Le 07/01/16 03:53, Guillaume Paumier a écrit :

Hello folks,

I was adding citations to an internal WMF page, and I went down a wiki- archaeology rabbit hole trying to find the origin of the WMF's Values and Guiding principles documents.

I'd like to reach out to the collective accumulated experience of this list to sort out a few questions and disambiguate the two concepts.

I realize a lot is happening in the movement (and on this list) these days, and this isn't an urgent, important or groundbreaking discussion. This message is more like a message in a bottle, hoping to find knowledgeable people that can help me clear up the ambiguity :)

This is what I've got so far (with some help from Tilman Bayer for a few bits):

-o-o-o-o-

• Florence Devouard (then-Chair of the WMF's Board of Trustees) started a

discussion about the Foundation's values on the foundation-l list in 2007:

http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/19502

• The list of values was first drafted by the Board and the Advisory Board, and

then discussed on Meta-Wiki with the larger communities:

https://advisory.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meeting_August_2007/Notes#Values https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Values

• The discussion was restarted by Florence in early 2008 on foundation-l. She

presented a new, longer draft of six core values with explanations, and proposed "to the board to finalize (-> approve) the values of Wikimedia Foundation.":

http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/25147/

• After some feedback from list members, she posted a modified version on the

Meta-Wiki page, which is largely identical to today's text:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?diff=858927&oldid=856985

• It is unclear whether those Values were officially approved by the Board. I

couldn't find a resolution or meeting minutes indicating official approval.

• In 2013, then-Executive Director Sue Gardner drafted a list of Guiding

principles for the WMF, which were presented to, and approved by, the Board in May of that year.

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Guiding_Principles https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Minutes/2013-04-18#Guiding_Principles https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Wikimedia_Foundation_Guiding...

• That resolution indicates that the guiding principles "may come to replace

the previous list of values", but I couldn't find any confirmation that they did replace them.

• A conflicting statement from Sue on Meta-Wiki indicates that "This document

isn't intended to supersede the Values document. It's actually intended to flesh out the values a little bit further, so it's more explicit how we live them on a day-to-day basis at the staff level.":

https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?diff=5375389&oldid=5367067

-o-o-o-o-

We're linking to the WMF's Values in a lot of prominent places, and they've also been brought up many times in recent strategy discussions. There seems to be an underlying assumption, in those discussions, that the Values are a document with the same origin and status as the Vision & Mission statements.

My impression (and I'd like to hear thoughts from this list about this) is that the Values document was never "officially" approved by the Board, and instead is more the result of a soft consensus.

This isn't to say that those Values wouldn't have as much weight, importance or authority as voted-on documents like the Mission & Vision statements, or the WMF Guiding principles. An unchallenged consensus seems like a valid way of validating rules and principles, especially in the context of our movement. I'm trying to get confirmation about whether this is the case, so as to remove the ambiguity and acknowledge the origin story.

As I mentioned, this isn't the most important topic of discussion right now. I'll still be grateful if someone can help me understand the backstories :)

Hmmm

Obviously it was not voted. In 2008 we had already adopted a clean track record of voted resolutions and it is no where in the list.

We were using the board wiki to draft resolutions before they were proposed for voting. I have no idea whether that wiki still exist or not. If it still does and if someone still has access to it... it might be possible to check whether a resolution was drafted then but some for reason never put up for voting.

One thing is sure... if it had been drafted to propose for a vote, it would have been by myself. And I have no memory I did that.

Why not ? Well yes, I think I felt it was the result of a soft consensus. I pushed the process for the adoption of the vision/mission statement because I felt it was mandatory to be able to use an official statement in our communication with "external" people (for fundraising for example). So, crafting it was one of the key point of the meeting organized in Germany back in winter 2006. We wanted something, short, sharp and "fixed in time". Most of the text has been written by Erik and I during that meeting.

But... working on the values had a different goal; it was more meant to be for "internal" use, amongst us. There were several discussions that made me feel it was a good move to try to put that down and to express it as clearly as possible. For example, I remember discussions at that time related to the use of certain formats that were not free, or video software that could be added to the plateform that would also have not be free. But not adopting those would have meant less accessibility to our users. So what was more important ? Standing up in our boots and rejecting non free, or facilitating access to all which would require to put water in our wine ? And of course, since we lacked money back then, it was also these good old days where we (the board) were frequently approached by various big companies (or smaller ones) trying to buy us or trying to grab bits of our marks. And quite obviously, all board members did not share the same view on how we should approach this. This was also when we started hiring beyond 1-2 people, so the question of diversity was on the table then.

So it felt more like an internal work on which we would softly agree on what was really important to us. Not binding, but moral engagement. Guiding principles indeed. And I think this is why I probably did not propose it for vote.

Also... it is a bit like the pillars of Wikipedia. Soft consensus on a version till the time we rework the text to make it clearer. Or till the time we feel like an additional pillar must be added ("All articles must strive for verifiable accuracy, citing reliable, authoritative sources, especially when the topic is controversial or is on living persons." were not part of the original pillars. They were added after Seigh story).

Consensus is by nature evolving. Values need to be "lived" and owned by community and by staff everyday. If at some point there is no consensus anymore between us all on what our values are, it is useless to try to "bind" us to broken (voted, fixed) values. It is best for us to know that our values are no more the same and either to collectively make them evolve ... or to part.

Anthere

Ant