidate who was missing too many of our desired characteristics/skills. This is something that the transition team does, and its not something that translates well to a table on meta. I am not sure what you are referring to as “avoid another fiasco”, but as far as I am concerned we are simply in a stage of finding new candidates and trying to surface the candidate that is up to the challenge and opportunity that we as a unique movement have to offer. This was always an option, and we would have liked to have found someone in the first round, but it wasn’t to be. Jan-Bart de Vreede On 18 Jan 2014, at 11:08, Federico Leva (Nemo) &lt;nemowiki(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: specific name. Personally I suspect that I wouldn't be able to say anything about it, as with < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Executive_Director_Transition_Team/Update_9… apparently they just expanded the search and reduced the number of people participating, but I see no answers to the question: «Have we been looking for a unicorn -- somebody who doesn't exist in the real world? [...] too insular? [...] unfairly comparing [...]?». looked like a rhetorical question, because of course I have no idea what exact criteria/questions/interview practices are being applied or if unfair comparisons were made. To avoid another fiasco, it would probably be useful to publish on Meta an anonymised table of candidates, pointing out strengths and weaknesses in a single line for each. Then one could say «oh, look, "criterion" 175 made 12 otherwise awesome candidates "fail", do we really need it?». <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

[...] I am not sure what you are referring to as “avoid another fiasco”, [...]

Hello dear all, hello Transition Team, hello dear board, I am still willing to take the challenge. Looking into the description of the search criteria: <cite>Key to the success of the Executive Director will be a commitment to understand and advance Wikimedia's core values.</cite> - In many occasions in the past years I have demonstrated that the core values of our movement are part of my life. They are the values that I use to guide my behavior and my decisions, not only inside of the movement, but also in my professional work and in my personal life. <cite>The Executive Director will need to have the technology management and product development skills to effectively lead a high traffic website, and experience designing and implementing planning processes with a high built-in assumption of fast and iterative change.</cite> - In the past 16 years I worked in a company which like no other IT companies had decisively contributed into the establishment of standards and processes of the industry. I started in that company as a programmer on the OS (Assembler and C++) level and moved with the time into the position of technical lead of projects that are set into highly complicated political contexts. Being a subject matter expert, I am the anchor with facts and expertise between the different political interests and streams, build trust with my open and direct communication style to all groups and parties and move things forward by understand the background of the different interests and so build bridges and provide solutions that address those backgrounds directly. These are the skills and personal marks that brought me there where I am now: Into the core of those troubled projects. <cite>He or she will need to have exceptional communication skills, and to possess both a drive to achieve transformative results and a deep respect for collaborative processes. The ED's ability to effect change in partnership with Wikimedia's community will be decisive not just to their success, but to Wikimedia's lasting impact in the 21st century.</cite> - As I have stated in my resign letter from the board, I believe this is indeed the most intriguing, most urgent and most difficult part of the work that lay directly before us in the next decade. And for this we need, more than anyone else inside of the movement, an ED who is really trusted by the community (to which I count the readers, the editors, the affiliated organizations, their board and staff, the staff of the Foundation, and the board). Gain trust is hard work, build trust needs time. It took me long time, two or three years, to build that mutual trust with many of the people within our movement. And trust is the thing that thwart the belief that the process has the luxury of time. Because with the lasting of indecisive time the trust sinks and the anxiouty raises. As it is remarked at one point, there is no obvious career path that leads to this position. After seeing the result of last year's search I am strengthend in my belief, that I am the best fit for this position. Greetings Ting Am 1/21/2014 12:09 PM, schrieb Jan-Bart de Vreede: _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

On 29 January 2014 12:21, Steve Zhang &lt;cro0016(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Hm, clone armies. Could the WMF strategy extend to creating a Death Star to preserve all of human knowledge? (As a certain CEO said once; blah, blah, blah, dark side.) Fae _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

Funnily enough the cost of doing so has been looked into: http://news.com.au/technology/lehigh-university-figure-out-how-much-it-cost… In short, $8,100,000,000,000,000 and would take about 800,000 years. Probably not a viable solution :)

There is no "community consultation" period in the selection proces. It's simply not feasible or desirable to have someone have a public "vetting" phase.

The good news is that you elected representatives on the board who have a strong voice in the selection process and final approval.

wrote:

wrote:

Hey I am sure it is technically feasible, its just not realistic from a hiring perspective. I cannot tell a potential candidate that process includes a public vetting process, this is something that is just not going to happen. We are hiring an ED for the Wikimedia Foundation, and the Board of Trustees of that Foundation is simply the body that is responsible for the final decision on this. I am not going to debate the different kinds of movement representation in the board, but I would argue that the community directly and indirectly influences 100% of the board, as appointed members are appointed by (s)elected members and the founder of the Wikimedia Foundation. Jan-Bart On 21 Jan 2014, at 15:57, MZMcBride &lt;z(a)mzmcbride.com&gt; wrote: _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

Founder of the Wikimedia Foundation = One who founded/established the foundation? Sorry; I didn't get your question. Regards, Jee On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 4:30 PM, Fæ &lt;faewik(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: going Board indirectly just to values. , _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

Oh for heavens sake, what does that have anything to do with this thread? -- Katie Chan Any views or opinions presented in this e-mail are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the view of any organisation the author is associated with or employed by. Experience is a good school but the fees are high. - Heinrich Heine _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>